the wireless providers have to have some flexibility to manage their network. the key to it though is you don't want them to do it in a way that in my opinion, you don't want them to do it in a way that is discriminatory in the sense that it slows down other people's applications, doesn't slow down the ones that they have a proprietary interest and so my answer is yes i think we need to cut the wireless carriers a little bit more slack but also at the same time you need to be careful that in doing so that they are not unfairly disadvantaging potential competitors. that depends upon how competitive the market is of course. >> host: unfortunately dale hatfield we are out of time. i would recommend to our viewers to type dale hatfield into a search engine. you can get his background and also go to the university of colorado web site to get some

background information on him. professor hatfill thank you for being on "the communicators" and i hope you can come back. >> guest: thank you i would be happy to do so. >> host: has always paul kirby one of our regular guest reporters here on "the communicators," with telecommunications reports and that includes their t.r. daily publication which comes out on a daily basis. thank you. >> guest: thank you. ..

topics include health care, jobs and education costs. from the center for american progress, this is 90 minutes. >> good afternoon. welcome. i'm happy to have you. i'm the director of 2050 a project of the center for american progress to promote new ideas for an increasingly diverse america and we are excited to have this today. for one to be quick because i know you are looking for to the

conversation and the wonderful speakers have very long by u.s. and i will try to being a brief and i will start with jamal a phill with the nation institute and a blocker and journalist and the washington, d.c.. since july of 2010 he has been a writing fellow for the american prospect and his work has appeared at the washington independent, cnn dhaka,, the luke 21 and a number of other outlets. next i'd like to introduce eduardo, an advocacy is a seat for progress. he is a graduate of california state university where he majored in american studies and psychology. as a student he was focused on local economic development issues and the impact on working families. advocating in organizing for affordable housing and living wage job edward became interested in the role of immigrant communities played in

shaping public policies. next to eduardo we have ronnie cho. prior to joining the white house he was an editor of the "newsweek" daily beast company and new york city where he wrote and edited content related to social justice and social entrepreneurship. in 2009 he worked the federal communications commission as a part of the team that broke the national broadband plan and served as associate director of the affairs of the u.s. department of homeland security. next to him we have had her. heather mcghee, the director of the washington, d.c. develops and execute the strategy for the organization's impact of the policy debates in d.c.. previously she was a deputy policy director of domestic and international policy for the john edward president 2008 campaign and a program is as yet in the economic opportunity

program. and finally, we have aaron smith, a co-founder and executive. aaron is a native of yonkers new york and an honors the venture would of morris college and a cum laude the graduate of the georgetown university law center. at the college, aaron and turned the office of the congressmen and then worked the nonprofit organization to keep seniors in their homes in d.c.. he went back to yonkers in 2006 to be the company manager of the new york state assembly race and went on to become the chief legislative aide for the yonkers city council president. please welcome the panel and we look forward to the conversation. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for coming out. with the great recession of the backdrop it's easy to read a report like this and come away with the sense that things are

terrible. you know, you can go down the list of the report young americans are graduating with a large student internet economy with much opportunities than their parents have for those fortunate enough to be in college is very likely they will leave college unable to deal with the fact over the next several years. for those who are in college but have not graduated there's a fair chance they might have to drop out because of the debt for young people who simply a high school the education the job market is terrible as a result of changes in the global economy, the unions and so on and we know the story. likewise, there are a host of racial disparities among young people that have also disadvantaged millions, young african-americans, latinos, especially less likely to finish high school, less likely to attend college, less likely to graduate from college once

they're independent and they are more likely to looker below the median wage for people in their age group. they are less likely to have health insurance and less likely to be employed. and then if you turn to young people who are undocumented immigrants in addition to the aver mentioned problems, they also have to deal with the fact they don't have citizenship and the fact the culture is becoming increasingly hostile to the undocumented immigrants in their interest, and it's just a mess. so, you know, easier to read this come easier to come away thinking things were to double, what can we do. but i think this is another exercise in despair. these are solvable problems. these are things we can approach as a country as a community to fix and so the right way i think to look at this report is not so

much as look at all these problems of doom and gloom but as a diagnosis of sorts for the patient being in america that is sick but is still look for the challenges ahead. with that in mind, i want to start the discussion here with aaron, who will help to craft this report. there's a survey attached to the report, and if you could detail some of the information from that survey and give us a sense of what people are thinking and how they view their future. >> absolutely. let me sitting to the center for american progress for having us here. it's a tremendous opportunity. just quickly about young invincible on the efficacy organization, we partnered with

dmos on this project because we want to understand the challenges young adults face and when i see young adults i mean 18 through koza 34 not only in response to the recession that the long-term trend, and i'm going to talk about the whole section to beat pet there will talk more about the report itself. one thing i want to highlight more is the reasons for gloom there are some significant challenges but we also found reasons for optimism and hope and a set of priorities for congress young people have that i think came through. let me quickly say the polls conducted, the bipartisan poll with the research partners and a bell weather research consulting got 872 people surveyed with cellphone and land line and i'm going to just give the high level results and a few different categories and you will see first of all the tremendous challenges that young

adults in my generation face. first of all we know that use of unemployment was very high. many people don't realize how many. 50% of young adults actually learn less than $30,000 a year, and when we pull them even the ones who are employed only 53% were in their chosen field. many of them struggle with their personal financial situation, and was particularly an acute issue for people of color, so for example, 60% of young latinos said their personal financial situation is either fair or poor and was 50% for young african-americans. across-the-board young people have seen a level of debt increase over the last few years. the biggest reasons are stewed in debt, credit cards and medical bills. that is a consistent problem and the economic conditions are causing people not only hardship

right now but causing them to delay things they would otherwise want to do. so, for example, 46% have to the purchasing a home. a quarter have delayed getting married, 30% of the late starting a family. these are life decisions that are going to have tremendous impact only on the young people but on the economy and the society. so just to talk about education, we found in the poll we had about one third that had either of the young adults have either a college degree or an associate's degree which many people don't realize is the norm for the population only about one-third of young people actually go to graduate and get that degree. not surprisingly about 76% say the college has become even harder to a ford in the past five years. while they are concerned about how they are going to pay for college, we found they were even more concerned about how they were going to send their kids to college, so they have that sort of long-term set of concerns.

all the economic trends are having an impact on their view of the future. so 48% of young adults think the generation will be worse off than their parents. 57% are either very relaxed and concerned the middle class is disappearing and a startling number of 39% think in today's america dearborn to one economic group you are likely to stay there in part because the rules are set up in an unfair way. so there's a tremendous frustration and concern, but there was also this consistent hope and optimism comes a for example 69% said they still believed the american dream was achievable for their generation. they valued getting education, hard work and innovation are the keys to success. they want to start businesses to 54% either want to start a business or have already started a business and that number is even higher above 60% for african-americans and young

latinos. it is a reason for optimism, and one area in particular, healthcare, which young people, the largest group of an injured, we've already seen some major progress thanks to the affordable care act wherever a million young adults have now gained coverage, and i think that is an example of how congress can step up to the plate and address these big long-term challenges. as a, a leader we will talk more about priorities, going to save some of those remarks for them. thank you very much. >> heather, i know you dealt with a lot of the data in the report. would you like to describe it? >> sure. dmos come to tell you a lot about dmos and it is a nonpartisan on the public advocacy organization that works to advance a more robust democracy in america and more widely shared economic prosperity.

we've been around for 11 years and for most of those years we have focused on the issue of this generation actually thankfully still my generation, the youngest generation which is most and the first in history to most likely not do better than their parents did as they enter adulthood. we have really seen this generation, the millennials generation 18 to 34 roughly as sort of the bellwether for the results of a series of economic policy decisions most of which were made around the time that most of us on this stage were born that have really made it a lot harder for people to work or educate themselves into the middle class. so this story is about young people but also about the country and economic choices that are affecting everyone but for the generation coming of age exclusively under this economic paradigm it's really having an affect the we want to take a

look at in this report to save young america. we wanted to both tell the story of what happened during the recession and where people are now and tell a broad generational contrast story. throughout the report, which looks at data in five different areas, we compare how young people are doing today in 2010 or 2011, whenever the latest data is, to how their parents were doing it the same point in their life in 1980, 18 to 34-year-olds. that allows us to really show this generational comparison. on the first factor that we look at, jobs and the economy, the picture is quite come serving the cause around the same time many of us on the stage were born and not the same time this generation was getting its start, policy makers and corporate leaders in the country really sort of decided to to be labor the policy and transform the country's economy from one

there was good producing an economy to more of a knowledge and service economy. in a more vivid terms we've transformed over the past 40 years from an economy where the largest employer was gm with the unionized middle class jobs that could support a family on one income to wal-mart with the non-union non-wage no benefit career ladder jobs. so that snapshot is a picture if you want to drill in to what's been going on with young americans you can really see. but today the typical young man next 10 cents less on the dollar than his father would have in 1980. young women make 17 cents more on the dollar than their mothers did, but there are too important caveat to the story of progress. one is the mother of course in 1980 was less likely to be in the work force to have a college

degree. so making progress on their mother's standards great progress from the standard point but not in the economic security standpoint and importantly, young women today even though they've made progress of regeneration still have over $8,000 less in inflation-adjusted terms than young man in 1980. so we are seeing a generational decline in terms of wages. young people are more likely to have part time contingent work, more likely to not have benefits, pension, health care. in fact the only workers that we have seen have an increase in wages over the generational time period have been those with a college degree. it would be fine and had the tradeoffs from the good economy to the service and knowledge economy comes hand in hand with a robust investment in education. we are going to say actually it's going to be harder for you

not to get a middle class life if you don't have a college degree the country you'd think would have said okay we are going to make it easier for people to get a college degree, and unfortunately that is not what happened. at the same time the college education became the ticket to the middle class life our report shows the country pulled back on investment and education training on the per capita level. average tuition today, college tuition is three times higher than it was in 1980. i think we all know that. we'll experience that see that it's trouble over the course of the generation. it's quite stark and in 1980 the maximum pell grant covered 69% of the cost of attendance. today only covers 34% of the cost of attendance. so as a result we have to of three students graduate and with student loan debt and an average of over $24,000. last year the total student loan debt in the country is close to the credit card debt of the entire nation.

