motors. the cobalt has had far more complaints on a very reminiscently similar problem to where you have a recall on the corolla. why aren't we getting that level -- or let me rephrase that. are we doing this investigation on the slow road because general motors is not willing to do what toyota was willing to do when your people went to them last year? >> well, repeat the question. >> well, wouldn't it save us money if general motors would do what toyota did and not make you go through the long investigation process on a car which has had far greater complaints and should be under the same scrutiny? >> our job is to do an investigation. if we can get cooperation, we get it. if we can't, we use every tool in our toolbox to get to the bottom line, which is the safety of these cars. >> how about our majority interest in general motors? we own 60% -- >> ask me a question about it. >> well, are you willing -- are you willing to ask general

motors to cooperate as fully as toyota did with the corolla on a car which has had more complaints for a longer period of time? >> yes. >> thank you. >> gentleman's time is expired. i now yield five minutes to the gentleman from illinois, congressman davis. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and, mr. secretary, it's good to see you. it's good to see you in this role. and i want to commend you for the stellar job that you've been doing since having been appointed and confirmed. let me ask you, as you are aware, some believe that the uncontrollable, sudden acceleration problems are not being caused by pedal entrapment or sticky pedals, but by an electrical malfunction, either a software problem or electrical interference with some component of toyota's computer systems -- >> all right, i'm ali velshi, we've are watching the testimony

of transportation secretary, ray lahood, at congress. we're going to stay on top of this. we're also expecting the testimony of the president of toyota, very shortly. we'll be on top of this. i'll be with you for the next two hours today and every weekday, i'll take every important topic we cover and break it down for you, including this one. i'm going to try and give you a level of detail that will help you make important decisions about your voting, your spending, your safety, and your security, and your security takes top billing today. here's what i've got on the rundown -- from tokyo to capitol hill, to wall street, middle america, all eyes are on toyota right now. the top man, getting ready to testify to congress, facing a barrage of questions. what did toyota know? when did they know it? do they have a handle on the problem? do they even realize the full scope of the problem? and what if their fix for it doesn't work? we're checking under the hood. also on the rundown -- president obama has a plan to make america more competitive, and he's breaking it down this hour, to business leaders, but talk is one thing. action is another.

i want to know what you want to know. how is he going to make it work? also, if you want to know more about the president or toyota, what do you do? you google them. well, today i'm going to google google. it's making all kind of waves outside the virtual world. i'm talking to the ceo live. may not be exactly what you think i'm talking about. one of the things i want to talk to him about is something we've been paying a lot of attention to all week here on cnn, broken government. we want real solutions. we want solutions from you, and we've invited you to do that through our smisubmissions on f. cnn viewers have said overwhelmingly that government is broken but it can be fixed. one of the solutions we want to get to is the ceo of google. how does he make that company run and what would he do if he were instructing or advising the u.s. government? we're looking at lots of different perspectives on broken government. i want to go to facebook first of all, where we've been

soliciting your very, very specific ideas about how you can fix what's broken in government. i want to start with this one. george says, very simply, "take away their salaries and make them public servants again." we got a bunch of these but i want to talk about this with our panel who we are bringing back. christine romans is in new york. roland martin is with us, and bay buchanan as well, they've been with us every day talking about broken government. bay, i want to ask you about that one, right off the top. what -- what do you think about -- about the pay? is this -- is this really part of the problem? i mean, in this world where -- when a lot of people think of are overpaid wall street executives have been responsible for the financial crisis. are we worried about how much member of congress are being paid? >> no, the only reason there's a sentiment they really aren't doing a job whatever they are being paid, and, of course, the taxpayer pays them, and, of course, there's the discontent, i don't think it's excessive,

the last thing we want them to do is get a part-time job which would be a conflict of interest in many cases. i think part of the solution is tighten the amount of time they're in washington, bring it to two, three months of voting and you tighten it. let them go back home and be part of their own community and find out what those guys are doing, how they really are tackling the problem. >> that's an interesting point. before i go to roland and christine, i want to bring up misty's comment, because it speaks to exactly what you just said, misty says, we were asking about specific suggestions what you would do to fix government. you got to read this one. "how about doing a life swap, which could would kind of be like wife swap, they can go to my house and be a parent to three great kids, cook, clean, be small business owners and they would be blown away if they would only see what frugal living could do for them." christine, you are one of the people that juggles work and a family, and there is the sentiment you guys out there, when i say you guys, it could be congress, wall street, you guys

don't feel my pain and understand how i manage to get through life. >> that's why you're supposed to vote in people who you think represent your interests and have experience in the real world. darrell issa, we've been looking at him today, the republican, the minority, the ranking member on that committee that we're watching for toyota today, you know, he's a very wealthy man, self-made, a businessman, made the viper car alarms, you know, the guy who knows business, you know, and he's not just someone who has been a career politician. there are a lot of other people sitting in there who have had jobs, there are mothers, there are parents, grandparents who are in congress. look, i want to be clear here. it's not about the pay, i want to agree with bay buchanan, it's not about the pay, living a frugal life, they do it for the power, maybe at the beginning they do it because they think they'll change the world and then they get sucked up into the washington beast. i agree with bay, this is not about pay, it's definitely about power. >> roland, you are nodding your head in agreement. i don't understand how the three of you are agreeing on everything, but go ahead. >> look, because, again, though,

what the average person does not truly understand how people get sucked into a washington, d.c., process. i mean, whether -- whether -- frankly whether you're in politics, whether you're in media, people have no idea, really, how small this world is. i think another example how you can also change it is to demand that congress actually live by the very rules they enact. it's amazing -- >> what do you mean by that? tell me what you mean by that. >> well, over the years congress will passively rights statutes, they will say, doesn't apply to us. they will make changes, saying, fine, our health care, different from yours. congress has a very interesting way of making sure that their rules are different from our rules. and so -- look, bay certainly knows about this here. and so what happens is, you set up a situation where, frankly, you are creating this different class of people who don't live the same way that we do, because they get special treatment, because they are members of congress. >> bay? >> you know, ali, that's an

excellent point roland has. just look at -- we're asking all of americans to tighten their belts. >> right. >> they got layoffs, why don't we demand that congress do the same. cut some of that staff, require the congressmen to do more reading and finding out what's in the bills and not relying on staff members and doing some really tightening of their belts. let's see some real cuts in their budget, as america's suffering and doing the same. >> i wonder if we can have quizzes before you vote on a bill, you get quizzed on it so you know what's actually in it. hold on a minute -- >> they won't pass that one. >> we want to continue the discussion in a second. we're talking about real solutions to broken government. we'll continue this conversation with our panel, and with others, with the ceo of google, when we come back, stay with us. ♪ and all the rest h. constipation's uncomfortable enough, so why take a harsh laxative? phillips' caplets work naturally with your colon... for overnight relief without cramps. phillips' caplets. 23 years. 21 years. i do really love what i do.

