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a senator: mr. president? tor from new mexico.r: the mr. bingaman: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m. >> the senate has recessed for their weekly party lunches. senators return and 2:15 eastern to consider a judicial nomination. edward chen for u.s. district judge in northern

california. he was a lawyer for the aclu and several republican senators say, he will be a quote, activist judge. the vote is expected about 5:15 eastern with more general speeches after that. budget negotiators will go over to the white house this afternoon where vice president biden is hosting a meeting to talk about the federal debt and spending cuts. live senate coverage when they return on c-span2

>> house speaker john boehner says that the debt ceiling will not be raised without significant spending cuts. he spoke last night at the economic club of new york in new york city and said republicans win insist on trillions of dollars in spending cuts before the vote to raise the debt ceiling. his comments last about 40 minutes. >> please be seated. good evening. good evening, everyone and

welcome to the 416th meeting of the economic club of new york and our 104th year. the economic club is the nation's leading nonpartisan forum for economic policy. more than 1,000 guest speakers have appeared before this club over the last century and have established a strong tradition of excellence. tonight we continue that tradition. first of all i'd like to recognize the 143 members of the centennial society. these club members have made a personal contribution to assure the financial stability of the club into its second century. their names are in your programs and on our website. i'd also like to welcome economics students from the city university of new york graduate center from, from fordham university and manhattan college. they're here as our guests this evening. we're honored tonight to hear from the speaker of the u.s. house of representatives, john a.

boehner. he was sworn in january of 2011. as the 61st speaker of the house. speaker boehner is in his 11th term as representative for the 8th congressional district from ohio. speaker boehner is the second of 12 children. at the age of eight he was already sweeping floors in the family tavern. he went on to graduate with a degree in business from xavier university in cincinnati. before entering politics the speaker ran a small business in the plastics and packaging industry. and he and his wife debbie have been married for 38 years and have two daughters. the speaker was first elected to the ohio general assembly in 1985 and was subsequently elected to congress in 1990. in the 104th and 105th congress his colleagues

elected him to serve as the house gop conference chairman. in 2006, speaker boehner was elected to serve as the house majority leader. he has served on the house agriculture committee and is vice chairman of the housed a administration committee and chairman of the house committee on education and the workforce. following his speech we will have two designated club members ask questions and you can send your questions to our president, jan hopkins, by simply e-mailing them to questions@econclubny.o questions@econclubny.org. please join me in welcoming the speaker of the house, john boehner. [applause] >> well, andrew, thank you for that introduction and let me say thank you to all of you for the chance to be

here. i especially want to thank my colleague from nearby, nan hayworth, for being with us tonight. let me also start by expressing my admiration for what all of you do. you know you come from many different backgrounds but you're united by a common interest in the prosperity and security of our nation. last night marked one week since the operation against usama bin laden. the man who orchestrated the horrific attack on this city nearly 10 years ago. and bringing justice to bin laden was an important moment for america and i think for all of the free world but the challenges that lie ahead here at home remain formidable and i'm grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts tonight on how we need to address those challenges together as

a nation. i came to be speaker by way of small business as andrew pointed out. before i ran for congress i ran a small business in westchester, ohio, new sight sales. we were manufacturers representatives in the plastic and packaging industries. as andrew mentioned my first life experience in small business wasn't in my business but it was mopping floors, doing dishes, waiting tables at my father's bar in cincinnati, ohio. my grandfather started this place in the '30s. my dad and his brothers ran it for decades and my sister ran it for 20 years thereafter. so it would be fair to say that i'm not from around here. i come from a working class family of kennedy democrats and my 11 brothers and sisters, we've done every job there ever was and grateful to have all of them. but all of these efforts

taught me an awful lot long before i entered government service. they taught me that our economy is a product of the american people and our economy does best when government respects the people enough to give them the freedom to do what they do best. and i believe that our mission as legislators is to liberate our economy from things that impea growth. to provide clear policies so that innovators and entrepreneurs have the green light to move forward and create jobs without having to worry about a lot of second-guessing coming from washington, d.c. so my message to you tonight we will not succeed in balancing the federal budget and overcoming the challenges of our debt until we commit our government to policies that let our economy achieve long-term economic growth. and our economy won't grow

as we continue to trip it up with a lot of short-term gimmicks from washington, d.c. and many of the problems we face can be traced to misguided beliefs by politicians that the american economy is something that can be controlled or micromanaged or postively influenced by government intervention and borrowing. all too often rather than providing long-term policies that will help our economy the government offers short-term fixes that will do little right away or frankly end up making things worse over the long term. when things aren't going well in our economy the impulse in washington usually to respond with something big, you know, something comprehensive. the assumption is that it will provide reassurances to

america's job creators. but it usually has the opposite effect in practice. we saw this with the dodd-frank financial services bill. financial meltdown was going across our country. millions of americans were hit hard but washington's response was all wrong. we got a banking system that is now less competitive, pitting small community banks like i have in my district against the giant banks that the government has has determined are too big to fail. we got, we've got now a consolidated banking system with a small number of large firms that are operating actually as public utilities. we've got a lot of new rules that make job creation and investment far more difficult than it should be. and the government mortgage companies that led to this meltdown were not even regulated at all as a result of this legislation. now for job creators the

promise of a large new initiative coming out of washington is more like a threat. it freezes them. instead of hiring new employees or new equipment they make the logical decision to sit on their hands. and the american economy is the total sum of the hard work and ingenuity of the american people and when the economy grows it is not because of some new government program or some spending initiative. it is because a lot of people in the private sector work hard and were successful in overcoming the obstacles that we have put in their way. you know in the rash of stimulus legislation that was passed by congress in recent years has been one of those obstacles. you know the recent spending binge, stimulus spending binge frankly hurt our economy and hampered private sector job creation in our country. and the effect of adding nearly a trillion dollars

worth of debt, money, mostly borrowed from foreign investors, caused a further erosion in the economic confidence of america and increased uncertainty for millions of private sector job creators. and this massive borrowing and spending by the treasury department crowded out private investment by american businesses of all sizes. americans were told that the stimulus would create millions of new jobs, and that most of them would be private sector jobs. well, it didn't happen. job creators were looking for certainty, and you don't get long-term certainty from short-term government programs. and i think the less some of the stimulus era is short-term government intervention is no substitute for long-term economic investment, private initiative, and freedom. so i believe it is time to leave that era behind.

we've also seen the arrogance of government recently in the skyrocketing price of gasoline that our citizens and our businesses are dealing with. there's a clear connection between high gas prices and the weak dollar some in washington have quietly welcomed over the last few years. but it is well-known when you princetons of new money, that the dollar sinks, and the price of few and energy rise significantly. yet the american people are told, well there is nothing we can do about it. well that is just not true. washington has also kept most of america's energy reserves under lock and key for decades. over the clear objections of the american people. the people who actually own these resources. now if we had listened to the american people decades ago, or, maybe even three oar four years ago, many much these resources would be available to us right now to lower the price of energy

and we would probably have about a million people working in the energy sector, additional people working in the energy sector than we do today. instead, washington has done, what they have done is raise the specter of higher taxes, creating more uncertainty for those who create american jobs. i think washington's arrogance has triggered a rebellion in our country. and yes, i don't think rebellion is too strong of a word. the revolt that we've seen around our country by ordinary citizens over the past few years is nothing that we've ever seen in our lifetime. and it is happening in part because of the arrogant habits of washington and the economic consequences they are having on the american people. and i think this debt limit debate that, that we're starting to deal with gives our nation's leaders an opportunity to reverse those

habits and prove that we're starting to hear the message from the american people. it's a chance to change course and admit that reactionary short-term washington solutions aren't always the best. creating a sustainable, fiscal structure for the federal government is essential for long-term economic growth particularly when it comes to entitlements. we've got a chance to, to provide certainty to job creators by signaling that our government is finally willing to take a new approach when it comes to spending and borrowing, that has put our country into such deep death. as you know the president has asked congress to increase the debt limit and do so without preconditions. those who insist, some are insisting we shouldn't play games with it. others have gone further. one prominent figure went so far to say the people who

are threatening not to pass the debt ceiling are our version of al qaeda terrorists. well, with all due respect, this is the arrogance of power and the american people will not stand for it. this is the time to end the spending binge and modernize and prioritize what it is that we're going to spend the taxpayers money on. now there is a reason the debt limit can't be increased without a act of congress. the debt limit is set in statute specifically so that the executive branch and the legislative branch have to begin to deal with each other on the fiscal consequences of increasing the debt limit. now i know there are a lot of you in this room are probably somewhat uneasy about this debate and let me tell you i understand your concerns. it's true that allowing america to default would be irresponsible but it would be more irresponsible to raise the debt limit without

simultaneously take drag mat i can steps to reduce spending and, to reform the budget process. to increase the debt limit without simultaneously addressing the drivers of our debt, in defiance of the will of the american people, would be monumentally arrogant and, i think massively irresponsible. it would send a signal to investors and entrepreneurs everywhere that america is still not serious about dealing with our spending addiction. i think it would erode confidence in our economy and reduce, reduce the certainty for small businesses and i frankly think it would create, it would kill even more american jobs. so, let me be as clear as i can be. without significant spending cuts and changes in the way we spend the american

people's money, there will be no increase in the debt limit. and the cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in the debt limit that the president is given. we're not talking about billions here. we should be talking about cuts in trillions if we're serious about addressing america's physical problems. these should be actual cuts, real reforms to these programs, not broad deficit or deficit targets that punt the questions to the future. and with the exception of tax hikes, which in my opinion will destroy american jobs, everything is on the table, and i mean everything. that includes honest conversations about how to best preserve medicare because without changing medicare, with millions of baby boomers about to retire,

the status quo is unsustainable. if we don't act boldly now, the markets will act for us very soon, which i think was the message from standard & poor's several weeks ago. and if we fail to use this as a moment to demonstrate that we're getting serious about fixing the debt, the result will be fewer jobs, less confidence, and more uncertainty. the debt limit debate is also critical because it's forcing us to make choices as the nation right now. it is a choice between the policies of the past, and a new vision that acknowledges that we can't tax, borrow, and spend our way back to prosperity. now the big myth of the current budget debate is the notion that in order to balance the budget, that we need to raise taxes. well the truth is, we will never balance the budget and rid our nation of debt

unless we cut spending and have real economic growth. we will never have real economic growth if we're going to raise taxes on those in america who create jobs. i ran for congress in 1990, the year that our nation's leaders struck a so-called, bargain, that raised taxes of part of a bipartisan deal to balance the budget. well, the result of that so-called bargain was that we ended up in a recession in the 19, earl 1990s. it wasn't until the economy recovered in the late 1990s that we were able to actually balance the budget. today some seem intent on recycling the 1990 budget deal only this time with much larger tax increases. this is not going to happen. and i've told that to the president directly. a tax hike would wreak havoc

not only on our nation's economy and its ability to create private sector jobs but also on our ability to tackle the national debt balancing the budget requires spending cuts and real economic growth. we won't have economic growth if we raise taxes and fail to address the drivers of our debt. the mere threat of tax hikes creates more uncertainty for job creators and more uncertainty that results in less risk-taking and fewer jobs. so if we're serious about balancing the budget and getting our economy back to creating jobs, tax hikes should be off the table. i mention this because, i was raised in a family of kennedy democrats and before this very club in 1962 president kennedy said the following. our true choice is not between tax reduction on the

one hand and avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. it is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power so long as our needs keep rising, and economy hampered by restrictive tax rates never will produce enough revenues to ball on -- balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. well rather than increasing government spending, president kennedy told this club that we should cut taxes significantly and take steps to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital for employers. now i would note that my colleagues and i are not calling for tax cuts in this budget. rather, we're calling for the end to the threat of tax hikes and, a fundamental reform of our tax code.

