underscores why there shouldn't be any material concern about the comcast-time warner transaction because there is nothing but more different and more interesting competition that is coming in this space down the road >> david cohen, executive vice president of comcast. >> the committee will hold a hearing on the comcast-time warner merger and the affect on consumers. >> a panel of academics and journalist look at the role of u.s. tax policy and debate ways to improve the current system. the urban institute hosted this. it is about an hour and hamp. -- half -- >> welcome to the urban-brookings tax policy. we are going to be talking about tax reform which is the holy grail of tax policy. it is sought after. there are rumored sighting all of the time. there have been recent tigsights like tom camp and ron whiten promises after extending the 5,000 stupid tax extenders for the last time there will be tax reform and it will never happen again. president obama called a tax reform commission, president bush called it. their independent tax reform commissions. we have lots of commissions which must mean tax reform is coming soon. by the way, tomorrow is april fools day. the -- i don't want to steal the thunder of this group. these people know how we will get the tax reform and they will tell us how to get there. the moderator is howard glekman who is the senior fellow and the editor and chief of the tax blog. one other piece of information, i googled holy grail before today's talk. it has been found. it is in the leon, spain area so tax reform is coming. this is an unusual event. we normally have economist up here. today we have political scientist talking about the tax reform. it is challenge issue. it is one of those issues that politicians love at 30-thousand feet. as long as they can talk about cutting rates and closing loop holes tax reform has a number of friends, but once they get down to the dirty work of identifying what the loop holes are the lawmakers fall silent with david camp being a rare exception. the challenge is how can we get public support for reform? is it possible? it is necessarily? we will hear about the '86 acts. we have three leading political scientist here. ka karlyn boman, bill galsto and also leonard burman. we are going to go in alphabetical order. karlyn, want to get it started? >> i would like to say about the polls i watch at ai on many subjects. i think they are a useful tool to understand things but ankh i don't think they should be used to make decisions. public rarely gives specific legislatorive -- legislative advice. there are other problems with sweeping choices from the data. the response rates of surveys are around 10% but more troubleling is pollsters are not upgrading the valuable trends they had. they have become the hand maidens of the media going in with it is hot and dropping it. half a dozen major pollsters were asking questions about the irs targeting the specific groups but since it faded from the news there has been one question from the irs. now let's turn to 1986 views about tax reform. gene sterling reminds us when ronald rake reagan asked for a study on tax reform congress bursted into laughter. gene went over a number of reasons why he thought tax reform was successful. and he talked about seizing the opportunity. individual tax shelters were running a muck and the income tax system was become more complex. but there were other factors that are not present today but were in 1986 that may have been helpful in moving the reforms forward. i don't expect public opinion to be involved, but the climate was different in 1986. gallop reported the public mood was the brightest on record. compare that to the sour rate in 2008. in the spring it was 60% approval rating and congress's approval rating was 42%. it dipped below 10% in several polls last year. 40% said they trusted the government to do what was right just about most of the time. in january 2014, 15% gave that response. there is little evidence americans were following the tax reform debate in 1986. 26% said they had no opinion of the proposals and 38% were in favor and 36% were opposed. tax reform wasn't a major thing in 1986 but is today. four pollsters asked about the priorities and economies and jobs topped the list but closing loop holes or taxes didn't rank in the top five in any of the polls. one of the reason for the disinterest is when people hear reform they think their income will go up. even thoughs in the lowest tax groups thought their federal income tax would go up under reform. so in many ways, the public opinion climate is different from 1986, but the public's priority on reform and the belie belief that no matter what happens they will go up is similar. in 1986, most people said their federal income taxes were too high. but we have seen something interesting since 1986. in june of 1985, 60% said their income taxes were too high. today there is a closer division of opinion between the too high and about right responses. in a number of polls the about right exceeds the normal change and that is a big change since the 1980s. here is another trend. this one puzzles me. since 1992, gallop asks people about upper income and separately middle or lower income people pay too much or right around the right amount. upper people paying too little is still the majority, 61% but it is done from 77% in 1982 and has been moving down. we don't have the 2014 response on the question yet. and the part saying lower in come pay too little is small but 2% in 1992 to 20% today. there is only one pollster that has a solid trend on this kind of question, sadly. policy makers need to be aware of what public opinion is but i don't think it should determine the tax policy. the kind of work chris is doing will show this isn't useful to people thinking about tax reform. >> chris is one of the few political scientist in the country would see digging in detail into people's attitude on tax preference and spending. so give us a rundown. >> when i read media counts of tax policy, i read words like n untouchable, wildly poplar and one quote that tax breaks are something that citizens came from the bill of rights or moses. and given my own research, i find these protrails of tax breaks to be confoundling. in the research i conducted, along with others, we found the popularity of tax breaks is wide, but not very deep. and a lot of the public opinion on tax breaks is conditional. conditional on information citizens have, conditional on their partsinship and income level. so the public isn't uniform in their proposals to tax breaks. and any pathway to tax reform that i read crus the elimination and reduction ouch of cap expenditures. there has been recent evidence from speeches from obama or paul ryan or even boehner talking about tax information to citizens that might downgrade support. president obama has given a number of economic speeches and talked about tax breaks in his state of the union addresses. there are portions where he says i support the goal of home ownership people need to understand the tax breaks gives tens of thousands of abouts to the wealthy households and nothing to the families that need it. so there are attempts to inform the public about the distribution of the tax cuts in a way for support. chris ellis and i conducted a survey experiment that tried to see if people were given the information about the tax cut break breaks did it soften their support some and we wanted to see if they were a right given by moses like they believed. we took a sample, assigned them to four different groups and presented information on social programs. we used identical language in the fist group but one was a tax break and the other was a direct government program. we found tax breaks were poplar across groups in that experiment but they were more poplar with conserveatives and republicans in the survey as you might expect. but in the next set of groups, we gave people additional information about the distr distributive affects and we had the retirement and home mortgage programs. we found by giving them a little information that wasn't heavy p heavy-handed where we said people are larger homes get benefits and with the retirement people who pay more get more. even including language at subtle as that we found it done do downgrad downgraded the support. there was a catch. with and when you look at the people responding by their partisanship people who were independents and democrats downgraded but the conservatives and republicans didn't. so this additional information on the distrufbdistributive mat independents and democrats, but not for the people when are self-identified as conservatives and republicans. so there is, we think, support for tax breaks but that support is soft but again conditional. some of these effects varied by income cohert. giving information to voters could have an affect, but the effect isn't going to be uniform. and giving people information will matter for some citizens and not for others. >> bill is going to talk about tax reform. the '86 tack reform as well. but from a different perspective. >> thanks for inviting be to be on the panel. when the introduction was happening and they were talking about the move on tax reminders. i was reminded of the make me chase, o'lord, but not yet. everybody knows the obstobsticao tax reform. the opacity of the system, the complexty of the relationship between policy input and output leads to the fears that were being discussed namely i don't know how this works but the odds are i am going to lose if the system changes. i don't like the way it is no, but i will be worst off. history records that these obsticals that are powerful, particularly with the constitutional system, stim from time to time, most recently in 1986, tax reform has come pass. my view is that history never repeats itself but it does rhyme occasionally. so it