over $1 trillion, and of course, because of the recession and the incredible joblessness among the young even college graduates we are now seeing the desalt rate on the loans which are not discharged in bankruptcy do a po for 40% the past two years. we also look at young people is just students, young people 18 to 34 also parents, people who are likely to, you know, start a family, buy a house, all that, so we try to look at the cost of living, the cost of raising a family and found some really startling statistics there as well. but just in the interest of time i will say quickly that over 40% of young households spend more than one-third of their income on rent, and importantly i think it is always a short trip to the cost of child care which is a young adult issue and paid family leave, that is an issue for young adults because people

are the beverage 25 for 26-years-old when they have their first child, the cost of child care actually exceeds the cost of rent in most metropolitan areas and exceeds the cost of college education in many states. >> i know the white house has taken recent steps to help students a levy to their debt. what else is the white house pursuing along these lines and i guess more broadly, to what extent is the administration working to sort of help young americans find work, develop their skills, pay for college education, the whole 9 yards? >> the situation we find ourselves in my tank in the white house, and the president certainly is acutely aware, but liking when you go back to the career of the president from his actions as a community organizer in chicago many years ago to his role as the president today he

has always been an advocate on behalf of young people and shared a special relationship with the young folks. so we are trying to get past and we have as of late weekend we the initiatives and the series' executive orders the president has put out going back to raising the pell grant benefits to the historically high numbers, but obviously that is as you mentioned not enough to cover most of the cost of higher education but we are doing what we can to help mitigate that with interest rates trying to cut the middle man with the lenders and borrowers to create some savings also income based repayment reforms to have the ability to pay off their debt in a way that is responsible for their own income situation. if you are not working you should not at this moment have to pay five or $600 a month

until you are employed where you can pay that back and if you go to public service your debt will be forgiven after 20 years, so we are trying to make these steps towards creating more sort of fairness in light of the economic situation. that goes to the health care as mentioned additional young people are now injured because of the law being passed, the affordable care act. it's not an insignificant number. those are folks that need health care and should have health care but wouldn't have ordinarily have access to that if it were not for that. we're going this at a multifaceted we doing what we can through the executive orders and also building as a part of the president's broader agenda of strengthening this country going forward.

>> i actually wanted to ask along those lines, you know like election is coming up. young people right for obama 2008 but there's discontent among the administration why don't you think the things that you outlined -- that seems a breach of consciousness of sorts. why do you think it is? >> it is a question that i think a lot of folks russell with. i think the folks in this room can certainly talk about the accomplishments of this administration. it's just a matter of communicating that and it is something we can certainly do better job of when it comes to the income based repayments that is a program that's existed for a while that few people know about that is the responsibility for the federal government to make sure that folks who are eligible for the program that

exist are aware of them sat through the office of public engagement to talk about the strategies to kind of to an end around the media who may not be getting the message across the public engagement used to be called the office of the public liaison and it was started by president richard nixon. primarily a political office and place where the ip, business leaders, elected officials have a chance to interact with the white house and the administration. i know when president obama was elected in january, 2009, she was reprinted the office of engagement to create the same opportunities others had to enjoy to the general public and so we convened as you were talking about earlier the series of events and meetings of the white house to bring opinion leaders, committee leaders from virtually every industry and issue to the white house not only to be informed of the things the president in this white house is working on and

has accomplished and continues to work on but also to be informed of the most importance and to create a direct dialogue between people and this administration in the same spirit of what the president believes in an acceptable and responsive government. and it's in the spirit of that intent but we are doing our best to sort of infiltrate the different communities and make sure they know they have a seat at the table, and they want to know what this president is doing on their behalf. what are they doing on the issues that we care about that there is an open door for us and them to have that kind of discussion. but talk about why there is sort of jazz you see discontent around young people, we are is the story says and the report shows pretty hard hit by a the economy, and i think that's something we are all very concerned about, and i think when it comes to the policies

this president is pushing for it is just a matter of us making sure folks know we are continuing to work on their behalf. we are addressing the issues as we can, but no one is satisfied with the unemployment numbers. it is unacceptably high across-the-board especially for young people, but we are working on those things. >> thank you. so one of the questions that emerges from the report is one of action. what can people seek to influence the political process. so i know you were on these issues. what recommendations we will hear. >> sort of going off what ronnie said the work the administration is doing to work with young people on the issues they care about the most, i think there has to be a point made about the robie organizations play in the progress, young and invincible and other organizations of the

national, not the local level. they play in developing leaders and why that is so important for the future of young people in politics i think. my biggest point to that would be organizations have a responsibility to provide young people with the skills they need to learn about politics, and i think in general there's a lot of excitement and energy that young people have right now getting involved especially with all of the occupied staff. you see these young faces starting to come out and challenge a lot of the issues they are coming up against that are highlighted in this report coming and i think on our end its organizations like the campus of progress and other youth organizations have to be very aware of what the needs of our, what some of the frustrations are young people have with regards to education, the economy, other immigration. i work on immigration issues on campus progress, as i get to work with undocumented people

all the time to advance local policies and so i think a lot of it comes down to programming. organizations need to be very aware of who they are developing. who the programs are geared towards. what skills are they gaming is it putting them in the experience where they are working where they are in turning at the office of the legislature or are they getting experience to organize or policy work, and i think that excitement is there and it's a pipeline for the leadership development that still i think needs to be further developed and that is the rule on top of what the administration does for young people liking and a lot of ways why they are so frustrated there's a lot of organizations that are not like feeding into our -- that are not like really taking in vintage of the energy that excess in the you face to develop the talent and the

skills and the leadership of the young people being most disenfranchised and deeply affected by the economy by the high cost of education by the fact that congress can't seem to get its act together. i like to call it safe congress because it seems like nothing is happening. and so really being aware who your constituents are, having programming that is setting them up for future opportunities to get involved in local politics and the national politics and taking a chance on young people better most disenfranchised by some of the, you know, some of the most cuts to education by the unemployment rate really taking advantage of that opportunity to develop the skills as leaders because these are going to be people that were going to be leading the country. >> i think it's one of the hardest things about doing what

i do but also the tremendous opportunities that there isn't an aarp version for people. there's a huge collection or huge organization that intent is to help protect the issues and programs geared towards young people come and i think that creates a space for candice progress and municipals to fill the to become the group but that is challenging of course and to get both the non-campus youth, the folks who most of a generation are not in college, to have them be a part of this process and to arm them with the tools of civic engagement that is beyond, you know, literally checking the box on election de it's about citizenship, it's about being part of a process and this talks about we don't

market democracy very well. when the ury potter movie comes out, you know, what day it comes out in theaters, where to go, how much it is going to cost you, what time to be there but when it comes to the zoning whether or not those days the strip club is going to open up a block from your home, where is that information? how do you find that out? so it is incumbent upon all of us to inform the public and arm them with a tools what they are aware of how to be involved and what to do once you are involved. >> to get something on to the but the question for democracy for young people i know it's something that a lot of people in this town have been aware of, but i think we actually go further than not marketing democracy enough. and that there is a real sort of war in this country going on in terms of people who have a vested interest in contrasting believe to suppress in the democracy and the vote in targeted ways. 2008 was a watershed year for

participation among young people and people of color who are particularly people of color are going to be the rising american electorate and then in 2010 across the state your the one states considered it was entered in some sort of legislation to restrict the voting rights of the various people. the piece that is particularly hard hitting for young adults is the voter i.d.. a lot of people think it just makes a ton of sense. of course you should have to show a photo id to vote but over a third of 18-year-olds in this country that of course are eligible to vote do not have a government issued on eda. the numbers are similar for older citizens and low-income citizens and people love color who have to sort of deal with the bureaucracy of getting a photo id and it creates costs

and inconvenience that makes it that much harder for people to exercise their right to vote. >> on that note as the economic situation for many americans has become precarious there seems to have been this reaction of backlash against programs to extend opportunities for younger people and this also seems to coincide in the fact that young americans are overwhelmingly very diverse so to what extent can progressives use the tools of engagement, the political process to this zero some of the world which we can see now very much you just have to watch the gop political debate to very much to get the sense these are people fighting against the changing tides. >> and young adults and progressives have tremendous

amount of opportunity to capitalize on some of the dates that are happening and the upcoming election that can change the country coming and i think we see that already with the waukee pipe will strike movement where it is actually shifting the debate to focus on issues like jobs and the student at crisis. so absolutely there is going to be this opportunity young people need to be engaged. i think one thing that is actually the responsibility for young people is to put for this sort of specific solution that how are we going to create more jobs for young people, how are we going to make college more affordable? i don't think -- i think young people need to be a part of that conversation and we saw for example overwhelming support across party lines regardless of

your party affiliation as a young person for creating jobs as a number one priority for young adults making college more affordable was the number two priority, protecting health care services for low-income people was a top priority, protecting social security was one of the top priorities for young adults, and again, this was across party lines, so i think that there is a broadly held view in the shared sets of principles it is now incumbent upon us to go out and find some of the specific policy solutions, so far accepted entrepreneurship we know young people want to start businesses. can you create a student loan release program if they want to start a business that's something we have been talking about with mayors of congress. can you do a better job of making sure that when a young person goes to a bank to apply for a loan that they're actually

able, that the taken to a account other factors and credit history because if you just graduated or if you don't -- if your, you know, 19-years-old and you don't have a long a credit history, but that doesn't mean you don't have a lot of potential to but chilly start a viable business. i think if you look at areas of higher education, talking about the pell grant command once again the pell grant is on the chopping block, and above would be an absolute embarrassment if we cut the pell grant at a time when we know that we desperately need to educate more young adults but at the same time we need that big comprehensive solution for addressing the cost of the higher education and again, there are ideas floating out there it's time for young people to sort of pushed them whether it's better access to information about what you actually get out of going to

college or whether it is a race to the top model but actually promotes colleges that use innovative techniques to keep the cost a dollar that increase the completion rate. so there are ideas out there in 2012. it's this opportunity to close the gap between the grassroots that we are seeing the frustration, the energy and the policymakers in d.c. who too often don't have any idea what young people are thinking or doing. estimate to the point i made earlier about the role the organizations play in developing and making sure they are a part of the conversation, i think that's part of the reason which sometimes we don't see or why sometimes we don't see young people coming out, you know, for other -- you know, for other moments. but i think we have to be more

