you've been watching booktv, 48 hours of book programming beginning saturday morning at 8 eastern through monday morning at 8 eastern. nonfiction books all weekend, every weekend right here on c-span2. >> here's a look at what's coming up this morning on c-span2. next, "the communicators" talks with consumer electronics association is president and ceo gary shapiro on his group's recommendations to the joint deficit reduction committee. in about a half hour, a house subcommittee to examine legislation replacing the secondary mortgage market, and later, the senate returns at 2 p.m. eastern for a period of general speeches followed later by debate on a measure that would repeal a 3% withholding mandate on payments to government contractors. >> this week on "the communicators," gary shapiro of the consumer electronics association talks about proposals with many technology

companies think will help the u.s. economy. >> host: well, recently a group of technology associations sent a letter to the deficit reduction committee asking for certain measures to help strengthen the u.s. economy. gary shapiro is chairman and ceo of the consumer electronics association. he is our guest this week on "the communicators" to talk about some of those issues that tech companies see as vital to the u.s. economy. mr. shapiro, one of your first recommendations was an update of the tax system, and in your letter to the deficit reduction committee you write that, first and foremost, america's corporate tax system is globally uncompetitive. and you go on to say that we -- the u.s -- should take immediate steps to encourage u.s. businesses to repatriate the approximate $1 trillion in accumulated foreign earnings that are locked outside of our country. >> guest: absolutely, peter. thanks for having me. you know, as president of for

association, we have 2,000 technology companies, and many of them do business overseas and have money which they just leave there because the united states has this policy of, first of all, having the second highest corporate tax in the developed world and, second of all, taxing all international sales which almost no other developed country does. so we pay so much. so every company then is almost forced to leave their revenue overseas, and they invest it there, they build factories there, they hire people. it makes no sense. if they can bring it back here and be taxed at a lower rate, it would spur the economy and not cost the treasury a penny. >> host: what tomb when you say territorial tax system in your letter? >> guest: territorial means almost every other developed country in the world you pay taxes on the country in the country you make it. the u.s. companies are very anti-competitive and literally forces them to leave their money

overseas. and this is over $1 trillion of money that's parked overseas. it doesn't help the u.s. economy. so what the thought is here when we need some economic stimulus, we could have this money come back here, pump back into the economy at a lower tax rate, say 5 or 10%, and even tie it to jobs or capital investment. and that makes sense because the territorial tax, the higher tax rate together are a deadly arsenal which makes us noncompetitive as a country. >> host: brent done sassow is a technology reporter with "the hill," and he is joining us this week on "the communicators." >> host: thank you. senator levin had a report last month about a similar policy that was enacted in 2004, and according to this report, this didn't actually help much a lot of the companies that took advantage of the policy ended up using the money to increase executive pay rather than investing. so is this, would this be different than what happened in 2004? >> guest: well, brandon, that report is one of many reports and, certainly, the unions are

opposing this for reasons that i can't figure out because it could be tied to more jobs, it could be tied to capital investment. it's an easy thing to do. they're trying to position this as a tax giveaway because it's scored in government as if those companies are going to eventually pay tax on that money. they won't. they're not going to bring it back to the united states, and the important thing is we recognize these companies are american companies, they're making money, it's a good thing. they're owned by mostly u.s. shareholders, and we should want them to succeed. it's very difficult to determine whether a company's putting something back into a dividend, an investment or hiring. congressman shelley berkeley, a democrat, other democrats and republicans are now proposing that type of policy change. >> host: well, mr. shapiro, wouldn't this be, though, another piece of piecemeal legislation rather than an overhaul of the tax system? >> guest: that's true, and that's one of the concerns i've

heard suggested, we want to deal with long term. this is a short-term economic fix that makes sense. we do need the long-term thing which is the territorial push. let's change the whole tax system so you just pay on the profits you make in the country you make them, and let's deal with all the other issues, the second highest tax rate in the world, the complexity of the corporate tax rate, the perceived unfairness of it, the loophole, all the business giveaways that's pretty important. >> host: a little bit more on the tax issue, this is another recommendation made to the committee, we must simplify the code and strengthen incentives for job-creating activities such as the r&d tax credit and transition to a competitive territorial tax system. but go back to the r&d. why has that never been made permanent? >> guest: well, that's a political issue, frankly, because it's temporary and that way the members of congress can always come back to the tech community and say, we'll do this for you. it's unfortunate because it

doesn't lay the predictability you need as any business planner for the long-term future. you know, but if there was total tax overhaul, i would bet most tex company would say we don't need the r&d tack credit because there's a more rational tax system here. it's not something my association has ever taken a position on. we've never asked the government for any money for ourselves in any way including the dtv transition, so i'm a little uncomfortable talking about it, but i realize why other individual company and associations want it. >> host: well, obviously, this letter was to the supercommittee, and their job is to reduce the deficit, so i'm wondering how measures that might reduce taxes would, in fact, be something the supercommittee should take up. >> guest: well, in fact, we're talking about strengthening the u.s. economy. now, look, when you're in a terrible situation, you have three choices. you can raise taxes, you can cut spending, and/or you can grow the economy. growth comes from innovation, and if you have a growing economy, a lot of the other

issues go away. and so our view is that the entire political system, our neigh should get around the consensus that president obama laid out in his state of the union address which is that we are an innovation economy. now, the tactics he laid out we may not agree with, but when it comes to the various things that make up innovation, lower deficit, predictable taxes, trade, strategic immigration policy, those are the things that make sense. >> host: well, i want to pick up the last thing you said, spectrum for wireless broadband. so this talk, the chairman of the fcc has mentioned the spectrum crunch, that there's not enough frequencies to be used for wireless devices. why do you think there should be more spectrum for wireless devices? >> guest: well, we have fundamentally changed in terms of technology as a world and as a country just in five years. five years ago there was no smartphones, you know? beginning with the iphone and

now many other phones. those phones use 25 times the data stream that the phone did of five years ago. tablets like the ipad, an ipad uses up to 120 times the data stream, and these products have become the engine of our economic growth, and people expect -- and it is now a matter of national policy, bipartisan, that we want wireless broadband. it is essential. we need the spectrum to do it. at the same time, there's government spectrum which may be available, and there's the broadcaster' spectrum which is only, fewer than 10% of american homes are now relying on that free over the area broadcast 123458. it's bipartisan supported voluntary incentive auctions of some of this spectrum. we're not saying get rid of over the air free broadcasting, but there are lots in each market, there's plenty of spectrum available, and give them the right to auction off that

spectrum through the government to raise money, and the estimates are anywhere between $15 and $40 billion to the treasury, a one-time benefit, and then there's economic activity. but it is a mathematical certainty that as time goes on, and this is long term, we will not have our devices working the way we expect them to because there simply p p isn't enough wireless available so that i can watch c-span when i'm on a train. >> host: gary shapiro, don't the wireless device makers also have a responsibility to use spectrum more or responsibly? >> guest: absolutely. and, of course, solutions are being developed like relying on wi-fi in local areas. you go to a local wi-fi network. but still mathematically, about half of americans have these smartphones and the tablets will be the hottest product of the holiday season, and we anticipate growth for years to come when most americans have these tablets and smart phones, we need a system that will sport

them. >> host: and, in fact u your consortium writes it's important to make more spectrum available for mobile broadband, including the benefit of unlicensed uses. >> guest: okay. you bid for auction like a verizon and at&t, maybe even a google would bid and give all those billions of dollars to the government, but there's a portion of spectrum that all sorts of innovative products come out of that no one predicted. for example, the garage door opener, cordless telephones. there's all sorts of spectrum that we come to rely upon. and that is there's various standards in terms of being a good neighbor and accepting interfoorns, but that produces tremendous amounts of innovation that's very important. so we're saying save a little slice for unlicensed uses where the government will not get money, that will spur economic activity and jobs. >> host: shouldn't the company that might take advantageover

unlicensed spectrum, why shouldn't they have to pay -- since we were just talking about how valuable spectrum is -- why shouldn't those companies pay to have spectrum? >> guest: well, when you pay, you get the exclusive use. without a license, nobody pays. it's like a parkland that the government owns. everyone can go into that park hand and play. everyone -- any entrepreneur with an idea can enter the space without barriers of entry. frankly, i'm not worried about at&t and verizon. they own it. which is fine. they control it, they can do a lot with it, and they can use it for what we've been talking about. unlicensed users any entrepreneur can jump in and produce so many great products, whether it's family radio so you could communicate at a shopping mall or at a concert. or, as i said, the garage door opener which many of of us rely upon. >> host: so there are a lot of different parts of congress. you have the supercommittee, the separate bill dealing with

spectrum, and so i'm wondering how you think that this is actually going to get done, what do you think is the most likely avenue? also in the president's jobs bill, that's looking less likely now. so, obviously, this letter was to the supercommittee, but is that the main way you any this will -- main way you think this will get done? >> >> the important thing is it has bipartisan support. they never paid for it, they'll get money for that even though it's not something they own. but, look, whether the supercommittee is going to resolve the bigger issues of the country is -- nobody knows at this point. if they do, this is almost certainly going to be in there. if they don't, we have a lot of other issues as a nation, but along the way this is a solution that helps cut the deficit and spur economic growth. >> host: gary shapiro, are the tech community needs different than the larger business commitment? >> guest: that's a great question. i think the tech community might have more of a need for the brightest people on the earth, and that's what's made this

country great. we've attracted them traditionally since our birth. until about september 11th, and we had that disaster, and we shut our doors, and now it's very difficult for tech companies to get the brightest people. we're very not welcoming to them. we shut the door on them. um, and they are the, they are the growth engines on the economy. this is where maximum growth occurs is with technology. with technology, we do have needs, we have needs for capital flexibility. you have to be able to move people around. it's not a very pro-union environment because you need to assign someone, give them the prospect of making a lot of money or just moving to the next job. we're bless inside that this is a country where you can fail, it's a badge of experience, not a badge of dishonor. we have every ingredient we need to be the most innovative country in the world, and that should be our strategy as a country. so the tech community is the pinnacle of that, i would include biotech if that. i would also include, frankly,

the creative community in that, the content world, the music industry, the motion picture industry, the publishing. we are the world's innovators, and that is our perch, and we should stay there. so, yes, we're unique but, no, this is who we are as americans. we solve problems. >> host: back to the tech community's letter to the deficit reduction committee. you have called for, with regard to visas, increase the number of employment-based visas for highly-educated workers, award permanent visas to foreign-born students who earn doctorates and repeal the annual limit on the number of applicants per country. >> guest: absolutely. we traditionally have attracted the world's best and brightest. indeed, all our forefathers came here for a better life with nothing to lose. we have been getting the students. actually, education is an export of ours. that's what we do. but we get these really bright people, and we educate them in math, science, information technology, we give them master's degrees and phs, and then we kick them out of our

countries so they become competitors. that's crazy. that is not a good policy. we just have to get this legislation through which allows us to give them a path to citizenship, and we have to be strategic in our immigration policy. all the discussion is about illegal immigration. what's at issue is who do we want here? we want bright, we want entrepreneurial people, people who contribute to our economy. so there's some great proposals out there, bipartisan. hire a certain number of people or if they're seriously educated because, look, our country's like microsoft and google and every internet company, they want to hire people, why should they have to open up a facility abroad to do that? yet our immigration policy, our tax policy, our trade policy increasingly encourages them to go abroad. >> host: i want to go back to one of brandon's earlier questions. these are not necessarily deficit reduction issues. what, what was the purpose of including visas and other issues

in your recommendations to the deficit reduction committee? >> guest: deficit reduction will come from one of three ways; raising taxes, cutting spending or economic growth, and we must be about economic growth. we have stalled economically as a country. it is hurting us. indeed, a lot of companies now and venture capital is going abroad because there is not growth in the united states. we must be a growing economy. a growing economy will solve our jobs problem, it will go a long way to solving our deficit problem. so we should be focused laser-like on growth rather than focusing on saying business is bad and attacking business. we have to say business is good. we want employers here. we want jobs here. we want innovation here. and that's what this is about. and if we could grow economically. look, it's not only the federal government, every one of the 50 state governments assume we will grow at 8% a year. that's insanity. we are facing a huge financial challenge in this country. we have to try to get to that 8%

growth rate. we're not doing it under today's policies, and whether it's democrat or republican, we better start getting together. >> host: you're watching c-span's "communicators" program. our guest, gary shapiro, chairman and ceo of the consumer electronics association. brendan sasso is a technology reporter with "the hill" newspaper. >> host: unemployment is still at 9%, a lot of people are having trouble finding jobs, even people with degrees, so what do you say to the person who just invested in their education, they just graduated, and they can't find a job, and these tech companies want to hire foreign workers? >> guest: well, first of all, there are several million jobs available in tech companies and other companies where we do not have the experienced people or the people with the right degrees we need whether it's in precision engineering or manufacturing or design. so i'd, first of all, go to any college student or high school student and say look at the job help wanteds, start gearing

yourself. if you have a liberal arts degree and you can't get a job, t because you invested in the wrong summit, and it doesn't make sense. we need skilled people. there's a lot of jobs that are open. to those people that are saying foreigners take my job, that's really not the case for the most part. those jobs are going overseas because our policies encourage them to come overseas, but there isn't an american employer that i know who wouldn't rather hire americans in the united states. they're citizens, they have can kids and grandkids, and they want a better country in their future. so they'll always give the job to the american over someone from overseas. >> host: switching topics a little bit, the letter does mention briefly protecting intellectual property as an important issue. so, obviously, there are bills in both houses of congress now, protect i'm sorry t. to -- i.t., and so you, oppose those bills. i'm wondering why are those bills not the appropriate way to protect intellectual property? >> guest: well, patents, trade

marks, copyrights are important domestically and nationally, and we have to recognize that we have a different philosophy, and we have to do everything to recognize they just can't make copies of our trademarks, they can't rip it off our pat ended products and our sat ware and just steal it. that's wrong. this legislation you're talking about is amendmented at pirate web sites which are horrible and wrong and should be stopped. it's not that we oppose the principle, we oppose the fact that all of a sudden you're giving any private part of the claims owner the ability to shut down a web site without any process protection. so you're creating new private rights of action. you're basically shutting down the internet in a very lance armstrong way. look, this year the government -- in a very large way. look, this year the government shut down 50,000 web sites because they're aimed at one legitimate pornographer. those are the kind of mistakes you want to avoid. you want to avoid legitimate

businesses from being shut down without process protections, and that's what we're saying. these bills are good, but let's ford modify them so there's process protections that americans are accustomed to are in place. >> host: so what would the changes need to be in order for you to support these bills? >> guest: let's go back to the drawing board. we've been excluded from the discussions all a along, the content community has gone to their favorite members and just dropped legislation in. and what we need to see is process, due process. you have a right to answer, to respond, you have to also have a process to make sure you're shutting down the right web site, you have to have a process so you're not shutting down 240us of web sites by going into the internet it. we don't want the government shut down, and that's why women like zoe lofgren and also senator from oregon, democratic senator as well as republicans have said these bills are absolutely unacceptable for the future of technology. >> host: what do you -- go ahead, brendan. >> host: my understanding is that the bill does have some

sort of appeals process where if your web site gets shut down, you can appeal and say this is a legitimate web site s. that not enough? >> guest: so you're ebay or amazon, and you have the right to go through a goth process for appeal, and meanwhile your customers are lost for how long? i mean, when blackberry has an out am, it effects millions of people. when a web site has an outage, it can mean the life or death of that company. >> host: gary shapiro, you mentioned the content community. what do you mean by that? >> guest: the content community is hollywood, music industry. basically, theyly and die by government regulation. government started out with a monopoly where a patent was equal to a copyright in 20 years, and somewhere along the line we've lost sight because of phenomenal lobbying, it's been expanded 13 times in the last 40 years. the penalties are outrageous. people go to jail. if you rip off a cd on your computer, the prison sentence and everything else is so much

more than if you actually physically stole the cd from a record store. so the content community is a phenomenal fundraiser, phenomenal. and they blame the judiciary committee. the judiciary committee deals with abortion, capital punishment, so they get a phenomenal amount of money from the content industry lobbyists, and the tech industry really isn't that good at fund raising. be so all of a sudden you have republicans and democrats getting all this money from the content community, and, basically, they have a very good way with themselves. >> host: gary shapiro, another piece of legislation that's making its way through congress is representative mary bono mack's data security breach legislation. what's your position on that? >> guest: we don't have a position on that. as we go into the cloud, these are really critical issues which are coming first. how much of your information, what is the responsibility to the company that uses it, what happens as we pursue -- [inaudible]

because there's so much more happening about gathering information about yourself, your whereabouts, what rights you have. but i think in a reasonable way public policy can deal with these issues. when the credit card was first introduced, there was great concern about losing everything, and congress did something really smart. they said, you know what? the most you'll ever lose is $50 if you lose your credit card. and that unleashed this great use of credit cards. it made the passage of actual dollar bills a little bit -- a hot less, and it's helped society. i think we're going to find our way out of these private issues recognizing there's a trade-off between someone knowing about you and serving your needs. you can't get a custom suit if tailor does not know your size. sometimes you have to give up your size. >> host: my understanding is the data breach bill is focused on if someone hacks into a web site and steals your credit card number. what about broader privacy issues? there's talk of some sort of broader privacy protections. what do you think about that

legislation? >> guest: well, there's lots of proposals out there, and they're critically important issue, and my hope is we work through them in a logical way where we agree upon the facts and the goals and the conflicting interests, the interests in the person protecting the privacy versus the interest of society greater. i mean, one of the things i know everyone hates the health care law, probably including me, but there are some good things this there. and one of them is doctors share information about actual things that happen on anonymous basis so we get a database of what really good treatments are. there's always a trade-off between societal needs and individual needs, and government plays a role in addressing the conflicting of interest there. >> host: gary shapiro, back to your letter. we recommend you write greater investments in those activities with clear economic benefits because of their transformative potential. programs that support basic scientific research, improve our infrastructure, protect our intellectual property and create a 21st century work force are smart investments.

smart investments. >> guest: absolutely. so take our university system which is the world's best. the government with pours a lot of money in there for basic research and development. it works out very positively for industry as well. there's a lot of work between the university community and the private investment community, and it's produced some great things. but there's only so much available. we have to be careful, and we have to say what's the difference here. that doesn't mean we're embracing give to companies like solyndra and be the venture capitalists as government. that's not what we're talking about. there's a difference between basic research development and applied research and investing in companies. if there is going to be government investment, it should be at the highest level of basic research in my view. also when it comes down to an educated work force, the government plays a role. do we want every person to go to college? i would argue we don't. germany is a great example. what they do is they have, essentially, two tiers. they have those that are highly skilled people, vocational

education, and they produce great cars, great health equipment, and their strategy as a company is precision manufacturing, and it's working. the people have high status, and they get paid a lot. they also have educated people in universities and things like that as well. we have, for some reason, this philosophy that everyone has to go to college. it doesn't make sense. it doesn't even compute. and if we want manufacture anything the united states, we have to change what colleges are doing. so i think the goth could push people along. they do provide funding and say let's put this into the type of government programs which make sense for our fawch. >> host: brendan. >> guest: the letter mentions improving the government's i.t., information technology. and so it claims that the federal government can reduce spending by more than a trillion dollars over the next ten years just by upgrading i.t. how is that possible? >> guest: well, certainly, technology itself, the been fit of technology is that it does save money. companies of their own free volition invest in technology so

they can perform better, they can be more efficient, they can provide better customer service, they can get more customers. the government, um, has to do likewise. at the state level, various states have done this. the experience i have at virginia adapt of motor vehicles is exceptional because they've used technology very good. virginia as a state has said we are going to invest in technology, be a pro-business state. it's bipartisan, every governor has done it for the last 20 years, the legislature does it. it works. so our federal government, i think, can do the same thing and say we have tremendous amounts of information, with we're provg coverage, let's invest in the i.t. infrastructure to find better service, and that's what we should expect as a country. we should be there, advanced, we're the most tech lodgely advanced country in the world. >> host: the supercommittee is due to report out in about two weeks. realistically, what are the chans of any of your recommendations being included? >> guest: i think the chance of the spectrum is well over 90% if

they do have a recommendation. if, um, on the other ones, this is more of a statement about innovation and what's important to the future of our country. you know, whether the supercommittee goes into the area of promoting economic growth, we'll see. i think the odds of the supercommittee doing something are anybody's guess, whether they do nothing or something or partial something and leave a lot to next year to figure out by the congress, we'll all see. >> host: and finally, mr. shapiro, the consumer electronics show is well known in vegas every january. can you give us a preview? >> guest: well, the international ces attracts 140,000 people from around the world. it is the super bowl of innovation. we are going to have a larger show than we've had last year, lots of people, and more things introduced and great things whether in cars or in applications or in tablets or you name it. and this is, it gives you hope and excitement about the innovation which is occurring which is making the difference in our lives. it will be spectacular. hope you're there. >> host: gary shapiro's group is the consumer electronics

association. several other groups signed on to this letter to the deficit reduction committee. we are going to put that on our web site. you can read it at c-span.org/communicators. gary shapiro is chairman and ceo of the consumer electronics association. brendan sasso is a technology reporter with "the hill" newspaper, thehill.com. thank you, gentlemen. >> guest: thank you. >> "the communicators" also airs each monday night. if you missed any of this program with consumer electronics association ceo gary shapiro about his group's recommendations to the congressional joint deficit reduction committee, watch it again tonight and each monday night at 8 p.m. eastern right here on c-span2. >> coming up on c-span2, a house subcommittee hearing examining legislation to replace the secondary housing mortgage market. and later the senate returns at 2 p.m. eastern for a period of general speeches.