book, and i have to tell you when i came down out of that mountain, i knew exactly what i was. [laughter] i mean, that's just true, that's just true. and it's been on that run ever since. ever since. who else? ..

>> you guys just don't know how important you are. we are in a movement of sort of not only dividing education, but immobilizing new voices. what we've got to be back to business doing is what ronald reagan does. first, when the argument, then when the vote. we win the argument quite frankly by engaging all kinds of folks, providing them with information, providing them and persuading. that's what we have to do. we are in the persuasion business right now so we should take that information, and share it with a bunch of folks. i think they are telling me my time is ended. >> one more question. >> one more question. way back. >> any speak to the federal federal energy policy and -- and how that is impacted? >> well, i mean, federal energy

policy today is impacted by a number of things. number one, the global warming. and the threat of greenhouse gas, the regulation of greenhouse gases. also, we also have on sure the challenge of dealing with u.s. fish and wildlife agency, which now has decided it's going to protect a three-inch sand dune lizard at the risk of hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude on the largest onshore crude oil, in the lower 48. and thousands and thousands of jobs. we've got refiners in this country that had on schedule large construction projects, expanding refineries or building new ones, who will tell us today that they've shut down those because they don't know what's going to happen with obamacare. i do. we're going to repeal and replace. but they don't know what's going to happen with obamacare. they don't know what's going to have with greenhouse gases. if you look at what's happened in the gulf, we know that

obviously the bp incident was one of consequences, and we produced crude every day. and have been doing so every day safely. what we should do is make sure the producers attend to the rules, and when they don't, we should then have them deal with those enforcement agencies. but you don't shut down production in the gulf. those rigs have left, and most will never come back. on sure, if you think about for every rig that is running on sure, that's about 12 jobs per annum, direct jobs just on the rig. then there's another eight to 12 in direct and induced jobs. and keep in mind, that's on an annualized basis. because august is some of the people are there for a couple of weeks. some people, they do their job, they go away.

so that's 600 people who get and work on each rig. so we put american jobs at risk because somebody really just doesn't want us producing in the gulf and elsewhere. somebody just want to go after the energy industry, and our ability to produce our own energy. i mean, think about this, the nature of borrowing money from the chinese so we can loan it to the brazilians so they can go drill for oil. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> the question is what we do about the black vote. let me mention a couple of things. we've got to recognize that we have to have a conversation with

that community. we have to meet the community where that community is. we are so impressed with our policy positions we kind of want of the people and say here. and i tell folks all the time that the way we make that change is for them to understand, understand first of all who we are. and so in getting to understand who we are we've got a conversation. having had the conversation we have a responsibility. you guys applauded when i talked about my work at the department of education on individual liberty, right? but when we see somebody acting in a way that is clearly racist, clearly biased, clearly discriminatory, we need to be the first people in the room to say no. nature abhors, and if we don't feel it, someone else will. so don't get upset if somebody on the left feels you don't like, if we did feel that first. so we have to say no to foolishness when receded.

that doesn't mean we count every time someone calls is a racist, or someone else, call this a racist or whatever those words are. but we've got to where that conversation. i am convinced, and this may sound self-serving, but i'm convinced that with the election of allen west and tim scott and michael williams, you're going to start, you're going to start a prairie fire, darling. and with that prairie fire, you will give folks permission, -- [applause] you are going to give folks permission to say i'm a republican. i find it interesting as ago around my state the number of folks who come up to me and say i'm a republican. right now we want a vote. we want them to vote with us. and that's going to happen. as we get more and more of us to get on the national stage, and more of us are seen by the folks in that community, they're going

to say well, if he can do it, i might be able to do it. because the community agrees with us on those issues. they just don't think they like it. >> mike williams, i'm going to make a point here, at the end that may be given trouble or not, but relevant to this, you know, you and allen west and tim scott, i just got an e-mail from a buddy of mine who says that herman cain is in iowa right now and it's the darndest thing to see 13,000 islands out cheering herman cain on stage. [applause] >> and you know, you're in the second congressional district of south carolina, which is the district got fired the first shot in the civil war, and it happens to be represented by black man who happens to be a republican. [applause] >> and it is nice to see michael williams and allen west and tim

scott and herman cain, and the list goes on, running not based on who they are, but on what their ideas are. and you have been consistently since 2009, you -- i still can't get over the fact you are a railroad commissioner who has nothing to do with railroads, but the power of your ideas and what you say, i just appreciate you for ever, and i think is so much for being here. and folks, you can send michael williams to the united states congress with your prayers, your money and your votes. [applause] >> watch more of the other candidates, see what political reporters are saying and track the latest campaign contributions with c-span's website for campaign 2012,

easy-to-use. it help you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds and facebook updates on the campaign. candidate bios and the latest polling data plus links to c-span media partners in the early primary and caucus stage, >> next the congressional black caucus' recent town hall meeting in atlanta focusing on jobs and economy. the atlanta technical college hosts this nearly two-hour eve event. >> which was voted america's best community college in 27102009 by washington monthly magazine. yes, that's something to clap for. [applause] >> it is really an exciting day today for us, and i want to thank john lewis and hank johnson and the congressional black caucus for sharing this most important events with the s college. you for i am pleased that they decided

to bring this type of event to atlanta, particularly in light of the unemployment that we have in atlanta and the numbers that came out just today about our te unemployment. this in atlanta, particularly the numbers -- after the numbers in unemployment. it is my pleasure to introduce the moderator's for this evening, joann read and jeff johnson. joanne read is the managing editor and also an msnbc contributor. jeff johnson is an msnbc contributor and chief correspondent for thereall.com.

please join me in welcoming them. >> thank you so much and good evening. [applause] one more time, good evening. >> [audience repeat] good evening. >> we want to make sure this is a discussion and a lively one, one full of family and concern and full of honest questions. with that, i want to be sure the energy level is up a little bit. one more time, good evening. >> good evening. >> that is fantastic. it is a pleasure for me to be one of your moderators' this evening. joanne read, who is directly behind me, will be rotating back and forth to this podium. she is an amazing journalist and i am happy to say, one of my bosses. this is the continuation of what

has been a long day of what has been a substantive to work. this tour has been to cleveland, ohio already, we saw over 6000 people come to a job fair. and in detroit michigan we saw a similar numbers. the over 200 companies in cleveland and 70 companies in detroit joined together to make sure that jobs were available. we are very encouraged by those who were in line as early as 6:00 a.m. to begin tuesday, i believe i can get a job. -- to begin to say, i believe i can get a job. and i heard from two young women in particular who said this was the most productive job fair that they have been to in a year

and two years since they have been unemployed. and both of them walked out with appointments to start work as early as next week. [applause] this was not just an opportunity to get first or second interviews. there were people who walked out today with jobs. i think that is meaningful. what i am pleased about as a journalist is, when you are able to think positively about an event not because you are positive, but because it is true. i think the black caucus should be commended even at a time when corporations will write checks for anything, it just to have you say something good about them, but they have been actually showing out with jobs -- showing up with jobs. while not everyone may walk with a job, with no jobs are

available. it is going to be our job to introduce you to this panel and move through this discussion. i would like to present the panel. many of you know who they are. some of you have been introduced for the first time. i will just start at the immediate roving left to a congressman that many of you know, congressman hank johnson. [applause] it is all right to applaud. to someone that i think, really needs no introduction anywhere in the world. he is truly one of the stalwarts of not only the congressional black congress, but of the congress neare. he truly understands what servitude is. please welcome congressman john lewis.

to his immediate left, sanford agip. to his immediate left, if you did not know who she was, if you watched the news today, you clearly knew who she was. please about a round of applause for congresswoman maxine waters. to her immediate left, congressman al green. to his immediate left, the vice chair of the congressional black caucus, congresswoman dandala christiansen -- donna christensen. to her left, congressman cedric richmond. and to his left, congresswoman laura richardson. as we begin to bring our first presenter, i think is important to mention that you have a panel

full of elected officials who could easily be in their own districts or be on vacation. i think it says a great deal that many of these representatives have, not to their own districts, but have been in districts that are not their own to create a level of solidarity on this caucus, to talk to people in different communities about how to create jobs, and even more importantly, the message they need to take back to washington from individuals like yourselves on what the mandate is from the people. it is my pleasure at this point to bring initial greeting from congressman hank johnson. [applause] >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen. welcome here today. it has been a long day. for those of you that have been 6ere all day, i want to say,

stay the course. we have been here to -- i want to say, stay the course. we are here to answer your questions. we have been here with you today. we are all in this together. we at the congressional black caucus are pledged to leave washington d.c. and come out into the areas that we represent, and since everyone is job hunting, we want to make those jobs available to you. that is what today was all about. i do not know what the headlines will be, whether the cbc and the president are at odds, or the cbc against the cfc members. or, 20 people got sick today, or

a prospective employer was overwhelmed by the outcome, or whatever. i do not know what the store will be. but what the truth is, that we had about 5000 or 6000 people come out today, many of whom stood in line for several hours -- [applause] and you know what, each and every one of them were here for a job. and it was not the recession -- excuse me. it was not the debt ceiling that they were concerned about. it was not the deficit that was on their minds. it was the american dream, feeding their family, being a

homeowner, having a job, having a car to get to work. they want to live that american dream and we owe it to them. we have worked hard. but the jobs flew out from under them going overseas. we have got to make a difference. we have got to change that. and that is why we all should work together and not be swayed by those headlines that are going to slice and dice and give you half the truth in a slanted stories. the real story is that people out here need help. they do not need tax breaks. they do not need a tax credit. they are not on wall street. if they are on main street. you are here today to ask some questions. i am just so happy, and i want

to acknowledge my colleagues from the congressional black caucus. there are 42 of us. and we have eight of us sitting right here with you today, from as far away as california all the way to the virgin islands. they care about you. i want to thank you all for coming. i have enjoyed working with congressman lewis to make this event possible. without any further ado, i want to bring forward one of my friends and colleagues -- we work together on the local level. that is where the action is, really, ladies and gentlemen. federal governments should be assisting state and local governments as they try to avoid layoffs. i want to introduce to you, my friend, fellow attorney and ceo,

mr. bert lewis. [applause] come up here if you will. >> greetings, everyone. i want to thank my friend and colleague, congressman hank johnson. and thank you congressman lewis and congressman bishop. and also, thank you for your service to georgia. thank you in the black caucus for your service not only to your local districts, but for your work for the united states and hard work that you are taking on. thank you for being here in georgia tonight. the key to economic recovery, i think we all know, lies in their creation of jobs. we have got to get americans

back to work. we have got to get america working if we're going to seriously say we are beyond this recession. in cabot county we have 7000 employees and a budget of $1.6 million -- $1.6 billion and i know a little bit about public policy. we cannot create a good public policy by cutting and slashing the budget. we have to stimulate by creating jobs. we have a multidimensional approach to doing that. in katia county, because we passed a water and sewer capital improvement program and we are going to be pumping $1.3 billion into capital improvements to upgrade our water system over the next eight years -- and we had to do that by raising rates,

but the silver lining is that we are going to create thousands of jobs in the process. local jobs with incentives to hire local residents, and minority and minority-owned businesses and put back -- people back to work. that is going to be our local job stimulus program in the county. we could not have got there just by cutting spending. it would cut 20% -- we cut 20% of our budget in the last few years. but we also adjusted our taxes. we raised taxes. we raised our water and sewer rates because we have to pump money back into the economy. government cannot do it alone. we have to institute smart public policy so that we can stimulate growth, get the private sector involved, and get them to be the major employers

and get our people hired and back to work. that is what is all about. that is what this discussion today is partly going to center on, creating smart public policy so we can put americans back to work. i want to thank you all for being here. i want to thank you for your participation. members of cbc, i want to thank you for your service to our nation. thank you for being in georgia. thank you for putting americans back to work, for putting georgians back to work, and putting atlantans back to work. god bless you all. [applause] >> i'm going to say good evening -- oh, you see, i got the same. i thought it was you, jeff. let's try that again, good evening. >> good evening. >> i want to thank jeff for the great job that he does at the