so that we can provide more certainty for our job creators. we're calling for an end to the government spending binge that is crowding out private investment and threatening the availability of capital for much-needed investment in our economy. now there is another myth i need to address. and it's the myth that our debt challenges require pain. . . the

can down the road again and do nothing. we urgently need to enact reforms that act and preserve critical programs like medicare and medicaid. and we do something, that guarantees benefit cuts for seniors. let me repeat that but it's a critical debate. if we do not seniors benefits will not be cut and for those who contend the economy is too weak to take on the challenge of entitlement reform, i will simply say they've got it backwards. the truth is, is that making fun reforms will be good for the economy and for the next generation. now it's possible to make changes in a way that one sure beneficiaries will have access to the same kinds of options that members of congress currently have.

and the budget that's been put forward by our budget committee chairman, paul ryan, i think accomplishes this. and instead of raising taxes it calls for fundamental reform of the tax code. a priority for us that will be led by david camp from michigan of the chairman of the house, ways and means committee. now, there are also other steps that need to be taken immediately to help free our economy and support private sector job creation. many of them are outlined in our pledge to america. the governing agenda we put forward by listening to the people. you know, we can stop the environmental protection agency from imposing a back door energy tax that will further increase gas prices and destroy jobs. we can pass the reins act authored by my colleague from

georgia. we can ask the trade agreements, colombia, panama, south korea that will boost our economy by opening new markets to our goods. and i think those coupled with the spending reforms and tax reforms that i've outlined -- these policies create a path for long-term sustained economic growth. and with such policies in place, we actually can balance the federal budget. in closing, let me say that i'm humbled by the opportunity to serve in the united states congress. and i think we owe it to the american people to ensure that the opportunities of our generation are there for future generations. and i think that we owe them a humbler government that learns to live within its means and values the entrepreneurial drive of our people with policies that

unleash the awesome potential of our economy. now, for those of us in washington, i think this has to be our focus and i'm sure our economy is back on track and the american dream is restored, there is can be and is no rest. and i think it starts with freedom. in america, it always has been. but let me just say, this is the moment -- this is the opportunity to deal with our long-term fiscal challenges, and we cannot let this moment pass. thanks for the opportunity to be with all of you tonight. and i'll look forward to your questions. [applause] >> thank you, mr. speaker. our questioners tonight are the former mr. chairman of the economic club of new york and

founder of the peter g. peterson foundation and jane hartley, ceo of the observatory group. in addition our president jan hopkins will read any questions that have been received so jane i will let you have the first shot. >> thank you, andrew. speaker boehner, thank you so much for being with us tonight, especially, because i know how hectic your schedule is. we are really thrilled to have you with us. and i personally want to thank you for your many years of public service. my question is, negotiations over the fiscal 2011 budget were settled at the eleventh hour. are you concerned a similar scenario could occur in the negotiations involving the debt ceiling? if that scenario appears to be developing, would you be willing to consider a temporary increase in the debt ceiling while

negotiations on a longer term budget package continue? >> let me say as i said earlier, not increasing the debt ceiling would be irresponsible. having said that, i do not want to allow this moment that we have in our history to pass without real action to solve our long-term economic problems. and while there was a hard date on the fiscal 2011 budget that we just finished several weeks ago, as you all know, there really is no hard date when it comes to increasing the debt limit. i would just as soon have cut the deal tomorrow if i could get leaders to sit down and recognize the fact that this really is the moment, and we should not miss this opportunit opportunity. >> mr. speaker, thank you. some on the left believe we can

close the budget gap largely through tax increases. but relying solely on tax hikes would require raising taxes by roughly 60% at the same time, many on the right say we should close the gap through spending cuts alone. based on congressional budget numbers, that would require cutting spending by 38% across-the-board. and if we take social security and defense off the table, we would have to reduce all other spending by 66%. mr. speaker, all of these numbers seem draconian and politically impossible to me. how can we possibly solve this long-term debt crisis if one side says categorically, no tax increase. and the other side says categorically, no significant

spending cuts? >> well, i've made it pretty clear that raising taxes is off the table. raising taxes on the very people that we expect to invest in our economy and create jobs will have a devastating impact on our ability to balance the budget. to balance the budget we need to do three things. we need to control the discretionary pot which is about one-third of the budget, and this year we're going to spend $79 billion less than what the president wanted to spend in that pot. and $38.5 billion less than what we spent last year. but that's one step, one leg of the stool, if you will. secondly, we need to address mandatory spending, which would include the major entitlement programs. these programs are not sustainable in their current form. and let's not forget that there are 10,000 baby boomers who are retiring every day.

10,000 people more every day on social security, on medicare, people living longer, accessing medicaid -- these programs will not exist if we don't address the problem. but the third point, is that we have to have real economic growth. we can't tax our way to prosperity. we can't cut our way to balancing the budget. we need real economic growth if we're serious about solving america's problems because the cuts, as you pointed out, you're right, they're draconian. and we have real economic growth that employs more americans who are taking care of themselves, taking care of their families and contributing their share to the revenues for the federal government, we can solve this problem but we need to put ourselves on a path where we can balance the budget and pay off our debt so that we can preserve the future for our kids and

grandkids. >> speaker boehner, you mentioned fundamental tax reform, which i think everybody in this room would be quite supportive of. what are the prospect of the house considering a tax reform package in the next two years. should a corporate tax reform plan be considered separate from legislation to recamp the tax code for individuals and does a corporate tax reform package need to be revenue neutral? i know there's some members of the business community that have suggested that revenue neutrality should be a lesser priority in the corporate tax reform effort? >> well, i do think in the next two years you'll see in the house and quite frankly, i think you'll see in congress a corporate tax reform. we are not going to use tax reform as a way of increasing taxes on the american people or on american enterprises. we have the second highest tax rate in the world. our country is less competitive

as a result. and we need to do this. there was a third point to your question -- >> hello, does have it to be considered with individual tax reform? >> i don't think it has to be considered with it, but understand that when we're talking about the corporate tax code, you also have to look at the pass-through entities, whether they're subchapter s's, whether they're llc's i don't think they can be treated separately. as a result, i think it will push us to do the personal side of fundamental tax reform either -- i don't know that it will be with it, but i think it will be closely associated with it. >> mr. speaker, as you know, america's health care costs are racing towards 20% of the gdp, twice that of other developed

nations, who have even lesser outcomes, and in my view, these costs seriously threaten what you were talking about competitiveness and jobs growth. however, america's health care cost problem, as you know, is not just a medicare problem. the private sector, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of all medical spending has also seen explosive growth in health care costs. chairman ryan has proposed a medicare reform program that to be sure would limit the federal government's cost but potentially shift the burden to seniors. in fact, the congressional budget office projects that seniors could see their out-of-pocket costs more than double under this plan. until now, the market hasn't been affected at containing health care costs. how can we assume the market will bring down the private sector costs in the future?

>> well, the idea that the government is going to drive in innovation in our health care delivery i believe is an oxymoron. and i believe the private sector can bring real change in our health care system in a way that protects the best health care delivery system in the world. now, i got to tell you, pete, i love you to death, but i don't think the taxpayers ought to be paying your medicare premium. and under paul ryan's plan, what it says is, let's allow the american people to decide which health care plan fits their needs. and if you're middle incomed or lower-incomed we're going to pay for the cost of the program. but for people of means, there's no reason why we should subsidized pete peterson's premium. i'm sorry. he ought to pay the full cost of this premium to be in medicare.

and i know this to some people is oh, my goodness, we couldn't do this. >> we have to treat all americans alike. let me tell you, we're broke. and for those who have substantial means, you can pay your own premium. [laughter] [applause] >> you want it in english, you'll get english. >> mr. speaker, i'm beginning to take this personally. [laughter] >> pete, just pony up. [laughter] >> we better go to the next question. >> all right. i have a much easier one. are there any plans for the house to consider this year legislation that would provide a tax holiday to encourage companies to repatriate profits overseas that was approved by congress in 2004? >> well, there's certainly been some discussion about it. and as we look at fundamental

reform of the corporate tax code, i believe this is an appropriate opportunity to help american businesses bring that money home where it can be invested here as opposed to elsewhere. and while we're doing it, we ought to be looking seriously at a territorial tax code that would prevent this problem from occurring in the future. >> why are taxes off the table? >> because i believe that raising taxes will hurt our economy, hurt our ability to have real economic growth, and hurt employment in our country. we do not have a revenue problem. we have a spending problem. let's address the spending proble problem. >> mr. speaker, all joking aside, i'm an enthusiastic

supporter of what i thought i heard you say. if those of us who are well off can't participate significantly in sharing the burden, who then will? and i think the whole kept of reducing benefits for the well off across the entitlement board is an essential element of reform. i have a final question on defense which we haven't discussed. we say everything is on the table. we must spend whatever is necessary to keep our country safe, but the united states currently spends more on national defense than the next 17 highest-spending countries combined. the chairman of the joint chiefs admiral mullen said recently, the single biggest threat to our national security is our debt. he also said the budget has

basically doubled in the last decade. and in doubling, we lost our ability to prioritize. it seems to me that it is not enough to say, no defense cuts anymore than it's okay to slash defense spending with little account of our national security needs. isn't it time for a fundamental review of defense spending and priorities? to ensure that we have a national defense strategy that's based on today's, not yesterday's threat? and today's not yesterday's budget outlook? >> pete, the number 1 obligation of our government is to provide for the safety and security of the american people. having said that, when i said everything is on the table, i meant everything is on the table except for raising taxes. the department of defense does not spend their 600-plus billion

dollars every year as efficiently as you would spend your money or i would spend mine. and there needs to be a fundamental review of what our defense posture is and how much we spend on it. it has to be an important part of this debate, and i will guarantee you, it will be. ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> mr. speaker, thank you very much. thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to talk to us today. we wish you great success. we wish you all great success and enjoy your dinner.

[applause] >> the senate is in recess for their weekly party lunches. they'll return at 2:15 eastern.

>> with the u.s. troop reductions in afghanistan set to begin in july, and transition to be completed by the end of 2014, the senate foreign relations committee today looked at u.s. strategy during a hearing earlier. the committee heard from david kilcullen who has advised nato in afghanistan and from seth jones, who's worked with the u.s. military. this portion of that foreign relations committee hearing is 45 minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. members of the committee i'm honored to be here in such distinguished company. i will keep my opening remarks fairly brief. and what i want to do is focus on fairly narrowly on the question of what actually has to happen on the ground inside afghanistan in order to get to the point where we need to be in 2014. the way that you see the problem depends very much on whether you think that the insurgency of the

taliban is the problem or whether they're actually a symptom of a wider set of problems. i tend to the latter point of view. most of the work that i've done in the country over the last several years we're looking at a much broader cycle of instability of which the taliban is only part. and if you want to transition successfully, you need to address that whole cycle. the first element in the cycle is corruption and criminality which comes about in part because of the drug economy but also in large part because of lack of accountability and corruption in international community assistance programs. what that does is it creates a tsunami of illicit cash that washes around the afghan system and creates incentives for abuse. the abuse is the second part of the problem. and it sometimes takes the form of actual physical abuse and violence but more often it's ex-appropriation of property, shakedowns, bribery, taking

people's assets away and denial of justice. and that second part of the cycle creates -- the third part which is rage and that rage is directed from the population not only against corrupt actors but also against the international community because they blame us for the behavior of corrupt people in their own districts. and then the final part of the cycle is the fact that that rage empowers the taliban or whatever other insurgency elements are operating in a given district and creates the conditions that lead to the corruption and criminality in the first place. and so that cycle, if you want to address it, you need essentially four elements. you need a counter-corruption element, you need a governance reform element, you need some kind of political reconciliation element and then finally you need targeted measures against the insurgency itself. so counterinsurgency is very important in afghanistan but it's really only one part of a much larger set of issues. which you could characterize as

a stabilization problem. now, all those four elements that i just mentioned are present in the isaf campaign today. it's a question of how heavily we invest in each part of the problem. right now we're investing very heavily in defeating the taliban as a military force. and actually making very significant progress, i would argue, in that part of the problem. but where we have really failed to engage fully in the issues that are going to confront us between now and 2014 is in the other parts. in particular, district level reconciliation, anticorruption, and reforming the corrupt and abusive practices of a variety of power elites inside afghanistan, not just government officials, not all government officials are corrupt. there are some dedicated public servants within the afghanistan government but there are also a lot of power elites at the district level who are very exploitive of the population.

