own recovery of the last two and half years has averaged just 2.5%. the nation should be firing in all yet our economy remains stuck in neutral. in many ways the current administration has made matters worse by promoting the politics of fear and uncertainty, costly regulations fail to enhance the workers, bureaucratic actions that favor the special-interest the expense of and lawyers and employees and politically motivated decisions that destroy tens of thousands of good paying jobs are part of what governor mitch daniels described as a pro poverty agenda. to restore certainty and confidence the house of representatives has approved more than 30 bipartisan job proposals in the last 12 months. the bills touch upon virtually every part of the economy from labor relations and energy security tax relief and fiscal responsibility. no single proposal represents a

silver bullet. no single proposal represents the bullet but each help remove the government barriers to economic growth and job creation. more than 25 past jobs bills face obstruction in the democratic senate and member for legislative efforts have reached the president's desk. in january i have the privilege of joining speaker boehner on a trip across latin america and putting a stop in colombia to visit with business leaders and elected if officials. things to the bipartisan effort of this condra is working with the president, columbia will soon import duty free, goods and products built by american workers. speaking of our trade agreement with colombia, panama and south korea the prison and stated, quote, american automakers, farmers, ranchers and manufacturers including small businesses will be able to compete and win in the new markets. we need to build on the success and support new opportunities to

help workers thrive in the global economy. i am hopeful job training reform is an area in which we can work together to strengthen the competitiveness of the workforce for the nation's long-term unemployed come seven months without work can feel like a lifetime. effective job-training support can help the workers get back on their feet and back to work. the need for the more efficient workforce investment system has never been more urgent. i was pleased to hear the president called for the reform and instead of the union address and we stand ready to take action. already my colleagues introduced three proposals to lay the foundation for the 21st century job-training system. a key component is the consolidation of dozens of the federal workforce programs and the flexible funding streams. it will offer a better work force and promote better use of taxpayer dollars. the president suggested the need for even greater consolidation

and we are happy to consider the irresponsible plan to do that. in fact i sent a letter to the labor secretary this morning that asked for more details about the president's new job-training proposal. i look forward to receiving a timely response so we can improve the investment system without delay. over the last several years we've seen a lot of the failed policies and broken promises starting with the so-called stimulus plan that created debt, not jobs. i know there are sharp differences in this congress in the house and of the committee. however it isn't enough to criticize the plebeian call on the field. i encourage all members on both sides of the aisle to stay engaged, offer positive solutions and work to find common ground. again i would like to think the witnesses for joining us and i will now recognize my distinguished colleague for his opening remarks. >> good morning mr. chairman, thank you for calling this

important hearing on the job creation. and welcome to governor moly and give our snyder. i'm pleased we will be hearing from the two state executives about their efforts to expand job opportunities. right there where the rubber meets the road. i am pleased we will have an additional panel of experts advised the committee on how to move forward on this important issue of creating jobs. last week in the state of the union, president obama challenge to work together to move the economy forward. i couldn't agree more. job creation is the most urgent issue for millions of families and businesses across the country. in 2008 our economy went over the cliff. the greed was long and deep. almost immediately 4 million jobs were lost.

another 4 million were lost before things started to turn around. it took strong decisive action by the last congress working with fi obama administration to allow our country is back from this. the action made a difference. the private sector created more than 3,000 jobs in the last 22 months. consumer confidence is edging up and continued economic growth. manufacturing employment has grown for the first time since the late 1990's. despite the calls from some who met the domestic auto industry three took bold action and save american jobs. although industry is back on the upswing making and investing in new factories, creating thousands of new jobs all because we intervene. and while the costs have been a drag on our economy we did take action to read we passed the

affordable care act. not only do they give the business and health care providers the tools to bring the costs under control, it will expand health care coverage for 32 million americans. this is an amazing feat. and health care reform is no job destroyer. on the contrary, since the affordable care act was signed into law we have seen half a million new jobs created in the health care sector. this is a much different story than what our country was facing just a few years ago when our economy was hemorrhaging $750,000 a month. and so our nation's economy is headed in the right direction. but of course we all know that there is more action that needs to be taken. now isn't the time. we need to work together for fair and sustainable recovery and rebuild those ladders of opportunity for every american. today's hearing is timely and

appropriate - year another year of wasted opportunities before us. i see this because a little more than a year ago this committee held a similar hearing on the economy and job creation. during the hearing, the governor and economists across put all spectrum agreed rebuilding roads and schools and bridges have significant benefits for jobs on building the economy. on the years that followed the house failed to act on jobs with it the jobs agenda always always the political brinksmanship. the kind of politics that hurts building jobs is shutdown putting thousands of workers out gibber losing thousands of construction workers jobs in the process. a result of the nation's credit being downgraded for the first time in our history. it has jeopardized americans

unemployment insurance. it's threatened the extension of the payroll tax cuts. and now we're seeing a highway bill from house republicans our roads and bridges are crumbling it doesn't contain the buy america provisions of the jobs created are the jobs that can be treated your in the united states the government this comes at an opportune time and i hope will help us turn the corner i urge my colleagues on the other side of the all not to allow another year to go by without action. i read the comments that he wants to use this year to put the obama administration on the trial i hope speaker boehner's comments have a commitment rather to oversight will be will to work together in an effort to grow our economy and create new

jobs on the political insight and congressional inaction on jobs. nothing wrong with political differences and policy differences. sometimes we agree with these and we agree on the other side of the iowa and cases one he sometimes we don't agree with that's the nature of democracy. that's why we have different political parties. but during times we should at least try to work together to develop consensus, not roadblocks were and that's the case tall levels of government thank you yield back. >> thank the gentleman. pursuant to the committee '07 all committee members will be permitted to pursue written statements to be included in the permanent record the record will remain open for 14 days to allow statements questions for the record and other extraneous material reference during the hearing to be submitted in the

official hearing record. for introductions of our first distinguished panel of witnesses, i yield to mr. roy byrd from michigan to introduce the first witness. >> thank you mr. chairman. on november 2nd, 2010, michigan elected rick snyder a successful businessman with no experience in politics. i think that's changed. to lead the state of governor. through his relentless positive actions focusing what he pledged to do governor snyder has delivered one. during his first year in office he worked with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to eliminate the state's $1.5 billion budget deficit and create a $460 million surplus and climbing as a true believer in the private sector uniting not dividing all sectors he's proven his commitment to michigan's future to the support of

education and real world jennifer job-seekers and removing unnecessary government made hurdles. these are needed by yearly in michigan and governor snyder, doing what he promised, an unusual attack has acted quickly to put our state back on the path of prosperity. and for that i say thank you. on a more personal level by the age of 23 the undergraduate degree the nba and it will degree from the university of michigan go blue after spending time teaching and working at the tax accountant, they lit a struggling company called gateway led them to grow from just over 700 employees struggling with great challenges to the fortune 500 company with more than 10,000 employees to read as a fellow from michigan i

look forward to working with a governor slider in 2012 as we helped to grow michigan's economy. may i add it's been a pleasure to watch a governor who doesn't believe it can't be done when it's the right thing to do. and through the relentless effort and relentless positive action he's been able to make an believers believers in the possibility as well as the ultimate opportunity of michigan redeeming its privacy as a manufacturing state and as a technology state and an education state with and the best state in the world leader and do business. we welcome you, governor slider. >> of. >> as we do a lot of the globe to the coke go blue, go read it, it's the education committee we can't stop ourselves. it's a pleasure not to introduce our second witness, copay analyst governor rick snyder. she was sworn into office as the 48th governor, i'm sorry, we

just introduced that guy. >> i think i did that well petraeus too we did extremely well. i'm not sure about the go blue thing. governor dan malloy took office as the 80th governor of connecticut on generate fifth, 2011 per year to his election governor lowry worked as a prosecutor in brooklyn new york, serving four years as district attorney in 1995 and governor malloy served 14 years as the mayor of stamford connecticut. there was a real job, no question about it to the he received his undergraduate degree from boston college. welcome to you both. before i recognize each of you to provide your testimony, let me once again briefly explain our lighting system. you will each have five minutes to present your testimony. if you go over like will not be gaveling you down if i start to get nervous appear you'll hear a gentle tapping. when you began to light in front of you will turn green and when

one is left the light will turn yellow and when your time is expired the light will turn red. after everyone testified, we hear members will each have five minutes to have the chance to ask questions and have them answered from the panel. so at this time, we will start with governor snyder. governor, you are recognized. >> thank you. it's an honor to be here for the invitation and i want to thank the representative for his fine representation of the state along with representative kildee. i'm here to talk up the topic that's most important in the state and i appreciate the opportunity to share that with you which is more and better jobs. if you look for michigan is coming from we lead the nation in unemployment if you go back to september, 2009 the unemployment rate was over 14% and i'm proud to say that december this year it was 9.3%. but as has already been commented, that isn't good enough. the goal is more and better jobs and the opportunity today the

way that i view it is innocent to come and criticized the government to talk about how great michigan is but to come in the interest of partnership. we have a philosophy in michigan as the representative said of relentless positive action which means no blame, no credit, find common ground come off solve the problem and do it in a relentless fashion and that has been successful so i want to compliment the federal government on a couple of programs we've partnered to give iran including the state small business credit initiative. it's been a very successful part and also good work going on the export import bank to do the credit for small businesses. in terms of things in michigan that we move forward with because the more i do better jobs the role of government is not to create jobs but create an environment where the private sector can be successful and employ people and to work to provide the best for the government and have a balanced budget where we actually start paying on long-term liabilities in the balance sheet requirements and i clearly

encourage the congress and federal government to look at ways to deal with the deficit and the debt elimination that's required. i would be one of the greatest things we could do for our employers in michigan and the country. we did the tax reform and eliminated tax credits and a simple fair and efficient tax system. we are doing regulatory reform and we've done unemployment insurance reform workers' comp reform, we are doing infrastructure reform as we speak and the topic of major i would like to cover his talent. the reason i use talent instead of work force is where i believe work force development is very important it is inadequate as a solution to deal with unemployment. work force tends to deal with creating opportunities and giving people skills. it's simply not good enough. the topic is what really matters and there are three c's in my view. there is creating, collaboration and third, disconnecting. we need to do well on all three of those if we are to do our job