grio and on msnbc. thank you all for coming. i think civic engagement is the most important thing that people can do after actually voting and showing up. it is critical. i am proud of you for being here tonight. i think you deserve a round of applause for being here. you have stayed over past the job fair to do your part of our talking to the government. i want to remind ever when that we are taking questions from the audience. it is very important that you stay engaged by actually asking questions of our members. the people that are waiving, they have cards and pencils, so you can contribute your questions and some have already done. now we can get into the heart of the matter. i want to introduce to you your congressman for this district, the hon. john lewis, who will

make some opening remarks. [applause] >> thank you very much, joann. jeff, thank you very much. thanks, the two of you, for being here. let's give ththem one more hand. [applause] i want to thank the president of this wonderful institution, dr. thomas. for making the facilities available. we really appreciate it, and are more than grateful to you and your staff. thank you so much. [applause] we realize that we have sort of occupied your space today, and you did not kick us out. we want to say thank you. i want to thank each of you for

being here, for being so patient. and i have to tell you, you stood in long, and moving lines. to send the strongest possible message that people want to work. that we want jobs, full employment for all of our citizens. and i tell you, the members that you will see sitting here, members of the congressional black caucus, we will not be happy, we will not be satisfied, we will not be at peace until we have jobs for all of our citizens. it does not matter whether they are black or white, latino or asian american or native american, we all deserve to have a job. [applause]

and i want to speak for my fellow -- i do not want to speak for my fellow caucus members, but i do want to say this, i am convinced when we go back to washington next month, the people meeting in cleveland, detroit, here in atlanta, and in miami and los angeles, we will have a message for the congress and for the president of the united states of america, that people want to work, to create jobs. we will get it done. [applause] i want to recognize one of these wonderful city elected officials, and a dear friend of mine, the president of the event the city council, the hon. cesar mitchell. caesar, will you come up here for a moment, sir?

[applause] >> good evening. it is a pleasure to see all of you here today. it is also very heartening to have the members of the congressional black caucus, congressional leaders here spending time with us, dialoguing about what it means to put americans back to work. i want to give a special thanks to congressman lewis. it is a little known fact that i got my start in public service in his office in college at more house. it was as a volunteer in turn. in his office, i've learned about the importance of the political process. your presence here today _ your

understanding of how important is to get involved and engaged in the political process. congressmen and congresswomen, i do appreciate you being here today. you could be at home in your district, talking with your voters, where you actually get the most bang for your buck. but you come on the road and you dialogue here in georgia to help give us answers, to help us develop a partnership and help develop the ways in which we will engage in putting americans back to work, and it certainly those in atlanta, and georgians back to work. on behalf of myself and the city council and behalf of the citizens to call this tom, we thank you for being here. know that you have a friend in the city of atlanta.

thank you, again. [applause] >> again, i want to thank all those colleagues for being here. and i want to take a moment to recognize just one more of the local officials for a moment, stage representative -- state representative ralph long iv. [applause] >> thank you, congressman lewis and cbc members. for all of you out there, welcome to state house district

61. and most important, i have to thank the president of the college, dr. thomas, because he is always a generous to me and what ever ambitious a town hall i want to throw here. ony're doing great things his campus, atlanta technical college. we have some great offices in district 61. we have good schools and institutions that we can get our act together in. i want to tell you, thank you for getting out and getting involved in politics. we are here to serve you, not the other way around. i give out my cellphone number all the time. be my friend on facebook. coming to the for al district. i appreciate you guys. thank you, congressman lewis. i appreciate you. [applause] >> thank you very much. and now without further ado, we want to introduce the vice chair of the congressional black

caucus, the hon. donna christensen, who represents the united states virgin islands. give her a round of applause, please. [applause] >> thank you, joanne. good evening, everyone. i bring greetings on behalf of our chair, emmanuel cleaver and, who could not be here this evening. we have called this the jobs initiative for the people. we thank everyone of you that came out today. not only do we thank you from the cbc, but we thank you from all of the people across this country because today, you have sent a powerful message to washington, to wall street, and to corporations across this country. far more effectively than we ever could come on a matter how hard we try. if we stay on the floor of the house every day, all day. and you have sent it on behalf

of not only yourselves here in atlanta, but on behalf of all those across this country who are unemployed and are hurting and want and need decent jobs. yourself a round of applause. [applause] 90% and higher and african american chronic unemployment have always been cnbc's highest priorities. we have introduced over 40 pieces of legislation talking about the need for jobs and calling on republican leadership to bring legislation to the floor and get it passed. with no legislation in sight, aristide chair, emanuel cleaver , and the -- our esteemed chair, emanuel cleaver, and he is deemed to chair that you will hear from later, made a decision to get out to atlanta and other parts of the country to reach

out with jobs and come to some of the places that are the hardest hit. i want to say a little bit about health care before i leave. we wish we could go into every community, but we hope this will be an example and other people will take it up and it will catch on. and we need everybody in our country to be working. health care is the eighth largest employer. if we combine health care overall, i'm sure it is close to #one. we are particularly pleased to be here at atlanta technical college, where they are training people for that expanded workforce. this is one area where there has continued to be hiring throughout the recession. but we can only continue to create jobs if we protect medicaid and medicare.

that is in your hand, my friends. as you can see come elections matter -- as you can see, elections matter. medicare and medicaid are job creators and we need to help protect them. thank you for staying. we know it has been a long day for many of you. i want to thank dr. thomas, the president of this institution, all of her administration and staff that have made this such a good productive day. let's give them a round of applause as well. [applause] i want to thank our esteemed host, the great civil rights leader who continues to be a drum major for justice and peace, the great john lewis. you have one of the hardest working members who represent

his district tirelessly and effectively. we're glad to be here with you and we look forward to your questions and comments. i would like to turn this back over to our moderator's. [applause] bytes this is in the way of the cameras. so we want to move this as we go to our first question. poses to congressman lewis, congressman lewis, i was taught very early in my career to always acknowledge my elders -- [laughter] but no, i would like to go to you first because i think this is about atlanta in particular. we have seen numbers in the last day where the unemployment rate for the city of a plant has gone

up, and while it is slightly, it still has gone up. we begin to look at the sectors of the economy that have the best potential for job growth in the city of atlanta. what are those areas? and what are ways that those of the federal level as well as the local level can begin to push for a better environment for those industries? >> donna christensen mention the area of health care. in atlanta, you have grady, you have emery. you have more house med school. you have a whole range of health facilities in the metropolitan area. i think it is one of the fastest growing industries. the atlanta airport is the largest commercial airport in the world.

delta airlines is based here. coca-cola is based here. georgia-pacific, cnn, just to mention a few. and i know i left out some very visible ones. and we should be doing better. we have a long history of financial institutions. the banks should be doing more, much more. if we we bailed them out -- we bailed them out, we saved them. now is time for them to help out the people of metro atlanta and those who live in the state of georgia. we have all of the education institutions. georgia state, one of the

fastest-growing urban universities -- but i leave at any? did i get them all? i know this school here, atlanta tech, metropolitan college -- there are a lot of educational institutions here. part of the problem, jeff -- i will not say is a problem, but people think atlanta is a mecca. when i travel around america and around the world, everybody wants to come to atlanta. they say, atlanta, you may be living in europe or from washington or from california. there are moving from new york, from philadelphia, from detroit.

they are all moving back to the south. years ago we have a chicken bone special, where people were leaving the south going north. now we have people coming home back to georgia and other parts of the south. we must create jobs. >> thank you very much, congressman lewis. i want to direct my first question -- because i think i have lived in florida too long and we like to go right to the controversy and stuff where i live -- controversial stuff where i live. congressman maxine waters, you may just a little bit of news in detroit and saying you would like to ask african-americans who loved the president and voted for the president to unleash the congressional black caucus to have a conversation with barack obama about jobs.

i would like to know, what would that conversation entailed? >> first of all, let me just say that we are here in atlanta to support our colleagues john lewis and congressman johnson for the efforts that they have put forth to bring this job fair to the city. when we first talked about and decided in the congressional black caucus that we were going to get out of washington d.c., that we reported to hit the ground, that we were going to go in our districts and not only share with the people that we can feel their pain, but we were going to do some the about it. we are policy makers and we introduced bills. but we decided to -- but we want to ask those companies that are

asking us for the tax breaks, if you bring new jobs. that is why we are here. i have been to cleveland and detroit. i am here in atlanta appeared and i am going to miami and, of course, i will host a jobs fair. we feel good about in we feel in spite of the economy that is not performing the we have to do everything to bring opportunities were there are people hurting. not only is the unemployment rate unconscionably high, but we have been impacted by the foreclosures on homes and cannot get loan modifications and we

have lost wealth. now there is a 20% gap between white wealth and black wealth. white wealth is around 13,000 and black wealth -- i have come to some conclusions, and it is a difficult one. we have reached a point that may be a defining political moment for all of us. this moment in history may be a challenge to our political maturity. i believe the time has arrived when we must eliminate any fear and discomfort we may have about raising difficult questions and creating challenge, even when we feel an obligation to protect the first african-american president of the united states

of america. [applause] make no mistake about it, i support president barack obama. i would like to see the president reelected. [applause] however, my need to support the president does not trump might need to be a responsible united states representative. i must not, and the caucus must not, supplant the needs of our community in the interest of satisfying our emotional needs to support anybody. [applause] our responsibility must always be the exercise of our influence and our power for the benefit of the people. the facts are indisputable. unemployment in the african- american community is a beneficial 16%, the highest in the nation, the highest since the great depression.

and that does not rely calculate those who have been out of the employment market for over a year or more. in many communities is 35 to 40% -- 35% to 40%. let me just share with you that this discussion about whether or not you raise the question and you crave a challenge that you are being disloyal, it is not. the time has come for us to be politically mature enough to have great comfort in the fact that we can do this challenge if we have to. we cannot do this work in silence. we cannot represent you in silence. as a matter of fact, the reason the tea party is so strong is because they stepped up, they talked of, and they worked it. they are not nearly in the

numbers that we are. but look at the influence that they have been able to yield in this country. they have been forced the decision of the bill -- they have been forced the decision of the bill that literally decided whether or not we increase the debt ceiling. and we have had to suffer of these budget cuts. if we are silent, we cannot protect the people. if we are silent, we cannot protect the president. if we do not speak up, if we do not show up, and do everything that we can possibly do, our communities will be worse off. our children will graduate from college and not have any jobs. we will not be able to get the mortgages. we will not be able to create the wealth. we will not be able to force these banks who took our bailout, who are not giving money to our businesses to create businesses and expand businesses and opportunity -- we

will not be able to do any of that. ladies and gentlemen, i want you to feel comfortable. i do not want you to be embarrassed. i do not want you to sit back in your seat and say, whoa, if we are questioning the president that we are doing something bad. no, it is honorable to step up to the plate. it is honorable to do what needs to be done. [applause] and understand this, we can do both and do not let anybody tell you that you cannot. did that answer your question? [applause] >> yes, but i think there is more there. i think that was a brilliant introduction. but i think the president's announcement the morning prior to the detroit information breaking news was the fact that he was going to be making an announcement about jobs in september. what opportunity does that give the congressional black caucus to not just silently and

say, what are you talking about, all you are doing is complain about the president. what does that look like? and how does the caucus take advantage of it? >> there has been a lot of talk about reading and infrastructure bank. and when we when wewpa we are talking -- when we talk about wpa we are talking about public works, bridges and streets and water systems. i believe the president will have that inwe sport that. we have been saying for a long time, and included in legislation one of the many pieces introduced by this black caucus that we want infrastructure jobs because jobs, of course, will help to strengthen this economy. people spend money when they have jobs. too much talk about green jobs. where are they? we have not put the money into