is useful to take the successful '86 reform as an analytical baseline. i want to ask what were the enabling conditions that made that reform possible? not inevitable but possible. you were briefed in detail about the state of public opinion. and i would just venture a summary judgment, which i think it is consistent with facts on the table, compared to now, public opinion offered a more per missive environment for tax reform today. it wasn't at the top, but the sentiments about government and taxes in general generated a per missive environment. i remember when the house ways and means committee chair sent out a famous request write rosty if you want tax reform. he got an avalanche of responses and i doubt a similar response would move the public today. enable conditions two: there was a rough and bipartisan c concensus at the elite level. there were people that remember the camp caston proposal and along with the perhaps better known bradley gep heart proposal. the congressional budget office did a side-by-side of the proposals and they looked similar. you could look at the side-by-side and see how a deal could emerge. democrats and republicans agreed on the parameter of revenue neutrality and that was very important. i can tell you having spent time on the hill recently no such agreement exists today. another key factor, the alignment of key institutional actors in the congress and in the administration; the house ways and means chair, on the senate finance bob didn't start out as a proopponent of tax reform but got there. there house and senate leadership were on board to the extent they were not telling key committee chairs to keep their mouth shut. and there was an interest under the treasurey with two terms of don regan and jim baker. and thrusere was a public cry f reform. bill bradley would attend the opening of an enevelope for tori tax reform. and last but not least, presidential support. reagan was unequivocal about doing tax reform and he told and directed his secretary of treasure to deliver a concrete proposal. i was the issue director so i had to smile when reagan directed his treasurer to deliver the proposal after the election. but not only the '84 state of the union address, the first policy address reagan made after being elected again was a proposal. they were creating a space for the serious conversation about tax reform. if i had more time i would go through the list and show how none of these enabling conditions is present today. you know, perhaps in the q and a we can go into greater detail. but john boehner's response to dave camp's tax proposal -- blah, blah, blah -- spoke where his head was on tax reform and we could talk about the other insti instituti institutional israel values. will this change? or be another wind mill? as all of us know, ron whiten can be a public advocate that is persistance and has a record on tax reform. with the midterms behind him, speaker boehner may decide it is time to legislate and the president maybe reluctant to leave office with no significant economic policy accomplishment in his second term so one would imagine thinks look better in 2015 than now. >> i want to ask karlyn to follow-up on the people's attitude toward tax preferance. >> the question on pew for tax reform there was no differences in the questions and that surprised me. i think that makes reform difficult. we see the deep partisan differences in many areas. >> bill, it is interesting. it is said that paul politicians love to give out goodies. for republicans it is the tax code and for democrats it is spending. in that environment, how does one convince republicans to give up their favored mechanisms for giving stuff away? >> well, let's go back to the very beginning. the classic cunonedrum here is diffuse benefits and the possibility of concentrated losses and the reverse. it is easy to confer benefits that are concentrated benefits that will be defended by the recipients. what we had in '86, everything i say i say is provisional with sterling in the room, but pol politically spending there was a broad and passionate group within the republican party that believed the key to economic growth was significantly lower tax rates. that belief, that was the supply side movement in its youth. wordsworth wrote about the french revolution and it was very heaven to be alive during those days. and there were people that thought they found the missing key to economic growth and non-inflation growth after a s dismyl decade. it was just barely enough to overwhelm the perennial temptation you talk about. there is strong institutional support for the idea of lower rates again. that was a major objective of camp's exercise and there is one publication, the one i write for, that thumps the tub tirelessly for lower rates. ... >> if you are able to rank these tax increases with the other programs, not just popular in perception, then it seems that people are willing to let go and favor tax breaks with the marginal income tax to be raised. in another comparison is one thing that would make it more difficult this time is that there is a change in the composition of overall tax expenditures after 1986, which a lot of the business sector expenditures were/. which allow them for individuals and the proportion of overall taxes that go to individuals or these social programs rose and has continued to be close to 80%. so, you know, if you consider this in the pressure of the groups, i'm not sure that i would use that phrase the low hanging fruit. but it would be more difficult are trying to cut individual expenditures and going up to the business ones. >> that brings up a very interesting point and it is often forgotten that the reform was revenue neutral in its totality. but if you look at the two stovepipes of this is that corporate taxes actually went up as a result of reform and that was then used to subsidize more changes on individual side that could otherwise be achieved under revenue neutrality. and i suspect some of them who smell a rat may be onto something and so stay tuned. >> it's an interesting issue as we are pointed to point out. so much happens on the individual by that that makes it even more important. >> the brings up the deep split between the small business people represented by the national federation of independent business and the corporate business community. their interests are not in alignment on this issue and many other issues as well. it is increasingly notional to talk to this point. >> let me ask you about this. i would like you to dig a little deeper into it. so is it even necessary to have broad-based public support for tax reform, or is it kind of a public this assurance of disinterest? >> well, we need some victory in a slightly different way. if you look at all of the government activity, there isn't one area where people are really positive about government right now. and they really do believe the country is safer since 9/11. and that is something positive that i see. but the approval of congress in the last couple of months since the agreement in late 2013, it was actually picking up ever so slightly because the mood has been quiet. and so is there is a fix that and something is seen as getting done, that could provide so much for them in congress and i might be a good thing. the public is never going to be engaged in tax reform. it just isn't going to happen or the pros and cons or all of these other issues. we think about these issues and i think it is possible that even let a significant lack of public interest it is something to move forward because it's the right thing to do and to be a success. >> let me ask you about that. what politicians be better off trying to sell this as the value issue or the economic issue in a you know, i think so. there was a recent study talking about a disconnect but after the bush tax cuts, two thirds of americans say that they supported them even though when you asked him on the same survey they fed it got inequality was a problem and they wanted to take policies to address the inequality gap. so why would two thirds say this and then say that they want the government to a dress crime and inequality. so i believe this disconnect is caused because they have not linked other issues that people really care about. so one thing that we have an public opinion is that there are certain issues that are tethered to people's values and believe and there are some positions people take just because they are out to take a position by events. so it is really important to get into that depth of conviction when they are talking about public opinion and whether someone is saying that they support tax reform or whether it is tethered to this ideology. there's a fabulous book out by chris ellis about ideology in america. and one of the paradoxes of public opinion is that they look at over 7000 questions since 1956 and it shows that a majority of americans and even the majority of self identified conservatives and republicans say that they won in the abstract lower government spending, smaller government. and they sometimes want increased spending. so one thing that i want to talk about his tax expenditures allow them to thread this public opinion. so if you're looking at the public opinion in saying that you want smaller government and less government, but we want you to spend money on health care and education, if you are able to support tax expenditures that you can finance popular goals and support with the groups and at the same time make rhetorical claims about this. but the tax breaks were able to be linked to income inequality, which becomes a bigger issue that could sway some people. so just to point toward research and also to others, it will have an affect on independents and democrats. if you link the tax breaks to inequality, i doubt given the result that it will sway the opinion of people who identify as