our rules so that online submissions count as a part of the record, which imposes an obligation on us to take into account as we make a decision. i would encourage everyone to go to the fcc.gov. where are in the process of relaunch in our site to make it more helpful to stakeholders in terms of providing information and also getting input. so, that is the way to do it, but for people that do not have on-line access, we will look at other information that comes in as well. >> all right. thank you, chairman, and on behalf of the economic club of washington, i want to thank you for an inch in conversation. i will give you a gift. it is a little map of the district of columbia. i hope you are allowed to take a gift. >> i am not sure. josh? [laughter]

>> thank you. >> thank you. thank [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> president-elect martelly as a former musician. he won a runoff election in april, and this news conference comes after he won the presidency with 67.6% of the

vote. he defeated a rival candidate who was the former first lady of haiti. the announcement ended a long drawnout election that began on november 28. the elections were marred by fraud and other a regulated. several days of rioting and numerous delays. that from "the associated press." [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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of haiti, michel martelly, to appear here. and the national press club is just a few minutes away from capitol hill, a much quieter place than usual this week. both the house and senate are out. lawmakers are back at their home district for spring break. they will be out for about two weeks am back in washington on may 2. later today on c-span2 we will bring you live also to the 80 electric drive transportation meeting, there 2011 conference, an annual meeting where they'll be talking about the global market for electric vehicles and volkswagens the mobility strategy. we'll hear during that conference and meeting from jonathan brown who's the president and ceo of volkswagen. and david owens, executive vice president of its operations from edison electric institute. that will be live at 11:45 a.m. eastern time here on c-span2. while we wait for

president-elect martelly to appear let's take a look at some of the comments that secretary of state hillary clinton had to say when they met earlier this week. >> i am very encouraged by the campaign that mr. martelly ran, his emphasis on the people as their needs, his willingness to be very clear in what he hoped to achieve on their behalf. and now he has a chance to lead. and we are behind him. we have a great deal of enthusiasm. this is not only a goal of our foreign policy, but it is a personal priority for me, my husband, and many of us here in washington. some of you may know that mr. martelly's campaign slogan, i'm told the literal translation of that slogan is baldhead which

doesn't need any further explanation. but it is also an expression that means all the way, and the people of haiti may have a long road ahead of them, but as they walked it, the united states will be with you all the way. thank you. [applause] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. i like to thank especially secretary of state hillary clinton for having hosted me and my team. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: this is the second time we meet since your visit in haiti. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i would like to

extend my thanks to the obama administration and to the president himself. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: once again, the elections of the members in march demonstrated a spirited determination of the haitian people that they will own a democracy. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: now it is up to me to transform mike campaign promises into an action plan. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: clearly, i have huge challenges in front of me, but i tend to meet them. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: inspite of the

generous donations of the american citizens, which have reached $1.2 billion received by 53 ngos, and in spite of the donation by the government of the united states of $1.5 billion, we still have 1.7 million people still live under tents after the long months of waiting. [speaking in native tongue] will. >> translator: the cholera epidemic if it is not contained in the patients are not vaccinated this epidemic threatens to extend itself to the entire country to the upcoming rainy and hurricane season. [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: in addition, starting on june 1, the country will have to confront up to 16 hurricanes scheduled, anticipated next summer. there will be construction process is slow. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: these were the complaints that were expressed by a desperate population throughout my election campaign. this is why recovering and restarting the economy is a fundamental necessity of my government. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: this is why i

plan on working relentlessly towards new reconstruction of the framework of international aid to give new life to the business sector, and to develop the capability of government institutions and of civil society. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: madam secretary of state, i am truly counting on you to ensure that this restructuring of foreign aid be truly effective for haiti. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: bilateral

cooperation also involves fighting against drugs and corruption, respect for human rights, establishment of the rule of law, the increased and necessary role of our diaspora community, deportees, good governance, recovering agriculture, and a special moment where worldwide prices are drastically increasing, and the establishment of a climate favorable for potential and future investors. [speaking in native tongue] go. >> translator: our discussions focus on the urgent need to ensure that the aid will be effective for our citizens and to avoid waste. [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: finally, i discussed with the secretary of state, of the president barack obama's offer to create a partnership with haiti. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: my new vision for my country is to engage in all of the useful and necessary reforms to ensure that haiti will be a full member of the modernity of the 21st century. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you, madam chair, get a for your very warm welcome. >> those were the words of president elect of haiti, michel martelly, as he met in a joint press conference with secretary of state hillary clinton. mr. martelly that talked about the need for reconciliation in what he says is a bitterly

divided nation. and on the campaign trail he called for free education for all children in haiti, a renovation of the agriculture sector, and the restoration of the disbanded army. he's a master of haitis, this music before coming presidential candidate is going to be and not to may 14. he still faces a multi-billion dollars reconstruction effort after last use magnitude seven earthquake, which killed 300,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands of patients. we are waiting here at the national press club for the appearance of president elect of haiti, michel martelly. [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> we are live today here on c-span2 from the national press club, just waiting for the appearance of the president elect of haiti, michel martelly. and the national press club is just a few minutes away from capitol hill, a much quieter place than usual this week. both the house and senate are out. lawmakers are back in the home district for the spring break. they will be out for about two weeks and back in washington on may 2. in the senate, majority leader harry reid said he will try once more to get an agreement to finish the bill to reauthorize programs for small businesses. when they come back you can

follow the senate live here on c-span2. for house coverage on our companion network, c-span. this week president obama is holding town hall meetings to discuss his plan for reducing the deficit. shared responsibility and prosperity. he was just outside d.c. and northern virginia on tuesday, and he went to the headquarters of facebook in palo alto on wednesday. today he is scheduled to be in reno, nevada. last wednesday the president laid out his plan at george washington university here in d.c., and some of his discussions this week are expected to deal with the ways leaders in congress can come to agreements on the budget and the deficit. live later today here on c-span2, at about 11:45 a.m. eastern, we'll be bringing you the electric drive transportation association meeting from the russell house office building, and we'll be hearing about the global market for electric vehicles and

volkswagens e-mobilities strategy with jonathan brown, president and ceo of the volkswagen group of america, and also with david owens, executive vice president of edison electric institute. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> we are here today to talk a little bit about our trip here to washington. i will start by saying i had a productive visit to washington this week. we went half a day of the state department meeting with the haiti team as well as holding a

productive side of meeting with secretary clinton and her senior staff. we spent a lot of time talking about the important issues for the haitian people. the world bank, and the international monetary fund, as well as the u.s. chamber of commerce. on january 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake hit haiti where over 300,000 people died. the total on the economic is estimated of $30 billion. my focus as i promised during my campaign is to revise haitis economics, and provide education, moving people out of tents by jumpstarting construction, and focusing on

the agricultural sector. in short, it is a new day for haiti. we are very thankful for the financial institution which raised money that, unfortunate unfortunately, unfortunate was never well spent in the first place, and the lack of infrastructure and basic services, evidently. even is a daunting task, jumpstarted the economy is a priority. by doing so we will create jobs and passion which leads to sustainable development. in order to a comish of this reform and free up the economic stimulus necessary to offer opportunities to the haitian people, the country needs to have access to loans. no country can build or rebuild infrastructure based on grants alone. we were very pleased by the financial institutions open and flexible to new ideas, and the

interest of the people of haiti. we are going to pursue them. haitians do not want handouts. they want opportunities to create wealth. we also have a very warm welcome at the state department and it provided an opportunity to review with secretary hillary clinton and her senior staff the state of the relations between haiti and the united states. including my toppers which are free education, moving people out of tents by providing permanent, not temporary housing. as well as strengthening the agricultural sector by giving access to loans so that they can work their land. we also discussed the priorities as in haiti, everything is a priority. we spoke about economic growth

by attracting foreign direct investments, the rule of law, drug trafficking, human trafficking, integration issues and reconstruction. we discussed ways of streamlining u.s. aid to haiti, and ensure effectiveness. to that end we will continue and strengthen our partnership with the united states and its people. as president barack obama and secretary clinton said many times, we need to strengthen the capacity of haitian institutions so they can insert the needs of the haitian people. haiti today is the republic of ngos. the state has been weakened, and this must change. we need to build up the state institutions while making valuable work of the ngos more effective and better for the needy.

it was healthy between two partners willing to understand each other. once i am in office, we will quickly do an assessment to ensure that foreign assistance is going to the people. while in washington i visited the haitian embassy. because of the enthusiasm shown by the haitians. i could feel their desire for change, and change is coming on may 14. the diaspora is part of haitis future, and my government intends to repatriate part of the 80% haitians living abroad, to help haiti move forward. in closing, let me say that this was a very productive first visit. my first foreign visit as president elect.

i'm looking forward to strengthening the partnerships with a financial institutions, as well as the united states government. and more importantly, the haitian diaspora and the american people. let us see haiti as the beautiful country that it is. we must present a different image of haiti, and focus more on our beautiful villages, rich culture, and above all, our welcoming people. haiti is open to do -- to the world, and we invite folks, tourism and businesses to come and visit as early as possible. thank you very much. [applause] >> we will take just a few questions.