♪ i have clients down the block. across the street. in the same zip code. basically next door. i see the rewards every day of the people that i help. she said, i couldn't have done this without you. -i'm craig. -i'm mark. my name is kari. and i'm an ameriprise financial advisor. [ male announcer ] meet us at ameriprise.com.

continuing our coverage on broken government, so many of you have responded that you think government is broken, stuck, frozen, whatever word you want to use, but so many americans remain optimistic that we can actually fix things, we can actually improve things, we can make them more efficient, so we want to talk to some people that can actually give us insight in to how to do that, we picked the ceo of google, eric schmidt, we wanted to ask him how he would fix government to make it more efficient. our panel is still in new york, but eric schmidt joins us. thank you for joining us. i think there are so many things that our viewers want to talk to you about, because google interacts with them on a daily basis, but i want to talk to you about something very specifically.

the criticism that our government is very inefficient. how is it that google, a company that interacts with many millions of people every day and has to have an efificient operation, what advice would you offer government to make the operation of government more efficient? >> they don't really measure anything in government the best i can tell, and with modern technology we can tell exactly how many people are served by every bill. so, i would do that. and the other thing i would do is use technology to find out where all the earmarks and special drafts and such come from. the health care bill had something like 1,200 pages, all inserted by one constituents or another. i would like to see how those things each got in there and why. we could easily have a much, much more coherent government if we measured it and knew how it was being put together. >> and you have technology at google and other great technology companies in america are working on things that sort of we don't really know, because it hasn't hit us yet. is there technology out there that can really help us measure,

track, really determine the efficiency of every dollar that is spent in government? because we're having great trouble with that as we track stimulus spending, as we track earmarks. here at cnn, it seems tough to do that. >> well, in our industry, we think that this is almost comical, because we can track everything down to the penny, to the cent, to the user, to the access. modern computers are particularly good at that. and it's beside -- it makes me crazy to have all these conversations, just ask. we can know who did what, where they went, what they did, and so forth. with the money. and if you look, for example, at the bailout, they're still arguing over where the money went! how can this possibly be true? >> we -- we put on facebook and twitter that you were coming to talk to us, and, you know, this is a big company, google's a big company, as of the end of 2009, more than $40 billion in assets, $2.7 billion in liabilities. boy, could we wish our federal

budget had that kind of ratio, and 20,000 employees, very, very large company. not as large as the federal government and as somebody said on facebook, you don't have to deal with congress, you don't have to deal with the house of representatives and the senate. how much of that hampers efficiency? and what would you even do about it? >> well, the framers of our constitution specifically did not want a very strong, large, centralized federal government. they wanted the power to be in the states. we've gotten ourselves into a situation since we do deficit spending, the federal government has all the money and the states don't have any money to experiment. so, we're in a situation where the federal government has all the power and the money, but it's not organized around a single ceo or the presidency or what have you. which i think is what's driving everybody crazy. most people i talk to want a stronger president, until the president does something they don't want, and then they want a stronger congress. our system has a set of checks and balances, and until we recognize that because it's always back and forth, it's fundamentally conservative, we'll always be criticizing it.

it would be much better to let the experiments and the focus be occurring at a local and state level and much more measurable and objective outcome. >> you used the term experiments, this is actually a big part of google's culture, and it's something i really enjoy. i wonder whether it would work in government. you actually give your employees a fifth of their time to experiment -- >> right. >> -- to noodle around, to find a new solution. bay buchanan said a few moments ago, politicians should probably spend less time in washington. have them there for an intense period of time and go back out and see what's really going on. i wonder if there's some learning that could shift from google to congress in terms of dedicating some of your time to learning a different way of doing things. tell me a little bit on how it works at google and whether i'm off base here. >> well, at google, first, the employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their time working on things of their interest, which often are new and clever things, in the general area of go google's business. we benefit. many of our new products come from that. in government's case, the problem is the bureaucratic mind

set prohibits innovation, and the innovation is, in fact, the solution to our problems. so, my attitude about the health care issues or the educational issues is, let's try ten different approaches of which at least nine will fail. but the one that works well, let's bet on that. let's invest in it. let's make it happen. and let's learn from that. and because nobody really wants to take the risks and really wants to see a couple things fail and a couple things succeed, we never fundamentally have a new breakthrough. >> and i wonder whether us, we in the media, highlighting those nine that fail in a way that we don't do with companies like yours, may be part of the problem. eric, will you stay here for a bit? >> yes. >> hold that thought. >> absolutely. >> great conversation. i want to continue the conversation with eric schmidt, the ceo of google, christine romans, roland martin, and bay buchanan have been listening in to the kverps, tconversation, t. stay with us. we want to look at real solutions to the real problem with broken government on cnn. so i was the guy who was never going to have the heart attack.

i watched what i ate. i worked out. personally, i thought i was invincible. once it happened, i realized it's a different story. i'm on an aspirin regimen now because i never want to feel that helplessness again. [ male announcer ] aspirin is not appropriate for everyone. so be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. i was the guy who was doing everything right. i was wrong. talk to your doctor, and take care of what you have to take care of. [ male announcer ] learn more about protecting your heart at iamproheart.com.

getting a check of top stories. in washington, former vice president, dick cheney, is out of hospital two days after suffering what his office calls a mild heart attack. a spokesman said cheney is feeling good and will resume his normal schedule shortly. the 69-year-old has now suffered 5 heart attacks over the past 3 decades. chatter could son be monitored. the ntsb is recommending that voice recorders be checked by airlines, to make sure the

cockpit crew is focussing on their jobs. the recorders have only been used in crash investigations in the past. in littleton, colorado, a middle school community in shock after a 32-year-old man allegedly opened fire on campus yesterday, wounding two students. jefferson county officials credit a math teacher with tackling the shooter before anyone else was hurt. the suspect, bruco eastwood is due in court today. littleton, colorado, you'll remember is the site of the columbine high school massacre. let's continue our conversation on broken government. we've got our panel in -- in -- well, all over the place, actually, we've got christine romans, we've got roland martin, we've got bay buchanan and in the bottom corner we've got eric schmidt who is the ceo of google. i want to -- i'm asking eric to hang on a second, while i go back to my panel with some very interesting points that i just took from -- from eric schmidt's discussion with me a couple minutes ago. bay, i'm going to ask you first, eric points out two things, the permission to fail, the-year-old that they ask people at google to come up with ideas, and they

have the permission to fail, he said, in 90% of the time. the other one is the culture of innovation that seems to be squashed by washington, because i've been asking eric, for those of you who just joined us to tell us what he would do if he were planning ways for the government to be more efficient. what do you think of those, bay? >> i think they're absolutely correct. there's no question. i spent 2 1/2 years as treasury of the united states in the government, the most common refrain i received in those years was, we can't do it that way. we've never done it that way before. it is against the culture of those in government, they do a good job. they -- they know what is expected of them, but they don't think outside the box. they don't come up with fresh idea ideas, try to be more efficient, they just stay right there, moving, plodding ahead. that's the beauty of the private sector, and that's why we need government smaller and let the private sector do what they do well. >> roland? >> ali, here's what i would love for google to do. i love google sms technology when i can simply text a zip code and get all the movies

around the corner from where i live, i can then go to the movies. so, it would be great if google could utilize their technology to make it easier for the people to know exactly who voted on what, exactly what's in a lot of these bills, i have taken the time, and you have to go to this site and this site and really dig through all the layers. so, if there's some way for the people, to be easier to know exactly what they're doing, so we can call them on the carpet when they come back to our districts. and so i think that's one great way. and also being able to quantify, as he said, what is actually working. it kills me, we have the defense contractors who overspend $500 million, $600 million, and nobody makes them pay for it, i don't understand it. it's the culture of washington and, you know, that's how it goes. >> we were working on it when i was doing the stimulus desk a few weeks ago, the government is trying to be fairly transparent, but now i'm looking at earmarks this week, i got to tell you, shrouded in secrecy.

this is remarkable. >> of course. >> christine, what do you think of the ideas? >> i love the ideas where you can see the transparency or see the results easier in your local responses and how your local government is doing, and i think that that's pretty interesting as well, because it's interesting to you. >> roland made that comment many times, your local services are what affects you most seriously in many cases. >> and most directly in many cases, that's right. but he also points out that's where we're the least active in our own political engagement. president obama making comments today about u.s. competitiveness, business competitiveness, the idea of our government being better on the competitiveness front and on the innovation front is very, very interesting. because you do see a lot of the innovation, you see a lot of the great, nimble ideas coming from companies like google, and then we're talking about the stayed, old broken process that is, you know, the way our system works as well. and the difference between -- the real difference between what it's like in a corporate suite and what it's like, you know, in a congressional office building,

they're tied together, but they're very, very different, the way of the culture and the way the things get done. >> christine, i work with you seven days a week -- >> ali -- >> yeah? >> you should have eric. what about that? what about -- look, i look at google mail, buzz, all kind of different things, so what about the idea of having something that is tried to politics where you can type in a zip code and it kicks you back a member of congress, how they voted, did they ask for -- >> eric's noding his head. eric, if anybody has the technology, i don't know if government has invited you to do this, but the bottom line, the transparency and figuring out where the money is and how it's spent is crucial. >> but isn't it obvious, the government -- it's our money. we should know how it's being spent. and the fact of the matter is the government has all the information available, and lots of people are going to go and assemble the information and put it together. >> shouldn't it be the government's responsibility to make that available to the public? >> i mean, this is the question. >> hey, no, no, no. >> hold on, what are you saying?

