so i am optimistic. as support go bake and everything that has been said, but i and skeptical. i don't think the country is ready, and i would like to see more evidence that the congress is. i think that the money and politics system in this touchy is making it much harder for men and women, republicans and democrats in congress to come together. the financing of our political system has led to increased leverage from the special interests, and it has led to polarization among our elected represents this. ..

and i think the public does realize hard choices will be involved and i think the public if we are going to go through these political battles we would like to be an ending that is successful this time but i think the congress may not be ready and i guess one of the questions we've been thinking about is is there a way to change the tone to allow one particular the 12 members of the super committee and leaders in congress to know that there is this wide spread group of leaders and the public that do want them to make the hard choices and so when i see a group like this and others here today who are making the case for go bigot think it is immensely powerful and i guess the question is to all of you experts how would you hold the super committee get over the

talk of doing something that is incredibly hard. >> i came in with what you call, a chart i'm for doing big because i think it is just hard to do it big as it is to do it lesser or smaller without a doubt, but i brought a chart in here. i know we bent the rules. if we are having a charge for mackie were about to win. [laughter] expect anybody that invites me to iran event i'm going to make this sign part of the discussion of our problem one way or another. you can see the blue line you understand, i'm sorry to say if i give it to you can't get over here so it's the best we can do -- you see the blue line is

health care and the other lines are very major federal expenditures, discretionary spending under control almost any other and then other mandatory spending after a few years in this recession under control but look at above one in blue, health care cost to the government. see that blue line. you who want to be leaders and who want to fix the problem, you are to save of in the budget offered by anyone the president, this group, whomever, you want to say take your budget, tell us how to get this blueline down. [inaudible] if it doesn't come to tell them to go back to the drawing board and start over because you don't

have a realistic budget and i won't put up any longer. [laughter] i will just say that is the case for how you solve this problem. now that doesn't mean that it is the only thing that is without which there is no appropriate answer, without which there can be no answer unless that is turned. everything should be on the table. i want to say that to begin with. i republican plan not afraid to say everything should be on the table, literally, although i think when you immediately say they're for revenue is on the table you are almost, people are almost jumping with joy that you can tax people more. i'm not in that kind of person in terms of new revenues, but i do believe you have got to restrain the growth of government and you have to do something about the revenue base, but you must do something about the blue line, or you will just be dumping taxes forever into a growing government and it will grow up 25, 30% of gdp.

now, having said that, i want to say to other things quickly and then if i don't speak any more it's all right. i want to make sure that you know that i am convinced as one who has been working some 25 years, and i have seen three, some people say for balanced budgets but at least i did three of them and i am proud of it. it wasn't without -- si magic asterisk. [laughter] he balanced the budget with an asterisk. i think it was only $37 billion. now we wouldn't even bother with him now. we thought that was the truly messing with the books back then, right, mr. sherman? having said that, i want to tell you there's no question in my mind that we must convince the american people that the future of this republic is dependent upon us fixing this problem.

if we don't fix it, we don't fix it so that we have a sustainable situation in terms of measuring the amount of our gross national product that we consume. if we don't do that, we will not be the type of country that we are today in a 25 to 30 years. we will be a lesser in the horizon of countries in the world. we won't be much for ourselves and there won't be a vibrant future for our children. it's not that they're going to have to pay our bills. it's that they are going to inherit a second-rate country instead of a first-rate country with dreams, and if that isn't worth working for to fix that, i don't know what is so i inventing all but if they ask me to come i will bring my chart and tell them fix health care costs so the government doesn't have to pay that much, and the rest is all a in a climate. that should tell you something

because nobody yet has submitted a budget that touches health care. somebody would say what about the present? please don't make me say much about the present other than to say nobody has submitted a budget that takes care of or even comes close to touching the health care problem. i don't know why, but i believe they are scared to do it and i hearken back to my days i will ask me to the car you to use me this way when we had to give on social security when i was the chairman and everybody decided we would like to do that, i insisted they all put together. what do you mean? how are we voting you'll put your hands together so no one can accuse anyone of having voted first because if you voted first on that, they will run ads on you that you started all this and therefore you should not

have your seat. it is that it difficult. in other words, i invented a word we've got to have the people together for the top issues. we can't see half of them. they have to be together and vote simultaneously so that the burden is shared on the table by everyone come on anything and everything. >> senator domenici i'm going to see to things before i start. one, you beat me on the chart issued in buying glad you brought it what i do feel bad for everyone else now said they couldn't bring their charge. i'm sorry to lead number two, we probably don't have time to go over it but we should look at the proposal that he would alice rivlin on the domenici rivlin put out on the health care because you do put forth what i think is one of the most cutting edge approaches to thinking about controlling the cost of health care in the long term so you made the case for why it is

so important. i would direct people to the report to see some of the details that you fleshed out in great detail about how to get there. >> i made a mistake in not telling you that it is curved in the domenici-rivlin budget because we do have reform. it's been a very good reform. >> doesn't start for a number of years, but it starts and accomplishes. >> he wanted to weigh in. >> on the economic development we have made it clear that the committee for economic development we have made it clear that we support savings share from the committee of it least $4 trillion. the committee needs to look at entitlements and that social security. it needs to look at additional tax revenue and also take a look at the defense and the domestic portion of the budget. and we have said that this committee and members to that we will support with them and work with them and try to bring business leaders to come and provide i guess with the politicians like to call cover

to make the tough decisions. but here's the drama. there is no more senator bennett in the senate, and he worked very closely with ron wyden on the bipartisan effort to reform health care, and we worked to the committee for economic development very closely with both senator wyden and senator benet and senator benet lost the primary as a result of one of the early tea party actions. so, i think to make all of this work there needs to be more voices from individuals and groups who are actually helping to strengthen the backbone of the members of congress otherwise we are likely to see groups at the extreme trying to pick off the very people that we need to provide a resolution to some of these issues. >> i would just say that that's a very logical and yet history has now proven that for the last i was a three major issues that we have had billy and i and many

others build a bipartisan group of people to deal with the health care issue business, labour, the seniors, aarp, we failed miserably to create eight bipartisan backbone and cover for people. i think on the debt ceiling there was an enormous amount certainly everyone would say we cannot let this country off the cliff of a debt ceiling or few people would say we will see what happens and get that wouldn't seem to spawn a lot of action in we've seen in other cases we can go through withers' lots of bipartisan support. so i think that it is a precondition to do something. you can't just have ever been offered and then imagine that passing but i don't think it's sufficient time and i think that there is a lesson to be learned, or medium and for this lesson to be learned by senator benet don't let them to charge of a way around a certain issue it gets better. >> time for all of you to weigh in on this i want to ask my

question because i wonder of the political moment has or is changing because i sense a difference over the summer i felt like there was a difference since the commission's came out with the specific proposals it seems like there's been a difference because there has been bipartisan support for tough choices. looking at the 36 senators on the stage next week announcing that we should go bigot seems to me like the moment may be changing so i would add that to my question how we may help the super committee do their work. >> to go back to the issue related to that, i had the privilege of serving on the domenici rivlin -- >> is your microphone on? >> i had the privilege of serving on the domenici-rivlin task force and we are still at work and i think it took about two meetings to figure of three very basic points. and those three points are plants that the public could understand very readily. number one, the problem as we more serious than most people

think. when erskine bowles talks about going off a cliff, it's there. this isn't some trivial issue. this is something that is going to affect future generations and as alan simpson said it is going to affect our generations of that is a key point. the second point is as dr. rivlin said on the previous panel there is no use kidding the fact that we need a balanced approach. we have to do the revenue side, we have to do the entitlement side, we have to do spending cuts, the whole thing. the public can be made to understand this. the third thing is that in order to do that everything does have to be on the table. those are messages that we can convey. and i use this as an example in my aarp days when we did town hall meetings everywhere on social security we basically said to people we have a problem, we have a long-term problem and we can't run away from it. and sure we are with five or six

or eight ways to increase revenue on social security and five or six or eight ways to really adjust benefits so figure it out and tell us what you think. people didn't go storming out of the room. they were basically engaged. if we can get the public to understand the basic points and to engage, we can sway the public attitude and that will have a big effect on how the congress acts. it's been a difficult to answer the question first of all, i think there's a different political moment here, and in fact congress may actually have backed into a solution because the fiasco over the debt ceiling created a mechanism that we've not had, and the only situation in the military construction committee and everyone wanted to protect the military base in the district to be the only way we could force a collective

decision to make tough to places and decisions was to form so this committee is similar to a brac. it gives you an up or down vote. it's a majority. so, people can't assume that later were special-interest, business are always united, but i will tell you on this one there is an earnest approach right now going on in the business community on the bipartisan multi business approach to build support for going big but it has to be big and include everything. it has to have the 4 trillion or the cursed. it has to be sustainable. currently it is not sustainable. the internal much reform we know where the large budget is and it has to have simplification of the task code and talk about tax reform is not producing the road

maps have been laid out and the people on the super committee who i believe can have the courage to do this is business and other groups recognize there is no option, that it has to be done this way and it has to be done now and i believe we can change that momentum. >> let me pick up on that if i could. there is a conspiracy theory out there that there are interest groups, business interest groups, special-interest groups who might have a vested interest in the super committee sale because the sequesters, the 1.2 trillion in automatic cuts would be less painful for the various interests than what the super might come up with or certainly going big might mean. >> again, i spent the last 15 years working in the business community and i have not seen that conspiracy theory. there may be some small, but i think collectively manufacturing, energy sector, high-tech, others, financial,

all her realize that failure is not an option. and just going at the level of the mandate from this panel is a failure because the debt will be larger the end of the process than they went in with. so in order to reverse this we have seen the scary thoughts and after greece we saw the downgrade of our own debt. the american business households -- we survive as american businesses when our consumers and customers and fellow citizens thrive, and we cannot thrive with an increasing interest rate, with the cost of doing business, with regulations and all the other issues facing us. we need to claim and say now is the time for the fresh start and in the 30 years i've been in washington this is what it is, inflection points for the country, and i think the

politicians, when you talk to them individually they say yes it is only if they are involved and you have to kind of jump off the cliff collectively to read he talked about the final tennessee. it means holding hands and saying yes, it is in the collective national interest and we will suspend special-interest or partisan per macdill interest to put the national interest first, assuming that people demonstrate the way. and i think this is not an opportunity -- is an opportunity to the estimate a couple nights ago i was in new york and i refer more secretary of state, treasury george shultz speak at the economic club of new york and i want to share this comment because i don't think it's been picked up in the press but he was talking about some of the things we are talking about and he said on the play on the famous presidential line asked not what the congress ten years from now will spend. ask what you will spend, what

the congress will spend this year and next year. i guess i would be more optimistic about the long term if i felt that the congress was able to do the things it's actually supposed to do every year. and so there has been articles this week about whether we are going to have another shot down crisis. so again, i'm an optimist. i want us to think big and i want the committee to act big, but again i think the congress, which again to distinguish itself with the lowest public approval rating i think in its history needs to get its act together and the need to do it before the end of september because they can send a signal right now without waiting until thanksgiving but they are serious about doing the basic things that they have to do every year. >> i want to see if i can get you to weigh in on the special-interest. on the simpson commission you didn't go for eight.

as you look at it now at the various interests that were weighing on you and the other commission now that the super committee is meeting you are advocating doing big right now. your thoughts on the challenges confronting them and how they might deal with them differently than the erskine bowles simpson commission. >> one is it is very clear and the people who had disagreements with the specifics thought you had to go big. it was never less to a trillion dollars it was how we could get to the $4 trillion i would just say that i think myself and dave, paul ryan, president of the united states made a must. that was ever best opportunity in a moment of history to do something. we could have probably spent a little bit of time making it work for all of us but to look back now and say what were we all thinking at that time that things were to get better? when in fact things just keep getting worse. for me the recommendation is if you think it is going to get better, don't count on it and only gets worse.