[inaudible] >> haiti can come out, and if you make it happen, then make it happen. they say there is more pleasure in giving than receiving. thank you. [applause] >> okay, only for press. >> thank you for coming. i would like to ask you what exactly you talked yesterday with secretary clinton, specifically to haiti, and what was her response to you? [inaudible] >> it is easy to understand the haiti doesn't have the resources in this structure, to receive so

many deportees who are coming out of jails. our system is not a strong one so we are discussed about waiting a little bit before, before the united states kids -- keeps on sending deportees back to haiti. we need to strengthen our system and we need to come up with a program where we can also reinsert them in flight and society. and for this it would cost about $300 million on 10 years, so we're working on that program. and the secretary of state was willing, not just to listen and discuss, but move forward in discussions with us. we also spoke about issues where pretty soon haitians living

here, their temporary status will expire. and it seems like the news would be good news but i will let it, the office will talk about it. >> do you see anything about -- [inaudible] >> i am newly elected, it's a new process. we started discussions yesterday and we will continue. >> thank you. >> do you plan to re-create the haitian military? >> well, the defense of minister on haitian soil means that there is a force needed down there to maintain peace, unless someone suggests that the minister remains for ever. having said so, i think we create a haitian force, whether you call it the military, it is irrelevant to me. it needs to be a modern army,

have an engineering core, and will be ready to intervene in case of whether it is chaos, whether it is catastrophes, the earthquake, or hurricanes, to get involved in reforestation, preserve our forests. we don't foresee haiti going to war with any other country so it will not be an army with indie. it will not have warships our fighter jets. [inaudible] >> i became president-elect last night. maybe a few days answer these questions. >> in 2010 world health organization and members of the haitian government were in talks regarding the application of a pilot program for cholera. they decide not to go forward

with that. are you going to go through that are you looking at alternatives for the treatment of color in your country? >> i will tell you that somehow some work is being done in research positive because were having less and less death, less people are dying of cholera. however, this threat is still there because we are not eradicating it yet, but because of the information, the communication system and health sector, they are doing a great job of that. now, if we can implement that program to eradicate cholera, we will.

[inaudible] we work very close with grassroots groups on the ground. right now the military has not been a part of the reconstruction process. as president, how can you help ensure a stronger voice for civil society grassroots and their participation in the reconstruction, especially in getting at the longer-term health? >> well, i will say that will come with special programs, especially for the women. we have identified the women as pillar in the family. in haiti, at four in the morning you see people in the streets, but they are women caring their goods on their head, walking miles and miles going to the market. they are the ones who spend their days at the market. they are the ones who when they get back home around 5:00, take care of the kids and her husband. so we need programs to a

company, to empower the civil society, particular the woman. >> no follow-up questions, please. [inaudible] >> the turnout was quite low, and on the other hand and the parliament you don't have that strength. i would like to know how are you planning to organize your government, what are you going to make your first announced that? and if i may, again presses think you might consider -- [inaudible] could you explain that? >> first of all, i will say that the turnout was as low as the number are saying, because to begin with, to stop people from going to the voting booths.

in that matter i will say that some people could not get their cards to go vote. some people could not identify their voting booth. some people with their card were sent miles away. some people had identified the voting booth when they got into voting booth, they couldn't find their names. so that was very complex situation there. and again, i will tell you that had they given, you would have seen anybody industry. so everyone was concerned. everyone was part of this movement, but not everyone was awarded the right to vote. as for the parliament, i will say that yes, it seems like anything has matcher rated --

matcher rated. they seem to have 46 deputies, 99. it seems like they have a majority. again, it's irrelevant because i will have this approach. i will say it like this. both the differences, we were elected by the people. we have amended to come and serve the people of haiti. we will see it as an engagement, to a fight between each other. we should see it as cooperation, and this cooperation must be harmonious so it can be ferocious. and the other part of the question was -- the amnesty. i will say that, the rule of

law, the rule of law. the rule of law implicates the three powers. religious, executive and legislative based on that i will not interfere. i will not even comment. because i have a dream, it has i have spoken about reconciling the people of haiti. i have mentioned, like pardon for everyone, including these gentlemen to but as president-elect now, i intend to let the system play its role. [inaudible] >> where do you see haiti five years from the? >> five years from now, first of all i see haiti that is well seen overseas.

because i intend to ask the world to change the images they see of haiti. the images of horror, the images of boat people, images of the earthquake, images of the cholera. yes, haiti has its problems, but haiti remains a beautiful country and a rich country a rich country of its culture which is very diverse. haitian art extraordinary. the music is extraordinary. we have -- [laughter] >> we have a musician in the room, yes. [laughter] >> and we have nice son, we have nice beaches. the labor, the people of haiti are welcoming and they are waiting investment, investors to provide their knowledge.

they are hard work, and we have overseen everywhere haitian land to become successful, and they are hard workers. in haiti they are not because they are not afraid of opportunistic this is what we need to bring to them, and i hope that everyone will accompany me to which reserves. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the haitian president-elect, michel martelly, weaving in and out of the crowd here at the national press club in washington, d.c.. he will be inaugurated may 14 taking control of the country dealing with rebuild after a massive earthquake last year,

and ongoing cholera epidemic, and social challenges. he was here meeting with the imf and world bank for financing opportunities in haiti. later this morning here on c-span2 we will take you live to the electric drive transportation association annual meeting. the president and ceo of volkswagen and one of the vice president of the edison electric institute will talk about the critical role of electricity and sustainable transportation, and the market for electric cars. that is why this one at 11:45 a.m. eastern here on c-span2. the most more people i know i'm not listing to nancy pelosi for their worldviews, nor do john boehner. and most don't go home at night and talk about continuing

resolutions to fund the united states government. most people -- maybe it's different in the room, but -- >> not at my house. >> and we forget that. the people you know, let's be honest, you are concerned about some things, you want your taxes to be low, but if they -- it a couple of gay guys get married, what do you care? isn't that where most people are today? why is it in the media we still have to be a breaking or blue team. >> watch this event tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> tonight as he sped to a discussion on education reform with the reverend al sharpton and assistant education secretary of civil rights. they will talk about academic disparities between children of different races in districts of the country. as well as how they think student achievements can't improve.

>> where we is to the debate about affirmative action and people say why do we need a program, because when a program to exclude people. you had a program that counted the program you had. it doesn't act like it was some osmosis that excluded people. it was intentional. you must intentionally correct what was wrong. >> watch this event from the aspen institute tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2.

>> the look national chain efforts funded by microsoft chairman and philanthropist, bill gates. he addressed the european parliament and he answered questions on development aid for poor countries. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: . thank you very much. can i ask people to take their seats, please come if that's possible. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: ladies and gentlemen, i am extremely happy to be able to welcome here amongst us today bill gates, all of courts are for money with

them but let me just remind you that with his wife, melinda gates, mr. bill gates has set up the bill and melinda gates foundation. that foundation is trying to injure a healthy and productive life for the citizens who are least favorite both in the united states and in developing countries. this week mr. gates has a series of extremely high level meetings in berlin and, of course, here in the european parliament. we want to thank you for that. since it was set up in 1994, the foundation has provided more than $70 billion for developing countries, most of which has gone to the field of health. i think this exchange of views does offer genuine opportunity for us to examine the developing world of private and public providers of funds and relationship between the two. ladies and gentlemen, this meeting is taking place at a

point i'm we're debating the future financing of the european union as well as the necessary changes to the way in which we finance development aid. considering the importance of the statute on the agenda today, we have invited them as of the budget committee and members as well of the special committee on political challenges and budgetary resources for the european union, 2013. we would like to welcome it was a both committees to this meeting. i'm sure mr. gates would also like to talk to us about an initiative which is aimed to make it clear to political decision-makers and a major public as well how development aid can and has transformed millions of human lives. so i woul would in the past ther to mr. gates. mr. gates, you have the floor. >> thank you very much. fantastic. thank you very much. good afternoon. it's great to be here.

i thought i would just make some of the remarks, and then will have most of our time together for whatever questions people have. was said, i'm on a tour called living proof, and that's really to spread the good news about how a particular part of aid budgets have made a very dramatic difference, and so it's really about success stories. and it's to thank the voters in the places i am in for their generosity. and, of course, to encourage them to continue, and even grow that generosity. the majority of all aid that goes to poor countries comes from europe, and the european union has both encouraged that at the national level and itself devoted substantial part of its budget to these development activities. likewise, my wife and i have

committed all the resources we have to our foundation to work in the same areas. and i think our goals are the same. we want to live in these countries up. we want to put them in a position where they will be self-sustaining, and in a situation where people are healthy, where people have jobs, where the environment is respected and they investment to the future, particularly in education, is very strong. i first got into this about 15 years ago when i was first setting up the foundation. and what i saw then was that the health issue was really the one that made the biggest difference. in fact, at the very beginning the foundation was mostly focused on reproductive health and issues around allowing mothers to decide if they wanted

to have tools to have smaller family size on a voluntary basis, that they could do that. but as i got involved in that i found out that if you improve the health of a family, contrary to what you might think, or where you would think it would ask the increased population growth, in fact what happens is substantially the opposite, that as health improves, parents choose voluntarily to have less children because, in fact what they're trying to do is make sure they have to that survived to be able to support them as adults. and so what we find out is that improvements in health, help with every issue that we care about, we care about stability come if we care about the environment, if we care about food or jobs, these investments are dramatic in their affect.

and within this health area, amazingly there's a miracle technology which is the vaccine, and the vaccine is often very, very inexpensive, particularly after it's been out for some time. i think one of the greatest achievements of mankind was done back in the 1970s, well before i was involved in any of this stuff, and that was the elimination of smallpox, which had been killed over 2 million people a year, and now, of course, kills no one because it is the only disease that's been completely eradicated. that was done with foreign aid, and a vaccine that was very, very effective. the second disease that we hope, that the world can't eliminate is polio. again, that's been achieved with the generosity of foreign aid, almost a billion dollars a year spent on the polio eradication campaign, and the use of the vaccine. and the good news is that we've

gone from over 300,000 children a year he paralyzed, to net only about 3000. and we only have four countries left where the disease has not been eliminated, and with any sort of continued financing in the next three or four years, we will succeed in getting the number of cases down to zero. that would be a very exciting thing. what's incredible is almost all the things that kill children are vaccine preventable. now, in some cases we still have to invent the vaccine like in the case of malaria, and some of the other diseases. in other cases the vaccines exist. they are simply being given only to reach children in the world, which is somewhat ironic given that these diseases are far more present, diarrhea and respiratory diseases, and the poor countries. a group called coffee was great to buy these vaccines.