i see three pathways towards transition that we would to intergrate and to effectively do it at the same time if we want to get there by 2014. the first pathway is what i would call the suppression path. it's a counter-network approach or a counterterrorism approach and it's about destroying the insurgent's ability to threaten the transition or to threaten the future stability of the afghan state. it requires a lot of special forces, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance effort. but it's the one area of the campaign that i think we're doing particularly well. the second element or the second path is the stabilization path. and that's essentially at the district level, identifying all the inputs into what makes a stable district and carrying out basically counterinsurgency operations to clear, hold, build and then transition in each district. i think most members of the

committee are very familiar with that aspect of that campaign. the third pathway is reconciliation. not just at the senior level with high level taliban but at the local level and again, not fundamentally between the insurgency and the population but among different power brokers at the district level leading to a stability environment when we pull out of the district, which remains stable. i don't want to take any additional time to talk about those pathways. i would just make one final comment which is that we have a constitutional process coming in 2014. the afghan government limits the term of the president to two terms. president karzai is in his second term now. that term will run out in the middle of 2014. who is our partner going to be towards the end of this transition process? it's an important factor to consider. i'll stop there in the interest of time and leave it to your questions. >> thank you, dr. kilcullen. dr. jones? >> thank you, mr. chairman, senator lugar, other members of

the committee. i've spent the last several years in the united states special operations command so we'll try and give a perspective from much of my time on the ground as well as back in washington. i'm going to lay out a couple of things -- what i believe our objectives should be which are fairly limited. look at a range of options and provide in my view costs and risks as we move forward. i think our -- especially with the death of osama bin laden, our objectives in afghanistan should be limited to two key issues. first is disrupting, dismantling and defeating al-qaeda and allied groups in the afghan/pakistan region. i would obviously point out this is not just al-qaeda. the faisal shahzad in attack was pakistan. so there are some other groups in this attack.

so this clearly is one issue that directly impacts homeland security. and the second is denying al-qaeda and its allies in afghanistan both a safe haven but and -- and this is also underemphasized an ally in afghanistan. if we remember the taliban regime, not just is a safe haven but an ally of al-qaeda. i will lay out what i consider three plausible options for moving forward. one is a counterterrorism option, the second is a comprehensive counterinsurgency and the third is somewhere in between, which is where i will fall into. the first is a counter-terrorist option. as i said earlier, i'm just coming from special operations forces. this really is a j sock type direct mission to capture, kill

al-qaeda and other terrorists, cia units on the ground as well. and it would essentially limit our focus to a very small direct action footprint both in afghanistan but also threats along the border. i would warn that there are several risks in this strategy that are worth understanding. the first is, it will reaffirm a regional perception that the u.s. is not a reliable ally. some people may consider that important, some may not but it certainly is a risk. second is that in my view it fails to address the elimination of a sanctuary and an ally in afghanistan. it certainly does not prevent an ally from terrorist groups from emerging unless the taliban and its allies are defeated or agreed to a settlement. second, i suspect that a precipitous american drawdown will encourage afghanistan's neighbors including pakistan to increase their support levels to afghan insurgent groups, the

haqqani network as a perceived indian-afghanistan force. as we noticed in the question and answer session my concern right now is with senior al-qaeda leadership from zawahiri to others, there is still a relationship with senior elements of the taliban and the haqqani network. that is a concern. the second option would be a comprehensive counterinsurgency option, which probably decreases the u.s. footprint somewhat but is along the same lines as exists right now. i will not go into this in much detail except to say that it is probably unsustainable both from an american and from an afghan standpoint for a range of reasons that i would be happy to get in to. what i would very briefly outline is what i would call an afghan-led counterinsurgency forces. it's both for ctf forces but also for counterinsurgency.

the specifics -- and we can get into them later would be train, equip afghan national army and afghan national police forces, support what's now called afghan local police and village stability operations from the bottom up that is helping afghan communities push back against the insurgency. conducting some direct action operations and then providing a range of enablers, civil affairs. i've got numbers in my written testimony on what each of these options might look like in terms of u.s. as well as afghan forces. let me just summarize real briefly in conclusion that i think there are several ways for the u.s. to achieve the limited objectives i noted earlier. one is if al-qaeda is destroyed in the afghan-pakistan region and no longer poses a threat to the u.s. homeland. second, if the taliban breaks ties with al-qaeda and a third is if afghan national security

forces and its allies can sufficiently degrade the insurgency. in my view all three means should be pursued simultaneously until one of them or some combination adequately achieves core u.s. objectives. thank you. >> very helpful. thank you very much. dr. biddle. >> i would also like to thank the community to speak to you on this important issue. i've long thought that afghanistan is a close call in the analytical merits. if you're going to make the call in favor of waging the war, though, it seems to me, in order to realize the potential of securing the interests that we have at stake, i think we need to resolve some important ambiguities in the goals that we seek in the end states that we're after. in 2001, we sought very ambitious end states but committed very little resources and the result was unhappy. in 2011, our resources are much increased but the end state that we're seeking is still very ambiguous. it's unclear what success would look like and that lack of

clarity is hard to make good near term decisions across the range of policies that mice face us. my statement is an attempt to reduce that ambiguous and what end state that requires and the definition of a regional success. the bottom line that statement reaches is that our interests in afghanistan are real but narrow. and they focus on keeping afghanistan from threatening the stability of an already unstable pakistani neighbor. we tend to hear a lot about the ways in which pakistani safe havens can destabilize afghanistan, and they do but the bigger problem is the long-run danger that if we should fail in afghanistan, the result could be to tip an unstable pakistan into collapse with grave implications for united states security. this limited concept provides a limited number of end states that is insufficient to meet them. my statement goes into more detail than now but for now i

will note two less ambition an acceptable end state would be one a decentralized version of today's very centralized but democratic 2001 model afghan government. alternatively for lack of what i'll call a sovereignty system involving a series of bargains between kabul and the periphery in which local power brokers a spin of autonomy in exchange for several key red line restrictions on their behavior. they're designed to cap the worst abuses of today's corruption while permitting lesser forms and to limit the use of afghanistan's territories basis for terrorism or subversion. these limited goals and less ambitious end states, i believe, make success possible. and with the sense of realizing the political aims for which we're waging the war. they do not, however, permit a radical reduction to very

limited means. even modest aims in afghanistan are going to be very hard to attain. if we couple a realistically limited ambition with unrealistically limited means of resources we run the risk of duplicating the 2001 mismatch between ends and means that got us into the fix that we faced in recent years. and in particular, i'm very skeptical that a small footprint counter-terrorist strategy can secure our real interests, whether in afghanistan or in pakistan for reasons that my statement treats in some detail and which i would be happy to discuss in response to your questions. thank you. >> well, indeed. thank you all very, very much. i think it's a good framing of the beginning of this discussion, which is very, very important and very tricky. i think i've heard sort of three different -- i mean, there's so much to focus on, and i hope with all our colleagues here we're going to get to all of it as we go forward. so i guess one questioner

doesn't have to cover all the bases. therefore, let me just focus in on one of the most important components of this, which is really defining the mission. i heard three different things from all of you. and if you're the experts and you're sitting here and you see a threat to pakistan and the potential -- the potential destabilization that could have an impact ultimately on that country, you've put forward one set of choices. dr. jones you've sort of landed in the mid -- between the ct and the full flow counterinsurgency and colin, a little bit more limited. but i want to see if we can really define why should we be there now? what is our interest? is our interest a larger sort of

stable afghanistan because of this threat to pakistan? is it simply our ability to be able to protect our interests? and sufficiently prevent the return of al-qaeda and destroy it ultimately? and i think you both -- the two of you at least mentioned the destruction of al-qaeda or one of you mentioned the disruption, another destruction. so is it possible for us to agree -- and this would be very hard for the american people to feel confident about where we're going if we can't give a pretty simple, well-agreed upon broad consensus definition of what the submission? so what exactly is the mission in afghanistan, dr. kilcullen? >> well, thank you, senator. you know, i think the administration has actually expressed it rather clearly and that's what dr. jones echo.

that the clear goal that the white house has put forward is the idea to disrupt, defeat and al-qaeda in the in the region and to achieve that overall goal. i think you can look at it more specifically in terms of transition in one sentence, i think the mission of the moment now in afghanistan is to make the country stable enough that we can reduce the u.s. footprint to a sustainable level without an unacceptable drop in security. and, of course, there are two important things there sustainable andun acceptable. sustainable is physically sustainable and unacceptable i think translates to the core goal. an unacceptable drop in security is one that undermines our ability to eventually disrupt and defeat al-qaeda in the region. in other words, we're making afghanistan stable as a means to

the end of defeating al-qaeda in the region. and i think that's a relatively low bar compared to some of the very objectives people have put in the past. even though it's a low bar strategically doesn't mean it's going to cost a lot of resources to get there. that's probably a separate question. >> well, we'll come back to that in a minute. dr. jones, do you agree? is that the full definition -- >> i'm comfortable with dr. kilcullen's definition. i would say just to support him, what we don't want is an attack on the u.s. homeland, which emanates from this region and we don't want, in my view, a government or a group that allows training camps and missions to be planned from this region. that is what i think we can reliable tell the american public we are looking to prevent. >> dr. biddle? >> i agree wholeheartedly on me colleagues on the panel but the only amendment i would offer i would be cautious on identifying the threat of terrorist attacks

to the united states too narrowly around al-qaeda per se. it has been the primary source of such threat in the past. if its destruction leads other organizations in pakistan, however, to shift their aims in ways they have not heretofore and take up the banner of al-qaeda's war against the distant enemy, the underlying identification of our interests implies that we would then have to broaden our target somewhat. but the focus of it is exactly as dr. kilcullen and dr. jones have suggested. >> so let me build on that a little bit. to what degree with the death of osama bin laden could a decision by pakistan to join wholeheartedly in this effort, i.e., focus on the haqqani network, harness the -- or tame the disparate instincts of the isi to pull together a wholehearted effort with the

shura and foreign nationals in their country -- to what extent could their decision greatly alter the choices that we face and indeed perhaps the length of this strength? dr. kilcullen? >> sir, in fact, dr. jones' organization the rand corporation did a study on removing a sanctuary on chances of success in a counterinsurgency environment. i'm quoting from memory but i'm pretty sure that you have a very significant improved chance if you can reduce the sanctuary. i think it's roughly about 86% of cases where you can successfully destroy the sanctuary in a neighboring country the government fails. but if you fail to destroy the sanctuary you still win in about 60% of the case. so it's absolutely not essential to destroy the sanctuary. it is very advantageous but it's

not essential. so i think we should bear that in mind when thinking about what we expect from pakistan. i think we should also bear in mind the history of our relationship with pakistan which you know better than anybody else. and have some realism about our expectations of what they will actually do in response to this series of events. i don't think we're likely to see a significant drop of support. certainly not for the haqqani network. possibly not for the others. >> do they perceive a very table, strong central government, strong armied afghanistan is not in their effort. >> that may well be true. i think there's another instrumental reason, an organization like isi, turn on an organization like the haqqani network doesn't mean they can turn it off. so the ability to create mayhem and disruption for sponsoring a

terrorist organization doesn't necessarily mean that you still control organization. i'm speaking hypothetically here, obviously. but if indeed the pakistani intelligence service have had in the past some relationship with groups like the haqqani network and the others, just because they previously had a relationship doesn't mean that they can now decide to shut them down. and i think that's the problem that, in fact, a lot of pakistanis are confronting now. >> dr. jones, what kind of costs are you looking at in your midstrategy, in your sort of not counterterrorism platform but also not a full blown counterinsurgency? what's the annual nut on that strategy? >> well, it would -- it would vary by year depending on the size of the footprint what it comes down to by 2015, though, is a smaller afghan national security force presence, a smaller depending on conditions

and other factors. a smaller u.s. footprint. and an afghan local footprint. this puts us -- i can give you the numbers by year or your staff after the hearing, but it puts us well below the 12.8 billion, for example, for afghan national security forces for fiscal year 2012. and it certainly varies by year. >> well, is it more than 6 billion a year? >> depending on the year, between 6 and 10 billion per year. but increasingly decreasing. >> uh-huh. senator lugar? >> well, the panel has suggested, in answer to our basic question, why afghanistan that we would want to stop attacks on the united states emanating from there. and one way to do is eliminating training camps or support

situations there in afghanistan. now, let me ask this question with two reflections. one is some persons along before the death of osama bin laden -- we're writing about the fact that the attack on the united states emanated after the situation of iraq coming into kuwait, the saudis calling frel. a lot of american troops landing in saudi arabia and not only for that war but staying there. this created a situation of american presence and particularly of the people on the saudi soil that generated a great deal of the emphasis of osama bin laden and his people about america as the enemy. whether that is the case secondly there was a situation

of the russians attempting to what we are to do now, which is to train afghan police or military people to bring stability to the provinces and what have you and they had some success for quite a period of time, although they had the problems of the pashtuns versus the people of the north and the rest. however, in due course, the russians ran out of money and time. they never quite got the job done. there are still historic problems in afghanistan that were well beyond the thought of their centralization of all of this. i raise all of this because why on afghanistan, why is there the thought that this has to be the platform? why couldn't the people come from yemen, from somalia? from wherever else somebody might come from.