>> no, i would love for eric, eric, so you got a lot of information out there, but i would love for you to commit to have your guys, the folks there, actually work on technology that is politics related to the federal government to access the information much easier utilizing your amazing technologies, with the one source via text or whatever. what about it? >> well, we don't do content. we make the tools. the government's got to make the site. they've got to actually publish the information. we can index it. you can find it, everybody will get to it that way, because we have broad reach. >> hold on, folks -- sorry, eric, i will come back in just a moment. i got to get a break in here. i want to finish the discussion about what google can do to make our lives better. i also have some more comments that i want you to guys to chime in on, on how specifically we can make government better. let's take a quick break. and we'll come back with more broken government. we've got our panel. we've got the ceo of google right here telling us how we can

make government more efficient. it doesn't get better than that. so, what do you think?

preferred package. good choice. only meineke lets you choose your service, choose your savings. like an oil change for just $19.95. meineke.

all right, if you just joined us, we're in the middle of a fantastic conversation right now. we've got our broken government panel who have been with us every day this week, christine romans, roland martin, bay

boudbu buchanan and eric schmidt, who roland is trying to pigeonhole to solve all of government's problems. eric, i know we're not using google platforms for this, we're putting stuff on facebook, so forgive us for that, but we're getting a lot of comments. i got a comment from luke, who says, "we've asked for specific solutions to free the broken nests of washington. he says, performance pay, base their pay on the prosperity of the economy." now, that's an interesting one. christine, i want to go to you first, because you and i work together seven days a week. >> uh-huh. >> i suspect you will not think this is a great idea. >> no. but, you know, on wall street, we call it pay for pulse, not pay for performance, right? just showing up you get paid for performance. and whose idea of performance? some of these, i guarantee you there are plenty of people in washington who believe they have done a good job and delivered for their constituents, yet have they delivered their for

constituents' grad children with the debt they racked up? i agree with the idea, i think it really matters to people the idea of taking money away from these guys, you know? but, again, i don't think it's pay. >> right. >> i think it's power. it's power that drives things in washington, it's not about money, at least not their money. >> roland, you're all about responsibility, why not? why not performance being a test of whether you know what the legislation is or your ability to show up to vote? what should we be measuring them on? >> again, first of all, it goes back to how do you measure it, who is doing the measuring and then what happens? let's be honest, the ballot box is the greatest stick we have. that's how you actually determine who should go, who should stay. but here's one thing i two like to see, and i have not seen it. you had republicans who said they didn't like the stimulus bill, but when it was passed, they still requested money. same thing with democrats. okay. what i want to see people in congressional districts, who are tired of rising deficits, actually go to the members of congress and say, do not apply

for those funds. or give the money back. see, what happens is the people will say, oh, we don't like this, but you have never heard the people say, give the money back. and so, challenge them to say, fine, go -- >> right, we had. >> earmark, send the money back. >> i'll be fair, we have seven members of the senate, 35 members of the house of representatives who make a habit of not taking earmarks, but you're generally right. we don't generally have a lot of people saying we won't take the money. they just don't like that it gets spent that way. eric, one of the points you made right at the beginning of our conversation, is you are in the business of being able to measure everything. so, if you are going to link something to performance, how do we measure it in the government? >> well, rather than arguing over the amount of money we've got right now, why don't we instead try to figure out how to make some more money by creating some more jobs. what i would do is have a long-term incentive tied to government performance about private-sector job creation.

easy to measure, all of the bills, like the stimulus bill, which is really about creating jobs, this is what people care about in america today. what you would do is measure it every month and the congressional people would get together and try to figure how to create more. right now they do that and all the losers who are not creating jobs lobby and they get more money for themselves. the incentives are out of line. you dock th this if you focus o creation. >> good point. the polling, everybody agrees with job creation, if everybody got a job, none of these things would seem like problems to us, nobody would feel that washington is broken. >> absolutely. i think there's a sentiment growing in the concern, that's a real concern, it should be a real concern for the democrats, and not that they are not creating jobs, but maybe that they don't know how to. there's a and tense icompetence that i think is a really a great concern for the whole country. because we have to have people

making decisions in this town that will create those jobs, and if it doesn't work, the country is going to be in much worse shape as years go by. >> big surprise, roland appears to have a idea here. >> they make the decisions to create the jobs, they don't create the jobs on their own. that's clear, when they stand up and tell you they are going to create 250 jobs, every american voter knows they can't create the jobs, they can create the conditions that business like google and other innovators create jobs. if washington pretends it can do it on its own, it has a little bit too much arrogance. >> roland, hold that thought. you guys always have something good to say, but i have to pay the bills. you are all fantastic, and you're answering the call to coming up with solutions, solutions, to broken government. everybody knows something is broken. but we want solutions, and those four on your screen are giving you better stuff than you've heard in a long time.

♪ we're with you when you're saving for your dreams. when you want a bank that travels with you. with you when you're ready for the next move. [ male announcer ] now that wells fargo and wachovia have come together, what's in it for you? unprecedented strength, the stability of the leading community bank in the nation and with 12,000 atms and thousands of branches, we're with you in more ways and places than ever before. with you when you want the most from your bank. [ male announcer ] wells fargo. together we'll go far.

i want to take one more run at our panel. we have a fantastic panel assembled, christine romans, not on the politicat right, on the top left of the screen. my co-host from "your $$$$$" ever saturday and sunday. and roland martin and bay buchanan, cnn contributors, and in the bottom corner, eric schmidt from google. christine romans said government doesn't create jobs were other than government jobs, it creates an environment for people like you to create jobs. so, tell me now, we've got a jobs bill that just passed the senate today. tell me a question that so many people asked us, how best can government create jobs in this environment? because if you solve that problem, you said it yourself, you solved most of our problems in the economy? >> well, again, let's emphasize what christine said, that what we want are private-sector, new

jobs created. we don't want government make-work programs. that's how the wealth of the country -- the country is invented, if you will, it's created. and the way to do that is to encourage innovation in the private sector, to focus on new technologies, new businesses, export-oriented businesses, businesses where we can be the global leader in. there are many ideas in government to do this. the problem is that everybody is focused on the wrong thing. we need to focus on new, private-sector created jobs that pay very nice, high taxes, to fund our deficits. >> i want to pick up on something that bay said with you -- >> ali -- >> hold on a second, roland. because you said this, too, roland. you said google is a big $40 billion-plus company, facing some of the problems, bay, said that our government may be too big. how do you manage that? because google was not that long ago, and when you joined the company, still an upstart, still this funky, new, creative thing, how do you deal with it, as you

become bigger? and by definition, does that make you less efficient with every new employee you get? >> you can become more efint at scale. go ahead. >> go ahead, bay. >> you know, i think this is an excellent point. that what -- how do we create those jobs. how does government do it? we've done it before. we did it with reagan. we did it with clinton. it's all businesses that will hire the people. we've got to look at the small businesses. how do you give them the incentive to start being able to grow again and hire again? and i think it comes, clearly, with taxes and regulations are places you have to look. cut their taxes. reduce their burden, and give them some room to be innovative and creative, and that's where we'll start up this engine again. >> eric, talk to me. you were saying something about scale. >> ali, what i was going to say was, roughly two-thirds of the jobs that are newly created are created in small businesses, so she's exactly right. what small businesses right now need more than anything is access to credit. the banking system is producing