the truth is for people like me who are very conscious about trying to not only make the competitive economy to assure people that work don't suffer, people are going to suffer a lot more if we don't solve this problem than the suffering that may occur as we solve the problem and we should diminish the suffering and we should do what erskine bowles said, to focus on making sure people that have the least don't get hurt the most the truth is the longer we wait the worse it gets for everybody. >> having served for 28 years in the house to dodge the voice on these difficult issues. i take the leadership on what we are about to do and 1997 we got together with erskine bowles and he's just come to the white house again and told him we felt

there was an opportunity this year to finish off the balancing budget effort. republicans were supporting it on things like medicare, and we work together and succeeded that year because everybody laid it on the problems, democrats and republicans there was only one democratic leader of enthusiasm for the rest of us and the problem and the president supported this foley just in the congressional leadership did. every time we met his team was in the room. this was not some sort of de bate. this was an actual meeting where the decisions were made and in the end we put together something that balanced the budget for the first time in 30 years and over the next three years we paid of the $400 billion of national debt. >> are you as optimistic of the structure of the committee and obligations on the kennedy and the timeline? >> it's more difficult and the

timeframe is tighter but that's okay. they have a chart for different things as opposed to one particular thing. as i mentioned a minute ago, these problems getting a lot more difficult than they were in the 80's and 90's, but this committee is a great opportunity and i think if he can do it but not without the leadership supporting that king any cat on the road it's not going to work. he will only be able to dodge for so long before it ends up in your lap and you have to make the decision. >> i think the problem would be insurmountable if the debtor is in the regular order goes we've seen it demonstrated over the past decade, two decades when you and i were here three decades that they are not able to do it, that we have had the panels, the recommendations that

took the time and they've provided some road maps and emerged to, domenici-rivlin and with simpson-bowles. as was not a question of choices, it is of the leadership and in the regular order i don't think it would work. how do you do tax reform in addition to this? is going to be a multi step approach and sadr crapo i think articulate it when he said you can set the goal, set the parameters come up with the bumper guards out there and then say kennedy's coming you have a certain time to do it. it's a shorter time line. we can't write it and bought it. they can put the parameters and go and i think the congress and the administration to step forward and embraced something they can see that the majority supports this and is going to be a single vote because that is the most historic other than the war in the modern history this

is going to be a historic vote and the business community is saying step up, don't fall short, go big and we have to work together and it's not easy but we are going to do it. >> i want to make a confession. i didn't think i was coming here today to listen to these people appear because i didn't think they had much to tell me, but i will tell you right now that i don't know you, andy, i know all of you and you are notorious. [laughter] that doesn't mean - for positive it just means that you are well known.

when you just said we should start with. anybody that thinks the condition of their country is going to get a better if we killed this opportunity is more than smoking pot. they're absolutely without a mind. mr. stern just told you if you put it off it is going to get worse in the most complicated situation anybody could ever be to try to put together an involuntary bankruptcy. it's so complex you can't believe it and literally, i hate to use that word, but things are going bad and they are going from bad to worse and all kinds of things were on the horizon. strikes, riots, who knows what. if the leadership doesn't come up with solutions and the next couple of months, things are going to get worse. i wanted to tell you from my

standpoint the members of this commission have to be sold on a proposition that is much bigger than anything that they have been sold on and that is the most believe that their vote for something positive that solves this problem -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> i have to verbalize the blueline. if somebody does that and solves the blue line and they could say to themselves it doesn't matter if i ever get elected again i just saved the country that i loved. i met with one of them that invited me and somebody else to talk to them and these members and that is the way the meeting ended. if you are worried about that, i'm telling you if they can put together the right kind of package, and i joel

cspan: and save the country, and i don't know if i have to keep coming back here and getting elected and running, isn't that a refreshing thought about how important this work is? and i believe that if we can get that created in this commission. i'm going to close by saying the most important thing on my mind is that the big problems that have to be solved are very long term. mr. george shultz, i love him but he is wrong. the issue is not a year by year it is ten years. you can do almost what you want in almost three years if you put in place a plan that benefit from a sixth come seventh come eighth or ninth year out reform and medicare and medicaid and all of the entitlement programs and reform the tax code. if you can do that, i guarantee you that we would be on the right path. my mind's let me so i can't

close them off because i'm sure tough memory and i've forgotten some things to the estimate was very powerful and i also want to say that andy, i got chills when you said that. it is this incredibly important moment, and i hope that people who are listening and there are so many that know that and understand that and see that we have to help the super committee feel that we have their back because there are so many people pushing don't do this. the need to hear all the different interests about how people are willing to put the condition ahead of the special-interest and some of the things they care about on the table in order to get this done because it is going to save the country and if we don't it is going to be a problem. let me turn to charlie because he has been waiting. >> i want to follow up on something that was said about the business community. i guess the business community is looking for certainty and stability to come out of this process. one of the reasons why i think

the american public is not ready is i think they are basically confused. and if you look at what has happened over the last four years in the two administrations, the republican administration and the democratic administration, you have seen cuts, a ig bailout, the takeover of gm and chrysler, you've seen qe1 and qeii and the old dance and the new dance called the twist coming back and paul st basically be caves as if it has a relation and if wall street is being that way, i suspect there is some degree of uncertainty and consternation among the american public's what some point, and this is something that george shultz did address you have to slow this down and put in place the serious policy with the right set of incentives that will correct the problems that we just lived through and as he put it we need this did the issue go, the policies instead sent to the consistent without inflation. now he's a little bit skeptical about the ten years out and you

will remember we thought we fixed medicare. i remember one of the current people at omb in 1984 after we visited the diagnosis related groups they said in the hall i think we've finally done it. what are you talking about? we got the cost contant in medicare. this is 1984. it took about 18 months to figure out how to move stuff into the outpatient services and to gain the system so some degree of certainty on the part of this committee and the congress i think will send a very positive signal to the country and certainly to the american business community and everyone is of course concerned about the $2 trillion they are sitting on that they have not invested in and haven't produced jobs. so it is all a part of the same package. >> to follow with one question on the other side of this equation some here in washington

argue $1.5 trillion of deficit reduction. the super committee can come up with about language in the mandated target but that is something to build on. it's worth the super committee going as ordered as opposed to going did because that would build confidence towards the future, toward something down the road. challenge that argument, do you agree with it? >> it's completely logical and if you are in any other place but washington you would think that's true but that isn't to say that we've got a bad health plan. let's just put information technology into health care. everybody agrees, we need the system. we never did it. let's pass children's health care to get children's care. we can take the next step. we never did. it's a completely logical argument that doesn't work. so, i just think that's the problem and we are going to cut the 1.5 trillion. it's either going to be sequestered or they will make the choice to do it so what challenges doing what you are

going to get anyway when the challenges everyone is solving the problem but the people in america are sick of this issue and maybe don't understand all of it but the understand they are stepping up to the challenge and worried about something more important in the long run that happens to be how do kids get their job. >> i completely agree with it. as we said before, we need certainty. it's not just business certainty its consumer certainty and the public believing there is a future and it's also the foreign markets. so if we can get this done right and not in little incremental chunks it really doesn't apply when we are talking a lot trillions. but if we can get it done in the ways it is a major plan, with as we heard earlier the recovery built in, then we are going to have done a great thing for the country. strategic leadership has not been provided in this country

and has not been done in the thousand page tones or reports. it's usually done in a very simple forms by guidance and road maps and i think that there is an opportunity here. i don't care if it is george ken and he didn't sit here and talk about about the whole defense or geopolitical strategy by fleeing out of these research studies, she said this is a direction and many convincing arguments that's where we are today. you don't have to have it perfected to read part of the enemy is good here and maybe not enough but what we are going to have to shoot for and that's why we are using this term go big because it has to bend the curve. 60% of gdp, that ratio is a serious number. if you only do one day you are going to be 75. into years you are going to be 100 that is not sustainable. it has to be multi year and i think everyone says the least fortunate are having a hard time. poverty rates are up,

joblessness is there. this cannot be just honing the cuts immediately. it has to be phased in but the need to know the signal is there and then address the problems. i don't know about pete's charts but if you look at where the system is going, the discretionary spending is becoming a very small portion of the federal budget. and this being automatic programs that is going to drive and the simplification as a way that i think that senator crapo and others with as principled conservatives as you can find, when they say that there is an opportunity to get the right thing done by putting everything on the table, that's something that we collectively need to sit up and listen to. >> time for one more question from the audience.

>> my name is peter clark. the congress doesn't have the authority to make spending and revenue decisions that bind future congresses. i'd like to know first if this is true and if it is what does that say about the staying power of any agreement the super committee produces and is adopted by the current congress. >> i think if we could sit take a second question and put both of them out there. >> i don't know that anybody would argue if you've been in the process at least speak to [inaudible] why have not heard is the over

letters of comment or cut that for business and labor to support the people that do the hard thing. that is not the issue what i want to know is is the business willing to kick ass. i shouldn't say that, sorry. but about actively supporting the people that get it out. because if you don't do that, then they think they are exposed as peete said [inaudible] our business and labor going to kick ass? >> i wouldn't use the term but i think my friend john from the business roundtable i see other business leaders, i know that the u.s. chamber and other

groups, and number of us have been having serious conversations coming and i don't want to pre-announce some things that there is an effort on going you have seen the ceos step up and this is important and yet seen the other former leaders in government and experts i think that you are going to see business associations and organizations and it's very challenging to get unanimity but we are not worried about that, we are talking about broadbased support for the approaches that we have seen, and i think that you are going to see for both sides of the aisle that there is a willingness to support if the again take on the real problem and try to overcome the extreme partisanship and fit the national interest first and everybody is going to have something in this game. i think it will be done. >> you have been a longtime trustee of the committee for

economic development and we have said exactly that. we are going to continue to try and work with more business leaders around the country to support the elected officials who are courageous and trying to do the right thing. but let me add one other point here and this is to the business leaders who may be watching. the american public doesn't have such high regard for the business community. the good news is it is not quite as low as the contras but for ten years the american business community has been on defense and for understandable reasons. this is a marvelous opportunity for american business leaders to step forward and do the right thing. it's not only self-interest, and by self-interest i mean the long-term implications for the cost of capital in the country. but also for the country. we talk about business leaders and business statesman at cd and that comes from pete peterson has the longest serving trusties

and for years he's been urging business to step forward and address these issues. folks, now is the time it's your moment, it's the right thing for you, your country and the business community. >> this is totally appropriate and i have no idea what the business community is going to do, but people are going to hear you are going to endorse me if i'm going to do this. they don't want to assure we are going to support to, we love you, if you're going to support my opponent and i vote yes on this and get a tax on it and we talk about this there is a level of sincerity about sticking with people who direct but not supporting people is a lovely concert that doesn't mean anything. of the current congressmen who do it all the time [inaudible]

in the house, too the super majority cannot do that kapor adjust the tap but it has to pass both houses and has to of course designed by the president of the law it has to be undone. >> i would like to say this with reference to support. actually it appears to me that -- it appears to me that -- i am very sorry. >> it's okay. there's going to be a lot of support. i think this is the moment. >> what i was going to say is that i think the most difficult part of this is the shortness of

time given to get the job done, and you can bet that those of us who understand the nuances of the bill that has been written and creating this community it obviously is created by people who really want to get this committee a lot of authority. there is never been a committee with the authority that to this committee has and if congress adopts the package and the president signs it it can handle entitlements. the question is do they have enough time to do that and we are going to be looking to find ways to give them the maximum amount of time that is conceivable so that they can get it done and lastly, i just want to conclude that if in fact we are serious about the serious as

we want republicans to be serious about revenue somebody has to start working on both of them because both are terribly complicated and they can't be done on a 24-hour notice even reforming the health care programs and for the tax code both of which should be reformed and the time is pretty short. thanks for doing this to really want to tell you now. [laughter] >> okay. yes, last word. >> thank the sponsors, the bipartisan policy center and the federal budget. simpson-bowles to everyone that stepped up to serve the national service and as you said the most important positions in north carolina the most important job he's ever had an abiding we all

owe him a huge debt of gratitude. >> we also the panel debt of gratitude while the next panel comes up. >> the new america's foundation discussion on the joy of deficit reduction committee included a panel with former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan and the virginia senator mark warner a member of the budget committee. this is an hour. >> thanks to everybody on c-span. this is quite a panel. the first to panels so if you will were not here come some of you were but we have great acts to follow dewitt let me briefly go over the people we have with us today and then i'm going to turn over to you for the first

question. thanks to all of you for joining we are pleased to have jane harman now the president and ceo of the woodrow wilson international school for scholars to read alan greenspan former chairman of the federal reserve system, governor engler of the business roundtable, david stockman, former burger of omb, and senator warner who is the sitting senator and also one of the gang of six and a heavily involved in this issue. we are going to talk pretty much about anything you want. this is one of these washington policy forums where you are able to answer any question you wish you could have been asked instead of what you were asked and we want to have a rich discussion but what we do want to focus on this sort of where the politics and the economics of this issue are right now and where they are headed and we continue to see as we have on the past two panels of going big and we have to observe it's been remarkable because people didn't agree with bill bigot they were allowed to across-the-board it's been a powerful argument for both the political and the economic arguments of why urging