are we trying to set up forces the size and shape that we have in afghanistan, and finally, given the russian experience, maybe we'll do better? but there are many historians, and you're among the most eminent, i suppose, of these that tend to point out that the push and shove of afghan society does not really lead to a good centralized situation, so you pointed now to the fact that we might think of a more than sophisticated situation than we're less than central. that we have bits and pieces of governance that somehow negotiates a pact among each other and us that brings stability, although, it is very, very difficult to imagine, quite a departure to describe to the american people or anybody else how this comes about and how it remains stable. my basic question goes back to,

why afghanistan? is it because originally we got cross-wise with al-qaeda due to the earlier wars? and could we get uncrosswise with them if we were out of harm's way there and have what you described as one alternative, and that is a very small group of people that do intelligence work, who do jsoc work that, in fact, do this in afghanistan plus yemen, plus somalia plus a lot of places that we to keep on everybody. in this matter without getting into the governance of a situation that is proving to be very difficult, if not impossible for us? does anybody have a comment about all of that? >> i'll go first, senator lugar, i know my colleagues have comments as well. i would argue several things. first, al-qaeda was created here in the peshawar area. it's stronger support base in for my view is here as opposed to any other place in the world,

somalia, yemen. in particular if one looking at the tribal structures peshawar structures with the others, these are the individuals who have thought for the last three decades and provided sanctuary to a range of al-qaeda leaders. so they have a long-term relationship. they are also in addition to the tribal subclan issues there are a range of tribal groups that have supported al-qaeda so i would strongly argue that this is a safe haven, in my view, that is different from yemen, somalia, and other places. and in addition, i would also say if one looks at the bulk of the attacks over the past 10 years, the london attacks successful, the madrid attack, successful, the 2006 transatlantic plot nearly successful. the zazi attempted attack, shahzad, they emanated from individuals operating here.

clearly, yemen is a problem but i think this is an extraordinary threat. >> i would agree with dr. jones that afghanistan is different as a haven as other prospective havens. i think the primary reason that afghanistan is different is its proximity to pakistan. i think it's important to distinguish different varieties and classes of terror threat. the threat emanating from places like yemen or jabuti or elsewhere but it's important but nonetheless counterterrorism. the downstream threat associated with failure uniquely in south asia with the potential collapse of a nuclear-armed and very unstable state that's facing an internal insurgency of its own in pakistan. one of the very few scenarios i can think of that produces any plausible chance of terrorist access to a weapons of mass destruction that they could actually use against the united states would be if there's a downstream consequence of failure in afghanistan we were to tip an unstable pakistan into

collapse in such a condition that the military and the intelligence services split and the nuclear arsenal of the country breaches containment. that it seems to me is the critical distinction between our strategic interests in afghanistan and our strategic interests in yemen or somali or elsewhere. >> but this tips things back to the pakistan idea the importance of afghanistan is to prevent the nuclear dispersion out of pakistan, which is another interesting twist in our hearing dialog today. dr. kilcullen? >> sir, i just want to note that all the examples that dr. jones came from pakistan, not afghanistan. the regional epicenter of terrorism is not afghanistan. it's highly unlikely that we would see a terrorist attack on the united states emanating from afghanistan. the risk is somewhat different. it's that instability of afghanistan contributes to a

regional pattern of instability and that can undermine the stability of pakistan and that can significantly raise the threat. and it isn't just the threat of terrorism. it's also the threat of nuclear confrontation with india, of state collapse and a variety of other problems associated with changes in the security environment in pakistan. so i think the chances that al-qaeda, for example, would move back to afghanistan and set up a base, if we were to leave, are relatively slim. what's more than likely is that there would be increased asset available to both the pakistani and afghan taliban. there would be increased alliance for those groups and terrorist organizations. there would be a much higher level of instability in pakistan and that could potentially lead to all these negative consequences. so i think the -- the ultimate argument is correct. but the pathway to it is one of regional instability and potentially nuclear confrontation in south asia. that's what we, i think, have to

think of as the primary outcome of failure in afghanistan. not so much somebody from afghanistan attacking the united states. but a threat to the united states emanating from that instability in the region. >> well, my time is up but once again we're back to our problem we have a hearing on afghanistan. but, in fact, we're back over into pakistan again. and into the region. and maybe that's the correct analysis where you ought to be having the hearing, but it does pose problems for all the questions we're raising initially what are we doing day by day in terms of our budget here, our forces and how many. and specifically in afghanistan. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lugar. senator boxer? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for your testimony. it's very important, i think, for us to do this because we are in afghanistan now for a very long time. and i'd like to do kind of a reality check, and i'm going to

end it with a question to dr. jones because his statement that a large scale withdrawal of u.s. forces from afghanistan would reaffirm, quote, the regional perception that the u.s. is not a reliable ally is very troubling to me. so i want to press you on that, dr. jones, if i might. are you with me? >> yes. >> okay. so we're talking about what is the mission -- i would like to go back to why we went there because i think most of us sitting here, most of us were either in the house or the senate when we voted to go in to afghanistan. why did we do it? we have no interest in doing that. i had talked about the taliban for years. women's groups had come to me. they talked about the burka. they said you've got to get rid of the taliban. nobody was that interested. and he with passed legislation never to recognize the country of afghanistan as long as it was led by the taliban and i was

proud to be involved with that in a bipartisan way. so we went in there because of the horrific attacks on september 11. you remember exactly why we went in there. and we said, we're going to there to go get osama bin laden and al-qaeda. that was the reason we went there. so all this explanation of our road there i would like to take it back. thanks to our president and the brave military forces, we know that justice was served on bin laden. and we didn't do it with boots on the ground. we did it with counterterrorism. a lot what senator kerry talked about during his presidential campaign. that's how we did it. and we delivered our troops overdue justice. but i also think it's a turning point and from intelligence information we gathered during the raid we learned that bin

laden was playing a significant role in the organization's day-to-day operations. it wasn't just sitting there and doing other things. he was plotting and planning. as the "new york times" and american official quoted in the "times" said, he wasn't just the figure head. he plotted and planned to come up ideas about targets, et cetera. so this important news comes along with significant progress we've made against other al-qaeda figures in afghanistan in recent years. in fact, the current director of the cia leon panetta said and i ask unanimous consent to place this in the report. >> no objection. >> says the number of al-qaeda in afghanistan is less than 50. and in the region less than 500. we talk about the region and senator lugar is right to say that, 500. so we have all these boots on the ground. and so here's my question and i want to give you some facts before it. i laid out the predicate.

we talk about the region saying, well, if we withdraw, they're going to think we're not committed and they'll be upset with us. we're not a reliable ally. so here's the situation. pakistan is now the second largest recipient of u.s. foreign assistance, receiving 4.3 billion in fy 2010. we know that's now a little controversial, but i assume we're going to keep helping pakistan and i'm one who believes we have to with more strength. and you know the u.s. has more years fighting in afghanistan than any other war. if anybody says oh, we're not committed to the region, how about the 100,000 forces we still have on the ground, half a trillion dollars we spend, 10 billion a month. we can ill afford it. right now let's be frank. there's certain military people who say the biggest threat is our debt. we've got to look at all these things. we've trained 125,000 members of

the afghan police and 159,000 members of the afghan army who have less than 50 al-qaeda and we have spent 26 billion equipping these soldiers and these police that we've trained. most tragically we've lost 1562 americans, 11,191 have been wounded and you've seen some of those wounds. unimaginable injuries. unimaginable injuries and we know a growing a number of personnel suffering more than one limb or devastating injuries. if 10 years of american sacrifice hasn't convinced the region that the u.s. is a reliable ally and all this money that's going into this region, why are you confident that more time, more money and the loss of more american lives will change that view? and do people there have a right to assume we're going to continue this level?

this level of assistance forever? isn't there a time when every country has to say, we believe in our country. we're going to defend ourselves especially since we've trained all these troops. so i like the odds that we've done here. we've got 100 -- 159,000 afghan national army train, 125,000 police against 50 al-qaeda. >> thank you, senator. a couple points. one is, it is an unfortunate perception. it was not the primary component of my critique of the counterterrorism strategy but i think it is an unfortunate reality in the region. and will certainly impact the way other countries including pakistan will behave over the next several years. i would add a couple of things. one is, i would on the numbers of al-qaeda, i would point out i'm going to disagree with dr. kilcullen for a moment. almost every tribe, subtribe and

clan that i referred to operates on both sides of the pakistan-afghan border. al-qaeda in general -- its my-greg patterns is on both sides of the border. if he with push out of afghanistan, that we've seen in other areas, they will push back. so i would not draw a strong line along the durand line. and just to highlight it, my biggest critique of the counterterrorism strategy is that it does not, in my view -- it is not an effective strategy to minimize afghanistan from becoming a sanctuary or an ally. in my view a taliban government in afghanistan would be a serious, serious problem for the united states because u.s. intelligence assessments now indicate a relationship between al-qaeda, a senior al-qaeda leaders, the taliban, several key members in the haqqani

network. that's not something that i believe we can look americans in the eye and be okay with. >> well, my time has run out but i will say this to you, i don't think you give enough credit to the people of afghanistan who don't want the taliban. and who have these trained police and military and no one would say counterterrorism forces there. and i think your critique of that is misplaced. that's how we got bin laden. that's how we got the other leaders. and for me, to live by somebody else's reality or perception of reality is not the way to go. i've gone through my whole life -- there's people perceive a lot of things differently than i do. but you have to fight for what's real and what's real is the dead, the wounded, the cost and the comments i think of senator lugar of all the other places in the world. so i think you paint way too

drastic a picture as what would happen if we don't have the boots on the ground and no one is suggesting we don't have a presence, but i think that your testimony is very disturbing to me, and i don't think america can say, oh, because they say that's true, we might as well have policy based on their faulty perception. it's very risky business because i just went to china. they have a lot of misperceptions. i don't expect to change our policy because of their misperceptions. >> do you want to answer it? >> sure. just briefly. one of the issues i've been involved in over the last several years is actually having afghans stand up for themselves. the afghan local police program and village stability operations i was involved in from the beginning in 2009. and i would just say what i'm talking about is decreasing the footprint, but supporting afghan's fight for themselves. what we have seen in helmand, kandahar we've seen afghan communities who have actively

fought for them. i was one of the americans serving in afghanistan along those lines. but i would say i agree with you afghans are willing to combat the taliban, both the central government and locals and we've seen that. >> good. well, i want to put in the record from your statement, dr. jones, that you would have in 2014, 40,000 troops, american troops, boots on the ground. i don't think that's the right footprint. we ought to stop the combat forces and concentrate on the other ways. >> we're live outside the u.s. senate. they're in recess for another 10 minutes or so till 2:15 eastern for their party lunches. they'll come back and consider the judicial nomination of edward chen for u.s. district judge for northern california. senators have been meeting during their party caucuses to talk about the debt and other issues. we're waiting to hear from senate leaders in particular we expect to hear first from republican leaders, a republican later mitch mcconnell and others