credit for the larger firms, people like google and others, but not for the small and medium-sized businesses whose credit is more questionable in their eyes. that needs to get fixed, and it needs to get fixed very, very quickly. that's where a lot of this problem's going to get solved. >> roland, you've been champing at the bit. >> and that's why i'm trying to get eric to create some of these jobs to address all of this government money. so, eric, you can start right now by creating high-salary jobs, so folks can pay taxes so we can track our government money. it's a great public service. come on, you have billions of cash, go ahead, throw a couple of million at this project. >> he's not profitable because he throws his money around! >> i'll be happy to spend lots of money to try to get the government information into the public hands on their websites and other things. i think it's a great use of our resources. >> the big takeaway, eric, you assuring us that you're in the

business of measuring and searching and finding and all the technology exists to make our ability to track where money is spent and how jobs are created much, much easier than it is right now. that's a good point. >> absolutely. >> christine, this is a good point that you made, because one of our respondents, one of our viewers said, pay them for performance and until we know how, that will be a big issue for us. >> right. that's absolutely right. we don't know -- performance in their eyes is different than performance in our eyes. just like wall street is different than the main street eyes. it's in the eyes of the beholder and pay for performance would be nice if we knew what the goals were and how they met them. >> all right, i'll say good-bye to our panel that has been helping us every day and will continue to this week, christine romans and bay, and i'll bring eric back for a roland-free zone conversation about what more he can help us with. >> i'm glad you're pushing him, ali! >> i like it. it's all good. we'll be right back with a little bit more of the ceo of

google and his fantastic ideas to try to help the government become more efficient and measure what it's doing.

while we're having this fantastic discussion about fixing broken government, i want you to know we're still paying very, very close attention to the testimony going in -- going on at capitol hill, that's the transportation secretary, ray lahood, who is testifying about what the transportation department and nhtsa knew about

toyota, how they managed these recall issues. very shortly, the ceo, the worldwide ceo, of toyota from japan will be in front of congress. we'll be monitoring that very closely for you as well. but for now, i just want to go back for a moment to eric schmidt, he's the ceo of google, joining me from new york. as part of our commitment to you, we said we would shine a very bright light on what many people think of as government e being broken. i jumped into a conversation, we've had a great conversation. but i didn't really ask you, eric, if you think government is broken? >> of course, it is, because it's so incredibly inefficient. i think we have to recognize the system is inefficient because the incentives are set up that way, and they need to be fixed. we had a good conversation about incentivizing around jobs, if you're a government bureaucrat and you take a risk, you can lose your job, but if you do exactly what you're told, you're not going to loux your j toing . no wonder they are so inefficient, they never try

anything new. >> you have a system at google. i've been to your workplaces, they are created for creativity and sort of values the worker that way. can we make government, can we make the big operations in to something -- i don't mean you have to have lounges and cooked food all the time. but what i mean is, can we make government in to the sort of environment that does provide an incentive to do things differently and not lose your job for coming up with an idea without losing your job? the nine out of ten ways that your staff comes up with things, how do we make that acceptable and okay? >> the people i've dealt with in government are actually pretty good. they're pretty sincere about what they're trying to do, but they're trapped in a failing system. they are trapped in a system where they can't do what they think is best for the consumer, by law, by regulation, or because of lobbying or what have you. i think a little bit more of a flexibility model, where people can experiment things, at least on the edges, and try new things, you could imagine, for example, that every aspect of government had to have the

current thing they're doing and one new idea that they're testing, and if that one new idea really works, it will replace the current system. if you just mandated that, you'd get lots of creativity out of the folks that work for us in our government. >> to what degree does crisis stifle that? and i asked you this, too, because you have constant crises at google, a product that may not have the uptick that you wanted, the eu looking at antitrust action? there's always something that seem the like it's going to dominate your day, your week, or your month. >> well, you know, our government can react very quickly in a crisis. look at the stimulus bill, which was done in a three-week period, $800 billion in 3 weeks, boom, they're done. we've seen other situations where we've been attacked. so, we can rally together and act very quickly. i think crisis focuses the mind. i think the most important thing to do is to establish a culture of innovation. jobs are created in the private

sector by new ideas, not existing ideas. there are lots of new ideas that are being suppressed by one reason or another that i want to hear, and you do, too. >> you made a comment a little while ago about innovating and creating industries in the united states that are exportable. boy, we all want to know what those are, because we've lost manufacturing jobs because of things we used to make that we were exporting. we don't make anymore, and it's not likely that a lot of those jobs are coming back. what is the exportable industry of the future in america? >> there's no question the largest area there is going to by in the rebuilding the america's energy infrastructure. we have a huge investment in all of the technologies of -- of traditional technologies. we're beginning to grow our investments in renewables, investment in rebuilding america's energy infrastructure, would help us with respect to security, make us less dependent on oil, create a lot of american jobs, especially contracting and manufacturing jobs, insulating homes, all of those programs, i think really, really do well. the other area that's likely to

do extremely well is an area called advanced manufacturing. advanced manufacturing means the use of computers to make very, very sophisticated, high-end mechanical things. a country that does this particularly well, is germany, and, by the way, germany right now has a huge credit surplus. we could do the same. >> and that is likely, we can take our displaced workers in the united states, somehow train -- i mean, you're trained as an engineer. we can't necessarily take a 45-year-old opt t45 ought-year-old autoworker and make them an engineer? does it work for highly trained engineers, software developers and developers? >> it means jobs for millions of people. because in order to do manufacturing, you need the assembly line of the future. there are many examples for this where, for example, in michigan, autoworkers are being retrained to do on technologies that are exportable and innovative that no one else has. there's every reason to believe we can create millions of manufacturing, high-wage jobs, both blue-collar and the

white-collar supervisory jobs that would really help us and replace some of the jobs lost in the global competitiveness we're seeing today. >> eric schmidt, what a great conversation. thank you for being here and coming up for some great ideas that you're taking from your own company. i would recommend you get out of the building as fast as you can before roland tries to catch up with you and pin you down on something. >> thank you very much, ali. >> my pleasure to have you have. eric schmidt is the ceo of global -- of google, imagine getting that wrong, some suggestions he has on making the government a little more efficient. we'll check in with chad myers. we do have some weather blowing into the northeast again. there are some places in the south that are getting snow, we've got more blizzards coming in to the northeast. when we come back, we'll have a conversation with chad. -d-d-d-dd

let me check in with some top stories we are following here at cnn. the senate has passed a bill aimed at creating more jobs. the main focus is giving the businesses tax breaks for hiring the unemployed. the $15 billion measure would give states more money for hiring. they could take it up as early as friday. also on the hill, fed chief ben bernanke saying that the congress action has helped to jump start the economic recovery, but he worries about the unemployment rate which is near 10%. in vancouver, an emotional

moment on ice. joannie rochette took third place in the short program after in the sudden death of her 55-year-old mother on sunday. she will battle for gold in the free skate final tomorrow. i want to tell you what is going on with weather. we have a blizzard moving in the next 48 hours. we have pictures across the country and you have -- can we pull these up, michael? put them on the screen? okay. the one on the left is washington, d.c., and that is the white house and central park, the view from time warner center where cnn is. the only snowflakes you can see are in the animation behind it. it is looking good and calm, bhau but it is going to change. let's look at texas. if you are in west texas, wow, five inches of snow. i have to say that the texans are getting used to this and they have reason to buy a lot of snow shovels this year and they have use of them. that big storm which is a big storm coming and a combination

of this storm that is in texas plus another one that has hit the south and the midwest. that is as far as my amateur weather reporting can go, so let's bring in the big guns right now. chad myers, what do you any? i am doing this to make you proud. >> i thought you were filling time. i didn't know. nice job, ali. yeah, don't mess with texas. snow coming down there, and we have a great "off of the radar" coming up as well. here is the snow up in rutland and killington and a lot of places that haven't seen a lot of snow there, and the skiers love it, natural instead of manmade for a change. this is the storm that is going to affect the northeast for the end of the week which starts tomorrow night, and it continues, and it will continue to be a 48-72-hour snowfall when you can begin to get a lot of inches piling up. if you get an inch an hour for 24 hours, well, all of the sudden, you are shoveling two

feet. when a snow moves through like an alberta clipper, it rolls in with five inches tops, but when a storm sits there and spins and spins and spins like this one is going to right there. >> yep. >> i will tell you what that means from the computer model and why this storm is going to stick around for a long time. i don't know why it calls ate nor'easter, because it is coming from the southeast. >> is that what you are going to tell us? >> yes. >> and are there variables to make it a blizzard or no blizzard or rain or snow? >> a lot of snow. boston, because of the waving water that comes in and the land coming around. this is from gloucester all of the way down to the cape will be rain because of the ocean, keeping the water and the air warmer. then back out here to the -- by the time you get to the berkshires, that is all snow and all snow west of there as well. we are already seeing snow coming down in some places today, and that means that the cold air is already in place.