cognizant about who we are developing. if we know that young people of color are being the most disenfranchised from the political process or if they are being most affected by cuts to higher education or a lack of opportunity for jobs, these are the young people i think we need to be doing the most out reached to and the people we need to be developing through organizations, providing them skills to be better organizers, to have a better understanding of the local political system, things like that >> to add something to the question, jamelle, we have seen a major question of political philosophy been debated in this country and it's sort of a question of do i care the most about individual freedom, freedom as defined from intrusion and governance, particularly by the government,

or do i find -- is my and a leading principal for public life a more collective view that we all do better when we all do better and that in fact if we have the means to create better outcomes and opportunities for people we should all support them and sacrifice a little, each one of us for a better outcome republic and i think the idea of the public has been fought and it gets more fraud. this is basic social science that gets more fraught with the community that is being represented in the what ever electoral body becomes more diverse. it becomes hard to earn as an amazingly huge country geographically over 300 million people we are the most diverse nation of our size on earth, and we are in fact a really beautiful experiment in the multiracial democracy and no other country is taken that on in the sense that we have. when you look at the sort of willingness to do big investments and mobility like the g.i. bill for the incredible

expansion of homeownership that happened in the 1950's to create what was the first sort of resoundingly middle class in the nation there were racial aspects to that that cast certain people out of that and as they were sort of more signatory to that i think we haven't been deliberate enough about having the conversation that we need to have in order to make sure that racial anxieties, which are natural to have and that everyone has unconsciously raises in the background but that doesn't stop our desire to do the kind of investments and sacrifices that will ensure the nation's future is as bright as the past and so i think that young people particularly there was a report from the center for american progress like five years ago maybe now called the progress of a generation that looked at the existing data it wasn't a new polls that we had

but existing polling data about their attitudes, the public attitudes come and young people are naturally now more oriented toward public solution, more willing to pay higher taxes for higher degree of service from the government than any generation since the depression generation, and i think a lot of it has to do with period of time that we've grown up where we have really gotten the message from certain sectors of the political that you are on your own, and you're on your own for coming you know, credit cards, there isn't going to be the regulation of that committee or on your own for higher ed and child care and all these things and there is a backlash for young people saying you know what, actually we would like to have a society where people took care of each other a little more and level the playing field opportunity. >> why hasn't that manifest itself sort of in our politics? in the last two years it has been this relentless push

against the sort of idea of the collective public. is it because the question of the organization or of which young people are organized? i feel like it's very easy for someone to simply dismiss college students as they are just college students, but if it were, you know, late 20s something's organizing for better wages and better jobs there would be a difference. >> i think one of the challenges is sort of the short term versus the long term problems we know as heather was saying this was one of the most divergent in history and one of the most technical savvy best educated most tolerant most civic minded generation, really a generation with tremendous support trinity and its struggling economically committed to some times when our policy makers look at the sort of range of problems right now we're thinking we have to solve the problem that is affecting us right now and this is the the date that is happening in

congress right now. when the reality is we want to move the country ahead. if we want the country to succeed we need to be thinking about okay we've got this generation with a potential how do we make it possible for them to succeed? and i think sometimes that longer-term debate gets lost sort of in the shuffle we have this very short term focus, and that's partly -- again it is young adults responsibility to bring that long-term perspective. we all know that we need to improve the economy and make the country more competitive. what better way than investing in young people? the argument doesn't get may be enough i don't think. >> an interesting moment for our generation. i think the challenges are very steep but also again i think it's an amazing opportunity for us and i think this is a

generation that needs to assert itself and ourselves on the political process. it is still a country that believes in access to the quality education. it's a country that believes that health care is something folks should have an opportunity to have clean air, clean water, these are things we believe the generation is good for this country that there should be a job for everyone who wants one. are we a country that believes in those things? this is a generation the believes in those things. my feeling is yes this is a generation for all of the reasons that have been stated has those values in a way that previous generations haven't had in the numbers and a think it is incumbent upon ourselves to really assert ourselves ought to ask for an invitation to be a part of the discussion because that's simply not going to happen and it hasn't happened i think your point its wide discussion hasn't been around

how this affects young people i think it is our time to emerge as a force to be reckoned with both in every iteration. when you look at folks who are doing something in their communities media are not participating politically but it doesn't mean they are not making a difference in their own companies whether they are starting their own nonprofit or starting their own companies or any other way that the are in proving their block, their city, their state, their country, those things are happening. it's also important for us to inform the public and inform our generation that that is what change looks like there's also a political part of it, a civic engagement part of its that we should also leverage. >> you mentioned earlier that part of the sort of attempt to keep the americans involved in

the voter i.d. laws and what not come and what the report is interesting the extent to which in addition there's the photo id law that there is a population of the young americans who are either in prison or who are ex-convict and once they are out of prison their opportunities economically and politically are milch. there is very little out there for them and so to what degree can we as a generation as a country really fix this problem because if left unattended it can be a huge setback to our economic and political progress. >> absolutely. i think with all of the trends it's important to look at the policy that created them at the various points in history. so around the same time that this generation was being born, our sentencing in the drug policies changed dramatically in '84, '85, '86, there were changes to the law that created

much more mandatory minimum sentencing and really had the effect of increasing by almost double the average prison term for nonviolent drug offenders to where the nonviolent drug offenders are the majority of people in federal prison now which would have been unthinkable 30 years ago. so this generation and particularly the generation who the subset of the population that came of age in the inner cities that had been experienced in the industrialization because of the trends we talked about were the good man attracting jobs and going overseas and the sort of economic collapse that happened in the inner cities where the drug economy sort of took its place we are seeing an incredible explosion and particularly young men of color but also young women, young

white women being caught up in the drug trade and having as you said an incredible -- even if it is an eight month sentence it lasts for the rest of their lives in terms of discrimination with criminal records and employment, the lack of sort of support for the reentry coming home which i know that the white house has an initiative on. but also i think if we are looking at the reforms i think there was a great move to decrease the crack powder cocaine disparity which was a racially disproportionate -- discriminatory wall that had been changed recently under president obama and sentencing reforms in the court, but we can also do things like make sure that people that come out of prison have the right to vote which they don't in many states and changeable wall of eligibility for federal student

loans and student aid because in fact if you have a criminal sentence or federal funds you are not eligible for federal student loans and pell grants and that is something that could absolutely counter to the idea of getting a second chance and having young people become contributing members to their society. one last reform i think we can certainly do, and this would affect the entire generation, but i think they must really believe that we need a large scale public jobs program that is temporary that directly to the cover the kleypas people to work. i think of the exit left young people basically built the appalachian trail in the great depression and it's fallen into disrepair. it would be a generational the transformative experience to have young people from all walks of life together working on public service jobs in their community and not just the appalachian trails hanging solar panels on roofs but taking care of children and communities, rebuilding parks, there is so

much that needs to be done and people that would be more than willing to serve their country and to have the kind of job experience they are not getting right now with the unemployment situation. >> first call, the poll absolutely supports what heather just said. it is the support for broad jobs programs so they can put young people to work but i also think that there are a policy area of low hanging fruit that people have neglected particularly when it comes to young people and jobs, for example the earned income tax credit is not actually available to young people under 25, a young single workers under 25. why that is there's really no good explanation. it's a program designed to help low-income working people but for some reason it's not provided to young adults. the unemployment insurance system, many young people because of the type of jobs they have they don't qualify for

unemployment insurance cities are reforms i think folks will always pay a lot of attention to but they are out there and we could make these fixes. these are reasonable and realistic fixes that could happen quickly that would have a huge impact on young adults and particularly low-income adults and the one other thing i want to add is a population that we haven't talked about this young veterans. young veterans have tremendously high unemployment rates. these are young people who are serving the country who are often leaders in their own right and then come back and struggle to find jobs. one very positive thing i think we have done is the new g.i. bill which helps young veterans get a better education and to afford it and i personally know young veterans taking advantage

of that and that is a good example of how we have identified a problem and then found policy solutions that can actually fix it. >> this stems from what heather was saying. among the undocumented immigrants very few immigrants have a college degree. in the report the numbers like 76,000. just a very tiny number. so -- this question is for you might guess. what can we do to expand access, high your education among the community and help these young people report it to occasion a lot of them have provisions a lot more money for the education because they can't prove their citizenship. >> is a policy issue that's really invested in passing the federal dream act so for those of you that don't know the dream act is a piece of legislation that was for a long time supported by both parties a

piece of legislation that would create a pathway for citizenship and undocumented use in the united states and it's a very -- it is a bill that would address 65,000 students every year are graduating from high school and they don't unfortunately get to go to college and apply for grants of students with social security numbers would have. they have a series of challenges that they face when they are applying for a school some offer tuition which means they get to pay the same rate that other students pay. in general that's something that we could from the states could do as a lot of students right now we're working in states to make sure that students are

paying that they're paying the same rate as their fellow u.s. citizens, but i think in general there's a lot of things the administration can do as well to protect students that are right now currently in deportation proceedings and being -- they are in states passing anti-immigrant legislation which targets not just immigrants, not just undocumented immigrants but at large. so there is -- those are a few things i think we can do to address the undocumented use in college. >> is the administration working on any particular investment? >> i would say that president obama said this the dream act was something they didn't get as far as they would like. it's been something that both democrats and republicans supported for a long time and i just think that it's something

that everyone still believes very deeply and we are working our harvest to kind of bring back. i think it's in the government now it's interesting to me because it's about sort of order to all this stuff and disorder to things. but, you know, i feel that there are meaningful reforms that ought to be implemented and i think, you know, we are working our best to make sure we can implement the ones we can. >> one of the things the was briefly mentioned but i would like to go into more detail about is things related to families. young people for obvious reasons are usually the ones that in the families and there isn't much support for that. sure there is deductions in the tax code for having children and what not, but the cost of child care is very high. oftentimes families have two

jobs just to get by. so what kind of recommendations those demos have in terms of improving the situation for the young families and people who want to have families? >> i really believe that the lack of a sort of coordinated focus on supporting families and what it's supposed to be a country with a strong family value is a great sort of under mobilized issues in the country given how many people the facts everyone as a parent or a child in the community with children who are being under invested and so the united states the only industrialized nation without some form of guaranteed paid leave and even that happens in some way or another to everyone which is you get very sick or you have a family or you adopt or have a child.