the training. we have not helped to support the investment in the factories that will produce the solar panels and other alternatives to the energy system that we have. i and others are focused on bringing the jobs offshore that have been set off shore to third world markets for cheap labor -- you call bank of america, the loan litigation department, you are talking to somebody in india. we want those jobs in those call centers and all of those jobs that have been exported back home. [applause] we want to make it too expensive for american businesses to keep exporting these jobs. there has to be a consequence. and the president has to have a tax holiday. he has got to do something to incentivize the businesses to say, if you get jobs, you get

tax breaks. that is all right with me. but i will never, ever again -- and i do not think the black caucus will -- make the mistake as we did in the bailout where we bailed out america's major institutions with no strings attached. we did not get anything for it. now they are courting the money. again, we want them to -- now they are hoarding the money. again, when to put it into small business. let's tie the incentives to real jobs. we want jobs to be a part of the package. we intend to put the face of everything that we have seen on that legislation. there were 7000, 8000 people out here today. the same thing in detroit and cleveland. no one can say that they do not know, they do not understand. we have put a face on this as we traveled around this country. now that we have done that, we

have to be part of the solution. we have to be consulted, and if we are not, we will give it to him anyway. we have to. [applause] >> i want to direct the next question to congressman laura -- congresswoman laura richardson. you serve on the transportation and infrastructure committee. i have a question from the audience about how congress can of jobs comethose types into the community. to what steps can be made in the house of representatives to crated bill that will actually pass to make what congress but -- congresswoman waters was talking about to make that next that? >> and glad to ask that because i just wrote down about five recommendations for the president regarding transportation and infrastructure. now that we are past the debt ceiling vote, the next big funding bill that you will see on the floor is the

reauthorization of the transportation bill. that bill, typically, we would rather it had been closer to $500 billion. it is going to be approximately half of that. it what are some things that the president can do and we can do to be included in transportation and legislation? number one, when you look at the $68 billion that was spent in the stimulus, we were told that a lot of jobs were created. where is the transparency to say, how many of those were new jobs? how many of those were jobs companies already had and they just kept working and no one else got any help? number one, we need to make sure there is transparency. if we're going to have money for contracts, we need to know what your people you are bringing in off the streets that are new people and are now employed. we have to have transparency. number two, we have to make sure that the legislation includes

money for training and apprentice ships. number three, we need to on bond of those contracts. to many of the developers are keeping the money for themselves. you have jobs being done in atlanta where you are bringing people from nevada to do the jobs, and that is wrong. we have to unbundle those contracts. fourth, many of our small businesses do not -- sure, they may be able to do a contract, but they may not be able to do an insurance bond of $10 million, $100 million. we have to include bonds. finally, we do not want contractors coming into our community and not giving local people an opportunity to do a job. those are five solid things i would like to see in a bill and for the president to insist upon. [applause]

>> there is a question i have here that speaks to national high-speed rail coming on-line and what the possibility of that is, but i think it speaks to a broader question. as we begin to think about transportation in this country, when will there be a substantive line between infrastructure for our current mode of transportation and real vision for the cries of transportation will be able to have in 20 years, and will also create jobs in places like atlanta? >> that is the exact problem. the president considers high- speed rail to be a part of his legacy, and he has dedicated a sufficient -- not a sufficient, but an initial start, $8 billion. unfortunately, one of the areas that they are expecting that to occur is the northeast corridor, which is the only corridor that has trains moving over 95 miles per hour. what we have to ensure is that

as high-speed rail is being considered, they are considering all corridors, not just the northeast corridor. what about the southeast corridor? if we're going to put those dollars there, we are allowing other people to come and work. and people should know about jobs for the high-speed rail and there should be training and a princess -- apprenticeships assisted with it. the problem is they came out and said, we need to spend $20 billion a year just to maintain our existing low. that is all we are collecting right now in our gas tax. if we do not increase the tax revenue, which is one of the biggest discussions of the house, you will see no new projects or very few. that is why tax revenue must be on the table. >> i have a show of hands,

questions from marvin on facebook. how many on the panel are small- business owners, or for more small-business owners? obviously, you have a different job now. the of a question from facebook -- the other question from facebook, when the tea party held the country hostage on the debt ceiling, why didn't the congressional black caucus hold out to for some action on jobs and minorities? and that is for anyone who would like to take it. [laughter] >> i will take an initial stab at it. actually, many of us did. i voted no for that bill, and i voted no for two key reasons, one, the potential defense cut excluding the wars in

afghanistan. we have got to stop funding those wars. if we cannot fund our own schools in the united states -- [applause] we certainly cannot find them in afghanistan. second, if the gang of 12 does not come to an agreement, there will be cuts on medicaid doctors'. it is tough enough now to get doctors to take medicaid patients. if there is another cut, you will not be defied a doctor who will take them. that is why i voted no. >> we simply did not have the votes. and the country was at a place where we do not have a debt ceiling, we are already not able to pay obligations that are our responsibility. even if we did pass the bill, standard and poor's passed --

lower the credit rating. many people did not understand the impact of having the rating lowered. fortunately, it was only one of the rating agencies that did that. that would affect all of the retirement pensions invested. it would affect all of the local communities, how they can borrow money to build the infrastructure that we are talking about building to put people to work. it means that you will not be able to create those jobs because the cost of doing it would be prohibitive. and it means that those people from whom our government borrows money and the people to whom we sell bonds would not be interested in investing. >> i see you are getting ready to grab the microphone, and i would like you to make the comment, but i'm concerned about something. as we travel to detroit for cleveland for here, but it is talking of the congressional

black caucus were the president, people in the committee in particular want to feel that someone is fighting for them. whether you are voting yes or no, do you believe the congressional black caucus was vocal enough in how they were voting so that the people at home knew who was fighting for them and was not? i know you can only speak for yourself. how can the congressional black caucus on these and other issues be even more vocal? even when you have to play politics, this -- so that even when you have to play politics, people at home know who was fighting for them. >> i have been in the congress for a while. never before in all of my years have we ever had this amount of discussion, this amount of debate and division about the debt ceiling. the debt ceiling used to pass

the house in maybe five minutes, maybe 10 minutes in the senate. sometimes it is one line, maybe one paragraph, one piece of paper. but it was the tea party and the people who hijack it in the republican party, they wanted to destroy this president. they made a decision to make him a one-termer. and that is what it was all about, politics. i voted against it. i could not vote for it because in the end i felt it would destroy the safety net, medicare, medicaid, social security, and all of these things that our people depend on. my sister from california is right. we have been fighting in afghanistan for 10 years, right? >> yes.

>> none of these wars -- not one of these wars were paid for. they're not even budgeted. i am going to write a letter to the president about what dr. king would say. it will take a few days, but it will be published. and i'm going to say, mr. president, the thing you need to do, and the war. [applause] bring our young men and women home and stop robbing our children and our seniors, those that have been left out and left behind. it is not right. it is not fair. and it is not just. and the same thing we are doing abroad, it will come back to haunt us in days and years to come. if we fail to be faithful to our own beliefs, to our own

principles, history will not be kind to us. and i do not think god almighty will be kind. you have to take a stand sometimes, and that is what the majority of the black caucus did. >> first of all, as i move forward from this question, one- third of the cbc voted for it. two-thirds did not vote for it. many of us felt that the president should have used the 14th amendment and use that position to stand firm against the tea party republicans and make a decision to just raise the debt ceiling. some of us went down and demonstrated on 14th and constitution for that. but going forward, as congresswoman richardson said, this committee is not going to come up with any agreement and if they were, it is not going to be one that the cbc is going to support. we have already started talking

among the men -- the executive leadership about having our own proposal for where the $1.5 trillion will come from. and we have had a cbc budget every year. this year, it would have cut more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years and still invested in education, still invest in job creation and, still invested in health care. we know we can do it and we're working hard to get that message got through any means possible. birther blogging enter facebook and we team and all of those things -- through blogging and through facebook and tweeting and all of those things because we are not going to take a

mandatory cuts across the board. [applause] >> to the question, what can we do to make it known that we are truly fighting for people, we can do exactly what we are doing right now. we have come to atlanta so that you are not -- so that you will not only here, but you can see that we will stand up. there are some fights that you must lose and that is where we are here, too sure you. and we are here to -- to show you. and we are here to say that if we can bail out aig, if we can be allowed to the auto industry, if we can be a lot of big banks, we can bail out the people of america. that is why we are in atlanta. [applause]

but we're also here to tell you something else. it is about jobs, but a lot more. it is about people who do not believe in the safety net that you have paid into. there are people that want to privatize social security, -- we stand in their way. we believe these safety net programs are not entitlements. they are investments. you pay 6.2% of your income. that is an investment for people who cannot invest on wall street. that is for social security. .45% for medicaid. that is an investment.

we want them to continue to be there. that is why we are here and we stand for you. but there is another question. the question is, where will you stand? this is a tough question for you. because we now have a group of folks that call themselves by many names, but they have hijacked the principles of the civil rights movement. and they do not just go into their neighborhoods and protest, but they come into the hood and protest. the question is, what will we do? will we allow the minority forces to speak for the majority? are we going to stand up for the things that we believe in and are we willing to go across town, are we willing to go into other places beyond our comfort zone and stand up for the cbc, stand with the cbc, and held the cbc -- help the cbc make a

difference? will we work together? that is what is going to take. [applause] >> one of the things this group of people, the tea party, is not too keen on its unions. we senate in wisconsin and ohio, florida and in michigan, and going -- we have seen it in wisconsin and ohio, florida and michigan, going after union benefits. with your strength and the numbers that you have, what can the cbc do to support unions across the country? and there is a report that specifically wants to know what the cbc will do for the postal service. i want to direct the one to congressman richardson because you served on several committees

that deal with that business. >> looking at the continuing resolution as we finish the budget year, there were numerous unions to go after. the we were able to defeat most of those. if you look at even what is going on with the faa and a number of pieces of legislation coming through, there is a movement directed at labor unions. part of it is a commitment from them to big business. part of it is their systematic war on the working class. what the caucus does and what the caucus will continue to do is advocate for brothers and sisters that are part of the

labor movement. the labor organizations represent working americans. as much as we talk about labour and about unions, we are talking about people who have to come together in order to get their fair share. those are the principles that we stand for and that is what we fight for. let me just build this in because i do not have many chances where i get to disagree with a guy whose shoulders i stand on, which is congressman john lewis when he says we are fighting three wars. we are fighting for wars. -- four wars. we are fighting the tea party, and they are willing to have as casualties, the 14th or 1 million americans who do not have a job. -- the 14.1 million americans who do not have jobs. a part of the other question of

what we talked about is what can we do? and what can you do? we can help to change the conversation. and congress -- congressman lewis is right, the discussion over the debt ceiling went on far too long. instead of talking about the debt ceiling we should have been talking about jobs. but we did not have the chance to. now we have to be sure that we are talking about jobs what we o make sure we understand what is really going on. and there is a republican majority that is sinful, and they are talking about our financial bankruptcy, and we are talking about moral bankruptcy, because we are supposed to help those who need help. we are supposed to love our brothers and sisters, and they are forgetting that so they can win the white house.