that cold air is in place and you are seeing the low cloud cover and significant airport delays at many of the major airports today. so if you have a flight, make sure it is on time. >> and you know i have interest on the weekend, because once again, i am flying. okay. we will check with you on the "off of the radar" and find out about the nor'easters. we want to go to brianna keilar who is listening to the testimony on capitol hill about toyota. that is ray lahood testifying now. later the president of toyota is going to testify, and brianna is on it, so we will tell you what we know. ♪ [ speaking native language ] [ male announcer ] doctors have been saying it forever. let's take a look. [ male announcer ] but they've never actually been able to do it like this. let's take a look. [ male announcer ] v-scan from ge healthcare. a pocket sized imaging device that will help change the way doctors see patients. that's better health for more people. ♪

i watched what i ate. i worked out. personally, i thought i was invincible. once it happened, i realized it's a different story. i'm on an aspirin regimen now because i never want to feel that helplessness again. [ male announcer ] aspirin is not appropriate for everyone. so be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. i was the guy who was doing everything right. i was wrong. talk to your doctor, and take care of what you have to take care of. [ male announcer ] learn more about protecting your heart at iamproheart.com.

toyota hearings on capitol hill are into the second day. yesterday we heard from the u.s. president of toyota, later on today, we will hear from the worldwide president, but what we have been hearing is the transportation secretary ray lahood. brianna keilar is watching all of this closely for ounce capitol hill, and she is with one of the people who is doing most of the questions. brianna, bring us up to speed. >> well, ali, right now, we are awaiting akia toyoda and it is a few minutes before he appears. that is the headline grabber, the head of toyota global, but they are focusing this committee on ray lahood and talking about the federal regulators and did they miss the ball on this. i am here with carl issa who is the top republican on the committee. one thing that is striking is that we heard from ray lahood and we have not heard from the

head of the national highway safety and traffic agency. >> well, that bothers us. ray lahood was not prepared to answer questions, because he has been there only 45 days. most of the questions we want answered, he said he will give us those answers on the record. and so we will have previous leaders of nhtsa to find out how they lost the ball on this and perhaps other safety issues. >> and obviously, you have the majority to have the subpoena power to schedule witnesses, and how soon do you think this is going to happen? >> the chairman said within a week to include bush administration nhtsa folks aed on thers, and we expect it could be pushed up to one week, but in the next week to two weeks we expect answers from secretary lahood and the witnesses back. >> reporter: real quick, you talked to akia toyoda, and what

did he say to you? >> well, he said he was not comfortable with the company not living up to his family's standards and he wants to live up to safety so there are no questions of safety. >> reporter: thank you very much, representative issa. >> we will hear what akia toyoda has and whether toyota is on top of the mechanical or electronic problem. we will check back with you, brianna keilar, on capitol hill. we will bring you the latest headlines and continue the fantastic conversation of how to fix the freeze in washington. ocs who are finding more ways to spread their dollar further. to bolder color in less time. say hello to newer ideas and lowered prices,

enabling more people... to turn more saving into more doing. that's the power of the home depot. try behr premium plus ultra, it's paint and primer all in one, and rated number one. a day on the days that you have arthritis pain, you could end up taking 4 times the number... of pills compared to aleve. choose aleve and you could start taking fewer pills. just 2 aleve have the strength... to relieve arthritis pain all day. scared. they don't know where to begin. so we start to talk about what have they done and what are their goals. and then we plan. it's a very good feeling as an advisor to work with people and help get them to their goals. once people perceive that they can control their destiny then they accomplish unbelievable things. [ male announcer ] we're america's largest financial planning company. meet us today at ameriprise.com.

okay. here is what we have on the rundown. a global company with global reach now under a global microscope. toyota's top man is not there yet, but he is testifying to congress and the american people and to everyone. you are looking at ray lahood who is the transportation secretary on the hot seat, but he will yield it to the head of toyota shortly. we know about the safety problems and the recalls and the apologies, and now we need to know what toyota going to do about it, whether they even have the right fix in hand. also on the rundown and perhaps right outside of your home, it is not just cold weather, but maybe it is wet, and dangerous, and there is more misery coming. a blizzard is working through

the midwest and going thoit the northeast again. chad will break it down for us, and tell us what a nor'easter is all about. all right. one of the things we are covering in depth this week on cnn, broken government, and is government broken and if it is, what specifically can we do to solve that? a cnn opinion research poll showed overwhelmingly that americans feel that government is broken, but optimistic that it can be fixed. so how can we fix it? we are looking into that and we have a great panel joining me in a moment. i want to kick it off with a comment from facebook. we have invited you to give us specific solutions to how to fix government. paul has written in. new complex rules created by the congress, senate, et cetera, and enforce the good simple rules in place. creates efficiency, focus and better overall operations. better overall operations. let's bring in the panel. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com christine romans and roland martin, a cnn political analyst

and author of barack obama's first "road to the white house" and bay buchanan, and cnn contributor, and karen tum i miy who is the national correspondent for "time" magazine. okay. tomorrow, we have a summit that the president is holding the try to deal with the logjam on health care. do you think that washington is getting the message of how concerned americans are about this freeze, the inability to get anything done? are they really looking at changing things? >> well, i think that the two examples that you cited are a split decision. i think that the jobs bill is one where both senators from both parties looked at it and thought, you know, our constituents back home want us to be getting the problem solved. they don't want us to be here scoring points off of each other. the health care summit, i ram a little bit less optimistic about it. i think we will see more stage

craft and theater tomorrow than we see actual negotiations or any true effort to reach across the divide. >> what about it, roland? >> the health care summit, first of all, she is right when it comes to jobs, but even with the health care summit, when you talk about washington gridlock and bay talked about this a couple of days ago, it is about leading. when you have democrats, and some of them are warming up to the notion of reconciliation, which republicans used 17 times dun ear republican president, all of the sudden, a 18-vote majority and in the senate and the house, and if you are in charge, stand up to lead and stop whining and complaining. maybe the democrats will recognize, look, we need to get our differences out of the way, because the votes are there for them to pass it, if they have the backbone and the willingness to do it. >> bay? >> well, the pressure on the democrats -- and roland is absolutely correct here. they are in charge, and where are they taking us? that is where they should move

it, but the problem they are having is the congressmen are hearing from the people, and they don't like what they are trying to do, so they are trying to stop it, and they are very nervous about it. it is an election year, so that is where it is difficult for d democrats. do they want to risk their own personal job and throw that to the wolves in order to do what they think is right for the country and risk being reeekt willed or make sure they are re-elected first? that is what we will see in the next couple of weeks. >> bay, that happens when you are gutless. >> and it speaks to what paul said complex rules and you talk about reconciliation, and we talked about who has majorities and paul, christine does say, and you can see this, and you can see the appeal of somebody saying, let's remove the complex rules and people say it about taxes, wall street, and remove the complex rules and go back to basics. >> it is interesting the parallels between the toyota hearing, and the toyota car has

