on the other hand, i think we don't have in place effective mechanisms for addressing the problems that loom 20, 30, 40 years from now. and we're already on the path towards -- i mean, those problems have already started, but there's nothing in the budget process, there's no structure, there's no mechanism, there are no agreed upon tools for really dealing with the

long-term budget issues. in terms of what i think we need, the first thing i think we need to be effective in addressing our problems is a broad recognition of the problem. both in the congress and in the public. an acceptance of the fact that we are on a path that's really not acceptable over the long term. secondly, i think we need some kind of agreed-upon target and metric for deciding what's a good path to be on. some people talk about, well, let's set a target of some percentage of debt as a percentage of g.d.p., but we need to agree on something, some metric that we think is an appropriate metric to use for the government's long-term fiscal sustainability, and we need to, we, the public, the congress, need to agree on some kind of target. what is the right target. what's a reasonable benchmark for us to aim at accomplishing.

and then we need to make some decisions. and one of the fundamental decisions is how big do we want our government to be. we are used to over the past 30, 40 years, we have paid about 18% of g.d.p. in taxes, and other forms of revenues. we're upon a path to spend maybe 25% of g.d.p. by 2020. so do we antto -- so that if we want a government that we're only willing to pay 18% of g.d.p. for, then we've got to curb more spending by, oh, maybe a third. on the other hand, if we want to have a government that's 24%, 25% of g.d.p., then we have to increase our taxes by maybe a third. so we as a society have to make the decision as to what type, what size government, what kind of services an benefits we want our government to provide and we

have to bring -- create a match between how much we're prepared to pay and how much we want to receive from the government. right now, there's a mismatch. we're accustomed to and expect to receive much more from the government than we are accustomed to, and wish to pay to the government to provide those goods and services. and we as a society are going to have to make that judgment. do we want a government that's 18% or 19% of g.d.p. or a government that's 23% or 25%, and that's the -- that's the key decision, i think, in terms of once we decide on a target in terms of the overall budget metric, then we have to decide what kind of government do we want. and that's a big decision. because if in fact, we're going to match the government to the amount of revenues that we take in now or would take in under current policies, that's a dramatic change in the nature of the government. on the other hand, if we want to

match the tax system to the amount of the obligations and services and benefits the government is providing, that's a dramatic increase in taxes, and somewhere, and obviously, there's plenty of space in between to work out some kind of match, but that's -- that's going to be a real challenge for us as a society, and ultimately, i think the political system will only be able to do that effectively if the public is prepared to support it. and if the public is willing to say okay, i'm willing to accept -- willing to pay more taxes or i'm willing to accept less in benefits, and there's some broad consensus to do that, than whatever mechanisms get put in place can work. but if of the public doesn't do that, if the public says, wants its cake -- wants to have its cake and eat it too, then it's going to be really hard for the political system to enforce

whatever mechanisms we put in place. and so the need for some national consensus on addressing this long-term problem i think is critical. we need a system that puts in place some kinds of mechanisms to meet some targets, it has to be flexible to be able to respond to emergencies, economic disruption, wars, but not too flexible, so that it can't be misused or taken advantage of to avoid the constraints. we have to control health care costs. and the other major entitlements. but in cbo's most recent baseline estimates, social security, medicare, medicaid and other health programs came to 9.7% of g.d.p. in 2012, growing to 11.5% of g.d.p. in 2020. that's a 1.8% g.d.p. increase. in today's dollars, that would be about $250 billion.

just to keep doing what we're doing. and we have to figure out ways to con strain those programs or unless we're willing to pay a lot more in taxes than we are paying now. and depend, that's an important -- and again, that's an important decision we have to make and finally as i mentioned before, i am concerned about -- i think we're all concerned about not just the five or 10 years that we're all used to thinking about budgeting, but what happens in 20 years and 30 years and 40 years. what kind of metric should we use to measure the sustainability or viability of the government, and what kind of mechanism can we putt in place so that congressional committees can actually have some kind of incentive to address problems and get credit in some kind of score keeping mechanism for addressing a problem that's going to occur 20, 30, or 40 years from now.

[applause] >> well it's always hard to go last and say everything has been said. i like to stand back an react a little bit. first at g.a.o., i'm, as tom mccabe has pick up, we ran its first long-term simulation in 1992, sort of before anyone did. chuck, who was comptroller at the time, felt very very strongly that we needed to highlight the long term. unfortunately, if i had to measure my effect effectiveness by whether the reports created action, i might not be doing so well and we of course would agree strongly in the need for education in the public. in fact, we would view the simulations we do as motivational, since we go out far enough to include areas

that -- where it can't happen. but herb stein is often quoted as saying, for his famous statement, that things that are unsustainable tend to stop, but as robert pointed out, it matters how they stop. the soviet union was unsustainable, but we're very lucky, it sort of petered out, rather than blew up. we have been very lucky and able to carry on an unsustainable fiscal policy, because we are the strongest, safest, most secure political economy in the world. and you can see that by what the treasury is going for today and sometimes everyone makes a speech about i don't know, people move their money to the euro zone. there's no euro bond market and are they going to buy greek bonds or irish bonds? but i think where the public has come to agreeing there's a problem, i think the problem is

debt, so we have to oppose debt. that is the result of all these other actions. as we do groups an surveys, which many of my colleagues do, what people think is that foreign aid makes up about 15% of the budget, and so you know, we could cut that. we can get rid of fraud, waste and abuse, that line item, and sometimes i worry that overlap and duplication has become some -- the sell verick bullet. -- the silver bullet, and -- so i'd like to stand back, you know, that said, and so i absolutely agree, it's long-term, i like to stand back and look at process a little bit differently. first is, if anybody asks me what the greatest contribution in the 1974 act was, i would agree with bob, which is it was a creation of cbo. it was the ability of congress to get independent estimates and to get them on their own time horizon. if you had to ask omb in those days if they didn't like your

proposal, it was amazing how overwork they were. and in -- and some of you may or may not know, that there was some disagreement or disconnect between the house and the senate views of cbo. at the time the house image was kind of sort of a manhole cover. you dropped in bill in, there's crunching and you get numbers and the senate envisioned a place that would be broader, and there was sort of an impasse over who would be director and in the end, when brock adams became chairman, he turned to his staff and said we're fighting with muskie over what? because the story is they flipped a coin and alice rivlin became director. any of you are interested in more of that story, i'm happy to talk to you later. and in terms of our good developments of what i have to think of doing as facilitating choices approval rating understanding of comparisons, i would put credit reform on that

list. now mind you, it's hard not to list credit reform as ugly in the sense that it's messy, the quality of the estimates range from really good efforts to rotten. but compared to in an era when we treated direct loans as grants, and loan guarantees as free. in which case, i used to do spoof memos on creating a balanced budget amendment and we would convert loan guarantees to -- i'm a little concerned that our discussion today has focused on the process aimed at a particular goal. a particular policy goal. and so i think the first thing for people to ask when they think about budget process is are you looking for a process that is general and will survive different times, i understand it won't, but it's a design goal, or a process that overlaps with enforcement for a goal you have selected in advance of design of

the process. so for instance, i do not think i would agree that the process should be sure that you move toward the process has structured. be sure that you move toward sustainability. it should, however, highlight what's real, that is where you're going, so that you can discuss whether you want to head off that cliff. and i think the other thing you judge a process on, another one is does it highlight the important choices. that is, if you think of the range of decisions, members of congress and the president have to make in this debate, you're not possibly going to reexamine everything. i mean, any equivalent of zero based budgeting falls on its face just from overwork, but does it serve the choices you think are important. how much are we spending on investment versus consumption, what is the distributional burden. i mean, whatever you think at the time. and we at g.a.o. in the past

have suggested that you should be able to have good estimates as possible for the near term, and the median term, and then you should have order of magnitude and direction for the long term. i'll get back to that again, but not pretend that a 30-year estimate for any one person is not as accurate as a 10-year. some programs, it's easier to run plausible on long-term. does it allow you to compare like things on like bases, and that's sort of what i mean about the credit reform change. does it in fact disclose what you are putting the federal government on the hook for? this is why people like me and barry in his omb days and cbo tend to be pretty rigid about upfront funding versus incremental funding. i know it's a great benefit to agencies to pretend to lease a building for only two years at a time, even if you're planning to be there by 20. but it's more expensive for the federal government. it is -- similarly, if you want

to think of some of the supposed leases for things that are only used by the federal government, we're going to pay another company to borrow the money, we borrow more cheaply than that other country. so i used to say to people, you have a couple of choices. you can raise taxes or cut spending and pay for it now, you can add it to the credit card and pay -- have your children pay for it later. or you can pay someone else to borrow your money and pay your children later. so i don't think i would judge a process by whether i agreed with the decisions. each one of us confronted with the federal budget outlook now could, although it would not be easy, make our own decisions about what size government we want, and how we'd like to pay for it. but the challenge is to have a discussion about that and i

frankly don't believe very much in the rational act for model of political discourse and i don't mean by that what the english language has come to think of as irrational. i mean i think it's too hard. rational assumes you survey all the choices and weigh them evenly. none of these guys are really saying that, but i think that it means why it matters, which things you pay attention to. one of the things that i think is probably both bad and ugly in the past and marvin referred to this, it's been the unwillingness to use the budget resolution as a framework and then stick to it in enforcing, enacting even one third of the budget that runs under the appropriations. i think the reason there's no budget resolution sometimes is people know that they can't enact appropriations bill stick to that name. the budget resolution becomes a symbol. we would like spending to be only x, but if you add up all the things they support, it doesn't, and that's because the american people don't know what the composition of the budget. i think there are places where

we can make improvement. we at g.a.o. have suggested that you move insurance budgeting to something closer to accrual. something you might call the missing premium. old enough to remember when the pension benefit guarantee corporation was in the budget, because we scored an increase in premiums on a cash flow basis. cash in, in fact, i believe one year it was used to offset a trade ave greem. -- agreement, which raises foreproblem which is that it lost money in five years but not over 10. i think you want full funding for things like military housing, corps of engineers dam, you really don't want to build a third of the dam. you want to avoid either real or imaginary cliffs. some expirations, if our history is that we don't like sudden expiration, then you don't want to score it assuming there is a sudden expiration that will be allowed to take effect. on the other hand, we need to find a way to let things phase

out. finally, i think we can learn a lot of things from the successes and failures that marvin pointed out. one of the big lessons from bea is the enforcement was targeted to the action. gram rudman went across the board, so if you were the one committee that complied with its ceiling, you got hit twice. on bea, it was the committee that department that got hit. it succeeded as far as its reach in pay goes, that is the constrained growth, but it did nothing about dealing with the bails. finally, i think i'd like to say, it's important to remember that everyone wants a small government until they don't. most of the -- if you read the surveys in louisiana, most of them want a very small government. but i seriously doubt that they meant from that no support when katrina hit. we live in this country with a myth of the self-made man in the

west but the federal government built their power, built their adds, all of our roads, and we set aside land for the land grant colleges that educated a lot of people from the west. i don't think today is the same thing, but i think -- although we have to get to the decision about what size government you want and what you pave for. we first have to i think start with this is what the government you're getting now is. this is how much you're paying for. and go back then to barry's point which is that if you don't want to pay any more in taxes, then these are the kinds of things you have to cut, not just the amount, but actually some illustrative example. if you don't want anything cut, then this is the kind of taxes you're talking about, and we've done that on the road, people say oh, i didn't mean either of those and then you say okay, now let's talk. where in the middle are we going to end up, but stewart butler once analogized coming to the agreement about a long term less as a numbers problem than as a kind of game theory analysis

problem. who goes first, how do you make commitments when you're not sure about the trust, how do you have a discussion that in 24 hour news psych else doesn't have everybody announcing everything is sustainable. i actually think everyone on both said says -- it survives as something to advance the discussion. and there's just an awful lot of things that we don't know what the i am my compassion is, an we -- i am my compassion is and we need to have information structured in a way people can process it and decisions that matter. one more point of a sort of missed opportunity in the budget process. the functional categories, which served as a proxy for what we used to call national needs or the goal of the process, will be one way to think about looking at all the different ways we do things. you don't want to just look at the appropriated programs that go toward goal x. what about the mandatory

programs, what about credit programs, what about tax expenditures angled at something. if you want to know how much we support different parts of energy, you have to look at all of them. because we took different tools for each mode. i'm encouraged by the atmospherics and hope we can make progress. i think on behalf of all of us, we would like to thank you all for being one of the few groups in town that would sit still for a discussion on budget process. [applause] >> if you you are a student watching on c-span and say you don't have a dissertation project, or a research project, from this discussion right here's i would suggest you turn your volume on, because they're all right there, they're all ready to happen. microphones in the center, would be happy to take your questions. while you're thinking about it, we had talked beforehand about

transparency and we heard it here again today. it's become routinely advocated. we saw one version with the recovery act. what does transparency mean in the context of federal budgeting? what is or should the goal of transparency be as it applies to the federal budget process? i'd open it up to our panel and look forward to your questions. >> well, see, i'm someone who thinks that sometimes something leak transparency gets floated, it becomes a universal good you have to worry about, the sort of information overloved issue. to me, what transparency in the budget process means is some of the things we've all talked about, which is is the action you're about to take, the policy you're about to enact looks like x today, does it move on a straight line over the next, you know, 40 years as enacted, does it grow with g.d.p., does it explode, does it grow with

demographics. what drives it and what are you looking at? and there's some areas where can you do things very concretely. every time we commission a nuclear submarine, we commit the federal government to the waste cleanup. we don't know that. now i'm not suggesting you would score that in the budget, but it's a relevant point if you were going to do better at disclosing your fiscal exposure. every time we do an insurance program, every time we used to do loan programs, every time you have -- you create a tax provision or a direct spending program, mandatory program, that grows with some other indicator that you don't have a clue how it grows, so i think that you need to think about that. >> i think when i hear the word transparency, i think of other words. i think of words like clarity, understandability, accurate measurement of costs, which others have also talked about. i think it's important, and there are conflicts i think between some of these things. credit reform is an examine.