and supported a separate committee to come up with a full six is a useful and almost necessary endeavor the economic argument here is a lot of discussion about going big and what the right figure might be. people turn out the 4 trillion-dollar figure from an economic standpoint what is the right number and how quickly do we have to get there and. >> as i think everybody on this panel is acutely aware of having experienced this and been involved in these hearings there's the tendency in the government to underestimate the size of the problem, and indeed if you look at the underlining assumptions for the forecast made it's pretty clear at this stage that we are running under and are likely to continue to do so. and if you fit those data to the

cbo's base or anybody space with larger deficits because remember when you are dealing with a deficit which is very sensitive and small changes to substantial changes in the deficit. all of the by disease that are on conceived work in the direction of essentially increasing the size of what we are dealing with. on top of that we have a very serious problem in that we don't have a large deficit which can be collapsed very quickly by discretionary outlays or the end of a war and i remember the end of a deficit at the end of world war ii collapsed and collapse

largely because the overspending went down but what's driving this deficit is very substantial the entitlement. and pushing the deficit it's difficult to bring down. once the country to ransom entitlement, it is very difficult to rescind. just look at how they would expect my judgment as we are dealing with an issue in which an actor will growth in the gross domestic product of the potential revenues is essentially running into a problem which i don't think we've confronted before, mainly significant slowing in the rate of growth largely because we are taking the most productive people in the economy and

retiring and they would be around for quite a substantial period of time receiving benefits in the coming in to support these are the students did so poorly in 1995 and since on those international exams. so the combination of sycophant slowing in the working age population and therefore the civilian labor force and putting it reasonably optimistic productivity numbers adjusted for the fact they are changing before us gives us a set of data which gives me possibly five or $6 trillion to close. this is a pretty substantial margin to work with. >> david stockman, someone that

we did on these issues you were pretty outspoken even earlier. the chairman told us five to 6 trillion should be the appropriate target for the deficit reduction over ten years. how do you get there? >> [inaudible] i want to say why but before i do that -- >> before i do that i want to thank you for recommending my book. the joint politics i wrote 1986. i don't know if it was any good but when i was run out i did write the book and my publisher gave me 800 copies to distribute to my friends and i still have 795 copies left. [laughter] so if anybody needs 1i have a lot of books. [laughter] >> i think that this ten year thing is really causing us to

play a numbers game to get lost in the numbers that is resulting in her losing track of how serious this problem is because we talked about go big, no green or go sooner. but whether your during a 1.5 trillion or 4 trillion remember that is again the ten year baseline as you can see that far in the future which is $200 billion. so we are asking should we cut the deficit by 1% of that ten year baseline of gdp or should we cut it by two per cent when the fact is we have been locked into eight or 10% of the gdp for the last four years. when the fact is our gdp has been growing since the recession ended in june of 09 at 44 billion a quarter or a month we have been borrowing 100 billion a month and there is no let up to the equation that we are borrowing at twice the

rate at which gdp is growing. so if you look at a realistic view going forward the gdp has only grown 1.5% annually in the last revenue that the payroll number today, one-third in 1 million is the same number we had in janaria 2000, that we've manufactured the industrial index today in august was the same as it was in 2000 that our economy hasn't grown for tenorio leffinge years ahead of time but in fact still have money to print and we could borrow the deficits that we can now but when you have a housing market is booming and that is busting and now if you put all those things together, then the outlook going forward is far worse than what is in the baseline. the underlying problem is at least ten to 15 trillion if we do nothing. yet we have one party saying no taxes and the other party saying

don't touch social security, and both parties say in the military industrial complex we need a defense budget in this world that's 80% bigger than eisenhower and we learned about the conflict in 1961. so i would say ellen is right, 5 billion but it's really 10 billion. >> on that note, senator warner as a member of conagra's i don't know if you want to run for the virginia hills after hearing that or not. the political reality of trying to get anything done in this environment -- and give them a working, both democrats and republicans, talking about giving big -- the reality trying to get there? >> first of all, the great panel thanks for all your work. these numbers can become so overwhelming. we should and least i agree but we did and the process we set up

which is good opinions a net in the super kennedy let's not set the bar so high that if we do get that 4 trillion that we once again say that it's not a some level of success, number one. a number two, there are those people appear, the ever-growing as a matter of fact 38 of them last week, 26 of them standing together publicly that may be the only voluntary group of bipartisan folks in the whole town willing to say yes, tax reform generates revenue. in title and reform and the sustainable and a lot of folks in this room have already done it. we are all in in terms of supporting the super committee and as a glut of to do the to -- a relative new guy appeared the

process of the super devotee to forge a grand market and the dubious sequential basis but do it in that kind of mother of all votes is something we would be remiss if we didn't give it all over the next few months, and we do need -- i've got my own power plant in terms of what we have to do, but we know the problem. we are going to have to deal with revenue and entitlement and deal with the defense because we cannot cut our way out of this as well. we demonstrate we can walk and chew gum and that means to some short-term efforts in terms of growing a the economy because

both of the chairman and i've looked at those numbers put those employment numbers are still so low and the short term growth with medium and long-term the real deficit reduction and one of the things we've built upon for example the good work of the simpson-bowles is enforcement mechanisms. nobody believes in the congress acts that they are going to enforce what they say. we'd better put some hooks into that. but i would argue as well that we need everybody in the water at this point. this will not happen unless the business community, the budget thinkers all kind of agree that we are going to go help this super devotee get to this bigger number. and at this point, one more

comment and then get back around. the larger than 10% on the other side to my mind i feel very strongly would move on those margins to get an agreement. i think one of the bickel sing biggest single things we get to every economy at the end of july, beginning of august, is on the business side and the consumer side people who were on a certain we just put an extra dose of uncertainty and if our political leadership can't even put a long-term balance then i'm going to cut back on the business portion spending. the best thing we can do for the job right now is it this enforcement planning in place, and if a devotees as well, it's got to be my way or the highway approach we are not going to get their. i am much more optimistic today than i was at the beginning of august. >> congressman harman, a few

months removed from your time in congress. what has taken place here, who is optimistic as senator warner or are you more skeptical? >> i want to be optimistic. i'm impressed that market is optimistic since he has been hitting his head against the wall the last six months while i have been luxuriating. first and not in a, just a recovering politician. so, i will start with this? story, which is that some of you will remember and eastern any way that i ran for governor of california at the end of the 90's and someone came up to me and said how biggar you? and i said big enough to run for the governor of california. i think the question is how big is congress and the president in terms of this issue of going big , and i want to point out congress and the president were

big enough in the 90's to do these things but i was there, so was joshua and dave and i fink mark was not there, he was doing productive things elsewhere, but we were there and i made the tough vote, i don't know how dave or john voted for the clinton budget in 1993 my first term which was threatening move. i came back to congress with 800 votes out of 225,000 cast and most of those women in elective with me in 92 to the open seats lost their selections. i also was one of the ban of 40 in the conspiracy. 20 democrats and 20 republicans where we propose to cut 100 billion from the budget and we came within four votes is getting the past, 100 billion in today's terms it would be substantially larger, came within four votes of passing that against the objections of the white house and most moving

parts of the then clinton administration and i also of course was a part of the large bipartisan group to vote to balance the budget in 1997. there was only 14 years ago, folks, and look what happened. it's a question of are we big enough or are our elected leaders big enough to do this? they used to be bigger and something happened, and i think at risk is not just our short-term future, but whether america remains a super power, whether america is in the top tier of countries in the world. ..

which has been a very popular idea of when both parties seem to fit the bill because it would generate jobs fast days. that could reseed using the regular order through the committees of congress. hopefully putting pressure on the budget committee and involving more members to get the right results. am i optimistic that this could happen? and disappointed it isn't happening. i'm disappointed the president didn't ask for this in january after his commission heroically came up with a grand bargain with at least the bones of where we go. and disappointed he couldn't be done by the president and john

boehner in the summer and i'm disappointed it isn't being done now. i would close that i hope everyone has read the tom friedman piece today, that he says he can either have a hard decade or a bad century. and so, i would like to go for the hard decade. >> governor engler, unique perspective as a former governor. someone who represents the unique business. are there oars in the water? >> there's no question that they are. they used the example earlier today that we just concluded a the meeting mif was nice not to spend time walking through the options that are in front of the congress and in front of the nation. there's a lot of interest in you had ceos saved by the way, this is in a short period of time because when you're 20%, 30% drops in revenues in country they had to act and they didn't

take it over a few months for a couple of years. you had to start making decisions tomorrow morning and make something by the next day. and you got that day. the interesting point is there are examples in both parties. governors democrat or republican come with legislative bodies and in some cases but control. some cases their own party and they've all been making decisions. the magnitude that cuts are on the order for governor focused in which a nap when i had been waiting way back now in michigan. said they had to step a. it's a proportion and may have been captured are 1% or she% over a period of time, a decade. it seems to me in going very pickier an opportunity for a

great deal of creativity. this has got to be a legislator's dream to get up-and-down vote. that just never happens in this world and washington. you couldn't really get that to happen in the state legislature very easily. so the idea you can put one thing that our teacher screams for a very large package because the bigger it is, tougher days to vote against if it is the solution. you don't want to go small. you want to go humongous because it's just impossible to vote against at that point. yes, there'll be lots of things people don't like, that much more people that they will like and the benefit of that gain is what carries the day. i actually think we have to be thinking about sensitive or pass budgets on an annual basis, maybe it should be given some annual budget for each of the next 10 years and some baseline

amount and certain agencies of the same that had to be declining here, but they've known for 10 years it's going to decline, said that good managers we've got come the profession are sick and manage that overtime can do it for attrition consolidation. i probably also give the president unlimited reorganization authority to get the 19th century structure into the 21st century. and so you could use the type knowledge in capture that it's another way to drive what the chairman of ibm site could be as much as a trillion dollars to 5000 data centers and take that down to the 50 really need. i mean, there is so much opportunity here. it's like a target rich environment, but nobody is in charge of the special committee has an opportunity to tee it out of. someone has to execute and that's at the elections are for. once the responsibility is fixed, and the direction is

that, either someone will step up or there'll be somebody new to step a. sort of the way it will work. i think our models of the state level in novels and some companies. so washington can do it. >> so, let me pick up on the theme of going bacon with some of you are talking about. before we start making go back from 4 trillion in savings to 10 and 20 trillion in savings camacho survey had where we had it, there's also the going bacon bringing pieces into this. this is a chance to make that reduction in economic growth strategy. that means a space for jobs component. there's a space for regulatory reform, his face space for a lot of things for economic growth along with that. one thing we know from the work of rogoff and reinhardt and the new paper presented by jd at jackson hole about where we are at that level straight now is probably already a drag on economic growth. so if you put in place a

multiyear sensible debt reduction plan, that can be part of a strategy. if e.g. the tax reform right, if you did integument form right and protect investments and scale back on to unction, if you do it in a way that creates urgency on this point about multiyear budgets putting in place of veggie people can count on for a number of years can really help a business led recovery, which is the key to getting out of the downturn where we are right now. if you put in place a plan that these the fiscal space up front so we continue to recovery, that was something to gain. i would like the panelists to win and i'm not that reduction or debt consolidation can feed into an economic growth strategy, but also separately because if we are going bacon can put other policies into this. what is the most important program policy that hopefully doesn't make the deficit worse than you think should be part of the package. whoever wants to jump in, certainly chairman greenspan.