europe has been generous, both at the national government level where norway, the u.k. and france have been the three biggest donors, but also some monies coming from the union level that have made a huge difference. so what they're doing is getting new vaccines out to children and had incredible success. in fact, over 5 million lives have been saved by this work. one of the most important statistics that i track is the number of children under five who die every year. back in 1960 goes over 20 million. now it's a bit over 8 million to am i believe is that if donors do the right things within the next 15 years, we can cut in half again to be less than 4 million. and vaccines will be a major part of that. another area of health that your

plays a major role, and the union has been very important in terms of its donations, is this global fund. global fund was newly created to not only help treat aids but also to help with tuberculosis and malaria. it's been a very effective organization and has a big impact. the final area i will talk about is the area other than health that our foundation is but the most money into is agriculture. and that is helping very poor farmers to improve their productivity. over 75% of the poorest people are farmers, and not only are they faced with the problem of feeding themselves, for their children to get enough nutrition, the weather today is often challenging for them, and

the weather in the future will be even more of a challenge for them. and if we can help them be more productive, we cannot only solve their problem, having enough money to send their kids to school and give them enough nutrition so they can develop fully, but we can also do with the challenge that the world needs more food. and we see that very clearly, once again, with food prices continue to go up, which is an issue not only for the world, but for the urban poor as well. and so there's a lot of investments that individual farmers or even poor countries can't make improvements in agricultural techniques, improvements in the seat using a variety of techniques, that can help these farmers more than double their output. in fact, in africa the level of farm productivity is about a third of what it is in the united states and europe.

and so clearly that potential is there and that's a very important thing. so, as i said at the beginning i think we have some goals in common. i think we're learning to be smarter about our aid spending every year. i'm a big believer in measuring the outcomes, and certainly in some cases we don't get the outcomes. we should shift those resources. and we appreciate the things that we work on together, because i think there's a lot of great things that are being achieved. i do think we need to get the word out about these successes that focused aid, focus on the need of the poorest countries do make a huge difference, because there's a lot of the people who vote and whose taxes funded these things that don't really understand the incredibly positive things that their generosity is allowing for. thank you.

[applause] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. we imagine a lot of members have asked for the floor. so what i will ask that people please be brief and what they say. i will pass the floor to each person for two minutes. now, in general he will know that i am fairly straight, and after two minutes i will be using the gavel, and i will be asking you, please, respect the speaking time so everyone can have an opportunity to take the floor. i will start by passing the floor to mr. mitchell. >> thank you, madam president, and thank you mr. gates for your presentation. i will keep in the time-limited first of all, it really is important to stress what has been achieved. if we do not tell people that we are being successful, they will not continue to support the striving towards 0.7%.

the really important. more people are dying in africa from non-communicable diseases that are dying from haiti of aids in statistics. .. having a

skilled birth attendant. having the mother be educated about keeping the baby warm, starting the breastfeeding and a few things like antibiotics. that's about half the deaths of under 5 occur in those first 30 days. then from days -- from 30 days to five years, it's almost all infectious diseases. it's diarrhea, malaria, acute respiratory infection. all those diseases are preventible and so between those two areas, that covers childhood deaths. noncommunable diseases it's heart disease, cancer become at all significant. and so people should want to live to get a noncommunicable disease. there's no evidence that you can't get noncommunable people.

they work with heart disease and diabetes and cancer so in terms of aid budgets in those cases, in the rich countries when you save a life, an entire life that is, you know -- say, 70 years of life you're spending over a million dollars in order to do that. in the poorest countries, we use aid money, if we can't save a life for $10,000, then we're misspending the money because you should spend that money on putting out more vaccines, more aids drugs. so you're only doing the things that are inexpensive but fortunately those are the things that allow people to live in their 60s and 70s. and once the rich countries solve noncommunicable diseases, but groups like the u.n. are effective and aid is effective when it's a very low cost

intervention and that's fortunately vaccines can cover all of that. sorry. >> i was just finishing for the end of the interpretation. we'll take questions now in groups of 3 if you don't mind. i think that would be easier. i'll pass the floor. >> thank you, mr. gates, for being here. thank you for what you've been doing in the last 15 years and there's lots of people alive in the world today because of the commitment that you and your wife have made. the private philanthropy is a very important aspect of development. you mentioned diarrheal diseases right now, and hand-washing is a very effective way when there's clean water to get the young children to get their hands clean and stop the spread of diarrheal diseases. as you said 5 million die. i wonder if there's any

hand-washing gel program that you're undertaking as a preventive measure? the second question was about clean water. clean water is a huge problem and continues to be a huge problem and water shortages need to be a problem. we need to think strategically about how we can address these problems that are going to surface in the near future. thank you. >> thank you very much. i would like also to welcome mr. gates among us and to congratulate you and the foundation for global development. i know that you have a very important with the commission with president sarkozy and you continue to give good news for development working in terms of for the development and in the next several years. and make sure the member

states -- and are trying to get the development funding to maintain for the future for funding to 2014, 2020. i would like to ask you how do you view the cooperation between private and partner donors because i think it's very important to have this example and i really think it's a great event for us to have you here and there are also private foundation who make some more than member states together. thank you very much. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much, madam chairman. it's with great respect and it's a real honor to have you here, mr. gates and to give encouraging words about what's been done.

very often there are criticisms of aid, people saying that differences aren't being made. some people think it should all be about trade but i am happy to hear here that it's about development and trade. that's important. what about unemployment amongst young people. north of the sahara desert and in sub-sahara africa. that's a problem. and today there are many young people in north africa, they have risen up partly because of the fact -- 'cause they are jobless and there are entrepreneurs who want to come in and create jobs but these entrepreneurs won't go into this countries unless there's an inkling of stability for them. and i would like to hear from mr. gates from this is it possible to develop the

possibilities of greater stability in these developing countries so investment can flood in. than >> yeah, those are all good questions. in terms of the hand-washing, yeah, we worked some with unilever and some others on that. and i would say we've made modest progress. we're not clear how substantial that can be. for diarrheal diseases, there is a new vaccine roto

>> the increase if we got to 7%. that would be 28 billion euros additional to what's been given today. and given what we know, about how to spend that money well, would make a huge difference. and i've outlined in my living proof paper that's online exactly what you could get for that additional money. that would give you money to achieve the mdgs. not by 20 if anyone but within 10 years, you could achieve the mdgs. in terms of public/private, you know, we need all the actors. we need more philanthropists and i'm doing all i can to encourage that. we need companies and a number of the drug companies have been great about their roles. there's other companies we are trying to draw in. we have a rating we do with drug companies every year to rate how much they help poor people. it's called the access to medicines index.

and the beauty of it is the companies who do well on that rating call us up and say we want to do per and the people who do poorly call us up and say they want to do better. so it's led to a very good dialog that we want to see now with banks and mobile phone companies and mineral companies as well. in terms of unemployment, yes, the -- if you have an open economy and you educate your labor force, there is a wage rate at which those people will be employed. and what happens is that these countries don't open their economy up. egypt is a great example where the quality of the education system was not very high. but just look what happened in turkey over a 15-year period and what happened in egypt over a 15-year period. it's quite different where

turkey did the right things and egypt in terms of creating the economy did not. and, unfortunately, that's not aid-related because the country that got the most aid by a fair amount was egypt. and so there are policy things that lead to this. of course, i would point out, though, that having -- that in africa, over a third of the children by the time they're age 5, they've had some disease episode, either malaria or malnutrition so they will never -- their brain will never fully develop and so some of the health issues can hold you back, and that's -- and part of the reason why things have been so tough in africa. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you. the next speaker is mr. garrio and then mr. karachi. >> thank you very much. and i would like to welcome you,

mr. gates. today you're visiting our committee because you're a major private donor and you're associated with the values of solidarity and cooperation. but you also could have come for a couple of very important reasons. the first of which you defend meritocracies. and when it comes to inheritances, you prefer to socialize the inheritance that you've accumulated and to leave it to -- rather to leave it to your children as a form of privilege. and also you could have come as a person who's in the vanguard of the revolution in communication technology because there's probably -- there's no one who has done more to develop the technological revolution in communications. so i'd like to know whether you've concentrated all of your efforts in health or whether at some point you're also going to be concentrating if you haven't

on education? and if you have any kind of communication and cooperation with the colombian researcher who is trying to develop a vaccine that could, in fact, combat hundreds of diseases [speaking foreign language] >> translator: good afternoon, mr. gates. i'm happy to have you here as all the others have said so already. i'm here. you mentioned egypt and turkey. the difference between these countries was, of course, egypt was a dictatorship and turkey was not, which made it easier to develop the country in a more equal way. that should be the role of the european union to promote human rights, rule of law and democracy. but apart from that, in the countries and not only in the netherlands where i come from we have huge political pressure against development policies. development does not work, one

says. as it has been said very often and is a huge campaign against development policy. and you started a campaign on twitter on development works and i'm very glad about that. but what do you say to those people who advocate for development health because it doesn't work and i say if development health doesn't work and for foreign policy reasons we didn't allow development policies to work as it should because it kept dictators in place. we closed your eyes for corruption, et cetera, et cetera. i would really like you to raise this argument in favor of development aid with all the conditions we have to put on and the reforms, et cetera, that are necessary and you give the good examples. but we really need very, very strong voices on this issue. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you.