we have to make sure we do not let other people tell us what the issue is. we know what issue is. this is jobs. if anyone talks to you about anything else, you should ignore them. that is why congress man hank johnson brought us here. we need to get them back to work. that was a long answer to a short question, but all of that is what we are fighting right now, and that is a targeted war on an 98% of the american spirit -- of the targeted were 98% of americans. >> this question spoke to why, when the democrats had control

of the house and the senate, where jobs not first on the priority now there was an opportunity for democrats to push jobs then. >> i was not a member of the 111th congress. more important, the 111th congress will go down as one of the best ever. they pass health care reform. >> i want to make sure we get to as many questions as possible. hold tight for me for a second. let me make sure i am directly getting to this question, and let me get it to someone on the congress, because i think you

made a great point that you were not there, so i want to make sure this question is answered by somebody who was on that congress. >> when we were dealing with the stimulus package, the biggest question we had was whether it was going to be a jobs package with infrastructure that would create jobs and pump revenue into the you see economy or whether it was going to be -- into the economy or whether it was going to be a bailout. we have that struggle. in the house and we passed a good bill, but the senate has some strange rules. any require 60 votes in order to end debate, and the republicans have that number of votes to block the bill from coming to

the floor. they use that leverage to prevent us. the congressman was one of our key spokesman. he was in negotiations and with the president, with the senate leaders, with all of the parties putting that packaged together, and it was everything we could do to get the number of jobs earmarked based upon the need for us and our communities like , for them to be able to get the money from the stimulus for infrastructure projects they deserve. >> can i follow up as well? the stimulus passed by one vote. it was close in the senate, but some of the obstruction did not

come from republicans. you had democrats. you had a former democrat but stood in the way not just of the stimulus bill, but also in terms of the health care reform bill. that is why there is no public option, because the democrat joe lieberman blocked it. how has the caucus worked to try to influence democrats in the senate suzanne with the agenda that the president needs to be -- present on. h >> joe lieberman is no democrat. [applause] some of us worked to make sure he did not get back in the u.s. senate. he did, and he is there as an independent, and he is able to

use his power in whatever fashion he deems is in his interest, voting sometimes with republicans and sometimes with democrats. the question is why didn't we do more. we really did do a lot. if we made any mistakes, it was not be enough. -- big enough. if you are going to have a stimulus package, it cannot be the kind that goes through the regular process with response to proposals. it will never get to the communities, because the big boys, the contractors who have all of this monday, and not rip off all of that, and they do not hire into our communities. we have to do away with the way money is disbursed.

we cannot put it in the hands of some of these governors or mayors who rip it off and never give it to the community, so those are some things we have learned. meanwhile, we are always working four jobs and not -- for jobs and the creation of jobs. there were 10 of us. we literally held up the dodd- frank bill and the recovery bill in order to create some jobs. one thing we did is we created the neighborhood stimulus program. that is a program that puts money into the cities to rehab these houses that are boarded up that are creating so much strain on police and fire and messing neighborhood and all that. we discovered much of that money

did not get where it was supposed to go. you have the realtors, the contractors, painters, everybody who gets a piece of the action, and we have some cities who have not spent the money, and some of its is going to the same old bunch and never got to our people. when we created the office of women and minority inclusion in all of the offices. the occ, the treasurer-we are not even in the table -- at the table in these agencies. we have never had agencies were african americans have played a real hard. they really do not include us, so we created these opposite, and because some of us have seniority, we were able to get

on the conference committee of the dodd-frank bill, and we worked it so it is in theire. today when you went downstairs, you saw something that said the offices of women and minority inclusion. we created that. they had to have directors. we gave them six months to put that into play. they have to have staffing. they have to look at all contracts coming through so they can make a decision whether or not those contracts include diversity and turn them back, so we were constantly in many ways for job creation -- we work constantly in many ways for job creation, but we need to do a lot more because of what happened with this economy, and we have to focus on the financial institutions, on the

gangsters of wall street, on the folks who ripped us off, on the folks who came into our communities and got us to sign on the dotted line for mortgages they knew you could not afford, on exotic products. do not worry about it. this comes do with the interest rates have been quadrupled. i wanted to get them in the white house around the table and say, we are going to make it very tough on you unless you put some of the people's money back in the economy and help us create jobs, so we are always working in many ways to create jobs. many people do not have access

to opportunities. why am i talking about this political moment of maturity? first, we have to understand our power. we have to understand there is power in organizing. there is power in numbers. anyone who would suggest the civil rights days are gone, let me have you rethink that. if you show up at any day in america at noon and throw a ring around -- at any bank in america at noon and through a ring around its and say there is going to be a run, they will fix it. we are not doing our jobs to exercise our power. the tea party discovered something. they discovered if they organize, if they talk loud enough, if they threaten, is a registered to vote and a lack a

few people -- if they register to vote and elect a few people, they could take over the congress of the united states. they called our bluff, and we blinked. we should have said, you got this country to close down, and if it had closed down in one day, the reversal would have taken place just as it did when bill clinton challenged them, and they close down the country, and the people rose up and were glad to get in and get it going again, and that is what we should have done, but you cannot be intimidated. you have got to look the tea party and i and take them on. the people want us to fight. they want us to be strong, and they want us to not only create these jobs. they want something massive, something that is going to make

a tremendous difference, and i think we are at that point where we have learned, we have worked, we have taken a enough where we are going to be insistent that what comes out in september is going to reflect the experiences we have had. >> you are talking about jobs in general and the african american community, but what about -- in the african-american community, but what about specialized areas? we have people who deal with specialized segments of the community who are having a hard time finding jobs. one is people over 55. i know this job fair dealt with giving advice to people over 55. the second is people who have been out of work a long time. there are studies showing people who are jobless are less likely to get a job, and the third would be people with felonies

on their record. what is the cost to specifically include items that deal with those specific items in any job? i am going to go back to senator richmond furs. >> the thing i was going to say on the last one is congress did pass the small business jobs bill last year, which yesterday i had the chance to announce $37 million going to small banks to lend to small businesses, because they employ 60% of new jobs in this country. there is 100 million jobs hitting the streets, but when you talk about specific segments, that is something the caucus would like to talk about. we have to make sure we identify and we push to help very fragile communities, communities

of color. when you talk about second chance, the congress started the second chance program, and we have to make sure when we talk about a second offenders, there are two things we have to do. one, we have to change the community mindset about when they come home. if you continue to isolate them, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, so we have to make sure we bring them home to a nurturing environment that will give them a second chance, so that is why the second chance act was important, and if you are talking about seniors and communities of color, that is the conversation we are pushing to have. we want to make sure if we are going to have targets and special cases for the gay community, the hispanic

community, but we also talk about ex-offenders. we are also talking about african american males dropping out of high school almost at 50%. we want to make sure we have targeted conversation. that is what we are pushing for, and that is the passion you are getting from us, because we know there are certain issues that are so important it is going to take a singular focus on that issue to fix, so i hope that answers your question about ex- offenders and second chance act. maybe somebody else can talk more about targeting our seniors, but we would like to target special populations. >> there is another segment many of you have forgotten about, and that is the hundreds of thousands of veterans coming back from iraq and afghanistan.

if you go down to a downtown atlanta writes now on piedmont, you will see people on the streets homeless. statistics show as 9% or 10% of those are veterans. it could be higher, so we have an obligation to those veterans who have come back with ptsd, who come back with behavioral problems, who end up homeless and jobless, and of course one of those efforts that millions of members of the congressional black caucus also congress has embraced is the hiring heroes act, which was sponsored by the -- in the senate by senator murray and me in the house, which really gives new meaning

to rehab and job training and job opportunities for veterans, a special effort to give extended transitional assistance to our veterans so they will not end up homeless and jobless, and it provides incentives for employers, extra training for veterans. it provides extended unemployment for their veterans, but it gives more and brings together all of the existing training programs under one bill with an additional resources. i think that bill will probably become law, but that is a targeted population that has suffered tremendously because of the unfunded wars, but who have paid the price that was necessary for our freedom and security in this country, and we

owe them that, and that segment i believe will be addressed in the hiring humans act. >> -- hiring heroes act. >> one is infringements -- of movement that says to employers, and when someone comes in for a job, do not start out with, have you ever -- you have been convicted, but rather, let's take a look of this person. who is this person? what experience do they have? to get a chance to see the whole person before you get to the question of whether or not you have been convicted, and we believe that gives you a better chance of getting that job. this is a difficult question for african americans in america because of the huge numbers of

formerly convicted and so-called fallen as we have, and we really do have to make sure we provide some tax incentives, and there are some where they do some tax incentives for employers to hire people, and i understand some states are doing bonding where you take a chance on the former elaine incarcerated, you can get of bonds to protect you -- on the formerly incarcerated, you can get a bond to protect you. for women over 50, the justice department needs to enforce discrimination laws. they need to make sure they know what is going on in society and that women and men have a place to go and that there is an effort of forward to learn what is happening in this workplace, why women over 50 are losing their jobs and being replaced

with younger people they pay less money to and they do not have to pay benefits for, and why even for those who have been on the job until the point where the pension is due, they are getting fired. we need the justice department to weigh in on this. >> i just want to say since we are in hank johnson cost district, part of the question is about the unemployed being discriminated against. hank did not file a bill that would amend title 7 when -- did file a bill that would amend title seven that already prevents discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, and it would adnah status to that. that is something that is long overdue, and it will fight discriminatory practice. >> one other segments we should

not lose sight of is young adults, and we have heard a lot about the unemployment rate being 9% in the nation and 15% with african-americans. with our young adults, like unemployment is 23%. black and african-american is 39.2%. hispanic and latinos is what that says here after our young people gone to school, gotten their degree they can't get a job. they're competing with people already been in the workforce and what happens when they find themselves unemployed for two, three and five years. it may be impossible for them to ever catch up. so that is another segment we should keep in mind. >> as we go to the next question. thank you all for those recommendations. but i think another sector as we to to the next question is really young people as well. whether we're talking about all of summer jobs funding being cut all over the country, and juxtapose that to poor education systems

that aren't preparing young people to go into opportunities, there has been so much discussion is some of this flashmob, young people connected to a lack of opportunity? i don't think we can say no. with that there have been several questions that been asked about training, preparation and opportunity. again those are different areas. what is the congress doing and where is the opportunity by increasing opportunities for folks to get training who may not have degrees? because as we're in shifting economy, those who may have been part of the skilled labor force 10 years ago are now no longer part of the emerging skilled labor force. how are we dealing with training and continuing education, and opportunity whether for young people or those in the general job marketplace? anybody? >> thank you. i'll start and yield to my colleagues.

we are, and have been, for some time advocating job training for young people. job training for those who have been displaced. and also job training for persons who find themselves without a job because they have worked hard done a good job but though find themselves seeing their jobs going overseas to other places. a lot of the jobs that we used to have in manufacturing, we don't have anymore. and we have to find a way to make sure, as congresswoman waters has so eloquently indicated, that we don't continue to incentivize relocating job from this country to other places. i want to take a moment and two back to something that

was said earlier. and i want to say this to you. notwithstanding anything that has been said, president obama has been not just a good president, he really has been a great president. he really has. he has been a great president. [applause] what we call a stimulus was not really a stimulus. it was stabilization. this economy was losing 600 plus, 600,000 jobs a month. this president turned that around, and we have been creating jobs, more than two million. maybe not enough. would like to do more. but thank god he did what he did to save this country. [applause] he didn't save, he hasn't saved the world but he did

save the auto industry. he didn't save the world but he did save the financial structure of the country that we all depend on. he hasn't saved the world but he has made it possible for those who don't have jobs to have unemployment insurance, and he has been fighting to keep that unemployment insurance in the pockets of people. so, we all understand that we have jobs to do, and we have to be vocal about things that impact our communities. but make no mistake about it. this president has done a great job and this president, when you look at what we are confronting, we must reelect president barack obama. [applause] here's something for you to consider. if we don't elect this president, we don't reelect him, there are people who

have already said in written, as well as spoken word, that they will do away with the department of education. they're going to eliminate it. they have said that they will do away with minimum wage laws. there will be no more minimum wage laws. they have said that they will do away with early childhood development programs. they have said that they will privatize social security. they have said they will voucherize medicare. so we have a challenge before us that goes far beyond the jobs as i have indicated. we have got to put this president back into the white house to protect the gains that we have made. [applause] >> okay. thank you very much. dr. lewis, did you have a comment? >> i want to say to the two of you and to the audience and others that are raising questions, it is not just

the president. it is not just members of the congressional black caucus. part of our problems in america right now, we're too quiet. we're just too darn quiet. [applause] we have to make some noise. we have to find a way to get in the way. during another period in our history, we didn't wait for a president to act, or wait for members of congress to act. and the power of a movement is to get people to say, yes, those in power, to say yes, when they may have a desire to say no. we have to create power. when lyndon johnson said in 196, 1964, first part of 1965 after dr. martin luther king, jr. received the nobel

peace prize and after the civil rights, before the civil rights act was passed and after it was passed and signed into law and dr. king went with a group of us and we met with president lyndon johnson and said, we need the voting rights act. you need to finally act. he said make me. and that's what we did. that's what we did. [applause] so you need to get out there and push and pull. now in the congress we have three major trade bills that are pending, and people, the business community, they want it. they called every single day trying to get a vote from those of us on the ways and means committee. for korea, for panama, for colombia. and i say, hell, no way, no

way. because it means the transfer, the transfer of jobs here. and then the other side of the congress, they don't have the will to vote for, what we call it the trade adjustment act? and it's okay. you lose your job. we're not going to help you. we're not going to make money available for training and retraining. bad luck. we can't stand for that. you need to help us fight. now we didn't have a website. we never heard of the internet. we didn't have a facebook. we didn't have an ipad. we didn't even have a damn fax machine but we used what we had and you got to use what you have. [applause] don't be quiet. don't be silent.