effectively. in terms of creating talent, that is the topic of the traditional work force development giving people skills and education system, which we don't call it 12, we call it peace 20 that goes through the lifelong learning and it's about creating an environment to give the best skills possible to the most talented people in the world. michigan and americans. with respect to that as i said, we need to do more. a switch of created a number of programs on collaborating. we've created programs to such as the pure michigan talent and business connect. pure michigan talent is a program more week rejected a portal for the and lawyers to post the jobs they have now and for the future, what skills they need and how to partner together. it's also about the skill trade we've had union involvement of both the carpenters and the engineer is partner with us on these programs, so those are all very good. so, if you go down the list of one of the critical nature that's overlooked often as connecting and i encourage you

to go to amici talent bought or a portal that we launched which is to say it's not about jobs being open its about career planning. we have 70,000 open jobs in michigan today. we could drop our unemployment rate buy almost 2% by filling in the jobs and that wasn't something readily available to the citizens. in helping them plan a career. as a connecting is critically important. there are two specific items i would mention in the committee for your consideration. one of the work force investment act about potentially looking at new ways to do that. too often hear the governors say give us a block grant or you get the traditional model of the federal government and prescott of programs. i recommend a middle ground. we want to be held accountable. we want the metrics and measures to say we are succeeding but that is to be done on the portfolio based approach of the measures not prescriptive programs, more block grants. the last thing i would mention as a critical issue that would help immediately which is on the immigration front. immigration is a very difficult

issue. i would encourage consideration of a very narrow opportunity which is to create a green card for ed and people with doctorates and such and engineering and other fields if we can have those people available what a difference of would make. i have personal experience with this given with startup companies we urge can these people telling them to leave our country. they are job creators and they are broad based opportunities for success. as with those specific ideas in mind i hope you look at them very seriously. i appreciate the dow opportunity to share what we are doing in michigan. we are helping reinvent our state. it is about more and better jobs and we want to be good partners with you and success to respect thank you very much, governor. governor malloy? >> chairman klein, representatives and members of the committee think you for inviting me to testify today to speak about what connecticut is doing to get our economy going. when i took office last january connecticut had the largest per-capita deficit of any state in the nation, and we have had

no job growth for 22 years, a distinction that we shared only with michigan. this is an extension i might add. over the last 13 months we made to get our fiscal house in order we passed a budget that bridged deficit and implemented the accounting principles gap and negotiated the agreement with the public employees will save taxpayers $21.5 billion over the next 20 years and we cut spending by $1.7 billion raised revenue. just last week we announced the commitment to increase the size of the pension payments and move that would avoid the payment of the $4.5 billion in just 20 years and one that will save taxpayers nearly $6 billion over the next 20 years. we set our stand on the road to recovery and while i know we still have a long way to go, we are seeing signs of improvement. our unemployment rate has fallen to 8.2%, the lowest point in two and a half years and by over 1% during the last year.

during the last year we also experienced job growth of 9,000 new jobs for the first time since 2008. in connecticut as is the case across the nation, to issue obviously is job creation. one of the first actions we took on the job front is an initiative called first five. first fight is to attract the development projects by augmenting and combining the state's best incentive tax credit programs with the first five companies to create 200 jobs within two years or invest $25 million create the 200 jobs over the next five years. we convened a special session on jobs and passed a bipartisan bill with only one negative vote in each of the chambers that will move connecticut forward. our jobs bill includes a small business express' program where we are investing $50 million per year to help connecticut small business access much-needed capital. the investment is already paying off.

the first company to access the credit is planning to double its workforce as a result of the funding. we enacted the job expansion tax credit program providing the $500 tax credit to employers for each new employee your $900 credit for the new hires it on employees disabled, unemployed or veteran. and i must say i am concerned about helping the returning veterans and especially our disabled veterans find jobs upon their return from service. we expand the capacity of the manufacturing reinvestment account program allowing small manufacturing companies to deposit the domestic growth receive interest-bearing accounts to use for business expenses. but when it comes to job creation, we didn't stop there. early on i announced a plan to develop a version of a research triangle focused on the science. this research triangle was coming to life more quickly than any of us thought possible. shortly after my science connecticut initiative was announced we began to have conversations with the jackson laboratories and the world

remind institute that this pioneering work in the personalized medicine. just two days ago in fact our commission authorized $291 million to the state-funded projects and laboratories, 1.2 billion over personalized madison projects in the campus of the university of connecticut in farmington. the jackson laboratory for the genomic madison will accelerate the development of the new medical treatments tailored to each patient's unique genetic makeup. the jobs associated with facility are projected to total more than 6,000 jobs over 20 years including thousands of new construction jobs. during the coming 2012 legislative session we will tackle the next component of the economic development strategy education reform. in the next few days will announce a set of proposals the will put up my state on the forefront of the debate. from reforming the tenure to address and how we help students in the low performing district's everything is on the table. if our kids are going to compete

in the 21st century marketplace, we can't put the reforms off any longer. i'm encouraged and optimistic about the progress we've made in connecticut and the prospect for the future growth. we still have much work to do and i will be tirelessly pursuing the economic strategies while being in a responsible manager of the state budget. german klein, thank you very much to the members and yourself for allowing me to testify and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much, both governors, we really do appreciate your time and your insight. it's fascinating that you share the distinction that may be a lot of people wouldn't want to share but it looks like you are addressing and exciting ways because you have people coming and going and going to defer my question for greta and i understand mrs. boxer has agreed to the first 40 minutes and so i will recognize mr. wahlberg.

>> i appreciate the opportunity. governor snyder, again, and you for being here. appreciate your opening comments as you talked about developing employment talent, the three c's having the beat of the ticket to a system so long that we are concerned with and from my perspective would much rather see the states in bodying these concepts and moving to the talent work force as opposed the federal government so involved so let me ask if you could develop even further your ideas and concerns along the line for the federal education regulations are making it harder for you to accomplish your goals and michigan and in what ways on the positive side can we be greater support and encouragement and comfort to you

as a state executive and with the state legislature moving the whole idea developing a work force as trained and ready and expanded. >> i appreciate the question. it's a real challenge that there are many federal programs and we spent a lot of time on administration over had to read a lot of additional cost to other than actually helping people. in to many cases we are giving people skills and training where there may not even the employment opportunities. and so this is where the connecting part comes in as i mentioned the 70,000 open jobs in michigan, a lot of people that want to find a job but one that mechanism didn't previously didn't previously exist in the clearing house coordinator not a money spender second we should never tell people what the have to study but shouldn't we create a path defined success by giving the information's on this website ferc symbol we have a

skilled matchmaker and investment calculator's of people can literally look at different careers to say what they should go into because there's different opportunities and jobs. so again if he were to review the programs instead of making it prospectively to prescriptive but say we are going to hold you accountable for connecting with jobs if you'll is accountable to see how many are we working within the developing to treat progress with those are all great metrics and then just give the flexibility to deliver and partner with you on doing that. >> in my role as the chairman of the workforce protection subcommittee, we provide oversight to the various aspects of the department of labour. one of those in the primary program with the department of labour is osha to read in the course of our hearings we found out that many states had, like michigan, michigan osha, that is given the primary responsibility for regulating the on site work force protection program working

with job providers and employers. in my travels around the district, i talked with many employers who are finding great benefits, a great partnership with my osha as the inspectors' work with them and in the past have been much more partnering with them as opposed to slighting them and finding them to read in the recent days we have been hearing an uptick specifically coming from osha encouraging my osha to be more involved in deciding and findings. and hearing the concept of regulation as it were. if that has been noticed by you, how are you continuing to focus the partnership that a state regulator can be in helping employers and employees in making sure that while we have a safe workplace we have a work place to come back to the second day? >> excellent question. what i would say is this is something that i found even at the state government because my

osha is performed over osha by far but that wasn't good enough. there's too much of a culture even out of lansing because most don't want to have someone show up and say i'm from washington or run from lansing and i am here to help. no matter what we are trying to denounce create an environment where the goal of our people is to perform the fiduciary duty and to do that very responsibly but it's not to punish people. it's to have people succeed. so the philosophy that we are doing training with all of the work force people, all of our my osha and employees is to empower them more where they feel that you're a value-added contributor in the partnership with their employers and helping most to succeed. the average business person is a good honest person. there are people out there we should go after. but instead of trying to create barriers let's help them solve their problem and in one program i would recommend people might want to look at is something we did in michigan and the

agricultural sector it's the michigan agricultural environmental insurance program which is to help farmers actually get recertified to go through a certification program and get the credential to say this means you are doing essentially best practices and if you have an issue before we can penalize you we are going to review your records on how we can help to be successful before they even have to worry about being punished because they made a good investment being smart and thoughtful. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> let me thank you. let me ask both of you this question. we know too well that many public schools and community colleges across the country are in desperate need of repair, and the folks who can make those repairs are ready, willing and able to work, very anxious. every governor knows the challenge that we deal with in congress is paying for it. the american straight-backed directly addresses this need

with the common sense approach to both fix the schools and put folks back to work. it's a win-win across the board. specifically under the h. h. a. dependent seeks to invest 25 billion in school infrastructure would modernize 35,000 schools putting unemployed americans back to work that both of you support it will. under what aja, governor snyder of michigan would receive nearly 1 billion in the school repairs and would support as many as 12,000 new jobs in your state and governor malloy under the aja, connecticut stands to receive nearly two wondered million in the funding in the infrastructure and will support as many as 2400 jobs in connecticut. i just wondered, starting with you, governor, do you support

this act, and governor malloy and perhaps why? >> thank you for that question. but i would say is a couple things. there are infrastructure requirements we need to invest. our schools and challenges we have other places within the communities they need to invest. a couple things though in an old accountant so i like to measure things in terms of what we are doing but one of the challenges is we have had numerous cases in the past people built capital facilities without how they operate, to actually use those facilities or apply them. so in the many respects we need to be much more tactful about making sure what are the highest and the best asset allocations as opposed to simply making sure we are doing projects? and that they are going to the jurisdictions we have certain school district still would take part in the >> and still really don't need those resources.