given the incredible amount of financial resources that this country actually has that is a crying shame. we can create a form of universal paid maternity paternity family in this country right now we have the family medical leave act which leaves about half of people uncovered because of the employer that they work for, part-time, or they can't access eight meaningfully because it is on paid. basically it means you're on the employer can fire you for taking time off but if you don't have a way to make ends meet during that period of time you are out of luck. we can create -- demos has created an american family trust that would be paid for by the premiums that employers and employees to guarantee paid leave for all workers. we also need to have essentially the universal system of early childhood education. we know that the first three

years of life or essential to breen development and the kind of success and outcome that we all want to see our young americans having, but under an investment in this area, as mentioned there is the essentially a tax credit for early child-care but it is totally insufficient to the cost and then there is head start and early headstart pledge your great progress with incredible outcomes day or weakness for even among the families who are actually eligible for them. so that is a near universal system of increasing child care for most americans would be about $88 billion a year, which is not a small sum but it's actually not a huge sum and we know the economic benefits are about $17 for every dollar invested. this is the kind of public response to the nearly universal problem of what to do because most families have to working

parents if they are lucky. it's been off the table because the ideological conversation with the role of government and the regulations on business. but our generation is the first to come and and tours are household has a paradigm. we are going to have to struggle with them and demand a public solution to this problem that is keeping families up at night. >> the thing about that is if i remember back in 2007, 2008, i want to say that barack obama and hillary clinton had a part of their campaign platform like hillary clinton touted her pre-cade programs what happened? it seems to have completely dropped off the radar of the political conversation. it isn't even something they're demonizing. at least that is something. >> i guess you're asking me that question. i would say i think the priority

is the economy as we stand right now, think about at the end of the year you will have troops from iraq coming home and think about the political discussion we were having in 2006, 2007, 2008 was exactly this. this was the issue, and now it doesn't sort of seem committed doesn't resonate as much as you think it would if you asked someone in 2007 how significant would the end of the iraq war be we would say hugely significant. that is just sort of the time we find ourselves in. it's very difficult circumstances when folks are struggling to find jobs and extending benefits, the first things people want to cut in the country, and there are things we need to protect the or long term investments in this country. i would not say that it's dropped off the table or something that no one thinks

about. that is why the president has been so firm in protecting medicare, medicaid and the pell grants and these other programs that our investments in in the american people. they may not manifest themselves in the narrative of the national dialogue but it is woven within all of the administration agenda for the country. ..

>> really identify solutions that are coming from the young folks that are mostly in franchise -- disenfranchised by the policies. this is a great case study of one of those instances where, like i said before, the coach recognize that at the federal

level the on specific issues we are not seeing a lot of action, a lot of meaningful action. and so california, for example, allows one of those states that after, you know, after we saw what happened in 2010 we are able to take that energy and target it to those levels. maryland did the same thing. now that as a lot of other, number of other states looking to pass in state bills to improve access to higher education, specifically focusing on the high cost of education. >> one clear example where young adults, young people have a tremendous opportunity for over investment in public universities to colleges. if you look at what the main drivers of the increase cost of higher education, there is dramatic cuts and lack of investment in higher education. partite -- as i mentioned for a public university the cost is

triple to 1980, and at this point it is going up significantly faster than inflation. it is going up faster than health care costs. and yet in health care, for example, we were talking about it. we need to reduce the growth. the state level you're talking about states that are cutting their support for colleges and universities by 8%, 9%. so it really should not surprise anyone that tuition is also increasing substantially. so young people, i think, absolutely have able to play at the state level when it comes to pushing back against those cuts, ensuring that, you know, your state university from many of which are extremely popular regardless of whether it is a red stain or blue state, has afforded needs and actually is providing access to the widest group of young adults in that state. >> i think at this point we want to open up the panel to

questions from the audience. so someone will be around with the microphone. you in the red. >> first of all, i want to say thank you very, very much for this panel. i came really depressed, and you have given me a great deal of hope. i am judy lehr, and i am with the great panthers. hour by line is age in youth and action, so i want you to know that there are older people, people who have gray hair like me who really, really support what you are doing, we are all doing, because these are issues that affect all of us. and my question would be to everyone of you, how can we work together? because it is really important. you talk about fairness, and we want it to be fair.

>> i mean, i can give -- i can get one quick example where i have seen it very successfully work, which is on health care. for example, the provision that lets you stay on your parents' plan until 26, obviously that is one of the most popular provisions of the health care law. what we found when we were, you know, doing additional work around it, that it was actually just as popular among seniors and parents because of the impact that it could have on their children and grandchildren for example, we did a tella town hall with aarp where they call their members in california and we had about 10,000 people on the call just have a conversation about the levels of around this new provision and how we can impact your family. so i think any opportunity that we can find for a joint education opportunities, so often it is about educating people about what is actually in the health care law or what some of our policies, the ideas that we are trying out there.

at think that is unfortunate that we should take. to the extent that youth groups and senior oriented groups can work together, i think that is amazing. >> the same example, i think it is important for us to my something that we work hard at the white house is to, you know, instead of sideling these issues as a priority for seniors or a priority for young americans, try to create national credit -- priorities. these are things that all of us care about. when you talk to folks in your community and they ask you what you care about, well, i care about the things that affect might community, and they include the following. it is not to my just what the minister that i have a job, and -- a 28 year-old man. i want their jobs to be available for everyone in my community to re-education. is not just about seen by ellis and loan. it's a buy lowe's sister or brother getting a chance to go school.

clean air and clean water, not just for my neighborhood, one for everyone. my grandparents to have access to health care. access for prescription drugs. these are things that we all care about, and i think this is exactly the kind of, i think, alliances that have not existed traditionally. the lot of these issues have been silent but in the informal groups or the education groups. denise to be some synergy that should be coaxed out in orders to leverage all of our collective voices and our power to get a. >> my name is adrian mcdougal -- mcdougal with talk radio news. i had a couple questions talking about the health care bill and how it affects you and how, you know, so many young people can stay on their parents' insurance. the political debate, in the

presidential debate for 2012 that is one of the big things, appeal health care. will that mean for you, and whether your organization is doing to inspire used to fight against that and to also come immigration in the presidential debate, will roll out will have? rick perry, his downfall started when he supported the agreement. have you see that? >> repealing health care, the health care law would have tremendous negative impact on an adult's. obviously we have heard about the 1 million adults and gained health-insurance under the new law, but what many people don't realize are some of the gains that are just down the road three adults. there is about 20 million uninsured adults over 8 million of which would be covered under the medicaid expansion under the health care law. right now in los states if you are a chart listing the dog you

can't qualify for medicaid, even if you are, you know, under the poverty line. so this by 2014 is going to be expanded. like i said, about 8 million could qualify. yet tonight in the qualify for subsidies. you're talking about, you know, over 15 million young adults who would gain, potentially gain health insurance in 2014 if the health care law, you know, is allowed to continue and be fully implemented. going backwards is, you know it -- obviously i think exactly the wrong move. but it is an education challenge, so we focus quite a bit and will be doing some work this spring before graduation time. we will be doing more work in the fall to educate young people about what the health care law actually means for them because i think a lot of people don't quite understand that, and then, you know, once you have the education you are prepared to become an advocate, to your

story, explain i'm a young person, but health care really does matter to my life. and we found that when those stories are told there will be quite powerful and change the political face. >> as far as immigration and the role it will play in the year 2012, it is going to be very much dependent on how the administration continues to deal with the undocumented population in the united states currently. 11 million undocumented people living in the united states. in august the administration announced the creation of a joint committee to the public justice and the department of homeland security. currently severely backlog that involve folks that are pretty much in the process of being deported or remove from the country. many of those folks are young people, young people that would

qualify for the dream act that would have benefits from the dream act, had it passed in the last congress. and so i think to add to your point young people are very much feeling the impact of some of the harmful deportation policies that the demonstration is adopted, and i think that it is especially hurtful because many of those folks turned out in 2008 to get this president elected. and so i think a lot of it is going to come from how this particular policy is going to be implemented over the next few months to make sure that folks that are not high priority for removal from the united states, you know, if their cases to end up getting dropped and they're is a way for them to apply for work authorization are something , i think that is where it's going to be at.

>> the middle. >> it is a common point of this panel that issues affecting americans are kind of put on the back burner politically. my question is, in the opinion of this panel is the biggest obstacle to making those issues a national priority and how should we overcome them? >> okay. i don't know that this is the thing, but it is certainly a large one. in general the issues, the kitchen table issues that are affecting most americans, 99 percent of americans are not on the front burner for congress. you know, you're looking at what is on the legislative calendar for this week. it is a bill to make it so that

the rains act, which is a bill that would make every regulation that is implementing a law passed by congress whether it is the new dot-franc loss, the health care law, the clean air act, the water act, every regulation implementing a law passed by congress would have to go back, every major what would have to go back to congress to be passed by two houses. why would you ever want to do that? does not make any sense from a good government efficiency standpoint. the only reason you would want to do it would be to make sure that some regulated industry who has a really great relationship with one single senator can filibuster the rule and who would never see it come to light of day, with a clean air, clean water, credit cards, any of that so in terms of what is on the agenda in washington it is very far from the kind of issues that we're talking about that are the kitchen table pocketbook issues, and i think a lot of that has to do with the corrosive effect of money and organized business power in washington.