>> mr. gates, i would like to ask you two questions. the first one is concerning the coordination between the different donors in the developing countries. you are working with your foundation together sometimes with some other international donors. do you see any room for improvement for this coordination being the stage of planning the development aid or the stage of implementation or state monitoring? and the second is -- i mean, you have been one of the driving forces changing the life of the people with technologies. do you think in the poorest countries where you're working with your foundation, technologies would come sooner to change lives there? thank you. >> in terms of meritocracy, you know, it's interesting. some countries should try

sending the children and grandchildren of their 1900 olympic team to the olympics and see how they do and see whether the inherited approach is able to compete with the meritocracy approach and i think the results would be quite clear. i also think the history of whether you do your children a favor by giving them large wealth is pretty clearly that it is not a favor even to the recipient, although they may not feel that way immediately. in terms of technology and education, yes, i'm very optimistic about that. that is the one part of our foundation that right now is focused on the united states, which is piloting the use of technology and education. and if we're successful with that, which we are not yet then i hope it would have a worldwide

benefit. if you want to get a glimpse of a future of education, there's a website i'd encourage you to look at where the great lectures and quizzes are being put up so that a student can take them directly and yet a teacher or a parent can watch what they're doing, how they're doing and help them along. so i think there's a lot of promise there but it's not yet known how we mix classroom learning and technologically enabled out of classroom learning to get the right motivation for all the students. but there's a lot of investment and that has a lot of promise. in terms of the history of aid, i completely agree with what you said. a lot of aid historically was not given expecting it to improve human lives. and so, unfortunately, now where we're mostly justifying our aid by saying, yes, vaccines save

lives, vaccines allow kids to grow up fully mentally developed, we're getting compared to cold war-type aid policies that were about buying friendships. and we have to admit even today a lot of aid is not -- when you make the grant, you don't say, this grant will do this -- raise the number of vaccines. this grant will raise the income of the farmers. a lot of it's very traditional-type giving and given through governments that do not -- are not using it in the right way. but some aid today, a substantial portion, including a lot of the high impact help and agricultural aid is different. and so we have to both improve. we have to have clearer goals. and we have to communicate what's gone well because most of

these people attack aid kind of attack it in a blanket way. what we need is people who are serious about saying which aid are you criticizing? you can't really criticize vaccines, honest. you can't criticize famine aid. you can criticize budgetary support aid. and so -- you know, i agree with that. in terms of coordination of donors, the complexity of the aid system is higher than you'd like. and that's why things like global fund and gavi stand out because they manage to unify together everything about those diseases and bring in real experts and move very quickly. and everybody realized, okay, we'll work with them. on a lot of issues like agriculture education, there are a lot of different actors. if you go into a poor country and you look at the number of people there, it's still very

large so i think we can dune that. i don't think it's realistic to ever get a perfectly simple system and some of the diversity is valuable because someone may find a better approach and ideally, the other peoples learn from them. as far as technology goes, in a sense you invent a new seed and the scientists doing that use the internet and new technologies, that is technology helping poor people. if you invent a new vaccine, a malaria vaccine, using the internet, that is technology helping poor people. in terms of direct benefit, absolutely the idea that people are going to have cell phones over time should mean that checking about vaccines and agricultural advice and organizing women's groups and making financial transactions very low cost, digital technologies will play a role

there. but we have to be very cautious because the cost, the complexity, the coverage -- there's been a lot of overoptimism in that area so we fund a lot but i wouldn't say there's been the breakthrough yet. over the next five years, i think we'll see some breakthroughs. and over the next 10 years, some pretty big breakthroughs including digital money that allow these poor countries that have terrible taxation systems will allow them to run very well taxation systems. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you. if i can ask people to be particularly brief. there's a long list of speakers. now mr. gerens, bulson and mcglucking. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you. i have the following question

for mr. gates. definitely, you're the biggest private donor in the world which gives you a certain amount of prestige. and your voices listen to. so what would your message with to institutional donors, i.e., to states given that they committed themselves already in the '70s to have 0.7% of gni going into development policy. now, the european union entered into that commitment as part of the european consensus for development in 2005. and it's trying to do it and hopes to get there in 2015. now, the country that you come from is coming up about 0.2%, whereas, as they are bound by

that promise is made in the 70s and i would like to hear your views on two others matters. firstly, what's your message to public donors because i don't think your action can be explained by application of public donors towards their promises and commitment so i do think the public is doing less because you're doing more. and secondly, conditionality, extreme ones such as with the european union which has aid linked to values; whereas, another type of conditionality from china is putting in capital for infrastructure with export duties for minerals. now, that is not development. what do you prefer? and what is your view about

this? so i would like to conclude with this, which is that type of conditionality is the one you would espouse [speaking foreign language] >> translator: you made tremendous work for helping the disadvantaged people and you are an example of how charity could be efficient and how charity can change the life of many people. your example of a private donor is a model in the u.s. what do we think we should be doing in the european union in terms of changing the fiscal philosophy or in other countries in order to motivate private donors to have education, charity in order that this project will not be financed mainly from public sources, public budgets but also to a larger extent from private

funds? thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. gates, for coming here today and for the work that your foundation does. the consensus on many politicians when they're thinking about the budget for international development but it's in general is the transparency issue and finding the evidence of how it's changing lives on the ground. this is why i think the evidence they are collecting to show the results of aid and the investment that they've made is a really positive move but what from your experience can we do to improve the transparency when it comes to aid and also how to best communicate the message about the results? and i also like to know your thoughts as a businessman while we can give aid while encouraging trade at the same time and also how that might help us achieve better outcomes? thanks. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i'll take a

fourth question from the lady. >> thank you, mr. bill gates, for being here and thanks for your fantastic work. i fully agree that health is the number one policy in terms of aid to development. and i would like to take one problem. in poor countries the lack of health professionals in terms of medical professionals and nurse. they do not train enough professionals and rich countries attract these professionals from the poor countries because they are better paid and freedom of movement. does your foundation work also in this field of trying to fix these professionals in poor countries? or to try to revert the -- what advice can you give to the policymakers in europe where we are attracting some of these professionals from africa.

thank you very much. >> yeah. a key point, i think, that came up in multiple questions was the relative size of philanthropy to government aid. if you take international aid, private philanthropy, even with our foundation and others is less than 2% of what's given to poor countries. and i think we can grow it, and i think it has a special role. in terms of funding research, trying out new things, i think philanthropy contributes more than its proportional share. but in terms of the big things, really helping poor countries with health and agriculture,

it's government foreign aid so, unfortunately, even though we want to maximize philanthropy, it will not offset anything done from the rich governments. it's absolutely fair to say that the united states is not exemplary in the scale of its foreign aid. there are some things it's done very well. it's substantially the largest aids donor, the largest malaria donor. it does fund a lot of scientific work into these diseases more than other governments and there's lots of room for others to plan for that. but as a percentage it's about a third of what it should spend. and i certainly do everything i can to push for that to increase. there was a commitment to double it in the campaign but it's clear today that not only won't it got doubled that we're

fighting for it not to be cut and fighting very hard telling these stories so i wish i had better news for you on that front but we'll keep trying. in terms of encouraging philanthropy, you know, i don't -- nobody knows what magic mix of things -- what philanthropy really gets developed in the united states. there are some things like an estate tax or foundations having a minimum payout level, but those things alone wouldn't explain it. it is sort of a tradition that builds up where you expect people of wealth to at least consider doing it, and i hope that's going to catch on in many countries. you know, i've carried on discussions with the new people who are wealthy in both china and india in the last six months and i think there's some real pioneers of philanthropy. it's not that europe has some great philanthropists, it just has less than you'd like it to

have. there are some very good ones. in terms of transparency, yes, it's very hard to study these aid budgets and understand where they go and what their goals was. and in the age of the internet, whether it's your aid budget or country aid budgets we need to make it easier to understand these things. i find it hard to understand these things. and that means it's fairly complicated the way it's presented and laid out. in terms of health care workers, the fact that health care workers move from a poor country to a rich country and take a job is a very, very good thing because the remittances that comes back from those health care workers on average is double the salary they were receiving in the poor country. what we need to do is increase the amount of -- we need to do two things. we need to increase the amount of training in the poor countries and if more of them go

to rich countries, 'cause the rich countries can't train their own, that's okay. so we need to up that capacity, which we do invest in. we also need to make sure that the health interventions that we are doing in these poor countries -- if they can be done with less-trained personnel, then that's better. so vaccination does not require a doctor. now, the delivery of a child, you do want to have a doctor around. you do want a sterile location where if you had to you could do a c-section. so you can't avoid -- umgd to have somebody trained and we need more doctors and facilities. i wish there was a magic way around it because as you say it's very difficult. but we will have to invest in more training. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: well, we still

have ten people wanting the floor so i'm going to give 1 minute each to two groups of five. mrs. naske, mr. sparino, mr. newton, and mrs. brocca as the next group. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. gates. i want to ask you about the problem which still exists here in europe, and this is the poverty among the population. have you ever dealt with this problem and if you have, can you tell us more about your experience with this. do you consider the business as a possible partner of the state institutions in fighting long-term solutions such, for example, by educating and then creating jobs for these people instead of simply spending money for social programs? thank you.

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. >> okay. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you, mr. gates. we're coming up towards the next international food crisis. you yourself said that a lot of small farmers in developing countries can't produce enough food for themselves. 60 to 80% in the sub-sahara and you talked about necessary investments, but for me, it's not a question as to the amount of investment but what sort. a new unknown for supporting development using gmos. wouldn't it be better to invest in a more sustainable and environmental agriculture in effecting change? second question, what do you

think about bringing in an international financial transaction tax, the results of which would go into combating famine and poverty? would you support that? and if you wouldn't be in favor of it, can you say why not [speaking foreign language] >> translator: thank you. you were referring to both policy and democratic change and now this has a big change in terms of development. and what about the migratory flows from the richer countries to the poorer countries. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much, mr. gates, in all you're trying to do. in your opening remarks you refer to the biggest potential disaster for the world all together, climate change. and that could potentially

overwhelm all the work that you're trying to do. does your foundation and you're working with that or do you prefer to stay out of it [speaking foreign language] >> translator: thank you very much, madam chair. thank you very much for coming and for all your work. last year, there has been some confusion about your comments on the vaccination. you say the decreasing child mortality slows down the population growth. do the parents have fewer children. can be with in lifesaving measure and a tool to use the increase of population? but do we see a vaccination that

has been covered for use to study women. knowing your main goals is to reduce population, i would like to ask you, could you assure us the vaccination program supported by your program have no negative effects on the development. thank you very much. >> um, our foundation is not working specifically on the issue of the roma population. you know, almost all of our work is in the poorest countries. we do have one program that is in low, middle incomed countries where we put computers in libraries and so there are places like romania, latvia and a number of countries where we're actually doing those

library programs but that's not aimed at any particular group. in terms of the food crisis, we invest in any technique that avoids starvation. and so most of our funding is actually what we call conventional breeding, but there are some traits of crops, the ability to deal with drought, for example, where gmo techniques in the united states have shown pretty substantial gains. and in those cases where we funded asked if they should take for free without royalty take that and look into it, we said, yes, if it can prevent starvation, you should. we also funded regulatory groups in africa that five years from now when those crops may or may not be available to examine, that they'll have strong

regulatory capacity. and so i think while we use several techniques to be able to feed the world, higher productivity is very proenvironment in the sense that if you don't have the productivity, you put land into use that you should not put in. and that's a terrible thing locally and in terms of an environment change. in terms of migration, yes, migration is a great thing. it allows very energetic and talented people to come in to rich countries and learn things. many of those people go back. i wish there was more. the main limiting factor is the tolerance of the people in rich countries. they seem to have a limit on this including in the united states, which, you know, it's too bad because that kind of circulation is very helpful. particularly if you have countries whose populations are not -- only not growing but

actually going down. in terms of climate, i'm personally very involved in climate issues. there's a number of speeches that i'd given about these topics. when we think of climate, there's two things we need to do. we need to emit less c02 and that has to do with invention, invention of electric cars. invention of new ways of generating electricity. that -- the foundation is not involved in because those are gigantic markets so i do invest in battery companies, biofuel companies, even nuclear companies. i invest in all sorts of innovations. the role of the foundation is much more in the adaptation. and so i wish there were more people investing in crops that sequestered more c02 and i wish investing were no till crops and

crops that could withstand higher temperatures and they are looking mostly at adaptation, a little bit at biofuels. finally, in terms of population issues, the foundation is involved in providing reproductive health supplies. so, for example, implants and injectables that women can use on a voluntary basis. my wife is catholic. we're not involved in abortion. we're not involved in sterilization. and, you know, we believe that, you know, women should be healthy and be able to have as many children as they want to. some of our antiaids programs -- for example, our sex worker in india does promote the use of condoms so that a woman would protect herself and not -- and not die of aids.