conservatives and republicans. >> if it is, what is the value? >> well, just for fun. i went back and i took a look at the speech that ronald reagan gave at the signing ceremony for the 1986 tax return. and his answer to that question was that it is both an economics question and he refused to give one as opposed to the other. he said to individual citizens, this will be good for you and good for families. but he also sent to the country that the spirit that made america great is the spirit that will be revived and rushed by the new incentives in the 1986 tax reform for innovation and entrepreneurship. the kind of individual enterprise that has been a part of this country. so he was unabashed with the complexities of tax reform and fitting them into the american narrative that he was so good at telling and retelling. and so every time he retold a it was as though he was saying it for the first time. so my counsel based upon this practice is do not choose between economics and values. read the narrative of tax reform is part of the values that you believe in most passionately and believe that the american people either do or can be brought to embrace as the core of the problem today. with those values being the same as they were in 1986, not necessarily. times have changed. so for example right now i think that it would be very effective to try to link the tax reform to accelerated job creation. that is not what ronald reagan had to worry about in 1986. it was certainly had to worry about it today. and so similarly, my impression is that even within the republican party there are now some second thoughts about this warship of the individual health reserve. the job creators. a lot of them are beginning to ask themselves what about the people who carry out jobs faithfully but don't necessarily create them. are we abandoning a whole section of the population with this rhetoric of ownership. and i think that also linking the tax reform to the wealth and security of average families, the jobseekers and not the job makers, it would be an updated version of the values of tax reform. >> okay. so let me play a devil's advocate with everyone. we know some things about tax reform that we didn't know before. >> just. >> so there has been a good deal of research that suggests whatever good tax reform dead, it didn't do very much for the overall economy. >> just. >> so we have with that experience, can we make the argument, and they tried, can they actually make the argument that tax reform is correct. >> the pessimism is seriously so deep. it's been there for so long, since 2008. such a very high level. so i think that they want to try things to see if they can work because the picture is so pessimistic. >> so that is another interesting issue. i asked bill, given that the pessimism that existed about the ability of government to do something right. are people willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt to do this thing called tax reform when they don't understand what it means? two i see two potential obstacles. one is that a lot of policies that are indirectly related to economic growth are framed as good for economic growth. so there could be a mistrust and the public that this is yet another policy that is being framed for economic growth and the other three, it is good for economic growth and then there are other things as well. one thing that is unnerving about public opinion when it comes to trust in government and even questions about do you think that you're paying your fair share. correlate highly performance of the economy. so if you look at trust in government and economic performance. these correlate over 40 years. so as public opinion scholars we must question when we ask about the government, people using the economy as a way to evaluate performance of the government. and so other people have talked about how that is a window of opportunity to carry out tax reform because the public is going to allow them to raise taxes on them. but we call into question the very ability to measure and trust in government because the correlate so well with the economy. also people's perception of when the economy goes up able think they are paying their fair share. when the economy goes down the more people are responding that their taxes are too high. so because of the correlation with the economy we again have qualms about tapping into real belief. >> are you sure you meant. >> i'm not sure that i agree. but it certainly is true that they have a strong correlation if you look at this in 2000 and 2001. people were so positive about the environment and then it had nothing to do with the issues at hand. but i still think it's important when we think about something like tax reform. but you have to interpret at carefully. >> you agree with this? >> they're actually two questions on the table. so let me address both of them. first of all i think that what chris says about the linkage between the trust and the performance of the economy, it is arguably true for the last 40 years. but if you go back a decade before that, which is the time when the trust in government moved functionally from the world of our fathers to the world today. that is the early 60s to the early 70s. there it was not principally driven by the performance of the economy. so this is -- this is a short-term from god side, caught 40 years from it. but not something that is eternal. >> will actually, kennedy tried to solve it. and so on the broader question i think we need to distinguish between tax reform and tax revolution. tax reform, i will call the kind of reform that means what it packs, more or less the way it was, even though it deals with it differently. tax revolution would be a change in what is actually tax and i suspect it will be easier for the american people to understand a proposal for this at this point than for tax reform. so let me give you an example and i am not a tax professional. but my gut tells me that it may be a productive proposal. so right now we are taxing labor pretty heavily. and we are not taxing carbon very much at all. but we claim we want more jobs and less carbon change permissions. some have proposed it as a replacement for the payroll tax. there are all sorts of obstacles and at least people can understand that. and pending further inquiry there is an economic maximum of you tax something less you will get more of it. and what we want more of his jobs. economists say that corporations don't really pay this all with workers and etc. so i don't think they would mind a pay increase at this point by the way. i think that they would be net winners from that, but that is another point. so just to bust out of the conversation altogether, we are supposing that the 86. time time is a roadmap to the future of tax reform. that might be true. that was then and this is now. >> do we know anything about this to accept something like a carbon tax? >> i'm not sure about it, although i think it a good idea. one thing i consider to be an over arching tension in american politics goes towards reducing the proportion of income taxes for federal revenue is at 70% or more is used by the top 20% and the perception is that that money all goes to the poor. so as long as the majority of federal revenue comes from the income tax, there has to be a perception in the american mind that we are talking about it. but that perception is real and the public's mind. it creates restrictions on what you can do with social welfare. it creates restrictions on what you can do with taxes. so i think that a revolution is something that is incremental and as was pointed out people might not trust if they hear the phrase tax reform. they might not trust that they are going to be on the winning side. so there is something larger than his done, it is more visible and therefore you would allow people to own real opinions on it. >> i've never seen a question that shows support just in this way. those numbers seem to be pretty hard. but we don't have a lot of this and it's interesting because it ranked in the middle but not very high and it was at the very bottom. so i guess i'm always suspicious when some opinions change radically. and so when it became real, and not so-called support that has evaporated and i think it intensifies and that is the general obstruction. >> there is a distinction, however. there is a distinction. and i am unaware of any solid survey evidence either way. but it seems to me that if you asked people in question, are you in favor of increased carbon tax, the other one is no and heck now. but if you put this proposal on the table, what would you think about a proposal that would eliminate the tax on employers and employees now pay on their income, up to $110,000, which covers most of the territory of earners in the country and in return they would be a carbon tax, which by the way is a lot broader. so if you put all of that on the table, then you might get a different answer. and we certainly do so now. >> let's talk about framing. we were talking about this and she was saying that we have a lot of focus groups on just the words tax reform. and when he discovered was the people hated the phrase with what was said before, that they felt that tax reform was a euphemism for we are going to raise your taxes. so when asking what words do they like, they are like modernized, fairness, but they didn't like reform. >> modernization was part of value. i think that that is why they were more positive and some whites. >> and i think that there are limits to what framing can accomplish. one thing we don't know from public opinion research as it would take a long time and asked thing even in my own work. so when we give people information, it changes the response and they downgraded tax breaks. one thing that i'm concerned about is that is that change ephemeral or is it something that if we asked them a year