the tikrit facilities and others under crumbling how can we make sure they are there for maintenance for all those things are in place a one of the great things i found in the budget have been overlooked is proper maintenance for the state facilities from the prior year's and we're getting caught up on that. >> let me be clear i would be more than happy to take the $200 million i will take part of the governor's billion dollars if he doesn't want any. i constantly hear from the businessmen in my state when the traveler of the best of the world how great the other country's infrastructure is in specific reference many times made to china as always in certain european country there's a reality about the united states that we failed to invest properly and the maintenance but also building the new infrastructure we are suffering from a 25% unemployment rate in some of the building trades. any program that would allow us to the contractors and construction workers back to work would be a good program on its face but the idea of telling

that to improve the educational system is an exemplary idea. >> thank you. the american society of civil engineers awarded the united states in the condition of the infrastructure as you've been mentioning. in 2009, with asce estimate it will spend 2.5 trillion over five years to meet the most basic infrastructure to catch up just the basic need. by the conservative estimates every 1 billion creates 23,000 low-paying jobs. the congressional budget office that could make that every dollar of interest to spend and generate on average a $1.60 increase in amber overall gdp. critical transportation energy projects have even larger multiplier effect. i would like to ask you both how argue partnering with the

federal government and leveraging existing public investment and transportation to upgrade the roads at and ports and reinvest in the overall infrastructure in your state? >> we need to invest more in infrastructure and i have a special message in october of last year on the topic to the state. in the roads and bridges for example i said we needed $1.4 billion more a year in investment in the state and that is an important component. again the issue is how we partner on doing that and i would like to complement secretary lahood for his efforts in the state of michigan. he's been very proactive and good, talking about helping develop a regional transit authority in southeastern michigan that we are now asking for the state legislation to move forward on that because detroit has been lacking in that for decades. so there's an opportunity to partner on that. but i would also say is.

they currently do things in the prescription measures that you can find in some of the highway bills compared to giving us more flexibility. we have the mobile situations where we may be thinking a great investment and a rest stop that we don't really need as opposed to a bridge, and the ability to have the flexibility making those decisions would be helpful to our state. >> let me comment recently the community in our state stafford happens to be my home town received a grant from the $10 million. that federal government support would be matched 5-won by the private sector. i will also tell you that connecticut is spending more of its own dollars and rebuilding its training system on the matching basis than any other state in the nation. i am quite certain that if you send infrastructure investment dollars to the state we are capable of putting thousands of construction workers and private contractors back to work.

>> the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you mr. sherman. thanks for being here and the same to governor malloy to read this to the book is letcher in indiana has recently -- and this is a state issue taken up right to work which is a controversy of subject as you know. governor snyder, are there any discussions in your state which neighbors lined concerning this type of action at state level? >> it is under discussion. there are a number that are promoting that in my perspective as i've made it clear it's not in my agenda. right to work is an issue that's a very divisive issue people feel very strongly about and as mentioned in the relentless positive action persons we have many problems in michigan that are much more pressing but i want to find the common ground issues we can work together on before we get into the divisive

issues and we are showing great success we balance the budget and did the the tax reform. the important items this year i would prioritize include the transportation package i mentioned about infrastructure and we have a package on public safety. we need to do a better job on that area in the state. so, right to work is an issue that may have its time and place but it's not appropriate in michigan during 2,012th. >> we've had to deal with that issue on this committee as it relates to south carolina. bdy think -- and i now want to put you on the hot seat, but do you think there is evidence to show it helps the states compete not only with other states in the united states compete globally for the businesses do you think the right way to work is helpful? >> i think there's a lot of information out there and one of the things i'm interested is understanding what is factual

information and what this kind of perception because in many respects i would use some of the success in michigan as an example the auto industry is a very competitive industry now in terms of the labor agreements and such, so on the face of it i don't automatically have an answer as i believe it is something that we should take the time to understand before some people kind of reverts to their traditional positions on it. >> i want to make a final closing comment, thanks for your answer. you know, we hear a lot about the united states comparing ourselves with other parts of the world, and that just -- at this point comparing what we do here to europe is not something that i recommend because even though i do have business leaders telling me that infrastructure is better in other parts of the world the financial situation as dire as you know. and in china comparing ourselves to china and a lot of areas

realize that they're rebuilding the country on the american taxpayers. right now we are paying tremendous amounts of interest on the debt to china and they are using that money to rebuild their infrastructure. so i think until we can honestly address on an understanding programs in this country and have an honest discussion about the direction the country needs to go in financially we're going to continue to find that we struggled to find money for things to all of us agree that we need to spend money on including our infrastructure guinn. islamic thank the gentleman. >> hispanics before, mr. sherman. i thank you for being with us today. the governor, you mentioned 70,000 job openings in michigan. have you reviewed these openings ascertained in the work force to the educational or the

qualifications for those jobs or whether the investments need to be made in education so they would be the match between the work force and the job openings? >> 70,000 opening jobs i would emphasize to you and encourage you to look. most of these are good jobs, talking like nurses, computer programming, accountants, these are well paying jobs and the skilled trades when i talk about as a welder. if you are a welder in michigan you can get a job and about 20 minutes in any corner of michigan. so there are a couple aspects. one is this is the missing element from the work force development that's why i call that talent and a connecting. we want to be with amitalent.org because there is a mismatch people were not aware of. the second thing is the site is just not tall transactions which is about finding the jobs of career planning and go to your point about saying if we give employers signing up to participate in this program that they see there's a lot of demand and we are not seeing those

still we should be working with our community colleges in particular and skilled trade unions and other brands to say how can we get an alignment to get those people the proper training so that we can succeed? >> i would like to comment on that. it's clearly for a long period of time in the country that we fail to properly to on the replacement work force for their aging and anything we can do to try to support our community colleges in particular and the fastest turnaround as well as the ability to offer the certification programs would be greatly appreciated. >> we are finding that and players can't find people qualify for the job openings? >> i think in the precision manufacturing, and i think that the governor would agree that is a particular problem, and unfortunately, few of those schools became invested in training that replacement work force. >> and so investments, what i'm

hearing is the community colleges to make sure that our work force can qualify for the job openings for the aspect of the committee work. >> i believe that is true as well as the vocational programs at the high school level as well. one thing i would add as i would encourage you to look at the two programs we have in michigan. one is called shifting gears, the new version is called shifting coke so these are for the experienced workers that were in the large companies. shifting gears was for people that were built level and higher in terms of professional and technical and large companies. our goal is to encourage entrepreneurship. so we created this program that has been very successful to say you can't ask someone from a large company to join the start up overnight and have a chance to succeed. so it is almost cultural adjustment training because they have all the skills they need to be successful but be more entrepreneurs are part of small startup companies. we've done that with the start of years and is gone so well we

are operating one called shifting code because there are computer programmer jones readily available and this would work well for people that are my age very experienced people and to get them successful of a new career. estimate we had the recovery act that gave a lot of money to the states the only way they can balance the budget is to fire people for the funding projects someone else can fire people. can you say a word of how much money each of your states, and what would have happened to your state budget had you not gotten a on the recovery act? >> in my case the money flowed to the state in the state of connecticut did too little to respond beyond using those funds having said that there is no

doubt that we would have the fewer teachers in our school system today if we hadn't received those funds and we would continue to process long under way shifting the burden to the local communities to rely almost exclusively in or stay on the property taxes to survive. it's one of the reasons that balancing the $3.5 billion deficit which was structural in nature because all of the surplus funds for the past year were being used as well as the money to displace the state expenditures i had to take a different kind of approach to balancing the budget. >> what i would say is in my view too much of the dollars were used for the replacement dollars for operating government as the fact of the matter we faced a billion and a half deficit when i came because they were not there and we cut the deficit. what i would have preferred to have seen is the dollars could have gone to the infrastructure or other investments that were treated as funds that could have made a difference. >> he would have had the budget

more if you hadn't had those funds, right? >> again if you look back at the prior few years in the fourth opportunity to respect the gentleman's time is expired. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. and thank you to the governors for being here today. we appreciate your time and we know it's valuable. governor snyder i want to talk a little bit about medicaid switching gears to health care and as we know it expands medicaid and it's printed a real financial burden not just on the federal government but of course on the states as well and it's significantly underfunded and many of us are concerned states cannot afford to devote to the scarce resources to the medicare programs. i'm just curious if you can comment on any particular consequence is that you see the health care law having in michigan from your perspective and the state government and how

are we going to pay for these increased costs not just on the federal level but how or the states going to be able to handle this and have you talked to your other colleagues as well about medicaid expansion and the tax that it's not just going to have on your state but all across the country and with about i will listen to your answer. >> i appreciate that and in the two dimensions in particular i did a special message on the health and wellness last september because it is important. it's critically important to the quality-of-life of the citizens and it's a huge societal costs and what it is doing to the budget situation in terms of the growth of health care costs. there are things i don't believe have been a trustee enough in medicare and medicaid in particular the toole eligible situation. there's one where if people were working better to get it is an opportunity to provide better care of a much lower cost if we had more flexibility or partnered better with the federal government.

the simple thing i say on the health and wellness people overlook is the personal responsibility and wellness. i watched a program called for life for and to be the ones i signed up to lose 10 pounds, i gave all of my statistics the one-to-one blood pressure and cholesterol and if you ever want to see your blood pressure in the middle of a conference, it does go up. the point was really if you look at it in the state of michigan, we have a dashboard where we show 32% of the population is obese. if we brought that down if we dealt with obesity and the basic things on health and wellness that we have personal responsibility for we could cut our health care cost in the country by half. 11 should be focused on doing and so we can all do together and plan a clearinghouse for the leadership and not a spending bill. >> in the state budgetary process of where you are knowing that this is the current law of the land, what direction are you

headed in preparing for the impact of these costs are going to have him despite the broad base that we know for the responsibility there are specifics that can be done as well and i just trees i'm from the state of alabama and this is a huge concern for us, for our governor and state legislatures they moved into the next legislature on this negative impact it's great to have on the state budget. >> that is the major question because again it goes back to the concept of the unfunded mandates and a cure that from the local government. so it is that food chain question. and we are struggling with that because it is like we have to make choices and we have to be fiscally responsible for the long term because that is really the question now. to help deal with that we have a lot of reforms that essentially the with our long-term liabilities like the medical and other costs. but again this will make it more difficult for us to operate. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> the gentlelady yields back.