stand up, speak up, speak out. do it. [applause] >> we're coming very close to the end of. i think we're in our last 15 minutes. ask everybody to keep your answers brief so we get to as many audience questions we can. we have audience member jerry was concerned about a specific merger, at&t and t-mobile. i think the bigger issue with companies merging and becoming global, the skillset within a lot of african-american communities is not adequate to meet the challenges of finding jobs when you're competing with people in india, people in china, who are going to school year-round, getting education in some cases in black communities they are not. given the fact you have very high dropout rates in many urban communities, low graduation rates, a lot of african-americans simply aren't prepared even if the jobs are there, what marching orders, cbc giving the to james clyburn, the only cbc member on the debt

committee to restore education funding? before you get a job you have to be qualified. what marching orders is the cbc giving to congressman clyburn in his negotiations about budget cuts to protect education? or what advice is he being given? what advice do you want to come out of the committee if anything can? >> how do we answer the question. question is a bit complicated. you are absolutely right. the dropout rates are too high, and the investment in education in this country is not substantial for a country of this size and these resources. we have got to make up our minds about whether we want public education and whether we are going to support it, or we are going to keep giving away our schools and these so-called charter schools into different

interests, and we are all over the place on this. some directions are coming from washington, starting with leave no child behind. it is a mess of policy, -- a messed up policy, and what bothers me is a lack of involvement on local level where communities do not involve themselves in education. that is what bothers me. that is where the education policy is set. from the federal government level, we do title one and subsidize education, but we should not end cannot be making the rules for how all of these communities operate. that is what the boards of education are about, but you do not see us at the board meetings anymore. they do not even ask parents. there is no parent involvement,

and they did not want parent involvement, and if you come to corporations, and green dot and all these different people and, to date, there is no indication or no substantial ages of the fact that or substantiation of the fact that they are doing better than public schools are doing. we need to pay the teachers. we need to put money in training and development of our teachers. we need to give support to foster parents sending these kids to school and managing large numbers of kids in one setting. there is a lot we need to do. am i giving any direction to education? i am not. not because i do not want to solve the problems of education. the problems in education are huge, and when parents and communities decide that they really want to educate the kids,

that they really want to stop the drop out, that they really want to have strong education systems, that is what is going to change this mess around. i fight against post-secondary schools who try to rip us off, the schools for computer learning that have no computers. i fight against those who track our people and tell them they can get a diploma and two and a half days. i fight against secondary schools and that a rip-off all of this government's pell grants money, and people come out of the training program with nothing, so i have center in my action on trying to get croakoks out of education.

i hope somebody on our panel is dealing with k through 12 -- k- 12. i am trying to get an office in the president's office for the excellence in education for african americans. there is one for latinos. we do not have one for african- americans. i am fighting for it. i always do something people do not want me to do. >> i want to make sure we get at least two more questions in before we have to close, and we have only 10 minutes. this question is from bill. he said earlier this year president obama talk about the importance of wireless networks to our country, particularly because of the ability to create a new electronic development an entrepreneurial opportunities. how can we ensure this technology gets out to americans and talk to them about how it affects and jobs?

anyone? congressman bishop? >> that was a substantial portion of the stimulus and will let was dedicated to -- stimulus bill that was dedicated to creating the infrastructure for technology networks, particularly for underserved areas-urban areas that were under served as well as rural areas. it was a tough fight, because the department of commerce wanted to control the whole thing, but we have at least 40% of this country that israel, and it is not economically rewarding -- that is cruel -- rural, and it is not economically rewarding to invest in internet in those areas, so the stimulus

and was designed, and thanks to the efforts of the congressman who was our person on the inside, he made sure that at least a substantial portion was allocated to us for rural communities and underserved areas. both contracts are in the process of being implemented not so that, for example, here in the state of georgia, and an 98% by the end of this year should be covered by internet access. that will help our young people who are in rural areas who need to have advanced placement courses in their local school boards and cannot afford it, to be able to get distance learning through the internet. those communities that have underserved health-care facilities, to be able to get

the internet so they can be connected to the hospital so that all of this, as well as small businesses. in my rural district, there is of great manufacturer who has been able to quadruple his business once he was able to get on the internet, so instead of selling his fish bait just in the counties around his southwest georgia location, he is now selling across the world to all of the bait shops where they have the fishing as a vocation. >> speaking of internet, i neglected to give a shout out to those of you watching this. this is being streams, so we want to give a shout out to

those watching via the internet. this is going to be our final question. martin would like to know what can be done by congress about companies that intentionally drive down wages, including nine by not buying american made products, -- including by not buying american-made products. outsourcing is a big problem. of what can be done if anything? >> we can remove the tax incentives they are currently using. if they are not going to bring jobs to the united states and they want to continue to ship jobs overseas, they should not have the tax incentives. the last thing i would like to say, the president's initial plan for his jobs bill is infrastructure investments, patent reform, free trade agreements. i would suggest he started to do companies mondey

things and incentivize them to do things for people who are on the employed. >> i need your assistance. there are seven more of you, and i am probably insane for asking this. if you can do this within one minute each as your colleague has set a precedent for, we can allow recommendations. i think there were two questions. one that said you are officially unleashed for atlanta, but what she followed up to say was how do we support you and the president in what it is to be done, so i would like you to enter one of two things how can people in this room

become advocates and be engaged in actions to be a will to support the congressional black caucus of local -- to be able to support congressional black caucus and local officials beyond voting? or no. 2, what are things get local community members can do to help better prepare people in their family to be ready for a job? one of two recommendations. what do you recommend folks do to help support you and the president? no. 2, on what can they do to assist you or a family member be better prepared for a job? >> aside from being a legislator, i am an organizer. i believe in organizing. our communities need to be organized. start something, get people together.

gets smart. educate yourself about how to challenge the elected officials, how to make things happen. the prepared -- be prepared. show up. you will get things done if you do that. >> less than a minute. why don't we start with congressman louis and work our way down? >> thank you very much. i want to use part of my minutes to recognize a young lady i have started working with as an organizer many years ago when she was only a teenybopper. she was born and bred in virginia, and she came into the deep south and organized and got arrested and went to jail and did a lot of other things, and now she is a state senator here

in georgia. i would say, and what you can do is stay engaged. get organized. help mobilize those that need to be mobilized. stay in contact with local, state, and federal officials. do not close go out and elect someone. when we have no telephone and electronic town hall meetings, you can use the new with -- when we have telephone and electronic town hall meetings, you can use technology. he is in power. use it for good. thank you very much. >> we need to utilize every

network we have. all of us have multiple networks. we got family. we have churches. we have fraternities, sororities. we need to utilize all of that. we need to tweet. we need to facebook. when we were dealing with the debt ceiling, the switchboard, and the service at the united states capitol was shut down. two or three days a crash because so many people were sending e-mail messages expressing themselves on the issues. we do not want our social security checks cut off. we do not want our medicare cuts. we do not want our medicaid stopped. it was an amazing demonstration of the power of what people do

when they are on message and on point and they are engaged. let's be engaged. >> we need to support teachers. we need to stand up for teachers. teachers did not create credit default swaps. they did not create derivatives. they did not create the reason we are in this condition, and we ought not to be cutting teachers' to save someone else. finally, there are 12 people who are going to make a decision concerning your lives. hayes street is about to spend $100 million lobbying 12 people. where will you be? make sure they know where you stand on social security, medicare, medicaid, and jobs. >> the cbc members are only a part of your representation. you have got to senators,

republicans, and other republicans we have to deal with every day. make sure when you organize you let them know what you stand for and what he wants them to vote for on your behalf. -- and you want them to vote for on your behalf. i am assuming georgia has a voter i.d. requirement. make sure you start to make sure everyone in this country, in the states that has a valid id so they can vote. 18% of seniors do not have of votes -- and do not have an id that qualifies them to vote, and 11% of african-americans and hispanics, but seniors. please start today to make sure everyone in our communities has an adequate id for voting. >> thank you very much.

>> i am going to move down my list in order, but i will tell you-- get engaged. you have to bring friends and family to vote. you have to bring information where you can get it, and the last thing is something we do not talk about much. we have to raise the level of expectations on our children. we have to do a better job of holding family members accountable, and i will tell you what an old lady said to me. she said, i am not worried about osama bin laden terrorizing our neighborhood. it has been us terrorizing our neighborhoods. we need to hold our friends and brothers accountable. we have to say enough is enough and set high expectations so we can make sure this generation coming up now has the opportunities i had when i was coming up.

>> the second part of your question is what specifically would we recommend they do in terms of getting a job. do not think you are above in a job. i worked at mcdonald's. i worked at ups, a 24-hour shifts. i worked two jobs for 10 years to get where i am today. do what you need to do to get your foot in the door, and then you will have the experience. >> she is the round of applause going for the members who came out today and -- give a round of applause for the members who came out today. this is there a -- this is very important. thank you all for coming out tonight, and i think that was an important point. be sure >> we're live this morning at the heritage foundation here in washington. they're holding a discussion on challenges to homeland

security. we'll hear from heritage foundation foreign policy and government fellows. they will talk about the need for new technologies to curb the growing cybersecurity threats and the future of homeland security 10 years after 9/11. this is just getting underway. >> -- for house majority leader dick armey of texas and prior to that heritage's director of congressional relations. he also served in the office of national drug control policy and legislative council for former representative william danemeyer of california. join me in welcoming my colleague, mike frank. >> welcome, everybody, on this nice august day. as you all know on september 11th, 2001, america experienced the single-worst terrorist attack any country suffered in modern times. well it is about 10 years later and the nation has undergone tremendous changes in terms how we safeguard

the american homeland. there have been a number of successes that should be acknowledged and celebrated and chief among them since 9/11, no fewer than 40 terrorist plots have been thwarted. some of these successes can be attributed to the quick and courageous actions of citizens and others were diligent law enforcement investigations that stopped planned atrocities but significant challenges remain. if we stay ahead of the terrorists we need a homeland security enterprise capable of thwarting threats before they man fist themselves. and today the heritage foundation is releasing a brand new study, homeland security 4.0. this is actually a third in a series of these studies, overcoming centralization, complacency and politics. subtitle suggests we must overcomb these three broad challenges. the first, centralization, centralized power and decision making in washington. federalism does not just protect us from the

centralization of power in washington it recognizes that the reality state and local governments possess the resources geographic focus and to protect us from physical threats. the second we'll talk about today is complacency. if the united states becomes come place sent or focuses on the past it will pay a heavy price. must do better job emerging threats and private sector innovation and breaking down the bureaucratic barriers that prevent us from connecting the dots. the third area, politics. over the past decade political considerations have colored far too many policy decisions. this is wasted billions of dollars in homeland security grants, created oversight inefficiencies and left america less secure than if the politicians just left politics at the committee door. we can do better. today, we are privileged to have two preeminent experts in the field of homeland security who will be, who

authors of this study who will discuss the findings and go into much, much greater detail. i'll introduce first james carafano. jim carafano. he is the director here at heritage of the allison center for foreign policy studies as well as the deputy director and kathryn shelby cullom davis institute for international studies. jim is historian, teacher writer, i might add a prolific writer. he focuses on the national security required to secure the long-term interests of the united states, protecting for the public, providing for economic growth and preserving civil liberties. he is a weekly columnist for the "washington examiner". his op-ed columns run in about every major paper in america not to mention his appearances on all the major cable networks. in his spare time he authored six books including, mcgraw-hill textbook he coauthored on homeland security. he joined heritage as a research fellow in 2003.