credit reform is complicated. and some of the estimates turn out to be wrong from an economic point of view, it does a better job of telling us what a credit program is, but it's not a simple -- it's not as easy to understand as just a simple cash flow numbers. the recovery act information, the web site shows jobs created in various places by spending that accounts for about one-fifth of the budgetary empacket of the recovery act, so that's information, and it's useful information within the context in which it's presented. but then ears the other four fifths of the act, various tax cuts for businesses, for people, benefit payments, a whole variety of things that aren't showing up there, so we've presented information, but it's not all the information, so sometimes you wind up in a

situation where we have a really good information about the tip of the iceberg, but we don't have much information about the rest of the iceberg and various people have done estimates to disagreement really about what the rest of the iceberg looks like. but we also have to be careful about mistaking the tip of the iceberg for the whole iceberg when we're presenting information, that's a little bit of transparency, but it doesn't actually tell the whole story. >> ed was at omb. in fact, i followed him there into the housing branch at omb and when i first got there, i tried to cover up his mistakes, but failed miserably. in particular, we looked at programs in the federal housing administration and had to do with middle and low income housing. and after i was there for a short time, i realized that basically, no matter what

changes we made didn't really have much impact. and it was at that time i think i can still remember that i first came across the concept of tax expenditures, that basically, what was running these programs was -- was that that cold -- at that time called syndication of the accelerated depreciation, and so i convinced a law firm that was very popular in selling these things, blaine and edson, if you're up to montgomery county, there's edison lane that is named after that, but they gave me a free entry to a course in syndication and i started learning how tax expenditures, these tax laws really dominated the programs. and once i learned that, then -- not that i could change them immediately, although they were changed dramatically in 19 pate 6, but at least you can have an -- 1986, but at least you can

have an impact on them. i say that now because that was 20 years ago, and -- 30 years ago and we've come a long way on tax expenditures. thank goodness. with respect to transparency, we really have gone so far that now these proposals that i mentioned before, now they are explicitting targeting tax expenditures, which really, really need to be done. i would mention another one broad view of transparency and that is in in domenici rivlin, they talk about a payroll tax holiday for a year. thank goodness, because with preexpect to the social security trust fund, don't have any trust in it. by that i mean, it is not a trust fund in the same sense that private individuals, you and i might classify a trust fund. at least they're being transparent if saying, okay, you guys won't have to pay fica tax

for the next year. they think will will create seven million jobs or something like that, but more importantly to me, they say, well, look, don't worry about getting your benefits, because we'll have the general fund make up for what's not in the trust fund. well, of course the general fund is going to make up for it, because there really isn't a trust fund and all they're trying to do is to paper over what has been an unfortunate myth in budgeting for oh, 60 or 70 years now. so i am very optimistic of the trend towards transparency building on what both sue and bob have said. but -- can i just -- >> one thing we haven't done, i don't think, is thought about the policies broadly in the sense of lumping together and trading off between tax expenditures and spending. when we think of housing policy, we often -- we -- the government often thinks of spending programs and thinks about them

over here and the mortgage interest deduction and thinks about it over here, and we don't often lay them up against each other and say, how do they interact and how do we make the tradeoff between them. >> but same thing with health policy, we have of the deduction for employer-paid health insurance and we still have them in sort of separate silos. we have the spending programs, and the tax expenditures, so i think we're doing better at identifying the tax expenditures, and measuring them, but we still -- i'm -- and partly has to do by the way, even in congress with committee jurisdictions. they're not all in the same committee jurisdictions. >> and i think those are the two really big ones, but there's a lot of smaller ones, where maybe the step will be made there. that is, if you think about you know, there was something about subsidies in the paper today, there's a regulation requiring a certain am of ethanol, -- amount of ethanol, then you get one tax provision nestor doing it. there's other things, if you think about some of the evidence indicationnal provisions for

higher education, there's both some tax provisions and some grant provisions and some loan provisions, so that even in areas, they're not as sort of dramatic an huge as housing and health, the question is, could you at least start recognizing that if you're -- when you're looking at renewing the higher education act, could you at least bring into the discussion, what are the tax and grant provisions and direct spending provisions, that sort of interact with that, because sometimes, a review some colleagues they did, it was so confusing, families weren't even making the choice, it was most to their advantage. i mean, because we don't -- there's no way to sort of either look at the tax provisions and the grant provisions together, or to explain them together. >> i agree with what you're saying, bob, but sue had mentioned national needs and i see ken kelly who even predates me at omb, an we used to do a

much better job, or omb used to do a much better job at presenting tax expenditures, mandatory programs, appropriated programs, in a section on functions in the national needs, and then that was, i think, gotten rid of, if my memory serves by darmon in 1990, that we changed that process, but your point is still valid. even if we go back to the better wave we presented the information, and tied it with performance, which we never did, you know, some kind of performance measure, still, the congress is not organized in that way and our political process is not organized to consider them for tradeoffs. >> i'd just like to add that transparency is a complicated matter. there's a young man at indiana university named neil buckwalter, who is writing a dissertation titled transparency in budgeting, a search for

clarity. and he makes it pretty clear that it's not just open access that you're looking for, but rather, to whom you're disclosing the information and the kinds of information -- the kinds of decisions that information supports, decision support, and just one final word, i hope that recovery.com won't be the template for what we mean by transparency. i have mean, i know a lot has been made about the millions of hits compared to other more informative websites run by the federal government, but you know, if you want to know why people -- why forehundred million people went to that web site, it seems to me they went there to find out how much in checks their neighbors got from the stimulus or how much their competitors did in terms of contracts. while there's, as bob points out, a limited disclosure there, of a part of the stimulus package, there's hardly anything

there that would enable you to evaluate the value of the spending and certainly there's no indication how we might pay for it. now or in the future. >> thank you, guys, very much. any questions from the audience? we've got time for about two more real quick. >> we put them to sleep. should we call on somebody? >> we can call on somebody if we'd like. >> you had, first of all, what decisions will be may have had by december 31? >> the question was, if you had a crystal ball, what decisions will be made by december 31. >> i was asked this question by a hedge fund. two months ago. and i'll tell you what i told them. i said, whatever the outcome of the election, because this was before the election, i said whatever the outcome of the

election, republicans are going to gain lots of strength. they certainly have. this will give the obama administration a rationale to compromise. they will compromise with preexpect to a one year extension of both the top and the below 250,000 tax cuts. that will be unacceptable to the republicans, they'll fight for at least a two year. and you think the republicans will win, and so sometime in the next five weeks, we will get a two-year, not longer than that, a two-year extension of the tax cuts. that will be the last budget action of any significance until 2013. nothing will happen until that. yes, we'll have to do something on the debt bill and sure, there will be appropriations passed, and maybe federal civil servants will not only have a pay freeze, but have to take a cut or

something, but there isn't the dynamics to do anything real between now and then. that doesn't mitigate the praise i gave to these commissions though, because you have to lay the groundwork for this, and in 2013, we not only will have the greeks to thank, to show us what can go wrong with things, but we'll also have the irish an by then, a few more countries too probably. >> i suspect that at least bob an i are hoping that one of the actions will be either continuing resolution or omnibus appropriations bill if we're both still still employed by the federal government. >> well, thank you very much. i'd like to thank our panelists for their insight and discussion today. [applause]

>> now an update on diplomatic efforts in the middle east. our delegation from the washington institute for near east policy, presently traveled to israel, palestine, jordan and egypt, reported on its trip during this hour and a half discussion. >> good afternoon. welcome to the washington institute. each rob satloff, the director of the institute. it's daunting to think that so many people are interested in a trip report that david, -- from a trip that david, scott, i and 47 of our closest friends took to the middle east a few days

ago, returning just a few days ago. but over the course of the next hour and a half, we're going to have a chance to discuss our observations and findings from this trip, and to discuss with you your questions about what we discovered and where we think individually and collectively, where we think u.s. interests and policy are going in the arena that we visited. just a few words of background about the trip that we took. this is the institute's 25th 25th anniversary. and -- to mark this important milestone, a broad range of trustees of the washington institute joined the three of us to travel from cairo to amman, to jerusalem and ramallah. i would first very much like to

express our gratitude to the government of egypt, jordan, israel and the palestinianan authority. all of whom bent over backwards to welcome and accommodate us throughout our trip. this was and is a very busy time in the middle east. in many different respects. and we really were treated warmly, royally, as it were, with great hospitality in every venue that we visited and we express our gratitude to the leaders and their advisers in all of those places. i would also like to especially thank the u.s. embassies and consulates. every place that we visited. they were across the board helpful and considerate with their time, with their personnel , often running

interference for us, and trying to make arrangements and confirm meetings and hosting us, and providing venues for us to meet with a broad array of political, diplomatic and cultural figures in those countries. so i'm quite grateful to the fine american diplomats that represent us in this part of the world. as i said at the outset, i traveled and led the group along with my two colleagues that are here. dead on my right, who is our ziegler distinguished fellow and director of our project on the middle east peace process, and scott carpenter on my left. scott is the director of our project ficra, being arabic or idea. project ficra, devoted to amplifying the voices of the -- we were joined by a roving band

of washington institute scholars, who happened to be in the middle east for various reasons. quite proud when we were in amman for our brief one-day visit in amman, we were joined by dina and david, who had been in amman and been if jordan as official election observers. dina with the national democratic institute, david with the international republican institute, observing jordan's parliamently elections, which was two weeks ago today. so we had the benefit of their on the ground insight in to that experience. and then in israel, we were joined by two other senior fellows of the institute, david pollack, who's doing some important public opinion polling work in the west bank, and andrew tabler, who joined us

after visiting lebanon and ended up his trip in israel and i think he went off to parts of gazar, and he did that at the tailend of the trip. now that's all by word of -- by way of background to what we did. we traveled for eight days, of course, this is not the first time either institutionally or personally, members of this group traveled, so we were well versed with the people and the sites we visited. we met with very high political figures in every site. i like to say that we met with one king, two presidents, four prime ministers, and more military than in an army-navy football game. and then we tried to spread our wings beyond officialdom, and we

created settings for us to meet with political activists, liberal activists, thinkers, writers, cultural leaders, journalists, scholars, we did this in egypt on a couple of occasions, and we had a chance to do this with palestinians, and then we had pa chance to do this quite extensively with israelis, so we tried to go beyond just the official line as it were. let me offer a series of my own brief observations, and then i'll turn to scott and then to david for their own more specific observations. about egypt and about the israeli-palestinian arena. there were of course, many surprises, i won't go into too many of those in my opening comments, you know, surprises