and that is something that if you look at opinion data, we did not as executive question in our poll, but young americans are particularly sort of top rates by. this new figure on the system which is our campaign finance system frankly, the gentle form of legalized bribery. it is really in the thing over the past 30 years, and it has done much to much worse over the past few decades. for the generation that has come up only in that paradigm where it seems very clear that well-connected and the wealthy are who are calling the shots in washington, there is a lot of rage about that. i think there was a lot of the spirit of the desire to change washington that had jen people coming out in record numbers. >> i would echo that. what is being discussed here in washington is not, you know, part of what is really being discussed at this entails across

the country. the president put out a proposal to cut taxes for middle-class workers. it did not get through. it does not make any sense when these elements that we are trying to get through to help ordinary americans every single day, long-term investments that up to be made the things we can do right now to put a few hundred extra bucks here, $1,500 average in the pockets of the american people fifth as we are still not able etched to get that done. these are the things that make it -- it is frustrating. it is disappointing that there is a process that exists whereby people can agree on the things that would help most of us, so many of us in a time when there is very good need for this connection. it is very challenging and frustrating. but, you know, i think it is important to know that this

president and this white house continue to build steam and the other across the country, the events in the meetings we have at the white house to rally inform people of what the issues are, things that the president is going to, is fighting for an putting forth so that they can take that information back, and let folks know that there are opportunities. have that information to help them organize and be engaged. >> i am jack lee lewis, a retired scientist. you mentioned, you talked a lot about college students, but most of the people are not scott stevens. what is your connection, anybody can answer this, with the

unions? they came down, of course, to support occupy wall street. you would think that for their future survival there would be wanting to get in turns to of various technical trades as so forth. they should have some sort of, you know, they use some of their capital for internships for a lot of the use. >> i mean, we actually did ask about unionization in the poll, and i encourage you to go check it out and see some of the results there. generally what we found in in the show is that, you are right. the unions have a tremendous opportunity to connect to young adults in a way that, you know, maybe they haven't done quite as well as the past few years. with that, occupy wall street is a perfect example, where the

unions lent their support to a movement that was not. we have also seen recently union support for issues like pell grants. but i think their needs to be this realization that union members of tomorrow of this generation. unless we are talking to them, and not just talking about, you know, currently unionized young workers, i'm talking about our students, nine students, recent high-school graduates about what it even means to be in the union and with the value as. i think you'll lose that opportunity. but the overall the idea, as other was talking about, of us taking care of each other and some of those values are very persuasive and powerful to young people and could be used very successfully. >> just so little bit of context on this union question for young workers. we did look at unionization

rates among young workers in the state of america port, and it has dropped in half since 1980. it's not just an accident. one of the major trends over this time, a conservative economic policy includes the unionization. maybe it was the year that ron reagan fired 11,000 striking workers, air-traffic control workers. the attack and the sort of organized business response to union drives in organizing the attack on the right to organize is something that has very much had an affect our route the. of time that we're looking at. so it is actually just young workers that are less likely to be in the union buddies of them were before among other workers as well, and that is so important because for, if you look at a job that is unionized verses not unionized that as the sex and characteristics, workers

in the union have 17 percent higher wages. that differential is even higher for workers of color. a worker of color in a job that is not unionized verses unionized, unionize versus non unionized have a much better shot of having a middle class job than the exact same -- with the exact same task and tradition of a nonunion as job. i think that, you know, like all of these issues there are policy responses. we could pass the employee free choice act to make it easier for people who want to join me in. we have labor laws in this country that could be strengthened, but it is all about policy choice. very important and i'm glad that you raised on it and report to look at the the quality of jobs for workers who don't have a college degree. it should not be given that if you don't have a college degree your job is a permanently low- wage, dead-ends job with no

benefits and no opportunity for advancement. >> i think one thing i would add, and it goes to we were talking of a before, obviously we need a bit of a reset, and thinking about what our priorities are as a country, what we actually need to move forward and to grow the economy and to be successful. you know, that is what twitter joe was going to be all about. it is going to be is a opportunity for, you know, people to have that conversation personally i think this could be the young americans election. it is an election where young people really could be at the center of the debate, you know, the future of our country could be at the center of the debate in a different way than it was even in 2008 or 2010. and so i see this tremendous opportunity for young people to really push that conversation, but we have to, you know, seize

the moment. if we wait, if we are not -- if we don't get out there, if we don't take the streets like occupy wall street showing the power of, and if we don't identify real solutions to think we could be left to the sidelines again, which i think would be a tremendous waste and lost opportunity. >> high. my name is when leeson. i have four members of your generation and my household. you mentioned to the voter suppression activities and particularly you mentioned, i think the third of 18 year olds to not have photo ids. i find that mind-boggling, but the question i have is because governments typically charged to issue those, hell is that not been an illegal poll tax?

>> so the states where it has past where voter i.d. is passed, so 31 states, as i said, in 2010 with the new conservative governments that were ushered in in many, many states, introduce some sort of deep disenfranchising bill, whether it's photo i.d. or shortening the amount of time for early voting or making it harder to do absentee balloting for ending their 30-year successful experiment of sandra registration. but only to my team, six are seven states actually passed the variety bill. in those states did you have a provision for a free driver's license. take, for example, wisconsin where that was one of the first thing that government scott walker did was rushed through a voter i.d. bill. they had just about $40 to get a driver's license or state issued by the comments of a and a

voucher to prove that you were low-income. but as one of the latest the set was done by the exact same demonstration to close the number of dmv, did the budget constraints, there have been a lot of investigative reporting tracking people's time to get that free idea how hard it is. a solid you walk in and say here is are you sign up for your voucher. it is just a question. this is one of those things or you can do a lot with the evans said of hurdles to suppress the vote. the question about when those bills were introduced in my opinion, did they fall into a larger conversation so that everyone saw that, of course, this was an attack on the voting rights and large numbers of people in that we care about democracy and this will stand, or does it end up being a conversation about the photo id and administration. we need to have a much broader conversation in the country about what kind of democracy we have where we are really saying

we want big money out and people in. that includes campaign finance reform and public financing elections. but also i am really lowering the barriers to participation. this past week the most celebrated, the 1 million voter that has been registered as after we have gone into the state for litigation. negotiation. they have urged states to actually implement the public is to see part of the voter registration bill. so when you come and just like at the dmv you're supposed to have a voter registration card. when you go into a welfare office or prevent to get food stamps are social security is stability you should be being encouraged to register the vote. those are the type of things that are really about lessening political inequality which we know has a very connected to economic inequality.

their ways we can advance that. >> that think that is it for the panel. thank you for hosting a. >> caller: thank you for the report. thank you to the panelists for coming out. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> germany and france agreed to an aid package for europe today. that's coming up next on c-span2. after that a house are a global efforts to eliminate malaria. >> tomorrow on washington journal new york congressman talks about extending the payroll tax holiday in the unemployment benefits. then more of a key issue with georgia republican senator john the isaacson. after that, bernie decker of the

hill discusses yesterday's announcement by the postal service that it needs to reduce service to cut costs. plus, your e-mails, phone calls, and tweets. washington journal live tuesday at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2. >> pay a dollar an hour, have no health care, and the most expensive single element, no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement and you don't care about anything but making money. there will be a job sucking sound going south. >> prospero's book of about trade issues during the 1992 presidential debate. the billionaire businessman made two attempts for the presidency, the first time getting over 19 million votes, more popular votes than any third-party candidate in american history, and although he lost he had a lasting influence on american politics, our final candid it's on the c-span 14 we series, the contenders, line friday at

8:00 p.m. eastern. to preview other video and to see all the programs in our series go to c-span.org / the contenders. >> french president at nicolas sarkozy and german chancellor angela merkel met in paris monday to discuss the ongoing eurozone debt crisis. both leaders called for a new treaty that would include stricter oversight of government budgets. over the next 15 minutes coverage of their meeting courtesy of france 24 and german television twitch of bella. ♪ >> joined here in the region by air new york editor, picking apart what they said. they have not release suggested anything new, have they? essentially angela merkel manage to twist the nicolas sarkozy arm. >> this sounds pretty much like that. you're right. of course has always the details, the devil in the details, but from what we hear

angela merkel and nicolas sarkozy have a convincing plan which they will present to their colleagues, the other heads of state and governments before the summit which is due to take place on thursday in brussels. they say want to move fast, which means if the 27 european members then want to buy this treaty, well, will be happy to do it among ourselves which means among the 1754 members. they're leaving this particularly toward the u.k., if the u.k. wants to jump on the bandwagon or on the contrary, will every train from sunny from the studio? we will have to see, they're leaving all doors open, but warning if the eurozone is interested we will do it among ourselves because we have the duty and responsibility of saving the euro and by doing so of sitting here. now, what is in this tree? is a we want sanctions against budgets. this means first of all that any

country whose deficit is about 3%, which is the current level in the stability and the gros, will be punished. read on the stand at this stage by whom, but we understand that it could well be by the european commission. we also understand that both leaders agreed that the european court of justice to have a say in this angela merkel because this is really her ideas said that in the court of justice then must verify the conformity of the rules. nicolas sarkozy, as you heard, he said the court of justice will not have the right or the power to cancel the budget. the european court of justice is involved in the plan. well, the golden rule to be enshrined in the constitutions of every state, either the 17 or the 27 if they all agreed to adopt this new treaty, what for? well, to cap debt and deficit in

the constitution. what else? is it want to move very fast. they will of course on thursday, everybody is ready to buy this new plan or whether it will be only among the 17. they say the treaty should be ready by march and then ratified by the countries and also because there are a number of previous from the less the treaty when countries are able, they want to change the rules, the majority rules so that we need a majority of 85%, that is one of course to present one single country from blocking the entire treaty. last but not least, and that is also a very german part of you, but leaders said eurobonds are not the solution. i.e., first we need to enforce to enshrine budgetary discipline within the commission, every single member state buyout the so-called golden rule, and only after that can we think of

eurobonds, but please the messages don't expect eurobonds at this stage. we need to restructure, rebuild europe to make sure that we avoid the mistakes of the past. >> during this time to read of confidence? >> i think it is a very strong signal. certainly the market's wanted. by saying that they are ready to move very fast and by finding a check, changing the rules a majority, does not give them of course the market and also the united states who are watching this crisis closely. indeed if, of course, the other leaders think that this is a good plan because after all this is -- [inaudible] the two largest eurozone members. you live to see the reaction from italy and spain, but it is important. order, at the markets were waiting for eurobonds to signal, it's very clear, not a solution. very little was said about the role of the european central

bank. we know there is still a lot of disagreement between germany and france. france always said that it thinks europeans should use the unlimited resources to act as a lender of last resort. we did not hear much year, but from what we understand there is aid agreement between angela merkel and nicolas sarkozy. let's see the ecb is independent we don't want to intervene. we don't want to meddle in the policies. and then the ecb, if you want, they have the power, the rights to do whatever it thinks is needed. the moment, buying bonds from spain or from italy to help those countries with the costs rising at the moment. will the market the reassure? who are the markets to want a live to see whether they are reassured, but i have to say this is a rather comprehensive package. i think the idea of changing the rule of majority is covered because the biggest fear was

this is all good, but how are you going to enforce it? we remember the trauma around the lisbon treaty. remember the referendum in the netherlands and france when voters declined. i think it is comprehensive, the first is you have to sell it and see whether the u.k. is interested. i have doubts. >> once again angela merkel and nicolas sarkozy meeting to discuss the fate of the euro, but germany and france will have to up make compromises. time is getting short. the power couple nicknamed because he said they have agreed on a series of reforms to put to the president. before the crucial summit in brussels on the ninth of december. the new proposals include a modified eu treaty with rules on budget. >> it is another crucial week for the euro. the stakes are high, and the franco-german couple is at the forefront.

>> at the heart of the crisis is a crisis of euro. it is the most dangerous one and could sweep everything away. what should happen to europe if the euro is disappeared? we will be left of europe if its economic card collapses? nothing. >> angela merkel wanted fiscal year tuned so euros on kutcher is breaking the rules with this automatic penalties. at the heart of franco-german discussions are differences over the roles of the european central bank, currently limited to keeping a check on inflation. [speaking in native tongue] >> it is important to point out the job of the bank is different from that of the federal reserve and the u.s. and the bank of england. >> paris wanted the ecb to intervene more, but both sides have now agreed not to push the issue any longer. france is coming to line with germany's position on the eurobond. germany and france are in total

agreement. eurobonds cannot be a solution to the crisis. i must say to the french citizens that it would be a very strange idea. countries to my e france and germany, would have to pay for other countries' debts with of controlling bond insurance. >> regarding another main sticking point, parises fallen into line with german demand for eu treaty change, but that could take months to push through. ♪ >> in a show of unity the leaders of germany and france have agreed on a new plan to lead the you out of its debt crisis. the proposal involves amending eu treaties to impose stricter budget deficit rules on member governments. german chancellor angela merkel

and french president nicolas sarkozy said the proposal shows their determination to restore growth in the you and keep the euro as a stable currency. >> it is a race against time. angela merkel and nicolas sarkozy want their eu partners to take action on the tree over all by march. >> as the french president said, adding the change in the treaty for all 27 members. that would be the most logical. as difficulties arise and someone can all work participate than we are determined to say that the euro is so important that we will go ahead with the 17 eurozone countries and be open to others that want to participate. >> under the new treaty members that overspend would be hit with automatic sanctions. france and germany are pushing for monthly meetings of the eurozone leaders to coordinate fiscal policy in binding debt limits for eurozone members.

the european court of justice would ultimately decide whether countries have correctly incorporated those rules international law. the two leaders also want preparations for a permanent bailout fund, the european stability mechanism to bear fruit by late 2012, a year earlier than planned. >> aligning the core economic values in both countries and increasing the solidarity between germany and france is a historic decision. >> the european partners will have to follow suit, and this week's summit will put the franco-german proposal to the test. >> correspondent hugh schofield is watching events for us in paris. talk to me about the german french plan. the eurozone had a series of rules about that before. what is so different about this plan? >> you're absolutely right. there was a european which came in with a single currency and which was really ignored.

by france and germany. that led us to this crunch. the difference now is that apparently they needed and they say that countries will be punished if they breach of the various limits. there will be changes to the treaty for just the eurozone numbers. there will be, in addition, this what we call the golden rule idea where into each country's budget is written a constitutional requirement not to breach the european figures, limits. and if they do then brush it kick in. it is system much more disciplined than rigorous smear, statement that countries will not be allowed to get away with anymore. and to that extent the hope is markets will be convinced. >> how likely is it that all of

these states will agree to this new plan to back. >> well, i mean, you know, obviously the way it is being steamrolled and steered, organized by the two big players, but i mean, in the sense that it is in everyone's interest to surmount the problem and everyone is aware of the ocean, even countries like britain who are very suspicious of being left out, even those countries may be prepared to follow their doubt. at least taste and urgency required that we move quickly. >> at a time. we will leave it there for now the thank you very much. >> welcome back. as pressure mounts on european leaders to prevent financial meltdown the u.s. treasury secretary is heading for europe on tuesday. timothy gander is going to meet with top european leaders and members of the european central bank. he will offer advice and ideas

so that they can find their own plans. the u.s. markets are watching the europeans closely worried that for all the european crisis could hurt the still fragile u.s. economic recovery. >> for more let's go to new york we can talk to reporters on wall street. what do investors say? what kind of message are they expecting to send to the europeans? >> well, basically that date there is trying to tell everybody to really give it all. if you look at those plans, it is quite a trip that to the gartner is planning here. so those are the tour just within the next two or three days. what is also a mistake is in the united states, as is in the past couple of months we thought that the united states is at least

seeing some economic growth, but that would be in jeopardy if you're one lead into a recession, so there's a lot of domestic politics. >> indeed every domestic politics. last time to miss the dinner went to europe he was given the big brushoff. i thought that went down very well. >> well, i mean, they're really remains to be seen. the europeans are to clean to really tell what to do now because that has been -- everyone is well aware. if you looked at the market overall that seems to be a bit of optimism that the europeans are aiming or might do the hard choices we thought after the speech of nicolas sarkozy and angela merkel on monday that the euro strengthens the dollar, weakens, and that is one reason why we see triple digits wins at the opening and here in the

monday session on wall street. >> former senator arlen specter who advocates allowing cameras in supreme court will testify for a senate judiciary panel tomorrow. before he left the city introduce legislation in 2010 mandating the supreme court televise the proceedings. that hearing gets underway at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span three. later a hearing will examine the proposed merger between pharmacy benefit management companies, express scripts and medical health solutions. the panel will look antitrust concerns over the merger. live coverage begins at 230 eastern. >> now, a look at the progress being made toward efforts to eliminate malaria, including the development and testing of the drugs and vaccines. this house subcommittee hearing on ever getting global health is to on the in 20 minutes.

>> the subcommittee will come to order. good afternoon to everyone. want to thank you for joining us. this very important hearing a malaria. one of the most serious health issues facing the developing world and particularly africa today. for the last century america has been a leader in the fight against malaria. the united states and several other countries of been able to eliminate malaria. this deadly disease still persists and presents a serious challenge to other parts of our world. the who estimates that 781,000 people die from malaria or die from malaria in 2009 and that 225 million people have suffered from infection. malaria is the fifth leading cause of death from infection, disease worldwide.

particularly severe toll on people in africa where 9 percent of deaths are caused by malaria. moreover up personally 85% of malaria deaths occur in children under the age of five. every 45 seconds a mother and father in africa will lose their child to malaria. there is also far reaching impact on the wealth of the development of countries with endemic malaria. africa may lose up to $12 million in productivity due to malaria each year to the disease. while the disease in turn concessions of 40 percent of africa's public health of the shares. these numbers and statistics are staggering, but they have a greater impact to africa and the individuals who must live with this to the disease. anyone who says any meaningful

time in africa and mangos with the african people will soon notice the prevalence of malaria we will ask someone whether here she has ever had malaria and there will like to respond with a yes, but with how many times they have suffered from a. more than the sad reality, malaria is killing or harming so many millions of people, the reality that malaria is preventable and treatable. the world has the tools to prevent and treat malaria. no one in the 21st century should have to suffer from a, let alone die from it. when i last visited uganda i visited several homes, including homes in the remote region. the three room dwelling of whitewash squalls and third floors was particularly empty and this made the treated ms. keaton and that's all the more striking.

these matt -- these may seem like in significant items listed on paper, but there noticeably visible in the homes of these families who will lie on them for protection from this ravaging disease. what began for the united states as an effort to protect our troops abroad and so this is your home has become a larger global health objection. we have seen a renewed commitment by the united states, international organization, and private foundations to eliminate all malaria deaths, a will receive a note will boost in 2007. bill and melinda gates to the challenge of will wide malaria eradication. of much progress has been made and as we have seen from past eradication efforts, malaria can research wintery becomes ineffective due to resistance. while the global commitment remains to beat this disease and to beat it as soon as possible,

the stakes are too high to let it fall all on -- too high to bet it all at today's hearing the subcommittee will receive an update on the progress towards malaria a nomination and the most end of the country's. a focus on vitality and the effectiveness of the trigger a component. this hearing will examine the future of anti malarial drugs and vaccine development and challenges in ensuring an adequate supply of effective medicines. we also will hear about the continued availability, affordability, and sift distribution of quality into malaria monessen's a live four to hearing the testimony of our very distinguished panel, all of them have made and are making an enormous difference in the lives of peoples who are being ravaged by this disease. with that i would like to now yield to my friend and colleague , mr. donald payne for

any opening comments he might have. >> thank you very much, chairman. i commend you for calling this very important hearing on the international community's progress toward eradicating malaria. i would also like to think our distinguished panel who is here with us for agreeing to come to testify here and to give us an update of the current state of the epidemic. i think you have heard the statistics given by the chairman, 25 million cases and 181,000 deaths come over 100 countries. it is an area that we wonder why it took so long for the world to really get serious about malaria of course we know that the cause malaria impact on areas where there was not considered to be a

return on investments, many pharmaceutical companies just did not spend time trying to, with a cure or prevention because they figured that if they did who could pay for. and so we have seen a change in what is going on in the world today. we have seen many organizations now changing the manner in which they do, in fact, is still every 45 seconds malaria claims the life of an african child. the fact that even in our country many years ago when our nation first began ambassadors from foreign countries were paid hazardous pay to come to washington d.c. as ambassadors because of the problem of malaria. but we dealt with malaria and a limited malaria however the number of unintended consequences with global warming

going on, although people are saying it is not mandated we still don't have the science, etc. the climate is warming up again. we may see the fact that malaria will once again start to come into temperatures on countries because of the global warming. and the whole question of malaria could once again become an issue in the western hemisphere. the global fight against malaria is daunting, but when a bull. this year i am pleased to welcome congressman as my new co-chair of the malaria neglected tropical disease caucus. we never close to six members of the house. last several years we were very excited when congressman bozeman became co-chairman. we launched the malaria caucus

with his lawyer bush coming to the house with one of her very few appearances here. and so we launched the malaria caucus with a great deal of bipartisan support. he is still continuing to fight the good fight over the senate's . the central area working group but by senator koontz consider walker, another former member of the house, is also enjoy bipartisan support. will we get bipartisan support we can conquer anything, and i think that we are doing that as we approach this question of malaria. in this time of difficult discussions on u.s. foreign assistance reform of malaria control and intervention commitments represent some of the strongest returns on investment for foreign assistance dollars in the last three years to improve an effective and low-cost intervention, the global community has been able to splash disease burden and deaths