he is a 25-year veteran of army where he rose to rank of lieutenant colonel. served in europe, korea and united states. head speechwriter for the army chief of staff. before retiring he is executive editor of joint force quarterly. he is a graduate of west point. has a master's degree and doctorate from georgetown and a master's degree on strategy from the u.s. army war college. one anecdote, michael chertoff the homeland secretary was appointed to that position by president george w. bush in 2005 he said carafano's homeland security 2.0. the original in this series was the first report homeland security he read in his new position. why? it was the shortest. matt mayer our other speaker today. a visiting fellow here at heritage. former u.s. department of homeland security official in charge of project evaluating how each state has met the modern threat of terrorism. matt is probably the

nation's preeminent expert in the role of federal, and states play in homeland security. he is president of the buckeye institute of public policy solutions in ohio with which is the premier free market think tank in ohio. matt serves as a senior official with the department of homeland security undersecretary tom ridge and his successor michael chertoff. he advised the department leaders on policy and operations and headed the terrorism preparedness office. charged with the developing initiatives toe meet the demands post-9/11. he has authored a number of studies in this area including a 2009 book for heritage called, homeland security and federalism, protecting america from outside the beltway. before joining buckeye, matt was a strategic consultant whose clients ranged from international corporations to elected officials. an adjunct professor at ohio state university he taught a course on varied responses to terrorist threats among america's allies. with that i'm going to turn it over to the jim first and

then matt. please join me in welcoming james carafano. [applause] >> i want to thank mike for hosting us. i want to thank all of you for coming. i want to take a few minutes how we got here. i think that is important in terms of understanding the report. i'm actually very proud of heritage. heritage was one of the first major think tanks in the united states to really take homeland security seriously and the first major report on dealing with terrorism and homeland security after 9/11 came out of the heritage foundation and, i would say unlike a lot of institutions where there are a lot of sunshine patriots, everybody did homeland security after 9/11. many organizations haven't stated in a serious way. i'm very proud of heritage that they dedicated the resources and the staff to be serious on this issue and i would argue we published more on homeland security

issues and research than any other think tank in the world and we've done it in a sustained manner over a decade and i'm very proud of the men and women that work on this and the support that we get from folks like mike and i think this report reflects this that tradition. so this is a third report that we've done. the first two we did in conjunction with the center for strategic international studies. and they're great partners. and we did that for a specific reason. because we thought that homeland security, truly it is a bipartisan effort. and the first issues we had to deal with were really inside the beltway. so the first report was done, i believe it was 2004. it was just about a year of a the department was established and like any organization created by congress it has got to be a mess because it is a product of compromise, right? compromise is the enemy of efficiency. like the creation of the department of defense, after world war ii, the first thing they had to do was reorganize it. and so we took a hard look at the organization of the

department and we made some very clear and strong recommendations about the need, the imperative to reorganize and strengthen various elements in the department and that was called dhs 2.0. and secretary chertoff did indeed when, when he was appointed to replace secretary ridge and they brought in this big, here's all the stuff you need to read before your hearings, he looked at that and he did take that issue very, very seriously and did what was called a second stage review. i think matt was in the department then. which they did make a serious effort improving the organization of the department and addressed many recommendations we made in the report. we then did a second report a year or two later called homeland security 3.0. and there was a clear distinction there between dhs and and hls because the argument was, this is not just about the department. homeland security is a national enterprise with international components to

it and we really wanted to make the case that we needed to look at this as a holistic enterprise and not just, you know, focus on the department and its strengths and short falls and weaknesses. so the idea of writing homeland security 3.0 is what would, in order for the department to really play the leadership role it needs to play what does it need to do? and what kind of participations and stewardships does it really need to take on? and one of the recommendations in that report was to do analysis, an assessment much the way the department of defense is required to do an assessment of our defense needs. that is called the quadrennial defense review. we've been doing that for several years. every four years the department has to report to congress and say this what we think we need our national security needs are and how we will meet them going forwards and we thought that would be appropriate for homeland security. indeed that was the first recommendation that was acted on from the report. it was a democratic-led house that established a

requirement for a homeland security quadrennial review. and that review did take place and many of the ideas and concepts that we, that we argued for in homeland security 3.0 are reflected in the department's quadrennial homeland security review and we're very proud of that. this report's different though. we think that the main issues are not really inside the beltway issues anymore. and, and there are very critical issues in terms of the roles of state and local governments, individual communities, and our international partners that really required attention. so we decided in this report to go really beyond the beltway and really engage with the stakeholders outside of washington who are out there doing this every day and really understand their issues, their frustrations, their concerns, their ideas, their initiatives and really make sure that washington had a clearer understanding of what this enterprise, what this community really wants

from it. the other thing that's different from this report is that we know a lot. i mean this nation has been doing this seriously for 10 years now. this is like the being 10 years into the cold war. we know a lot about what works and what doesn't work and with we really need to start paying attention to that. we really need to stop doing things that are stupid and wasteful and counterproductive and just blowing money out the door for no payback and things that actually have kind of worked, oh, my god, we actually got something right. we need to strengthen what works right and stop doing the stupid things. that is really the focus of this report. i will turn over to matt to talk about what is in the report but i got to tell you, we've been working on this for well over a year. matt has done amazing job. jenna mcneil used to be at heritage now working on hill with a key researcher she did amazing work and

outreach in this, there are really three things in particular that we focused on laser-like in this report. one of them is disaster preparedness and response and today we have, what could be a class 4 hurricane bearing down on the east coast of the united states. for those of you don't know what a class 4 hurricane is, the definition is catastrophic destruction will result, right? so if we ever needed reminder we need to take disaster preparedness seriously we may get one if we're unlucky by the weekend. the second issue that we focus on is immigration and just, just last week we had the administration come out and make a major, major statement about immigration policy and enforcement and deportation. that's never been i think more timely. and then of course the final issue we really focus on is counter terrorism, stopping tariff attacks before they happen -- terrorist attacks before they happen. we had the last week the secretary of homeland security are very concerned about the run-up to 9/11 and

very concerned about lone wolves. these are issues front and center. today we're talking about libya and the state of the economy and whether the french banks are going to collapse, if you've seen the "american idol" tour. these are not necessarily things on the front bunner in our mind, the headlines the tomorrow or next day could quickly make them -- there is never a better time to really think about the homeland security enterprise and how do we make it really be the best it can be. i would like to add before i turn it over to matt, we're also concerned about counterterrorism strategy which is the flipside, protecting the homeland. the idea of going out and stopping terrorists before they even get close to our shores. and in short order we'll also be releasing a, a alternative counterterrorism strategy which i think argues against the what the administration has done and done by our counterterrorism task force and that paper which will be a second in a series about protecting the

american plant will be out shortly. with that i will turn it over to the matt and let him talk about the report. >> great, thank you. thank you for having me and for those that came today and watching me online and i would be remiss if i did not thank jenna baker mcneil who was at heritage up until a few weeks ago and jennifer zuckerman and who did a whole lot of work to make this happen and i will thank them before i explicitly get going. we're at the 10-year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks that is point of reflection for us in america. it is roughly eight years since the department was stood up and so we've got a lot of has been done and a lot to look back on and figure out what we we can do right. let me tell you how we kind of came to this report. i've been with heritage for four years as visiting fellow. hard to believe it has been four years. my role really has been to try to get out there, outside the beltway and talk

with lots of state and local first preventers or responders, what they think and what is working and what's not. we have done town halls all across the country. we have done multiple surveys of the first responder, community. i have traveled to tons and tons of state to get their feedback and listen to hear what they have to say and so over the course of the last few years we've been building upon that knowledge base and issuing reports from time to time and really kind of coming to i think what is the culmination of that effort which is really this report here that we're talking about today. the report has 18 specific findings. they're all in the report. if you either have a copy with you or you can get it online at report.heritage.org/sr 0097. it has 18 specific findings covering a range of issues with 35 recommendations. we broke the report into three sections as jim talked about. the first section is titled making federalism work. we often hear about

federalism in idealogical or ivory tower view of the tenth amendment. there are nice concepts that there are states and governments out there. mike talked about how that it is more than that. we see it as more than just a constitutional doctrine or a constitutional principle. we really see it in this context of homeland security as the best way for us to protect america and that's because when you look at the resources that the federal government has, it does not have an endless number of personnel, across the country. there are 40,000, maybe fbi and cbp personnel across the country. you add in i.c.e., there are couple more. fema regional headquarters there is couple more. vast majority, million plus, really reside in workforce state and local government, be it law enforcement, emergency management, fire service, public health. so those are the folks that really are the tip of the spear and have not just numbers in terms of personnel, not just resources in terms of money and equipment, but also one

of the most important things which is experience. folks who have been walking precincts for 30 years, who know their communities and in intimate way. know where critical infrastructure is. so when something occurs or something is brewing they're the ones most likely to really detect it, help us prevent it or frankly respond and recover in the most effective manner. we i think have lost sight of that as a country over the last 10 years when as to be expected after 9/11 we inherently took that federal government response and federal government rose up to try to respond. that was expected but the pendulum probably swung way too far into washington and outside of state and local governments. so this report is really to reflect we need to get the pendulum shifting back a bit and get mayors and governors and chief of police and firemen and emergency managers take back the rolgs they had traditionally for first 200 years really of our country and history and resurge themselves and get back into being control and

being true partners with the federal government in this initiative to keep america safe. the kind, some of the key findings that in the recommendations we made as jim talked about really talk about, the policy making apparatus. you know, here in washington the way policy gets made is washington makes it and they will send out copies of proposed policy to state and local folks to comment on. they will provide comments but they can ignore that at will and issue what they want to issue. and that is not the right way to do this. if we truly respect experience and resources at state and local government we have to give them a seat at the table to make sure their voices are heard, not just because they're expected to do something because they have experience and can really weigh in as policy is being developed that make the policy better so we don't call it national policy because somebody used that word to describe it but it truly reflect as national consensus, a national product of development that allow us to do a better job and have better policy than

actually, doesn't get ignored and actually works and people follow. immigration is another area. we continue to see this battle between the states and washington on immigration and the reality is, we said this many a time, the idea that immigration is wholly federal responsibility just doesn't have any basis in history. the reality is, you can't say to a mayor or governor, short of somebody committing a crime you are powerless to deal with millions and millions of people within your jurisdiction. that just doesn't work. so what we have to realize there is a shared responsibility to not determine who is a citizen, not to necessarily sit at the border but once folks are here, there is national shared responsibility for us to deal with this in a way that reflects the reality that the cost in all, issues are occurring within states and cities, not here in washington and reflect the reality of that. we have to make sure that disaster response doesn't

become a federalized entity. i don't know, many of you may have seen the great chart we put out every once in a while where we update the number of declarations coming out of fema and that number just keeps accelerating. we have already this year, the obama administration this year broke the single year record for declarations issued and we're not even done with the year. as most of you know we have not had a single hurricane strike the u.s. we have not had a single earthquake over 6.0 yet we issued more declarations this year than any year in the history of the fema. they're on pace to break the record set last year on major disaster declarations which was 80. no hurricanes, no major either equation. we have hurricane irene who seems to be barreling done upon us. i was reading "usa today", it was interesting from my perspective it actually noted we haven't had a hurricane hit the u.s. since 2008 yet we're on pace to have more declarations

issued, despite the fact we really haven't had nasty catastrophic event that would same to be the role for fema. as fema has taken over that role, not an academic issue, states and locals have shifted resources elsewhere and then become kind of dependent upon this declaration process to shift the costs out of their states, budgets are tight and shift them to other states, i.e., federal money. we have to take the responsibility for this and keep resources and emergency management capability strong and deal with routine disasters happen every year, pretty routine and we know will come. fema and federal entities for truly catastrophic events like potentially irene. but we know katrina, aund drew, 9/11, northridge earth cake, the things we -- earthquake. the ones we know have massive ripples across the economy. i spend time with the top counterterrorism experts in the country and none of them