and we'll have it live for you when it does start. this is congressional budget negotiators head over to the white house this afternoon for a meeting with vice president biden on raising the debt ceiling. the u.s. hits that spending limit next monday, although the treasury department says it can stretch it into august. so again, we'll have comments from republican leaders should they come out before the senate gavels in at 2:15. in the meantime, a look at how the members view the federal debt discussions. >> we have a republican of ohio here to talk about a lot of different issues but let me begin with speaker boehner's speech last night. and politico frames it like this this morning. boehner debt pitch has risk for gop and it says it's a risky proposition that could once again john boehner to compromise and leave the conservative republican majority to accept less than what it wanted. do you share that concern. >> guest: well, first and foremost we have to do something about the debt ceiling. the president thinks we're going to have a clean bill coming

through, i think, that's fantasy. and we're going to have to -- and the american people are demanding something. if you look at the -- just the polling numbers out there, they're saying right now, what we want to have is a clean -- you know, no clean bill. they want massive reductions in federal spending. >> host: are you standing by speaker boehner? will you too require two trillion in spending cuts to increase for a 2 trillion debt increase. >> guest: i didn't get to hear the president's speech last night because i was stuck on an airplane. but we want to have spending reductions. when you look at the overall spending that we had until several year with speaker pelosi with 12 billion being added to the debt. >> host: that sounds like you're not quite ready to go as far as the speaker did last night? >> guest: i guess without having seen exactly what the speaker said but i think that, you know, what we're -- you know, as a republican, as somebody that comes to the district that people back home who are saying we've got to do -- we can't keep passing this debt onto our kids

and their kids. and the number 1 thing we've got to do is reduce the spending. i'm not sure exactly what the speaker said his numbers were. he has to set the bar somewhere because if we don't, you know -- if you look back what the president said several years ago in the senate, it was irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling, a lack of leadership there but what we're seeing we're going to have to do something. i think the american people understand that we're going to have to do something with the debt ceiling but at the same time, don't keep business as usual. >> host: if the debt ceiling number is 2 trillion, that's what congress comes up with for increasing the debt limit. and then you have 2 trillion in spending cuts to go along with that, how do you do cut 2 trillion in two years? >> guest: what we're saying is go back to the 2008 level because that's when all this massive spending started with stimuluses and bailouts.

and the american people said it didn't work and we don't want. so you got to take those numbers back pre-2008 and work from that number and then go -- you know, that's where we set the base at and say we have to start making these cuts. >> host: the politico says without changes to medicare, whichst comes $562 billion this year and is projected to soar to 900 billion to 2020 it may be heard to reach boehner's goal of trillions in spending cuts. so should medicare be on the table as part of this debt ceiling vote? >> guest: well, you know, when we did the -- our budget, we came out with several weeks ago, first and foremost we said we have to save medicare because the projections that we're seeing by the end of this decade that medicare is going to be broke and we can't have that happen. and, you know, what we said in our budget is that first and foremost we want to make sure anybody over 55 and older would protect everything. and something that the next generation could have after that because if we don't -- again, folks back home understand this.

they understand the out of control spending, you know, it's -- when i'm out speaking to folks one of the questions i have to ask people and this is at-large groups -- i say do you believe that your kids are going to have a better future than you have? and i find that 50% or 100 people i rarely ever have more than 1 or 2 people raise their hands my kids will have a better future so folks back home understand this. and they want washington to do something now. >> host: you voted for paul ryan's budget? >> guest: yes. >> host: that is a 10-year to 12-year plan for medicare reform. this would have to be done in two years. can you cut 2 trillion without looking at medicare? >> guest: well, i think, you know, first and foremost again -- i used to serve on budget. i'm now on energy and commerce but you have to start going back and start looking again, where's that baseline at where we have to start? we have to start again -- a lot of folks think we can do things by a slight of hand here. you can't now. i think you have to have a true honest discussion with the american people and that discussion is how are we going to get this thing under control?

because if we don't, you know, the future is not only for this generation but for the next. and again, i think you have to go back first of all to the 2008 number and say, okay, here's where we are. and again, look at the massive spending -- when you have 24% increases for a lot of the federal budgets across-the-board in the last two cycles, that's untenable. and it's also untenable that you say that some of them got over an 80% increase and you look at the stimulus dollars that's in these federal programs. >> host: is that something that you could agree to if the debt ceiling came along with the spending levels at 2008? >> guest: well, 'cause that's what we're looking at on ours. we're going back to that 2008 -- go back to that level and let's start from there because again that's where these massive spending increases occurred in the last couple years. >> host: and how far does that get you? >> guest: i think again if you go back as what we were spending, just in the -- from during speaker pelosi's you look at a $5 trillion increase over

those four years. >> host: the politico also reports this morning that republicans are split on the medicare plan put out by paul ryan. what did you hear when you were back home over this last break about paul ryan's plans for medicare? >> well, in my district, i come from the largest agricultural district in the state of ohio and i also represent the second largest manufacturing district in the state of ohio. what i was hearing from the folks represented back home in the last break period was one thing, gas prices. that's the thing people are saying. it's taking every extra dollar out of a lot of people's pockets. and i spoke to a gentleman the other day and he was filling up his car. he saw a lady filling up her car next to him. he could tell she didn't have very much money he actually went in and paid for her gas pumping that day. and she came out and actually cried when she found out because now i've got enough money to get through the next week.

so, you know, people -- a lot of folks are living hand to mouth right now and what they're focusing on now what are we doing right now in washington on fuel prices? and that's -- >> and we'll break away and take you live to the ohio quarter and comments from the republican leader mitch mcconnell. >> okay. good afternoon, everyone. a couple of observations. number 1, i think the decision by the democratic whip in the house, congressman hoyer, today to come out against the president's executive order that we anticipate he will issue basically saying that if you want to do business with the government you can't contribute to the republicans. i'm glad to see that somebody on the other side is standing up to this blatant attempt to intimidate people into either not contributing to causes the

administration opposes or to the contrary, basically, as senator collins has pointed out on several occasions, basically repealing the hat check by putting politics back in the procurement process. a truly outrageous suggestion which the white house still has an opportunity to not go forward with. we'll be watching that very closely. with that let me call on senator kyl. >> right to your left. usually not to your left, leader. [laughter] >> i noticed that on his -- way back from a fundraising event in texas the president is going to stop by the border which i think it is a great idea. it's the first time he would have visited the border. along he doesn't hang a mission accomplished sign up but actually talks to the folks down there that we still have a problem on the border it could be a very elucidating affair for the president. gao just came out with a report in february that says that at least 44% -- or that 44% of the

border is now under some form of operational control. that means that you still have a significant part of the border that's not. and i'd like to see the president come to arizona. [inaudible] >> because there is not operational control of the border there. senator mccain and i have had a 10-point plan that would actually provide for operational control with a modest increase in investment for more of the assets that are required to achieve success on the border. not all of this is equipment and manpower. some of it is policy. for example, the policy embodied in what is called operation streamline in which repeated border -- illegal border crossers have to spend some time in jail before they're returned home. this is proved to be a significant deterrent. when we read that now 35,000 mexicans have been killed in the last four years because of the drug violence just across the border, you realize how serious

the problem is. i hope that the president will bring back some lessons from this trip and that he will work with senator mccain and me to implement our proposal to actually move forward in securing the border because i think almost everybody recognizes that until the border is secure, any hope of additional legislation dealing with an immigration problem is not likely to succeed in the congress. >> you may have heard that the acting general counsel of the national labor relations board has filed a complaint against the boeing company saying that they can't make airplanes in south carolina in effect because it's a right to work state. i can't think of any single action the federal government could take that would make it harder to create new jobs in my state of tennessee and in other states in this country than saying that a company cannot expand in a right to work state. we've seen in tennessee over the last 30 years the entire auto

industry move to the southeast so it could be competitive in america. we've seen these ongoing from making no vehicles to the united states that it sold here to a situation where they're now prepared to make 85% of what they sell here. so senator graham, demint, senator paul and i and other senators will introduce before the end of the week the right to work protection act to make it clear that states since they have since 1947 may elect to have a right to work law, that employees in that state, in those states may elect to join a union or not join a union and that employers are free some america are free to locate and will not be penalize for exercising their free speech right. >> well, the u.s. senate is gavel in so we will break away these comments and take you live in the chamber. ..

mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: we're on the nomination, is that right? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. grassley: i rise today to speak in opposition to magistrate judge chen, the president's nominee for northern district of california. before i address judge chen's nomination, i want to say a few words about our progress on judicial nominations. at the beginning of this congress, i told the chairman that i would work with him to process consensus nominees at a fair and reasonable pace. thus far this congress, i have worked very hard and in good faith to do just what i promis promised. we've confirmed consensus nominees with a particular focus on nominees in so-called judicial emergencies.

i made that commitment to the chairman and i've kept it. the senate has been in session for only 46 days this congress. in that short period, we have confirmed 20 judges. we confirmed three judges last week. in fact, thus far, we have taken positive action on 43 of 71 nominees that have been submitted to this congress by the president. 20 have been confirmed, 13 have been reported out of committee, and 10 have had hearings in the committee. all total, we have taken positive action, then, on 61% of the judicial nominees submitted by the president during this congress. despite my good-faith efforts, my colleagues from the other side continue to accuse us of not moving quickly enough, and i might add, the white house

counsel continues to state publicly that we are not moving fast enough. recently, the president's top lawyer spoke to a group of aba members and asked them -- quote -- "to bring home the impact or the effect of gridlo gridlock." the president's lawyer neglected to tell the american bar association that the problem begins at the white house. in other words, the senate can't act on nominees for judicial appointments if the president has not processed them and sent them to the senate. the president has failed to send to the senate a nomination for 50% of the current judicial nominees and yet we have his white house counsel telling the american bar association get on top of the senate and tell them to get their job done when we processed 61% of the ones that are up here and done it in 46 days that we've been in session.

and somehow they expect us to process nominees that have not been submitted to the congress. that is not possible. this statistically certainly does not indicate a sense of urgency on the part of the white house. in other words, the fact that the senate has not even received 50% of the nominees for those vacancies. notwithstanding my efforts to work together, the majority insists on taking detours and throwing up roadblocks to this cooperative effort. for example, last week, after moving forward with two district court judges, the majority leader filed cloture on one of president obama's most controversial nominees, mr. jack mcdonald. and now this week, the majority leader has turned to two more of the president's controversial nominees. last night, we defeated a cloture petition for mr. cole, the president's nominee for deputy attorney general, and

today we turn to judge chen. of course, there are noncontroversial nominees that the senate could turn to. we could confirm additional district judges that we have -- as we have been doing, but rather than continuing to move forward with the consensus nominees, the other side has chosen to turn to the president's most controversial nominees. i must say this makes it extremely difficult to continue to work in good-faith effort to move forward on noncontroversial nominees. from our perspective, it appears that the more we try to work with the majority, the more that we're accused of not moving fast enough. and the -- the pudding -- the test i guess is in the pudding in the general counsel for the white house telling the american bar association lawyers to get on the senate to get more nominees confirmed. so the more we try to move

consensus nominees, the more the other side insists on moving the president's most objectionable nominees. judge chen is not a consensus nominee. his nomination was considered during the last congress and was voted out of committee on a party-line vote. the nomination was returned to the president on more than one occasion. despite our repeated and consistent opposition, the nomination was resubmitted this year. again it was reported out on a 10-8 party-line vote. yet despite the unanimous republican opposition to the nominee, we have agreed to a short time agreement rather than engage in extended debate on this nomination. with that, i have some remarks regarding judge chen's nomination. at the outset, let me emphasize

the basis of my opposition. it's based on mr. chen's judicial philosophy, on his own statements, and on his record. it is absolutely critical that our judges remain impartial. that's the independence of the judiciary. that's why it's independent. their job is to interpret law, not to make law. our system depends upon this independence and impartiality. for that reason, when judges put on the robe for the first time, they take a solemn oath that they will remain impartial. they swear that they will administer justice -- quote -- "without respect to persons and do equal right to the rich and the poor." that is why we want to make sure that judges we confirm will set aside their personal opinions. we do not want their personal views to influence how they do