>> the one thing which we know is that the number of endeavors on the part of various countries to reign in deficits of this kind of problem that almost everybody in every study i've seen indicates that the endeavors that are essentially implemented by sharp reductions in spending have been far more successful in solving the problem without maximum problems with respect to the economy. there are more for example, which the larger study indicated that to be sure that those increases and expenditure cuts will tend to cut the level of economic activity. the difference between the two is very large. the more interesting issue, which we don't have the answer to is this is where the

simpson/bowles initiative was really very clever going to tax expenditures. the issue is what really very large reduction in tax expenditures due to economic activity? if it behaves more like outlays, which i suspect it would be, then the impact of a trillion dollars, a little over a trillion dollars annually is potentially a very important beginning to get at this particular problem. and i think the governor is bringing a very important issue. there are more ways in which people can agree with it than if you have a very specific single issue in which there are innumerable people who are against it. but there is another factor out here, which we can't disregard. it's called the bi market. when i was originally asked when

the simpson/bowles chairman before the committee's report came out, i was asked for what i thought it the possibilities of simpson/bowles actually setting the framework for the deduction and i said something like the simpson/bowles initiative will pass the congress. the only question is whether it is before or after a bi market crisis. and we can stand here or sit here and argue whether or not we are dealing with a large number or small number, but we have to ask ourselves, what would we do if all of the sudden the markets began to arrest negatively, thinking that the congress in this country is incapable of

coming to grips with the problem of this size. and i hesitate to think what the consequences could he and i hate to think what the politics that eat. >> well, and i think it was to designate, los angeles passed a ballot measure by a vote of about at least two thirds to raise taxes, to raise sales taxes by half a percent to fund infrastructure buildout in los angeles for mass transit light rail and maybe -- i think that was essentially what it was. in that measure has been generating revenue for the last three years. los angeles has proposed that it be able to frontload that held out by fire early monday in an infrastructure bank or in some other mechanism to build out in 10 years what that tax measure would fund in 30 years.

i do not, it would generate hundreds of thousands of jobs in the short term. i am telling this story because people, including republicans voted to tax themselves to deal with the transportation meltdown in los angeles and away that would want, solve that problem and two, saw the huge unemployment problem at the same time. and therefore, if there is some form of infrastructure bank come anonymous fairly funded with new revenue, alan, the funded with repatriated earnings or pick a flavor, funded somehow, that could up the city like los angeles get in the game of building transportation jobs fast in solving this problem. i think i would be a huge win. the other point about the story are told is the government or somebody with the payback because it sales tax is generating the red news to pay

the government not. so this isn't a handout. this is a way to accelerate something that voters in a large metropolitan city have decided they need. >> out just -- jane, the original three cosponsors of the not grant version, but the one that the chamber agreed on. i think jonathan supported as well, was more about loan guarantees. it was gary hutchinson and night. i do think a lot of these tools are tightened up around the edges we've used her big holy spirit refused monetary policy, used fiscal stimulus. so what can we do around the edges? i get a little concern on these kind of panels that we can spiral into a pretty dark place pretty quickly.

and your comments earlier about there have been times bashing your head against the wall, but what is the choice? is a rattling cry going to be in america? at least were better than the e.u. >> i think it's more generic. this is why i've got to make, you know, the appeal. shiner governors and we both struggle with challenges. when made a lot of hard cats. and i agree completely. we got the best man in the state in the best state in the whole country for business. so i do hope we need to go back, that before we evade these on the super committee, which is 1.2 to 1.5 and i would like to see is many things added on as possible, but if they only get five of the 20 that we want to add, recognize a mistake get a score they've got to be done

almost in five or six weeks. let due what is the $4 trillion number as least as a minimum. i would agree that we need to do more. if we take that step and do in a forceful way in the way that shows the political leadership can actually work together on something. in the points i would say is a relative still newbie appear, it won't get done unless the governors, state legislatures, business leaders thought leaders are all willing to give a little and say with a super committee, if you step out, we've got your back. >> well, i think the reason we are not going big, we all agree. i don't mean to say for go. that would be a godsend if we take a. >> a billion an hour. you know, we spend a half a billion an hour.

the point is there are too many people in this town who don't believe that it real or necessary or urgent. and it's evident in their behavior. and part of the reason for that if they believe things that are true. one of those as pat moynihan. he said everyone has the right to believe whatever they want to. we have people who believe things that are facts. you can't raise taxes and a weak economy. so i'm sorry, we're going to have a weak economy for years and years. if we don't raise taxes, will stay in the hole. in 1982 the unemployment rate we are in a very bad recession. ronald reagan signed the tougher act of 1982. i was worried when 20% of gdp or tax increases in the next two

years. that's the equivalent of the hundred $50 billion a year in the economy. and the fact is that history shows you have to pay her bill. it hasn't been going anywhere for 10 years. that doesn't give me the right to keep getting a credit card until some economist tells you it's okay. we've had a business cycle recovery. now you can start getting real about the deficit. the recovery is party have been. it's growing at 1% up for that key. so we have to do with the fact. if we keep doing stimulus vector stimulus, were just creating the code. there's 500 billion worth of tax reductions that will expire in 2013, 2014. write down the baseline says it will go from 400 to 300 building the year in a year or two. so the fact is we've got two and

half% of the class that we >> right into your gear in las vegas tarted on it now because they will not allow these tax cuts to expire. they will not allow them to expire. if you can in the heat of trying to put that stuff into some kind of reasonable order, you are not going to get very much deficit reduction then. this class is used. to a 600 billion year community to get as an 213, 214. if you don't do it now, we're going to be a fly on the windshield of that class when we get to 213. >> well, i guess you asked about the growth will come back to that name on that because mark has done in jane touched on it a

bit. i look at this from a different place because i think of what is low-hanging fruit and understand i guess growing up in michigan farm back when, that's the first receipts start picking up stuff. you've got to the low-hanging stuff. we used to kind of shied away and be nervous about saving energy independence for america. within our grasp if we think about what's happened michelle discovery come improvements in geology and define researchers have for sort. as part of this remake of the government under a budget balancing and cutting of a true energy department, but that would be in energy exploration and production department. to get serious about exploration and i'm very happy this past

week they finalize permits for shale off alaska. there's tremendous resources dare we believe. i think we'll have to redo or nuclear base. we've got 20% of that coming from nuclear plants will start a gmail. so we need to get that sorted out. and while we are making decisions, i'll just run through a couple things on the list. you would have firkin figure out on transmission lines today, just the killers who generate release anywhere from 5% to 8% of those in transition. there's a wonderful business plan if we update the translation seminude to build new and that's a different story. you need permits for that, for heaven sakes we got transmission lines you have to upgrade a lot of jobs. you can't get those up short. that is all work here. the other thing i probably do if you get energy efficiency at the same time as in every public

building in america and the weather is on by federal or state governments or local governments or schools, since we'll probably keep those in the public's actor for a lot of years, you would complete all of that. but something bill clinton talked a bit about. it makes perfect sense. thousands of jobs there. if we were doing well in class exploration, since the realty center in the budget since they've never been scored, i do some reservation of some of that and i to miss zippy river basin and get the stands that greeted with some of the royalties. i get the pipeline built from alaska. more royalties, for that. i'd open a million or two acres of federal land in some of those royalties to upgrade all of our national parks we've got tens of millions of people go in there and they don't need work. you know, that is my energy speech. i'd also move over to another one. 30, $40 billion subject for the next generation air traffic control system that is a quadruple win or more. if energy-efficient.

it's less hassle and it's an export potential for us and it's a high-tech to do. i probably fixed the export controls because their studies of $60 billion of stuff we can have. the british, the chairman, the japanese and our allies sell it. that's just together swarmed out. all of these are administration introduced ideas, but this guy nowhere and three years. this is the time if you want to do with the unemployment rate. as i said, i didn't get into education and health care and i didn't even get into really regulatory reform. >> there's lancet jobs here. >> you suggest that's all low-hanging fruit. >> i've got to make one quote because i've got to make sure we get some of these trades too. right now is another piece of this and a lot of what john is talking about, only democrats looking at it in virginia.

the energy conservation piece if you'd been on unemployment beyond extract the time, you know, you can finance retrofitting of this building and train a tenuous revenue stream for unemployment in that youth category. >> there's a whole series of things we can do. we also have to acknowledge and one of the ones with the faa, when every bill becomes an all or nothing for one side of the other end every operation in and the government intern says continuing becomes a potential shutdown nightmare, renewed enormous disservice to this country. and while the conduct of the litany litany of all of our proposal, many of them are bipartisan -- i've got one that i think would actually be copying some of the things britz had done. you have to repay go. they call at one end out.

until we do with the dead overhead, and so we can show that the political leadership in the country can actually get something done, we've got to restore some level of confidence if everybody has said he became a dark come and talk about old days how big the problem is where we can take this next three months, two and a half month and say we are going to be all in hoping the super committee and then have a plan b. the first thing is we've got this opportunity. and let's not have another one of the sessions in january, talking about what we didn't do when they had this opportunity. as john has said, to have the one major vote, were at the end of the day if this though didn't -- are either for the moving forward for you your firm or paralysis. we can frame it that way. it cannot be democrat first republican. the only way to get to that so does everyone here gets their oars in the water and frankly more in the way they did.

thank you. go vote and let you guys saw the rest of the problem. [applause] >> mark is right, but if the campaign of 2012 has started, and what comes with that is that you get more for the black if you blame the other guy for not solving the problem and if you work with the other guy to solve the problem. both parties do this. they play the dating game. and what's wrong with that picture is we don't thought proper and in congress as shark and its ability to solve problems. in the 90s we solve this problem. nowadays unsolved or back. and it's the incredible shrinking congress. so how does that turn around? the way turns around is that a few people with the guts to say doing this right, going back is more important than getting

reelect me. i think if one person would do that and i certainly salute mark for his courage and his message, but if a few people would do this, let's pick some from each party, and maybe that could start turning around this terribly broken industry paradigm. i thought john's list was. i'd like to put out there my side, not in terms of static versus dynamic scoring. again, i'm the non-economist there. in terms of the dynamic nature of the economy, if we had a growth agenda that minute someone will jumpstart here, at the same time as we are trying to do a responsible deficit reduction plan, then we end up with faster deficit reduction, more confident than we retain our leadership. it seems to me we had to have that. i want to add this. maybe as a democrat i'm not against resource explanation,

but clean energy is the way underused ideas here, not just clean energy in the united states and there's lots of ways we could develop clean energy, including switchgrass and solar and a lot of things won't solar energy picture. i'm one who is saying this is the only answer. the clean energy exporters are something we could really be doing. why are we letting china today sitting on their hands? we know a lot about this. if we could print up and for example and take up our largest federal pru shares of automobiles, and make their market and developing mass-producing cars and other things cheaper to generate exports. the second we haven't mentioned is immigration reform. it makes no sense to have caltech graduates coming geniuses in science and

engineering leaves because our immigration laws don't let them stay in this country. 50% of the graduates from caltech in the school have to leave our country immediately upon getting the best education on the planet. export controls have to be changed to me to have to pass fair trade agreements. it makes no sense to deny access to us. it also is a good national security agenda to have trade with countries rather than war. >> chairman greenspan, they could pick up on the economics here. at the super committee comes and asks her advice for the ultimate plan that they must consider, if they ask you about the next, what's the appropriate mix? developing with the target should be for them. what would your advice to them be quiet and not well, i first would say that what i think probably, where mark warner of

people merging is going to occur is not where i would start if i had my choices. but i know my view of what ought to be done will get maybe one foe, which would be mine myself. [laughter] but i do think -- i think the president is indirectly acknowledged that he made a mistake in not addressing simpson/bowles when it came out. it was an ideal time and in my judgment, where we had to go was basically to take simpson/bowles, which is i think a very cleverly constructed bipartisan approach to coming to grips with this problem. and as i said before, it is one extraordinarily clever part,

which none of this for reasons i cannot understand, have really approach which is the tax major part of this issue. tax expenditures are a trillion dollars a year. and i would do basically what they do, which is to start off with the assumption that all tax expenditures are gone. and then you have to negotiate up a few items that would come into place. and i don't think unless you do this that you're going to get anywhere near to a solution. first of all, there is no way to solve this problem without significant economic and political pain. if we're going to try to do this on the cheap, meaning no pain, that'll fail or it will be a series of gen x, which we've all seen over the years. so i would say it this dish that the quickest way to come to grips with this problem is to

take simpson/bowles with a very detailed document. i was very impressed at how much the commission did in such a short period of time. and you could take that and put it up a little work at omb and cbo and a parade of other places you can get every little item. i don't think it is a full line item in simpson/bowles, but they're close to it. but there is a budget out there, which has the governor says you can vote up or down. we had to find out whether simpson/bowles has the votes. the president has the votes, then i despair where this country is going and i despair incidentally because once it states. in gene would know more about this. i mean, there's a few little things going on.

studies which take a look at the military, for example, find that our whole infrastructure is deteriorating. the average life but i think the committee work dean had it indicated that a very significant part of our military infrastructure. he gave me a number could believe. i still can't believe. the average age of the american military to 60 years. i look at their b-52 see bombers still in operation. and so, the question then gets into budget terms, what does the required? system for the moment in a grade sheet this is not a valid assumption, of restoring the

existing military. with the military which was built to fight the cold war reunion. that is, we need going forward. but just to build up to where we were would require hundreds of billions of dollars to bring the technology up to something, which in my judgment represents where this country should be and days. i am looking at negotiations going on with respect to the middle east today. and i have never the united states anymore lowered position diplomatically. and there is no way of differentiating the budget. this whole budget conference on the status of the united states as the royal power in the years ahead. >> john engler and dave

stackhouse. you weigh in on what he talks about the zero option that simpson/bowles type it out. getting rid of tax expenditures, maybe moving up from there. he talked about the state out there. how's that going to play out? >> is a huge secret cattle farm is what it is. it's not going to happen as a way of getting revenue into the property. it might be a good idea for economic policy for the long run, but for what we need in the middle of term, it's going to be a consideration that will be no good at the second in iowa to say tuesday's economic growth is a wonderful thing, just like our laughers otherwise. but it has little to do with budget discipline and hard choices and the sacrifices and the pain that has to be distributed. growth is going to be what it's going to be and there's not much washington can do about it. what washington has been trying to do is say a $200 billion

payroll tax holiday for one year so people can buy them are happy meals that they shouldn't have an coach bags that they don't need. please, give me a break. or money for green energy so we can get another half billion dollars block at one company like cylinder that which is good down the tubes? yeah, this is fun stuff, but this is how we got into the mess we're in. we've got to swear at stimulus and growth management because there's no agreement on how they did it. take the fact that are dealt by the economy, take the real numbers out there and figure out how to distribute the pain. that's really what the job isn't everybody wants wants growth to date in pain on the buy and buy that were never going to get them as a result will have a huge bond market depth at, as alan said. one of these days when they finally wake up, that our government system is careless.