like the extent to which the egyptians view the situation in the sudan as being at the very top of their national security agenda. an issue that doesn't get nearly enough attention here in washington, but over the next couple of months is going to get a lot more, i'm sure. the most important impression that we came away with is the sense from both arabs and israelis, and it's, you know, important to note that the arabs we met with are arabs, arab leaders who are committed to the peace process, that are permanently on, as it were, sort of america's team in the middle east. we didn't go to damascus, we didn't go to beirut, we didn't go to other middle easterners, we weren't in tehran, we were in cairo and in raman and what is clear is these arabs and israelis are longing for clear,

bold american leadership. to confront regional threats. especial my but not solely iran. everyone, arabs and israelis, were asking the same question. where is america heading? what is america's objective? does a withdrawal from iraq mean a withdrawal from this part of the world. what is america's real goal vis-a-vis iran? is it containment por is it prevention. we get this sometimes with fingers wagging, such as the speaker of the egyptian parliament, who, you know, said 30 years ago, you americans were carelessly lost the shah and today, if you're careless again, you'll lose egypt. by the way, you may or may not be acting in this part of the world and then sometimes we gutted, with you know, in a more friendly warm embrace, such as from of the king of jordan, who

eagerly, almost plainively wanted to know where america is going in this part of the world. it was clear to arabs and israelis that sanctions were unexpectedly strong and biting against iran and they welcome that, but it was also clear that there's no sign that sanctions are having their ultimate goal. which is triggering any change or even a rethinking of iran's nuclear policy. and even short of the entire iran nuclear issue, we heard from arabs and israelis alike about the growing iranian influence and presence in this arab-israeli arena, whether it be in hamas in gaza, in lebanon,

subterrainan role in the west bank, which the iranians still want to target. even beyond the discussion of the nuclear issue. this common worry, anxiety, fear, i think dominated discussions with every leader with whom we met. secondly, we were impressed by the fact that there seems to be its foundation for real politics in this part of the world. i'm referring specifically to our visits in egypt and in jordan. in egypt, which is holding parliamentary elections later this month, we met with courageous reformers, who offered a message of liberal change. in jordan where we arrived two days after the parliamentary election, which was reasonably successful in terms of voter

turnout, this was a positive note. in jordan, especially positive, because the jordanians permitted international election observers to monitor the election. we had quite an exchange with egyptian political leaders about the importance of their agreeing to universal standards for elections, including the role of international monitors in these elections. they push back hard, they have continued to push back, if you've been following this closely in the last few days, pushed back on everything from the religious freedom report to further requests for international monitors. but beneath the official level, we were pleased and sort of emboldened by the idea that there is real politics beings beyond just what you hear in the newspapers, that there are many, many people eager to engage in real politics in these country,

and this is a positive sign, and something that we ought to be encouraging. third, when you travel in the -- if israel and the west bank, there is an eerie calm. despite the terrifying reality that israelis face of more than 100,000 different rockets and missiles, looking down at them from syria, lebanon, and gaza, and the reality that there is still considerable hamas activity in the ground -- on the ground in the west bank, there is a remarkable calm. israel is experiencing the lowest level of terrorism ever in the west bank. for all the international condemnation that israel suffered from its wars in lebanon and in gaza in 2006 and

2009, with the passage of time, it certainly appears israel succeeded in deterring hamas and hezbollah and perhaps, if and with war comes again on those front, today, the idf projects a level of confidence that it is today prepared to deliver the swift crushing blows that it either was not capable or chose not to do in those earlier conflicts. and perhaps it is that level of confidence, combined with the after-effects of those previous conflicts, which has -- one hesitates to say, cep the peace, but at least kept deterrents operating. fourth, the sense of tranquility is felt most especially in the west bank, as i said earlier. it's the result of several key factors. the security fence is operating and it works.

one can debate different aspects of it, but it clearly works. the continued idf presence, it is much less today than it has been in the past. the idf has taken sizable numbers of troops out of the west bank. but there is still an idf present in parts of the west bank. periodically the idf operates at nighttimes in various palestinian centers, less so than before, but it still performs what they consider to be important missions. thirdly, there's a remarkable improvement in the palestinian economy. i'm sure david will talk more about this. and fourthly, the development of professionally trained palestinian security forces working cooperatively with israel, in a way that even goes beyond the level of cooperation that we had in the old days. in the presecond intifada days.

these much more sober levels of cooperation. the training first under gennady ton and now under general moeller has clearly had a major impact an even at a higher level, at a political strategic level. on this point, there is clear black and white decisions that have been taken by palestinian leaders about the inviablity of violence and terrorism against israel and israeli targets and this has filtered down and this is a very positive and heartening aspect of this trip. yes, clearly obstacles remain, not the least of which is the need for peace diplomacy to catch up with on the ground progress, and i don't think

anybody on the group left with the impression that there can be an -- that there can be no linkage whatsoever between eventually between the peace diplomacy and the improvement in security. but it is important to note that this improvement in security occurred over an 18-month, two-year period in which there were zero diplomacies. we're talking about the total absence of israeli-palestinian diplomacy, for now 20 months. except for the two-week period at the beginning of september. and even with that, there's been remarkable improvement. and cooperation on the ground. so my observation here is yes, the diplomacy eventually has to catch up. but we should not underestimate

in my view the depth to which both israelis and palestinians have internalized the wisdom of maintaining security and security cooperation in the west bank. fifth, compared to all recent trips in the region, i think everyone in our group came away with a very post testify impression -- positive impression across the board on our meetings with palestinian leaders, who radiated opt member. or at the very least, did not radiate a traditional sort of complaining, demanding, what have you done for me lately sort of mood. it was much more positive in terms of self reliance, in terms of internal development, in terms of -- the entire ambience

i'm talking at the high level, the president, the prime minister, just generally, a very radiating, pa very positive, upbeat mood. it's not as though anybody signaled diplomatic concession, because there wasn't any. nobody on the palestinian side signaled diplomatic concession on any of the core issues that we'll be discussing in a moment, and so despite that, despite the fact that there are no negotiations currently underway, despite the fact that it's been 20 months since any serious engagement, you had this rather upbeat, buoyed mood. that's remarkable. this is -- this is nothing to take lightly. and i think this is -- this

suggests that the process of institution building has taken hold, that there is a lot more now that palestinians have in their line of credit, that they are proud of, that they want to build upon, and this is -- this is something that all of us thought was a very tangible plus. sixth, our trip concluded with meetings with israeli political leaders, the prime minister, the president, other members of the intercabinet, just at a moment when it appeared the united states and israeli were on the verge of resolve at least temporarily, resolving the settlement issues in a way that should clear the path for peace talks. in our meeting with the prime

minister, prime minister benjamin netanyahu, we went over the substance of this interstanding which is still not yet finalized. and you know, it was clear that his hope was that this will finally put to rest the issue that has reared its head now four times at least in the last 18 months, and prevented any diplomacy. any negotiations. he made an important distinction about how this u.s.-israel agreement is different than the previous moratorium. first, he made a point merely to say that the agreement is not finalized, that there remain important i's to dot and t's to cross, about specifically what the united states is proposing we can get into greater detail

about where the vagaries are. but he made a point to say this is not an extension of the previous moratorium, because the previous moratorium was unilateral. this moratorium, should it come to pass, is the direct result of a bilateral u.s.-israeli agreement and an inherent part of that agreement is that at the end of this moratorium, the united states will not ask for an extension of further -- an extension of moratorium. at the same time, he specifically dampened expectations that during the 90 days envisioned for this moratorium, anybody should expect, you know, his thor i can break-through -- historic break-through, that suddenly an agreement on borders, an agreement on territory, an agreement on security, is going to emerge during this 90 days. he underscored his view, which is there's a lot of groundwork that needs to be done on the

security issue, which would be israel's first order of priority in reengaging with the palestinians, and that it would be a mistake to believe that before day 91 arrives, there will be an historic break-through on these issues. it is, i assume, it is the belief that enough progress can be made to keep the parties engaged at the table. and that the light at the end of the tunnel will be bright enough that it will be maintain their commitment to these negotiations. but he was very clear in trying to lower expectations about what is possible. on balance, and with this, i

will conclude my remarks. and turn this over to my colleagues. overall, on the -- you know, there are some very positive trends. trends which deserve greater attention here in washington, and trends that deserve greater support and nurturing. the dominant message however, remains -- come back to washington and please ask your leadership, where are they going. we are -- we are to a great extent, dependent variables, they all said, dependent on american leadership. and while the middle east has been a high priority issue, for your administration, arabs and israelis say to us, from the

very beginning, and while your president has made very important speeches and statements, we still do not know on fundamental issues of war, and peace, of security and stability, we still are not clear about where your government is going. and so that is the message we'll be bringing back to our leaders here in washington. scott? >> [applause] >> thank you, rob. i'd like to welcome you all again. thank you for being here. it was a great privilege to travel with both rob and david. their experience in the region is much longer than mine, and so, i too learned a great deal from them. and you get to learn a lot about people when you travel with them. i have to say, their abilities to be on 24/7 over very long period of time was. press i have. -- was impressive.

i have wanted to start out by just sharing a couple of tidbits from my rationales and thinking about why it was that we visited cairo first in this trip, because we did choose to go to cairo first. and i think that -- that the rationale there was obviously that egypt, as the most populace nation in the region, as the most populace in terms of -- and growing population, the challenges it faces in terms of its economy, the role that it has played in the middle east peace process historically, it was the best place to start giving our 25th anniversary and the commemoration really of the celebrated peace between israel and egypt. so we knew we were going first. we didn't know in what context exactly what we were going to arrive in egypt.

we had been planning this trip for a very long time and the dates kept shifting around as you would expect they would trying to conform to everyone's schedules and so we arrive in egypt right after our elections. :

>> the one quick take away that i will start with is that the countries we visited, and my impression, was that the egyptian leadership is the least confident. it projected the least confidence in itself, both at a level of participation in foreign affairs, but also domestically. officially they seemed intent on conveying a sense of normalcy and stability, in all of our meetings. but by what they fail to touch on, or what they fail to discuss their presentations instead projected, in my view, a weakness and lack of confidence. i think this is centered fundamentally on the degree to which all of egypt is focused on this transition period, that is coming up.

there is, in my view, a level of attention and concern related to the transition of egypt on the part of official egypt that is creating an insularity and worry about how to affect us. after all, it is going to be the first transition in 30 some years in this country, and there's a great deal of lack of certainty as to how things are going to work out. and so that is the context that we arrived. and what we want to talk about is, we wanted to hear from them about what egypt was going, of course. we also wanted to get their impressions on the obama peace process and the initiatives that this administration was taking. but mostly, we wanted to get a sense of what egypt was going, what's going on in the economic sphere, was going on in the

political sphere, where the aspiration of the government and where do they hope to take it. and instead, we really heard almost exclusively about the peace process. so i just want to talk about two things. what is this new impression that i had that there is a weakness in terms of their ability to project in foreign affairs, and secondly, about the insecurity that i thought that they are feeling at home, and clearly demonstrating at home. as rob touched on, we met with, we met with parliamentary folks, speakers of parliament. we met with people in the ministry of foreign affairs. we met with representatives from all of the other institutions within the egyptian elite. we met with egyptian businesspeople. we were hosted for dinners where we are able to talk with lots of crosscutting folks, but mostly from within the egyptian elite.

and they we did meet with some liberal reformers. i'll touch on that in a second. but the most impressive thing for me, one key indicator, we met with speaker of the parlor. we didn't only meet with the speaker of parliament. we met with four or five committee chair is a various committees in the parliament, including the education committee chair, investment committee chair, privatization, a number of others. and hear your meeting with the people of assembly on the eve of an election. and we could not talk at all about anything related to domestic affairs. it was all about the peace process. and not only that, but as rob was saying about the american lack of leadership, generally,

this notion that somehow the united states was contributing to the marginalization of egypt in the region, in particular this sense that we had in our policy contributed to the rise of iran. and what was interesting there was, i was thinking it would be the normal rhetoric about, you know, you took down saddam hussein, it was a rival. know, we told the shot to leave -- the shot to the. going well well back into history, the rise of iran was our responsibility for telling the train want to leave it as rob noted, the implicit take away from that was that we had better be careful that we not lose egypt in the same way.