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. now, the floor goes to mrs. rapti. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: mr. gates, you've come here to talk to us in your capacity as a philanthropist and in hearing our questions, you no doubt realize that we're talking to you or listening to you in terms of policy here. and given the crisis that we have on our hands today, i have a very direct question to put to you. as an entrepreneur, a very successful entrepreneur, and given that you have said that you're always in touch with your accountant and so, on, perhaps you can have an opportunity how we can get out of this economic crisis and tell us how it could be. 2011 is the european year for

voluntary action. perhaps we could link that voluntary action to philanthropy. thank you. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: mr. baylor, please, as quickly as you can, please. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much, madam chairman. >> translator: mr. gates and the european parliament. my question is very simple and very short. you spend a lot of money for the nation and everybody know when a big amount of money and you have very strict control. how can we be sure your control when you spend the money, especially in africa, the muffin -- the money go to the right people? thank you. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much, madam chairman. a welcome to you, mr. gates, to

the european parliament. alongside the humanitarian aid that you offer and given the success that you've talked to us about today, there are nevertheless a number of cases where we've seen a radical change in people's lives because of violent action. we've seen this in indonesia and in haiti and then, of course, the japanese disaster that we've seen most recently. the european union offers the prospect of humanitarian aid but does your foundation also offer that kind of aid for these kinds of cases. thank you. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: sorry, i forgot mr. karkop. i forgot about that. >> mr. gates, can i ask you in the irony that we see in front of us of developed nations that are less and less willing to automatically accept vaccination of their children, where actually measles is on the rise

again in the developing nations, while you are at the same time taking your campaign of vaccinations across the third world. my question is simple, we think what you're doing is wonderful. does everybody think what your doing in these receiving countries? do get a lot of resistance in these campaigns and how do you deal with them? >> ah, yeah, in terms of the eurocrisis, i wish i had some great advice. it's a very tricky problem in terms of instilling confidence while knowing that some bills are so large you don't want to -- you don't want to be responsible for them. so i don't have the answer to that. in terms of grants, you always

know that some of your money will be misused. and what you want to do is make sure that's, say, less than 5%. and you want to have a very quick detection system so you can see if i send money for vaccines, then i can survey and see did the kids get them or not? if not, then there's wrong. what aids drugs did they get them or not and i can get them off. if anyone can tell you there's an aids program that is that has not corruption they are not measuring to what's going on. and you don't the measurement to be so expensive that it hurts a lot. i think we have been fairly innovative in coming up with quick and low cost measurements, in other words, we're getting what we want. the world bank has gotten very good on these issues. they've had so many problems. they learned the lessons of how

you fund infrastructure the hard way and now have gotten quite good at that. i would say the gavi global fund are good at how they do the tracking. they were good to first catch the problems and i'm very impressed on their response on those things. although it's horrific. any corruption is terrible. in terms of a disaster assistance, yes, our foundation gives -- we have about -- i think it's 20 to $30 million a year that we give to that. we like to give before the disaster takes place so that you have people trained and you have the food packs ready, the doctors ready, the transport ready, the tracking systems ready. so we give before to make sure that -- there's about six organizations that are really good at this stuff. then we also give some during because they may need to buy some supplies.

usually, of course, these disasters are in poor countries and it's quite automatic to give. even in the japan case we gave even though in some cases it's more a statement of solidarity because they don't have some huge money shortage but we chose to give because of our feelings about what a tragic situation it was. in terms of antivaccine people, these people exist everywhere in the world. and that's a big challenge. they exist in the united states where people say, no, my children shouldn't have vaccines. and kids start getting rubella and measles and hundreds of thousands of kids have died because of an antivaccine movement and there's an article in the lancet that attempted to show an effective autism from a vaccine preservative. that article was a complete fraud and only in the last year that article was withdrawn because it was completely doctored evidence that cast a

shadow over vaccines. we do need to be careful with vaccines to only license the vaccines that work very well because we're giving them to healthy kids. and we have to track that very, very well to maintain the reputation of the vaccination system. the place we've had the toughest problem with resisting new vaccines is in india. india is very republic to take on new vaccines. now, we have made some progress there. they are ruling out some new vaccines. i was just there two weeks ago and i feel good about that. but it's not -- it's not -- this movement is not confined to any single country. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. i'll conclude now, but i had also put my name on the list for questions but they've already been asked. so just simply to say as regards to development, i think all too

often we see different forms of structures that are not being used or not being finished. i saw that in haiti. i was there eight days ago, and i saw in haiti there were projects that have been funded by the u.n. and the e.u. and they haven't been properly exploited and i think that's a shame. now there was a mention of conditionality earlier on and i think this is absolutely indispensable. you yourself said earlier on, yes, water is good but waste management, sewage management is very important too and that goes on to agriculture and so. i'll come back to that because we don't have the time. on behalf of all of my colleagues i would like to thank you for this very useful and very important exchange of views but i would above all like to thank you for the work that you do. this is a great honor to have you here. thank you very much, mr. gates. [applause] >> thank you.

[inaudible conversations] >> today we'll be bringing you live coverage this morning of the electric drive transportation association annual meeting. the president and ceo of volkswagen and the vice president of the edison electric institute will talk about the role of electricity and sustainable transportation and the market for electric cars. that's live this morning at 11:45 eastern here on c-span2. >> tonight on c-span, a look at the news industry. you'll hear from a panel of journalists as they discuss the current state of news and commentary and what happens when they converge.

>> most smart people i know are not listening to nancy pelosi for their world view nor to john boehner. >> right. >> and most smart people i know don't go home at night and talk about continuing resolutions to fund the united states government. i mean, most people -- maybe it's different in the room. >> not in my house. we never talk about politics. >> absolutely. [laughter] >> and we get that. i mean, most -- i mean, the people you know -- let's be honest. you're conservative about some things. you want your taxes to be low but if a couple of gay guys want to get married, what do you care? isn't that where most people are today and why is it in the media we still have to be red team or blue team. >> watch this event from the new orleans literary festival tonight at 8:00 pm eastern on c-span.

>> where we used to hear the debates about affirmative action and people say why do we need a program. we have a program to exclude the people you have to have a program to counter the program that you had. so let's not just act like it was like some osmosis that excluded people. it was intentional. and you must intentionally correct what was wrong. >> watch this event from the aspen institute tonight at 8:00 pm eastern on c-span2.

>> let's meet one of our top winners in this year's studentcam competition. this year's theme asked students to produce a video on an event, issue or topic that helps them better understand the role of the federal government. today we go to knoxville tennessee to talk to one of our second place winners an eighth grade at fairgate middle school. how are you doing. >> i'm doing well. >> why did you choose tax policy for your documentary? >> well, it was a pretty timely issue and it was a really big

decision for the federal government in washington, d.c., that affected just about everyone in our country. >> and what did you learn from the people you interviewed and for your documentary? >> we learned that the tax code is really something people need to take seriously and understand thoroughly. >> what do you think about the state of the economy right now? >> i think that the economic storm that we mentioned in our documentary is beginning to subside and i think the sun will shine in a couple months or so, hopefully. >> how important is compromise in deciding economic legislation? >> i think it's the key factor because both plans that congress had had, their pros and cons, but they really needed to get the best of both. and i think that's exactly what happened. so i think it's definitely a key factor. >> and how is this compromise affected you and this community? >> it's definitely affected us because the increase in available spending money has just about affected everyone in

the entire country and not only us but everyone. and i think it will definitely help us out of our hole that we've dug ourselves. >> if you were an elected official, what would you have done differently? >> i don't think i would have done anything differently because it turned out great. but i think -- i probably would have favored the republican plan because as president obama said -- as professor bruce said in our documentary, the millionaires and billionaires in our country really make a big chunk of our economy. and if they were forced to pay more money through taxes, as president obama wanted to, then our economy -- that would just slow our recovery down even more. >> and what did you learn on working on this documentary? >> the tax code is really is something that's really important and that the federal government affects everyone not only through the tax code but through the economy in general. >> finally, what is the message that you would like to share with people through your

documentary? >> well, i think we really want to share that the federal government has a really big impact on everybody's daily lives through not only taxes but the economy in general. >> thanks for talking with us today. >> thank you. >> and now here's a brief portion of his documentary "calming the economic storm." >> by ensuring that americans have more to spend, to save and to invest, this legislation is adding fuel to an economic recovery. >> they were passed with this expiration date, this artificial, what they call sunset at the end of this calendar year, at the end of 2010. >> unfortunately, congress was divided on the topic. president barack obama developed a compromise. >> you should permanently extend the bush tax cuts for all families making less than $250,000 a year. that's 98% of the american people. >> as opposed to the majority democratic view, republicans firmly believe that extending