equivalent of four high end pcs and we don't know how it runs. it is like washington when you look at the tax code or legal code or any number of things, it is so impenetrable almost that it is run ahead of the american people, and the american people are starting to say, wait a second, i understand that i can't live beyond my means indefinitely and how i have to behave in my own household, but what is going on? i also think that, we have all touched on this all week, but if the economy weren't broken, and people didn't feel that way, the normally healthy american skepticism for the power in washington would be there, but when you layer on this extra economy being broken, it will magnify it. >> everybody hold your thoughts. i have to get paid. i don't know if you get paid, but they don't pay me if i don't take a break. on the right, they are taking a break in the hearing at the

house on capitol hill. ray lahood, i don't know if he is coming back in ten minutes, but we are watching it carefully and waiting for the arrival of the world wide head of toyota. and stay with us, we are talking about "broken government" when we come back. (announcer) the sinus triple threat. (announcer) not just sinus headache... ahhhh! but pressure... and congestion. introducing sudafed pe® triple action™. for more complete relief from the sinus triple threat. sudafed pe® triple action™. more complete relief.

all right. we are following closely the testimony on capitol hill. ray lahood, the transportation secretary is done, and they are in a break right now, and they will come back, we expect the president of toyota worldwide to be testifying.

we want to get back to "broken government" and the panel. roland martin, and karen tumilty, and bay buchanan and christine romans. you have to hear this, darlene says how about putting the members of congress and the senate in a locked room with only bread, water, a pillow and a thin mat and blanket, and there they are forced to negotiate and come to agreements on the issues that really affect american citizens. >> actually, ali, that is how the filibuster used to work. it used to work where you had to stand up there and you could not eat, and you were at the podium so you could not throw something on and go back to the office, so people sitting there in the halls of congress with cots and stuff, and those were real filibusters, but don't skip over what bay said earlier. you have democratic members of

congress who either believe in the health care bill or they want to protect their jobs. that is what happen when you have gutless politicians. arlen specter said, great job voting for stimulus, be he said, you voted against it, yeah, i don't want to tick the people off, but it is the right thing to do, but i didn't want to do it. we have gutless politicians on both sides who don't have principles, but they want to protect their jobs which is part of broken government. >> karen? >> well, the only thing i would add to the suggestion is that there were no sharp objects in the room as well. well, let me say something, roland gets is to a point here. if looking at the process here, if they get the health care bill passed, people don't care how it happened just like they don't care how cobra passed under reconciliation. did this work or not? did it make my life better or not? so in some ways we are looking at the whole exercise in the

middle of it, and that is one of the reasons it looks so ugly. >> bay, let me ask you about that point that karen makes. most of us don't care, if we have jobs and something gets done with health care and something is done with the deficit, we will be happy and congratulate them for doing it. how do we get out of worrying too much about process and just sitting heez fothese folks down saying, do it? >> well, the problem is both sides want to see america put back to work. no question in that, but they have two approaches. one side said to cut taxes and the democrats said, no, that is not how we are going to do that. and the democrats say we have to spend more and the republicans say, no, no, we can't spend more, because we are way out of budget as it is. so, you have a conflict a philosophical conflict and neither want to say, well, we will come together and agree to this, so where the real problem is here is that we are in the is situation where the american people are saying one thing and republicans feel that they are with the american people and they will support their idea, so

they will block everything. >> some americans. >> until november. that is how it is for right now, we are in a holding pattern. >> christine, the issue -- >> not all, but some americans. >> majority. >> and i heard eric schmidt from google did not say it, but the president has said it, and we, and looking at roland and bay are going to keep on going on this one, but we, in the media, may be encouraging this business about not allowing things to be tried, not allowing innovation to take place and take root because some innovation will fail and much of it will fail and many of the long-term problems are not sexy today tv problems, including the national debt. >> especially the national debt. that is a tv horror story when you get up to tell people what it is like and what it means for ever declining living standards and your grandchildren, it is depressing stuff and we elect these people to make the tough decisions, but if they make the

tough decisions to fix the problem longer term, they won't get elected again, but they want to do good in the near-term. sometimes they do the right thing and sometimes believe it or not, they are in a room with no cameras and with no aides and no blackberrys and yellow legal pad and pizza. this happened with immigration which failed frankly, and happened in the health care process and they get in there senators and congressmen without aides and staff, and think try to come to some common ground and it does happen, but there are not cameras there, and they don't get progress, but they are actually in that room, and there is no pillows. >> listen, folks. bay, last word to you. >> i want to go back to the theme basically going through many of these comments from the viewers. that is, let's make it simple, and you know, we are all saying it is so complicated and difficult, and it is not. not in their minds. they are running a household and running businesses and they understand that regulations are too much, and give us a break

here. we have to hire people just to fill out forms, and we can't afford this, and we all know we are have to balance the budget. it is simple to the american people, and they are looking at washington saying, you guys have it screwed up, you don't know what you are doing back there. so here is how yo do iu do it. >> you win and you leave. >> you got the last word again, roland. you are something else. you guys are something else. >> like a boxing match. >> it is a tough conversation and you make it fun. heavyweight boxing match roland martin, and christine romans and bay buchanan and karen tumilty. now we go to the room where akia toyoda will be in a few minutes to testify about what toyota knew and when they knew it and are they on the case of

fixing the accelerators that make your car move when you don't want it to? stay with us.

let me give you a check of the top stories we are covering right now. in washington, former vice president dick cheney is out of the hospital two days after suffering what his office calls a mild heart attack. a spokesman says that cheney is feeling good and will resume his normal schedule shortly. he has suffered five heart attacks over the last three decades. pilot chatter could be monitored shortly. there is a recommendation that there be voice recorders to make sure that the pilots are doing their jobs. in littleton, colorado, a little school community is in

shock after a 32-year-old man allegedly opened fire on campus yesterday wounding two students. the suspect appeared before a judge in the last hour in a video hookup from jail. he is being held on $1 million, charged with two counts of attempted murder. you will remember that littleton, colorado s the site of the columbine massacre. okay. this is a camera on the congressional testimony room, and we are going -- we are waiting the arrival of the president of toyota, the global president of toyota. there he is. you are seeing him now. he is the grandson, akia toyoda is the head of toyota worldwide, and he has been the ceo and president since 2009, and a degree from bapson college in

massachusetts. everybody is getting seated. let's listen in to the president of toyota. >> our second panel -- i would like to introduce our second panel testifying on this panel is mr. akia toyoda, president, ceo of toyota motor corporation. mr. anaba, president and ceo of toyota motors north america. gentlemen, it is the committee's longstanding policy that all witnesses are sworn in. please stand and raise your right hand as i administer the oath.

do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? if so, answer in the affirmative. let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirm tif tive. you may be seated. let me begin by first welcoming you. i really appreciate the fact that you have come to testify, and that mr. toyoda, that you actually volunteered to come and to testify. that, i want you to know, we are impressed with that. that shows your commitment and to us and to safety as well, and we appreciate the fact that you volunteered to come. and we welcome you as well, mr. anaba and we have had conversations with you over the last weeks and months.