their job. they are supposed to decide cases based on facts and on law and nothing else. unfortunately, there are some who believe that this notion of impartiality is somehow just plain old-fashioned and outdat outdated. they believe that judges should not be limited to the facts and the law. instead, they believe judges should look at the litigants themselves. the president seems to take this view. this is the heart of the so-called empathy standard. the problem, of course, is that empathy for one litigant is a biased against the other. but mr. chen appears ready and willing to adopt and to apply the so-called empathy standard. he appears to be a member of the camp that believes that being completely impartial is just an

old-fashioned view of judging. in 2003, as a sitting federal magistrate judge, he wrote an article that summed up his view and i want to quote it. fairly long -- quote -- "judges have to make determinations that draw not so much upon legal acumen but on an understanding of people and of human experiences. such experiences inform assumption as that affect legal decisions. simply put, a judge's life experiences affect the willingness to credit testimony or understand the human impact of legal rules upon which the judge must decide. these determinations require a judge to draw upon something that is not found in case reports that line the walls of

our chamber. rather, judges draw upon the breadth and the depth of their own life experience, upon the knowledge and understanding of people, and of the human nature." i'm sure that john marshall would be overturning -- turning over in his grave if he heard that about modern 20th century and 21st century judges. the problem with this approach is that it is the exact opposite of what judges are supposed to be. judges are supposed to determine the facts and apply the law. that is what their oath demands and that is what judges must do for our judicial to be -- remain independent and impartial. in addition to allowing empathy to affect his decision making,

judge chen appears willing to inject his personal views into judging. both his writing and public comments while as a magistrate judge suggests that judge chen believes judges should interpret the law according to their personal understandings and preferences. this is a classic definition of judicial activism. for example, in discussing his work as a magistrate judge, he stated in a speech in 2007 before the american constitution society that he finds -- quote -- "most rewarding contributing to the development of the law via public -- published opinions, especially if it comports with my view of justice." again, the problem here is that a judge's view of justice is

very irrelevant. judges are not policy-makers. that's what we are in the congress of the united states. judges are called on to decide the facts and to apply the law. their own view of justice is simply not relevant. given that judge chen believes that a judge's personal views and experiences impact their decisions, it becomes important for us to understand his views and how they were shaped prior to becoming a magistrate judge. judge chen worked as a staff attorney at the aclu for over 15 years. he was an advocate for the aclu. he took very liberal positions on a variety of issues. i'd like to name just a few. he opposed private drug testing.

he opposed antigang injunctions. he defended affirmative action. he harshly criticized english-only measures. and he argued that alabama should be forced to give driving tests in languages other than english. those who have defended judge chen's nomination have argued that he should not -- that we should not consider his work for the aclu. and as i said, we have confirmed other nominees with strongly-held personal views. but when a nominee says that personal views and experiences should and will influence how they approach cases, it becomes difficult to overlook their work on behalf of an organization like the aclu. judge chen's advocacy on behalf of the aclu is not disqualifying in and of itself, but it is hard to imagine any -- why judge chen

would devote so much of his professional career to the aclu causes if he did not believe in them deeply. more importantly, given that in judge chen's view, personal views and personal experiences should influence how a judge decides cases, we have no choice but to examine judge chen's personal views and experiences, including his work at that organization. for these reasons and others, i oppose this nomination. if judge chen is confirmed today, i sincerely hope that he will prove me wrong. i sincerely hope that he will set aside his personal views and make decisions based solely on the facts and on the law. but based on the record before this senator, i fear that he will not be able to do so. therefore, i will vote "no" on

his confirmation. i yield the floor. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, on friday, i visited memphis to see the flooding along the mississippi river myself -- on friday, visited memphis to see the flooding along the mississippi river myself and to visit with volunteers who were helping and to see the tremendously well-coordinated effort of emergency workers who are meeting and working every day, long into the evenings, and have been doing so for the last two weeks and will continue to do so for the next few. i want to make sure that, as the federal government's role for helping arrives, that we're doing everything that we should be doing.

it's quite a sight in memphis. i mean, the mississippi river today is 14 feet above flood stage. it's at a level that nearly equals the level in 1937. the river is normally a half mile wide. today it is three miles wide. and a great many people in tennessee and arkansas have been evacuated because their homes are flooded with water. as we saw a year ago in the tennessee floods which stretched from nashville to memphis, and as i saw in hamilton county near chattanooga, tennesseans know how to respond to this kind of tragedy. they are doing it again by helping one another and helping to clean up rather than complaining and looting. it is an impressive sight. bob nations, who is the director of the shelby county emergency

management agency, presides over daily meetings of maybe 50 or 60 people from a variety of volunteer and governmental sources who are carefully coordinated to deal with everything from watching the levees to looking for sand boils to helping people evacuate, to dealing with utilities that may be threatened by flooding. he's doing a tremendous job. colonel vernie rischling was there on friday. he has had a tough couple of weeks. he was the one who had to make the decision to blow up a levee in missouri, which hurt families in that area, but saved towns -- whole towns that are downriver in the mississippi river from irreparable damage in northwest tennessee and also in missouri. he was there providing us with

the latest information and overall the corps tio' worker hs been exemplary. none of the levees around memphis has been breached and it appears none will be breached despite the weather. the national weather service have been an important part of the effort. the university of memphis -- the university of memphis has contributed daily maps that will predict where the water will go, which have proven to be fairly accurate, which is enormously helpful in helping the volunteers and others find a way to evacuate when they need to be evacuated or before they need to be evacuated. i visited with volunteers who are filling sandbags near the pyramid. these included off-duty military personnel from the navy base nearby. these included people from land

that's going to stay dry in other parts of shelby county. they just knew that somebody needed the help. i traveled to moff island where the floodwaters continued to rise. officials still predetected as many as 3,000 property and six schools can be feactd by the flooding. one of the most impressive stories is that of hope presbyterian church and pastor craig stricklin. the church has organized up to 13 shelters. two of them were filled when i was there on friday. more of them are filling up. all of this is being done without any cost to the government, without any cost to the individuals who are being sheltered there. it is all be provided by the churches and the synagogues of memphis. reverend stricklin and hope presbyterian church deserve enormous credit for the role their playing, along with others in shelby counsel tism the

federal government, through the efforts of the corps, are leading the fight. this is the largest flood in the history of the mississippi river and the trai trib tear project. the problem is caused because it received 600 more inches of rain nawnl it normally did in the span of two weeks. over 4 million people are protected by the mississippi river and tributaries project. it is being tested in ways that it never has before. the system is performing as designed. the corps made the tough choices that i talked about earlier. it will continue to need to make tough choices as the water moves south. the flood has been fought since the 2k4t 24th day of april. the federal government, through fema, is also helping state and

local officials evacuate those in harm's way in advance of the floodwater. governor hazard l of tennessee has requested and our entire delegation our states request for emergency evacuation assistance to help move residents in several counties to higher ground. the president responded quickly. and we thank him for that. over the weekend, the congressional delegation also supported governor hassle's request for federal assistance to help victims in 15 more counties recovering from the floods. this is a different sort of request. the first was evacuation. this is to help those recover. the record rainfall and flooding has only odd added to the deaf nation caused by the storms. last night i learned the president has approved the request to make additional public assistance available to families hit in those areas. i would said to the tennesseans

affected by this that now that the president has approved opportunities for individual assistance, i hope they will take advantage of this. there is a telephone number to call. it is 1-800-621-fema. 1-800-621-3362. unfortunately, we have had some experience with this telephone number in tennessee in the last yeemplet the floods that came exactly a year ago which hit counties from nashville to memphis, produced enormous devastation. $2 billion alone in davidson county. what we 230u7bdz with fema, once the president had granted assistance, the tennesseans who called that telephone number got a quick response, usually had an inspector there within a few day, and in most cases where there was damage received a check of up to $30,000 within a few days. we hope that happens again, although we understand there is terrible devastation in hundreds of counties right now around the

curntion especially in alabama and the eastern part of tennessee. but i want to make sure that residents and neighbors in tennessee know that that fema number -- 1-800-621-fema -- is available now to be called. the first thing they'll do is for for your zip code. after that they will have a chance to provide help. the most important thing that tennesseans can do in preparation for that is to document the losses. this flood will impact our state nor weeks. the river only crested last night. second-highest flood stage ever recorded. it will take days for the waters to recede. only then will we know the true extent of the damage. the volunteers and the emergency crews and the church shelters will be open for a long time after today. i am proud of the tennesseans who are responding from the corps of engineers personnel to the hope presbyterian church shelters, to the professionals

with mr. nasens. senator corker and i are working together to make sure that we do all we can to expedite the federal help and response to this historic disaster that's occurred in the western part of our state. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the two letters i'm passing to the desk be included in the "congressional record" immediately following my remarks. they are the two letters that our delegation has sent to the president asking -- a request for declaration for disaster assistance. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. alexander: mr. president, i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mrs. boxer: mr. president, it is my honor to be here today to support the nomination of judge edward chen to the northern

district court of california. i congratulate justice -- judge chen and i congratulate his family on this momentous day that is long overdue. i want to thank senator feinstein for her hard work and her leadership in support of judge chen's nomination. the way we do our judge recommendations in california, i think is just exemplary. what we do is we each have a committee that advises us, and they come up with the names of a few people that they think are the top choices. then each of us makes that recommendation to the president. and judge chen was her nominee. and he has had a distinguished career, and he enjoys broad support and respect in

california's legal community. and when i heard the remarks of my colleague from iowa, senator grassley, it really broke my heart because it doesn't sound to me that he knows judge chen. he just seems to be criticizing someone else, someone who sets aside the law. that's not judge chen. judge chen will make an outstanding addition to the federal bench. since 2001 judge chen served as a magistrate judge in the northern district in california where he has earned over 250 published legal opinions. before coming to the bench judge chen was a respected civil rights lawyer and part of the trial team that successfully overturned the wartime conviction of fred kramatsu. he made history when he became the first to serve in the

northern district. today judge chen takes another history-making step if he is confirmed -- and i surely hope that he will be because when he is confirmed he will be the only -- he will be only the second asian american in the 150-year history of the northern district to be confirmed as a judge. mr. president, in our great nation, we are a melting pot, and i don't believe that you can really have the kind of justice that our founders envisioned unless we have juries of our peers and we have judges who also represent the broad quilt that is america. and i think this is something to talk about, not to ignore. while i'm proud that we are finally going to vote on the confirmation of judge chen, i have to again express frustration that it took so long

to reach this point. judge chen was nominated over 21 months ago, and i ask everyone to think about this. the family, everybody waiting for this moment, years and years on the bench, an outstanding record. i mean, i remember attending judge chen's confirmation hearing in september 2009. he was nominated for a judicial emergency seat, mr. president, one that's been vacant since april 2008. that's a judicial emergency. we don't have enough judges. so one would think we would move quickly on this. well, following his hearing, his nomination was held up by an unprecedented campaign of obstruction, unfortunately, by my friends in the republican party. they refused to allow an up-or-down vote and they forced the white house to renominate

judge chen not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. four times. and i tell you, i have read their objections, and they boil down to this: they objected because once he worked as a staff attorney for the aclu, handling civil rights cases. now, this is a man who received the highest rating from the american bar association. they gave him the well-qualified rating. and so, i have to ask my colleagues why they would object to someone who did a good job defending the constitution? i'm also -- by the way, i don't agree with the aclu all the time.

believe me, i am surprised at this objection. for example, the aclu and the tea party in my state right now in northern california are working together to oppose free speech restrictions in front of the reading library. in fact, the aclu and the tea party filed parallel lawsuits to strike down the restrictions. so my friends on the other side who give the tea party tremendous amount of support, i'm a little surprised that they would go after the aclu, which is partnering with the tea party in defending the constitution. so, i mean it's hard for me to believe that because ed chen was once a staff attorney for the aclu he would come under this kind of fire. they never objected to anything from his nine years as a magistrate judge, mr. president. not one complaint about any of the opinions he has written.