>> how much time do we have left? >> how much time? this bond market is totally artificial. if medicated, manipulated. i can't say enough by the central banks of the world. half of the 10 trillion is an central banks. the chat, find it, so forth. the virtual tolls, the bonds going and never come out. that's the only way we've got away with this so far, but the central banks are done. china has not had any more bombs. the price for america site is business. as a result, we'll have a test one of these days is the real bond market of real free-market investors and how we can buy a three-year bond for 30 basis points when the acknowledged inflation rate, which is totally phony at 2% and you are buying a five-year bond at 30 basis points. there is going to be to pay.

and i think it's coming. i don't know when, but when it comes, this time is it going to be ready to deal with it. >> can you bring us out on a good know, governor? >> the earlier stock, 1%, 2% reduction over a decade is painful, but it really is, to put it in the, you know, it can be done. and i do think the government has a bit to do with growth in the sense that it controls the permits that determine whether i can go over and do something or not. to that extent, until i can get them onto several, if they've got the permits in their hands, i've got to get done. so there is that interaction. i don't think the public capital -- i mean, we are awash in capital and money is almost three today to put to work. let's get that going. i do think the chairman's idea

on that simpson/bowles is interesting and it would be of great interest to me to see that foot forward. and i think on the tax expenditures. and i think on the tax expenditures. and i think on the tax expenditures feldstein talked a great deal about the senate finance subcommittee. and i think simpson/bowles was clever and not a god not just the business tax rates, but they got individual rates. i mean, everybody can say g, i'd certainly like, while we're at it on the business taxation approved territoriality and the way that would work in a competitive way. but if i had to start with a physician were simpson/bowles that leave me with a much lower rate, i want to be in the conversation. and it's the difficulty because

if you do with individual rates, often on corporate business organization get treated appropriately. i mean, this should not have as much to be concerned about. so that to me would be very interesting. at sight to see them go on top of that. but the other thing that is interesting about the committee. we haven't said too much about it, but it is a legislative business. my assumption is that congress put it on the desk, no matter what gets sent somewhere out, something passes the congress, it's going to be fine. i mean, i think it would be unbelievably wet with commenting injurious and acting politically distract it. and she made a point earlier, which in terms of people voting, we always have every election it seems like for every couple of elections we suddenly discover a

new truth that we should've seen coming. i'm not sure that maybe the new truth in the 2012 election is that it simply retreating to the camps and waging war on the other camps may in fact be the old -- that might have been the last election strategy and it may not -- it may not cut it in 12 because they think there is a level of anger that is reflected in what is often called the tea party, but it's really the tea party movement, which is not a party, but it is a movement and it includes people who have been republicans, democrats, independents and they are brought together by the fact they were really irritated. they're really upset and i think they fit in the middle and hold a lot of sway. they are not -- it's all about, i think the policy questions more than -- i don't look back

or to see if there's anything socially that really unites them. acting as their irritation irritation of government. but i am just lobbing arrows at the other guy in the wrong place to be. >> to respond to that and say something positive, i've been thinking about that for an hour. there must be something i can say. on the tea party, i would say the tea party as part of the problem. yes it does reflect anger, but it seems to have an ideological agenda and it imposes litmus test some politicians who if they don't go along with the no tax pledge, get a primary opponent. having had a number of primary opponents over the years, that made fun. having tough elections, you learn. you grow a thicker skin. you know, it's proof in the middle if you get slammed i think the people who are angry this country the people in the middle. i say this conversation about a third party. these are people who think

neither extreme of either party is entitled to his own fat about moynihan and that's what we seem to have operating in effect to these people are awful and they want thaksin wants to do something. here is my positive point. i think there are a lot of smart people in congress, in both parties who came here for the right reasons. they may not agree on everything. we in the penultimate green everything except we do agree to go back, but we want to solve this problem and they want to try out various ways to solve this problem. i think this thoughtful group in congress, which is fairly large needs to be liberated in given a chance to engage in legislation here, which is not given a chance to engage. the committee process is bypassed by her marriage. it is a war press releases rather than a serious, thoughtful effort to solve the

date, huge problem. my idea about simpson/bowles if it should be considered. i think everyone will run away, but i will introduce it on separate tracks of the committee process in try to help the people in congress in both houses are really a thoughtful things to say understand it. they tried down on their own constituents. i actually think what hath not it necessarily, but something like it, the baskets he contains at contain separate baskets, what do these precise prescriptions are right or not. give congress a chance to be good. and so that's my hopeful thought, good people who could eat that if given a chance. >> three and half hours of fiscal policy and public policy today, i'm going to say one closing word of thanks. i mean, i think we heard so much today about how real the problem is, how large the problem is that one of the things he

focused more on this dangers of doing nothing because a lot of times the focus has been i don't want to do that. retirement age or means testing our taxes, but if you think a little bit more about the cost of doing nothing, which we heard from voices today, it's an incredibly powerful argument for why we need to act. if i were chairman greenspan said was incredibly important spell. if you're not going to get your first choice comments on excuse to walk away from the table. we define a compromise that's going to get this done. so with all the truly remarkable voices today talking about this, i guess i hope all these choices will come out out of the shadows and in the coming months will be carried over and over again the support for the super committee, particularly with not even go big or go really, really big, but somewhere along those lines in that spectrum i think we can urge them, support them in, but the real revolution. it was great to hear so much

about simpson/bowles in particular, which is a remarkable, remarkable piece of work to change discussion and perhaps that can serve as an important lift off point for the discussion to go forward. thank you to the panelists and her co-moderator, peter cote. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> now, a hearing on how drilling in the arctic wildlife refuge would affect job creation. the house natural resources committee focused on whether developing a small portion of the refuge for energy production would create jobs and provide

additional revenue for federal governments. this two hour and 40 minutes hearing hears the state's congressional delegation. [inaudible conversations] >> the committee will come to order. the chairman knows the presence of a quorum, which under rule three e. is to members. the canadian natural resources is meeting today to hear testimony on an oversight hearing on anwr, jobs, energy and deficit reduction. under committee rule for us, opening statements are limited to chairman and ranking member and the ranking member has a previous engagement. when he comes, will have to make his opening statement. i would ask unanimous consent that many members who wants an opening statement that will be in the record as long as they submit the close of business today. without objections to work your.

at this time, i will make my opening statement and then we'll go to our distinguished panelists that are here on governor parnell, good to see you. thank you for taking the time. at a time when our nation is coming the staggering national debt, this committee is uniquely positioned to advance solutions to accomplish both these priorities. responsibly for america's i'm sure not share energy resources will create millions of new jobs and generate billions of dollars into revenue. without a doubt, anwr is the greatest new opportunity for federal land. no single energy product in america can produce more jobs and do more to reduce the debt. as i stated two weeks ago, i believe this committee working to find $1.5 trillion in budget savings should embrace open in anwr. the joint committee should act on anwr and attacks energy

resources resources across the board. there is bipartisan support for this in congress now is the time to take over this job creating deficit reduction resource. section 10 of two of anwr was deliberately and intentionally reserved for the purpose of energy production in 1980 by the congress and by president jimmy carter. it is not wilderness and it contains 10.4 billion barrels of oil according to some conservative estimates. while anwr is 19 million acres toto, a plan developed in less than 500,000 acres with provide access to the majority of treating aids resources. this means we can harvest potential of anwr by using less than 3% of its total acreage. producing as much oil would generate substantial revenue through the scene in royalties. according to the congressional

research service, it could generate between over the life of the project 150 billion to nearly $300 billion. i want to emphasize that this revenue is just from leasing and royalties. it does include the cumulative economic impacts from cheney's energy resources. for example, new energy project in state spending and new jobs in construction, transportation and manufacturing sectors. we just need more people contributing to our economy and paying taxes. to improve south of economists and government budgets at the local, state and federal levels, allowing energy production and anwr is an investment in the u.s. economy were several hundred billions of dollars. we are here today to take an honest and fair look at anwr resources than what potential they hold her country in terms of jobs, revenue and economic growth. we are searching for real solutions to imation's problem. unfortunately, there are those who automatically say no.

no to job creation and deficit reduction no matter what the advances in technology he could do think that's an important part when they look at anwr or how faulted footprint with e. the witness called to task before the committee exemplified this point. the majority has indicted real people who live and work in alaska. we have a track driver that will testify. a tribal leader that will testify, labor union representatives and of course we have the bipartisan alaska congressional delegation and we have diary about the governor of alaska. on the other side, unfortunately, the majority has chosen to witnesses that both live in washington d.c. now i just have to ask the rhetorical question. which do you think moore represents the wants and needs of those that are here because

it is. given the nation's jobless rate in the growing debt and deficit is time to move forward and create thousands of jobs and generate links of dollars in federal revenue by harnessing energy potential of anwr. and with that, as i said earlier, the ranking member, distinguished ranking member has neither engagement he just couldn't be here. when he comes, will allow him to make a statement. so what that, i want to introduce the first pin of witnesses. we have two thirds of it. we have the junior senator from alaska, senator begich, thank you for being here. and our colleagues on the senate, senator john young. [laughter] that's right. wait, that was really a mistake to get to elevate him. i apologize for that, senator begich. i apologize to governor parnell -- maybe two senators

would be a pretty good deal. >> that the downgrade i can tell you right now. >> i'll be sure to tell senator murkowski that when she comes in. so with that, thank you all for being here. with that, governor parnell, let me introduce you and allow you to make your opening statement. thank you for taking the time this early in the morning and alaska. so governor parnell, you are recognized. >> thank you on the chairman hastings and honorable committee members. i appreciate the opportunity. i welcome this opportunity as well. for the record, my name is sean parnell, governor of the state of alaska. thank you for allowing me a few moments to make the case for american energy production and why anwr is a good investment for a nation, when we could no longer afford to ignore. i would first like to recognize chairman hastings. thank you for efforts to remove unnecessary roadblocks to

economic growth. thank you for the tiny investment coming to our state. in alaska, we set a goal to increase the throughput of the trans-alaska to $1 billion a day to current levels of 550,000 barrels a day. at best other governors to set increasing production goals as well. this will help grow our nation's economy, for energy safety or and more energy independent. reaching this goal of a million euros per day through taps will take work between the federal government and the state of alaska. the forces comes to create jobs and grow our economy and boil it down to one simple truth, more american oil and gas production means jobs and jobs translates into stable communities and a strong nation. beyond the beltway, americans believe our nation faces an almost insurmountable debt burden, leading some to ask if it's even possible to pay it down.