ms. mccarthy believes the knicks before mr. treen and for having this hearing. i think it's been an interesting hearing from both of the governors. you certainly agree on an awful lot of things and the we then you both have been working to get your people back to work and looking at the different initiatives very honest with you that is the initiative that we need to see here and i hope that as we go into the new year that congress can work together to get things done for the country not for the political party. and i think that both of you are perfect examples of that. governor slider but i think one of the things you want on constantly was to have the flexibility of the work between your state and the federal government which is important coming and i know that, you know, we have been hearing an awful lot on some of the resources that we gave out to try to bring this recession

backed has been working. so my first question to you on the flexibility point, do you believe that the federal government, the intervention in the auto sector infringed on this principle, the principal meaning about flexibility and working together in the partnerships the decision is widely recognized as a success and one that did say thousands of jobs would you characterize this particular program as a success. >> it is critically important to michigan with. if you look at it in terms of the perspective i've said and believe is if it would involve the one individual company it wouldn't have been appropriate because that is what the bankruptcy process these are for. this is a situation that merited additional involvement in detention because it wasn't about the two companies. the two companies would have brought down the entire

industry. if the supply base wouldn't have collapsed it is a broad issue. then you get into the specifics of how it was done. what i would say is one choice is taken there are other choices of a voluble and i don't see any value from my perspective of trying to second-guess or quarterback after the fact on those. it was important. something was done and the industry is liable now so that was a success in that regard. >> i agree, listen to read this particular recession might think caught everybody off guard. some were looking at solutions that were done in the 1930's. that's not the world we live today. there is a global economy out there. so we have to work together. the other thing both of you have stressed is education. that's why many of us sit on this particular committee and to talk of the different initiatives that the educational needs and especially for those that have been out of work.

i spend a lot time with my schools which a lot of parents think it isn't good to send their child to a vocational school. yet when i went and visited them and to of the jobs they were training for mainly because the partnerships with the business is in the area where are the jobs caribbean three years, four years, five years, that is something that i think we need to see a lot more done with that. but i also reading of the testimony, governor, i saw that you had said that consolidating programs for the cut funding for programs simply to meet a deficit reduction target can the program's be allowed more flexibility to deploy resources to meet the needs of the work force, but not if you cut overall funding. and i think it's important especially as we are seeing the states right now cutting back on education, making decisions on

whether they are going to cut back on the school time which this is not the time to do it. if you can address that i would appreciate it. >> as someone that served in the capacity for many years and frequently had to the interface and the federal government, i can to understand the combining of the programs normally was attached to the reduction of the funds flowing for the steed purpose. if you are combining programs to create synergies and there is the desire to maintain the funding i'm sure we can spend the money very effectively in our state to put people back to work. but if we are combining programs to cut money out of the programs i can assure you we need that money. i would also like to tell you that in connecticut because the president's efforts around the auto industry obama car and i want to comment i think it was a strategic investment that it had implications even in our own state. the support of manufacturing in the united states is terribly important, and i absolutely

agree with the governor that the assistance given reverberates all the states with this provision manufacturing currently taking place. >> the gentlelady's time is expired. >> thank you mr. chairman, and i want to thank both governors for being here today and bible to pick up on something that my colleague brought up a minute ago i highlighted that comment and governor malloy's presentation where he said don't cut funding simply to meet the deficit. if you or someone on your staff will read carefully the bill but we have prepared, it shows clearly we don't intend to cut any funding. cover we intend to get a lot more value for what is being

spent, and i think it is really important that we point that out because there is no intention to cut the funding. i will also point out that federal dollars are not manner from having. they are taxpayers' dollars which are simply brought to the federal government a lot of them wasted and then sent back to the state. i believe that in most cases the money can be spent much more effectively if they were simply going to the states to begin with. but anyway, let me again dewaal for being here, and i went as a particularly to the governor snyder, i appreciate the very positive comments that you made about the new bill which has been introduced and which we hope will move forward in this session. i want to point out in the summary that i have about the bill that mentions and in powers

the governors of routt that bill we do a lot to give much more authority to the state. we allow competitive grants, consultation with the governors throughout again we've changed i think the entire perspective of how we would operate these programs. and i appreciate the fact that you talk about talent development or creating talent because i rail against using the term job training and training individuals because as my colleagues have heard me say often you trained dogs and educate people, and i like the idea of talent, and i think that is a good word that we need to try to put into the bill somewhere if we can along with the term workforce development. i like that perspective and i

would say to you we need a lot more talent and people who want accountability and results and bringing a fresh perspective to this issue. i would like to ask each of you coming and i know that you are not prepared to answer this question today, but i was in the state senate in north carolina for ten years coming and one of the things that of the republicans' proposed over and over was the consolidation of all of these workforce programs so that we could save money at the state level in administrative costs and particularly governor malloy, i would like to get some feedback from you when it you go back to connecticut and from governor snyder also on how much money you can save the state level with this consultation and what efforts would you see the state being able to promote that you

are not able to promote now under the existing structure? because i want us to start this consultation with the governor's right now. please, give us your feedback. the state of north carolina would have saved a lot of money even ten years ago when we talked about this. so i would like to ask you what you, governor thomas and that information back? >> i'm sure that my staff has already made a note of your request and we certainly will attempt to do that. let me be very clear i believe in the consolidation in my first budget i proposed the consolidation of the 30 separate state agencies actually doing that by over a third, and in this budget that i am presenting on february 8th, we do it again, and i want to be very clear, consolidation for the purpose of identifying the forms to attack problems that exist, and to do

away with the duplicate requirement is something that i absolutely support. having said that with respect to the program, i -- we have used that program very effectively in a number of different ways of around job funneling in the program acquisition. so i look forward to working with the congress of the united states on that very point. i think that we can in fact do that. i am not against flexibility but i have to share my experience garnered 0325 year period of time. when i've seen the programs it has led to the reductions and the money available to apply the issues where i served for 14 years as the mayor of stamford, and now what if you're on a statewide basis and state government. ..

>> thank you mr. chairman and thank you to both of our governors. i am sorry i left. our committee, the republicans have disallowed abc, hbo and the independent news network from covering the fracking hearing, so as a member of that subcommittee it was important to go up and try to turn that around. we did not prevail. so i am sorry i missed your testimony. so, governor snyder from michigan, thank you for having a

successful independent state osha, and because southern california and our osha program is steps ahead of the federal program and continue to learn from the state programs. i understand that while i was gone, and that is why i told you why i was gone, at chairman walberg, the ranking member of the subcommittee for workforce protection mentioned there is an overlay of federal regulations, over state regulations and i don't know if he specifically referred to osha but just recently he said that he was in his district, he visited one of his companies who had just been visited by the state osha program and right behind them osha came. we have done an investigation. i mean we have tried to find out

what company that was and why they were there because that would not be appropriate. have you looked into that at the state level? i mean, why would that happen? why would be wasting money in that regard and do you know any more about it than i do sitting here today? >> no, not that particular situation. >> okay, i think it's worth looking into. we have asked over and over for the chairman to tell us what the company was so we can figure out how that all happened so i think that would be an example of a great waste of funds and the wrong use the federal regulation but thank you for responding. governor malloy, you in connecticut are on the cutting-edge in so many ways and you have a progressive work life policy and a new law that

requires businesses to pay sick leave when employees can't work because of illness. i would like to hear straight from you if the state economy has been compromised or if the state economy and health care system have enough that it in regards to this sick leave policy? i mean have you lost jobs? >> no, since the passage and ultimately enactment of that law we have actually gained jobs and lowered our unemployment rate in the state of connecticut. it is a special program. it takes a period of time for employees to earn the right to paid sick time but let me be very clear, we did it not as a matter of convenience that we made the ultimate decision that having people who prepare your food come to work sick does not

make any sense, people who care for your parents or grandparents in a nursing home coming to work sick doesn't make any sense and people caring for our children in daycare programs coming to work son -- said could not make any sense and ultimately decided that we would be a healthier state, a safer state if we moved in that direction with respect to service employees and that's exactly what we did. >> and the cost to the state? >> item believe there ultimately is a cost to the state. the idea that people are going to abuse the program simply because it exists really is not supported by the data. >> thank you. thank you very much and just quickly governor snyder, do you agree that the federal government plays a role in helping improve the economy? do the feds not help the auto industry in michigan? >> well the auto industry was a unique circumstance and that was

successful and i asked that earlier so i appreciate the question. what i would say is one of the things holding back our economy very clearly talking to any michigan employer is the challenge of dealing with the federal deficit here and that is an issue that needs to be resolved because as a former businessperson myself a number one thing you want from government is confident to know what you're dealing with and if you don't know what the rules are you are not going to take on new risk. this is a risk sitting out there for all of our employer so i really encourage washington to address that issue because that is holding back job creation in our state are ghosts be absolutely. >> the gentlelady's time has expired. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for both of you being here today. i am really interested in your comments and your job connection program. being one of the companion bills along with my bill, the question

i have is what kind of response do you get to the idea you are going to have a -- [inaudible] i represent the bad and we have the dubious distinction of having the highest unemployment rate in the nation driven by construction jobs lost over the last several years but we had a field hearing out in las vegas and i asked one of the local economist what they thought about the 70,000 jobs and would they ever come back? his answer was no. we will never be back to that -- and next on the panel as a representative of one of the trade unions and the asset gentleman what he was doing to prepare his members for the jobs that will exist since the job that did exist is not coming back and the answer was we need to spend more money on

infrastructure. so what did you do differently in michigan to get the volume moving people from what did exist to what will exist? >> i appreciate the question representative and i appreciate your sponsorship along with several other members with the ideas of putting metrics into workforce investment and i clearly support that. it's an ongoing process. a lot of it is getting the facts out to people and i will go back to an illustration i mentioned earlier about a welder being a job that if you're welder you can get a job in michigan and how many people knew that? the other part is if you go to the average parent or average student or someone in the workforce do they actually know what a welder does? to the actually know how much a welder makes? do they actually know where welding program is? the answer is no so that is why this portal concept at am i talent.org is so important because we are putting those

career tools on there and encouraging people to get the facts. one question that is really interesting if you go back to the auto illustration the auto industry is hiring and they are actually concerned about having enough work worse for the future but now they have to get over the perception that you don't want to be in the auto industry because it goes through difficult financial times and if you want a job in an auto plant nowadays you can't simply just been coming out of high school and going to work. quite often you need to go to community college and get a couple of years of technical training to work on the floor of an auto plant today so those are all kinds of things that are an ongoing process but i'm proud to say i think we are leading the country and being proactive and that is why in courage workforce development is great but it's not enough. talent, the three c's, connecting collaborating and creating. >> and a any similar efforts in connecticut for getting to the jobs that may have existed in connecticut? >> by the way i agree with the governor on this point as i have

on many of the points he has made. in our bipartisan jobs though we actually allocated funds to take an award-winning program at one of our community colleges, which has been in existence, this program for 12 years training precision manufacturing and returning folks who may have lost their jobs and lower lever on manufacturing to be in precision manufacturing with a 98 to 100% replacement rate on completion of that probe ramp at what i found when i became governor set program had not been replicated in any other the committee colleges in the state and our bipartisan jobs program we passed and i referenced in my prior testimony, we are going to replicate that program and three additional community colleges with operating dollars and we are going to replicated in three of our vo-tech school so we will graduate people from high school or community college is who will be prepared to take those

precision manufacturing jobs. why that connection was never made i don't understand that i want to make one quick point on that. one of the reasons i consolidated our community colleges of which we have 12 with our four regional universities within the state and our on line university is to make sure that our higher educational program in the state of connecticut is more responsive to the needs of the companies, startups and long-term companies that are finding it difficult to get the right talent matched set and so i think both the governor and i are working on that program having identifying it as a tremendous need. we have thousands of purposes and manufacturing jobs in connecticut right now as we speak. i hope that will not be the case in a relatively short period of time and that is why we are putting so much emphasis on rebuilding and redirecting our community college program. >> thank you both and i greg -- congratulate you on your program.

>> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. hinojosa. >> thank you chairman. i am pleased to see such a distinguished first panel of governors here for our committee discussion on job creation. today, i want to urge my colleagues to work in a bipartisan manner on a jobs agenda that creates jobs at home, educate our young adults and reignites the american dream. i certainly support this last discussion you had on supporting the federal investment bank and community colleges. as you know u.s. congress has not reauthorized -- which we passed in 1998. i think that is shameful. governor malloy in your testimony you urged us to reauthorize it.

this is question as to governor malloy. what are your top three priorities that we and congress should look at to reform we and improve the job training program for the next five years? >> it's an important program that connecticut has used quite effectively so i'm not here to criticize the program. what i'm saying is we have done the right thing. we have used the dollars to train and continue to train folks to take positions that they were formerly unqualified for. we have an award-winning program around the employment of veterans which is a special concern again on how many veterans are returning from the two wars we have been engaged in. i am sure that this committee is capable of making that a stronger and better law but i again will reiterate that it needs to be sustained. flexibility is okay as long as flexibility is not coupled with

a reduction in the funds that are made available. i think both governors, the governor of michigan and myself are capable of directing those funds to be properly spent at our states and we have both identified a common problem we recognize so i would really urge the committee to get its job done and let's get a law and let's make sure that those dollars are flowing to our state so we can put people back to work to train them properly. >> you need to know that in the 13 years that we have operated with that 1998 act, we saw lack of accountability and we saw that in some areas, some areas of the country the real money they got used 60% of it for fixed costs, administration, all sorts of fixed expenses and only 40% or less was used for

training of the adults, so i think that needs to certainly be reformed and that we could put a cap to say 40% or less are the fixed expenses and have 60% for actual training. but you mentioned returning veterans and i am pleased because i agree with you that we must do everything possible to assist these veterans in acquiring good jobs and careers with so many of them that have come back from iraq and then a few will start coming back from afghanistan. we really need your thoughts on how you plan to reduce the unemployment rates for our veterans in your state. >> well i am sure the governor and i both agree that this is an important societal issue. people are returning from the two wars and deployment. in many cases with very good

skill sets but again those skill sets may not match what is needed, so we need to make it affordable and easy for our returning service personnel to access brogue ramps and our community colleges, certificate programs or programs that will qualify for degrees and we actually just need to make a special effort. are labor department and and and our state is doing that. i've asked all of my commissioners to be mindful of that. we are talking to all of our private and public universities to make sure they understand this is a special obligation that we owe to the people who have served us. >> i agree with you. let me ask a question of governor snyder. you know we are very concerned about our young teenagers and young adults, especially latinos and african-american. their unemployment rate is so very very high. what are you doing in your state to address that problem and that

group so that they can get jobs? >> that is a very timely question because we are doing our budget next week and that will be included. you are right on in terms of saying particularly our young people in our urban areas, we need to do something so part of our view is let's put a focused effort on that. one area in particular that i think has worked on is the concept of supply chain analysis and that is an illustration of asking our current larger employers to say food you buy from? who do you work with and there are opportunities to make things work. one illustration we use is the simple lottery. we have a very large health care community in metro detroit that does kind of a lottery. we actually found some of them actually have their lottery done out of state. why are there opportunities to create organizations that would be very good at employing entry

type positions to create jobs right in some of these communities so on one of those ways again it's not about the government got us playing that core dating recess -- resource to say can we work with their supply chain analysis. we created a -- but to put that in challenge syria's. >> i want to be sure that you are alone the same page with us that they african-american young teenagers and young adults and the hispanic are the two that have the highest unemployment rates and we have got to focus those efforts that you just gave us on being able to address them >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. ross. >> thank you mr. chairman. speaking of economic development i want to thank governor snyder because my hometown is lakeland. we are at the time a year now where your constituencies migrate to my area for economic purposes and i thank you for

that. to both governors, the nlrb decision and especially in the health care case allows for the creation of many unions of lifetime vocations that are now unionized as well as the nlrb promulgation of rules that expedite the voting for unions for 90 days to 14 days. these are significant impacts are organized labor and i think it would have significant impacts on job creators. my question to both governors and i will start with you mr. snyder is do you support the nrl pm how will they if they happen have an impact as a job creator? >> one of the challenges, would be much like some of the other issues, i view it as creating devices because all you do is create an environment where people are in conflict and we shouldn't be wasting time on things where we will get into conflict. we waste too much time on arguing about things rather than finding common ground in solving problems. >> do you see any reason to change the program?

>> my view is let's find areas where we agree on. can listen to the testimony here you hear about infrastructure areas. workforce development, showing results. let's find again let's find common ground solutions where we agree, solve our problems and work closer together. we have a lot of things to work on before we get into place. >> you now i just want to say that i believe the right to unionize is actually guaranteed by our constitution and taking steps to allow individuals to come together for the purposes of collective bargaining should not be seen as evil. just as -- >> i agree but in terms of changing the status quo would that not negatively impact the job creation? >> if you look at the history of this discussion, there was a movement around card check which was not successful. card check came about because of the frustration of folks who would want to become organized

but once they got to a point where an election was to be held there was no timeliness and the holding of that election or of that vote, so anything that would speed the vote taking place i think actually works in the favor of the work environment to get a yes or no. >> so you have no problem in expediting it to 14 days? >> i think expediting process -- [inaudible] >> the gentleman from south carolina talked about the right to work state or movement. quite frankly connecticut's unemployment rate as i sit here today is lower than south carolina's and we have a more unionized workforce so i think that people will make an argument around their beliefs, but not always substantiated by the facts. >> both governors you have the requirement for a balanced budget don't you in michigan and

connecticut? >> all states do. >> i agree with you and something else we have on the federal and state level and local level of course is pensions and i do address this governor malloy in your opening statement and i appreciate that was making reforms. is your pension plan and connecticut a defined benefits plan are defined contribution plan? is that something that needs to be changed to make sure there's an opportunity to take sure it's fully funded? >> state government had honored its commitment and properly funded the program over a period of time i would not have inherited a program that was -- >> but they cannot funded and is that not indicative of the fact that it was not proper measures taken because i will see going to fund these? >> i fundamentally disagree that the defined benefit programs are by definition evil.

>> i'm not saying it's evil, i'm saying it's a burden on your state in terms of funding. >> they do require a discipline in the and the absence of that discipline or and since one of my predecessors had negotiated language that did not require the pension plan to be funded on a true actuarial basis and in fact in my opening remarks and in my testimony i point out that we would have had a $4.4 billion balloon payment on that pension obligations negotiated by one of my predecessors. obviously that is wrong. >> i see my time is running out. i certainly believe in states rights and i think that's important. there is a measure recommended by the president's commission the simpson-bowles commission which illuminates all corporate tax luke -- loopholes and would reduce tax rates to a flat 20%. i believe someone thing like that would not be in economic incentive but allow states to leveraged use tax policy to compete with other states for economic development. heidi both feel about that?

>> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. tierney. >> mr. chairman as you chino governor deval patrick of massachusetts was invited to testify that was an adult i get i would ask enhancements and that is written testimony be allowed on the record. >> governor snyder in particular i noted governor patrick's written testimony. he has a quote in there that -- comes from investment in octets in the government must do its part to help businesses help themselves and he goes on to talk about massachusetts, 47 the job creation 2006 and now even during the last couple of years the recession has gone to whiff on that. he is proud that students lead the nation overall achievement in both math and science and really the nation in massachusetts and health care coverage covering over 98% of the people on that basis,

eliminated a structural problem on deficit and has a higher bond rating than they ever had in massachusetts on there and. adding 45,600 private-sector jobs in massachusetts and an employment rate dropped to 6.8% alone what he says is his strategy building on investments and reforms weather was pension or health care in those areas. he talked about the recovery act, allowing him to maintain his commitment to education and his commitment to innovation where he put a billion dollars over 10 years into life sciences and a quarter billion dollars into clean energy, was able to work with applied research issues in infrastructure on that. but i noted in looking at michigan.gov you don't take a backseat to much of that and you have done well with your recovery funds. your previous governor said 54,000 jobs were created and i noted that you have actually in

may of last are made out of the fact that there was a serious investment in your rail in michigan and accelerated rail service has the ability to enhance our economy environment and overall quality of life and an investment of that magnitude has spurred economic development in the communities and you are able to say was critical to michigan's recovery. do you agree with that? >> yeah, actually give a message calling for $1.4 billion of additional investment in transportation infrastructure in our stay. the one thing that goes with that because one of the challenges is, it is a difficult economic environment, a lot of our citizens don't believe we have demonstrated best practice and how we are deploying those dollars so one of the things that goes along with that is us being more prudent about showing that. web metrics and we have measures and we are being held accountable and we are being transparent in those features but they go together. >> i also noted in the recovery act $1.35 billion in advanced