later or six months later, that would still stick. so it's giving people information that might change their level of support for something. and then there is also learning. so how often does something need to be repeated by members of congress or the president for that piece of information that is attached to the pulp the idea to become learned in real and be reflected this way. and that is something that we just don't have a handle on. >> fairness, anything to ring the bell. >> it doesn't matter what rings my bell, but what rings the bell of the people. and i had to lay that i'm in washington, i associate myself with skepticism about the framing effects. i know there's a lot of political science that has been talked about on that subject. but i think that it is easy for people who are doing the framing to overestimate the effort to give their efforts. a lot of evil want to believe that if we tell a better story we will get a better result. sometimes that is true, but often times it is not. but it surveys consistently to pickups get the schism without the tax reform. and it would be the beginning of wisdom stopped using a politically with the euphemism. and i think that i am surprised to hear that many americans are satisfied with the results of modernization in the economy. for example, technological substitution. i will accept it for what it's worth. >> let me switch gears and ask you all about this. there are some interesting generic issues about bigger forms of government. we had just gone through one as of march 31. what is the experience of the affordable care act with efforts to do tax. >> i think it's pretty important have bipartisan support. and i think it's very important given what we have seen. if you look at the question about whether it's working. i think we need strong bipartisan support. >> what about people really understanding this. >> the accumulation of additional information has not really changed attitudes very much at all. the public has a kind of way of approaching the issue and they form their opinions based on their values and journalists and social scientists and people like that change their views with more information and publics don't do that because they don't have time to read about all the fine print for the experience with the aca there. it always starts in the way they talk about this with their friends. so i don't think that the accumulation of additional information will significantly change this. but what does seems to be a part of this is over it. matter of time. then the public will come to believe that it the right way to go. and they oppose it at the beginning. and so that is why you don't get strong suit for as well. >> what did we learn from informal care act? >> one thing is how polarized the public has done. there's a lot of angst and that has filtered down to the public. so just how much things are interpreted, when we are looking at survey research, they are just severe and very start. so you can't just provide information and think that attitudes are actually going to change. the information is consumed, but then evaluated against for their own ideology, oftentimes it is coming from partisan sources. so you really can't and need this moment for people who really believe information about policy change. they need to take a stance that would otherwise go again what a person would expect. so the polarization has just created a situation where you really need bipartisanship. because one of the reasons he didn't embrace simpson-bowles, the second he do that publicly it would alienate people who identified with republicans and they are less likely to get bipartisan support in congress. .. >> and so under nose circumstances, i think it's right that information, as aging consumers, walter cronkite, you know, information in that old-fashioned sense is almost defunct. i hope not permanently, but what follows that is that if it's not information in the old-fashioned sense that changes people's views, it must be values. i think there's a third thing, and we hinted at this. mainly experience; rights? people will trust the kind of information that cosmgs to them through their own experience whether something is working or not, and i think the question of whether the affordable care act is part of the permanent american policy land scape is entirely contingent on not on what anybody says about it. i don't think an additional word on the subject, even crammed with information, will change a single mind; right? when people reflect on this years from now, what will it rethrect? that determines what issue it is in the 2016 presidential election. i share the view that what happens between now and november is unlikely to have impact, but two and a half years. >> circle back to taxes. the numbers presented to us at the beginning of the discussion suggested that people's experience with the current tax code is okay. given people's reluctancy to make the changes, how does one sell them on the change they feel may be actually not necessary. >> it's bipartisanship, certainly. >> it is bipartisanship. >> let me give you all a chance to ask a few questions. nobody's got any, i see. first of all, wait for the microphone, second, identify yourself, and, thirdly, we have a lot of people, limited amount of time to ask questions, please, don't make a speech, just ask the question and we get to as many people as possible. let's start towards the front and wait for the microphone. >> hello, i'm jackie coolidge from the royal bank and i want to hear more about the topic how are relates perception to fairness so on the one hand, most people fill out the ez. it's not that it's so complex itself, but i think that they have the perception and small groups of people do that the complexity of the tax code favors, you know, a narrow group with expensive tax lawyers, accountants, and everyone else is consequently getting the short end of the stick. >> we know anything about that? >> so there is a survey done that asked people informational questions to see about levels of knowledge, and about income taxes and tax breaks in general and didn't ask about complexity, but if people knew that the income tax was progressive and what it was, and it was 60% understanding those items. where i don't -- i don't know of any questions dealing with complexity, but i believe that people associate, if you think of the other side of the coin of complexity being tax breaks, which, you know, add complexity to the code, people have associated tax breaks with rich, and one thing that i know is that there's -- so we asked people their feelings about different group, and the rich are not well liked by the american public on an american basis, and so one strategy that people use is to link something, such as tax breaks, with a group that people have a certain feeling towards, so as measurements of tax breaks for the rich and people's negative feelings towards that, that's relatively consistent. that's maybe the window into people's feelings about the complexity. >> chris, two issues about complexity. one is the idea that the other guy is getting the better deal than me, and the other one is that taxes are too hard to do, and there's some people who said the turbo tax effect has eliminated that second one that people just put the numbers in, don't really care, but it's not that hard anymore to do your taxes. despite the complexities. is there anything to that? >> well, so, you know, a lot of this is differentiated by social economic class. we ask questions about tax, knowledge on the tax system and taxes, unsurprisingly is highly diff differentiated among class. the more education you have, the more money you have, the more you put the right response on these, and, also, i think there's a difference by socioeconomic class on how people do taxes. you might have upper middle income class that feel they do it themselves in a weekend in their living room, but, you know, a lot of working class folks go to a store; right? you see them all over the country, like, you know, american tax company, or whatever, you know, local stores that have do taxes, and the differences how people interact with the income tax is heavily weighted on socioeconomic class. those who go in, gets a refund, you know, and pays someone from a tax firm 20 bucks, they sat there for 20 minutes; right? those who are likely to navigate the complexity use turbo tax versus doing it themselves. >> another question? yeah, right here. >> thank you. i'm edward, a retired "new york times" economics cor speedometer, covered taxes for several years, and i have a comment, if i may, and then a question for you. a comment is this. you said opposition -- explained opposition to tax reform by saying the opposition is concentrated, and i think that it means a few people get increase in their tax liabilities. when you say "diffused," i think what you could say, and a lot of people benefit, is, well, if you put it that way, well, then, isn't there more support for it? i think it's because the benefit is only a little. you might comment on that. i have a question. of the several interesting things you said, i thought the most interesting was you couldn't persuade mondale to embrace tax reform, and i wonder why that was and whether the thinking sheds light on the part that he supports nowadays? [laughter] >> first, let me respond to your comment. you know, by my fuse, i think that was shorthand for a set of attitudes and spodgeses very similar to the ones that you mention, by diffuse, i mean, broad by shallow. in shallow in two senses. first of all, the benefits converge on average taxpayers are perceived as being small in relation to their liabilities than is the case for the concentrated beneficiaries who stand to lose a grease deal, and second thing i meant was weak in the sense as not arian didn't, not very passionate opposed to the passionate