many thoughtful americans are reminded nearly $15 trillion in federal debt and we are deeply concerned about the future of our great nation. and yet, we can regain our economic spreading through producing more american energy. america's work force winds. family friend, job creators i'm in the federal government wins for revenue. look at the states doing relatively well in this economic downturn. they are america's major energy producers and alaska is one of those states. if we hold back from contributing more affordable energy to other americans they federal regulators who want to keep federal lands off limits to oil and gas exploration. america is blessed with natural resources, both renewable and nonrenewable. we need them on right now. this transition to renewables cannot take place all at once. it's like going from first gear to fifth gear. you risk solving the engine of our economy by starting at

power. some of our nation's richest oil reserves exist along the coastal plain within anwr. it's accessible, extractable in oil production and wildlife and anwr are compatible. oil from anwr would help u.s. demand for the next 25 years or longer. responsible development of anwr would create hundreds of thousands of jobs across our nation in virtually every state because of secure supply of petroleum could create demand for goods and services and lower the cost of doing business. as you know, the u.s. imports over 65% of our nation's annual petroleum needs. these imports cost more than $150 billion a year to our economy. that figure does not include the military cost and the human cost of imported oil, which are truly incalculable. so what is this resource are called anwr? the u.s. geological survey estimates the amount of technically recoverable oil

beneath the anwr coastal plain ranges between 5.7 billion in nearly 16 billion-barrel oils. the plane could produce a tenure sustained rate of 1 million barrels per day. anwr is a 19 million-acre national wildlife refuge. this national refuge is approximately the size of the state of south carolina. however, exploration and production can come from only a small part of anwr known as the coastal plain. the coastal plain was designated by congress as the chairman said in 1980 as requiring special study to determine its oil and gas potential in the effects of development on the irony. in 1987, the department of the interior recommended development today's knowledge he ensures that the print for development and anwr could be less than 2000 acres. approximately half the size of andrews air force base. think about that. half the size of andrews air force base in landmasses size of

california. technology now allows for 0% impact application through ice roads, ice pads in the late. protecting the environment is as important to alaskans and perhaps more important than to all americans. this great land of their home. we have to be good stewards of air, land and sea to live here. most of the year the coastal plain is frozen. it is though biological it tvd. experience shows seasonal restrictions and other environmental stipulations can be used to protect caribou during their six-week season every summer. appropriate restrictions can also protect birds and fish. our experience with north slope fields if it can be done. ..

is designed to flow at low rates. 550,000 barrels per day, the risk of clogs and corrosion increase. the very real possibility of a shutdown is of urgent concern. bringing a production from anwr and other alaskan fields is critical to preserve this valuable piece of our nation's infrastructure. without increase production, the transit off the pipeline is at risk and our economy is at greater risk as is our national security. with a oil from anwr and the

trans-alaskan pipeline it will be feasible to develop other marginal deals that otherwise might not be economic. it is all about growing jobs in our economy and about keeping america safe. coastal plain of anwr is america's best bet for the discovery of significant oil and gas reserves in north america. many economic benefits will result. not the least of which are the federal revenues that would be the billions of dollars. when the reserve of alaska oil locked in the ground makes no sense. america needs jobs and our in our economy to jumpstart that a slow government cannot provide. if the federal government persists in blocking oil development in alaska it could mean the dismantling of the alaska pipeline and the stranding of every last bit of oil that exists in our arctic. or many americans out of work and struggling to make ends meet, federal policy and blocking out oil development only deepens the lives. in alaska the federal administration is blocked

expression anwr and the npra in his delayed exploration offshore. when it comes to anwr, we have heard people say will not impact the price of fuel now because it will take too long to bring on line but they have been saying that for 20 years and that is a disingenuous argument. is time to reduce dependence on oil from unstable, and free and unfriendly regimes of the world. let's bring anwr oil to america and decreased the trade deficit. bring anwr oil to american increase american jobs. bring anwr oil to america and reduce the federal debt with revenues and taxes from a war vibrant economy. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you very much governor and i know that it is 6:00 in alaska and 10:00 here in a thank you very much for being up this early. thank you very much for your testimony and on a personal note i very much enjoy the trip i made to the north slope along with you and congressman young

and certainly reaffirmed what i thought was up there and it showed me, three emphasized to me what you said about the environmental concerns that everybody has taken so thank you for your testimony. >> you are welcome, thank you. >> now it will go to our distinguished panel, the congressional delegation from alaska and we will start with the jr. senator, since the senior senator isn't here. senator begich you are recognized. >> thank you chairman hastings for an opportunity to testify before your committee on an issue you will find drawn strong support from all the delegation regards to anwr and most alaskans. i was born and raised in alaska inhis issue has been around all my life and the fact is i am honored and proud to be here with my colleagues to talk about this issue. today's hearing is focused on a timely topic. with gasoline prices averaging $3.65 in the lower 48 and unemployment around 9% alaska is

here to help. we can offer relief to consumers at the pump, provide well-paying jobs in alaska in the lower 48 and helped our fifth team trillion dollar deficit. for oil and gas resources of the coastal plain of the national refuge is an enormous and conveniently located 65 miles east of the prudhoe bay reserves and infrastructure. the latest estimates from usds are for about 10 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil. of course any natural gas bound only will help economics of the proposed alaska pipeline which could also be a huge job creator for our nation. over the years there have been competing estimates of how many jobs in alaska and in the lower 48 the supply chain that the development would create. needless to say all of them are at least in the tens of thousands of jobs across this nation. i am proud to co-sponsor senator murkowski's l. that would allow

responsible oil and gas development in the arctic refuge. today extended reach drilling technology has shrunk drilling pad platforms dramatically. from the 1970s it covers 65 acres that now less than 10 acres. drilling cuttings and mother now disposed of by injection wells. while development always will have impacts we can do a good job of responsible producing more domestic oil which promotes our economic and national security. i know today's hearing is about anwr but i also want to make sure we don't lose sight of the tremendous potential elsewhere in alaska. that is a potential i believe we are close to realizing. the usds estimates 26 billion barrels of oil and more than 100 pcf of natural gas technically recoverable in the chukchi and beaufort. all of this means we are looking at a lot of jobs. the university of of alaska institute for social economic

research estimates 54,000 jobs can be created from alaskans working in the beaufort in chukchi sea including all the support in manufacturing jobs stretching from alaska to the lower 48. over the 50 year lifespan of these fields, this means 154 billion let me say that again, $154 billion in payroll and 200 ilium plus and federal treasury. the science cruise alone employed over 400 folks in the region. we finally have sustainable momentum on exploring these resources. i hope that show in expiration process in the beaufort in chukchi will be drilling its moratoria wells off the alaska arctic coast for the first time in nearly 20 years. conocophillips and statoil on the heels of planning for 2013 and 2014 season. show received approval of the

beaufort exploration planned a few weeks ago, just yesterday shell receives an air permit, subject to nellis committee is worked on for one of their main drill ships and support fleet. hopefully chukchi plan will be approved when the court except the supplemental eis later in the month of october. finally the national petroleum reserve. alaska npra can also play an important role in keeping enough oil in the trans-alaska pipeline to operate economically while development on the other resources precede. even pushing administration to solve procedural issues with conocophillips, cb five development and the npra. we are hopeful a breakthrough will fund the direct construction jobs were for several years to follow. mr. chairman simply put, alaska has enormous researches, anwr, npra, chukchi come beaufort, to offer a nation hungry for affordable energy and good-paying jobs.

thank you for the opportunity to detail many opportunities in alaska in this country. thank you. >> thank you very much senator begich for your testimony and as they mention what i was up there certainly what you said was reaffirmed when i went up there and made that trip. that -- with that i recognize the senior senator from alaska, senator murkowski. i should tell you that i inadvertently elevated congressman young to a senator and he immediately disavow that. [laughter] senator murkowski you are recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman and to my colleagues in the members of the committee i offer my apologies for being tardy. i was off campus. it did allow me the opportunity that to hear governor parnell's comments on the radio and to hear yours, senator begich. i appreciate the level of detail that has been laid before the committee this morning in terms of alaska's great attentional.

not only the resources, the revenues and the jobs that are created. we know the story well and so the opportunity to be able to share that story with our colleagues is important so mr. chairman i appreciate you scheduling this hearing this morning. i appreciate your efforts to calm north to see for yourself and help us at dance this dari important cause. and as much as i am happy to be here to give my thoughts, i will suggest to you that it is unfortunate that we are still having this discussion about whether to develop the 1002 area in alaska. i think it should be more appropriate that we discuss when and how to develop this incredible national resource. i want to say a few words about the fish and wildlife service

is, so-called comprehensive conservation plan or the ccp. as a threshold issue, i find it both misguided and as an alaskan, somewhat insulting when the federal agency continues to look for ways to lock up additional wilderness in alaska when one alaska doesn't want it, and when the law plainly says no more. it couldn't be more clear. the three separate editions and the alaska national interest lands sue dan the conservation act made congress is intent on this matter very clear and the other federal agencies can't help but keep going down the same path towards more wilderness review and for what? the draft ccp -- . >> senator can you put the microphone a little bit closer? >> the draft ccp cites a symbolic value of the refuge and states that quote, aliens who will never step foot in the

refuge find satisfaction aspiration and even hope and just knowing it exists, quote. well mr. chairman i would suggest to this committee that millions more would do well to find jobs. i am not sure who is in charge in finding the value of satisfaction and inspired by knowing that something exists somewhere specially set against the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal revenues that we are consciously foregoing by this exercise. the draft ccp seems very much at odds with itself dionne suggest that. after going through the legal gymnastics to try to skirt the no more clause so considering they wilderness he was back on the table, technologist, although begrudgingly, that the 1002 area contains almost 40,000 acres of land that are not even suitable for wilderness designation, even if such a

designation where legal. to compare that number, you have 40,000 acres within the 1002 area which the administration concedes is not eligible for wilderness protection, with a mere 2000 acres which congressman young's legislation and my senate bill would authorize for development within that same area. keep in mind a 1002 is subject to exploratory drilling and all of the motorized equipment that attends to that activity in the past and yet somehow or other we are being asked to believe the arrogance silo bull argument that drilling now would cause the area to lose its character coming even as technology has improved in ways congress could not have contemplated when writing the law. this year we had unrefuted testimony in the senate energy committee which spoke to the truly amazing technology advancements in seismic acquisition data, the directional drilling, enhanced oil recovery, specific application to the 1002 area all

of which would land substantial reassurances of a minimally intrusive development program with no lasting impacts. if we were only allowed to access it. members of this committee, here we are with the federal deficits eventually broke, fighting all day every day over every scrap spending cuts in revenue we ever conceived with a simple delivery on a decade-old promise to grant literally hundreds of billions in federal revenue without so much as raising a tax or cutting a single program. but instead of looking for responsible paths forward or accessing this resource, the fish and wildlife service looks for ways to lock it up. so i would suggest to this committee that we are witnessing a growth misappropriation of resources. been an agency's response to our nation's current dead end jobs crisis is to seek more ways to twist the law just to keep money buried in the ground, our

priorities mr. chairman seemed to have spun out of the realm of reality. as my colleagues have documented in terms of jobs, the resources and the revenues, alaska has so much to offer. we just need the ability to be able to contribute. i thank you for the opportunity to be before the committee and want to pledge my support towards this effort in working with you, congressman young and senator begich. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you very much senator murkowski for your testimony and last but certainly not least, we will go to our colleague on the committee, and a colleague in the house, the gentle from -- gentleman from alaska mr. young. >> i want to thank my colleagued governor excellent testimony. everything they said is in my statement and i will submit it for the record but i would like to emphasize two things. this is long overdue. this committee has passed this

bill 11 times and it has died in the senate. we have two senators to help get a pass. whether the president will sign it i do not know but it is said about jobs, this oil 66 miles away from existing pipeline. we could probably delivered if we had an emergency and in fact do it in this congress has said so in three years. much better than anyplace else in an area which read them before. we know what the challenges are. we know the results and the idea now we just think about this, last year we spent $333 billion overseas. those are dollars of the working-class man. over the years we have actually spent $3.4 trillion spending dollars overseas to buy a $3.4 trillion from the working man. this is unjust and uncalled for. and war itself is a large -- i have been there and i have trampled a lot of the areas but

the area which 1002 was and is basically and you will hear from witnesses today that live there, hear from people that work there. you will hear from people that know how important it is as far as the jobs go. this is not the pristine area that is people talk about. i think if i can say one thing that most resentful thing i can think about is it is just not a loss for america. it is lost for the people of kaktovik. we gave kaktovik approximately 93,000 acres of land for the social and economic well-being which is right in middle of anwr on the edge of them are. yet they can't develop it. they can't have a way to develop their oil on their land because they can't get out. they are landlocked and that is sort of twisted tongue approach. for the environmental community who have delayed this for many years. but you also on this delay up treated a better way of drilling that will put -- the foot and a

small from when we had prudhoe bay and prudhoe bay was discovered and we developed in 1973. actually 1973 would with pass the film produced the first barrel of oil. we did that because we had an emergency. people were shooting one another and by the way gas was 39 cents a gallon, but there was no gas. now it is nearly $4 a gallon. if you want to boost its economy ladies and gentlemen and members of this committee, the listening audience, think about it. we have our oil, we could control the price of spikes and probably drop the price of oil. if we drop the price of oil 1 dollar that will be a 3000-dollar per family's ability to spend that money on something other than gasoline. now i know some of the environmentalists say we have to transfer cells into another form of energy. that as well and good and i support all forms of energy. yes we have had some great finds in the americas. there's a chance the americas

could be i would would say self-sufficient. i'm talking about brazil and venezuela and mexico. colombia. but their countries too render question. to have this oil available with an infrastructure in place is dead wrong and i'm asking this committee and the president to pass not only this bill but let's get our country on the move again. let's put our people to work. let's not be dependent on those people that are not friendly to us. it is time that this congress acts and solve their problems and get the show on the road. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. young. i very much appreciate your testimony and i might add your passion and i think i can say that for all of you from alaska. i know the history of what you have gone through and senator murkowski i think you put in! mack on this. we should be figure out a way to get it done.