judge chen's record as a fair and impartial judge since 2001 demonstrates clearly that he understands the difference between being an an an sroe indicate and being -- an advocate and being a judge. i don't think we should say anyone who served on this organization or that organization is barred from getting promoted here. that is a sad, sad thing. and i don't think people should be voted down or voted against because they stand up for equal rights and civil rights. if anything, we ought to say that's great, because we all want our civil rights protected. we all want our rights that are guaranteed to us in the constitution protected. judge roberts, chief justice, has called on senators to stop playing politics with judicial nominees.

and i have to say, to me, this sounds like politics. you don't like an organization, so then you say someone who's been a judge for fine years, you have no complaints about him -- for nine years, you have no complaints about him. go back ten years and say you don't like that organization; they can't be promoted. chief justice roberts has warned that delays in filling vacancies has created acute difficulties in some judicial districts. that's a quote. let me read it. he said "the delays in filling vacancies has created acute difficulties in some judicial districts." and certainly we know in this district, we have been in an emergency situation. it is time to get judge chen seated so he can continue serving the people of northern california as a district court judge. i commend judge chen for his strength and his perseverance over the past 21 months. this has not been an easy thing.

i commend his family for standing by him. i again commend senator feinstein for fighting for him. and i commend everybody here who was able to somehow hammer out an agreement to have an up-or-down vote on this very talented man. so i close with great hopes that we're going to get this nominee confirmed. and in advance of that -- and i hope i'm right in doing this -- i want to congratulate judge chen and his family. and i do urge my colleagues to cast their votes to confirm this highly qualified and respected nominee to the northern california district and make history in doing so, and be proud in doing so, and know that when we put qualified people on the court who bring a different background to the court, that we're doing something very positive for america. that's what america is. i'm a first-generation american

on my mother's side, and i can tell you what i learned from her, that we should kiss the ground of this country. as i grew up, i realized that one of the great things about our country is that we are such an experimenting democracy. people from every background, every religion, differences; but we believe in one thing, and that is protection of our rights, and that is we believe in freedoms that we get from this nation and we vow to protect those freedoms. and part of protecting those freedoms is to put people on the bench who understand that, as benjamin franklin once said, you have a republic if you can keep it. and the way to keep it is not to bar people from getting these up-or-down votes. put good people on this bench. you can vote no, you can vote

yes. yes, there are times when we say we want a supermajority, but for ed chen, this isn't one of those times. and i look forward to his positive vote. i thank you very much, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the time that is unused be charged to either side during quorum calls. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mrs. boxer: during the quorum calls, be charged to either side. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mrs. boxer: now i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. president, i

ask unanimous consent that we suspend with the quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kirk: i ask that-to-speak for ten minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kirk: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio -- mr. kirk: illinois.

officer i'm so. illinois. mr. kirk: more than ten months ago, a popular uprising swept president hosni mubarak from office. the egyptian military is now charged with reforming that country's military system with preparation for a parliamentary and presidential election. history teaches us that this sort of transition happens in three phases, not two. first, the dictator falls. next follows a weak interim government. and only then does a final, permanent government enter the scene. we remember the french revolution with the fall of louis 16. then the hopefulness of the french. then we remember the october ref liewlings, first the fall of the czar. then the hopefulness of the interim karenski government, thent rise of the soviet union. most recently we remember iran,

first the fall of the shah. then the hopefulness of the interim batiar government. thent rise of khomeini. today we're watching this sequence play out in egypt. first mubarak fell. then came the juvenile diabetes listing and the hopefulness of an interim military govment now we're left to wonder what act 3 will bring. will egypt remain a strong u.s. ally in the region? will it uphold the camp david peace treaty with israel? will it commit to the rule of law and human rights at home? or will egypt fall into the hands of the. mr. conrad: cal muslim brother had? will it drift towards iran and embrace the enemies of israel? recent developments indicate egypt is moving in the wrong direction. the muslim brotherhood is gaining additional influence and

may soon gain significant legislative power. according to a poll released on april 25 by the pew research center, 78% of egyptians hold a favorable view of the muslim brotherhood, and that's better than the youth-led april 6 movement that removed mubarak from power. in september's planned lerks the muslim brotherhood plans to contest anywhere from 303% to 5% of all parliamentary seats. meanwhile, egypt's foreign policy is shifting away from the united states and our allies and towards the islamic republic of iran and its terrorist proxies. on april 18, iran announced the appointment of the country's first ambassador to egypt in 30 years. on april 27, the egyptian foreign minister said that he

will meet with the iranian foreign minister ali akbar saleh. the two officials will discuss next steps for the iranian-egyptian relationship. on may 3, iran's foreign minister announced that he would send his deputy to visit egypt in the coming days. egyptian authorities helped negotiator the recent reconciliation agreement between the terrorist movement hamas and fatah, a major setback to israeli-palestinian peace. when asked to comment on hamas being a terrorist organization, egypt's foreign minister said -- quote -- "we must allow someone house who is fight forge a cuss to see the light of day at the end of the tunnel and enter into peace." on march 28, hamas submit add request to the egyptian government to reopen its embassy in the gaza strip.

on april 28, egypt's foreign minister announced plans to reopen the raffa border with hamas on a permanent basis, a potential boon to the hamas terrorist organization. and on april 30, al hayak reported that hamas would be reelecting its offices from did a mass cursing send the terrorist's number-two man to egypt. meanwhile, egyptians' commitment to democracy and human rights has suffered a serious setback following recent attacks on the country's cop particular christian community that left scores dead and hundreds more injured. this follows the interim's government move to dismiss the governor of the city of quenna only days after his appointment. caving to mass demonstrations organized by the muslim brotherhood. as one coptic bishop told

a.f.p., they are led by salah fay's and we won't leave until the christians's leave. on march 28, dr. sin a. adnchts a 25-year-old blogger, was arrested for -- quote -- "insulting the military" -- and -- quote -- "disturbing public security." after posting comments on his blog that were critical of the military's role in the protest. this arrest clearly violated the international covenant on international and political rights and the new government's commitment to the fundamental freedoms of its people. if egyptians could freely express their views on at that here square, they should have the freedom to express their views online. mr. president, the trajectory of egypt's revolution now faces two distinct scenarios: it could become a is he skew already a american ally that --

a secular american ally that represents a peace treaty with israel, or it could become a muslim brotherhood controlled ally of iran that embraces terrorist groups like hamas, per percent ciewtz its own religious minorities and reject rejects pe with is prail. we must do everything in our power to support the secular forces of egypt or face the prospect of a strategic setback on the scale of iran in 1979, laying the foundation for potentially yet another war in the middle east. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that my remarks be entered in the record and i yield back. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kirk: and i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: should be

filled as soon as possible. actually when he is confirmed, as i fully believe he will be, he'll be only the second asian-pacific american to serve

on the district court bench in the 150-year history of the northern district of california. well, madam president, the debate we have today and the vote we're going to have today is long overdue. we are finally able to consider judge chen's nomination because of the vote the senate took last week toward restoring and allowing a longstanding tradition, a deference to home state senators with regard to federal district court nominations. madam president, i've been here 37 years. it's always been the practice that if you have a nominee of a president, republican or democratic, a nominee for a federal district court backed by the two senators of that state, it's usually almost a proforma thing in going through. the idea being that we

understand our states the best, understand the needs of our states the best. the distinguished presiding officer also had a distinguished career as governor of her state and now is a u.s. senator -- senior senator of new hampshire. and certainly such a position would require both the president and the senate judiciary committee to give great deference to -- something she might say -- but the other state from the senate republican or democratic. now, the senate faced a precipice last week and turned away from it when 11 republican senators joined and voted to end the filibuster with the nomination of jack mcconnell for the district court for the district of rhode island. in doing so, a supermajority of the senate came together to

reject a new standard which i believe is being unfairly applied to president obama's district court nominee, a standard i've never seen applied to any president, republican or democratic. now nearly 20 months -- and keep in mind, madam president, this is a judicial emergency. this is one of those judicial emergencies that the chief justice of the united states had been urging us to fill. it's taken nearly 20 months before -- since his confirmation hearing and then having had his nomination reported favorably by the senate judiciary committee not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. extraordinary measure. judge chen's nomination should

have an up or down vote in the senate. it will be only the second asian-pacific american on that district court bench in the 150-year history in the northern district of california. madam president, nobody -- nobody, no matter what their background, should be treated this way. we should have taken up and confirm his nomination when it was first reported favorably by the committee nearly 19 months ago. some -- somebody blocked and claimed there was a controversy, well, that's a view that's entirely misplaced. it's a result of applying a partisan litmus test that we do not do on district court judges. this should be an easy nomination to confirm. but the opponents have taken t to -- to take the senate down a dangerous path of imposing

partisan litmus test in place of the duty to offer advice and consent on nominations. the debate in our committee on judge chen's nomination was ugly. one republican senator explained his opposition, said that judge chen has the aclu gene. this asian pacific judge had an aclu gene. madam president, this goes back to an era that i don't think any of us should want to return to. i hope we don't hear such a preposterous notion repeated today on the floor of the senate. it is disgraceful to judge chen. it certainly sheds no glory on somebody doing -- making such a

claim. it is a shame on the united states senate, a body i revere. this is a distinguished federal magistrate judge. he has demonstrated that he knows how to be a fair and impartial judge. nobody has questioned the fact that during the years he has been a federal magistrate judge he has been anything but fair and impartial. now, our legal system is an add vair serrie -- is an adversary system, it is predicated upon legal adversary on both sides and defending civil liberties is no vice. the other side appears to be the suggestion of judge chen's work before a magistrate judge as a staff attorney at the aclu many years ago, primarily representing individuals in discrimination and civil rights matters somehow renders them unfit to be a judge.

since when do we impose a litmus test for nominees that they can never be legal advocates? if we were to do that, there would be no judges. almost every nominee who has been a practicing lawyer would be disqualified by one side or the other. madam president, i had the opportunity to work for years in the private practice of law. i represented both plaintiffs and defendants. i represented people accused of crime. i then became a prosecuting attorney, a state's attorney. i represented the state against people who were charged with crimes, and i always found my job was easier if you had a very good attorney on the other side because you know there is more of a chance that justice would

be done. i have recommended to various presidents lawyers who have been defense attorneys, lawyers who have been prosecuting attorneys, and they have all been great judges. now, the same question i ask every judicial nominee, i have asked them when i was here when president ford was president and president carter and president reagan, the first president bush, president clinton, second president bush and now president obama is whether that nominee, whether he or she will have judicial independence and whether the nominee understands the role of a judge and how it differs from the role of an advocate. i knew when i was a prosecutor i was on the other side from when i had been a defense attorney, and i know some great prosecutors who went on to

become defense attorneys, and i never thought to myself if i had taken one of the judgeships offered to me over the years that i would be able to be anything but impartial to both plaintiffs and defendants. now, with this nominee, with judge chen, it's an easy question to answer about whether he would be impartial. we know that he understands the role of a judge because he has been doing it for ten years as a magistrate judge on the court on which he has now been nominated. as judge chen said in response to a question from then-ranking member senator sessions, "the role of a judge is to be fair, neutral and evenhanded in applying the law and finding facts without regard to personal preferences." we can look at ten years this man served as a federal

magistrate judge. these ten years are -- resoundingly answer any concerns about by ys or partisanship on his part. they showed he had no bias, he had no partnership, and his testimony before the judiciary committee reflects his understanding on the proper role of a judge. this is not a man who comes and will come on the bench with biases. we should not show biases as senators in trying to block his confirmation. there was no need for the delays that plagued this nomination. there were no extraordinary circumstances that held up this nomination for nearly two years. with judicial vacancies at crises levels, affecting the ability of course to provide justice to americans around the

country, both plaintiff and defendant, both government and defendant. we should be debating and voting on each of the 12 judicial nominations reported favorably by the judiciary committee, and pending on the senate's executive calendar in addition to judge chen. no one should be playing partisan games and obstructing while vacancies remain above 90 at federal courts around the country. no one should show a bias toward a nominee based on who they may have represented in the past. i would hate to have a bench made up of those only representing one side or the other. so i congratulate judge edward chen and his family on what will be his confirmation today. i will probably vote for him. i commend senator feinstein, senator boxer for their

steadfast support of this nominee. madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. is time being divided? the presiding officer: yes, it is. mr. leahy: i ask that time be equally divided during the quorum call. the presiding officer: the time is equally divided, and the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: ing officer: without

objection. mr. leahy: madam president, i see the distinguished junior senator from california on the floor, and i will yield, of course, to her. she has been indefatigable in her support of judge chen, both in the committee and the halls of the senate, in her steadfast work with the leadership to get this nominee before us, and i would hope that i could brag about all the work she has done. i would hope that judge chen and his family know they had as strong and as stalwart a

supporter on the senate judiciary committee as they could possibly have, senator feinstein. with that, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much, madam president. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mrs. feinstein: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much. i want to thank chairman leahy

for his leadership on this particular judgeship. i believe he's accurate in everything he has said and i very much appreciate his stalwart support, and so i rise to obviously add my support to the nomination of united states magistrate judge david chen to become a united states district judge in the northern district of california. i recommended judge chen to the president, and so obviously he has my strong support. i'd like to just tell you a little bit about him. he was born and raised in oakland, and he's the son of chinese immigrants. his father immigrated to the united states in the 1920's, and that was followed by his mother in the 1930's. he attended public schools in oakland and then went on to the university of california at berkeley where he received his undergraduate degree with great distinction, and on to bolt hall school of law where he graduated in the top 10% of his class.