opposition to the removal of something very valuable from your wallet. people resist pretty powerfully. you know, i think there's something of a statute of limitations in politics, and if so, you know, mine has run, and so i can, you know, i can report without naming names that i sense a great deal of time trying to organize the policies processes as mr. mondale oorks issues director that would have led to an endorsement of tax reform at least in principle. it is my -- i know for a fact that as this process nears what i hope is the end, there was a little news item in the old center column of the wail w5*8 -- "wall street journal" that reported this fact, and some people who were quite important to the mondale campaign were not mused to learn about the candidate's impending endorsement of the approach, and there was a certain amount of pushback. i was camed on the carpal tunnel, and that was that. i don't think it's broadly imlym nateing about american public opinion, it is, i think, quite revealing about the interaction between the policy and the financial wings of the presidential campaign, and i suspect that not all that much has changed. >> any about risk aversion on the part of politicians? >> that's what they are. yes. >> and that may have something to do with the difficulty of tax reform. >> other questions? yes, sir. yep. >> nawng, i'm mark, a fiscal adviser to a number of foreign countries, working with imf, us aid and u.s. treasury. this has been a great presentation, i'm not going to make a speech here, but i have a question. this is a country made up of peoples from all over the world, but we just so narrowly gave the last tax reform, we add milt, not much of a reform, was 1986, but we had reform in south africa, russia, for sure, all places where this stuff has really been done. are we another planet? does american exceptionalism prevent us from looking what happened elsewhere? i would -- not to interrupt, but is there a research program op what we can learn from tax revolutions that happened elsewhere? thank you. >> have you seen research on this? >> i have not. >> well, i know that there are comparative studies on public opinion and values, and that the holding on to the idea of smaller government and less spending is something that is at its level, uniquely american compared to other countries, so -- >> well, i think political systems make a difference. if mr. putin decide he wants tax reform, i spent russia has tax reform. things are more difficult here. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> well, yeah, i -- i think that in, you know, from the standpoint of concentrated effective political power, the king of jordan would be happy to trade places with the president of russia. that's a conversation for another day. i think that, you know, the thrust of the question which i think is most operational for american purposes is the fact we can want conduct tax business in total isolation from the way the rest of the world conducts its facts business, and that's one of the things that is driving an agitated discussion about corporate taxation right now, and that, on two fronts. first of all, you know, the -- it's my recollection when we did the 89 # 6 reform, we linked most, if not all of the countries of the oecd and had lower rates for corporate taxes than they did. the situation now is exactly its reverse, and people are trying to use that fact as a driver for corporate reform to reduces rates. it's not workedded yet, but they are trying. the second an nexus with our coe and rest of the world is really important. it's generated by differences in the taxation of profits. one of the big collisions right now in american tax policy, a divide, in many republics, are people who want to treat taxation of profits earned overseas in a way that reflects the overseas rate opposed to people who want it to reflect the american rate, and some people believe that we have more than a trillion and a half parked overseas in large measure because american corporations with significant internarcotic corporations are reluctant to repatriate them at american rates. stay tuned. i think an increasingly thelings between our operation and tax code and operation of tax codes of other countries around the world, is going to drive the discussion of the american tax system. whether it will drive change any time soon, i can't tell you. >> yes, sir? >> it was a nice presentation, very informative, thank you very much. i am a candidate of public policy program, george washington university. as an international student who has been here five times a year, i always have a benchmark to compare constitutions here, developing countries, and i see -- i feel a little disheartened you have dysfunctional institutions, and -- [laughter] i was reading the gongses by admissions that talk about per specttive institutions. they were talking in the context of the developing countries, thinking what institution would qualify here, in american national congress here, came to my mind. you also mentioned revolution. [laughter] what type of revolution should be it be on a scale of mild to extreme, what should happen to the economy, the government, that jerks them in that direction? >> well, very, very briefly, and this may be, you know, the cock-eyed optimist in me breaking through my pessimist shell, which is thick, but i would not be surprised, and i defer to experts in public opinion to the near right and far right, e would not be surprised to see the next american presidential campaign waged on the slogan of he or she can get things done. that is, i think that there is a pent up desire for the american people to breakthrough this endsless gridlock and actually come up with an agenda that the person who is legislated president of the united states has the ability do execute. i think the longer this goes on, the more the desire for leadership, not just presidential leadership, but starting there, that gets things done is likely to build; right? i think -- i think of it as a metaphor. you know, think about the plate lock-in position, and there's an enormous amount of energy generated tugging against each other and don't move, and then something lets lose, there's there's a big move all at once. i -- i believe sometimes in certainly in the next decade, and i hope sooner than that, this pent up public desire for a clear course of action ably executed by political leadership is a dominant thing. that's why i believe that certainly on the republican side, they are likely to have a talking point, and then the climb that i get joshes done is not merelily a promise, but evidence-based spp >> let me ask you. i think this is a really important issue. if that's right, argue and assume he is that the next president gets legislated on at least a part on a platform of, i can get things done, is tax reform the thing that they would start to get done? there's a long list. there's immigration. there's entitlement reform. there's budget deficits. there's taxes. probably others i forgot. if you were domestic policies logic to one of those candidates, would you suggest they not only make their platform, i can get thicks done, but i can get tax reform done? >> you talking to me? >> yeah. [laughter] start with you. everybody else gets to answer too. >> probably not. with a provider, if the economy in 2016 looks like the economy today, i i would not leave tax reform. there's a bunch of other economic issues ahead of the coming tax reform. if things look belter, and 23 the next congress, which i believe the is 114th surprises us by getting off the dime and passing immigration reform, which is not impossible, but i keep on saying with each coming congress it's not impossible, and it's always impossible, so go figure, but there might be -- there might be space to move tax reform up to the frontier issues. right now, no. >> you mentioned tax reform is always kind of in the middle. same question, if you advised a presidential candidate, would you -- >> glad i'm not a political operative, but that said, i would put tax reform at the top, i mean, if we're in what was called a permanent economic slow down. people are december prate, and can address deep economic concerns. i putt it in that cluster of things to address, serious economic weakness. i put it in the word "immigration," that is, if it continues through 2016, if the economy continues. >> i think there's a disconnect between issues people height lite to get legislated and what they want to govern on, and what we know about large policy chains is that it occurs in the first two years of the president's term, but under the condition that their party criminals congress and the public moved is in their party's favor a and so those things align to get revolutionary change. you know, one potential i see that could create tax reform, think of the overoffering goals, republicans wanting to lower tax rates and all area, and the democrats wanting to build social welfare state, and 234 a sense, this period reflects a stalemate between the two parties. i mean, with the passage of aca, the democrats have come close to kind of rounding out a national welfare state, and through changes to marginal rates and expenditures lowered rate, and so there's only incremental changes for those -- if you take those and, you know, two of the parties, and so there is a potential, i think, a window for tax change based upon the idea that how much more can you really get if your goal is to lower marginal rate? how much more do you get if your goal is to build a national welfare state, and there's, you know, that might create an opportunity for the parties to say, let's do something big. >> just one more word on the subject. you know, i'm sure, you know, as a fellow political scientist, you agree with the generalizations are true until they are not, and so one of the interesting things about the