so on the peace process, what's interesting to me as a take away, was that the leadership in egypt, again, seemed to lack a bit of creativity and dynamism on this issue. there was this, when we met with the ministry of foreign affairs, and explicit statement that, look, if there weren't progress they were going to pursue the arab league initiative which would be to help the palestinians go to the security council to seek recognition from the security council. that didn't work in the u.s. they use their veto. they would go to the general assembly and ask for recognition there. at knowing full well that this which is create a great deal of embarrassment for the administration wouldn't get anywhere at all, so a fulsome defense of this approach in public and then in an immediate process in private, which struck

me again as an example of where the leadership and creativity of egypt was lacking. a sense that because the president in that very few seem to be week after the elections here, that somehow they could pressure the obama administration to really twist netanyahu's arms and do more on the settlement issues. again, while fully recognizing that that was probably not going to happen. sudan, another example. so on the one hand, the united states is powerless, we're not doing anything. but then on sudan, please, sudan is a paramount concern to egypt, of the united states should, must intervene to stop the

referendum from taking place there. so on the one hand, this notion that the united states was powerless and absent, but in the case of sudan, asking that the united states intervened specifically to do something about the growing problem, not in the north but in the south, from their perspective. so on the hole in the area of foreign affairs, i sensed that egyptian establishment was looking to lay the blame for egyptian marginalization at washington's doorstep. the other thing that was striking to me in our meetings with officials of egypt was, even in our quiet time with various elites, you could not have any conversation about domestic issues. whether it was labor unrest, whether it was -- even selection

process, no one wanted to talk about any of these quote unquote sensitive issues. this was a large departure from previous trips that i've made to egypt where, whatever, you could talk about anything at any time with anyone. but there was a great deal of circumspection. and again, i attribute this to a great deal of concern about how the transition is going to unfold at home. so what about this insecurity at home? in all of our discussions when we tried to talk about domestic issues, we would return again to the peace process. it was used, in my view, as a way to deflect from any serious discussions of domestic developments. and as i mentioned, it proved nearly impossible to get anything on this issue. in fact, that dinner that i personally attended was organized specifically so that we would only talk about the peace process, which was

educational, but having set out to learn more about egypt proved a bit of a disappointment. again, in a meeting with the parliament, i was most struck by the person who spoke the longest on the issue of the peace process, was actually one of the chairman of the investment committees of the assembly. and given the fact that our delegation consisted largely of new york investment bankers and venture capitalists, it seemed to me to be a bit of a missed opportunity. but again, just wanting to not get into issues related to the electoral process or what was happening in egypt. to his credit, rob tried to get the speaker to talk a bit about domestic observers, but that discussion was stiff armed,

unfortunately. thankfully, we were able to meet with a good many members of egyptian civil society and a number of political activists, young people, who expressed a couple of different sentiments. one was, the national democratic party was doing in the elections was its own affair. there was clearly a sense that the real political competition was happening there, and not within broader egyptian societies. they were trying, they said, to take advantage of the space that they had to be able to advance some critical ideas, and that they wanted to observe the process in order to make it better. but they were not helpful of their ability to do even that. we also heard interestingly come

and this was the only thing in which government and civil society seem to agree, was that american leadership was not particularly evident in an area that they had seen it before, which was on this whole question and dialogue with the egyptians on where they were going in terms of political domestic reform. but another message that was clear is, and i took away as being positive, was that egyptian civil society is not looking to the united states to lead it in anyway. that they are saying, look, whether you're here or not, we were worried about the future of our country and we need to do what we can to change things. which again, i think it is something that in our own ways we should seek to nurture. so, my overall impression, in closing, was that officially

egypt is completely and entirely focused that it worried about how to ensure the first political transition within 30 years which seems to be just around the corner, and maybe even closer than that. in the meantime, a restless population is looking for change, expectations are rising him and the ability to deliver services is not keeping pace. everyone that we talked to, official and unofficial, seem to be holding their breath. and that is not a recipe for confidence in international affairs. so i think without a successful resolution of these in to the limits that are facing egypt, its ability to be a creative energetic partner of the united states will be sharply limited in any endeavor that we choose to partner with egypt on in the

coming months and years ahead. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, rob and scott. and i like to travel with both of you. and also want to thank laura in the back of the room, who really was i think the guiding spirit in bringing this trip forward with fruition. and without her and her team and development department, you know, we couldn't have done it. so i want to thank her and -- [applause] >> and my colleague. look, i -- either with what rob said, i'm sure rob also will toggle that about jordan and more the clintonian player talk we got from the king which was very upbeat. to become am going to focus on the israeli-palestinian issue.

rob mentioned some of the people we met. president abbas was very gracious to do a lot to do. prime minister fight out. we had the leaders of the palestinian security services. i asked to do a joint briefing for the group and he graciously agreed. also on the israeli side, prime minister netanyahu, defense minister barak, perez, leader of the opposition, cabinet minister, leaders of the idf, and the security establishment. and we tried to meet with people who were not officials as rob pointed out. so i'd like to just say my main impression. i would like him if i can, to talk about two main themes, they say a word at the end of the different points. but one is the kind of the ground cooperation. and i like to give people, i like to give david. i like to feel when they come

with america have some hard facts. so hope i don't so too many numbers at you, but i'd like to talk although that about what's going on on the ground and also within 90 days, that's an issue that is very much on people's minds, and came up serving as rob pointed out with a meeting with prime minister netanyahu. i see it driven, yeah, the efforts on the ground by a few factors. one is clearly a interest between israel and the palestinian authority when it comes to hamas, and limiting them from acting in the west bank. right when we were even sitting there, one of the security chiefs got a threat, got a call, from a bomb factory in 10 people were arrested. it was a for benefit because i checked it on the israeli side and he said no, they are true. they agree. on the p.a. side, they are fantastic. so i think there is an overarching convergence of interest. one is i think clearly what i

would call the culture of accountability, which is kind of the driving theme of prime minister five-yard. and which gives the support that i'm going to say of president obama. at a third part is it's part of a state-building exercise for the palestinians and, therefore, you can't really speak of bottom up without a top down approach. as for the security chief said, you know, we're doing this because we see it, we're building for state. that it is security because of security. we couldn't do that. so i think that there are a few elements year. and now a defense on your point of view that those who say of people do things for reasons of self-interest, that makes it somehow tactical. if you are on the israeli side, but i think that is very much the minority opinion. i think the majority of its people to think of self-interest more likely they'll be sustainable over time. no one thinks that israel and the government will build a two-state solution just because it wants to be altruistic for

the palestinians. clearly, israel sees the demographics, the threat of radicalization come as something that is an interest, too, that it wants to avert that. so i saw very much a positive light. i would just like you very quickly, take it off a bullet point where i saw in terms of service, economics, security. on the services i think what we're seeing the signs of state-building, 1700 new prospects have been completed, implemented. each one of them were over $280,000 each. 120 new schools have been built in the west bank. why is this important? americans have a hard time with this because we don't know this idf double shift. this is a big issue for palestinians where their kids only stood half a day because they have to use the building twice. kids in the morning and kids in the afternoon. with 120 new schools there's no more double shifts and kids care -- kids there can have a full day of school. 50 new health facilities, three

new hospitals, 1700 kilometers of roads paved, courts that have sharply increased the workload, which i think, i see you of peace here has worked on these issues together draw down the backlog and yet if you're confident, you can imagine more civil cases coming, too. so a big focus on the court. 15% tax revenue collection has gone up to 50% increase at the time of a recession. it says something that institutions are starting to work. on economics, a drop in dependency to foreign aid. p.a. budgetary support in 2008 was $1.8 billion afford a. that means 1.8 billion went right into the budgetary support, not for development or anything, right into the budget. of course, that infrastructure. but that was 2008.

this year it is 1.2 billion. and next to the projection is a billion. they bravely say they will face a foreign aid by 2013 that i don't think they will be facing these things out so fast. but they think this is a case they can make so i was even a republican congress that they have acted responsibly. poverty, decreased by a third to three years that unemployment is trending down in the west bank. gmp gnp, i said this in past talks, eight to 9% growth according to the imf at the time of global recession. what does it mean of security? they say 73% of palestinians say that security services work for the palestinian people. their graduation exercises even attended widely by family. this is something that has got more and more buy-in from the public, 63% say they feel secure in their own town. according to the idf commander in 2007, took us around the west bank, there were 700 shooting

incidents in 2007. in 2009, it was down to 19. and he thought this year the number was even lower although there was that fateful killing of four on the eve of the peace talks starting. and the most important to me is the cooperation, a constant, not methodic. thanks to the u.s. funding of palestinians security services, 3600 people, actually the training is done by jordanians, it should be pointed out in the hmong area, 3600 have been trained in the dayton program, or lower program, if you want to call it that. there's not been one case of any of those 36 and people using firearms against israelis, or even lifting a stereo or any corruption issues. and i think that's important. all the names have been in bed with both sides. 300,000 i know matt has done a lot on this. they have been closed down under

hamas, have been reopened under a non-hamas management. user before, i do want to go at length, a hamas initiative which has meant that preachers who are agitating for suicide bombs have been removed from ask. this is i think had a huge impact and there's an effort to start reforming the sharia colleges where they trained. so this is an important mosque initiative. it doesn't get much media attention you but i think it's worth most important projects going on. israelis, because of the security cooperation, hasn't able to cut its number of battalions in the west bank from a few years ago was a 43. i think now it is at 21. just in the last few years. the last israeli personnel is devoted to the west bank because they are in cooperation to israel's has cut checkpoints. israel has reduced as rob pointed out, thousands of cores would like to get the numbers 20. because of this cooperation, and

so there statistics on average 24 hour period that there were 12, now it's down to 3.6. of course, the palestinians want at zero. israelis we ask them will say, we share all our intel as much as we can, there's some they can't share and that's why they feel they have to go in certain points. and i'm gaza, when i thought when we asked the leadership that you about hamas in gaza, i felt it was a very emphatic duke of what they called the security doctrine, of no security pro was him. no malicious. you know, there's some elements of the quartet conditions which they might feel more willing to cover lives on, but that one was certainly not. and rob is right that the wars in israel. in 2006, 2009 has may be deterred imams and hamas are fine. i don't see it has deterred in it as arming themselves. and it will be hard to tell

going forward, that you look at it going back. now, that's just kind of on the ground. where are we now in the 90 day issue? i know this is a very knowledgeable audience that follows the news carefully. looking we say we know? i think in the middle of last week the parties finalized the text or a letter coming from u.s. there were four parts, points in this text that i think some were pretty minor points that have been worked out. and now it's waiting in american signature ending the security cabinet's approval. but there's some issues not in the text that could kind of cast a shadow on the fact that i think if they're not done quickly, could kind of lead things i fear to unravel. what are those non-textual items

that israel would like? and netanyahu i think from my understanding, and i've had this confirmed by, you know, this morning just to people, i think it's clear that he made, gave secretary hillary clinton a verbal assurance that during the 90 days they would be meaningful progress on the territorial issues. now, what's new here is a little bit that security issue is now going to be kind of, kind of, i don't know what the best word is, but it would be dealt with peril between the u.s. an issue. i don't think the u.s. would negotiate anything with the israelis at the palestinians cannot accept, but i think you'll be a parallel set of agreements. i think that prime minister netanyahu is very emphatic how important the security dimension was in the u.s.-israel relationship, as you can imagine that no surprises there. but i think the u.s. has a clear

verbal commitment of netanyahu that there will be progress. as rob pointed out, and as i said, others of you, i don't think anyone believes in 90 days. no one believes in 90 days you can solve the territorial issue even though these issues have been out there, but i think there's a commitment on meaningful progress. why? because i think the united states believed, the administration believes that without, that is progress is critical for looking at the settlement issue differently. rob called it a light at the end of the tunnel will shine bright. and i think that's actor. i think that's where the administration thinks of the, they can convey to them, the palestinians what they believe where netanyahu is that, that they believe a settlement issue will look different, and, therefore, they won't be asking for another extension. so what are these non-textual issues that you could say are related to the text?