battery grants and michigan claims to be the leader in automotive batteries. does that still hold true? >> what i was in a better credit is it was dumb and i was -- when i got there. using tax credits at the state level in particular. to go to the earlier representatives comments we redid our tax system to make it fair and efficient so we have wiped out almost all tax credits we offered to corporations and eliminated a tax that was on unincorporated and put in a flat 6% corporate income tax and my belief is that will be a better job greater than having the michigan business tax which was the dumbest tax in the united states. speedy recovery act monies he put towards the advanced battery grants, does that still remain in these? >> that is in use. again, they are there. i hope they succeed. it's great to have them in michigan but one thing when i looked at the budget this year and i have a budget for the next several years i just started at minus $500 million in the hole

to cover those costs. >> how many teachers do you think you are able to retain on the payroll and the various cities and towns as a result of the recovery act money for education? >> i view that is speculation because the question again and this is the way i felt about the dollars to many respects is too often we use those property costs as opposed to good capital investments that were one-time dollars we could have put into long-term while at the same time adjusting cost structures because we now shown we can adjust those cost structures, be more efficient and get that her service to our customers and actually hopefully provide better education. >> well, what i would say it specifically in a budget that i inherited prior to the administration is $270 million to cover a cut to local government in support of local local -- education pre-k-12 in the state of connecticut. that $270 million if i had not

cover that in reworking the budget and addressing the $3.5 billion deficit would have led to a loss of thousands and thousands of jobs of teachers, administrators and paraprofessionals in our school system. our school systems so let me assure that has been one of my highest priorities to make sure we bridge that gap which is another way of saying its money to keep teachers employ. >> the gentleman's time has expired. ms. biggert. >> thank you mr. chairman, thank you for holding this hearing and thank you for being here. governor snyder i certainly share your frustration with a highly-skilled international students who have gone through our schools and i call it the brain drain. reverse brain drain in that they are having to go home due to creativity and innovation we need in those foreign countries rather than remain here. i hope that we will, congress

will put aside partisanship and really work out a way to keep them here. but i am also very concerned about our students and why they aren't meeting the requirements that we think they should and particularly i think most of my colleagues and i really think that the stem education is really important. we need to find a way to get more students interested in that and in one of the studies that gathering storm that the national academy put out saying we need to have creativity and innovation if we are going to be competitive in the global economy. i don't think we are when we see -- finland is the number one school in the area and i think the united states ranks 24th

but it is very low. we need to do something about that. you talked about the significant lack of college students in michigan in the stem type programs. why do you think that has happened? >> it comes back to the concept of accountability and measurement and student growth. what i said clearly in michigan and we have that education reform this last year because it needed to be done. we spend a lot of money there but we are not getting outcomes that are acceptable. only 17% of our kids are college-ready. if you go to our community colleges about 60% of the kids have to take a remedial class before they are qualified to take an entry-level class. that is a travesty and a lot of that if you look at it there's not enough emphasis on student growth and is not just about standardized test. my view is the student should have a portfolio that travels with them that they can really be assessed in our goal is not to create competition between districts but the measure we

want to have in michigan is to say what do we need to do to create an environment where we can measure to see that each and every student is getting at least one years worth of education that each and every year and then giving them some of these other tools showing them where careers actually are because most parents and kids think of doctor, lawyer, teacher nurse all the standard things but how many people thought about being a marketing person or an accountant or a computer programmer where the jobs are? that is where we need collaboration to work together so that is why i talk about talent -- >> when would you start it? preschool, kindergarten? >> a re-characterize it. i don't use the term early childhood k-12 and community college, i call it be 20. our goal is prenatal through lifelong learning and we have erected barriers in silos to make it difficult for these kids

to go through our system that are mainly artificial constructs of either money or old institutions and lack of innovation and so we are working hard on creating a seamless system for people. recall it anywhere, anyplace, anytime anywhere that you get your education and it's a great opportunity. cyberlearning in particular married with traditional education done right is a huge opportunity. >> i would agree with the governor. that is exactly what were doing and connecticut as i appear before you. we need a seamless system and we need to make it easy for people to acquire the skill sets necessary for our corporations and employers to succeed. i do want to join your comments with respect to the ability to retain talent in this country really is a travesty that we are not retaining that talent once we have educated here and have people who expressed the desire to remain here be part of our filling a void that currently

exists. i do want to also say that i think we need to speak to our young people differently about what it takes to be successful in the world. we have precision manufacturing jobs in both of our states that pay in excess of $100,000 that we were unable to pay those. if children is a they want to be a pilot someday but we don't explain to them that is going to require stem skills. we need to have a different conversation from our earliest moments but certainly from the time a child arrives in our school system and we need to help direct those young people to areas that are going to lead to full employment. we have not done that and that is why it we have the structural deficit with respect to the skill set or the talent said necessary to match the employment needs that are country currently has. we can't do that rapidly enough to fill that void. it's one of the reasons we are in fact getting a credit to new hires or for new hires because

we in the state understand that not having done a good job in training replacement workforce, it it is in our best interest to subsidize an employer being engaged in that training. >> i thank you vote. >> the gentlelady's time has expired. mr. all my are. >> governor malloy and governor snyder thank you for being here. we all realize it is a difficult time and there is a budget season coming up and you will be called upon to make very difficult decisions as we are here in this congress. i wanted to revisit this difficult decision we had to made governor snyder which you have addressed a couple of times now and you mentioned it in response to mr. tierney's leshin for the need for employing taxpayer dollars and how critically important that is. in answering the question earlier you emphasize your support for paying attention to the deficit in making sure we are reducing the deficit. i supported the balanced budget. i voted for it when it was on

the house floor and i think it was the right decision but we do occasionally have to make extraordinarily difficult decisions on allocating federal resources, one of which was the auto recovery plan and you have talked about it a couple of times but i just wanted to get your sense and thinking about whether or not was that an appropriate use of taxpayer resources? did this congress do the right thing and promoting the auto recovery plan? >> yeah. as i mentioned representative already that in many respects it wasn't about one individual company. it was actually the entire auto industry that was in jeopardy and that would have been a major catastrophe for our country. the solution was successful and it's great to see the success of the auto industry. in hindsight you can go back to say the credit in other ways to do it that would have been more efficient. i don't waste time on that analysis. would the par we should be proud about is the auto industry that we have and when to be supportive of that but that's a point about making sure they

have the right skilled skill traits to succeed. that is why i'm excited to testify here today as is they have a major talent question and workforce development is not a good enough answer. we need to do a better job of collaborating in connecting with an. >> i appreciate it and i asked the question once again and asked this question to both of you. a couple of decisions we are going to have to make in short order deal with the extension of unemployment insurance and transportation and infrastructure on federal highway bill's. starting with unemployment insurance, can i ask the governor malloy and then governor snyder how important is that to your individual states that gets done? what is your opinion of what we should do and if it does not get extended what would be the impact? >> let me begin with a quick answer. if it is not extended 51,000 people will be without benefits in the state of connecticut and by february that number will grow to 71,000 by august.

would have an extremely detrimental effect on our state's economy and it might need a destroying of relationships, of homes, apartments and houses to be lost. i urge you to address this issue as rapidly as you can. i can imagine being one of those 51,000 people in my state who is on the verge potentially of losing that benefit, the sole benefit that keeps family and home together. and obviously the loss of purchasing power of 51,000 people in my state would be reflected in all aspects of commerce in our state. we have an extraordinarily for our state high unemployment number at 8.2% and even having fallen by over 1% in the past year. but we are may can progress. there is a better day ahead of us, but to suddenly cut 51,000

people or 71,000 by august i think would actually slow the recovery vary substantially. >> what i would say is i don't believe it's really appropriate for me to make that call in many respects. there are so many good things. you can go and officially take one of these things and make a good argument that the challenge is to prioritize because we need to be like a family where we don't have unlimited resources so the challenge isn't to say they are all good things but what has to be done and what do we have to give on and that is why encourage congress to work with the administration to come up with a solution. when i had a $1.5 billion deficit we partnered with the legislature on making tough calls. we may tough cuts to programs that in many respects as for sacrifice from people and at the same time i'm proud to say we stood firm on medicaid reimbursement and added dollars to child services. the other things we cut were probably good things but we had to do our job in a difficult

circumstance and i encourage everyone to work collectively to make that happen. >> thank you mr. chair. >> i thank the gentleman. i'd thank you both governors for your time in your testimony and answering our questions and sometimes ray answering the question. i applaud your efforts in trying to connect education and job training to the jobs that are out there and governor snyder he used the word talent. i think the word talent has been bubbling up here all over the place in the three c's with both of you trying to make that connection where we have seen broken frankly all across the country. we have held hearings in pennsylvania and new york and nevada as dr. hacks that and so often what we hear is that they community colleges, that for-profit colleges, the universities are not connecting with where the jobs are and what businesses need. you have both address that issue and we will continue to look at that and again i thank you both

very very much and we will look forward to talking to you again and we will ask the second panel to come forward. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> is now my pleasure to introduce our second panel of witnesses, ms. kellie johnson is the president of ace clearwater industries a company of 210 employees to build complex assemblies for the aerospace and power generation industries. ms. johnson serves on the board of the national association manufactures and as the chair of the national association of manufacturers small and medium manufacturers group and she also serves as a member of the u.s. department of commerce manufacturing council. dr. jared bernstein said senior fellow at the center on budget policy priorities. prior to this position he served as chief economist and economic adviser to vice president biden and was a member president obama's economic team. before joining the ovonic administration dr. brin seems a senior economist and the director of the living standard program at the economic policy institute in washington d.c.. between 1995 and 1996 he held

the post of deputy chief economist at the u.s. department of labor or the doctor bernstein holds a ph.d. in social welfare from columbia university. dr. matthew mitchell is a senior research fellow with economics at that mercatus at george mason university. his primary just and good economic freedom and economic growth, government spending, state and local fiscal policy, public choice and institutional economics. dr. mitchell currently serves on the joint advisory board of the economist for the commonwealth of virginia. dr. mitchell received his ph.d. and his masters of arts in economics at george mason university. he received his undergraduate degrees in political science and economics from arizona state university and i have no idea what those school colors are so we will move on. before i recognize each of you to provide your testimony let me again explain our lighting system. i think most of you have been here before. it's a green yellow red system. green when you start, yellow

when you have one minute left and read when you're five minutes or it. please try to wrap up your testimony when you see that red light to sort of finish your thoughts and then we will go as we did before through members and have a chance to ask questions. so, we will start, going in the same direction, ms. johnson you are recognized. >> thank you chairman kline and distinguished members of the committee. i greatly appreciate the invitation to participate in the hearing today. as chairman kline mention i'm kellie johnson president of ace clearwater industries. we manufacture complex components for the aerospace and power generation industry at three locations in southern california. the company was started by my grandfather more than 60 years ago and we employed over 200 of the best men and women in our industry. today i would like to discuss the issues that are facing the small and medium manufacturers in the united states, and as a