reagan tax reform, of course, is that it was not the first two yearings of the first term. it was the first two years the second term, making it all the more imprezzive, and i think this is one of many respects in which our current circumstances are really driving a sense of what's possible. i mean, based on the past two administrations, one is led to the first two year conclusion, but, of course, bill clinton achieved what is arguably the biggest domestic success in the second term. so i would not -- i think it would be really unfortunate if we came to the conclusion, you know, that sort of like waste dna, the last six years of a president's term are wasted time; right? i hope we can govern ourselves in a higher proportion than that. >> you know, i agree. so large change, i think, well, large change in the party's drier direction. you know, in those situations you gave, those were compromised policies in which they were working across the aisle to get reform, and so, you know, a condition i see that could bring about tax reform is the election of a republican president, democrats control one chamber of congress, and then at some point during the republican president's term, the policy of the country turns liberal, which happens. there's two measurements of public opinion. one being individual and other aggregate, and that intends to go and counter cyclical ways to where policy's going, think about second term of the republican president with a democratic house, and public opinion changing, and that could provide positions that are right for a tax exchange. >> doing the math. [laughter] >> one more question. eric? >> hang on, just a second. >> eric, one word i have not heard in this conversation about taxes and public opinion, i hear politicians use this all the time is "irs," and i was wounderring if clanging attitudes towards the irs and recent so-called scandals and anything like that, how -- have there been major changes in attitudes, and how has that affected the tax reform process? >> gym, in the public domain, no questions, only one since the scandal broke, and so we really don't know the answer. answers negative, answering questions during that period, and i don't know -- they were not cengted to issues like tax reform that i remember or recall. >> i would just date the saliency, and people's attitudes in tax reforms, and there's a difficult link to meek. >> time for one more, i think. yes, sir? >> over there. >> i'm june taylor with get america working. thank you, for putting the proposal on the table other than i would make a change. it does not just have to be a carbon tax to be efficient, but there's a range of taxes because i don't think it's fair that american workers are aing in money to pay for the payroll taxes, but polluters are off free. >> do you have a question? >> yes. the question is, can we please refrain the carbon taxes as reagan's economists said, i don't know if ill in climate change, but i know i believe in health damage, and so there is a reason to pay for what economists call extraalties, and 24 is a way to do it, and then there's the question of how much job growth we can get, and i hope that you guys pick up on the point about looking at other countries that have done this kind of tax shift, and you're from institutions that can do it. >> so, is there any sort of public support for taxes to reduce pollution? you know, ac, there's a big enough environmental problem, indeed, taxes are the solution? >> i think the environmental issue in the united states vary differently. i think once a society agrees on the ends of policy should serve, we want a clean environment, we pay money for it. disend gauges from the means or subsequent discussions, and that's where public opinion is now, disengaged from the environmental debate in many ways. they think it's important, and -- but i just don't see it as an issue right now of top public concern. >> your research tell us anything about people's attitude, the environment, and whether taxes are solutions? >> well, i've seen public opinion research on environmental issues, and, again, you know, partisanship at play, you know, you have some folks who are self-identified conservatives who don't believe human activity contribute the to changes in climate, and so if you have that attitude, then, you know, you're going to -- you have differences also in the carbon tax. one related point, there's a great paper on path ways to tax reform, and what's been consistent in public opinion across time is that if you link tax changes, even tax increases to popular programs that people's appetite for tax changes and tacked increases go up; right? an idea about linking a vat to funding medicare, medicaid, is something that, you know, given 40 years of public opinion would -- is something that you could sell because of the popularity of medicare and medicaid, so that's also another possibility. >> my impression based orphan on scattered knowledge of the public opinion, but looking at the way politicians behave, they clearly believe that is it is easier to sell the american people on a regulatory approach through the taxpayer approach. all things equal, of course, they are not equal, but the illusion is that a regulatory approach touches only the malefactors, but the reality is, of course, it creates facts that are widely spread, but less viz l in the broad base tax. it's like an opening point between the official extendtures on one hand o opposed to the other. it's a difference among other things among visibility and relative inviz the, and a lot of politicians face practice call problems, choose the course of inviz the even if it's third best. >> i think this is one area where it's support for targeted tax in time for good things. look add what happened in colorado where everyone departmented support for educational reform to pass, and it was overwhelmingly rejected, pay for educational reform, pre-k, and early childhood education failedded overwhelmingly. look what's going on in the state. i'm just not sure this supports the taxation or as good as things once was. you have a skeptical public. >> the idea is payroll taxes to boost job creation. people say -- >> that's right. certainly, the section is what's difficult to make, and the public's worried because they see taxes going up, and they don't know that they like the outcome spp >> okay, we are about out of time. i thank all of you for attending, our viewers on c-span, and i was asked to mention on april 15th, there's an interesting event to talk about income inequality on a very interesting brand new book on income inequality, not just in the u.s., but around the world. we'll be here with dean baker and kevin and lance for what will be a very interesting discussion. that'll be here on appraisal 15th. thank you to karlyn bowman and everyone for this very interesting discussion. thank you very much. [applause] >> ran in a circle, and the driver wanted to know where the phone was because it was hit out of the hand instantly. looking for a phone. ♪ >> stuck in the backseat. she was alive for 45 minutes before they cut her out. ♪ ♪ >> hello, i'm madeleine, a 16-year-old, and i'm ready to start driving, eager, yet scared. many drivers today are focusing their attention on the cell phones rather than the road. statistics show that distracted driving is incredibly dangerous and cell phones have no place behind the wheel. something needs to be done about this. >> we've announced the winners of this year's c-span's institute video cam competition on what's the most important issue congress should address this year. watch the top 21 winning videos starting tuesday and weekdays throughout the month at 6:50 a.m. eastern on c-span and see all the winnings documentaries online at studentcam.org. >> next, virginia state senator, stabbed in his home last november by his 24-year-old son who later took his own life. a bill to state the state's mental health care system introduced by mr. deeds was law in virginia recently. >> our guest today is here because of an unspeakable personal tragedy. virginia s.t.a.r.t. creigh deeds lost his son to suicide in november and seriously wounded himself in an attack by his son. this happened after senator deeds tried unsuccessfully to get mental health care for his son only to be denied by a system he since tried to fix, and that system told him there were no beds available for care. in the four months since november, senator deeds recovered from the physical wowbdz and led the virginia legislature to enact mental health legislation adding millions more dollars to try to prevent another family from experiencing the tragedy like his did. the measure extends the amount of time a mentally ill person is held in the emergency to eight hours and ensures a bed is available for that person unlike what happened with senator deeds' son, gus, on november 19th. before making mental health the signature issue, he was a prosecutor known for authoring law, allowing public access to the virginia sex offender registry, elected in 1991, and left the house in twown to join the state senate remitting bass county, a democratic nominee for governor of virginia in 2009. please help me give a warm, national press club welcome to virginia state senator, creigh deeds. [applause] thank you for that introduction. i thank my wife, she gave up this for her birthday. [applause] >> i want to acknowledge many friends and members of the extended political family, some of who have been with me since 1991, and i appreciate you being here and your support. i was told to speak for 20 minutes, and i'll fill it up. that might scare some of you. [laughter] i'll do the best i can. thank you for allowing me to speak about a important issue, and despite the warnings signs and despite those that one many four americans suffer from some form of mental illness, it's set aside in the public policy