in africa and elsewhere in the world over the last decades in the bar has managed to reduce both in number or confirmed malaria cases, the number of confirmed malaria cases as well as malaria deaths by 81%. rwanda and zambia have been positive -- have seen positive results to malaria control intervention as well with rwanda increasing the percentage of its population using that deaths of 7% efforts to provide bed nets indoor residuals bring tremendous education are making a dramatic difference as our global partners are working to address drug quality and control concerns. the who three qualifications of essential medicines have been shown to be an effective mechanism to reduce the abundance of the drugs on the market in countries that have a weak domestic regulatory authority. in response to finding -- to

findings of substandard quality and anti malaria's in africa who has suggested it assist in implementing key recommendations to empower countries to improve regulations at the country level all of the tremendous progress we have made in the fight against malaria would not be possible without the united states and our global partnership. however, all of the groundwork that the united states and international community has made in this fight currently is at risk. there are those in congress still do feel that the united states should cut back our already modest investment in life-saving global health programs. i strongly disagree. the u.s. has a more responsibility to be a leader in the fight and then suffering worldwide due to global fund initiated. let me just mention, we have so many great organizations will back malaria, medicines with malaria, the malaria vaccine

initiative, the declaration, the global health fund to fight aids, tuberculosis, and malaria, global fund, one world health, the president's malaria initiative, malaria control and it ought to buy a violation partnership in africa, the world bank boosts the program for malaria control and africa, malaria no more, malaria vaccine technology roadmap of 26 -- 2006 to mogul malaria action plan, the affordable medicine facility , and the african leaders malaria alliance, all are working together in a coordinated effort at -- i have to commend ray chambers for my city of newark who is a special envoy to the united states -- the united nations secretary-general for malaria, and he and peter stern were the ones the started malaria no more, but he is today fantastic job working on this with, of course, bill gates foundation.

mr. gates is involved in several of these organizations that i mentioned, and without have i have the privilege to be at a meeting. it was like a fly on the wall, meeting with mr. gates and a member of the people about three weeks ago where they just talked about a war on malaria and the vision that there will be a vaccine created in our time in the future, in the near future, and so, once again, there is nothing that is done this to me, and recommend that german for calling this a board hearing. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you very much. mr. turner. >> thanks you, mr. chairman. i am interested in hearing what are arresting was -- distinguished an expert panel as to say. i yield back. >> without objection have asked that the full remarks he made a part of the record. he coaches the congressional

malaria and elected tropical caucus, as was noted by mr. payne, but he also wanted an amendment that we affirms our commitment to end malaria deaths by 2015. he is unable to be here today, and his full statement will be made a part of the record. ..

has also served as managing director of the malaria no more policy center right here in washington, d.c.. let's hear from the director president of the u.s. board of medicine for malaria venture and over 30 years of drug discovery experience. he was formerly the vice president of the infectious disease research at the research laboratory. he has been involved in malaria research for his entire research career. he served on and chaired a number of scientific advisory boards for the world health organization including the tropical disease research program and was the founding member of the medicine for malaria venture expert advisory committee. he has a proven track record managing a large research teams across diverse areas to the

successful delivery of novel medicines. we will then hear from dr. regina, currently the director of global health infectious diseases at the bill and melinda gates foundation where she oversees the development and implementation of strategies for the prevention, treatment and control of malaria. she joined the foundation in 2003 and she previously served in various positions at the u.s. national institute of allergy and infectious diseases where she participated in children's vaccine initiatives and served as the liaison to the national vaccine program office. dr. rabinovich also served as the chief of the clinical and regulatory affairs branch of the division of microbiology and infectious diseases. then we'll hear from mr. roger bate, the fellow in global prosperity the american enterprise institute and a

founding director of africa fighting malaria. he researches international health policy with a special-interest in counterfeit medicine and malaria control. dr. bate conducted research in nti and numerous african countries on the public health consequences of the counterfeit drug trade. he writes extensively on topics such as endemic diseases in developing countries as well as access and innovation pharmaceuticals and the international health agreements. he's also the editor of 14 books, two dozen peery viewed articles and hundreds of newspaper articles. we will then hear from dr. david bowen, who is currently the ceo of malaria no more. until november, 2011, dr. bowen served as the deputy director for global health policy and advocacy of the bill and melinda gates foundation. in this role he had the responsibility of interaction between the government pulled

wide on global health. dr. bowen was previously stuff connector for health of the senate committee on health education and labor and pensions. from 2000 to 2002 he held a joint appointment as a visiting fellow in the department of health care policy at harvard medical school. finally we will hear from dr. richard steketee, who was the site instructor for the malaria control program at path. he previously served as an active duty member of the service and served in a number of positions at the centers for disease control for prevention. these positions including chief of malaria epidemiology section for the prevention services branch and chief of the cdc malaria branch he lived in malawi for four years. dr. steketee also provided expertise on the larry to a number of international

consortium. without objection, the full resume of our very distinguished panel will be made a part of the record but i would like to now yield to my good friend and colleague in the acid rain for such time as he may consume. >> thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member payne and members of the committee i'm honored to appear for the subcommittee and to have this chance to talk with you about the under publicized story, a great success story in the american development policy. i also want to respectfully commend you for holding this hearing because the final chapter in the story of it to be written and lawmakers such as yourself who obviously cared deeply about africa in the developing world you are going to be the ones with pen in hand as we go forward in rushing the final chapter in my own background i myself suffered from malaria when i served as a teacher in kenya in the mid-1980s i had one of my

students die from malaria shortly before i came back. i've had the honor of helping to craft the malaria policy and my days as your colleague on the subcommittee to my days as ambassador to tanzania which is one of the our original malaria focus countries. i've also had the privilege of of getting from malaria programs as a member of malaria no more and we will hear shortly from the organization's distinguished new ceo dr. david bowen. since you'll be hearing from experts like dr. david bowen who are far more conversant and i am on the numbers and research associate with this great success story i will try to confine my remarks to what i believe is in many respects the most exciting development in this long battle, and that is leadership. leadership right here in the u.s. and more importantly exciting leadership in africa itself. as you have laid out very well, mr. chairman, malaria has been with us for centuries and its

claimed millions of lives, and there's been times when the world has scored a remarkable victories, truly important victories eliminating the killer disease from places like the u.s. and europe there's been times when it seemed the victory was in sight some of the world's hardest hit regions only to fall short. members of the subcommittee honestly believe that this time the fight is different. these days the world is making a real and sustainable progress. we have never been this close, and we have never come this far in providing hope for generations of children and families all across sub-saharan africa. millions of lives have been saved and millions of lives can be saved in the years ahead. most importantly, the new generation of strong african leaders is rising to take on the malaria challenge. while it's true that africa

cannot conquer malaria alone it is just as true the killer disease cannot be defeated unless africans lead the way, and they are. the 2,009 nations general assembly 14 african heads of state and government came together to rededicate themselves to the goal of ending malaria deaths by 2015. they launched a new coalition called the african leaders malaria alliance. just two years later it has grown to 41 heads of state and government including membership by the african union itself. it's become an invaluable forum for the leaders to share ideas and best practices and to collaborate on the common challenges. in just its first year of existence, it tackled the important issues like securing universal access to the combination therapy to prevent drug resistance, removing taxes

and tariffs on the essentials and time of their real products, increasing local production of high-quality safe and effective antimalaria interventions and the banning of mom of their peace. that would not have been possible just four or five or six years ago. as you will hear today the world's public health experts are armed with detective tools and technologies just as with man's struggle against killers like smallpox and polio our scientists have labored long and hard in pursuit of the vaccine against malaria while as you'll hear more today researchers can now report historic progress. the first ever large scale phase three trial of the malaria vaccine is underway right now in africa. but some of the most exciting developments in the drive to end malaria deaths come not from new technology, but from new uses of

existing technology. and that to me is truly exciting. take the exit poll of the symbol mobile phone, something i think all of us here take for granted. mobile phones are commonplace in sub-saharan africa. most experts tell it's the great growth market but things to innovate is ingenious leaders in both the public and private sector in africa to become not just simple mobile phones, but amazing logistical and analytical tools to address global health challenges. perhaps one of the best examples is the malaria early academic detection system known as meads funded from the american people from usaid centers of disease control and pmi. adel island of zanzibar is probably known a part of tanzania. they have almost eliminated malaria from the shore. to help them cross the finish line of charlie braking

malaria's death grip, the tool called meads was created. working with the zanzibar malaria control program it was developed to detect the early stages of an epidemic within two weeks of onset. every single monday health leaders from 53 different stations in zanzibar use text messaging technology to send an treen automated server any positive test they have of malaria. if in fact there is a positive test or a blip if you will, they count on the epidemic with all the interventions that we know about and work to erasing it to wipe it out. it's a partnership between public health leaders and so, why your list. it's a remarkable example of taking an existing technology, bringing to get public-sector, bringing together the private sector and putting it to work.