live in washington. they all live outside of washington. michael downing of l.a.p.d. and folks live outside of new york. they have been doing this long before there was 9/11, back to the l.a. olympic games in '84. they have experience after experience and continue to shake their heads and wonder why do we keep doing it from fed centric standpoint? we have to bring in the folks to make sure they're informed what is going on here in the country. second topic, combating complacency. it is natural as time moves on people grow apathetic and our interests move. we understand that we understand that. we've been very fortunate that we have either thwarted or because of dumb luck not have had a successful attack domestically hire in the u.s. since 9/11. that is good thing but that also means we've gotten complacent. we take advantage that folks are keeping us safe. in that that is the wrong way for us to realize on 9/11 is only takes one big

strike for us to see a massive, massive amount of destruction and death here. so we've got to keep your vigilance high. we do that by doing some changes, right? we've got to get past this inneragency squabble that still occurs here in washington at a very high frequency where departments battle each other. the executive, white house elements battle the departments and everyone is trying to continue to build their little silo of power. that's human nature but we've got to rise above human nature in this instance because it really means life and death in many situations. we have to come up with an intel framework that makes sense, that is coherent, reflects the resources we have in state and local governments. that allows us to bring in our international partners but really kind of gets beyond the looking down and saying, just send us all your information and let's throw more and more hay up on the haystack that actually makes it harder for us to find the needle rather than saying we only want you to send us relevant stuff after you analyzed it. by the way we'll share back

stuff down to you which doesn't happen enough as well and within inneragency, again sharing that information so that what we don't have is another commission that looks back after the next attack, oh what do you know, we continue to create these silos between intelligence and investigation and things just didn't get connected that were apparent in hindsight. we got to make sure we see those things before they happen. finally, in this area, one of the things we want to highlight is, science and technology directorate at dhs remains a broken and busted organization that is not doing what it was chartered to do, what it could do and do really well. so we've got to get back to that requirements focus, really serving as a resource for the department and their agency that allows us to utilize technology, to do pilots and test beds to experiment, to leverage the safety act for all the great things that it potentially has and get that unit of the department operating in a way that makes sense. the third area is taming politics. you know, look, we're not

naive. it's washington. politics happens in washington. i just think in this area let's try to make it happen less. and we just see this way too often. nobody wants to give up their turf. everybody wants to send their press release to their little hometown newspaper to say what money they have gotten out of the department. and that's got to stop because that doesn't keep us safe. oversight, we have 108 committees and there is more than that arguably, that have some touch of the department. and all that means is the poor men and women who staff the department spend god awful amounts of time on useless bureaucratic report issuing, question and answering all these things instead of focusing on their mission and keeping congress up to speed what really actually matters not whether we can play this game or that game, gotcha here or gotcha there and focus on the big matters and what issues confront us. on home land security grant there may be announcement next day or two about these

we continue to have pork barrel nature to the grants. we were happy to see the obama administration adopt the approach we've been the lone voice on for many years is get rid of number of cities eligible for the urban area initiative grant program. it ball on looed up to 63 cities. that is absurd number of cities to say enough high-risk there we should use federal resources to help those cities when the risk curvature has to be very minimal compared to city 90 from city of 3. we're very excited to see this year the department cut that number down to 31 which is, from my days when i actually had security clearance much closer to the actual number where the risk curve was actually visible. that's a good move and that will allow us to really focus on the places where risk is palpable and we need to have capabilities to deal with these issues. finally we've really got to stop doing things that don't make sense from a security standpoint. jim called this not doing stupid things i think.

i try to be a little more polite, yeah. what this means is, you know, you've seen all these pictures, right? poor little 4-year-old boy getting, padded down, grandma, the elderly person wetting themselves because their bag has been busted, this stuff doesn't make sense. i understand there is lots of intel and we have to be careful and lots of civil liberties issues we have to be mindful of but i firmly believe we can do a better job to make sure we have security on our air system without doing this current model we're doing. i remember back in i think it was 05, probably somebody in the awed yins remembers this better than i do, my brain doesn't work very well, at the time we were confiscating all the razor blades and shaving things, and i remember we stopped doing that the reason we stopped doing that tsa agent were spending their time on those little things. once we hardened the cockpit doors, who cares? somebody may knife somebody but fundamentally they will not overtake the airplane because they couldn't get into the pilot, to the

pilots. we stopped doing that so tsa can focus on component bomb parts and other more important things than confiscating razors and nail clippers that is the kind of approach we need to take more common sense initiatives. 100% screening of our cargo. of course we want secure cargo but idea somehow we'll actually in economical way that is efficient doesn't harm the economy drully look in every single box and know what's in there is unrealistic and it is unnecessary. so we've got to get again put more common sense back into the system. with that, that is the kind of broad contours of the report. there is more than that in there but those are the highlights. i think we're, now, these are always more useful when you do q&a than hear jim and me kind of tack at you. we would love to open up for questions at this point. >> thank you, jim and thank you, matt. . ..

right in the midst about the debate of the debt and the deficit crisis and government spending and looking, you know, the level of cuts, i think this report is actually very, very

helpful. first i would say in the aggregate national security spending is not the problem. i mean, if you throw homeland security spending on top of defense spending and i would say you're probably still spending at about half of the level of security spending that we spent in the cold war. spending is not dragging this economy down. we've doubled the homeland security spending i would say about 9/11, about that. we've doubled the intelligence spending since 11 even adding those numbers on there historically speaking since the end of world war ii, we're still spending at a relatively modest level. that is not the economic problem. you can take national security spending to zero and in 40 years, if entitlement is growing at the current rate towards medicare and medicaid they're going to consume the entire federal budget. even if we spent not a nickel on

homeland security or the defense department -- this is not the growing part of discretionary spending either. if you actually add up all the means-tested welfare programs that we have today, it's actually bigger than the defense department budget and homeland security is a roundoff error in the defense department budget. so looking at security spending as the problem, i think, it's just simply wrong in terms of economic freedom and vitality. having said that, there are clearly areas where fiscal responsibility and homeland security can be better addressed. i'm not arguing necessary for more homeland security spending. i wouldn't necessarily argue for less but i would argue for efficiencies and this is where i go back to where we talked about before, about the experience we've learned about what works and what doesn't. there's some things that we're doing that are literally stupid. and are literally wasting money.

you know, a good example we spend every person applies for a visa has to have an interview. that's a requirement by federal law. that's just nuts. so we have to create all these resources to interview all these people. and what you wind up doing you spend a lot of time, very little time talking to a lot of people, not learning very much rather than focusing on interviews on classes of people and individuals that truly represent concerns whether immigration or security reform. and we go through the report and there's just sum things we should stop spending money on because they're not efficacious. my favorite one is called the safer grants. these are grants that go to small fire departments. these grants are literally in the billions of dollars we've poured out in this money. and it's demonstrable and they

actually have no effect. i mean, there's a great report done by of our analysts and if you look at these communities that gets these grants and the communities that don't get the grants there's no difference. there's no demonstrable positive effect. and yet actually in the budget proposal last year, in the budget community they actually went in and cut operational parts of the department. and then they plussed up this grant program and the only value of this grant program is the press release that people get to say i got a fire truck for whatever. i mean, there's demonstrably no more ill-spent money in the department of homeland security than this grant program. so the association of fire departments always loves that when i say that. [laughter] >> there's another fiscal aspect, fiscal responsibility

which is there are, i think, subtle drags on the economy that are created by inefficient homeland security programs that i think are also important and worthwhile. now, they're not going to -- they're not going to turn our economy around in a day. and they're not going to free up gazillions of dollars but they are a friction on the weak -- on the back of a free and open economy that are unnecessary. these are self-inflicted wounds. i'll just give you one small example. there's something called the visa waiver program which is kind of an ill-named program 'cause it's not actually waiving anything. what it does is countries that have a bilateral agreement with the united states under the visa waiver program -- we can visit -- our citizens can visit that your country on 90 days on visa-free travel and they can visit us and there's also a security stipulations and it turns out that countries that are in the visa waiver program actually give you better data to help stop terrorist travel and to help stop people violating

immigration laws, that countries that have to get a visa. so it actually has a security benefit, but it also has an enormous emotional benefit. the countries in the visa program are our most vibrant trading partners and when people moves back and forth it moves well whether it's terrorism or exchange of ideas or sign education benefits. demonstrably, adding a country to the visa waiver program increases the wealth of both countries. and so you would be saying if there's countries out there that are qualified and want to join this program that are good allies of the united states, why aren't we bringing them in? and the answer is, because we have a law that says we can't. it's just nuts. so we actually have a law on the books from our congress that's costing our economy money and forcing us to actually lesson our security requirements because of that. so i do think that there is a lot in this report that talks about economic freedom in terms of look, we can spend our

homeland security more efficiently that can make us safe, you know, and not -- add a respectable amount and we can stop spending things and doing things that allow the flow of people in services that increase economic growth without adding security risks so i do think there's a big economic dimension. do you want to talk about the civil liberties. >> everyone looks at the political spectrum not in the big pr but in terms of this is the spectrum as a straight line and it's really more like a clam shell as i see it where, you know, you're left -- it's closer actually to the right than it is to the middle and the reason i raise that is because in this issue of civil rights and civil liberties i think both the left and the right have done a fantastic job in the last 10 years keeping those of us that have had time in government accountable. things that have, you know,

started as good ideas that, you know, when you kind of expose, you know, some transparency and accountability and whether it's the aclu or the tea party, kind of say, wait a minute, this is going on. and things like, you know, the total information awareness, things like that, that kind of have scary names and may have scary applications but they never went anywhere and i think that's what's great. we are at a point in history where there's so much transparency, it's still not enough but so much more than ever before. and the ability for folks to find information because of laws like sunshine acts and things like that, the ability of folks to whistle-blow, the ability of groups to kind of hold folks accountable with the use of cell cameras, cell videos, cell pictures, twitter all these kinds of kind of media have really allowed us to hold our government leaders far more accountable than ever before, i would argue. related to that, those in

government, you know, yes, of course, you have an occasional back actor that really does want to run rough shot over civil liberties but, frankly, that's more overstated. the vast men and women i've talked to who have been in government and i was one of them had no interest in degrading our civil rights and civil liberties and we didn't come to washington or go work for law enforcement in order to degrade liberty and security. we actually came because we believe that, you know, america is a shining city on a hill and we want to preserve those liberties and those folks -- if you talk to them, go out of their way to make sure that they always have involved and more so than ever before today folks who are kind of their check. they have, you know, groups that are -- you know, task force groups or oversight groups that they occasionally will bring in and reference and explain what they're doing to get feedback from them. whether it's l.a.p.d. who has such a unit or washington has an entire unit dhs focused on this issue. and so i think -- the sincere effort and belief of most people

trying to really keep us safe are trying to do so in a manner that really does respect our civil rights and civil liberties, sometimes some things go awry. that's called human nature and that's what happens but i don't believe many people have an intent to really degrade those. they're really there to secure them, you know, one of the things that we need to keep in mind because the history of the u.s. whether it was the dossier system in the red files back in the '60s and '70s, you know, most of those things -- they all got shut down and there's court orders that are still today active in places like new york and l.a. where that oversight continues to maintain itself and, you know, we have, i think, the civil liberties groups to thank for really building that foundation that allowed us after 9/11 to i think avoid a lot of really problematic issues that historically had plagued these types of things. i believe we have pretty strong accountability measures in place today in both the senior level and state level governments to