senator begich thank you for your testimony and coming from alaska thank you to governor parnell for participating in this. i know from my disk, i really believe that there is a national security aspect to energy production in this country and when we have the potential resources in one of these 50 states, it and is in many respects criminal we don't utilize that so i thank you for your testimony and i certainly am committed to making the country, country less dependent on foreign energy resources. thank you for being here and i will dismiss the panel and governor thank you thank you very much for being here. >> we will call the next panelist and is this one vacates the table. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> i want to thank the second panel. we have with us mr. fenton rexford subwindows the councilmember from the city of tobit which i had the pleasure to participate in a town hall gathering and i appreciated that. the secretary of treasury of laborers local 492 out of fairbanks, mr. carey hall that i showed drucker for carlisle transportation system out of a great alaska and we have mr. david jenkins, vice president for governor political

affairs for republicans for environmental protection out of washington d.c. and mr. gene karpinski resident of the league of conservation voters out of washington d.c.. mr. rexford, let me go over -- i didn't say this with our distinguished representatives from alaska because the timeframe but when the red light or when the green light comes on that means you have five minutes and when the yellow light comes on that means you have one minute and when the red light comes on it mean for five minutes have expired. now your full statement will appear in the record and i would like you to try to confine your remarks to that five minutes a week and have time for questions and answers. i know with the interest shown by this committee on the subject i think we will probably have a lot of that. mr. rexford you are recognized for five minutes in thank you for being here. >> thank you very much honorable chairman hastings and members of the committee.

for the record my name is fenton rexford and i'm currently the tribe or administrator for the native village of kaktovik and a member of kaktovik both of which i'm representing today. i also served previously as the president of the kaktovik corporation, landowner and 2000 acres of privately owned land which congressman young talked about briefly about being refugees within the national wildlife refuge. i was born and raised in the village of kaktovik and i intend to grow old there. by the way kaktovik is the only community within the boundaries of the arctic national wildlife refuge and i can compare what life was in kaktovik prior to our development and the discovery of oil and gas in 1968. and our quality of life, we have today because of my personal experiences. i've spent many days and years

listing to the people of kaktovik into the residence across the north slope. and also the vast majority support responsible development of the coastal plain of anwr, also known as 1002. i am very happy that this committee is proposing to open the coastal plain of anwr for oil and gas exploration and development and limit the activity to only 2000 acres, less than .02% of anwr. we all know that the coastal plain and the entire national wildlife arctic national wildlife refuge he remains extremely important not only to the people of kaktovik in the north slope borough but also the state in the united states of america. and we would not favor development on the coastal plain unless we were confident that development can occur without jeopardizing our way of life.

the people of kaktovik use a lens for many years for many thousands of years, hundreds of years and consider it being wilderness is an insult to our people there because we have footprints. we have cabins and we have places that we store or hunt, and they are all over. every 25 miles before the education was mandated to go to the villages or to the hub of the areas we had every 25 miles there were cabins and that is how long it took for dog sleds to travel. so with that we would not -- of the coastal plains because that would jeopardize their way of life because we lived there and we want to live that way. the people of kaktovik use the land in and around and work to support our traditional lifestyle which i just dated, the tundra in the beaufort sea

are our gardens and we respect and live off of them. as such we could not support the development of the coastal plain and it would really adversely affect our traditional way of life. responsible will development of anwr's coastal plain is a matter of self-determination of our people and we would like for the congress to open up anwr so we are private landowners and we should have the opportunity like any private landowners to use the land for benefit. that will benefit us and enable our region to continue to access services taken for granted by many people in the lower 48. over nearly 40 years we have watched the world develop and prudhoe bay in the cost of this my people know industry and wildlife can coexist. based on our experience, we have strong confidence on the north slope borough's ability to protect our national wildlife

and environment through the wildlife department and resources from adverse impacts by permitting agencies in the planning department that takes care of planning and zoning. particularly if decisions are made after considering local input regarding substantive resources such as the caribou and polar bear, responsible and more development means my people will continue to have access to running water and flush toilets. 11 years ago in the year 2000 we were able to have running water and to be able to flush the toilet, so that is a real benefit for our people for their health. the responsible development also means access to local schools, health care facilities and are factional fire stations and the police department and for many of my generation, our only option for school was beyond eighth grade.

i know i don't have much time, but we really support the development and i thank you mr. chairman for allowing me the opportunity and chairman

in 1975 at the age of 20 developing the trans-alaska pipeline prudhoe bay and other satellite fields. i have stayed active on issues that surround develop in any of the structures pension from the industry and the workers i represent in the field today. i come here today not to be used as a political foil against our president and wish to avoid the appearance of political posturing this seems to be prevalent during the election year in both houses and i'm also not a supporter of the drill baby, drill mentality or similarly empty platitudes as all oil and gas development in alaska should be measured, planned, well thought out projects that are penciled out and sustainable and aggressively

engineered environmentally using the cutting-edge scientific knowledge he. we lived there. it is our home. that being said, i firmly believe that the development of the arctic national wildlife refuge can meet this criteria. i don't want to engage or argue on the weight or lack of weight of the merit of voluminous mountains of fluff and rhetoric on both sides of this charge issue. with you choose to believe it to be the serengeti playing of america or cold desolate godforsaken miscue unvested wasteland there is no all-encompassing absolute that can describe anwr. the truth is it is neither of two and fall somewhere in the middle. picture the anwr debate has not changed in 20 years however the frame surrounding the picture has. we are at a time in america where economy needs an employment jumpstart in energy costs continue to escalate from foreign dependence on oil me can our economy and business is vulnerable in a way that i personally am uncomfortable with. we seemed to be caught up in

contemplating ardent process permitting and politics at a time when it is obvious to most we have oil in alaska and develop and will generate thousands of needed jobs in the leverage and impact of foreign producers could have on us would lessen. instead, an action trumps common and legitimate need. balances consideration against the possible environmental impacts development could have on anwr and i personally of wit nist herds of caribou gather here on pipelines and modules and prudhoe bay to enjoy the only shade in hundreds of miles or to rub up against the pipe to shake the mosquitoes and flies surrounding them. that there be no doubt even with improved directional drilling in using all the tools available to them there would be some small impact. the minimal acreage needed for development and anwr would be a great opportunity for the environmental community and the oil industry to work closely together to show what american technology and ingenuity can do. where better to provide a gold standard for oil and gas

development? i also know that varied opinions of the eskimo people and respect those opinions of some other leaders. some of their members are my members as well and many of them don't believe they are responsible development of anwr will be detrimental to the culture of the lifestyle they enjoyed. there've been numerous geologic studies done over the years in regards to the amount of oil and gas that anwr holds. they speak for themselves. using the most conservative estimates on the amount of the reserves, the amount of energy would take to produce for our country tens of thousands of good-paying jobs that would generate in alaska washington, oregon and many other states it is time to take another look at both in front to risk versus the economic reward. i am a strong proponent of alternative energy but also a realist in terms of the timelines associated with developing it to the point of adequately offsetting the energy needed by most of our petrochemical-based industries. i'm addressing today's need and political action to offset our

dwindling energy reserves in the next five to 10 years by the lamport and the need for jobs today. another study will simply not equate to the leadership we need to see on this issue. please act in thank you for your time. >> thank you very much mr. sharp for your testimony now i'm pleased to introduce mr. carey hall who is in the eyes road trucker and we will leave it at that. mr. hall you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. my name is carey hall. i live and work in alaska. i am a truck driver by occupation and work on the ice roads, hauling freight to and from the north slope of alaska. i am an employee of carlisle transportation. it is an alaskan owned and-based trucking company. we have more than 600 employees and we have been in business for 30 years. we move freight all over the united states and united states

and specialize in movement of goods and equipment specifically for the oil and gas industry. i am not a gas expert. i am a truck driver. chart drivers literally and figuratively drive our nation's economy. i see the flow of goods and demand for products, services and workers that the industry creates. i have been asked to be here to give you my view on the impact of opening anwr. i would like to explain why i further believe oil and gas development of alaska is crucial to my well-being, to my family and to our nation. the oil and gas industry work is the cornerstone of our business. it is not contracting vendor such as trucking companies but to all of our citizens in the state of alaska and as a nation. it produces jobs, lots of jobs and we need jobs. prudhoe bay is operated above and beyond what national

predictions have indicated. more recoverable and longer duration periods due to technology and efficiency keeping these fields productive. has been a huge goldmine for jobs, tax relief and economic development in alaska and nearly every other state in our nation as well. the need for contracts for supplies and services purchased by the oil industry is without a doubt is touching every single corner of our nation. every state in the nation has been drawn to provide goods and services for over 40 years. this has been a benefit economically to every state. i know because i work at. incredible lessons of environmental stewardship have also been realized. the ice roads are built and heavily utilized and then they disappear. one would never know that they were ever there.

the creation of this infrastructure has allowed -- to develop and ultimately supplying our nation above and beyond the initial prediction in the early 70s. however we are seeing less and less of the pipeline. these are thinning out. we don't have the free flow we once had and what we are hauling is what is already there. new development must be brought on line elsewhere. anwr is crucial to keeping oil in our pipeline. the pipeline needs to run at a certain output to even operate. this has more oil potential than any spot in north america. importing oil to the united states the single largest contributors to our national debt. opening anwr is the right step in responsible management of our

national debt. no money comes from the federal government to develop anwr. yet the rewards will be plentiful. our nation needs her energy and we have the ability to make that happen. the history channel has done in alaska a huge favor. the show is not about me and not about the company i work for. it is about a remote rigorous and regulated industries supplying our nation with a much-needed commodity. those roads are the basis for my job. good long-term, high-paying jobs. america needs more of these and we can have them but anwr is not a solution. and wars about careful planning and a prior mental stewardship and looking to the future. alaska will be overwhelming to support this cause. thank you for inviting me to speak and i believe willing to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you very much mr. hall for your testimony now i'm

pleased to recognize mr. david jenkins vice president or government and political affairs for the republicans for environmental protection. mr. jenkins you are recognized for five minutes. turn on the microphone if you would. thank you. >> good morning. is the time david jenkins vice president of government and political affairs were republicans for environmental protection. a i project the opportunity to testify today. representing a grassroots organization based on the idea edge of idea that conservation is conservative. our members recognize that natural resource stewardship requires a balanced approach. they see oil drilling in prudhoe bay and other parts of alaska's north slope and they come to the same conclusion the eisenhower administration came to 50 years ago. redacting the arctic refuge represents balance. was 95% of the north slope's coastal plain available for development, it is hard to argue that stripping away protections for that last remaining 5% constitutes a balanced approach.

