I call the committee back to order. Thanks to the first panel and we appreciate your testimony and i would like to welcome the second panel of witnesses before the committee. First we have ms. Botts, executive director for agriculture and rule of element, position which she was named in 2013, she has over 15 years of experience working in agriculture and helping individuals in rural areas understand issues related to policy and financing. You could be of help to individual sentors i would imagine. She pent ten years working in agriculture at federal level as policy staffer in the house of representatives. She grew up in a farm in kentucky. We see her ms and currently live on a small farm with husband and two children. We look forward to your testimony. General manager, kansas america, he is the general manager of the kansas rural Water Association. His career who has spent five decades has been focused to ensure all of kansas Rural Communities have access to affordable water. Critical
I call the committee back to order. Thanks to the first panel and we appreciate your testimony. We welcome the second panel that is with us. Fir, we have mr. Ms. Botts, she is a executive director for the kentucky she was named in 2013, has over 15 years of experience working in agriculture and World Development policy issues and helping individuals in rural areas understand issues related to policy and financing. You could be of help to individual senators i would imagine. Before returning to kentucky to work for kcard, she spent ten areas working on agriculture ask a policy staffer in the house of on representatives, grew up on a farm in kentucky and received a ms and bs in rural economics in kentucky and lives on a small farm right now, with her husband and two children, welcome to you, maam. We look forward to your testimony. Second witness is mr. Elmer general manager, Water Association and kansas america. He is the general manager of the kansas rural Water Association. His career
[applause] good morning and welcome to the center for American Progress. My name is carla martin. Im the the Vice President for policy. It is my honor to welcome to this exciting event. Our lineup today is a real testament to the importance of this issue to this administration and to president obama. Nearly one in three americans has some type of criminal record that creates barriers to employment, housing and many other pathways to opportunity. Some americans with criminal records are even barred from casting a ballot which denies the right to participate in our democracy after they have paid their debt to our society. The impact of these barriers goes beyond those previous convicted of a crime. Criminal records are a family sentence. In fact, they have found that nearly half americans children now have a parent with a criminal record. Study after study has shown that the barriers associated with the parents criminal record can severely limit the childs opportunities and lead to worse
And then drive it forward in 2017. Thanks for listening. [applause] i know j stand before you and lunch but i am happy to take any questions for you. Just an opportunity to talk about a book. It is called fixing the future and how canadas government worked together to rescue the canada pension plan. It is an interesting story and the same issue as the Social Security except we ended up with a situation where we doubled the contribution rate and built up the reserve fund and stabilized the contribution rate. It is a fascinating story. You have to figure out the story. I think that is a great point. The way the public and the private sector have come together we have studied this to achieve the policy in canada. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Once again i want to thank ida and the Aspen Institute. [applause] sunday, Hillary Clinton speaks at the mayors conference in indianapolis. We will have live coverage starting at 4 p. M. Eastern. And later, cspans conversation with democratic president
Commission talks about the role of money and etices in Political Campaign campaigns. The Heritage Foundation hosted a discussion today on Disability Insurance and proposed changes to the program. Among the speakers was tom cotton of arkansas. This is an hour and ten minutes. [ applause ] thank you, john. And let me add my welcome this afternoon to the Heritage Foundation. Social securitys Disability Insurance program was established in the 1950s. Like much of our federal governments social safety net, the Disability Insurance program was founded with noble intentions, to ensure that americans who could not work because of mental or physical impairment would not suffer from poverty or destitution. However, over its nearly 60 years of existence, the Disability Insurance program has morphed from a small scale antipoverty program, provided benefits to less than one half of 1 of our population, to a program that now provides not only Disability Insurance but also unemployment and early reti