discussions and in prieflts conversations as well. when i spoke on the floor of the senate of virginia, i referenced the consignment of bo radley in "to kill a mocking bird" to see how we seal says a society with mental illness, out of sight, out of mine. to bring change, we have to bring mental health into the day light to have an open inan honest discussion about the failures and mental het services. it's not to rehash on what happened last year, i won't talk about the specific events of the days anymore than passing reference. the issue was much bigger than any one's individual experience. likewise, i will not answer questions about those days. when i decided to speak up publicly about mental illness and tragedy, there's three goals in mind. first, work to destigmatize illness and do my party to bring about equity in the treatment of mental health. second, i wanted to use the experience to change the laws, make it less likely that others will undergo similar heart break. third, i wanted to make sure my son is remembered more for his living nan his dying. i'm -- i tend to organize this talk regimely around those three points. every sense of the word, my sop was my hero. gusty came to the world on may 6, 1989, named austin creigh after his grandfather, but called gus after a maternal great, great urning l. from the beginning, gus was right, inquisitive, and small for his age. in fact, he really did not grow into his brain until he was average sized until his teen years. he was reading simple books by age 3, and as he grew, would take volumes of the encyclopedia to bed to read. he amazed people at church. reciting the lord's prayer and apostle's creed from memory before starting school. in elementary school, he excelled in everything. that continued in high school. gust holds the road for the most perfect standardized tests in bass county. gus so much more than good grades, tore through a drum kit at age 7, taught himself to play harmonica, piano, gi guitar, fiddle, mandolin, violin, any strurmt. he performed trout the area and wrote songs. in addition to music, he learned any language he put his mind to learning, mastered spanish in high school and could explain the differences among the various latin american dialects. he could lecture you on develop of los angeless. he was learning aircraftic and cantonese. he had a lifelong interest in history, language and culture. he was athletic, played soccer, started as a freshman. he was for the bass county high school varsity soccer team, won awards as member of the high school band and valedictorian of the class, sang and dance with the best of them, handsome and witty, it was all going for him. now, gus and his sisters raise the in the country, and at app early age, he knew how to bait a hook, fire and clean a rifle, and build a fire. he loved the woods. he loved to garden. he spent many summers in the nature camp in virginia, an academic camp devoted to the natural world. he helped at camp poppy, a camp run by my does african, developed lifelong friendships and deep appreciation for the outdoors and natural resources in the camps. early on, he developed an intense religious interest. at the age of 20, on a one-man trip across the country, he was baptized a second time and born again. that prompted a renewed religious interest in zeal for his friends and family came to accept. when he returned from this trip, gus and our family embarked on a new journey. resource family's experience with the mental health system and the care my son did or did not receive is a clear demonstrations we as a society have been dealing with the issue. neither his mother nor i wanted to accept the fact our brilliant, beautiful, appreciation son was sick. 2010, after we divorced, gust is out of school, unemployeded, and living with his mother. she was concerned about his moodiness and fixation on a knife he was building in the shed, he was making in the shed. i talked him into let me hold the knife for him, and it's still under the truck seat. he went to the dunes national park, worked there, but returned home. we don't know what happened out there. sometime that fall, gust's mom went to the local csc to arrange for him to enter a crisis intervention center near charlottesville, was there for a week or two. in one of my visits, he spoke for the first time about going on disability. i just couldn't believe my son, gusty talking this way. i would understand he was my child, but he was app adult, and i was not privy to any information about his diagnosis or his medications. when he came home, i helped him obtain a job. he spent that winter washing dishes. my brilliant, valedictorian was a dishwasher, but he was happy. the next year, gust lost that job for reasons unknown to me and came to live with me. his behavior more erratic, manic, talked about suicide. i went to the magistrate and had him committed. a short time later, we went through the process again. both times, gus was released from the hospital with medications and put under the care of a psychiatrist. at no time was i ever able to talk with the psychiatrist or given a detailed accounting or undetailsing thing of what the problems were. a psychologist or social worker at the second hospital told me gust was somewhat bipolar, but not a classic case. he said that the medication gus was on would be reduced eventually. i kept hoping that gus would be all right. he lacked direction, agitated, and was not himself when he was out of the hospital the second time, but he was more stable on medications. he kept appointments with the psychiatrist and made plans to return to the area. i began to relax. in the summer of 2012, gust returned to the nature camp. he was not manic as he was before. he was continuing to abide by appointments, went to the camp, took him to the psychiatrist, and he managed his medications, returned in the fall of 2012 and made the dean's list again. that fall, he brought a friend, a foreign exchange student home because the boy had nowhere else to go in the break. christmas was pretty much uneventful. gust helped around the property, and went back to january. i wernt to a farm see, refilled the medication, and left him with the prescription card trusting him to fill it. sometimes in the spring of to 20* 13, gust stopped taking the medicine. when he returned home after school, while his grades continued to be good, it was clear that his behavior and attitude changed. he went back to nature camp last summer. even in my son's illness, his heart, his love was eventually. he was known at camp, even last summer, for his kindness to home sick campers, had time for lonely strangers. he was the guy that would always give the people on the streets looking for a dime, he'd give them a dime. he lived as his brother's keeper, the good samaritan. as parents, we continued to believe that we could get our son back, that the illness, that had never been fully explained, at least not to me, had not taken over in that gust could lead a productive life. friends and family assured me that he'd grow out of it. parents understand what to do when their child has a runny nose, fever, or a serious physical ailment. what about mental illness? likewise, we, as a society, long to cure or find treatment for physical illnesses like cancer, heart disease, alzheimer's, but we argument to look for cures, treatments, but what about mental illness? as a society, we treat mental illness so much differently than we treat other illnesses. not only embarrassed by it, but act if the brain and nervous system are not parts of the body. if my son had cancer or heart disease, we would have known what to do, and we would have known how to pay for it. with mental illness, there is no assurance. two generations ago, we began the process of deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill, closing warehouses where people were kept, deciding to save money and protect individual's civil rights by providing care and community. some of our instincts were good, but the implementations a failure. men and women with mental illness are still in jails and prisons. we have never adequately funded a community-based system of treatment. the result has been that community service boards, at least in virginia, spend so much focus looking for money, that the urgency for care is lost. not only is there a lack of equity for mental illness, but a desperate lack of services in the country, across the river from this building, an of the most affluent parts of virginia. there are many other regions where unemployment is high and people are poor. graduate students, medical student graduates who finish school with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt are not likely to want to practice in those areas. they want to go where they can make money to repay the debt and live well. who can blame them? those who complete the requirements to be psychiatrist certainly don't flock to rural virginia. problem that's already bad gets worse in rural areas and inner cities. not only impossible to pay for psychiatric care, but in many place, care is just not available. last november, trying to wrap arms around the new reality, i wonderedded how to affect change, real change. i decided on a two-pronged approach. first, interested in finding ways to improve the crisis intervention process. in virginia, we have a two-step process. if a loved one is in crisis, position a magistrate for an order, and they obtain mental health evaluation. it starts as soon as the order is served and extended for another two hours. that changes following the virginia tech tragedy. if the perp is deemed to be a danger to himself or others, the evaluator obtains a 48 hour detention order from a magistrate. it seemed obvious. the mental health professional conducting the evaluation needs more time to make that evaluation. the evaluator needs better tools to identify better