make sure we don't have a degradation of our civil liberties. >> and i would not only add to that but we went to the report and when we looked at a lot of the really hot button issues, whether it's e-verify which is a workplace enforcement law or system or real id which is a requirement for standardizing identification on driver's license and to screen flight manifests -- but we looked at these programs. basically we came to the conclusion on almost -- or the patriot act, for example, where we have counterterrorism investigatory tools. in every situation we came to the conclusion these programs can be managed in a manner which both provide security value and protect civil liberties of varied individuals and we detail that about how we can do all these things going forward. really having our cake and eat it too. i think that's the lesson that we've had in the last 10 years. >> of course, there will be occasions. it does happen, right? but that isn't the norm that is the exception. and i think again the systems we have in place to catch that are

pretty vibrant. >> thank you. that rounds out part of all these different concerns here. now, we'll go to the audience for questions. and i'd just ask to you identify yourselves and i call the gentleman on the front row down here. >> yeah, hi. thank you, matt and jim. i have a question in relation to homeland security and the arbitrariness of customs agents. let me sketch this for a minute. i've traveled to uae 20 or 25 times. people there tell me, i don't want to come to the united states, get a visa and be rejected arbitrarily as a businessman or a familiman coming through dulles or dwi or new york and so forth. so arbitrariness. that's from the middle east. the other is arbitrariness of visa applications coming from

europe specifically germany specifically the pastor al visa application that has been misused somewhat. so arbitrariness and looking at how our customs organizations are instructed, taught, so forth, not to exercise artemporary judgment in -- arbitrariness in rejecting visa. >> one has to do with the visa waiver program. when you're -- when a country is in the visa waiver program, travelers register through something esta which stands for -- help me out. >> we forgot. >> what's esta stand for, electronic -- yeah, electronic system and travel authorization and this is, quite frankly, the wave of the future. everybody is going to be doing

this. it's pioneered by the australians what happens under esta you enter your data online and essentially what you do is get prescreened. what esta decreases the likelihood that you're likely to get turned back at the border. if there's an identifiable security issue it's much more likely to get flagged and you'll get -- and you'll get to go, hey, go to a consulate and talk to somebody before you come over here. so that, i think, is a significant way in which we can decrease these sort of false positives, right? and predicated on that is entry into the visa waiver program which again the value of the visa waiver program is when your country joins the visa waiver program you get better data-sharing and you get much more likelihood to reduce terrorist threats, much more terrorist travel much more likelihood to reduce criminal activity travel much more likelihood to reduce immigration violations. and you kind of increase the value of the traveller and that's going to reduce some of that.

the main part you're never going to take away all the agent's discretionary authority at the border. you would never want to do that because that's what the threat wants. they want absolute predictability at the border so they can figure out how to go around that. so what you want them to do is allow them that flexibility but create an environment and the honest traveller gets wrongly identified. and the visa waiver program will help with that but on the other hand you raised a great point i go into the consulate and i apply for a visa. i get turned down, you know, and, you know, i've killed a week and 100 bucks and in my country 100 bucks is a month's salary, right, that's bad. again, joining the visa waiver program you don't have to apply for a visa for short travel so that helps solve that problem. the other -- the other initiative that we talk about in the report it was a requirement which has never fully been realized which is called a visa security officer which is a homeland security representative that is in the consulate and

it's never been off the ground because there's never been the level of commitment from the department of homeland security which is supposed to by law speak on matters of visa policy and the department of state which has actually been reticent and reluctant to accept visa security officers in the consulate so those two initiatives which are addressed in the report would directly address some of the causes that you just mentioned. i just want to add -- and that's what this report is really about. this is a boring report. i mean, it is. >> hey! >> that is madison avenue marketing right there. [laughter] >> this report is about how to make the damn thing work right. this is the fox news doing

breaking news on somebody fixing your car. it's not terribly exciting you would like the car and you would like the brakes and the horn to work. this is how to make the system work better. it's not about solving every homeland security problem we have, for example, it's not going to tell you what to do about the next attack by an anonymous or, you know -- because it's not about -- it's about creating a system that is functional and endurable and flexible and affordable and efficacious. so it's the kind of thing that if we did the kinds of things that this report talks about, homeland security would never make the news 'cause it would be like you dropped your car off at the mechanic and he fixes your car and he gives it back to you and that's it. you pay for a service that you get. >> in one of the element of the report we talked about is doing a better job on that international cooperation front so that, you know, those types of stories -- if there's a there/there to them we can work through kind of intergovernmental and figure out the issue to address it because

it's hard, i think, either one of us or anyone for that matter to sit on an individual basis and say whether that was the smart or bad decision because you don't know all the information that the person had at the time to make the decision that they made. and so the point was that we got to make sure we've got a mechanism in place so that we can have that country to country conversation that takes care of those issues so that if somebody who is -- wants to come here to do business that truly does not have any nexus to terrorism or anything like that can here and do business because my god we don't have enough jobs to do business so we don't want to slow that down. >> the question in the back there, the young lady. >> i have a follow-up question on the visa waiver program. i'm sorry to hammer that issue. but it's been a very important issue for central eastern foundation and the heritage foundation has been the only voices in washington fishing for

that. it was set at the outset of the program and we were very encouraging of them one of the recommendations that you seem to highlight is to decouple the biometric exit system that dhs is currently required to implement before expanding the visa waiver program. but then you also recommend that the program should focus when expanding the program, dhs should focus on the overstay rates and not the refusal rates. so how do you measure the overstay rates without the exit system? >> right. so the department of homeland security will tell you right now is that they can measure overstay rates and their measurement they believe is fairly accurate. so this actually -- i have to unpack this for people who aren't perfectly comfortable with the debate here. there's a requirement which actually predates 9/11 which is that the u.s. government should in real time be able to check everybody out of the country on

the air and sea boards and it's called xeit and it's for biometric exit that means when you leave the country they get your fingerprint or your eye scan so they can physically prove that you are you and we record all that data. now, that's -- it sounds like a commonsense idea until you think about the not insignificant many, many tens of millions of people that come and leave every day and how massive that database is and how doing that in real time is just really a challenge like putting a man on the moon and we spent -- if this goes under category of wasteful spending we spent a massive amount of money studying this problem and you can go to the homeland security and they can give you the 57 reasons why it doesn't really work. so this was the -- really a poison pill that was put in the visa waiver foreign law. so what happened when the department of homeland security was given authority to expand the visa waiver program and bring countries on if they met the additional security requirements and if their numbers were coming down, a bunch of technical issues, there

was something in the law that set, oh, by the way -- i think it was in the 2007, 2008 i can't remember -- if you don't have a biometric exit plan in place then you can't do this anymore and, of course, that kicked in and it -- the biometric exit is not in place and it's never going to happen because it's impossible and it's unaffordable. and it's -- and here's the terrible thing is it's completely unnecessary. there are two things you might want an exit program to do. one is to kind of tell you who's obeying the laws, the immigration laws. well, the reality is the data that we collect now tells you that. right? is it perfect? no. but does it tell you pretty reliable trends who's doing what? what countries are following the trends? which kind of visas are problematic. does it gives you the information you need to make a decision as a leader and a manager about whether you want to change something in your visa program and the answer is yes. we have that data now. we don't need that system to get that, right? so it gives us the knowledge

that we need to measure our visa programs. what else do you want? well, i'd want to find a terrorist in real time. if the terrorist was leaving the country i'd want to know that so i can grab him. well, you know what? we've done that. right? the time square bomber, right, was leaving the country. he was put on the no-fly list, right? and as soon as he was put on the no-fly list, they saw that he was leaving the country and we grabbed him, right? people -- this is -- it wasn't the fbi. the fbi didn't hunt this guy down. as a matter of fact, the fbi missed him. homeland security grabbed him and they grabbed him because if there's really somebody you're looking for trying to leave the country, we have pretty good mechanisms to do that. so you have to ask the question, if we can do both of the main tasks we would want pretty well, right? then why are we going to shell out money for a system -- the story of the knee and the curve at some point in the curve, you have 80% of what you want for a certain amount and then you

spend, you know, gazillions more and you just get like 1 or 2% more efficiency we are at the knee on the curve on enforcing these things at the border. and so the argument is, why are we doing this? why are we keeping from expanding a perfectly good program and holding it hostage to implement a program which, you know, at the end of the day, we don't because it's a huge enormous cost that gives us very little benefit so that's why we've really argued for changing the law and using the exist data that dhs has to manage the programs. sorry for the long answer for the question. >> i want to briefly comment on a comment you made. because that statement gets made too often in the context of homeland security which if we could put a man on the moon why can't we secure our border or why can't we do x, y and z? and i would actually argue and i'll probably now get an email from somebody at nasa telling me i'm wrong. [laughter] >> that the challenges that remain in homeland security are actually harder than putting a

man on the moon because that's really thrust and, you know, college math. whereas, the things we have to do today whether at the border there are so many variables that go including manmade sabotage that has to go with whether it's weather, environment, terrain, you name it, that we think because we put a man on the moon we should be able to do this pretty easily and i think we've done the low and medium-hanging fruit in this arena and the stuff we're trying to do now involves really complex algorithms, really complex variables and so it's hard and we've got to have the patience to make sure that we're not expecting too much and then, you know, throwing out the cliche well, we can put a man on the moon, why can't we do that? that analogy would only work if the moon kept bouncing around or shooting back or there's an atried field coming back. and so i just think we need make sure that we understand the true complexity of hardware, software

integration and variables that are -- you know, whether it's cargo security or it's border security, this stuff is hard and let's not lose sight how hard it actually is to do. >> i'm deborah weiss, i write for a magazine. for the people who work on, you know, the shari'a law stuff, i wish i had it in front of me so i could recollect exactly the new efforts that are being implemented in dhs to delink and disassociate the ideology from the events that you are like the time square bomber, the fort hood bomber and all that and there are people who are trying to connect the dots so that we will understand the lone wolves and all that. they're saying they want to keep an eye on lone wolves but do you have a comment on any, you know, on this administration's to

connect the dots? >> that's where i get to go holy and that's report is going to be delivered so you have to go back. he's marketing the next report. [laughter] >> which is not boring. >> i don't know. i think at the end of this week or maybe next week. it is an issue that we're -- that we have addressed, so -- but i do. i'm going to make people come back. >> okay. all right. the gentleman down here. >> i'm general mcknight. i'm going to make you feel good, jim, because we're doing a hell of a job in progressing and trying to put our finger on things that are not useful. i spent 35 years collecting a lot of information and it was worthless. it never got processed. [laughter] >> no, i'm serious. it never got processed but the intelligence community never gave up because they wanted more and more. and if you could get a wider

band, they'd do it. i was responsible for wiring up los angeles in 1984. you mentioned 1984. we had a headquarters there. they had where they had the heliopads and everything all tied together but we had the local people that were very professional working with the fbi and it had been the munich hostage deal that prepped this and put this on forward-leaning rest in 1984. then when i was in the pentagon, as the director of command and control, i kept trying to unstrangle all this unnecessary stuff that was going. people wanted everything. they wanted the moon. and i got this answer time and again, if i can talk all over new york city, why can't i talk over in germany? well, there's a lot of different

things i could go into in that. i just want to make you feel good. i think we're doing very, very going in our progression of how we're dealing with this technological stuff. i disagree with some of the people that say we're in the stone age and adp and so forth. i think -- we're not in the knowledge area. we're still in the information area, but i want you to feel good with the fact that we need more people to say, take this out. it's no longer worth what it's going. i watched the identification system at post camps and stations all over the country. we used to not be able to identify anybody who came in. now they know exactly who you are with your driver's license and with your plate. you may not be able to match the two of them but they got you. in most cases. so the local people are very, very important in homeland security.

and they will even get better. my grandson is a bomb tech in tucson. i guarantee you he is -- he's on the job 24 hours a day. so i just want to make you feel good that we've come a long way since 1984 when we had to sort of ad hoc and scramble to get together and i had to let a big contract with motorola just to get radios that were compatible. we could talk the police, fbi, harvard patrol -- [inaudible] >> you guys feel better? >> i do want to -- we actually have another event later this week. we've done research -- foia had the only database in the country that tracks that and also we looked at forensic and terrorist attacks incidence the united states over the last 40 years and i think both ofse