all of the bush tax cuts for the entire population was the way to go. john boehner was the leader of the republican effort to convince congress to extend all of the bush tax cuts. >> i think extending all of the current tax rates and making them permanent will reduce the uncertainty in america and help small businesses begin to create jobs again. >> and you can see this entire video and all the winning documentaries at studentcam.org and continue the conversation at our facebook and twitter pages. >> this year's studentcam competition asked students from across the country to consider washington, d.c. through their lens. today's second prize winner addressed an issue that better helped them understand the role of the federal government. ♪ >> december 31st 2010 was a very important date for the federal government and the people of our country. major changes in the tax policy would be made. these changes could possibly

increase the amount of money paid by the citizens to the federal government. the bush tax cuts were set to expire on december 31st, 2010, and congress had to decide if they are going to extend them or let them expire. ♪ >> so what are the bush tax cuts? the bush tax cuts are the reduction of taxes passed by president george w. bush as part reconciliation act of 2001 and the reconciliation act of 2003. ♪ >> in 1999 and 2000, our economy was running a budget surplus. president bush thought the tax cuts would be a good idea because we could stop increasing the surplus and give more back to the consumer. >> by ensuring that americans have more to spend, to save, and to invest, this legislation is adding fuel to an economic recovery. >> they were passed with this expiration date, this artificial -- what they call

sunset at the end of this calendar year, the end of 2010. >> unfortunately, congress was divided on the topic. president barack obama developed a compromise. >> we should permanently extend the bush tax cuts for all families making less than $250,000 a year. that's 98% of the american people. >> as opposed to the majority democratic view, republicans firmly believed that extending all of the bush tax cuts for the entire population was the way to go. john boehner was the leader of the republican effort to convince congress to extend all of the bush tax cuts. >> i think extending all of the current tax rates and making them permanent will reduce the uncertainty in america and help small businesses begin to create jobs again. >> however, democrats were at a stalemate. some sided with president obama while others endorsed republican ideas. one thing everyone in congress was concerned about was middle

class families, 98% of the population. ♪ >> middle class families would have gotten fiscal relief now but after several years the deficit would skyrocket to $3.3 trillion. >> they talk about saving about $700 billion over ten years, but it's not really saving the 700 billion, it's really choosing to spend only, you know, $2.5 trillion as opposed to $3

trillion over ten years. >> republicans argue that the full sunset of tax cuts would hurt small businesses. >> it's been challenging for a lot of small business owners and even larger companies to determine how they're going to, you know, sort of map out their spending for 2011 if they don't have this certainty right now about the tax rate. >> you know, there's higher income tax that's going to effect small business decisions, particularly when it comes to hiring. >> i don't think small businesses would be very hurt if, if top brackets expired. but, like i said, i don't think they're going to. >> in "the new york times," peter orr zag, former congressional budget office director, gave the idea of a possible compromise; extend the tax cuts for two years, then have a full sunset.

this idea is reflected in the house bill, number 4853. the house of representatives passed house resolution 4853, the middle class tax relief act of 2010. this bill partly includes president obama's idea extending them only for families earning $250,000 a year. however, the house extended the bush tax cuts permanently. the white house and the senate republicans entered into talks to try to create that compromise between the house and the senate. on december 6, 2010, president obama announced that a tentative deal had been made with congressional republicans to send the bush era tax cuts at all income levels for two years as part of the house tax bill package. on december 9, 2010, senator harry reid proposed a senate amendment, number 4753. among the other effects, this amendment to the tax act included an extension of the

bush tax cuts for all income levels for two years. on december 15th the senate passed a tax bill with its amendment with an 81-19 vote. on the same day, the house received the amended tax bill to vote on. after two days of debate, on december 17th the house voted on the senate changes to the tax bill. it passed the tax bill with a high majority, 277-148. on december 17, 2010, president obama signed the tax bill into law effectively extending the bush era tax cuts for citizens of all income levels by two years. [applause] how will the economy and citizens be affected by the new tax bill? >> i think we'll see it lose. >> what could be ab alternative to a tax cut -- an alternative to a tax cut in the future? >> [inaudible] makes a lot of sense.

at the same time, one has to realize that consumption is generally smaller than income. people save. >> if we could combine climate change policy with tax policy, maybe we could put in place a carbon tax. this is a favorite idea of economists but not a great idea in terms of politicians. politicians don't like it because it sounds like a tax that's going to raise energy costs to consumers, and in fact, that's probably true. >> what should be our long-term goal? >> just hold steady, let's just let the ship get out of this economic storm -- [inaudible] we don't need any more policy changes at this point until we can get on firmer ground as far as the recovery's concerned. >> compromise, by definition, means taking some things you don't like. and the overall package was the right one to insure that this

economy has the best possible chance to grow and create jobs. something that's always been the greatest strength of america is a thriving, booming middle class. where everybody's got a shot at the american dream. and that should be our goal. >> go to studentcam.org to watch all the winning videos and continue the conversation about today's documentary at our facebook and twitter pages. >> coming up here on c-span2 in less than an hour, electric drive, the annual transportation association meeting on the market for electric cars and the role of electricity in sustainable transportation. we'll have that for you live at 11:45 eastern. but for now a look at tax policy, part of our series this week on the findings of the national commission on fiscal responsibility. from this morning's "washington journal." >> host: well, in our next segment we are continuing our weeklong look at the fiscal commission recommendations to te reduce the national debt.

now, on monday we looked at proposals to cut and caps to discretionary spending. on tuesday we looked at proposals to restructure medicare and medicaid.dica yesterday we looked at defensey and security spending, and on frizz we're going to be lookingn at social security. but today our focus is on these commission's proposals to overhaul tax policies, and our guestop is former commission member alice rivlin. member, ali. one of the items the commission proposed was to create the single corporate tax rate of 23% to 29% and eliminate all special industry subsidies. how would that reduce the deficit? guest: the problem with the tax code, both the individual and corporate taxes, is that over the years congress for its own good reasons has put special

provisions in the tax code. in the corporate tax code there are just dozens, probably hundreds of special provisions that are advantages for particular industries like oil and gas or sometimes even for particular companies. they can write a very particular provision so that there is actually only -- so that it only applies to one company. these are earmarks' in the tax code. they are subsidies for particular things. the reason they are pernicious is that the more special deductions, exemptions you have come at the higher the rates have to be. we have gotten ourselves into a position as a nation where our corporate rate is quite high, although we do not raise an

awful lot of money from the corporate tax. the idea behind the commission's proposal is care rid of these special whatever and tax all corporate income at the same rate. and then you can lower the rate. depending on how much you get rid of, you can lower the rate quite far. from the point of view of our international competitiveness, that would help us, because we have our relatively high corporate rate, relative to other advanced countries. that is a disadvantage for american companies in the world. in if we had a lower rate, and we got rid of the special exemptions, we could raise more revenue. host: the commission proposed

simplifying the tax code and cutting individual rates across the board, making the top tax rate 23% to 29%, and creating a payroll tax holiday for 2011. why is simplification so important, and how does that raise revenue? the tax code is complicated. congress has put all lot of special provisions in. the ones that most people know about like the mortgage interest deduction for instance are legitimate banks. you might really want to encourage home ownership, but we do it in an upside down way. it is a deduction from income, and that means that higher- income people get to deduct a higher proportion of their mortgage interest.

that does not seem fair. if you created a mortgage- interest credit, then it will go to everybody. everybody would get the same amount of their mortgage interest credit against their tax. if you lower the rate, as the proposal encourages, then you could have a credit at the lowest rate, and that would go to everybody. it would get rid of ionization as a special thing. -- itemization. now the general question is how do we get rid of a lot of these special things, preserve the ones that people would really like to people like credit for

low earners and earned income tax credit, the child credit, the mortgage deduction, charitable, but do it in a fair way so that it does not particularly advantaged people who have high income. that is not what it is supposed to do. it allows us to raise more revenue was lower rates, because not so much income is deducted or exempted. >> when the commission voted in december of last year, the vote was 11-7. you voted yes, correct? guest: i voted yes. host: it was not enough to meet the threshold of 14 boats? gu-- votes. guest: that was sort of a myth. the press loved it.

the 49 was left over from an earlier concept of the commission. the idea that you would have only members of congress on the commission, and they would actually write a law, and that ball would be voted up or down -- that law would be voted up or down by the congress and would take 14 votes to have it voted up or down. as the commission evolves, it was not all members of congress. there were 12 members of congress, and six public members. we were not actually writing a lot. we're writing a report with guidelines. there was nothing to vote up or down. it got a majority of the vote. a got 11 out of 18, which is 60%.

-- eight got 11 out of 18, which is 60%. host: we are going to go to phone calls soon. we're talking with alice rivlin. some of the other commission proposals when it comes to tax overhaul proposals include replacing mortgage interest to charitable giving deductions with a 12% tax credit, which you discussed briefly. permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax, and tax capital gains as ordinary income, and add an additional 15 cents per gallon but for a gas tax by 2015. host: do you think with the gas prices today that the 15 cents per gallon gas tax could go

through congress? guest: i think with gas prices today no one would notice an extra 15 cents. i personally would have voted for a higher gas tax or a more general carbon tax, but i do think we need to make fossil fuels, including oil, more expensive, so we have an incentive to use the more efficiently. host: first call up is michelle on the republican line. we're talking about proposals to reduce the deficit in specifically looking at some of the tax overhaul proposals. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to comment on no wonder the snb has lowered expectations for america.