that is great leadership. leadership in the fight is also coming from the communities of faith. nowhere in the world are faced networks more important or more influential than africa. institutions muslim and christian in particular can reach towns and villages that are cut off all too often from limited infrastructure. yet the message is that the fatal leaders expressed let's face it they carry a lot more weight than any of us as politicians could ever hold to do. with one-fourth of the world's malaria deaths occurring in nigeria, a coalition of interfaith groups, international organizations in nigeria health officials are working hard to deliver interventions. the salt of the sokoto, the most powerful islamic leader who represents more than 70 million muslims the catcher for one of the christians launched an effort to train 300,000 imams,

priests and pastors and ministers to the villages throughout the country. i don't have to tell you how important this unity is. but only for public health reasons like fighting malaria but for quite frankly what it means for our national security interest. in 2002 will leaders created the global fund to fight aids, tuberculosis and malaria. the global fund now funds two-thirds of the world's malaria project. launched in 2005 the president's malaria initiative as increased funding from 30 million to 618 million. these extraordinary investments have enabled the rapid scale of the proven interventions such as insecticide treated nets and the rapid diagnostic tests. that is american leadership. its american leadership that works. its american leadership that shows the world what we stand for, and it shows the best that

america has to offer. we have tough choices to make obviously in the months and the years ahead. but why can say to you is investments we make in malaria are working. the success is measurable, verifiable and predictable. we know these tools work. we know how to conquer malaria, a disease that has killed so many millions. in the last year's deaths have fallen by over 20% and malaria cases dropped by 50%. and over 40 countries worldwide, and that translates into millions of lives saved. there are always which alleges, and malaria is not exempt but i continue to be impressed by the innovative efforts of the public sector and the private sector. it is a remarkable success story. one last success story i want to point out to you is again shows the strength of leadership, public and private, and that is

the challenge that tanzania faced trying to take care of its logistical challenge how you actually get those interventions, the medical supplies out to different parts of the country. the global fund halt the government in tanzania reach all to the private sector and the result was a public-private partnership project with an american organization that knows a thing or two about getting effective supply chains in place, an organization called coca-cola. now coca-cola is providing technical expertise to individuals and tanzania to develop stronger more effective and more extensive supply chains better delivery to the more places that is a great success story that we can celebrate. so as we look to the future is with a sense of hope we've come all away in this fight and those of us that were in the field 20 and 30 years ago, quite frankly

if you would have told us than about the success we would see i'm not sure we would have believed you. this is a story of republicans and democrats coming together. this is a story of americans working together with african leaders. this is a story of security experts, faith leaders, the world coming together and it's a story to celebrate and to publicize because it is absolute proof that we can make a difference. thank you mr. chairman. >> investor come thank you for your very encouraging testimony but also the focus you put on leadership and when that leadership is truly creative and determined the huge benefits and consequences it actually yields so thank you so much coming and personally i want to thank you again for your personal leadership on this. you know how this place works, how the executive branch works,

and having lived in africa both before and after you were ambassador and after your investor. to -- ambassadorship you know what works and the council has been very helpful to the committee, the congress and the executive branch. thank you. i would now like to yield as much time as he can consume to dr. schmatz. please proceed. >> mr. chairman, my name is dennis schmatz of the president for malaria venture u.s. board and i share the expert scientific advisory committee. thank you for the opportunity to testify on the will of the drug development in combat in malaria in africa and around the world. since world war ii and mother in a disabled hundreds of thousands of torture as the united states has been a key player in the development of malaria drugs. the trip was originally applied for the troops were used in the 50's and 60's to assist in the first global wave of malaria ratification. as they become less and less effective to the growing resistance of the parasite the u.s. again became involved in elyria, drug development for the troops in korea and southeast asia.

since then, the united states as continued the role malaria drug research and in part to protect our continued interest around the world and in part to care for the greater than 200 million people who contract the disease each year. when these people sit in the aníbal their own wages and unable to care for their children and they lose billions of dollars on ggp each year. over 800,000 die each year, the most vulnerable being children under five and pregnant women and africa. continued investment in the malaria research both the u.s. and its allies with troops and civilians around the world they receive funding from the u.s. government from the u.s. aid as well as other foreign governments including the united kingdom, switzerland in ireland. a public-private partnership based in switzerland and registered as a 501c3 in the u.s.. to discover, develop and deliver effective medicine to those who need the most new collaboration around the world to protect the most vulnerable, to find new that make managing malaria better, cheaper and easier and

prevent debate will allow them to eradicate the disease at protecting the most vulnerable to can point to the to recent successes. first in 2000 when we launched the disposable partnership the better adult drug before the development of pediatric medicine and old habits were crushed and given to children and the dozing was a proximate since children often spit or vomit leaving it to suboptimal treatment. since the launch over 92 million doses of the distributed in the 35 countries and it's probably becoming the preferred treatment for young children in africa. also with partner to manufacture, deliver to treat severe malaria. studies published in the u.k. journal demonstrate their significantly fewer deaths using the injectable verses commonly used by navy. it is also much easier to administer and has fewer side effects. because of these and other

factors doctors without borders estimate this drug could save some 195,000 lives each year. since the launch in january the partnership has been responsible for delivering the 1.1 million bottles of a drug coming enough for 237,000 patients. however there are still the number of and that medical needs. resistance to the primary compound in all of the front line drugs appear to develop around the cambodia border. the same location of the last great wave of military of resistance. the last time this happened the world was caught empty-handed with millions of people exposed to malaria and with no effective drug to cure their disease. our own citizens among them. we cannot be caught empty-handed again. we must have new drugs ready to combat resistance when it develops. those drugs simply aren't their right now and should resist with no combat would lose much of the successful work that has accomplished to roll back malaria of of the globe.

it's taken too long to come but will the cost of treatment is provided for those who need it the most. to solve the dilemma we are working on a single dose cured the ascent based and can dramatically change the way that it's treated throughout the world. such known as the zero ze 439 is now in the phase two studies. it was originated from the sponsored partnership of the university nebraska and of a lot in the collaboration in the world if it lives up to its promise it can be one of the most valuable gifts the united states brought the fight against malaria and in truth because the drug development is a complex plan do that could process during the clinical developments its partners can take the risk of depending on it just one new molecule therefore we are nurturing a portfolio promising projects around the world including several in the u.s. which can supply the next two generations of drugs to combat malaria my colleagues on the panel will discuss the crucial

pieces of prevention's such as the net and vaccines, the control such as insecticide and diagnostics play in fighting against malaria the continued to develop the new drugs against the paris it will be crucial to eradicate the disease. if there's anything the world learned of its last great eradication of is that over reliance on the few tools to fight the disease quickly lead to defeat. the united states congress and executive branch on the malaria initiative and the cdc and walter reed all our key players in this arena. the future without malaria is within reach. but only if we stay vigilant without a supply of medicine defeating malaria will not be possible. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. >> thank you. on the ongoing challenges faced by all of us in finding the drugs that will truly mitigate and hopefully eradicate and treat this disease i would note

parenthetically that sitting right behind you is marked as ambassador green said earlier he served or marquise to sit up here as the chief of staff for the human rights subcommittee and did a great job he was a democratic staffer worked very well in the minority and we've become great friends over the years and i want to thank him for his leadership in helping this hearing come to fruition. i would now like to welcome the doctor next. >> thank you. i want to thank you mr. chairman mr. turner and other members of the committee for taking time to focus on malaria, and for your cut that over the years to robust investment in global health and development. we have come a long way in malaria from just ten years ago. since 2000 more than a million african children have been saved from malaria. approximately half of all countries with malaria reduce the cases by 50% or more. this tremendous progress against malaria has been due to

innovation and prevention and treatment, increased funding and political will. new tools such as long-lasting insecticide treatment in bed nets and the combination therapy along with prevention during pregnancy and the individual springs all of these have made the progress possible. the u.s. malaria initiative, the global fund to fight each pt and malaria and the world bank are essentials to the remarkable success and the malaria control. the fund alone has distributed 190 chellie in bed nets to protect families from malaria. i was trying to think about how big it would require the container to hold 190 million bed next to make that clear but it is a tremendous effort and one that is worth the note. the president's malaria initiative provides life-saving prevention and treatment to the millions of people in africa and southeast asia. however, even today malaria still has a disproportionate

impact on the world's poorest and most vulnerable individuals and still kills far too many children each year. our children here in the u.s. do not have to suffer from malaria. no child anywhere should. maintaining the game in the control is essential, but it is not assured without the continued commitment to multiple partners including the u.s. government. guided by principle that all lives of equal value the bill and melinda gates foundation work to help all people eat healthy and lead productive lives. the program helps to ensure that life-saving advances are developed and that the reach those who needed the most. we focus on improving existing tools, on discovering new ones to reduce and prevent malaria transmission, and in the long term to eradicate malaria worldwide. existing interventions have contributed to 20% decline in mortality due to malaria.

we must improve access to intervention like the in success insecticide and treatment to save lives. the impact of the tools available right now is very real. however the malaria parasite has a history of adapting to drugs and adapting to insecticides. resistance is the most effective available on the combination of therapy is developing and has been recognized in southeast asia. research and development is essential because of the preventive tools that are available today and are so effective at controlling malaria are not sufficient to control malaria in the long-term or for the eradication due in part to the development of resistance. today the world has a strong research and development pipeline for malaria and we must ensure that it stays this way. significant credit goes to the national institutes of health which is one of the primary

founders of malaria research and development. when i left the national institutes of health to join the vaccine initiative i was asked why i would bet my career in creating a malaria vaccine, something that did not exist and which had been troubling to the many initiatives previously. but i didn't have an answer based on the impact. most researchers are not convinced it was the path to the malaria vaccine was clear. and even if our work resulted in promising candidates we did not know how we would finance or how we would deliver them. after all at the time which was about a decade ago even the broadly available maxine was not being used worldwide and in the last ten years a lot has changed. we are much closer to having a malaria vaccine that works significant efforts by the malae delete from malaria vaccine initiative and many partners it is possible that the vaccine will be available by 2015. we've seen results for the

malaria vaccine announced in october and published in the new england journal of medicine that show the vaccine so far prevents clinical malaria and 56% of the trial participants over a period of one year. these are the first results. those results are exciting. we now have proof that it is possible to create a vaccine that is effective against malaria. the u.s. government through funding for the department of defense and usaid has played an important role in the development of the vaccine. research is also under way and other vaccine candidates including the transmission blocking vaccines which would prevent people infected with the parasite from passing the disease on to miskitos who would then in effect of their people vaccinate and not affect other people. in the effort for the malaria ratification these vaccines will ultimately be invaluable. however a significant work is still needed on the development in the vaccine and the u.s. government will continue to play

an important role in supporting these efforts. the gates foundation also invests in the development of new drugs and to control mosquitoes and they are today is significant potential on both fronts. medicine for malaria venture and we heard from the previous speaker is developing new drugs with an entirely new class of action including a potential single dose your, which would radically improve our ability to treat malaria in the field. the innovative vector control consortium and other partners are working on the new insecticides for bed nets and entirely new methods to control mosquitoes that look like a mosquito quayle's we use in the backyard or the wall windings with insecticide easier to use in bed nets. we must continue to support the diesel and of the new treatment of preventive measures to ensure that we stay a step ahead of the evils in parasite. we have reached an injection point. a moment in which we either forge ahead and insure progrs