so at this time, we would ask you to actually -- we will give you additional time. we generally give five minutes, but being he is all of the way from japan, we will give him more time. so. mr. toyoda. yes, you may begin. >> thank you, chairman townes. i would first like to state that i love cars as much as anyone. and i love toyota as much as anyone. i am here with my toyota family of dealers, front team members and friends. i take that most pleasure in

manufacturing vehicles that our customers love, and i know that toyota's 200,000 team members, leaders and suppliers across america feel the same way. however, in the past few months, our customers have started to feel uncertain about the safety of toyota's vehicle, and i take full responsibility for that. today, i would like to explain to the american people, as well as our customers in the u.s. and around the world, how seriously toyota takes the quality. >> we ask, mr. toyoda, can you pull the mike closer to you? thank you. >> today, i would like to explain to the american people as well as the customers in the u.s. and around the world how seriously toyota takes the

quality and safety of its vehicle. i would like to express my appreciation to chairman townes and representative issa, and as well as the house oversight reform committee for giving me this opportunity to express my thoughts today. i would like to focus my comments on three topics -- toyota's basic philosophy regarding quality control, the cause of the recalls and how we will manage quality control going forward. first, i want to discuss the philosophy as far as quality control. i, myself, as well as toyota am not perfect. at times we do find defects, but in such situations, we always

strive to understand the problem and make changes to improve. farther in the name of the company, the longstanding tradition and pride, we never run away from our problems or pretend we don't notice them. by making continuous improvements, we aim to continue offering even better products for society. that is a core value we have closest to our hearts since the founding days of the company. at toyota, we believe the key to making quality product is to develop quality people. each employee thinks about what he or she should do continuously making improvements and by doing so, makes even better cars. we have been actively engaged in

developing people who share and execute on this core value. it has been over 50 years since we began selling in this great country, and over 25 years since we started production here. and in the process, we have been able to share this core value with the 200,000 people at toyota operations, dealers and suppliers in this country. that is what i am most proud of. second, i would like to discuss what caused the recall issues we are facing now. toyota has for the past few years been expanding its business rapidly. quite frankly, i fear the pace of which we have grown may have been too quick. i would like to point out here

that toyota's priority has traditionally been the following, first, safety, second, quality, third, volume. these priorities became confused, and we are not able to stop, think, make improvements as much as we are able to before, and basic stance to listen to customers' voices and make better product has weakened somewhat. we pursued over the speed to our people and organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that. i regret that this has resulted in the safety issue described in the recalls we face today. i am deeply sorry for any accident that toyota drivers have experienced. especially, i would like to

extend my condolences to the members of the family for the accident in san diego. i would like to send my prayers again, and i will do everything in my power to ensure that sauch tragedy nevgedy never happens a. since last june when i first took office, i have personally placed the highest priority on improving quality over quantity. i have shared that reaction with our stakeholders. as you well know, i am the grandson of the founder, and all of the toyota vehicles bear my name. for me, when the cars are damaged, it is as though i am as well. i more than anyone wish for toyota's cars to be safe and for our customers to feel safe when

they use our vehicles. under my leadership, i would like to reaffirm a value of placing safety and quality highest on the list of priorities that we have held firmly from the time we are founded. i will also strive to devise a system in which we can surely execute what we value. third, i would like to discuss how we plan to manage quality control as we go forward. up to now, any decision on conducting recalls have been made by the customer quality engineer division at toyota motor corporation in japan. this division confirms whether there are technical problems and makes decisions on the necessity of recall. however, reflecting on the issues today, what we lacked was the customer perspective.

to make improvements on this, we will make the following changes to the recall decision-making process. when a recall decision is made, a step will be added in the process to ensure that management will make responsible decision from the perspective of customer safety first. to do that, we will devise a system of which customers voice around the world will reach our management in a timely manner. and also assist them in which each region will be able to make decision as necessary. further, we will form a quality advisory group, and composed of outside respected experts from america and around the world to ensure that we do not make misguided decision. finally, we will invest heavily

in quality in the u.s. through the establishment of an automobile center of quality excellence, and the introduction of new position, and product safety executive and the sharing of more information and responsibility. within the company for product quality decisions, including defects and recalls. even more importantly, i will ensure that members of the management team actually drive the cars, and that they check for themselves where the problem lies as well as the severity. i, myself, am a trained test driver. as a professional, i am able to check the problem in a car and can understand how severe the safety concern is in a car. i drove the vehicle in the accelerator pedal recall as well as the prius, comparing the

vehicles before and after the remedy is various environmental setting. i believe that only by examining the problem on site can one make decisions from the customer perspective. one cannot read reports or data in the meeting room. through the measures i have just discussed and whatever results we obtain from the investigation, we are conducting in cooperation with nhtsa, we plan to further improve on the quality of the vehicles and the fulfilling the principle of putting the customer first. my name is on every car. you have my personal commitment that toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of our customers. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. toyoda.

mr. anada. >> translator: chairman townes and representative issa, and ranking members of the committee. thank you for allowing me to testify. aim the president and coo of toyota motor north america and chairman and ceo of toyota sales usa. as you heard today from toyota president akio toyoda, and the subcommittee on oversight heard yesterday from jim lentz, the chief operating officer of toyota sales usa, toyota is taking decisive steps to restore the trust of the tens of millions of americans who purchase and drive our vehicles.

our team is working as quickly and conveniently as possible to address the recalls. with the solutions and we are confident with the repairs toyota vehicles will remain among the safest on the road today. we also going further, by installing advanced brake override systems in all of our new north american vehicles before the end of 2010, and in an expanded range of existing models as a customer confidence measure, and taking comprehensive steps to ensure strict quality control and increased responsiveness to our customers and regulators in the future. as you have heard, mr. toyoda is

leading a top-to-bottom review of the quality control processes, and will seek input from independent safety experts to ensure that our processes meet or exceed industry standards. as head of toyota's north american operation, i will be closely involved in this review, working with a new chief quality officer for north america. i also will take responsibility for ensuring that we improve our dialogue with u.s. safety regulators and that we take prompt action on any issue we identify to ensure the safety of american drivers. in inviting know testify today, the committee asked me to address several issues with regard to the recent recalls. let me summarize my answers

here. our recent recalls address five separate issues that we have vehicles. in total, some 5.3 million vehicles across 14 countries are affected by one or more of -- 14 models are affected by one or more of these recalls. our recalls is developing with regard to two specific mechanical causes of intermittent acceleration. one involves all-weather or inappropriate accessory floor mats, that when loose or improperly fitted can entrap the accelerator pedal. the other concerns, accelerating pedals that over time can grow sticky in rare instances. the solutions for both of these issues are effective and durable. we are spect to possible

accelerator pedal entrapment by the floor map, toyota recently designed a vehicle-based change that directly addressed, addresses the problem and announces the solution to the public in november 2009 as part of the safety campaign. announced on september 29th, 2009. owners of affected vehicles can in the meantime drive safely by ensuring that they use only properly secured appropriate floor mats. we are -- with respect to sticking accelerator pedals, toyota addressed this issue. the sticking situation does not occur suddenly, and if it does, the vehicle can be controlled with firm and steady application of the brakes.

we are confident that vehicles whose drivers are not experienced any issues with the accelerator pedal are safe to drive, and toyota dealers are rapidly completing the repairs on our customers' vehicles. in both of these cases, toyota thoroughly and carefully evaluated the technical aspect of these issues, however, we now understand that we must think more from a customer-first perspective rather than technical perspective in investigating complaints and with that we must communicate faster and better and more effectively with our customers and regulators. our recent onslaught of recalls of certain 2010 prius, and lexus hybrids for software update to the braking system, and certain 2000 camry cars to inspect the power steering hoses, and

certain 2010 tacoma trucks to inspect the front drive shaft all illustrate this new approach. chairman townes and ranking member issa, and members of the committee, i assure you that nothing matters more to toyota than the safety and reliability of the vehicles our customers drive. we are committed to not only fixing vehicles on the road and ensuring they are safe, but to making our new vehicles better and even more reliable through the redoubled focus on putting our customers first. thank you. >> thank you very much. let me thank both of you for your testimony. let me begin by saying, have you told nhtsa everything you know about sudden acceleration

problems? have you told nhtsa? >> translator: according to my understanding -- >> pull the mike close. >> translator: according to my understanding, we have fully shared all of the information with the authorities. >> our washington office has auz been in touch with nhtsa and we are fully requiring with nhtsa with any information they require. >> has toyota disclosed all other potential safety defects with your vehicles to the regulators? have you done that?