-- the s&p has lowered expectations for america. i feel i live in the real world in flint, mich., and come from normal background. my father and mother worked hard to make things good for our family. my mother packed our lunches every day. there was one of poor women on our block who had four boys and no father. there were certain people in the neighborhood that went in and take -- took care of her. my mother would take her laundry or what everything she could do to make some money. my mother would pay her and take her groceries and help her because she was a good loving woman.

i am so sad to see what has happened to our government programs. criment, mich. we have climbe that is out of control. that is why when i watched louisiana with those poor people cannot get in the car to drive out of louisiana to save themselves -- host: could i bring the focus back. if you could make changes to the tax code, what would you propose making? caller: everything has to be overhauled. it is a cent on the democrat soul to keep these people where these are. guest: i grew up in the middle west. i agree.

we need to overhaul the tax code, and everybody needs to pay their share. i think the commission rubber that i served on -- i think the commission that i served on has the right idea about the tax code. we need to simplify it and also reduce on the spending side. everything has to be on the table as they say. we need a combination of restraining spending and overhauling the tax code. host: one of the things the commission was looking to do was the tax code. did you start at 50/50? how did you begin that? guest: we started by looking at the spending side.

that was true of both commissions i served on. everyone wanted to say how can we reduce the spending over the long run? the growth of spending. the growth of spending is primarily in the entitlement programs, because we have made promises to older people, and now there will be a lot more older people and the cost of medicare is rising. both commissions look at how you restrain health-care spending, and then we booked at discretionary spending, both defense and domestic. after you have done all that, you realize the deficit will still be rising, and there is a lot of spending in the tax code. the special provisions we have been talking about might as well be spending programs, but they happen to have been put in the tax code. that means the rate talk to be higher, because we take tax

expenditures out of the game. so we came to look at especially reducing the tax expenditures, reducing the spending through the tax code. the tax earmarks' if you like. and simplifying the tax code and lowering the rates, which will enable the government to raise more money. host: next call comes from utah. go ahead, colleen, on the independent line. in caller: i appreciate the opportunity and information with the clarification that the guest had attempted to help paul ryan with the proposal that came out much differently than she wanted it to. my proposals for tax reform are

a little different. i believe we did not have a great recession, that we actually have agreed inception where there really wealthy conspired and started early with the secret oil deals that led to the iraq war and the industrial machine, including the money, and i think the oil subsidies have got to be if not totally done away with, only given it a certain percentage of the oil is guaranteed back to the owners of the oil, which are american citizens. guest: i agree with the spirit of your comment, and in fact, in reforming the tax code one of the things that would be eliminated in the strictest version of this thing would be

the provision that's our favorable -- that are favorable to oil and gas. i do not see why we should favor one type of investment in the tax code over another. we should let the market decide where buttons should flow based on net -- were funds should slow based on profitability. . i think that is a good point. in addition, i think we should be taxing the consumer of oil and gas more so that we have the incentive overtime to use less of it. host: have your political views or conclusions altered over time? guest: my perception is that i have not altered, but the world has. i have always been down the middle of the road. i wrote the book in the early

1990's in which i describe myself as a card-carrying middle of the roader. i believe in bipartisanship, but especially right now. we have a problem of the looming deficit, which we have to get under control. neither party can do it alone. if the republicans come out with the plan of which is all spending cuts come and no revenue increases in quite favorable to upper income groups come it than the democrats will jump on it. if the democrats come out with a plan that is an opposite direction, the republicans will come out against it. and we have debt like -- deadlock. we cannot afford to have deadlocked. on the commission we have both democrats and republicans.

we have very different people. senator durbin of illinois who is a liberal. tom coburn it was certainly a conservative. they all voted for the proposal. they have been joined by two other members of congress, a republican and democrat. warner of virginia and a representative of georgia in what is now known as the gang of six. i think of them as not so much a gang, but six courageous people who are willing to put their political lives on the line and say we have got to solve this problem together, both parties. i think that plan, which is likely to be coming forward next

week, it can give the republicans and democrats some bipartisan cover to move ahead together. host: when you were vice chair of the fed come in did you pay a lot of attention to standard and poor? guest: not especially to standard and poor. the job of the fed is to pay attention to all kinds of indicators, and we paid attention to the stock-market and to other kinds of agencies. back when i was vice chair of the fed, this was in the 1990's, i do not think it ever occur to anybody that the sovereign debt of the united states of america could be downgraded by anyone, and there was no need to even think about it.

as gerry connolly pointed out earlier in the program, we had a surplus. we were worried about paying off all of the dead. so the notion that a rating agency would downgrade u.s. that was really far from anyone's thinking. right now we're all worried about the future of u.s. debt, because it is rising too rapidly. we cannot go on borrowing increasing amounts every year in the world market. we just cannot do it. our creditors will begin to say wait a minute, we do not want to lend you all that money. that is what standard and poor's is reflecting. they do not know any more than you and i. they see the same numbers. they see if we do not do something, we will be in really

serious trouble and our debt will not be financed of will. nobody will lend us that much money. it is a warning shot, but i think it is not as important of a warning shot as the commissions that i have served on we both said this is unsustainable. have to stop. host: next call comes from syracuse, new york. caller: you were singing my tune to a large degree. .ne thing it's really irking me the republicans are very out front about what their problem is with the efforts to come back to the taxpayer to fix problems that were caused by overspending, and the democrats

seem unwilling to engage in that particular discussion, and i do not see how things can move forward without an acknowledgement that we have a fundamental disagreement. one side of the country thinks it is ok to go and take money from the taxpayer, because we have come up with the reason to spend it or have already spent it. the other side says the constitution is clear, regardless of the fact it overstepped the boundaries over and over, the constitution is very clear that the government has the right to raise revenue when they have things that they must spend on, and those things are pretty much enumerated and have been expanded on way past any place they should have recently been. the democrats will not address that. guest: i would argue with your premise of it. i do think the democrats are addressing it. if you listen off to the

president's speech last week, he has a different way of solving the problem. he has freezes on discretionary spending, both domestic and defense. that is the difference between the parties at the moment. the democrats are more willing to cut defense spending in the report -- and the republicans are not here yet they do cut spending in the president's budget. and the president takes on the entitlement programs. he would put controls in place, more on the regulatory side and less on the market side. i actually am more market oriented, but it is not fair to say the president does not rain in future spending on entitlements. he does. he just does it in a different way. it does seem to me that when you have done all that, and i would

be quite drastic and reining in spending, as both of these reports do. when you have done all that, i think it is not realistic to think we can seem -- stick with the same broken tax code. we need to raise more revenue, but we can do it in a more fair way with lower rates. that is what the commission is proposing. host: from abc news this morning -- guest: i could not agree more. i think kent conrad has been a courageous leader. the president's commission was his idea the consequences of not

addressing this problem could be very dire, and we to think it was way up there in the future. it is not any more. we have seen the consequences of countries that did not pay attention to their debt, portugal, greece, and ireland are in trouble it is evident now that we could be in trouble quite soon if we do not put in place a plan to reduce the rate of growth of debt. we do not have to do with all at once. it does not have to mean a drastic cut in things that do not have -- you do not have to throw programming under the bus. you do have to have a plan in place that will show the world and creditors that we're serious about getting that debt under control. host: what do you think about the president's call for a new

bipartisan commission to be led by vice president biden to look at the deficit? guest: i welcome any group looking at this problem. i was a little mystified about whether the president thought he needed a new group. the gang of six is doing very well. they are all senators. somebody needs to create a group that brings in the house and the white house. maybe this is his attempt to do that puritan i hope the take the report, the gang of six, and say this is not so hard, a lot of people have worked on it. it requires a bipartisan solution, so let's get with it. host: this week came in for you. which would be more fair, raise the retirement age or remove the cap on fica withholdings?

guest: i think you have to do some of each. there is no one way to do it. i would raise the cap gradually on fica, the amount to which the petrol tax applies. the reason that it is as low as it is in the sense it does not cover as much earnings as it to. high income people have been earning a lot more. income has risen at the high end of the skill, so the amount covered by the cap is not as large as it to be in proportion to total earnings. raising the retirement age reflects the fact that we're all living longer. here i am at age 80 talking to

you about all of these things. a lot of people are retiring early and then earlier than they to. then growing benefits for a very long time. that is much more expensive than they to be when people did not live so long. so one way is to raise the retirement age. that is in the report, but it phases in very slowly and far in the future so that people have a chance to prepare for it. another way is what we did in the other commission, which is we will index the benefits to increase in longevity. that is up fancy way of saying if you retire early, you will get less because you are going to live longer. that would be based in very far in the future. -- phased in very far in the

future. host: a tweet for you -- how long would it take to base the tax cut in? guest: people run their lives around what they think the taxes will be, at least some people. things and faphase velowly. ce and what one piece of tax reform that we have not mentioned is the exclusion of employer paid health benefits from income. et younow, income your or employer makes contributions to your health care. that does not count towards your income. having that exclusion is a big incentive to take your wages in

health benefits rather than in money. but you cannot do all that at once. in you have to phase it out over time. both of these reports do that. they base it out very slowly. i think that is a good idea. in both the health reform and tax reform, because it would discourage people from having exceptionally high benefit plans, which in turn encourages them to use too much health care. host: another tweet. the federal government already has an 18 cent tax on gas and still cannot balance the budget. guest: i think you could argue an additional tax would only hurt consumers, but you can

also argue that consumers will realize, as they are already realizing because gas prices have gone up, that they need to buy more fuel-efficient cars and use it more efficiently. so i think the 18 cents per gallon is a triviatrivial compao most other countries. if you buy gasoline in europe, you are paying $4 or $5 per gallon. it is astonishing. i would not go there, but i do think we can raise it. host: st. louis. carroll, a democrat. good morning. caller: i feel like i was in a parallel universe with this woman. she wants to raise taxes on gas. she thinks we should pay more taxes on health care, and that if we use too much health care

that will limit us from using too much. i cannot believe it. this is a parallel universe. i do not know where she comes from. guest: that is interesting. in my universe it seems to me we do have a very expensive health care system. health-care costs go up every year. if we had more incentive built into the system to use less of it and to pick providers that were more efficient and more effective, give us more health care for the money, i think we bit be better off. it is hard to design that, and certainly one does not say everyone is using too much health care, but the incentives are wrong. once you have health insurance,

you do not have much incentive to figure out am i going to health-care providers that really gives me good value for the money or not? caller: next call. nashville, tennessee. go ahead, heather. caller: i would like to encourage readers and viewers to google the point of truth. if you will read the report, you will see that they start diminishing the benefits starting at $9,000 annual income. i think using will be is rather stretch. she mentioned raising the age but what she did not mention is that for every year the age did raise, all beneficiaries

will lose approximately 6.5% 7% is usually exception of the benefit for each year that the age is raised. regarding the gang of six plan, i think that is actually the plan they will put in legislative form. it is not necessarily a new plan. if you do not like this plan, you will not be too thrilled by theirs. regarding the tax reform. the tax reform -- the gang of six will raise the bottom tax bracket by 2% in but were the very top of the bracket from 35 to 28. host: all lots on the table. -- a lot of the table.