one is to clearly to secure an extension, a vote of some type. so to keep the two from joining the six, it would be defeated eight-seven, but rather past seven to two. been conveyed in the last 10 days a desire to what i would call ramp up housing in east jerusalem. the east jerusalem is not a textual issue in the sense that don't have to be mentioned, just in terms of the moratorium are like the last moratorium in which eastern jerusalem is excluded no one is arguing about the text. there are doing is that parallel to the text that they try to wrap it up. second issue is that u.s., you know, our system the united states administration can only recommend to congress about these f-35 planes. it cannot mandate it, and, you

know, netanyahu understands how the congressional system works here. but clearly he would like some sort of hedging that if it didn't work, that, i don't know if his equipment airplanes, equal the amount of money for those planes, would come from somewhere else in the budget. i assume that part is not exactly clear, but that they would be kind of a fallback, fallback understanding i should say on this so he can present to his cabinet that hell or high water he has got those planes. the third element is, is that they, you know, they've been hearing reports of israel that netanyahu is not as much focusing on the security and territorial issue at some of his comments that they don't see it as walking it back. and i think here it's very hard for washington audience to understand this, so i myself thought i needed need to drill down to understand what exactly was the concern. israel believes that its main

asset is its border, is its territorial assets. that's what its chips are highest, so to speak. so clearly, if folks, will those chips be useful on a jerusalem and refugees? so, therefore, you're hearing netanyahu talk about progress on all fronts in which everyone wants progress on all fronts. everybody in this room was progress on all fronts. the question is what is doable on all fronts in 90 days. and that's where you get into some people within the coalition trying to get him not to use that phrase. now, is this a semantic point or it does this go beyond semantics? if it's a magic did ministers will live with. if not then they're backing off the verbal commitment made to secretary clinton and is different. so those are the issues i think. people say david, you wrote about this, and i don't see the part about the jordan valley in this round, but does that mean that issue is gone, it's off the

table? i personally think it will come up again. that's my own private view. it will come up in the security talk but this was the one issued the palestinians were concerned about. nothing in the first round said that israeli troops would be based in jordan, ballet perpetuity. it said that transitional arrangement there in the jordan valley would be more. no more mention of truth but you could try to read between the lines. so how does he play this politically? i think the paper say that 14 of the 27 member faction a signed -- have signed a petition against the 90 days. i think we have come up with 10 names that we see have signed on the petition, but whether it is 10 of 14, out of 27. so what does he do? and i think they efforts on the ground could escalate. with a sign of the times that the settlers didn't believe that

omar couldn't reach an agreement and it didn't bother demonstrating against them. in 2008, although i must say his speech to the group brought a standing ovation and he could has a future as a public speaker. but who knows in israel, they tend to come back. so i would not rule that out. but opposition could escalate that as some believe they started the gaza disengagement julie. and you could see a situation that was in 90 days that that sort of ground demonstration will percolate in a way we haven't seen for several years. so what does netanyahu do? at least tactically he's done something that is useful for him. which is that he has called for a round of talks a bunch of times. and what is done, at least nearly on a tactical level, it has kept the more recalcitrant elements of the coalition in line. there's no threat that sometimes the news over there is not what happens.

it's what doesn't have. i remember being a journalist way back, and for me that was one of the biggest things, to find out what didn't happen. what didn't happen is he is not threatening to quit the government. i think he knows. there's no threat against netanyahu this way, but you did say its 90 days against the territorial conversation, could that materialize. anything could happen. can't netanyahu tried to square that away in the 90 days? you know, juggling both united states and israel. you might say i'm not going to unfurl a map but maybe i could have a conceptual understanding without the idea that israel will be defined by law. that would be huge move because, frankly, it would tell people that, you know, the contours of the deal, which is in a witch's

that. so how netanyahu juggles deny state and coalition is something we will see. assuming they can work this out. my conversations with her and conversations with the group, are clear that she has been offered something, or there's been hints an f. for her passionate hints enough for her, sort of a fifth wheel. in other words, i have existing coalition, if you want to join, find. her, to our group is where all businesspeople on this washington a trip, and then you, by minority shares of the government could really impact the management. so what she wants is not to attack and see what goes, but to have an understanding with the driver about a common destination and how to get there. so that we will have to see, but that's going to be interesting. one last point i would say, two final points, and with that, i will end. i will end on a more, to point a

little provocative. i thought on the iran issue, and i agree with rob that, you do, they'll will always be the number one issue. but i sent this term you presented it on previous trips, redundancy, that the iranians seem to be sacrificing speed in their program for spreading it out more around the country. is it because of this famous worm that people keep talking about, no one will talk to you about that. are those who did try to ask didn't get much of an answer, except smiles. but include the issue of cyberwar was big. we are told 80% of cyberwar is about defense, and this is something that you can play this game and israel is very focused on. but clear with the u.s. on iran is crucial. but i'd didn't sense the same sense of urgency, i think like rob said as well, which is that sanctions are working and

they're all very puzzling surprised that no one yet sees a decisive. the final point i would just focus here is a little bit of a provocative way to end, for the discussion, which was just in terms of israel's role with a new republican congress. which i felt that the new we haven't reached all the course of the middle east where we were. it was really people asking us those questions. we didn't raise it. sometimes quietly, and just to be provocative an and you thinki am on drugs, but i tend to think that what could happen is that netanyahu may emerge as the lobbyist for the area. and the new republican congress. that he will come at a time that they want to cut fight out, cut egypt, cut jordan, cut issue, that he may emerge as someone who will try to work with republicans, met with majority leader cantor, and meet with

whoever is the majority. no, but he met with him very early right after that victory when he was in new york. and he may say, you know, let's be careful before cutting all these arab countries. and he might have this as a new chip and the peace process negotiating context, that he didn't have before. you could say it's other people's money, it's easier for him to do it. what i think he might do it. whether you could take any formidable not be decisive, but netanyahu is due to someone -- that to me was an idea that a kind of bounced around with people when i was over there. i didn't feel the fullness of our midterm elections really permeated. but i just think that's a little peace to end on, and i welcome your questions. thank you all very much. [applause] >> friends, open the floor for questions and comments. san and barbara.

>> use the microphone in the middle, press the button, identify yourself, speak clearly for the millions who will be watching us on c-span. >> i must say those are all very good -- i'm seamless your i thought those are all -- i'm sam lewis. thing to for a conference of look at a situation. rob, i would like to pick you up on something you said about the general feeling of calm on both sides. did you get any discussions about how long that calm could be expected, continue, without real progress on the peace front? >> yeah, this was a common

discussion. we had it with israelis at the political level and the military level. and we had it with palestinians at both the political level and the military level. nobody would offer how many months, how many weeks. so i think i tried to relate the general consensus that nobody suggested that these two trends were totally independent of each other. and that there is some linkage out there, and it is not necessarily august 2011 when the prime minister fayyad has indicated that has to be some palestinian declaration, which he has now said, well, you know, we will do with the situation as it is. we are not going to be rigid about these sorts of things.

no one gave a date. the most positive assessment is the one i gave you, which is it is quite remarkable that this has been achieved in a period when there was zero diplomatic engagement. and so the argument that you need diplomacy even to get this started is not true. at the same time it is a falsehood, and i accept this, it is a falsehood to assume that it can go, open-ended. especially if the perception is that whatever narrow door might be open will be slammed shut. what does that mean in terms of timetables? it means that we sort of have a great of time in front of us when the parties can engage diplomatically without fear that at any given day this will collapse. that certainly is the case. will it take us to the end of

this presidential administration? i can't give you a more specific timeframe than that. there's a time out there, we don't know when. it will be a function of the perception of the possibility of diplomatic engagement. they clearly haven't reached that low point now, even though one could argue they may have had good reason to reach a point of, assuming that there is no diplomatic progress, but they haven't reached it. so there's clearly a long way for them to go. and so, that is a hopeful assessment that i come away with. >> barbara? >> david, do you. you're a seasoned observer of particularly israeli politics. do you think that netanyahu actually has a map in his pocket that he's going to be willing to put down in the next 90 days? and on the understanding with

u.s., is there any, any sense that what the israelis are looking for is some kind of security treaty that would actually be formalized perhaps approved by the senate? thanks. >> good questions, barbara. look, i don't know if he has a map in his pocket. i mean, i think you have to look at where the settlement blocs are, which is i think anyway you cannot get, at most around 8% of the land. you know, it roughly converges, although not exactly, with the israeli security very are, where 92% is on the other side. there are certain parts of the block where the fence is not finished. i can get into this for hours, but i won't do that. so i think, you know, just to assume -- i've looked into voting records like where do the people vote, and the bloc settlers have voted for netanyahu to to one. anyone who lives in a settlement

outside of the block, outside the barrier, they vote against him. they think he is a hopeless liberal, netanyahu, and they just can't deal with them. so they vote for a party called the national union party you want to drill down i could do it with you on my report. i get everything on their vote. so i mean, basically i think most people would say if he could get the block, he could get 80% of settlers. but the remaining 20% are scattered all over. so then the question will be, which block, with a fight of our universe we can get over that, get into the weeds, but i think it is too soon to know. i don't know if he knows, right? he may try, unicode he doesn't know. but i think that he may have a problem when she opens a map, that could become like a code word for the senate opposition now. he has gone too far. they are looking for a certain red line. it makes me be the best hopes

frankly of this process will be to have like a back channel that would enable them to actually make a lot of progress without a lot of visibility. i tend to believe him come and when he told president obama and what he is told king abdullah, and he barely told others, that he sees a changing region of radicalization. he doesn't want the moderates to be discredited. he is concerned about the demographics. he thinks the clock is not necessarily taking for israel. but he, at the same time, tells people within his coalition that the palestinians will probably blow it again like they have blown it in the past. so whether he conveys some of what he conveys to some it is strategic, even if you say that he really believes deeply in this objective, and a lot of people believe him, including arabs, okay, the point is you need to have a strategy to get to the objective. and my concern is that he has

what i call a one decision point decision-makers style, which is he wants to expose someone, he wants to preserve all his political capital until that final moment, 12 months from now, that he can say i've got a piece of paper, and he could fracture the right. but he fears lieberman will eat his breakfast and lunch and dinner, and that as he fractures too soon, and a lot of the right will go with them. and he is traumatized by the wide river agreement of 1998, where he felt the right advantage him, and the centerleft didn't pick up the slack. and he lost power. and so his one decision point decision-making is, don't decide yet, wait until you have the package and then he can decide. i think that either are destroyed strong back channel. you could say it argues for a summit, some of the a very high risk proposition. we have learned in the middle east. or it's the paradox is that it

actually creates the very center he doesn't want, which is an american peace plan. because if you say, give me one piece of paper so i give myself one, make one big decision and some of this year i've got a piece of paper for you, mr. prime minister, and i think that's what he doesn't want. even though it won't be presented, that's what he will feel it will be proceed. that doesn't mean he can't cut the proposal at a certain point but you of heard me, bridge over river, not over an ocean. so i think he's got to make some big, this is a victory. these talks start in earnest. he's at a crossroads, and he will be interesting to see which way it goes for him. your second point about the security treaty is interesting but because there's a kind of a zionist adco of self-reliance. traditionally which is to say israel want to sign the treaty can and will be able to make the decision. but others say that will be a

hop skip and jump to kind of it extended deterrence policy which you can deal with iran with a bomb because you have a security treaty. so some see that as defeatism somehow. others will say no, not necessarily, they could all work together and there are people i think that would support a security treaty. i don't think we're there yet, but i think you ask a very interesting question. once those talks get going i think the very interesting question, rob has also upped on this, but i think this issue could reemerge. >> just on this last point. i do think that as we see him engagement, we very may well see more u.s.-israeli discussions on an entire range of talks, that one way to get around decision point question is the old idea of deposits with the united

states, which are not necessarily deposits to the other side in negotiating positions you have to put on table. but ways that you can clarify your position in confidence. and it is important to note that despite israel's well-earned reputation for leaking, the conversations between the president and the prime minister have been extremely close old. and have been very well kept between them. and so that is, you know, whatever lessons of disagreement there may be between the two leadership's, they have kept their level of confidence on the types of conversations they'll have with each other. very well over their entire relationship.

yes, sir. >> thank you for that here scott, i'm interested in your conversations with egyptian entertaining civil society activists. how and in what way has the iranian democracy movement, is that on the radar at all? has impacted the way they're working in their countries? and the same thing for officials he spoke about in egypt and jordan, is that entering their calculus at all about how possibly to do with iran? >> in short, no. i did not see that there was any positive interrelation one way or the other with the green movement or would have been seen by either the government or civil society movements. i do think that there is more of a sense with, within, for instance, central egypt that we are not going to let a green movement emerge and have that scope. but, of course, there's much

more, there's still more space in many respects in egypt than there was before, including in, still on the internet, the ability to organize some levels. there are some still outlets of independent media, however circumscribed, that do exist. so it's not, as rob noted, i mean, there is something there, but i don't think that what's happening in iran is at all playing in the domestic political debates in either country. >> thank you. in your conversations with arab leaders, did you get a sense of what specific expectations they have about u.s. leadership? if you consider the decision of the previous administration, the

bush administration, that it wasn't engaging, this administration has done a bit, fair share of engagement with syria, with other countries, so forth. >> look, first of all, if you're looking for consistency you're in the wrong business. so for example, on iraq, regardless of what people thought about the invasion of 2003, everyone was concerned about what the message of them america's withdrawal from iraq is meant to signal. does this mean that america is decreasing its assets in the persian gulf? does this mean america's decreasing its assets, these are the iran? does it mean that america is decreasing its ability to ensure stability and security in iraq, and thereby give iran greater opportunities to spread its influence?

we heard that across the board. we heard, you know, especially from egyptians, you know, the cairo speech was excellent, but where was the implementation? where was anything that followed it? we heard a great amount of concern about lebanon, about the prospect that it could be, you know, hezbollah could force the government to resign, and perhaps even formalized a hezbollah takeover of the lebanese government. where is the united states? this is a government that you support, a government that you help, whose election you helped bring about. where's the united states preventing this? you know, if you're sitting in a

mine, for example, the region is among in a very positive direction. on the east you see the iranian influence in iraq has grown considerably. under see this trend have escaped the isolation strategy of previous years. and that country is in and outside the region and now making their pilgrimages to damascus. using hezbollah being more and more active. and you don't see and israeli-palestinian peace to validate your own commitment to this. so egypt has its own questions about american leadership. jordan has its own fears and worries. they're not exactly the same, but there is a commonality purpose here, which is for better or for worse, this is our team. this is our team in the middle east. moderate sunni, arabs, israel, this is our team. and our team is wondered where the captain is going.