placement rather than having to call each individual facility, and limited bed space throughout virginia should not result in a person in crisis being denied treatment and sent back home. think about it. under existing law, the imagine strait cannot issue a temporary detention order, dto, even if the person meets criteria, until a bed is identified. that makes absolutely no sense. an emergency room cannot turn away a person in cardiac arrest because the er is full. a police officer does not wait to arrest a murder suspect or bank robber until jail space is identified. when a crisis emerges, our system os responds to protect an individual in the community. why should the mental health crisis be any different? the changes we made to the process are simple, and they were both part of it, they served with my as senator of virginia. first, we added a requirement to law enforcement to notify the local mental health agency tasks with completelying the evaluations, community service boards, cfbs, upon the execution of the emerging custody order. current law was silenced whose responsibility it was to notify. as a result, hours pass before the evaluator r lays eyes on a person of crisis. that lack of notice is a tragic flaw in existing law allowing precious time in a life or death situation be lost. second, we mandated a realtime psychiatric bed trej industry be developed and made available immediately for these situations. the state's mental health department works op this for years, and goes forward now, and, ncht, and early version of the registry, and they need to be upgrated to provide religioue information. they no longer waste time calling individual facilities looking for a bed. third, we lengthen the evaluation time to eight hours, eliminated the good calls extension, and particularly in rural areas, traveling to be heard by a magistrate eats up valuable time and require provision of a state bed lopt bed if a private bed is not identified at eight hours. the state hospital has additional four hours to find an appropriate police, for a facilf another place makes more sense. what all that means is that a person determined to be in need of services will have a bed at the end of eight hours. the practice of streeting, someone in crisis and a danger to himself or others is released because of beds, can want be found will no longer take place in virginia. every one much these situations is life and death, and this critical change will save lives. among other changes made, we extended the temporary detention order from 48 to 72 hours. this ensures there's sufficient time to properly begin treating and stabilizing the individual. after the 72 hours, if treatment is needed, civil commitment hearing is held before the judge and person can be committed for andy national 30 days. they were described as modest, and i would agree, but they are significant changes to the front end of the crisis intervention process, and i'm convinced they save lives. second prong of the approach was based on my belief that there are organic problems in the delivery of men tam health care. finding fixes to the problems will no be quick or inexpensively. in the past, small legislative victories diffused pressure for change in the sense of or urgen. given a degree of success, people lose focus despite problems that remain. i hope and pray that's not the case this time. when i went to the general assembly in january, six weeks since the incident. it was the first time i was publicly viz l. there were many people, some of whom were my friends who were shocked, some relieved by my appearance. nobody lost sight of our incredible needs in the area of mental health, nots this session, not when i was there every day with scars and tears. i promise you that i've not lost my focus or sense of urgency. real work now begins. doing the easy things, address failures and process my situation exposed to be clear. i'm not saying my situation occurred because of flaws in the law. i don't believe that for a minute. i believe that what my family went through and continues to endure could be prevented. with the changes in the law, we ensure in the future families with similar sets of circumstances will not suffer, but we have so much more work to do. while the legislative addressing received the most attention, the most significant legislative probe passed is a study resolution, which is introducedded and killed every year as a matter of course in virginia. government is ridiculed for studying things to death. the virginia legislature is avoided from passing resolutions at all in a recent year, but this year, we made the case our menial health system has such fundamental problems, a thorough derivative examination was needed in order to develop solutions. some of which will be difficult to reach, and some of which will be expensive. a joint resolution 47 creates a four-year study, legislative study commission to examine mental health care delivery system. out of that process, i'm committed to making improvements to ensure delivery of service in every corner of the commonwealth and provide funding for the services. we can start by reviewing the reports by the inspector general. for example, one study exposed the system has a shortage of psych yak trick beds because state hospitals are slow to replease patients. study serves as a way to keep mental health policy at the fore font of the discussions in virginia, and i'm hopeful the end result can be a model for other states. in the beginning of the study, my mind is completely open. there are no sacred cows within the current system. everything is on the table. i do not buy into the argument, not yet, that we just need to spend more money. nothing about my family's speerns with our system in virginia inspires confidence. i'm reminded of the biblical story of esther, the jewish teenager who ended up in the bab yalonians with the king, and she put her life at risk to save the jewish people acting in response to a question, who knows but you have come to your royal position for a time such as this. i'm not suggesting my situation is grave, but through the loss of my son, i was face-to-face with deficiencies of a system that i, and other legislators, created. far more simply, i could either be lost in my grief, or i could act. i chose to agent. one of the most heart wrenching responses to my family tragedy have been the letters, e-mails, phone calls, and even facebook messages from people all over the country, frankly, who have gone through similar tragedies. i'm a member of the state legislature and ran for statewide office. my name is not the easiest names, but i'm fairly well-known, and this could happen to me and my family, and garner a significant amount of media attention. the reality is that people die and hurt frequently in similar circumstances, and, in fact, some of the worse tragedies seen in the country have been because of person with mental illness was not receiving proper care and treatment or illness was ignored, underestimated, and tragic consequences ensued. events in the fall took my son, but i survived. i hope the result of my survival is that my son is remembered for his living and not for his dying. that we improve laws, prevent future tragedies, and we destigmatize health illness and punt it on equal footing. virginia has the opportunity to lead. we cannot afford to pass up this chance. we have a lot of work to do, and we owe it to the memories of my son and other lost children, parents, siblings, and friends to be successful. thank you. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> talking about how this is not a one-time issue to be solved with one action or one piece of legislation. what can be done to keep mental health issues at the forefront of lawmakers' minds in subsequent years and in the minds of the general public? >> well, as i said, you know, this past session, you know, there were some people that didn't think i was going to show up. well, these guys, instead of -- supportedded me all these years, worked for me, knew i would show up, but there were people who didn't think i would show up, and so when i was there every day, had red-eyed and red faced, that kept it in people's fore front, but we have a study commission created, and we actually, strong commission that's going to be for four years, and it had bipartisan support, and my scars are not going away, and so i'm -- i can tell you that as long as i'm there, and there are others that are going to make sure it stays there, at least in virginia, you know, and the number of, you know -- i -- it's just amazing the number of requests i get to speak all over the place, so this is an issue not just in virginia, but all over the country. ..a lot of people are going to e watching what we do in virginia. when i was trying to get this passed, the problem with passing study resolutions has been the majority in the house of delegates. i went to the speaker and the chairman of the appropriations committee, both of whom i have known for a long time, and i looked them in the eye, and i was getting nos. we arere behind what doing. they understand we might be doing something very achy in virginia and we might do to spend a lot of money to fix the situation. it takes tell you that determination. we have an opportunity in virgin you to lead, and hopefully we are going to. -- in virginia to leave and hopefully we are going to. >> does the legislation go far enough or is it a first step or an incremental steps to something else? last november, i was in a hospital bed trying to think about what we can do, you know, last november and i was in a hospital bed trying to think about what we could do and believe me i am not done but in terms of legislation i knew what we had to do was address the crisis intervention peace and that is just incremental because that is the part that clearly broke down in my situation.