manufacture i was heartened by the considerable inferences president obama put on manufacturing and competitiveness in a state of the union address. clear to make good on president obama's pledge to make america the best place on or do business and the premier location for manufacturing investment we must take immediate action to reclaim manufacturing as the foundation of the american economy. when jobs are the number one issue on everyone's mind, we know that manufacturing is a solution. to catalyst that generates american jobs across many industry sectors. we know it is what helped create and sustain the middle class and it's a hard-working engine that drives our economy that but manufacturing is of american competitive -- it's more expensive to do business in the united states then it is compared to our nine major trading partners. 20% more expensive and that

excludes labor. .. and factors that were operating in a hostile work environment with the overreach at the nlrb and the epa we need a positive message from

washington manufacturing is at a pivotal point in the country's history especially for the small and medium manufacturers that make up the supply chain. as an aerospace supplier, we operate in an environment where tightly integrated supply chains need to be the reality. we've become interpol partners not just suppliers in the value chain but increasingly my customers will migrate to places that care about manufacturing and were the most robust infrastructure and supply chain exists to conduct their business. the uncertainty of the regulatory and economic environment makes it almost impossible. for short our long-term growth especially for the capital-intensive industries like manufacturing as manufactures we know firsthand board regulations are challenging, time-consuming, redundant and change a lot. taxes, fees, mandates and regulations are currently enacted without considering the accumulative and dynamic impact. the more unpredictable the

business environment, the less likely it would be a competitive place to do business we need stable policies to create jobs and remain competitive. clearwater last year spent $250,000 on compliance costs, environmental compliance costs in addition to over $40,000 in consulting fees. we of more than 42 labor laws that we comply with that have their own set of compliance standards as well which requires us to use it for the party administrators on many of our programs can't to retain legal services that amount to more than $52,000 annually. and i mention all of this because the compliance cost for small business is about 125% more than it is for large companies. we do not have the of the images of the economy of scale so there for our costs are disproportionately higher. the reality of the costs are

driving innovation out of the supply chain because we are doing all we can just to stay in business. innovation as we know in the global economy is a strategic must. if we lose our ability to innovate we lose the ability to manufacture and without manufacturing, innovation is just a good idea. as manufactures we've been running hard for the past decade to stay competitive. we've cut the cost from the supplies to our energy usage and leaned across the seas and we have made huge investments in people and technology. over the last eight years we've invested more than a million dollars each year and a people, facilities and equipment and during that time many states like california, my own state left a large percentage of their industrial base and around and i this is a reputation. my concern is as california goes, so goes the rest of the country. our utility costs are 50% higher. we've lost 33 of our industrial

base over the last decade and the home of a for the united states no longer has an zero e and headquartered there. but i believe that government can play an extremely important role along with businesses shading the competitiveness of manufacturing. we recently released to manufacturing renaissance, the four goals for economic growth, and i believe we can find common ground on how to achieve the goals in order to lower the cost of doing business in the united states and because more competitive. i see that my red light is almost on so i will make it short. i want to end by saying in my written testimony, i have many ideas and suggestions for improvements going forward and i guess you please to take a look at those and that we need to bring the rationalization and balance to the minute doctrine because our competition is global, relentless and unforgiving. but we are resilient, tough, innovative and driven to succeed if we act with a common purpose

to fuel innovation and rebuild our industrial base we will ensure american manufacturing remains the best in the world today 64, and all of your written testimony will be included in its entirety in the record. >> chairman klein, a ranking member miller, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify applaud you for holding this hearing on the issue that matters to most americans right now, opportunity, jobs and the standards of the broad middle class committed the current economy continues to expand in the real gdp terms as has been the case since the second half of 2009. employment growth turned positive in march 2010 and since then the private sectors added $3.2 million on the net. as my submitted testimony shows the rate of gdp contraction and job losses diminish shortly after the intervention of both the federal government through the recovery act and the federal reserve for monetary stimulus. moreover, the nonpartisan research has shown that the government has had a reserve

policy that played an integral role yet while the economy is moving in the right direction and developed in the recent month the unemployment rate fell by -- it did fall buy almost one kucinich point over the past year from 9.4 to 8.5%. the and leningrad rid of the expansion is still too slow to deliver the middle class families the economic opportunities the need to meet their family budgets much less to get ahead. moreover given the importance of restoring the middle class economic prosperity, we must recognize the group itself is necessary sufficient. gdp productivity growth alone has not sufficiently lifted the income and living standard of the middle class kid in the business cycle expansion of 2,000 productivity grew 19%, real gdp grew 18%, the real income of the middle class working age households actually fell in the real terms. a middle class income trends are favorable in the 1990 says the median incomes of the households

increased 10% and an additional $5,600 in today's dollars. employ years at about 23 million jobs over the 1990's in the 5.5 million over the 2000 cycle. i raise this comparison here for a few reasons. in 2000 the policy makers aggressively adopted the supply-side trickle-down measures characterized by large tax cuts favored and the wealthy, deregulating the assumption that financial markets would self more mature and persistent budget deficits even during the expansion. today, such supplies it trickled on aretas are resurgent despite the evidence noted above. once tempted to recall the out monition of those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. fiscal and tax policies or especially different in the 1990's as the taxes were raised on the wealthy and cut for the worst among us and the fiscal budget achieved the multi-year surpluses for the first time since the 1950's. the trickle down to the regulatory agenda what i call

yoyo economics, you're on your own, presume that it starts of the top of the wealth scale and troubles down to those of the metal and the bottom of the scale. there is a much better theories suggesting that to generate robust lasting and blog shared grief and economically strengthen the middle class is essential. in my written testimony come on a present evidence to this effect. let me use the rest of my time however to talk about policy that helps in this regard. every one of the policy areas of the dimensions of which compliment my colleague ms. johnson's idea or arguments that members of the committee can use to help reduce the security come pushback on the equality and improve the mobility of the middle class to read extended the payroll tax holiday on the unemployment insurance. policy makers of both parties have widely agreed on the need for this release to the end of the year and the failure to provide it would add to the underlying fragility of the

nation's expansion to investing in the infrastructure. it's my understanding that the bill to repair and modernize the nation's public schools and community colleges will soon come to the floor of both chambers. this is called fast, fix american schools today. it addresses three big problems, the law of the maintenance repairs and strapped school districts across the nation, high unemployment among the construction workers and other laborers who do this type of work, the energy efficiency in many public schools where the billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted through bad ruling could aging boilers and poorly insulated windows. i urge legislators to give this idea a close look. in a factor in policy as my colleague has mentioned some skills enhancement which is what a large part of the earlier conversation improving workers' bargaining power. as with the international trade taxation the union organizing is tilted against those to exercise of their right to collectively bargain. the recent rule change by the national labor relations board

will help workers who petition to form the union to have a more timely election. in a climate where employers can and do block them with in tnt this removes itself. your urge the committee to the policies that to relieve the atomic prez brigety of the american middle class with the productivity and growth they themselves are helping to generate. thank you. [applause] thank you, dr. mitchell, you are recognized. >> good morning, gerrans y comer representative, members of the committee. it's an honor to speak with you today. the economy is sick and the question for those in the clinton should policy is what economic medicine will help? unfortunately the economic understanding of how the government can revive is limited. it's not unlike the knowledge of server surgery. the instruments of one are not a very adept at using them and there is a good chance the intervention will cause more harm than good. we may not know how to bring

life back into the fixed to become sick economy but we do know about how the government can create the sort of environment which is conducive to growth that is we know the source of habits that make for the healthy economy. let me begin by what we can and can't do in the short run. you might not know if looking at some, but the truth is that there is a lot that we economists do not know about fiscal stimulus. there's a general agreement increased stimulus is costly and unproductive over the long run there's less agreement about whether the stimulus spending, the stimulus spending that it finances is helpful or harmful in the short run. we're using reasonable techniques have found that it enhances the qaeda sector growth. the reasonable economists using the techniques have found it destroys or crowds out the activity. i cannot tell what level of risk is acceptable to take with the american economy but there is risk in the further stimulus. one reason for the caution is the top domestic estimates seem not to apply to the current

situation. when the nation as operating on a flexible exchange rate, too, when it is open to trade with other nations, and free when it is highly indebted. all three conditions apply or soon will apply to the united states. economists also find the most players are large only when a stimulus is temporary. they also find that it's largely when the stimulus measures are modest. that is the ammunition removes to the stimulus. this is especially relevant in today's context of the government has already undertaken multiple netz of stellas projects. the real risks associated with too much stimulus. the recent study of 91 countries found that, quote, those governments that use fiscal policy aggressively and to significant macroeconomic stability and that is stability that diminishes economic growth. one problem is that there is a wide gulf that the advocates say the study was ought to be implemented. and the way that it actually is implemented. lawrence summers noted it can be counterproductive if it isn't

timely and to every. however it is difficult to simultaneously meet all three criteria. on the timeliness we know that 18 months after the 2,009 stimulus past more than half of the money towards the investment is yet to be spent. as far as targeting the numerous studies have found that this stimulus fund had no relationship to the local area unemployment rate. the funding didn't go to those areas most in need. as far as the covering growth studies suggest most spending boosts last far longer than intended. instead of implementing the quick fix, we should be creating the conditions necessary for the long run economic health. one of the most effective ways to do this is to provide the citizens a generous degree of what they call economic freedom. that is permit them the choice, free infantry introduction, open market competition and the rule of law. these ideas may sound vague but in the past several decades economists have made them more concrete way of developing the freedom. please bring up my first slide.