he was a law clerk to district judge charles renfrute and on the united states district court for the northern district of california, and also to circuit judge james browning on the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit. he then began his legal career as a litigator, first at the private law firm of cobblins, patch, duffy and bass, and later as a staff attorney at the american civil liberties union. in 2001, he was appointed to be a united states magistrate judge for the northern district of california, and he has served in that capacity for the past ten years. so today judge chen is a solid, tested and respected judge with over a decade of experience on the federal bench. in these ten years as a judge, he has written more than 350

published opinions, and i would point out that not one of those opinions has been criticized by anyone in the 20 months that this nomination has been awaiting action in the senate. nor has there been any criticism of any of his published opinions. in fact, there's broad consensus among those who have reviewed his judicial record that he is indeed a very good judge. he was recommended to me by a bipartisan judicial advisory committee. that committee reviewed his record, spoke with judges, attorneys and litigants who knew his work as a judge. the committee unanimously recommended that i forward his name to the president, and i did. the san francisco bar association has rated him exceptionally well qualified. the american bar association has rated him well qualified, their

highest rating. and in 2009, a merit selection review panel appointed by the united states district court thoroughly reviewed his record and recommended him for reappointment as a magistrate judge. that panel consisted of seven lawyers appointed by the district court. they solicited public comments on chen's work as a judge. only positive information was forthcoming. they talked to federal prosecutors in the u.s. attorney's office. again, the reports were uniformly favorable. prosecutors called chen's analytical skills exemplary and said his rules were balanced and well-reasoned. defense attorneys were similarly positive. they describe chen as respectf respectful, considered in his judgments. and partners with large law firms called chen prompt,

well-prepared, very intelligent, and decisive. overall, the panel recommended unequivocally that chen be reappointed for a second eight-year term as a magistrate judge, and obviously he has served two years of that second term. i have the panel's full report here and would be pleased to share it with any senator who would like to review it. since chen's nomination for the district court, the reports that we've received in the senate from those who know chen's work as a judge have been similarly all positive. we've received letters urging his confirmation from republicans and democrats, public officials and law enforcement, judges, civil-rights groups, business leaders, and private lawyers. and let me just share a few with you. judge lowell jensen, who i have followed for decades and who i

believe is a republican and was appointed to the united states district court by president reagan and also served as second in charge of the department of justice during the reagan administration, he's worked closely with chen on the federal bench and had this to say about him. and this is a direct quote. "i have found judge chen to be both an excellent jurist and a person of high character. he brings a conscientious, careful, and impartial approach to every issue and every party. the decisions he makes reflect not only good judgment but a complete commitment to the principles of fair trial and the application of the rule of law. i support this confirmation without reservation." and i can say that judge jensen is one of the most distinguished judges in california. former united states district judge, fern smith, was also

appointed by president reagan to the federal court. she writes, "both in my own dealings with judge chen and based on his reputation among my former colleagues, i can attest to his intellectual competence, his respect for the law, his judicial temperament and his integrity. i have no doubt that ed chen would do honor to any of our 94 united states district courts." we also have a letter from the president of the san francisco police commission and a lifelong republican, thomas mizouko. he published an op-ed in "roll call" urging the senate to confirm chen and calling him -- and i quote -- "an experienced judge who understands the distinction between personal preference and judicial obligation and who has always based his rulings -- more than 300 decisions over eight years -- solely on the law and

merits of the case." san francisco deputy sheriff's association -- quote -- "chen has earned a reputation as an evenhanded jurist who is constantly mindful of the role that judges such as himself fulfill in our society and keepers of the rule of law and public trust in our system of justice." i have over 50 more letters if anyone would like me to read them. they come from the mayors of san francisco, oakland, and san jose. the sheriff, the city attorney, the former chief of police, and former united states marshal of san francisco. the last ten presidents of the bar association of san francisco. the congressional asian pacific american caucus. the national asian pacific american bar and many others. the judgment is clear. ed chen is fair, he is imicial,s impartial, he is an excellent

jurist, has been for ten years, who deserves to be confirmed. now you come back to washington and what happens? here's the story. despite this long judicial track record and broad bipartisan support, this nomination has been sitting in the senate for more than 600 days. the president first nominated chen on august 6, 2009. that was 643 days ago. since that time, the minority has required the nomination to be sent back to the president three different times, and the senate judiciary has had to consider the nomination four different times. this is extraordinary, but then the republicans have an extraordinary search engine. and i'll talk about that in a minute. this is a district court nominee

with ten years of judicial experience and not a blemish on that. when other judicial nominees have come before the senate, they've been criticized because they didn't have judicial experience or because there was no judicial track record to review. well, here's a nominee who has both: ten years on the bench, bipartisan support, uniformly positive reviews, more than 350 published opinions and not a single criticism. not one. but his nomination has been sitting in the senate for 600 days and sent back to the president three separate times. i find this to be a deeply disappointing testament to the situation we face here in the united states senate today.

let me pose the question that police commissioner mizouko, a republican, asked in his op-ed -- and i quote -- "if judge chen, an experienced judge whose judicial record proves he is committed to the rule of law without bias or favor and who is widely respected by the bar that has practiced before him isn't qualified for the federal bench, then who is?" and i would echo that. so what happened here? well, let me take a few moments to address a couple of the attacks that have been made on judge chen. first, judge chen has been criticized because he worked as a staff attorney for the aclu long before becoming a judge. no one disputes that. chen was once an advocate. that's a fact. but he also has a ten-year

record to prove that he's made the transition. he was once an advocate. he is now a judge and a darned good judge. as a coalition of northern californian asian-american bar associations wrote, chen has made a successful transition from a zealous advocate to a balanced and conscientious adjudicator who is committed to the impartial and active administration of justice. former federal prosecutors from the northern district of california made the same point. they wrote, "judge chen consistently treats all sides evenly and impartially and conducts himself with the utmost propriety, as is fitting for a judge. while we are aware of his previous position as a staff attorney at the aclu in northern california ten years ago or

more, judge chen does not show favoritism toward the parties or issues before him." the record is available. the evidence is in. chen understands the unique role of the impartial adjudicator. he knows what it means to decide cases evenhandedly and he has been doing it for ten years. let me turn to some speeches that the search engine turned up. since 2009, "the washington times" and others have used a handful of quotes from speeches chen has given during his time as a judge to try to paint him as someone he has no is not. as happens far too often, those cuts have been cut, spliced and taken out of context. let me give you an example. the effort to label chen as a

radical is based on a speech he gave to students following the funeral of a man by the name of fred korimatzu. i want to take a moment to explain korimatzu and the case. some of you may be too young to remember the fight against korimatzu and his fight against japanese internment during world war ii but i am not. one of the singular experiences of my lifetime was when my father took me as a small child to the tanferan racetrack. that racetrack was a few miles south of san francisco. and during world war ii, it was taken out of action as a race camp -- racetrack and turned into an internment camp. it was fenced with barbed wire. small buildings lined the center

portion of the track. this is a better -- you can see. here's the racetrack and here are the buildings. and this is where japanese americans were essentially incarcerated for the remainder of world war ii. one young californian -- and let me show you, this is -- while we have it, this is the order which is sent from the western command and fourth army wartime civil control administration, instructions to all persons of japanese ancestry living in the following area. and that's the area -- the city and county of can civic, lying generally -- san francisco, lying generally northwest of the north-south line, and it describes that, all japanese

persons, both alien and nonalien, will be evacuated from the designated area by 12:00 on tuesday, april 7, 1942. no japanese person will be permitted to enter or leave the above-described area after 8:00 a.m. thursday, april 7. that's over half of the city of san francisco, without obtaining special permission from the provost marshal at the civil control system. and then they are told where they are to report, to the civil control station to receive further instructions. this must be done between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. thursday, april 7 -- excuse me, april 2, or between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. friday, april 3. that's their notice, and they

turn out -- turn up, they get in a bus and this is where they go and where they remain until the end of the war. one young californian, fred korimatzu, challenged the internment. he took his case all the way to the united states supreme court and he argued that the united states constitution did not permit loyal american citizens to be forced into these camps solely because of their japanese american heritage, which was the case here. the supreme court heard his case but he lost in a decision that is considered by many to be a black stain on the jurisprudence of our supreme court. decades later, in 1983, korimatzu challenged his conviction again. this time he was represented by a team of volunteer lawyers,

including edward chen. this team put forward newly discovered evidence that demonstrated that prosecutors in korimatzu's original case had withheld evidence. specifically, they had withheld united states government intelligence at the time that indicated that the internment was neither necessary or justified. that was the intelligence at the time. this time they won. so 41 years after the original internment order, fred korimatzu's conviction was overturned by the district cou court, and four years later, in 1987, president ronald reagan signed into law the civil liberties act which issued a former -- formal national apology fort for the japanese internment. well, at the time, chen was

speaking to a group -- at the time of the case -- to a group of students -- i beg your pardon, let me begin again. chen was speak to a group of students -- speaking to a group of students and reflecting on the funeral of korimatzu, and he said that at times he had experienced -- and i quote -- "feelings of ambivalence and cynicism when confronted by appeals to patriotism." now, now, he was referring to the internment of japanese-americans citizens for no cause other than they happened to be of japanese heritage. i would think you could get a bit cynical about that. and -- see, people didn't see this, don't really believe it happened. but it did happen, and it happened here, and this was the condition in which people were

kept, which was just not right. well, the feelings of ambivalence and cynicism when confrontedly appeals to patriotism was the line that some have picked out and try to use to paint chen as unpatriotic. but they didn't know the context. sometimes things that have monumental importance -- things that had monumental importance at the time, like the internment of japanese-americans citizens without due process, fade too quickly from our historical member rhode island and so -- from our historical memory. and so i thought i would bring it back so that this body could understand the total context. this was a very big deal. it was not a proud moment for our country. and this congress and president reagan rightfully issued a

formal apology for the injustice that was done years later. to take a quote from a speech after fred korematsu's funeral and use it to try to imply that edward chen does not love his country, it's shameful. it's also flatly inconsistent with the rest of the speech. chen went on to say that when the congregation sang "america the beautiful" at korematsu's funeral, he was moved to tears -- quote -- "because the song described the america that fred envisioned, the america whose promised beauty he sought to fulfill, an america true to its founding principles." end quote. well, fred korematsu is no longer with us, but his daughter karen sent me a letter about edward chen, and here are some of his words -- of her words,

excuse me. "my father's belief in our constitution was unwavering, even when he was treated unfairly. like my father, judge chen is adamant about upholding the constitution without bias or prejudice. so, in my view, edward chen is a judicial nominee who has been treated extraordinarily unfairly, but he remains steadfast in his commitment to serving our country as a federal judge, and he has a ten-year unblemished judicial track record to show that he will serve us exceedingly well." so i urge my colleagues to vote "yes" on the nomination of judge edward chen to be a district judge for the northern district of california. thank you, madam chairman, i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the

clerk will call the roll. quorum call: