the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: i ask unanimous consent that the order of the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: i ask unanimous consent that the clerk will -- the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to h.r. 674, which the clerk will

report. the clerk: motion to proceed to the consideration of h.r. 674, an act to amend the internal revenue code of 1986 to repeal the imposition of 3% withholding on certain payments made to vendors by government entities and for other purposes. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will now be 30 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled between the senator from montana and the senator from utah. mr. rockefeller: i ask unanimous consent that the order of the quorum call be noted. and the time be equally charged. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: i ask unanimous consent the order of the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in hereby move to bring to close the debate on calendar number 212, h.r. 674, an act to amend the internal revenue code of 19686 to repeal the imposition of 3% withholding on certain payments made to vendors by government entities to modify the calculation of modified

adjustment gross income for purposes of determining eligibility for certain health care-related programs and for other purposes. signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is: is it the sense of the senate that debate on the motion to proceed to h.r. 674, an acted to amend the internal revenue code of 1986 to repeal the imposition of 3% withholding on certain payments made to vendors by government entities to modify the calculation of modified adjustment gross income for purposes of determining eligibility for certain health care-related programs, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? three-finals of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. yeas are 94, nays are one. mr. alexander: mr. president, later this week the senate will vote on a resolution to disapprove the clean air act rule designed to limit -- to

limit -- the blowing of power plant pollution from one state to another. in my opinion, overturning the rule would throw the matter back to regulators, back to courts, back to lawsuits, back to delay. senator pryor of arkansas and i are introducing today senate bill 1815. we've sent it to the desk. it is bipartisan legislation that will provide what we believe is a better approach. and that approach is to enact the clean air rule into law. but give utilities one additional year in which to comply with it. our approach would provide certainty and cleaner air at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers. the motion to overturn the clean air rule will be offered by the junior senator from kentucky, senator paul. tennesseans admire much about our kentucky neighbors. we admire their bluegrass.

we admire their basketball. we admire their distinguished united states senators. but tennesseans don't want kentucky's state income tax, and we don't want ten kentucky's dirty air. a understand we know that our neighbors in north carolina don't want tennessee's dirty air blowing into north carolina because they have told us that through lawsuits in the courts, which they have won. air pollution blowing from one state into another makes our citizens sick, especially our younger tennesseeans and our older tennesseeans. air pollution blowing from other states into our states is a job issue. pollution makes our great smoky mountains more like the great smog tkpweu mountains. we like to see our mountains and we like for the nine million visitors who come to visit us every year to stay a long time and to spend a lot of money because that supports our schools and it supports our

state revenue. dirty air blowing into tennessee from other states makes it harder for us to create jobs in yet another way. i remember 30 years ago when i was governor of tennessee and the nissan corporation came to our state, the very first thing nissan did when it came to tennessee was to go down to the state air quality board and ask for an air quality permit in order to operate its plant. fortunately the air quality in the national area was clean enough that nissan could locate there. if nissan hadn't been able to obtain an air quality permit to operates its paint plant it would have been in georgia or some other state, and the auto jobs which have come to tennessee in the tens of thousands over the last 30 years would most likely have been in some other state. so dirty air blowing from kentucky into tennessee or tennessee into north carolina or

from any state into another state makes it harder for the recipient state, the communities, to get their air quality permits. and it makes it harder, for example, for us to say to volkswagen, its suppliers we can provide a home to you because our air is clean enough so that we can get our air quality permit. mr. president, in 2005 the bush administration first put into place the predecessor to the cross-state air pollution rule that we'll be voting on later this week. federal courts found that the bush rule was flawed in some technical respects and ordered the environmental protection agency to write a new rule under which some now seek to overturn it on a vote this week by means of the congressional review act. the bush clean air rule that was put in place in 2005 has now been there for six years. many utilities have already taken steps to comply with it.

the pollution standards in the new rule that we'll be voting on are about the same as those established in the 2005 bush rule. as an example of costs, the tennessee valley authority, the nation's largest public utility, tells us that complying with the new rule, the one we'll be voting on, will cost its ratepayers between $1 and $2 a month. mr. president, we often hear -- and i'll have to say a lot of those comments often come from our side of the aisle -- that it is the job of congress, not the bureaucrats and the courts, to write the clean air rules. the commonsense legislation that senator pryor and i offer today is an opportunity for congress to do its job in a way that will clean the air at the lowest possible cost to ratepayers. mr. president, i thank the

chair, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with snored permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 2, at 12:00 noon tuesday, november 8, 2011, the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 405 under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 465, the nomination be confirmed with no intervening action or debate, that no further motionses be in order to the nomination, that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate

then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 312, which was submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 312, commending the girl scouts of the u.s.a. on the special occasion of its 52nd annual convention and commending the commitment of girl scouts of the u.s.a. to the mission of fostering the courage, and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 313 introduced earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 313, congratulating the university of washington on its

sesquicentennial and recognizing the contributions of the university of washington to the state of washington and to the united states. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any related statements be printed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i understand there are two bills at the desk due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the bills for the second time. the clerk: h.r. 1070, an act to amend the securities act of 1933, to require the securities and exchange commission to exempt a certain class of securities from such act. h.r. 1965, an act to amend the securities laws to establish certain thresholds for shareholder registration, and

for other purposes. mr. merkley: i would object to any further proceedings with respect to these bills en bloc. the presiding officer: objection having been heard. the bills will be placed on the calendar. under rule 14. mr. merkley: i understand that there are two bills at the desk and i ask for their first reading en bloc. the presiding officer: without objection, the clerk will report report -- will read for the first time. i'm sorry. the clerk: h.r. 2930, an act to amend the securities laws to provide for registration exemptions for certain crowd-funded securities, and for other purposes. h.r. 2940, an act to direct the securities and exchange commission to eliminate the prohibition against general solicitation as a requirement for a certain exemption under regulation d. mr. merkley: i now ask for a second reading en bloc and i object to my own request en bloc. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, there will

now be a second reading on the next legislative day. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, the senate adjourn until 10:00 a.m. on tuesday, november november 8, 2011, that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. that following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business for one hour with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the final half. and that following morning business, the senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to h.r. 674, the 3% withholding repeal act postcloture. further, that at 12:00 p.m., the senate proceed to executive session under the previous order. and that when the senate resumes

legislative session following the roll call vote on confirmation of the wallach nomination, the senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings. and finally, that all time during adjournment, morning business, executive session and recess count postcloture on the motion to proceed to h.r. 674. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: there will be a roll call vote at approximately 12:15 p.m. tomorrow on confirmation of the wallach nomination. additionally, we expect to begin consideration of h.r. 674 during tomorrow's session. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

>> tonight alive interview with chief correspondent lara logan who is sexually assaulted earlier this year while reporting in egypt.

>> almost every other developed country will pay taxes on the money you make in each country make it. the united states taxes are global so essentially you are being taxed twice for the same income. it makes the u.s. very anti-competitive. >> the thought is here when we need economic stimulus we have this money come back here, a lower tax rate a 10% and tied to jobs or capital boseman and that makes sense. >> "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2.

>> earlier today president obama joined military veterans with an announcement of three initiatives aimed at helping veterans find jobs. the president said more than 850,000 veterans remained unemployed as he called on congress to pass an element of the jobs act that gives tax breaks to businesses who hire veterans. from the white house, this is 15 minutes. >> ladies and john simon, the

president of the united states. [applause] >> thank you very much everybody. please be seated. this week, we commemorate veterans day and the honor the service and the sacrifices of all who have worn the uniform of the united states of america with honor and distinction and above all we commit ourselves to serving them as well as they have served us. that his wife we are here today. today is 9/11 generation of veterans has already earned a special place in our history. over a difficult decade they performed heroically in some of the world's most dangerous places. they have done everything we have asked them to do and i'm honored to have some of these extraordinary americans here at the white house with us this morning. i am also proud to be joined by some of america's leading

veterans service organizations, the american legion, the veterans of foreign wars, the disabled american veterans and iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. as well as members of congress who have historically been in support of our veterans. we are here today to take steps to better serve today's veterans in and a rough economy. the past decade nearly 3 million servicemembers have transitioned back to civilian life, joining the millions who have served through the decades and is me and the war in iraq and the winds down the war in afghanistan over a million more will join them over the next five years. just think about the skills these veterans have acquired, often at a very young age. think about the leadership that they have earned, the cutting edge technologies that they have mastered, their ability to adapt

to changing and unpredictable circumstances you just can't get from a classroom. think about how many have led others to life-and-death missions by the time they are 25 or 26 years old. this is exactly the kind of leadership and responsibility that every american business should be competing to attract. it's the kind of talent and we need to compete for the jobs and industries of the future. these are the kinds of americans that every company should wants to hire. and yet while our economy has added more than 350,000 private sector jobs over the past three months, more than 850,000 veterans remained unemployed. too many can find a job worthy of their amended talents. to many military spouses have a hard time finding work after moving from base to base to base. even though the overall unemployment rate ticked down last month unemployment among veterans of iraq and afghanistan

continue to rise. it's not right and it doesn't make sense, not for our veterans, not for our families, not for america and we are determined to change that. i told the story before of a soldier in the 82nd airborne who served as a combat medic in afghanistan and he saved lives over there. he earned a bronze star for his actions. when he returned home, he couldn't even get a job as a first responder. he had to take classes, classes that he probably could have taught just as he could qualify for the same duties at home that he was doing every single day at war. do you know what? if you can save a life on the battlefield, then you can save a life in an ambulance. if you can oversee a convoy or millions of dollars of assets in iraq, you can help the business

back home manage their supply chain. if you can juggle demands and raising a family while a loved one is at war you can juggle the demands of almost any job in america. we ask our men and women in uniform to leave their families and their jobs and risk their lives to fight for our country. the last thing they should have to do is fight for a job when they come home. that is why we are here today, to do everything in our power to see to it that america's veterans have the opportunity they deserve and that they have earned. now, i have already directed the federal government to lead by example in the higher for veterans and it has hired more than 120,000 so far. a couple of months ago i also challenged private companies to hire or train 100,000 post-9/11 veterans or their spouses by the end of 2013, and already

companies have hired more than 12,000 committed to train or higher 25,000 more over the next two years. and i want to thank the extraordinary work of my wife the first lady as well as dr. jill biden for leaning -- leading this effort to support our military families and our veterans. nearly two months ago i sent congress the american jobs act the only jobs plan independent economist edward loosed our economy and put americans back to work right now with ideas historically supported by both parties. it was paid for and included two proposals that would have made a big difference for our veterans, the returning heroes which would give businesses a tax break for each unemployed veteran that they hired and the wounded warriors tax credit which would give businesses an even larger tax break for hiring and unemployed veteran with a

disability related to their service in uniform. these veterans service organizations are here today because they fully support these ideas. unfortunately, we have not yet seen progress in congress. senate republicans have so far chosen to block these bills in these proposals. since then they have also blocked a jobs bill to keep teachers in the classroom and first responders on the street, block the jobs bill last week that would have put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back to work rebuilding america, despite the fact that war than 70% of americans supported the idea for this bill. not one has yet stepped up on the other side of the aisle to say this is the right thing to do. they have had three chances to do the right thing, three times they have said no. i believe it is time they said yes in taking actions to boost the economy overall because the overall economy has an effect on veterans. it's a lot easier for veterans

to find jobs when the economy is growing rapidly and unemployment is dropping. i think it is important for all of us to remember we are all in this together. it's time we started acting like it. bold action from congress ultimately is the only way we will put hundreds of thousands of americans back to work right now and rebuild an economy where everyone who works hard has a chance to get ahead. so i'm going to keep pushing the senators to vote on on common sense paid for ways to create jobs that members of both parties have supported before. but what i've also said is that i'm going to do everything in my power as the head of the executive branch to act on behalf of the american people with or without congress. we can't simply wait for congress to do its job and as commander-in-chief i won't let politics get in the way of making sure veterans veteran chair and the opportunities and if congress won't act i will. that is why two weeks ago i

announced a new initiative to help train veterans to get jobs in the medical community. and today we are announcing three new initiatives to help america's returning heroes get jobs that meet their talents. first, we are delivering on expanded job search services that i promised to our post-9/11 veterans. starting today post-9/11 veterans looking for work can download what we are calling the veterans gold card which gives you up to six months of personalized job search services at career centers across the country. second, we are launching an easy-to-use on line tool called my next move for veterans that allows veterans to enter information about their experience and skills in the field and match it with careers that put that experience to use. third, we are connecting

unemployed veterans to job -- we have partnered with leading job-search companies to create a new on line search called veterans job days to tag job postings designed by major search engines. already more than 500,000 job openings have been tagged thanks to a company called simply hired and companies like monster and linked and are helping more employers participate. all these three initiatives are up and running right now. just visit whitehouse.gov/vets to find each one and i'm asking these veterans served its -- service organizations to spread the word. connecting our veterans to the jobs they deserve is the right thing to do for america but they're still more that we can do to encourage visits us to higher veterans. this week congress will have another chance to do the right thing and they will get to vote on those tax breaks are proposed

back in september for businesses that hire veterans. members of congress will get to say whether not they think it is a good idea to give companies an incentive, an additional antenna to hired the men and women who have risked their lives for our country. when i first proposed this idea certain members of the joint session of congress, people stood and applauded on both sides of the aisle when i announced this bill and that was one of two times and both sides stood up. when these ideas come up for a vote this week, when the tv cameras aren't necessarily on each of them, i expect the size of the aisle to stand up for veterans and vote in the affirmative. there is no good reason to oppose this bill, not one. our veterans did their jobs. is time for congress to do theirs. it's time for them to put country before party, put our veterans back to work and pass

this element of a jobs package that benefits our veterans and gives businesses an incentive to hire veterans. standing up for veterans is not a democratic responsibility or a republican responsibility. it is an american responsibility. it is the obligation of every citizen to enjoy the freedoms that these heroes have defended and it's time for us to meet those obligations right now. as commander-in-chief i want all our veterans to know that we are forever grateful for your service and for your sacrifice. just as you fought for us we are going to keep fighting for you with more jobs, more security and the opportunity to keep your family strong and keep america competitive in the 21st century. in other words we are going to keep on fighting just as you did to show the worldwide why the united states of america is still the greatest nation on earth. thank you very much everybody. god loves you and god bless the united states of america.

[applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ president obama making his announcement earlier today at the white house, and now more about veterans issues with remarks from general james mattis commander of the u.s. central command. he spoke at the end of the conference of the american veteran center here in washington. this is a half an hour. >> thank you cadets and it is really a pleasure to be here

this morning and frankly when you get to my ranks there are not a lot of things that are pleasant in washington d.c. so i want to thank you all for inviting me here this morning to share a few minutes with you. it is also a privilege to be introduced by a fellow northwestern are and one who is aiming toward serving towards serving in the army infantry. those of the lad to go in and mix it up with the enemy. what i thought i would do is just basically cover three basic subjects here. i want to talk just a little bit about you young folks in the audience whom so many of our hopes rest in the veterans. i want to talk a little bit about central command because it is going to play a role in your cadets future and then i want to talk a little bit about the military in general. i want to talk with you anyway not to give you a lot of advice. a lot of people want to give you advice.

at what i want to do is alert you to what i have seen in my life since i was 18 years old, 40 some odd years ago and joined the marines, and the lessons i have learned along the way because it is appropriate for those of us who have been moderately successful in our professions to turn around, run the elevator back down and try and pick the young folks up and bring you up based on the sometimes very grim lessons that we have learned. one point i want to make to you young folks in the audience and i think the veterans will reinforce this, that surprises going to be your constant companion. you will make all your plans. some of them will come true. many of them will not and surprises going to be a dominant factor to each one of you. it is simply the nature of life. nobody can tell what is going to happen in your future my fine young folks and the veterans will tell you that probably

december 6 of 1941 or 1949 or in 1959 none of them realized world war ii, korea, vietnam was in their future. we don't think like that and get it came and they dealt with it and the other is a lesson in there as well. when the situation comes knocking, maybe an opportunity, maybe a challenge but one thing you want to do is be ready. the worst thing, and i never thought my fine young folks i'd be standing here today. if you asked me 40 years ago would i be a four-star general it wasn't in the cards, k.? i had been in trouble as a lad. i had the marine corps straightening out in a lot of ways but i would never have thought i was going to be here so what do you fall back on when that surprises you? would you fall back on when you are going to do fine on the test and you didn't do so well? what you do when you get a phonecall from someone with four stars and you still have the

same. >> can imagine they're on the a few people like that at that point and they say we want you to do a certain job. you have got to be ready and i would just tell you what you are going to fall back on when the surprises strike you, what you are going to fall back on as your ingenuity and your resolve, your faith and your character, your education and your self-confidence. that is what you are going to fall back on so as you develop every day, recognized these are the days that one day you will come back and you will say thank goodness tanker goodness i read that book. thank good as i thought about this. it's a good thing i sat up in class and paid attention when i heard that because i think if you are ready when that tap on your shoulder comes and your horizons are unlimited. we have all seen people who have made bad choices in life and much of what you are going to do in life has to do with making the right choice. it is why i've wanted to talk to this group. i turn down ladies and gentlemen

98% of these requests but to connect veterans to the young people who are going to carry on this experiment you and i call america is very very important. believe me there is nothing preordained this country is going to continue. this comes down to blood, sweat and tiers by those of you willing to commit yourselves in danger and discomfort to protect this country just like our veterans did. in the last millennium when i was going to college, there was a rock 'n roll group called crosby, stills nash and young. the only way you can hear them nowadays is you have to listen to pbs because they are old folks but in my day they were while the young radicals. they had a line in a song that i didn't pay much attention to them but i learned over many years of challenges over the years after that. they said you when you are on the road, he must have a code that you can live by. i will tell you right now, my

fine young cadets, you are coming-of-age at a time of remark about challenges and remarkable opportunities that you are going to have to have a code that you can live by. in cypress hills cemetery in new york city there is one on a baseball player's grave and it says a life is unimportant except in the impact it has on other lives. why would a man who has been at the top of his game in baseball, been an absolute success looked back on his life and say it only counts when you are serving of the people? could it yvette he had discovered something through his experiences that he wanted to pass on and he had it engraved on his tombstone. that was just code and it is a pretty darned good code. i think our country right now more than any other time because of the information technology and what we learn about leaders needs leaders who live by a code. i don't care if you are leading an industry of or academia

military or politics and the people who live by a code who can look in the mirror and not have to duck away from what they see her go you are going to have to write your own code. it's not that all pretentious my young folks. it's not like you have to go to some -- you just have to sit down and figure out who you are and be proud of it. the first thing is to be proud of it. be proud of every single thing that made you different and be proud of everything inside you and don't let anybody tell you you can't get somewhere. it is not all that difficult to write the code. it's much more difficult to live your code. one point about the military those of you who go into it, you'll be given the opportunity to live your code and you will be reported -- rewarded for living your code because it is the organization that gets the behavior it rewards. the u.s. military is a national treasure. it is the end the -- idea with people now in the first words i have to say to them are,

mr. prime minister or mr. president or king for sol 10. every one of those leaders would love to have the u.s. military every single one of them. it is a treasure worth more than all the gold in fort knox and is a treasure not because of technology -- technology. it is a treasure because of the selflessness and commitment of a young the young folks who join up. the cadet who introduced me, cadet phelps is going into the infantry. how did the infantry get its name? infant soldier, young soldier, the people who do 85% of the fighting for this country are very very young. so don't think that you are alien to the people who did this back in 1776 when we were fighting for our country or in 1918 or 1943 and some of the veterans who are here today. they were just like you sitting there wondering what life is going to bring them and they

turn their lives into something that became in many cases what we call today the greatest generation. a point about jumping in and playing the game. i know people who when they get to my age they look back and say did i really make a difference and the sort of thing. you will never have to worry about if you join the u.s. military. you will never be concerned about that. why do i bring it up? some people want to play it safe and sit on the sidelines. you can usually find them because they're the loudest complainers about what is going on. they are not getting into the game. they are not taking the banks in the scrapes and the falls and going up against the ethical dilemmas when you notice the right thing to do and you will pay a price for doing it. it's better than taking the easy way out and in the u.s. military it will take you into that kind of challenge in stride. i think it is oftentimes that you are permitted to learn about yourself in the military.

you are provisioned away that many other people will never have the opportunity to learn. they simply won't. you will learn things about yourself. at times you'll be disheartened and you have to reach down and pull yourself back up that i don't have to tell you about this detail because you have veterans here today who have lived this and who have actually passed down to us the standard that all of us are expected to live up to today. i will tell you, let me just show you what this means instead of putting it in big words like this. i was ordered when i commanded the first marine division about 25,000 sailors and marines, i was ordered to attack a town called fallujah. tutu battles. going into the first battle i only had a couple of battalions does throw into the fight so the night before they kicked off the attack i went down to the general who tracks out his troops to make they were set.

about midnight is time for generals to get out of the way and let the lads go at it when the start -- sun son starts it. as i was falling back a mild with my radio operators to my vehicle so i could get on them and get back, i was right behind an assault vehicle that attack before the rest about an hour ahead before dawn to take the railroad station on the outskirts of the town that would allow the rest of the battalion to move up. as i walked behind that assault company all the very young men laying bare cold with no blankets laying on the ground strip-down to their combat gear, the enemy cause some mischief nearby so i got down and kept in with a corporal who was in charge of that squad. he said general this is no sweat. we will take care of this. when things died down we waited a few minutes to make sure it really died down and i heard one of the marines, the corporal could have been more than 20 years old himself, one of his younger marine said corporal do

you think fallujah is going to be bad in the morning? and the corporal, i will clean this up slightly because we have ladies present. the corporal said basically hush and get some rest. we took iwo jima. fallujah will be nothing and we have an iwo jima veteran here by the way. there's a reason i bring this up to you my fine young people. there is nothing we are going to ask of you that is tougher than what our soldiers did in shiloh. there's nothing we are going to ask of you that is tougher than iwo jima. take off and as we will train you well and you will be along the best people in the world when you are shivering on the departures you get ready to go into your first fight. we will need you. we will need you for this because it is simply a legacy that has been passed down because it has been necessary because it's still hard to believe how lucky we are to live in this country. we live here only thanks to the veterans. if the veterans had not been going to do this, to put

themselves on the line, it would not preordained that we sit here today in this free country going to church where we want, studying what we want, girls going to school, all these things we take for granted. they would not be happening absent the veterans. the fight is not just a physical fight. it's an ethical flight in a moral fight. keeping yourself in an honorable situation in some of you are very young. it's hard to pass on how challenging this will be but as you go forward i assure you the challenge will be there. i also want you to know a sense of humor is one of your best defense is. it is good as the hamid on your head to protect your spirit and your heart. i remember on one occasion i walked up behind a marine squad in a place called ramadi. they were shooting at the enemy

down the street. the enemy was shooting back up at them and i walked up in the illustrious 235 year history of the marine corps i asked the single dumbest question that has ever been asked of a squad leader in combat. i walked up behind the marines and sailors and said hey guys, what's going on? [laughter] the corporal come then somebody had released the local village idiot dropped his rifle down to me and said well general, we are just taking the fun out of fundamentalism over here. [laughter] i walked away knowing, i walked away knowing that this was a squad who believed in itself, was sticking together and ethically would carry out the mission even though they were fighting among innocent people. if a squad leader can keep his sense of common sense of humor under those conditions with more than 100 generals -- to put it very bluntly.

the area i'm responsible for is a rather contentious area. it has got places like egypt, lebanon, iraq and afghanistan, pakistan and syria. every time i wake up up i read newspaper and -- it's not going to be generally good day. thanks to the fact i served along some of the most confident people in the world i never lose any sleep whatsoever over something like that. there was a frenchman who walked around our country about 140 years ago, a guy named de tocqueville. he said about america, america is a great country because america is a good country and if america ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. 140 years ago a man walked around europe trying to figure out what is this country becoming so different from the other countries in the world? what is going on here? kind of interesting to read his

bit book and find that sentence about why are we get? it's not because we have wars in the pacific northwest or the wheat fields of kansas. it's not because we have beautiful oceans in yellowstone park's. it's because we have people who are willing to commit to something good and as much as we may at times be frustrated by her country, i have the greatest respect for all of you in this room who look beyond the hot political rhetoric that often comes out of the city and steps up to serve your country. just remember forever pleased that even though generals become very remote from those of you who matter, we have a love for you that i cannot put into words. i also want to remind the young cadets of something the veterans will tell you. the military is not there for your own personal aggrandisement to make you feel good. your drill instructors -- if that is your idea. they will may get very clear

it's about a team, it's about the mission and times in the most grim fashion about how we are going to protect this country. there is a better piece for each generation or if things go wrong that you will restore that piece. it's interesting to remember the last veteran in the revolutionary war passed on just before the civil war. the veterans of the civil war were still with us in the 1930s and the veterans of world war ii are still with us today. there is not that long a history to this country as veterans pass on to the next generation what it is we are trying to keep alive, this great big experiment called america. that is all it is, it's an experiment and sometimes comes out of a laboratory called this world. you have to look at it as a continuum. i didn't start with you and if you do your job right it will not end with you. i read an interesting work by

thomas jefferson. he really loved his -- he said we hold this country and in -- i didn't know what the word meant. i went and looked it up. what it says is a farmer can have that ground and do whatever he wants to the ground. he can plant trees come, you can harvest crops but his obligation is to turn that ground over in as good a condition or better than he got it. that is an obligation for the next generation. our application is to turn america over in as good a shape or better than we have gotten it and when we come down to you young folks carrying on the long-standing tradition, you keep your passions alive. continue to believe in yourselves and i will guarantee you it is going to be a great ride as you go forward. what i wanted to do was take questions from the audience. my fine young folks i'm not going to leave until you asked

me some questions. [laughter] let's get the pain over with. [laughter] there are two qualities we look for in our petty officers and mco's in the marines in order to get promoted. that his initiative and aggressiveness. who has got the initiative and the aggressiveness to ask the first question here? just watch, someone is going to -- >> you were talking about coats. what was your code? >> it took me a while to realize i needed -- go ahead and take a seat. it's a great question. what i found was i didn't like a lot of the jobs i got in the marine corps. let me give you an example. call me crazy, don't -- and yet for some reason at age 21, and at age 41 and a lot of years in between i kept finding myself --

i commanded a battalion and its job is to go into the obstacle belt in the minefields and open them up. each one of them hundreds of meters wide so the marine division could go through and break through the city and freed from the iraqi's. i hated minds and i didn't know how i kept getting these jobs going into minefields but i've realized i'd rather be around people who are willing to go into the minefields than anything else. if it was more important than making money more important than making -- having a good job. i just like to hang around with people who are willing to go into the minefields even though you would have a lower lip every step of the way. i think what i found was my code was to serve those guys and to serve them to the best of my ability. i would come up with prior plans to keep as many of my sailors and marines alive as i possibly could and it come up with medevac plans to get them out of

there if they got hit. it became a coat of service to the people who really like these veterans, they signed a blank check payable to the united states people that they would put their life on the lines. that became my code and it is guided me ever since and i've never regretted one day even though i've had a rough night lying on iraqi hillsides are shivering in the rain, that sort of thing. the code, once you know who you are everything becomes easier. did that answer your question? right over here, go ahead young man. [inaudible] i was wondering if you had any other jobs or if you ever wanted to do anything else? >> did i want to do anything other than the military? i have been trying to retire for about 10 years now. [laughter] the problem is when you are

asked to do something in the military there is only one response it is aye aye sir. i want to ride a motorcycle morn i want to teach. i would love to teach young folks in certain things,, especially about civics because i think we have forgotten just how different this country is and if you look at your school, what i learned was as i traveled around i was in cambodia when it first struck me and what poll pot in khmer rouge did to all teachers there. then i picked it up very loud and clear it again in afghanistan where anybody teaching girls were example would be murdered. anybody teaching anything other than a certain book, these crackpot mumbo-jumbo guys over there, anybody -- they hate teachers. tyrants can't stand teachers.

they detest them because when teachers open mines mine you can't close that mine, so they fear teachers. i like the idea of messing around with tyrants, do you know what i mean? i have never lost the desire to go after people like that and i would like to pass on some of these lessons learned and see what i could do about passing on thing so you young folks could always look beyond what you are being told and come up with your own review of what you hear in this world especially when it comes down to people who want to tell you how to think. thanks for the question, young man. yes, back in the back. >> i'm a combat marine from vietnam and one of the sergeants -- how well trained our young marines are. would you like to comment on your ability and what you think about turning -- our young brains are getting? >> thank you for your service in vietnam. you are a generation. on the training, what we are

training at a level today in the army, navy air force coast guard and marine corps that we were never able to sustain in years past. part of it was we had not embraced some of the teaching methodologies and some of the coaching methodologies of sports, of medicine and it it is brought in and simulators. i don't just mean for pilots. aviation is way ahead on this but even for infantrymen and special forces and the sort of thing the training is tremendous. why do i say this? am i just giving you a general officers view? i go out to bethesda and walter reed, the hospitals here in town, the naval and army hospitals, and i talked to the young lads who are the most grievously wounded coming home. i ask every one of them about their training. they say instead of this we could've could have had more of that. everyone of them uniformly will

tell me two things. i had great training and i want to go back with my squadron get back into the fighting. you don't get that sort of response, i want to go back into the fight, if someone doesn't have confidence in their training. it is a level of training today that builds confidence and i think right now we will never be complacent. we have more advantage to brag and coaches from ucla and the national football league for how howdy coach teams. we have the attrition is changing the kind of foods they consume. we are doing everything we can, body mind and spirit and i will emphasize and spirit, to make sure our training puts our lads at the top of their games as they close in on the enemy. does that answer your question? >> thank you again for your service in vietnam. other questions? yes, right over here. >> i want to know how many --

>> how many what? [inaudible] >> i don't know. i picked them pick them up down the street. [laughter] you know, in our tribe the u.s. military at a glance we look at each other and very quickly we look eons. our tribe expects us to wear them. we do but at the same time we are more interested -- co i am more important to put it in marine corps terms, that a the young person graduating today in south carolina as a brand name of u.s. marine. why do i say that? it is not false modesty. the emotional commitment to the marine corps in this country is the same whether you are a 17-year-old marine graduating from boot camp or ura 61-year-old four-star general.

that is the leveling process that goes on and that is why there's a sense of comradeship in the military and a sense of respect that cuts across even, we don't know each other get i do know you were you wouldn't be here. the quality to bring you here today are exact we what keeps me around this outfit. i wouldn't stick around if i couldn't serve alongside people like you who are even interested in serving your country the way you are and as selflessly as you are. the ribbons are relatively unimportant. i'm just telling you up front. i know we need to have them because we need to recognize what people have done when they're putting their lives on the line, but frankly between us, you and i are not a bit different, okay? yes, right back here. >> can you share with us the importance of having morals in

the military. can you share more information on -- [inaudible] >> yes, maam. one thing -- please have a seat, maam. one thing, make sure you read old books. if you want new ideas read old books. weatherford you get your spiritual guidance, your family, your village and make sure you don't lose it because it will guide you in those times come. i have big young officer, they are all young compared to me. he was in the newspaper today and he just got fired because he said something. right now he is feeling really lonely i will guarantee you. the fact is if you keep faith with your god and keep faith with her family and he read some books. what kind of books to read? do you read? do you have that shock absorber in you so when things go wrong and you are in the public spotlight, you were not worried about it. i read mandela.

i read, i would read about martin luther king jr.. i would read about george washington and abraham lincoln. none of those people had easy lives. i know at times you feel like things are going wrong for you. none of them had easy lives. they had terrible things go wrong in their lives. they had questions and doubts about themselves. you are going to find you have more in common with them but also as you read those things you create a moral model for yourselves and you say you know what? it's about good choices. there's an example of how they dealt with it. i'm not going to be and ignore what ben franklin learned along the way. i'm not going to ignore what john f. kennedy learned when he commanded a pt boat and got hit a japanese destroyer in world war ii. that is the very kind of challenge that made them the people who cared about you and had even met you so that is the way i would do it. do a lot of reading and i talked

talk to all people. i talk to them in korea. i talk to them in america. wherever i go i talk to all people. i have a heck of a lot of fun doing it by the way. they tell me the darndest thing. i get in that mercedes-benz and drive off. i have to get going to an airport ladies and gentlemen. i have to be somewhere else in a couple of hours south of here, and i will be back to the middle east next week. i'm going to sleep very well when i'm over there knowing we have got young folks like you coming up who will keep america alive. you pass it on just like you veterans day, pass it on to the next generation intact a little bit better. fair enough? thanks very much. [applause]

almost every other developed country in the world you pay taxes on money-making each country make it. the united states passes global income so essentially you are being taxed twice for the same income. it makes the u.s. companies very anti-competitive and literally forces them to leave their money overseas. the thought is here when we need economic stimulus we could have this money come back here come back into the economy at a lower tax rate of five to 10% and find capital investment. that would make sense. next a discussion on the 2012 presidential race and the likely republican nominee to run against president obama. this is about 40 minutes. >> a little bit about what the next president is likely to inherit in 2013.

where two moderators for today's discussion major garrett who is our congressional correspondent and joins "national journal" last year. as i mentioned early this morning he will be on the dais with scott pelley asking questions about the presidential candidates of the debate in south carolina. also moderating the discussion is an alumnus -- former editor-in-chief. he is the currently the chief white house correspondent for nbc news, chuck todd. helping us get in the south carolina state of mind is congressman mitt mulvaney who was elected in 2010 to serve the fifth district of south carolina. a special focus on jobs business and the economy and serves on the house budget committee and the joint house-senate economic committee. jerry bernstein is currently the senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities. prior to joining the center jared was a member of president

obama's economic team and the chief economist and economic an economic adviser to vice president biden. over to you gentlemen. >> thanks for being with us and we are stuck with the issue that nobody's talking about in the campaign and obligations was whatsoever for the 2012 election are governing a 2013 so chuck i guess we are behind a paul. >> i guess. i hear the economy might matter a little. >> right, just a wee bit. gentlemen i am a chargers fan so i'm traumatized this morning after watching the fumble last night on the 15th yard line. chair if we are going to ask in the general context of you had to say one thing -- [inaudible] if you could say candidly looking back up there was one thing in the efforts of the obama administration to try to deal with an admittedly difficult economic situation, one issue, one area the economy that you mishandled what would

it have been? >> i will give you two. first i think the recovery act was extremely effective and doing what it set out to do, doing what we hope for which was pulling the economy back on the cataclysmic cliff dive that it was doing when they took office. essentially, it ended too soon. if you actually look at some of the most basic economic indicators whether this gdp growth or employment growth when the recovery act goes into place in february 2009 the rate of gdp contraction right away begins to decline. the federal reserve was working too and gdp turned positive in the second half of 2009. where it's been sense, not fast enough but that is the case. employment losses begin to diminish right-of-way so in march of 2010 you begin to add jobs at this point about 2.5 million.

not enough. then when the recovery act starts to fade from the system you very quickly see both of those indicators begin to slow down. so the chasm, excuse me, the chasm of private-sector demand contraction was deeper and longer than the recovery in terms of length, so it needed to last longer. secondly on housing as the president as they think himself committed -- i mean referenced in various comments there is always a trade-off between moral hazard that is helping people who other people don't find as reserving as you do and getting to the bottom of the thing and arguably that balance was not achieved as well as it might've been. >> congressman i would like you to respond to the initial point of jared's that this wasn't enough stimulus. >> we needed to do more. what i think people don't allies as we talk in terms in this town of hundreds of billions of

dollars and trillions of dollars and how big the stimulus was. in 2006 or $2008 to give an example the entire interstate highway system across $425 billion that is modern dollars. the seamless program was twice as big as the interstate highway system. it wasn't that it wasn't big enough. was much too large and not at all focus. i think if we asked me the question what was wrong with the stimulus, administration did not do what they told people they were going to do. if they had built two more miles of interstate highway for every interstate highway that we have now, if that had been the money that was used in the stimulus and i think we'll be facing a much different election environment than we have now. so there's a long list of things see there's a piece about that i agree with.

there's a piece of that but i agree with and a much bigger piece i did agree with. one piece and again i'm coming from a critical place here, i actually think that when i look back at what worked best in the stimulus, the closer we got to direct job creation, the more we reliably created jobs. about a third of the stimulus was tax cuts and when you try to stimulate the economy by cutting taxes you are crossing your fingers and hoping a few things happen. you hope people don't use the tax break to pay down debt. another words they say because we are still at 7% consumption, consumers are actively spending and you hope if they go out and spend if they are not spending it on imports. you want to stimulate the domestic economy and that would change -- that change is a risky one. more direct infrastructure are better. on the size issue we can

disagree. >> congressman let me jump in on the issue of the tax cuts. not just the tax stimulus but also i think it was a new phenomena and to the american consumer that morally -- interest rates are going up. that is not good for the american economy overall. corporate america was doing the same thing, take, take advantage of a tax break and hoarding money and not spending it so what do you do to incentivize? obviously the republican point of view is trying to remove some barriers both in regulation but also dealing with the tax cuts. how do you incentivize the tax cuts and pour back into the economy? >> i think the natural inclination of the private sector is to -- is why we get together and why folks build houses. with his wife technology does what it does. they want to grow and what we have done, let's flip it the

other way, what incentives can we give to get them to grow? i don't think you need to give businesses an incentive to grow. we have given them a disincentive right now and everybody is concerned about stability. everybody is concerned about future taxes and future regulatory environment. i think when we hear businesses say it is getting to be a talking point, getting to be the type of thing you hear again and again and you become numb to it. businesses don't like uncertainty. that's not true. the business world is by its nature uncertain and if we can deal with the uncertainty of the marketplace, what we have introduced with this administration is introduced the previous control of congress is a new level of uncertainty when it comes to the government intervention in the marketplace and that is what i think is preventing businesses and individuals from doing what they do naturally. >> when you talk about housing to me, forget about everything else, housing, and maybe in hindsight it was the wrong thing to basin economic boom on in the

'90s. >> if we can relitigate that but let me ask you what is your view of how to handle this crisis? are we over encouraging homeownership? do we need to deemphasize homeownership? >> i will take half of it and turn it over. it's the exact right segment of the economy to build a healthy economy on. it's where most people, and i'm saying this with a little bit of a bias, that it's the right thing for us to do and it was the right thing for us to encourage. i think what we did however and this will be more to the -- than the other folks is that we missed the natural downturn in the business cycle in 2001 in 2002. the industry was due for a slowdown in that period and in large part because of what the bush of administration did after 9/11. we skipped a recession. who escaped a recession in the homebuilding business. is probably in hindsight one of

the things we wish we could've done over is a nation. now we are essentially putting off the inevitable for as long as we possibly could and are now paying the price for it. >> i don't disagree. i think, i think that there is no question. there is a bit of question the way you phrased it. there's no question on the mind of anyone who test taken an objective look at the cause of the great recession that it was the housing bubble and it was a bubble that was allowed to inflate to levels that would only be sustainable if home prices continued to defy gravity forever. once they reasserted themselves the underlying rot and housing finance related to bad underwriting and financial innovation and engineering that inflated that double as the crash unfortunately was

inevitable, if your question is what should we do about it? >> part b, what do we do? >> part b. you know i happen to believe that there is a certain amount and i hate this word because it sounds of technical and painless. correction that needs to occur in the system when a bunch of people undertake loans and they can't possibly surface, and less home prices defy gravity forever. those folks are going to have to get out from under that burden and if that means foreclosure, some foreclosures are inevitable. >> there are two schools of thought here. government forces the banks to refinance. it forces them basically and says you have to do this rather than this incentive program or what mitt romney said the other day which is rip the mandate off. foreclosures. >> you have to let the market work and in fact i'm convinced knowing a little bit about the industry the reason this recession is drag on as long as

it has its is we have not allow allowed the market to work and we still have people living in their homes that should have been foreclosed on two years ago. the regulations inside frank did not help. the banks did not help themselves with the robo documents. there were many country bidding factors to it but we have continued to prolong this circumstance by not essentially taking the medicine. >> dodd-frank has nothing to do with it. it hasn't been faced and yet. i want to be clear, there are a lot of people out there who could then if it from refinancing at the lower rate. i thought the plan the president introduced the other day made a lot of sense and to the extent the system can intelligently separate folks in normal terms, normal circumstances in a more novel economy could actually service their housing debt, sure. the problem has been that is a difficult thing to do. >> there is an economic question of the velocity hitting body and

a political question of hitting the bottom. the administration clearly wanted to slow that velocity down to protect as many homeowners as possible. is that a priority for republicans? it is faster and better even if that means more foreclosures and more people moving out of their houses? is that a heart-rending story but an economic imperative? >> one of the inc. urging things and i give full disclosure i'm helping governor perry's -- one of the encouraging thing i'm hearing is -- is very start realistic objective discussion about exactly what you describe. is going to have to get worse before it gets better. we are going to have to rip the band-aid off as governor romney said the other day because we have not allowed ourselves to do it. it's hard to hear that when you live in las vegas any of law 65% of your value in the same ischua naples florida and all of the nation but the truth of the matter is we have not clear the junk out of the system as we

have been able to do in the past. there something to be said for creative destruction in the capitalistic system and i would be glad to hear more talking with all respect to my colleagues, the current administration has been willing to tell people don't worry we will make it better for you. we will fix this problem for you. >> just to be clear what i was saying before is i think many people have used the administer -- accused the of administration of coming down to harsh. i've been to many housing meetings as a member of that team in the obama administration. on moral hazard was always in the room. many people from the other side of the fence were pushing it to go much further in terms of bailing people out and the issue there is why should my neighbor get a break when i have been disciplined in paying my mortgage? i actually think the measures the administration took were quite cautious and in fact have often been criticized.

[inaudible] i remember one of your colleagues saying there was a little bit of a fear that this foreclosure process, if people looked it might be financially better to walk away. what you do about that if it is actually financially in your best interest to walk away from your home particularly a second home which is why we are having these basically vacant beachfront houses in florida or the issue in vegas. those are the two highest -- >> it is sort of a loaded question because you have to ask are you better off in the short-term and long-term because people have stopped paying attention to future considerations and so forth but to a certain extent, people are going to do the rational thing. it is better for me to walk away from it than i will walk away from it. what is that to the shifted over to the bank which is where you

end up where we are now. the banks are struggling to figure out a way to do with the situation. >> let me move to the super committee. do you want the super committee to secede or do you want to fail and have that sorted out by the 2012 election and start fresh after that? >> i'm not one is a republican who likes to see people fail. i don't think the prospect for success is very high. >> why? >> lapi put it to you this way. if i wanted to have new ideas about how to fix things in washington d.c. i'm not sure i would but senator john kerry on the commission. that is not exactly an influx of new ideas on how to fix problems in washington d.c. and they think the simple fact is -- >> it a democrat might say the same thing. >> that would be a fair analysis. it took them what, five meetings to come up with a scheduled. i'm not sure they have ever agreed on how to count which

baseline to use in terms of how they will measure -- and at the end of the day whether they succeed or fail in my mind isn't the bigger issue. it is only $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. that is less than 10% of the anticipated deficit over the same. i of time in the know for a fact if they come out tomorrow with the program of $2 trillion come 80% of those cuts will be in years eight, nine in 10 of the budget reduction. the debt ceiling deal, the debt ceiling increase spending this year over what the republicans initially called for so that is the bigger issue. can we deal with the debt and deficit on the grander scale back whether not we can find $1.2 trillion. >> you don't think, and i don't think any of us believe it is going to succeed. we think it is going to be -- there's a sense that both parties have, we will let the voters decide in november. the most likely outcome though is basically one party is going

to have a larger advantage because they either one or help the white house but you are still going to have this good luck on capitol hill. what is the sense that will motivate to say okay that's give them $4 trillion are now it's $3 trillion. >> i was going to finish major garrett's point that because of that dynamic what you end up with is this will be resolved in the election. >> but i mean what's the resolution if we get a stalemate election? >> sooner or later we are going to -- you can't continue to spend money you don't have. either we decide the way to fix it or the folks who are lending us money decide. >> i think sooner or later it will get fixed has gotten us into this sorry state we are in to tell you the truth. i mean, the fact that congress's approval rating accepting anyone on the stage is 9% is very much

indicative of the american public's complete deep set up attitude about this kicking the can and even kicking the can to the super committee strikes a lot of people -- henry waxman said this nicely the other day. most people go to work and do their jobs. we need congress to do the same thing and intractability in terms of understanding the basic economics of the budget here is impossible, again, my colleague earlier said the recovery act is too big. 800 alien is a big stimulus i agree but it's temporary. it gets into the system and gets out and contributes less than half a percent to the gdp ratio in 2012. temperature beats nothing to the growth of the debt going forward. the bush tax cuts cost 3.6 trillion over 10 years and if those were actually, what actually expire 3.6 trillion per

minute, 800 billion temporary those would actually expire the deficit to the share of gdp would be 3% in 2021 instead of 6% and rising so we are not talking about what we need to talk about and congress simply refuses to go there. >> let me ask you this jarrett on this point on the bush tax cut. i spent a lot of time on the campaign trail as you well remember, among the most repeated an impassioned promises of then candidate obama was to make sure the bush tax cuts to the wealthy would never be extended. the bush tax cuts to the wealthy was extended. the theory was it would be helpful in an economic context to generate or do something stimulative or not put a damper on the economy. they were extended. what happen? the economy was not contracted. it slowed down. to both of you, what does that tell us about the economic

vitality of the bush tax cuts and the propriety to litigate or otherwise of the present extending them? >> the extension of the high-end tax cuts in december of 2010 was the price of a lot of other stuff that i would argue was much better and more effective in terms of boosting the economy. of payroll tax holiday, extending unemployment insurance benefits. it was the political price that i agree with the fundamental intimation of your question which is high-end tax cuts helped very little in terms of stimulus because those folks are in some constraint. you run to the problem i mentioned earlier but tax cuts is some are constrained already so their marginal propensity to consume an extra dollar ain't that big of a deal and doesn't help you very much. >> you focused a lot in keynesian on consumption recognizing it is only one part of the equation to raise gdp.

it is 70% to 70% of our economy is extraordinarily weak. will look what happened during the stimulus. what money was able to get to -- what did they do? they went to walmart and bought clothes and other things they need to get by. that stuff went overseas which had a negative impact which is what constrained our gdp. e-health is healthiest part of the economy right now is the business community. that's the one place right now that has money. households on that money, the certainly the government doesn't have money that businesses have money. to the point of the bush tax cuts, not going to try t. use it in that sense but that is where the money is. why do you rob a bank? that is where the money is. we want to stimulate the economy and i'm not a traditional keynesian and we can have that discussion as well but if we are going to try and boost the economy why not go to the segment of the economy that is healthy and say look what you

need to help lift us out of this >> what is the last year slack economic activity tell us about the economic vitality of sand extending high-end tax cuts? >> one of the first things jared said is when it be better if we just had more money? at some point do we run out of the ability to make those arguments? who's to say it would have been better or worse? we consider all day and say, play these what-if games. the truth of the matter is that could've been much worse if we had not kept those in. the president himself said you don't raise taxes during a recession. >> they are part of what you said that i totally agree with. they are the ones with the money and the reason corporate profits are not just back to where they were in their prior peak before the great recession but have surpassed that is because if you look at the numbers the ones that are doing better obviously the ones who have figured out how to sell into an emerging

economy which doesn't happen to include the u.s. and europe right now so they are doing great as they can sell us by our borders. i agree with you. with got to get those folks off the sidelines. what is holding them back clearly isn't more money, more resources, more tax cuts that mostly what i hear from the republican side. i tax repatriation holiday to shovel more tax breaks to people. they are our ready sitting on trillions in research. what they need to see are people shopping, customers, orders, projects they can invest in this country. it's completely demand-side constrained and that is where the taxes are the healthiest. >> gentlemen i'm going to bring in are able and ready yahoo! on line moderators because of course every public function now includes a cyberspace component, twitter component so please let us know what is happening on

line with questions. >> we have several questions. we will start with a tax policy, something you have all spoken a lot about in the past few minutes. you think an income tax whether through allowing the bush tax rates to expire otherwise by the end of 2012 is inevitable, or will folks against a tax increase win again in 2012 like they did in 2010? >> will the bush tax cuts scheduled expiration be inevitable or will they be extended? >> i think it is whether we are to reach some type of -- >> or real tax reform. >> i think it is beyond the super committee. the super committee may come back with ideas but one way or another we have to do with tax reform in some way with spending before the end of the year. no one believes and sequestration and the super committee which means essentially -- and now i lost my train of

thought. >> the question is, will the tax cuts, will the bush tax -- tax cuts expire? >> will be inevitable or will there be another extension? >> i think first of all yeah because this is so, in 2013 if i may of the president is reelected i think we will see the high-end tax cuts sunset. in 2012, i'm sorry, i don't have a good crystal ball on that. we talked about rick perry's plan and if we had a chance to talk about that would be fun. >> do you think because we are seeing some more evan aggressive tax debate in the republican party, the flat tax coming from the sales tax and came the flat tax from perry and i think romney is feeling the pressure to try to do something a little

more, this seems a little bit bigger on tax reform. what does that do to the actual conversation in congress right now for 2012? >> we have gone back and talked about tax reform within the budget back in march. the budget that the republicans have approved in the house the contemplated the two-tier tax system with a lot of loopholes gone, so i think it certainly helps the debate. >> i want to articulate what i think you are saying. i think the campaign is telling us the error of the bush tax cuts and the bush tax code may be coming to an and. if republicans win the white house, retain the house, when the majority and even if they don't, the idea of renovating or reforming or changing the tax code is to get into a post-bush era. >> i think it's fair to say i think romney may be the exception here. i think it is fair to say all the other republican candidates and i apologize for overstepping of taking the idea it is more

easily defensible and fairer than if you make $100,000 i make $50,000 you pay twice what i pay. doesn't make any difference how you spend your money. [inaudible] >> ride, unfortunately we get under the hood of these proposals in some ways and say -- i will speak to that in the second but let me get to your question. i can imagine tax reform by the -- and i certainly can imagine i'm looking at him like he is the tweeting guy. i certainly can imagine that the middle class tax cuts before then are high-end either. look, here's the thing. i take your point on simplicity and like chuck said it's like apple pie. you couldn't be against it. what we are seeing a flat tax plan are the things -- first of all if you go and here is what i

see as a big problem. i'm sure we will give you a chance to defend this. there's a huge problem with the perry plan. the perry plan allows you to either pay a flat tax rate of 20% or sign on to the current system. it has got to be a big -- you either pay what you will now or you pay less and the tax policy center who does this number crunching is going to lose $570 billion per year. that is huge. take out social security and medicare and medicaid and that is more than the rest of the discretionary budget outside of the fed so we are talking about -- bruce bartlett this morning a rating treasury official said. plank cannot plan cannot be taken seriously on the asis and then when you get into the distribution and a look at the fact the wealthiest

sliver, the top of the scale you are cutting their taxes by 1.5 million middle class and cutting their taxes by $13 in the bottom fifth raising their taxes by 160 box it isn't portable to me. >> you raised. >> you raised a couple of issues and we will give you an opportunity. the optional nature of it i challenged a little bit and what we found that when we did the research is modeled on what happened in hong kong. it's a 15% tax but it's optional. you can opt into this flat tax. 90% of the people opt into the system. you notice optional looks like a flat tax does attract more people by its very nature and people will choose what is simple over what is complex. this is to your second regarding revenue. i asked the same question. the hong kong system 15% flat tax generates almost as much

money as a percentage of gdp from the hong kong government is our system does. its 200 pages long. it is a percentage of gdp that simple flat system rate has almost as much money as the percentage of gdp is our tax system which could fill this room. one of the things -- many of them don't score dynamically. it does not score dynamically. >> but there are $358 billion worth of uncollected taxes out there. either people can't figure out how much to pay or the treasury can't figure it out. geithner does not understand the taxes and that's not surprising. >> you guys are making a more calm for gated. you are keeping the old system. now i have to figure out my taxes to lay. >> there's no way the bottom quintile will pay more in the new system.

to put aside the option now the first second, you can stay where you are and i've heard this several times before. >> i can explain why they do that. standard deductions for a family of four is $50,000. under the perry system if you make $50,000 with the standard deduction $12,500 for a family of four is not going to pay anything. >> here's the reason i think that. it's a good question i wonder that myself. i believe in you can address this, i believe according to -- that they assume because someone in the campaign told them that you guys are going to, the perry folks are going to allow the bush tax cuts to expire. so what that does, there's actually significant expansion in refundable tax credits from the low and better in the bush tax cuts that would disappear. >> we are getting into some of the -- our next question.

>> this is from the audience in the room. how do you think the success or failure of the super committee is going to affect the 2012 election and given washington's track record how confident are you that the super committee will meet their deadline? >> can i go first because i have a briefing. do you want to repeat the question? >> how will the super committee, the successor the failure of fact the 2012 elections? >> you know, the congressman a minute ago said nobody wants a sequester. i'm not so sure about that. i think the triggers were built strategically and somewhat smartly to avoid great hits on the defense side and great hits on the discretionary side. both people have skin in the game but the entitlements are exempt from the sequester. medicaid, medicare, social security exempt from the sequester so i'm not sure it would be all that popular.

it is a good point. 2% cuts for providers and if you look at what they're proposing democrats and republicans, large cuts in my view on beneficiaries of medicare. i don't think it will have a big impact on the election if the super committee hits a gridlock. i think that is priced into the market to tell you the truth and i also think people are already operating from the mindset that these guys can't agree on anything. >> i think that's fair. one of the discussions we have had in her own party as there is a group in congress who take the results of the presidential election. there's a lot of folks here that think newt gingrich gave bill clinton a second term. i think the presidential election stands on its own and i doubt seriously the outcome way -- one way or the other will affect the 2012 presidency.

>> in 2014 ben bernanke's term is going to expire. let me start with you congressman. it seems to me bernanke is not going to get reappointed whether obama or definitely with a republican president. describe the type of person you expect to take over as an elected republican president. >> i will give you a full disclosure. we have not discussed that in the perry campaign and we have not discussed it in our public and study committee so i will speak for myself and make it extraordinarily clear. one thing that i've heard rumblings of within the conservative wing of my party would be to take a strong look at the dual mandate. you heard mr. bernanke say in the long run the only thing the fed could really impact is inflation.

i'm sorry, right now the senate has two different directions. number one is to keep inflation within a certain realm usually 2% per year on average and also encourage employment. many times if you use traditional economic balances those might be at cross purposes. if you end up in a situation with high unemployment rates it might actually dictate two different reactions ida said. there is a group myself included who are seriously, would seriously consider trying to remove the mandate and get the fed back into the business of just controlling inflation instead of trying to move into -- 's be more transparent more honorable. >> ron paul is a friend of mine and i enjoy my relationship with him as a colleague. the transparency is fine.