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: i do not know the specifics, however, as i mentioned earlier, i do understand that all of the information that we have are shared with authorities. >> let me ask this question. today, attorney general andrew cuomo of new york announced an agreement with toyota, and this agreement provides that if a customer is afraid to drive his or her car subject to a recall and the dealer will come pick up

the car and return them to the customer, and the customer will be reimbursed for any taxi or rental car expense they might incur. will you commit to doing this for customers nationwide? i repeat, if you want me to repeat it, i will do so. >> no sh, he is translating. >> chairman, let me address that question, because i am local here. >> delighted. >> i have heard number of instances when this recall news came out, i think that a number of customers who were very

afraid and there because fleet behind it, and they took care of the customers very well, and in many instances they went to have dealers go pick up the car and then gave them a rent-a-car for the time they are not able to do. and this recall process is rigorously going on. there is a good understanding now on the part of the customers that the cars are being fixed well, and they are confident about that. >> but my question is, are you just doing this in new york, or is this something that you are going to do nationwide. >> no, this is happening all over the nation, nationwide, yes. >> so, i want to make certain that we have that understanding, because i understand that it is going on in new york. and the last question that i have for you is that, mr.

toyoda, you have offered a brake override feature for some recalled vehicles. why haven't you offered that feature for all toyota vehicles? [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: allow me to explain the situation a little bit. >> you have to pull the mike closer. >> the factors contributing to the unexplained acceleration can be classified into four categories. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> translator: first problem with the electronic throttle system, and secondly, the way in which a car is used or misusage of the car, and thirdly, the structural aspect of the vehicle, and fourthly, the structural aspect of the parts used in the vehicle. so, these i understand are four major factors contributing to unexpected acceleration. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> translator: and of that, the electronic throttle control system is designed based upon the concept of safety first, and therefore, whenever there is any abnormality or anomaly there in the system, the fuel supplied to the system is cut off. even under a very vigorous testing conducted internally or by nhtsa, no problem and malfunction was identified and therefore i'm absolutely confident that there is no problem with the design of the ebs system. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> translator: however, placing emphasis upon the fact that customers do have concern as to the possibility of unexpected acceleration which may result from the remaining three reasons, in order to offer extra measure of confidence as chairman has just mentioned, we decided to add brake override system. >> is that a yes or no? i mean, that is what aim trying to -- that is what i am trying to get to, yes or no, because i am on congressman issa's time. [ speaking foreign language ] >> i yield to congressman issa,

but i am trying to find out, is that a yes or no? >> let me address in a different perspective. we are, just for the record, putting brake override system on all of the models for north america coming off of the line by the end of this year. and now, probably your question is retroactively, what about the existing models, we have already announced camry -- >> that is it. >> and camry and es 300 and then is. those are already included in as an additional measure when we do the recalls. now, we have recently announced tacoma which has a high complain rate and then added to venzia and sequoia and this covers if my recollection is correct 72%

of the recall population, and any older one technically it is not possible. therefore, we think we have it covered, but we do not, you know, stop it there. we carefully monitor the situation by the next year with this new model with bos coming in with retroactive actions, we are quite sure that we will very much lower than the industry average. >> i yield to the gentleman from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the chairman has proven he can ask a question so complex as to even be difficult for people of your great knowledge, and it does not surprise me. let me ask in a different way, the same question, so that we all on the dais have clarity. mr. inaba, isn't it true, that

in order to use a advanced brake override system like this, your cars depend on systems such as microprocessors and engine control modules that can simultaneously reduce fuel when sensing through the data bus that the brake has been pushed, isn't that correct? >> you are much better technically, savvy, than i am. i think that i believe so. >> so i think that for all of us here who are concerned, of course, about fail-safe, and acceleration caused by electronics, i think that -- i'm asking you -- isn't it fair to say that although electronics could at times be a problem, and your people have not eliminated that, the solution is in fact electronics in this case, and that is what is going to give the higher level of safety? >> well, i can only say that this is an added measure of to customer confidence, and of

course, i dot no mean to say it is solving all of the problems. >> yes. i understand that in the early testimony there were some discrepancies of how secretary lahood would explain certain technical occurrences and you would, and is that correct that you would like to xrekt tcorrec record on some areas of secretary lahood's testimony. >> i am not sure i understand what specific comment you are referring to? >> well, i would like to welcome you if you would like for the opportunity to submit to the record any technical clarifications to what secretary lahood's answers were for the question. >> yes, we will for the record. >> and we put up the unintended acceleration exhibit that i showed earlier, and i put this up for both of you, because in your current advertisement on

tv, you said something which i thought was extremely profound and a high goal. you said that good companies fix their mistakes, and great companies learn from them. in the case of the unattended acceleration, in 2007, there was a problem in the united states for which the floor mats were changed. there was a problem in japan with a different model, but similar in floor pedal in which the toyota pedal, itself, was shortened, and now in the case of all of these models, there is an electronic upgrade additionally to prevent an accident like we had in 2009. would that be the outcome today, the outcome of the recall including the electronics upgrade to advance brake override, and is that the type of learn from your mistake that we can expect in the future on any problem that develops?

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: i do not know this situation you refer to about 2007, but generally speaking, whenever a problem occurs, toyota addresses those problems in its most sincere manner and attitude. >> may i make a comment? >> yes, please. >> i came to know this japan's problem to be shameful only in

the previous hearing you mentioned and that is the first time i ever heard, and therefore let me look into that, if is is correct or not. but at the same time, i think that we are the company that we learn great lessons from me in this instance, and we try to do more. so, i think that we are committed that we tried to remain as great company and not just a good company, so we have a full commitment of the president, and he says we have many, many measures taking place. i don't want to go through them all. >> i appreciate, that and i have a copy of documents that you have provided to us concerning the toyoda bla ytoyota blade wh japanese-only blade, and we will refer you to that, and my second question is that secretary lahood talked about wanting to, but not necessarily having the

transparency of worldwide sales and problems. will you agree, mr. toyoda, to be the company that leads by providing the u.s. nhtsa with full transparency of your worldwide observations and help set a model for all of the major companies here in the u.s.? [ speaking foreign language ]

[ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: to that question, i clearly say yes. in the past cases of recall or problem has solution in making decisions we based our decision on two issues. the technical consideration and also whether or not the regulations and statutes of different parts of the world are complied with. in that sense, going forward, we

intend to exchange and share information more timely throughout the world, and we are now setting up the system for that purpose. and for that specific purpose, we are going to establish the special committee on global quality which i personally will be heading, and that very first meeting of that will be held on march 30th, and for that purpose, we are setting up the structure where the united states and other parts of the world will be represented in the meeting of that special meeting for global quality. we are now introducing the system so that we are really facing up to this problem openly and transparently. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman, for your indulgence. >> i recognize the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. kanjor i

kanjorski. >> thank you, gentlemen, for deciding to come here to testify. actually, it is a unique terms in the fact that you will be able to brag that you withstood the interrogation of the congressional committee. that is a badge of courage here in the united states. but if you heard any of the examiner's questions of the secretary, and i think that now yourselves, we are a little disturbed about some things, and i am, too, although i am sympathetic to the fact that we want to encourage international business, and certainly open up our markets to your manufacturing from japan or your ownership of manufacturing facilities in the united states, but i thought i heard this morning, the secretary say that you had a problem in japan that was detected in '07.

then subsequently, the same problem was detected in europe, but there was no communication of that problem or the prospect of that problem being contained in american manufactured automobiles or your products being sold in the american market. if that impression that i have is true, that is very troubling to me. i would like you, as best you k and i understand the difference in language, to explain whether or not you are giving the american automobile purchaser, your customer, and the american market the same level of attention that you give to the japanese market or the european market, and if you didn't in the past, what are you going to do to make sure that the difference doesn't occur in the future. we cannot afford to have a lag of a year or two years of