>> yes, please. >> david, i was interesting of what you said about the x. -- the efforts to tap them because i do report, have reported about those efforts, and this is a very good question that if you get mainstream, still complaining about inside me but i have to report that, too, and reported that they haven't made efforts. the washington institute is an organization that has huge influence in the world that i cover, and that we both live in. are you going to try to get that message out? >> i speak across the country i will be in los angeles next week. i say that everywhere i go. i mean, i said was eyed east coast, west coast that i see the same thing, and i do think there are issues that i do want to say there are no issues out there. i just take, i mean, i will give

you an example. i thought there was some report, i have a minute to verify it, p.a. group saying that the western wall is no connection. you don't exactly when friends and influence people by delegitimizing somebodies holy site. i mean, it was outrageous. so i have issues, too. and i think naming a martyr after some square, like where i think, you know, i think that there's, you know, martyr an old terrorist. you know, i think you could say the town council or someone saw in ramallah. i do think these are issues people need to be vigilant about, but what i would respectfully differ with others is that i think is one metric. but i think there's 30 metrics we've got to look at. to give us a better picture, and if we only look at one metric, then i think we're missing a lot of the good news that's going on. so i think you can talk about a

lot of the goodies while saying this metric of the schoolbooks, i mean, he said we now have a law saying no violence against israelis, or anybody is permitted. and their hope is they reconvene the committee because he said we have our list, you know. so that comes across as a bureaucratic answer. but i think this is an important question because people tend to focus on simple lessons more than a focus on the substance. i will still go across the country is a will will say there was a photographer at a meeting between president obama and netanyahu in march, and i get more attention than 100 memos we were right at the washington institute for certain people. it doesn't matter. so symbolism is important. and we should be blind to that and we should focus on it, but we should pretend it's the only

major. that's my point that i think is right to focus on these issues. so i see them in a broad context, and i've written about hamas issue in the "washington post," op-ed pages, and i, you know, i'm going to keep speaking out across the country and give the assessment i can. here's our progress in his the area where more progress is needed. >> i think that's exactly right. this is an evolutionary process. ride that we heard some very positive reports, changes in mosques supervision and imams sermonizing, we didn't get into our buses and drive down the boulevard in central ramallah. both of these things occur at the same time. and we need to identify what needs to be improved and we need to recognize and praise the progress that is achieved. and it's not black and white, and that's precisely why you

need analytical work on these issues. and stay away from hysteria, or who is the opposite of history of? whitewashing. yes? big over here and it will come over here. [inaudible] you have to press the button. [inaudible] you have to press the button. there you go. >> what about the rule of the muslim brotherhood in egypt? >> well, what was striking to me and has been striking to me over the course of this political season is that the government, even well before the elections, has been cracking down very, very heavily on the muslim brotherhood. i mean, within the election season alone, i think the number is over 1200 arrests at the local level and provincial level

of any activists. they discard a number of muslim brotherhood candidates, et cetera. so in terms of the muslim brotherhood as a political threat to the regime, it is small again i think one of the intents of these elections is for the government to be able to show that the success, quote unquote, that the muslim brotherhood had in 2005 when it won 88 seats, that the public support for the muslim brotherhood has dropped significantly in these elections where it will get only a handful of seats. so i think that is one of the narratives that will come out from these elections. we had a session here yesterday where we focused specifically on egypt and the elections, and the combined wisdom of the panelists here in answer to the question was that the muslim brotherhood voters are perhaps the most hard

core. they are the ones who strive the hardest to get to the polls, to have some impact. the vast majority of egyptians are the mobilize, depoliticize, and apathetic. and if you look at the 2005 election, and you conclude that the muslim brotherhood did reach its peak in its ability to produce results, it only succeeded in getting less than 20% of the seats in the egyptian parliament. so i think there are two things that will likely flow from the elections. one is to be able to say the muslim brotherhood is well at hand, which will then create the challenge for the government to explain, well then, what is it that you can't allow other liberal and other voices to emerge in competition with the national democratic party. but the muslim brotherhood for now, does not seem to be a political threat to the egyptian

regime. >> might, and then over here. >> you just turned it off. >> this question is many for scott. scott, was there a big discussion of gaza, egyptian approach to gaza when you with there? and for david, e.g. will meet with people with shaws or lieberman group, how wide a spectrum to jimmy with? >> go ahead and ask your question. >> thanks. i am with peace now. my question to david, what is your reading of why it is that netanyahu is not taking the initiative and leaning towards peace? he is speaking about, you are impressed that he is serious,

why doesn't he actually at on an act seriously? >> okay, scott? >> well, i will leave my college to correct me on this if i'm wrong, but now that i think about it, in all of our meetings with official egypt, i don't remember gaza featuring particularly heavily in the discussions, or hamas, who was much more focus on the united states could do to get the palestinians, israelis back to the table. so i don't remember anything specifically on efforts to do more on the tunnels, or to promote palestinian reconciliation between the palestinian authority and hamas, or any serious discussion of gaza in particular, do you? >> it might've been in the third

hour. [laughter] >> yeah, that was a highlight, watching an egyptian diplomat at the height of his power to produce sleep. [laughter] >> we want to be clear we are grateful for the time. [laughter] >> some people wanted a diplomatic waterboarding eric that a different matter. anyway, okay, no, we didn't need them. on a previous trip i met with lieberman, i tend to talk to the people in hebrew. not too many of them speaking which and we're just very touched for time so we didn't need them. but i will continue to do so they are on the acting for peace question, it's a very fair osha in terms of meeting a public climate i would say. you know, like i said, netanyahu i think is, it seems to me he,

he agrees on the objective, but you also need to stress he gets the objective that it could be the 90 day approach, was going to help him with his coalition and avoid any sort of head-on collision between his coalition and the united states. and he knows politics. i just hope, frankly, on both sides, netanyahu and abbas that there is more of a conditioning of the vital landscape. i feel that is really missing. and, you know, i feel that this is, you know, i have a lengthy back and forth with resident abbas on the jewish state issue. i said i met you many times, and i know your answers before you're going to say them. but you should know when you don't give a justification of why on this issue, in my view, the right wing in israel fills

in the blanks for you. and they will go and interpret your lack of a rationale why you won't do it. and, meaning that you don't think they have right. you might say it because it's got to be worded in a way, you know, they should stay with the jews, equal rights for all its citizens are not discriminate. or that you can't get this on idle status issues so it's not a back way to do with the refugee issue. issue. are you mice is a bargaining chip that has to come from the end. all those are things people can relate to and fix, but when you don't give any reason, then the people who came are only the right wing people in america and the right wing people in israel, who interpreted. and your silence, frankly, i said to, i think doesn't surge well. and i think that's something he needs to fix in these 90 days, to start coming up with more, you know, even talk about that these are historical claims, legitimate claims on both sides.

there some way to get at people's ask. netanyahu also has to create a public climate also and get people to believe this is a historic effort. he's afraid i think he will unleash forces that can undermine his coalition, but there has to be a way to get people to do what i think he is capable, which is not just to serve danger, but you serve opportunity to find balance between these two ideas. and i think that, we need that to get people to believe again after what happened in the '90s, the collapse. each side is reason to feel jaded. we all know the reasons on each side, why they feel jaded. but without the support of the middle of these societies, these leaders can't do it on their own. and what's missing is synchronized political messaging on both sides. each one just fyi do, the other guy doesn't do it. and then i'm the sucker. or they feel if i got with the other one does, then it puts

pressure on me. however you phrase it, that's what's missing. that's what i would call a missing piece. >> just let me close with two comments by two people with whom you met which have come up so far today, but i thought were very important in a broader spectrum. one was by israel's, one of israel's top chiefs of intelligence, who, after getting his briefing about intelligence threats, many people in this room have heard, israeli senior leaders give intelligence threat briefings. but included for the first time right up there with iran and nukes and thousand missiles, the process of delegitimization of israel at a strategic threat to israel's well being. right up there with iran's nukes and, you know, thousands of

rockets. and then in a different way, that same idea that code by the prime minister of egypt -- echoed by the primus of egypt, very middle of the road moderate man who said, really struck everybody by his comment where he said, the arab-israeli conflict if we are not very careful is in the process of morphing into a jewish muslim conflict. and if that's the case, then it's beyond all of our power to control and resolve. and this is from someone who had no interest in having the civilization clash dominate the way people in his country or people in the region view regional politics. because he and what he represents are on the wrong side of that clash.

so i thought it's important for all, certainly some of the upbeat message is that we come back with, it's important to underscore at least these two i've got two very powerful messages. one from an israeli and one from an era. thank you very much for joining us today. [applause] ..

>> now the national commission on children and disasters hold a public meeting with craig fugate plus health officials from the health and human services department. topics range from preparation to long term support in recovery. this is just over 2.5 hours. >> welcome, and thank you for standing by. [inaudible] >> thank you.

good morning, ladies and gentlemen. we're going to get started here, so if you would please take your seats, the meeting will begin. this meeting is now called to order. good morning, and welcome to the quarterly public meeting of the national commission for children and disasters. i'm juliana sadovich, the newly appointed designated federal official for the commission, i'm a nurse officer in the u.s. public health service commission corp.. my ph.d. is in human services, and i've been working in emergency management for about the last six years. i'm the director of the office of human services emergency preparedness emergency response for children and families since july 6. this is my first commission meeting, so let's go ahead and get started. first, i'd like to appoint mr. tim clark as the recording secretary for this meeting, and

i would like to turn over the meeting to mr. mark shriver, the chairperson for the meeting. >> thank you, welcome aboard. great to have you. >> thank you. >> i want to say to my fellow commissioners after a couple days of being off, it's great to see your smiling faces here this morning. i want to welcome you to the quarterly meeting. today is an important day on children and disaster. we are finalizing our 2010 report to the president and congress. as the commissioners know, we have been looking at the exhaustive gap of children and disaster. we've reviewed hundreds of reports and articles, held niewm yows meet -- numerous meetings. we've testified on capitol hill

and made presentations on disaster response. i know i speak on behaver -- behalf of my fellow commissions on working so hard that we will hopefully vote on and worked on the subcommittees and these various hearings as well. the benign neglect in decision making developed over several years and will take several years to eliminate. our work, though exciting and with much progress, is far, far from complete. it's just beginning. children as you have all heard this commission say, make up 25% of our nation's population, but as outlined in the report, they continued to be neglected in dispasser management. if we are not protecting our children before, during, and after disasters, we are

jeopardizing the future of our country. today, we are calling on the president to submit to congress a piece of strategy addressing the unique needs of children. as i'm sure you saw this morning on the front page of the "usa today" headlines, children still can't get past katrina in talking about the fat that kids affected in the gulf coast are nearly five times more likely than other kids to have severe emotional disturbances, and less than half have received help. they issued a report last week that 12 states in the country had basic minimum requirements for child care facilities. as a country and a people, we've let the kids down.