guest: i would encourage everyone to read the plan, which is called "moment of truth." and also read the plan i and a whole bunch of other bipartisan folks put on the table, because the more information, the better. the calller is right that the gain of six is building on simpson bowls, because they accept the notion that a solution to the debt problem has to be bipartisan, and it is a good place to start. in a bipartisan plan everybody gives up something. burn put itenator cockbur very well when he signed the

report. he said there is a lot in here i do not like, but i have figured out something. if we are going to solve this problem, tom coburn will not get everything he wants. alice rivlin will not get everything she once. we have to solve the problem. we have to come together across party lines and forge a compromise that maybe nobody likes, but the alternative is worse. if we do not trained in the debt, we might find ourselves in a deep recession, deeper than we are crawling out of now that we could not get out of. that is very serious. host: florida. dan, republican line. caller: i am looking for one democrat to be honest with the american people about the so- called surpluses in the clinton

years and how bush threw away the record surpluses. the economy during the clinton years was built on the .com boom, which greatly fueled the economy. money was flowing, the stock market soared. tax revenue soared. that bubble burst in the last year of the clinton presidency. the economy went into a recession. bush's first few years of office, instead of getting the revenues, he was getting tax write-offs. when you lose money in the stock market, you write it off over a period of years. host: let's get an explanation. almost out of time. guest: you are right that the economy was very good in the 1990's. part of it was the bubble in the

stock market and .com. we did have a surplus in the budget in 2001, and then the economy went into a fairly mild recession. after that we engaged in a quite deep across-the-board tax cuts and increases and benefits under medicare, and the combination, along with two wars, has built up the debt, and we have to do something about it. we have to do something about the fact that we are headed into a democratic tsunami with the baby boomers retire ring and very rapid increases in medicare, and that will keep the debt rising. we have to solve the problem. it is not a question of blame. now we have to do something to solve the problem. host: fort myers, a merrill lynch. quincy on the democrat line.

-- fort myers, maryland. caller: they say 40% of the other part of the country that does not pay taxes, don't they realize that 40% of the people that do not have enough money to pay taxes is the reason why 2% have the money that controls 40% of the cut economy -- of the economy and in and of itself? that is why they should pay more taxes, because they are actually living off the poor. guest: i agree with some of that, and i thought the president was right when he said we should not extend the bush tax cuts to upper income people. our rates, even at the high end, are not very high. i am old enough to remember when the top rate was 90%, and then

it was 70%. reagan brought it down to 50. now the top rate to which one would return if we did not extend the benefits is 39%. that is much lower than it to be. the other thing that people say is there are a lot of people that do not pay taxes coming and they mean income taxes. they do not recognize that everybody who works pays payroll tax. most american families pay more payroll tax then they pay in income tax and that everybody pays state and local taxes whenever they buy anything. or if they own property. there is not as if there is a large portion of the country that does not pay any tax. there is a large portion that does not pay federal income tax,

because we have designed the tax to fall on the upper half of the income distribution. host: this tweet -- guest: well, the gas tax has a disproportionate tax basically on their rural poor, and not so much on city people because they do not tend to drive as much or even own cars. i actually think that phasing in a small gas tax will not hurt anybody very much. taxing stocks, one of the provisions of the proposal in simpson bowels is to tax

dividends and capital gains as ordinary income. that is very important, and upper income people will not like it, because they are the ones that get the most dividend and capital gains. that is another way of saying tax stocks. host: you have been around this town for a very long time. cbo, a founding director, omb director, served on the fed among other positions. is there a political will up there on capitol hill to do some of the things that your commission has proposed? guest: up until now there has not been, but we are in a very different situation. we are facing an economic disaster, and i believe republicans and democrats are beginning to realize this, and to realize they have to work together to solve it. there is nothing like a crisis

to focus the mind. we are really facing a apiary serious problem if we do not get the debt under control. -- we are really facing a serious problem if we do not get the debt under control. people around the world will not keep lending us money at low interest rates, so we'll be in trouble if we do not fix this. host: alex rivlin was our guest. -- alice rivlin was our guest. on monday we looked at discretionary spending. tuesday we looked at medicare and medicaid spending. guest today defense and security spending. today we l look at the tax

>> most smart people i know are not listening to nancy pelosi for their worldview, nor to john boehner. and most smart people i don't know to go home at night and talk about continuing resolutions to fund the united states government. maybe it's different in the room -- >> but not at my house. we never talk about that. last night. >> we forget that. the people you know, let's be honest. you are conservative about some things. you want your taxes to below but if a couple of gay guy wants to get me, what do you care? isn't that what most people are today? why is it a media we we still have to be read team puller looking? >> watch this event from the new orleans literary festival tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on

c-span. >> tonight on c-span to a discussion on education reform with the reverend al sharpton and assisted education secretary for civil rights russlynn all the. they will talk about academic disparities between children of different races and districts in the country. as well as how they think student achievement can't improve. >> where we used your debates about a from an affirmative-action and people say why do we need a program, because m.e.d.i.c. program to exclude people. you have to have a program that counted a program you had. it does not act like it was just some osmosis that excluded people. it was intentional. he must intentionally correct what was wrong. >> watch this event from the aspen institute tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2.

>> we're hoping to bring live coverage at of this point of the electric drive transportation association annual meeting coming from capitol hill. unfortunately, we are having problems getting that. we will try to regulate on the c-span networks. now the center for american progress, the group looked at the afghanistan war earlier this month with an examination of the insurgency. they consider prospects for negotiation and into the war. this is about two hours and 45

minutes. >> good morning, everybody. we will get started. thank you all very much for coming. my name is bob perito, i'm the director of the center for security sector governance here at usip. this is a big event for us. this is the first meeting of the working group in our new headquarters building here. we have been in the building for about a month now, and this is an amazing place to work. it's also a difficult place to work because there's of you out of every window and it's hard to concentrate, when you look up from a typewriter and there it is. anyway, the building was designed by a canadian architect. it was built by a combination of public and private funds. when you go out you will notice the building has multiple functions. the ground-level and the basement level will soon be

functioning as a public exhibit on peacemaking. and the public will be able to come in, to the building much like a museum. the floor we're on now is a conference center, and after floors are for the institute's offices. there is a publication on the table outside which talks a little bit more about the building itself and about the institute. so if you want to learn more you can do your publication. this morning's conference is want of a series of public forums, which is a cutie sector governance center has been running on this topic. too often i think the focus is on the operational forces, on the military come on the police, what is the army doing to what other cops up to? and very little attention is paid to the government structures, the ministry of defense and interior that supervise those forces to provide for them. and look after them. in the past, the center has

looked at the issues, security sector governance in iraq and afghanistan. later this spring we will host a major international conference on the role of the ministries of defense and interior in the transition states of north africa and the middle east. this is also one of a number of events of the u.s. institute of peace has gone pakistan. since january this is our fifth public forum, critical foreign policy and national security issues that are posed by the u.s. in pakistan relationship. i think this level of attention is justified because the importance of u.s.-pakistan relationship really cannot be overstated. the part of the institute's continued efforts to increase u.s. understanding of pakistan, this morning we will examine the topic of security sector governance and we will look at the roles of the defense and interior ministries in pakistan on the issue of civilian oversight, inc. in control of pakistan's military and police

forces and its nuclear arsenal. the importance of pakistan to united states, usip has a number of programs that are ongoing in pakistan, there's a publication outside begin. if you want to read more about what the united states institute of peace is doing in that country you can pick up this publication. today's program is also timely because it comes only a few days after a successful visit to afghanistan. pakistan's prime minister and army chief of staff. the statements made by prime minister and president karzai to the conclusion of that visit marks a significant change in tone and signal the possibility that a reproach might be between those countries might be possible. cooperation between pakistan and afghanistan indian with our common security challenges really again cannot be overstated. the united states is going to accomplish its own objectives in the region.

now, to discuss the role of history sector in pakistan we've brought together together a group of very distinguished experts this morning. you have their biographies in a handout so i will not take time for introductions. i will only express my sincere appreciation that they're with us this morning, and i'll introduce them in the order in which they will speak. are for speaker this morning will be shuja nawaz, the director of the south asian center at "the atlantic" council. he will be followed by hassan abbas, the quaid-i-azam professor -- i blue duck, didn't i? [laughter] the professor of the south asia institute at columbia university. we practice is this more and over coffee and i blue duck i apologize. but there's a long-standing -- there's a lot of columbia university ties you and i have

today, i am an alumni of columbia university so it's nice to be present among former and later classmates. and, finally, the resident south asian advisor of the niceties institute of peace, moeed yusuf, who is with us and we'll speak last, our cleanup hitter. i want to thank him personally for all of the support that he is given to make this program possible. so without further introduction, let's get started. >> thank you, bob. >> come up to the podium. >> okay. thank you very much, bob. it's a pleasure and an honor to be here. this is the first public event i've been to at the new building, and i must say it's quite spectacular. i can understand why you are

distracted from your daily work with this magnificent light coming in all the time. well, i was asked to shed some light on this topic, and let me start off with a little bit of a downer by saying that pakistan today has a very dysfunctional policy. it is an accumulation of decades of action and inaction that has led to a very sharp division between the military and the civil in a series areas of influence and interest. and a lack of public participation in populating national policy. i say this because pakistan today also has a tremendous outgrowth of the media, and the emerging civil society that has shown its strength in exercising

its rights as well as expressing its views. most recently with present and a sheriff in the waning days when he took some missteps in the with the chief justice, removed them summarily, it was civil society movement that forced his government to change course and to reinstate the chief justice of the supreme court first time that something like this had happened in pakistan without there being a too. and so it was a very interesting departure from previous situations in the country's history. ..