the great conservative political theorist russell kirk challenge conservatives to hoard what remains of natural wealth against the fierce appetites of modern life. the purpose of this hearing today is to explore claims that opening up the arctic refuge to oil and gas development would create tens of thousands of jobs and generate hundreds of billions in new federal revenue. one source of these projections is a recent study commissioned by the american petroleum institute and conducted by wood-mackenzie. protecting jobs and revenue from developing unproven oil and gas reserves is highly suspect due to the speculative nature of such reserves. for example the u.s. geological survey recently revised its estimates for the npr a npra downward by over 90%. beyond the amount of oil, there are many other factors such as the future price of oil and availability of oilfields less costly to develop. even under wood-mackenzie's assumptions the job projections

seem outside the bounds of reality. their projections suggest alaska alone there would be an additional 60,000 jobs within five years. nearly four times the number of oil and gas jobs that exist a wide today. are we to believe that drilling this last 5% of the coastal plain will produce magnitudes more oil and gas workers than the industry is employing in all the rest of the state combined? equally problematic are the federal revenue projections being tossed around. the revenue projection rain cited on this committee's web site of $150 billion to $296 billion assumes the discovery of oil and amounts of better at the lower and the probability. is not fiscally responsible to promote such speculative revenue as an answer to our deficit problem. their projections appear based on 2008 crs reports that assume the corporate tax rate of 33%. i hope this is the main members of this committee are committed to such a high corporate tax

rate. s/crs and wood-mackenzie report also assume oil prices will be around $125 a barrel. that is $40 more than today but without any resulting impact on demand. the odds of all of us going out to me the job and revenue projections are probably about the same as me winning the lottery. there is however a kernel of truth in the high oil price estimate. even assuming the highest resource estimates, arctic refuge production would not significantly impact oil prices. the ministry to the eia made that point before this committee in march. it is also worth noting that increases in alaskan oil production do not have to, the expense of the arctic refuge. there are more than 5 billion barrels of proven oil reserves on the north slope of available for production. 30 billion barrels of heavy oil at prudhoe bay and millions of acres of leased lands not yet developed and significant shell oil formations.

these facts undermine any claim that the future of the trans-alaska pipeline will be in jeopardy without refuge drilling. ultimately however this is really discussion that should be more about values than numbers. there are places across our nation that possess unique ecological spiritual and societal values. if cole were found tomorrow beneath el el capitan in yosemite national park, would lead lasted to smithereens or would be passed along to future generations unimpaired? the arctic refuge is no less of an iconic natural resource. the refuge lands were protected by the eisenhower administration and its an impact landscape that stretches from the brooks range to the beaufort sea. the refuge coastal plain is its biological hearts and it is disingenuous to claim that oil exploration can be done there with minimal impact. as i conclude, i would ask you to keep in mind traditionally conservative values such as prudence, humility, reference and stewardship.

kirkkurt campbell president reagan described as a profit of american conservatism warrant, the modern spectacle is vanished of fannish forest and eroded lands, wasted petroleum and ruthless mining is evidence of what an age without veneration does to itself and its successors. we are ready have enough reminders that we live in an age without veneration. we should not let exploitation of the arctic refuge become just another one. thank you. >> thank you very much for your testimony mr. jenkins and last we will recognize mr. gene karpinski, the league of conservation voters. >> thank you free time and appreciate the opportunity to testify before this panel and the president of the league of conservation voters and proud to say that organization has a number of current republicans on this board including cherie boehlert who is serving this great body and our honorary

chairman teddy roosevelt used to be the chair of our board and rockefeller as well. and all those folks on our board and many others for years and years and years who have opposed drilling in the wildlife refuge. it is too bad we are having this conversation yet again today and mr. chairman i agree with something you said which was quote reducing our debt will require creative thinking and new approaches. >> this is neither. is not creative created and it is not no. i've been working on these issues for 30 years. i've been working in this town for 30 years, more than 30 years and one of my main goals is to make sure quite frankly that we do not drill in the arctic national wildlife refuge. it is a special place for special beauty and it makes no sense to drill there. i've been there. is an incredible place. would she keep her hands off.

yes i agree we need creative thinking and new approaches but this is not that. my testimony to put detail in some these points i want to make a few points. there a number of reports being thrown around many of which are government reports, somewhat churches baseless and unsubstantiated reports. there's a lot of comments about a report by wood-mackenzie. we cannot guarantee the fairness completeness or accuracy of the opinions in this report? that is their footnote to their report. then we learned it is funded by your industry. funded by the legislature with day in their footnote say we don't guarantee the accuracy. that is not the way to make decisions on policy so sadly it is baseless and obsessing cheated by their own data. couple of specifics. let's be clear we need more jobs in this country. we need more money to reduce the deficit that there is a better way. they make all kinds of claims about how much money will be raised at their best on false

assumptions of how much oil doubles the conservative estimates, the price-per-barrel is not square with the facts, the tax rate base for oil companies does not square with the facts and the assume it would be split with the feds and the state which is not the latest way it is today. a number of facts that they say don't square with the reality. they also claim a huge number of jobs created. there's no doubt some jobs would be created by destroying this beautiful place. we are against that but if you look at the number jobs they claim, according to the department of labor, under 17,000 jobs have been created for the entire 95% of the north slope that is targeting develop so additional jobs suggests again makes no sense. finally mr. chairman there is a better way. we need more jobs and we need to cut the deficit. there a lot of good folks out there who help support this. mr. markey's lead an effort to increase royalties for drilling offshore.

that would bring in tens of billions of dollars and 3 billion over the next 25 years and many proposals on the table to cut oil subsidies which will bring over $40 billion over the next 10 years. if you want to raise revenue that is rough revenue at the time when the oil companies are making record-breaking profits. nearly $1 trillion. that is where the money is. if you are serious about debt reduction, tax the oil companies more than they are today and take away the subsidies they don't really need. finally many to create more jobs. there many opportunities in the new energy economy to move forward with the wind, solar. not every solar plant works, we know that very well but when solar and efficiency, these are the jobs of future. 2.7 million jobs in that industry. that is the future and we should be there. finally, you could probably argue maybe if you thought there might be oil like david said in

yosemite orrin rock mountain national park or inside him or her whole set of places but we hope you and we would say now that makes no sense to drill in those kinds of places. some places are too special, too serious and we should not drill there. we oppose drilling in the arctic national wildlife refuge for all the time we have been around and continue to oppose that and we think that we hope with a partisan support on our side will continue we will continue to win that battle. thank you mr. chair. >> thank you mr. karpinski and thank you all very much for your testimony. we will now begin the round of questioning and i recognize myself for five minutes. i want to make an observation, because we sometimes can't see the forest because of the trees when we talk about american energy. i am very much, and i think probably most people, at least on my side of the aisle, are in favor of an all of the above energy approach. i think the more diversified our

portfolio is of energy production, it is best for the consumers. recognizing always at the end of the day, the market will determine what the consumer is going to buy. now, having said that, in my dishes by the way, my district is a big hydropower producer. is one of the largest wind producers in the country. it is an ear power plant. so i'm familiar with alternative sources of energy. but to ignore the vast potential resources that we have of oil, natural gas and coal doesn't make sense from a standpoint of what is affordable energy. and that is really where the debate ought to be, because alaska is sitting on the potential resources of huge resources that we ought to take advantage. i alluded to this at the end of my opening statement about a national security issue. the world, if we haven't

noticed, is not getting what i would say more and more peaceful, but yet most of the energy is controlled by those that are antagonistic to us. so at some point, and i painfully remember in the 70s when opec turned off this big it. i don't think we want to get ourselves in that situation again and by the way we are importing one third of our crude in the 70s and now we are importing 60 to mr. karpinski you alluded to the fact that the study that you alluded to us by the oil industry. if you are talking about hyperbole you made a statement in your opening statement that we are about to destroy this place. nobody is talking about destroying and anwr and any stretch of the imagination. like mr. fenton or mr. rex

rhodes said he lives there for goodness sake and if anybody should know he would be the one. with that mr. rexford you have had to shorten your or your -- oral statements. >> i appreciate the opportunity mr. chairman. the benefits i want to elaborate more about it, that we all know the infrastructure and prudhoe prudhoe bay is depreciating. the oil that is going through the pipeline is getting less and less. when the north slope borough was formed in 1972, our founding father was very creative when he was in the state legislature -- legislature. he wrote the laws for making a

home rule government and we were able to tax. these tax dollars were able to provide us with schools many of us had to go to chill out oklahoma near norman. many of us had to go to oregon, five miles north of salem. so going many thousands of miles and being away from home at the age of 16, 15 years old, you know, today -- in 1980 to our first graduate from high school was in 1982 and kaktovik so we were able to build schools and able to build clinics, roads, streets, lights and these are fairly recent. many of our villages still need new infrastructure or services. providing services, picking up garbage, paving the streets are making runways. those kinds of things are taken

for granted in the lower 48. the best benefit is to have for the north slope earl would be protecting the wildlife with wildlife department. >> mr. rexford i only have 25 seconds and i want to ask the other to quit this is a very quick question. mr. sharp and mr. hall, just want to ask you one question. you do not work for the oil company, said correct? >> no, don't. >> no sir, don't. >> that is an important point here because the oil industry is a robust industry but it has to have in order to survive a robust subport industry in which he represented their testimony, that support industry that is not factored in many times what the job creation i just want to emphasize that point. next i will recognize the

gentleman from new jersey, mr. holt, for five minutes. mr. faleomavaega for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. i do want to thank you for calling this hearing. very important and timely, and suggest that this has been almost broke in record for the last 20 years that we have been dealing with this issues and a very important issue at that. i am very happy that we have mr. rexford here testifying. i just want to know what are the sentiments of our alaska native tribes towards the ideal of drilling in anwr? >> could you repeat that? >> this may be unfair because you are only representing our tribe. what are the sentiments of the other tribes in alaska concerning the issue of anwr? >> yes, we have heard a lot from the ones over the continental divide and we respect their

opinion. we have lived and worked -- we are neighbors and i wish they would do the same in respect their opinion and have the opportunity to -- again we are locked in. we cannot develop or even touch our land without congress approval. and we are descendents. the vast majority of us on the north slope support opening anwr. 70% of alaskans also support the opening of anwr and developing a. >> thank you. i will consult further with the chairman young concerning this issue. do you know what percentage of oil that the american consumer gets from alaska each year? the total amount of oil that we get, how much comes from alaska? >> 21% and it was as high as 35% at one time but the pipeline dissuade down now and that is

her biggest problem. that is also by the way why are people are being taxed because there paying $4 a gallon for gas now set of $2 a gallon. >> we currently import well over $700 billion worth of imported oil from foreign countries. i understand also we recently held a hearing that from venezuela alone, we purchase over $42 billion a year of oil coming from venezuela alone. a very interesting in terms of that. the alaska pipeline was built in the 1970s. what is the status of the technology from that time until now? has it been proven that the technology was very unsafe for the transportation and the extraction of oil from that time from prudhoe bay until this time or is it been proven that the technology has served very well? in bringing that oil from alaska? does anybody care to comment on

that? maybe i'm asking the wrong panel. go ahead. >> i can try. one thing that strikes me is all the problems that and they're on the north slope with respect to the pipelines. you know the usg usgs wanted talks about oil and the arctic refuge says that those oil pockets are being scattered throughout the whole entire coastal plain. so in order to access that you would have to have quite a spider web of pipelines going across their. back in 2006 we had the big spill up there with the corrosion in the pipeline and there have been a lot of corrosion problems in the pipeline since. at the time of the 2006 bill senator murkowski was exasperated at the senate hearing and she said, for years we have been saying that oil production in alaska is the gold standard, but our faith has been shattered. she said shattered. so here we are a few years later

and everybody is claiming that somehow we are going to be able to develop the arctic national wildlife refuge. somehow with absolutely no impact on think the facts bear that out. >> in fairness to senator murkowski she is not here to comment on this but i just wanted as a matter -- has the technology improved from 30 years ago when we started extracting and transporting the oil coming from alaska? that is my question. >> you bet i would like to answer that. >> please. >> first of all i would like to also add a little comment. it would be a great thing for all of you to come up and see what this gentleman just referred to as the big spill. because you would look at when you would say, this is all there is? we represent the people that cleaned up the big spill. there were some number of work -- weeks or. the russian talked about on the pipeline is more to do with deferred maintenance and engineering which is a whole separate issue.

>> sir, sir, it got 13 seconds left for gus be they correctional drilling for anwr has made the impact -- . >> the biggest importer of oil we get also comes from canada and the way they extract the oil and divided the oil to supply us i really wonder if the technology is the same in terms of how we are applying standards in our country. but mr. chairman my time is up and i thank you. >> i thank you and may i compliment the panel? fenton thank you are coming down. you live there and you say you have 92,000 acres? i thought it was 96. >> it is over 92,000 acres. >> and are the settlement act you are allowed to develop that under your social and economic well-being but you can't do it unless you have the ability to move the oil. >> it has to be the act of congress, but the house and senate. spat on think it has to be an act of congress on you. it has to have a right to move the oil and we will tab