we've let the kids down in katrina, and we're not as a country prepared to help kids today. the fourth named storm of the season is rapidly approaching, and we'll be staring at this issue again in a couple days, and i hope today we will take steps to address and make some recommendations to the president. 74 million kids are at risk in this country, so the time for talk has long gone by. we really do call upon the president and some of his administration who are kindly joined us here today to put together a cohesive national strategy. it's been too long, and we need to take steps and make concrete changes. having said that, i'd like to ask dr. michael anderson, vice

chair, if you have opening statements? >> thank you. it's an important day in the life of the commission. 18 months of work have come to flew ition. it's important day for our partners and the nongovernmental organization and the child advocacy groups responsible for this group. i want to thank them for their hard work. it's an important day for our federal partners in the effort. we'll here from fema, and hhs and i thank them for their support of our endeavors, but there's much work to be done as mark said. i look forward to ongoing conversations and challenges that remain. today is a more important day for american's children. 22-25% of children are under represented to recover and mitigating disasters. we hope this shines light on

important issues and makes america safer for kids. as we prepare for large-scale disaster, we have to be prepare for a disaster of one. we can only be prepared if we are ready for one child critically ill in the country from ems systems, daycare centers, school nurses, transport teams, and care facilities, each are important and must be prepared for the needs of children. we know, as you know mr. chairman, the information is sobering. less than 6% of the facilities have the required equipment recommended. like wise, large scale disasters, the department of defense and hhs and fema must insure the needs are met. this combined with ongoing partnerships with federal and

state partners make this is safer country for our children. thank you for your leadership and dedication to the children and for all the work you've done for the commission. >> thank you, mike. i appreciate that. before we talk to the panelists, i want to ask irwni redlener who is in charge of the subcommittee on human recovery to say a few words. irwin, maybe about the report that got publicity today. one thing about shining the spotlight, we want to make sure that action results from this report. too much talk in washington, and not enough response on this issue. irwin? >> i appreciate your indulgence, but i'll say words about the recovery pertaining to children and something the commission is focused on and i worked with many of the commissioners on. what we are talking about when we take about recovery from a major disaster. there's two reports. one was featured today in "usa

today" basically coming from an article from children as bell weathers and how children do after a major disaster and how they do in recovery is the litmus test in general. the way i put this recently is we are not recovered from a disaster until vulnerable children say we are, and what they say through the data that we and others collected, even with katrina five years ago, we have 20,000-30,000 children still feeling the effects and lots of unaddressed mental health needs. the other study a few weeks ago was similar having to do with the gulf oil spill and found that one out of three children were facing physical and emotional psychological problems that would not go away because the oil was capped. we have to make sure that public officials have to understand that the consequences around

disasters for children do not end when the physical problem stops, when the wind stops blowing or the oil spill is controlled, that's not the end. for many families, that's the gibbing. i am concerned that we are still waiting for the national recovery framework that we were supposed to have seen coming from the administration in june i believe, and still waiting, and the country's children are still waiting most importantly, and i think we need to get that out and have that be the guidance for us in terms of how we proceed with recovery to benefit the country in general, but children in particular. thank you. >> okay, thank you, irwin. we've got administrator fugate and laurie. thank you all for coming. thank you for your work on behalf of kids and for your work not only individually, but with

your agency's work with the commission. want brief statements from each of you, and then we'll open it off with questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. talk is cheap in dc, and i was given a slew of talking points, but it's a disaster. . that's the crook of the matter. we look back at katrina and we see a lot of things that could have been done differently, and the steps we take with fema you are well aware of, and you know we have a ways to go. i think the emphasis we place on children is to look a 9 this as part of the community as a whole. as you point out, 25% of the population is made up of children, but you look at a plan enrequirements for planning, it's the first strike against making sure weir successful. we've been rewriting the basic documents, community

preparedness guide 101. we are sure children are included in it not as an afterthought, but it's in there you to know what children's needs will be. it's an important step, a children's working group looking at children issues both in prerpedness and recovery throughout the programs including grant programs with state and local governments to prepare for acts of terrorism and other disasters to again address these issues in the guidance to make sure that children-related issues were not excluded because they were not mentioned as eligible for that type of funding. finally, establishing within the children's working group a permanent position in the office of administrator to continue to work throughout the program. the other thing we did is look back on taking a step back. what are the things that need to occur early in a disaster to bring the stability and bring resources to children more

effectively? one of the issues this commission raised was day kay centers. again, fema does not provide oversight today care centers, duh in the aftermath, there's question whether day care services are eligible for funds. we clarified that, and the answer is yes. we have emphasis on getting schools open after a disaster. not necessarily getting schools back to normal, but they are a point of amplification for children. when you look back, it is getting children back into a routine when they are back with people they are used to, back into not necessarily normal situations, but back into a routine. we find that many disaster especially the size of katrina, being relocated multiple times, the fact there wasn't what the future held, and oftentimes uncertainty about the basic

necessity of going back to school exasperated children's issues, and in many cases prolonged the trama they suffered. if we bring the services back quickly and start addressing the issues early in a disaster response, that will give us, i think, a better outcome in the future, but dealing with this is not something that fema can alone solve. you pointed that out. it takes a full family effort. that's the other part fema is committed to. we are trying to break out of the silos of agencies only approaching a problem from their authorities. as you point out in your reports, there's overlapping authorities and rather than fema trying to assume those roles, we want to work as a team and become as we look at within the administration, advocates for children issues, but also understand thats is not fema as a family, we're part of a team. the other folks here at the table and other programs that

represent tremendous capabilities both day-to-day support for children, but key points of focus of a disaster is working within those. so, as the train goes by -- [laughter] i will conclude my remarks and stand by for questions that the commission has for us. >> thank you very much, administrator fugate. any comments, laurie? >> thank you. following up on those congressmen comments, we are doing a lot of rewriting. this caused us to want to be sure we hard wire and bake things into the evolving infrastructures. h1n1 taught us about measures for kids and taught us problems around the country outside of federal government like some pharmacists having trouble compounding, simple things we thought about doing have to get enlarged.

in haiti, we used our electronic response record and 40% of kids were seen instantly to see a response there, and now with the oil spill in haiti looking at the behavioral health needs there and especially of kids and fine tune our response. each one goes back and wants us to go ahead and rewrite our plan and stengthen our infrastructure to address the needs of kids as we see them. we have tons of valuable input from this commission and science board, from aap, from lots of expert stake holders, all of them, i think, have helped us move forward in this very important area. we're working hard to catch up to fema in this regard. because of the gulf situation, both the disaster of katrina and oil spill in people's minds, i'll provide information on what going on there and update you on current and upcoming of thes

with regard to the agency, leadership groups, response issues and countermeasures. certainly, the oil spill has underscored an awful lot of things, and you've heard from irwin and others a lot about the children's issues and behavior health issues being up there on the radar screen. our actions have been really focused on preventing injury and illness and preventing exposure to hazardous substances and monitor the lone ever long term impacts and ensure the safety of sea seafood. children have the chance of long term impact because they eat seafood. we have to move forward and we are working hard across the department to monitor and ensure safety. as you know, the secretary asked the institute of medicine to hold a public workshop happening

down in the gulf to look at the scientific basis of what's known and to identify research and surveillance opportunities. again, many of the recommendations involved looking at children not a surprise, and i think we're very, very focused on that. i want to assure you that children and pregnant women and others are the focus of our activities move k forward. most of the short term focus is on health. the tonal general made frequent trips to the gulf to hear. it was after one of those sessions that i reached back out those of you on this commission that we deal with as well as a pns for help because once of the things i was struck by in addition to the needs of families and children were the needs of clinicians, very much hurting and suffering as a

result of this. i appreciate very much the outreach that you've done, that aap have done and other provider groups have done moving forward. the experience also led pam hyde and i along with my current clinical scholar to write a piece own behavioral and mental health in the gulf, and i'll pass around some copies for all of you in case you haven't had a chance to see it. i will say samsa is working hard with everyone to ensure funding for behavioral health services, messaging, and a 1-800 line and other services. it's a fine example of how we're joined together and domestic violent and other issues are housed in acf. we work seem leslie to relate it to domestic violence and try to

monitor very carefully child abuse which is a coral lat to those and move forward again to address the needs of kids. another piece still in development, but i hope will be released soon is recognizing kids are going back to school and getting back in a routine, and a guide for teachers and school administrators about tips on how to talk with kids about the oil spill disaster and the kind of thoughts and feelings they have are going on is right around the corner with the department of education and samsa. our children's working group that david and i cochair is up and running. it increased cooperation and coordination tremendously across hhs. there's 20 agencies represented and have been underway with a pretty extensive needs

assessment learning a lot from the way fema did it using their matrix and already this working group and staff has been an amazing resource. they briefed many of the departments shared across the department a lot of what's going on, a lot of tangible results, for example, that i know you'll be happy about have been bringing together people to discuss the pediatric requirements for the strategic national stockpile, and that will be part of the 2010sns annual review. addadministrator and i agreed that our working groups are meeting together at least twice a year to be able to share what we are learning to coordinate and to get mutual activities underway. there's just been an awful lot that i can detail with you if i'd like, really tangible activity coming from this. one of the things i learned as a result of the children's working group is really exciting work

going on through the kennedy shriver institute of human development where they have been working on issues of traumatized children for awhile, and they developed a pediatric prothesis that is $30, now in use after earthquake in haiti. and i brought this along to show people. it's little, it's cheap. you can grow with it, and it leads kids do things like grip. it's another tangible example of something really cool from our efforts, and i wanted to share that with you today. on the medical countermeasure side, as you know, the medical countermeasure was released on friday, finally, last time we met, i said it was just around the corner, turned out to be a long corner. well it's been reviewed, and i was thrilled to read about the shoutout that the secretary gave about our lessons learned on

doing a better job dealing with countermeasures for kids, and i had opportunity to respond to his question to detail measures underway, and i can talk about those in the question and answer period as you like. finally, we continue to be thrilled to have andy garret involved in our medical response side. he ledded way in our hiring pediatricians, and we have a pediatrician in barta, but with an dpi's leadership and efforts, many, many efforts underway to change the configuration of our teams, to develop guidelines for children, to deal with basic pediatric care, ect.. in closing, i just want to say how much i've appreciated the commission's energy, focus, and activities on there. i want to ensure you we are in for the long run, our communication with fema is in this for the long run. we're working now on a stability

plan. when we met a year ago, i was launching this effort in my office with a fellow, janet lee, who got the activity up and running. she'll be leaving at the end of the year, and we're in the process of identifying a staff to carry on this effort for the long hall. my goal and yours is when all of our tenures end, we've baked enough of into the infrastructure and organization, the children will continue to be a focus and never forgotten. i look forward to the discussion that follows. turning it over to david. >> thank you. >> thank you, laurie. >> chairman and commission members,, we're delighted to have you. as i move back into the acting role, although i work with the commission throughout my ten year here, it's wonderful to have the opportunity to really continue the strong collaboration we've had with you.

we're delighted to host you at acf, and because we're the operating division within hhs to meet the needs of children, we consider disaster preparedness and response a critical part of our mission. we are working closely with the preparedness response staff and fema. none of us could do it alone, just together in partnership. we, of course, don't know when the next disaster will strike, but children will be heavily affected, and that's why this is such an important part of the work we do at acf. briefly, i'd like to talk a little bit about our structure for addressing preparedness and response issues within acf addressing children and then talk about what we are doing in five program areas that the commission has identified as important and give you updates on where we are on the five

areas, and then it's open for discussion afterwards. our structure for addressing these issues is through what we call office of human services and emergency response has a very poor acronym of suffer, but we have grown to love, not easy to love, but it's headed by juliana sadovich. now, you know her as the designated federal official to the commission, but she has recently joined us as director of this after a successful career. i want to give you a sense of her history because the fact we brought someone of her stature addresses the importance of the issues we deal with. she's worked as a public officer with the the health services and had stints in the office of medical readiness in the health affairs and also as chief of

staff in the officer of weapons of mass destruction and incident management in the department of homeland security. we are delighted to have her and bring will bring our work in the area of disaster preparedness to a higher level than we had previously. her and her team is officially responsible for providing support to fema in emergency function 6 calling for functions on the ground in states to make sure they are in a position and capacity to provide the services children need in the wake of a disaster. we continue to play a vital role in ensuring needs are met while they are displaced or settered during disasters, and we work with organizations on the ground, state agencies to make sure that the supplies are in place, sfs are available to address child specific needs and making sure that safety protocols are in place to make sure children are protected in those situations. as i said, i want to focus on

five program areas within acf's portfolio relevant to discussion and the commission identified as important in the wake of disasters. those are child care, child welfare, head start, services through what we call the unaccompanied alien children's program, and the disaster case management program. let me start with childcare, and the childcare program within acf is administered by our childcare bureau, and they have taken a number of actions to address the challenges and improve response in the wake of disaster. i'll give you hying heights of what -- highlights over the past year. first of all, they provided assistance and guidance to childcare grantees, primarily states to increase the number of states which is a concern of the commission, the number of states with comprehensive statewide

emergency preparedness plans in place. sip 2008, we asked them to report to us on the progress they are making in developing these plans as part of their biannual state plan submissions they are required to make to us to tell us how they use federal funds provided to them for child care purposes. the bureau provided policy guidance outlining the guidelines states have and in response to federal or state declared emergency situations to make sure there's continuity to services to children in a disaster situation, and most importantly part neared with fema as administer fugate mentioned to remedy gaps in post disaster childcare services, and fema has changed its policies over the past years in ways that are very responsive todd commission's concern and the

needs of children. we have done everything that we could do to make sure that we get the word out to childcare and development fund grantees about the extensions available for disaster under the fema's assistance grant program. we have cohe'sed with fema at the childcare administer's meeting this month to explain this. we want to make sure statings are understanding and prepared to take advantage of the opportunities. finally, the childcare bureau launched a new website part of the acf website that features childcare resources for planning and responding to disasters and emergencies. if you have not looked at it, i encourage you to do it. it has resources for grantees, states, providers, parents, people who are displaced in an emergency, it's a very comprehensive, very accessible,

very user-friendly website with a wealth of resources about childcare access in disaster situations. we're very, very proud to have that up and running. that's the childcare bureau and closely named is our children's bureau. similar name, but different. it is responsible for child welfare services and monitors state's disaster plans for children in foster care who may be displaced during a disaster situation, and those plans allow for continuous tracking of foster care children in emergencies. in that area, in the child welfare area, we continue to enforce requirements under the 2006 child and family services improvement act that states locate and ensure services to children under state care or supervision affected or displaced by disaster situations. states are responsible to respond to new child welfare cases in disaster areas and

remain in communication with caseworkers and personnel to make sure records are preserved and to coordinate services and share information with other states sin -- since people are often displaced across state lines. we want continuity of children who are in state's custody. we are updating plans for the framework setting out expectations for nonprofit agencies on the ground providing chill welfare services and make sure they are also appropriately training foster parents and staff to protect children in disaster situations. we have a national resource center for child welfare data and technology which we fund, and it has refined a data base on reconnecting families, and the purpose of that data base is to aid states, tribes, any local government or jurisdiction responsible for children in the wake of a disaster to make sure the children who are displaced

or separated from families, this allows welfare agencies to track them and try to reconnect them with their family or the placement they were located prior to disaster and reduce the number of children who are stranded in disaster situations. >> can you just hit height -- highlights in the last couple things. >> sure. we have young children and during the day they have policies in place to operate centers in the wake of disasters. our division of unaccompanied children services has also work closely with states in 2007 and 2008 providing support when hurricanes moved through texas to make sure children are protected and identified, and the final thing to mention is disaster case mountain, important to us and important to the commission. we made significant strides in that area over the past year. in december of last year, we executed an inner agency

agreement with fema under which we can now implement disaster case management after a disaster is declared by the president requires us to do it within 72 hours, authorizes fema to pay for it. our first pilot as you know responded to the needs of people vick mizeed by hurricane gutav and ike back in 2008. that's been completed and we are reviewing that to see what lessons can be learned from the program. we have the mechanism in place to provide disaster case management to fema partnership within 72 hours of a wake of a disaster. i'm delighted to be here and answer your questions. dr. laurie mentioned the children's working group within hhs that we cochair and we're excited about the potential of that to increase the response to children's needs, not within acf, but all the programs area within hhs.

thank you very much. >> thank you very much, david. i'll ask some questions and then open it up to folks. i didn't know about this position that you just mentioned about the full time position within fema head quarters. that's fantastic. fema announced they were going to fill disability integration specialist in the regional offices, and i know that's not focused specifically on kids issues, but is there any consideration of doing that for children's issues going forward so there is someone in your regional offices that will be focusing on kids' issues? >> mr. chairman, absolutely. as you know with the american disabilities act, it covers not only delivery of services, but our day-to-day business. this ensures our requirements just from our day-to-day operations which has not been where we want it to be, but it also reflects a philosophy we have of quick planning and

planning for real. communities are not made up of one type of individuals where everything fits when you try to do something. because communities are disasters diverse -- diverse with challenges and issues, this compliance under the ada, children with disabilities tends to be the most vulnerables but to expand that role and look at other types -- i hate the term special needs because it denotes you're building another box. instead of keep building boxes, we want to plan for real. while this position is to the led on disabilities, part is of day-to-day spobilities ensures that fema is inclusive and accessible and all of our delivery services and using this as a focal point on issues including children to plan for real, and that means you just

don't have one simple answer taking care of the entire population. i like to keep things simple. when somebody asks for meals to feed a community, the first response oftentimes is send mre's, and i've tried to paint a picture for my staff. we talk about being inclusive. i have two grandsons, he can't new on an mre bag. it gets the point across. you have to step back. a lot of times you call and i think it's because we got solutions that seem to fit the needs until you step back and ask the question, well, what about infants, and you get a blank look. step back. how do we feed that need? the population is not all healthy adults. there's different dietary requirements. oftentimes the easy answer is not the real answer. the long winded answer to this is yes, we're looking to expand

to plan for real and not easy. we have rules for being inclusive and accessible in the delivery of services which is also why this position was established in each one of regions. >> okay, so what i'm hearing is there was a reason why it was on the disabilities issue which i understand and support, and you're going to look strongly at making sure or incorporating this on kids' issues going forward? >> yes. >> i know that acf and fema is conversations about the disaster preparedness guy dan, and what is the timeline for developing those and distributing them, and has there been discussion about requiring states that obviously get federal dollars to make the basic minimum requirements for child care center get the federal dollars that they become a requirement rather than reporting back? can we tie those to federal dollars to make sure the

childcare facilities are safe for kids? >> uh-huh, right. well, first of all, the program guidance is expected to be out soon. that should be available -- >> my question on that very soon for you may not be soon for me. >> i don't have a specific date for you. we have to go through the hhs process. it should be shortly. >> okay. >> with regard to the specific regulatory requirements, as you know, the responsibility for licensing and regulating childcare providers rests at the state level and not the federal level. states have the primary responsibility, and currently, what we require states to do is certify the providers are meeting health department and safety standards, but they are not specific to emergency issues as you know, and that's been a concern of the commission. what the president did as part of his fiscal year 20 11 budget

proposal before the congress is to propose a set of principles for reauthorization of the program to strengthen the program in states on a number of ways, and the focus would be broadly to increase the number of children who are in safe, healthy, nurturing childcare settings. that's broad, and what we hope to do working with congress through a reauthorization of the program is specify what that means in a number of areas including disaster preparedness and response. we are work -- looking to work with the congress to strengthen our authority that states and expands on the fairly general health and safety standards that exist in a number of areas including emergency and preparedness response. >> i think when the members of congress that have asked us to come up and meet with them and we describe there's childcare facilities that maybe their

staff are sending their kids to that don't have plans in place in event of a major disaster including evacuation or kids with special needs, and when it becomes real as compared to talking about the safety and broad things like that when you talk about safety, maybe it's just for fire, but if there's a much different disaster then that makes it real. i can't imagine anyone in congress get a call from a constituent saying i'm dropping my kid off at a childcare facility, and i don't know that that kid is safe if a disaster were to happen. i mean, that's real, and i got to think that if we're giving federal dollars to states, we ought to mandate states ensure those children are safe. if you go to a high end restaurant the food is safe because there's been an inspector in there making sure the food is safe or they close the place down, and if we don't

do that for kids when you drop your kids off and go to work, it goes like to the administrator's example providing food, but a 1-year-old can't gnaw through that thing. i have a 5-year-old and if i'm in a feeding situation, hell would be paid in my situation with my kids. i think if we make it real as compared to, you know, talking about safety in general areas and say, you know, when you drop a kid off at the childcare facility, you don't know whether that kid is safe, that will really agitate some parents. you know if you go to a mcdonalds that if the burger in there it's been inspected. >> no, i completely agree with you. that's the direction in which we indicated we want to move in the president's budget. i know senator andrew give us legislation to do that. we can give authority to states

to require exactly the kind of protection to be in place that you are referring to. >> can i ask one more question? the disaster case management in which mike and irwin know more about, is that going to be renewed or do we have a timeframe on that or is that an agreement between acf and fema? is that expiring in december; right? >> we're both looking quizzical, but i think we can commit our intention will be in place and we will do everything we can on our end. >> i'm not sure if it's the case mountain in the hurricanes, but we've demonstrated we can use the funds to do that, and case management as pointed out and the process used, we need to really step up. one of the things that acf's basically doing in the agreement is ensuring that if the states are not ready to go, they'll provide the immediate needs in

gets states spun up. it's based on the history of the state. if they have had disaster, their case has plans and contractors and vendors ready to provide the support. if the state does not have the capability, then having the federal to provide that management until we get a longer term contract. traditionally fema provided to the states, but as we demonstrated in the storm, there's gaps. essentially in this in this case to fill the gap, once we've demonstrated we can do it, we can reproduce that if it's warranted. it won't always be necessary, but it's an important tool that we have if a state cannot scale up fast enough for case management, we have a federal partner to enter into an agreement with and tax them and fund them out of the recovery funds. >> you might be referring to,

mr. mr. chairman, we have appropriated funding from congress, not in providing case management, but in making sure we have appropriately credentialed case managers to provide the service. that is funded and we're not sure if we will get that funding, but that does not affect our ability to do so. >> i know you have done a lot of work, and yin, mike, were you going to ask on that? >> by the way, i think we need to emphasize that speaking now as an actual senior citizen, but i've seen administrations come and go, and there's always been good people in various administrations wherever they came from, but we have a unique situation of extraordinary dedicated senior federal officials like the three of you, and i want to make sure while i'm frustrated, i'm appreciative

of the dedication and intelligence and commitment that you and your teams have brought to the question, so bsh -- but i would like to ask about the study done on the ike management, david, were you talking about that? >> yes. >> where is it? what's the result? >> well evaluation is under review with fema as well to see -- we did the evaluation in several steps, a process of evaluation of the imp tigs of the -- imputation of the program and see if the families got the resources they need. >> this is taking an extraordinarily long time. i don't understand why, and if you couple that with the data that we and others are finding, we have children still from years ago who needed case management and programs terminated without resolution of cases, people fell through the cracks, and now we're paying a

very, very steep price as far as children are concerned who did not get what they needed. i'm failing to understand with a social science hat on, i'm failing to understand why it's taking so long to evaluate a study to see if families were helped. you know, it feels like a very, very long time ago. we need this done and we need that recovery framework. if one of you could respond to why we don't have a recovery framework as we speak here now, i'd greatly appreciate it. >> i'll speak to that. i don't think it's taken a long time. the disaster case pilot that served victims began in the late summer and fall of 2008. it was conceived as an 18 month pilot carrying it through march of this year and got an extension from fema because there's cases for which services had not been completed.

it went further into the year. it's only a few months ago that the pilot ended. that's not a long time to complete an evaluation of an 18 month program. we are moving it quickly as we can to report on that evaluation as quickly as we can. >> framework? >> the frame work is still in process. going into working with the other federal agencies and the final recommendations and clearance process, we experienced the oil spill in the gulf which many of the same agencies became heavily engaged in. that being said, irrespective of having a public strategy, we were imp plementing it in the tendency floods. again, as the chairperson points out, words on paper aren't action. so, what did you do? we know that one of the things detrimental for children is to be displaced from their homes after a disaster and families can be in shelters for weeks.