>> one measure is it is developed by the professor index reached 141 countries on the factors such as the size of the government, the extent of the regulation, stability of the long title to the degree of the property rights. this shows the positive name statistically significant relationship between the freedom and the per caput gdp. per capita income on the average person in the free country is more than seven times that of the average person. the per capita income of the poorest 10% in the freest countries is more than eight times that of the poorest 10% in the least. in other words, economic freedom is valuable for the average person to get it is particularly valuable for those of the least well-off among us. in contrast to the literature on stimulus there's a remarkable consensus in the study of economic freedom. one recent review of the 45 studies concluded that, quote, regardless of the symbol of the country the measure of economic freedom and the level of degradation there is a solid funding of a direct positive

association between economic freedom and economic growth. can you please bring of the next slide. the literature demonstrates the prosperity of the united states is neither maximo nor inevitable. it's the result of decades of robust expanding economic freedom. unfortunately, that freedom has been a force of this decline for about a decade. it can be restored by making the tax code more efficient, equitable and easy to comprehend. by bringing spending in line with taxation to make the policies sustainable by eliminating regulation that the tracks from or diverts the capitol to the unproductive activities by lifting restrictions to the international trading and by reaffirming our commitment to the equitable treatment of businesses no bailout, no handout, no special treatment and no special punishment. in conclusion, millions of americans are unemployed or under employed. millions more have given up looking for war altogether. it is only natural to want to perform emergency surgery on the economy, but we know from experience the intervention can sometimes cause more harm than

good. fancher for the opportunity to testify today to i look forward to your questions. >> thank you for your testimony. listening to the tristani particularly of dr. bernstein and dr. mitchell, i was thinking back many years ago in fact decades ago when i was in school down in houston texas and i was studying economics, majoring in the biology and took economics because i thought was an easy course and you had to take some electives and i enjoyed it. it was interesting to me and i got to be a senior and found out that i had to and fully calculus to make this work and got a whole lot more complicated. and listening to both of you it is clear what i knew even then that has been underscored over the years that sometimes can be very large differences in how the economists look at sometimes

exactly the same data that comes up with a very different conclusions and we have some of that year that causes me to have great sympathy for ms. johnson who was trying to make the business work where the economists and politicians are battling. so, my thanks to you for the great job that you are doing and keating over to injured people employed and trying to struggle your way through this and struggling with all of the issues of getting illegal let fisa and jogging to decipher the rules and watching those rules and regulations change and try to keep up with it and try to have your business not only survive but growth. i'm going to let the economists have a little bit of a discussion here today i'm going to go to dr. mitchell because dr. bernstein introduced the concept of a yo-yo economics. you're on your own.

how would you characterize that in comparison to the sort of free-market principles which i understand that you are advocating? >> well, you know, it's interesting on the topic today of the trickle-down economics i have to admit that there is no respectable economist i know of that advocates anything close to the trickle-down economics. so perhaps we are in agreement here. they're really isn't a school or academic journal that publishes regularly or teaches the students that what we ought to be doing is from the top down directing resources to the wealthy somehow in the hopes they will turn around and spend that. there is a well-respected school of economics which says we ought to treat all people equally and that we shouldn't single out some particular special treatment one way or the other.

so what i would actually say is the while there isn't any economic school that teaches some sort of top-down trickle-down economics, unfortunately, the government do quite often practiced passed on economics and by that i mean you study the biology as you said and in some ways i think the free market perspective used the economy as an ecosystem. it's a bottom-up process largely tiffin by consumers. where the process signals get lost is when the central planners attempt to direct capital and labor so that people don't -- it's not consumers who are saying where the jobs of tomorrow are but rather it is people in the government trying to figure where the jobs of tomorrow should be to the estimate i have another quick question and i'm sure there will the number of questions for dr. bernstein and he can redefine yo yo if he would like to. in your testimony, again, dr. mitchell, you expressed some

skepticism that the president's call for another 105 billion, i've got that by adding several of his proposals together, adding another 105 billion in federal spending bill would result in the real benefits to the american economy. in fact he said it may be risky. would you like to expand on that? >> this may be a good opportunity. i have an additional slightly might bring that up. i'm going to try to make this as long wonky as possible there is no dhaka was a promise. one of the things that's important when you were trying to evaluate stimulus measures is what economists call the multipliers simply put it says you can think of it as your return for government spending. we are going to go to the deficit and borrowing and we want to know what the impact on the economy is. each one of these bars represents a separate study and the important thing to keep in mind is if the result suggests the multiplier is larger than

one then that means government spending actually multiplied for eds private sector economic activity. it is less than 100 is detracted from the crowd out, it diminishes private sector economic activity. the horizontal bar is the one mark. each one of these vertical bars represents the high and low estimate of the different study to read a symbol of the recent studies over the last several years. that doesn't at all what to me like a slam on we know is daniels definitely always works and crowds in the private sector and makes malta was the private sector to me i will get that and i see an enormous amount of disagreement. i see even within studies there are estimates that suggest that have a very wide range, so you look at that and you can see by the way we know the media expert is below the one and the stimulus crowds out private sector economic activity and some of the worst examples it can destroy the 1 dollar grumet spending industry as much as

$2.80, so that's what i mean when we see this is risky to i'm not say they are not well respected economists who sometimes think the stimulus is helpful but it is a risk and one other quick point there are many things on which economists do agree benefits of free trade, the fiscal problems with the u.s. and over the long run there's frequently polls of members of the american economic association on these matters and you find lots of things which economists agree. the stimulus isn't one of them to the estimates before. my time is expired. >> thank you very much. a mengin for your knowledge of the calculus business. i'm going to stay away from it. it wasn't one of my strong suit in college. but i would like to ask ms. johnson, i commend you for

bringing forth the family business for 60 years and being successful. but looking at your testimony you do bring of these impediments and joke about how the osha is troublesome and frustrating and confusing and any issues you have to keep up with of course you certainly feel we could do without the epa and programs of slowing down job creation. let me just focus on the testimony regarding the the natural labor relations board. you testified in your testimony it on lawfully issued the rule

regarding the the posting of notices on employee rights. first, does your company post notices regarding the minimum wage of the osha workers' compensation and the wall is prohibiting discrimination. >> we absolutely do have a federal contractor it's been a requirement of hours. and if you consider the postings to be burdensome? >> burdensome in the sense that there are inspectors to come through and verify the posters that are displayed in the right size they are not hidden away in the dark corners on where the fact that there doesn't seem to be trust d'aspin again, you know, the company is to suffer from the bad companies because they are not all as great as your company seems to be. and in some places they do put them in the dark places in the

room where no one can get in. let me just ask you this, with one additional notice regarding the employee rights on the labor law burdensome? >> we've been doing it for many years, so it's become a practice of ours. i think that for those companies that have not been required to it could be a burden, yes. estimate your testimony says that they acted without legal authority to require that notice posting regulation, and i just want to know and you probably are aware that the national labor relations act thinks the board shall have the authority from time to time to make, amend and present such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of the act. what about what prohibits the nlrb from the notice to their employees of their rights even

if it's another one, whether their rights and labor people or the employer? >> well i just think that it's adding another burden to businesses and it is an example of overreaching when there have been laws in place that people have been complying with and then they decide that they are going to change it. it's a perception that businesses have that independent agencies are overreaching and their authority at times to the estimate wouldn't you agree that if all workers know the rules and feel that it develops harmony if we really a small business of about 50 people and have to put up all of those regulations and let the people come in and day used to do tests on decibels of sound and was a problem because we had rotating

actions in the operation and the workers didn't want to wear them. it was to protect the worker -- >> absolutely. >> and we enforce that for the worker even though it was a nuisance, but i think that the overall -- the last thing before my time expires, you also mention that you come in your testimony, the nlrb regulation can press time between when a petition is filed and the actual elections are held. and you call lists and -- ambush elections and i wonder if he can elaborate on that. >> i would like to. i would go on the record saying as a small business -- and i know this is a term that is overused -- our biggest asset, our number one priority is our work force that makes our company great. as companies have access to capital and can invest in

technology, that's not going to make them a world-class company. it comes down to people. i'm not aware of any attempt organizations in my company over the last 16 years. when people are were number one priority as is their safety, and in fact on a weekly basis, or to the turf operations in his report, the number one metric that he reports out on or any kind of safety occurrences or accidents. and in fact, last year on of our team metrics was to improve our safety record by 50%. so that it is less than two incidents per year. and that is a goal that we are able to achieve. one of our divisions last year and we are going forward. but without a doubt people are our greatest asset. their safety is number one to disconnect the gentleman's time is expired. cynics before mr. sherman and into to the panelists for being here today. appreciate your insight. ms. johnson, it's a pleasure to hear from you again.

i think that you were here back in 2007. i sat and listened to you extol the wonderful opportunities and passion of manufacturing, and i have used the illustration many times without asking your permission of you going into middle schools and telling the students what they can experience in manufacturing and the opportunities that were there and even seeing some of the parts that they produce go to the moon or go in space and so i would like to foster that passion as opposed to just dealing with excess of the limit regulation and in pensions upon you doing those things and i will inform you that i'm going to use your quote without innovation manufacturing is just a good idea commit so thank you for being here. let me ask you some questions in my district in michigan and a factor in state that's gone through some tough times and now just hearing from the governor how we are turning that around and seeing the value of manufacturing again. i hear so often from the

manufacturers and business people, small business people the challenges they faced with uncertainty and the ever increasing burdensome regulations, not just simply regulations that are necessary, but the advancing and increasing more and more regulations. it was a little more than a year ago the president announced his intentions to review and retial a number of regulations. have you seen any tangible evidence of this review, and is it the fact that it's working, or has the review caused less uncertainty in your field? >> thank you for that question. i very much appreciate compliments and the fact that you can remember me from 2007 to the is an ad that is a very important thing to this gimmick for my age. [laughter] you know, no, i have not seen any of these rules being

retracted. in fact i would just recommend to the committee that at this point in time we just stop, look and listen and take it all in as we have been trying to climb out of this recession. what we hear constantly in the news is more and more regulation coming our way. and we take the healthcare law for example. the only thing that we know at this time is that our costs have gone up when in fact the regulations haven't been written yet and what is written in "the wall street journal" just last week that it says president obama's regulators currently have some 149 major rules under way which are those that cost more than $100 million. so, my experience is no, i have not yet seen that. >> let me continue on with that. you noted in your testimony that washington regulations are time consuming, complex and certain changing to venegas from that

can you estimate how much it costs the business to hire experts or counsel to navigate your business through the regulations? >> currently we have different consulting firms we work with in regards to environmental compliance and we have a labor attorney that is on a retainer and between those three is well over $150,000. >> just for those areas. >> yes. >> do you receive any positive help from the federal agencies and assisting you with compliance and understanding? >> that's a great question to ask because the times i am in washington and the opportunities that i have to hear from the front representatives of these agencies, there is so much work that is being done to inform employers what's going on in washington and how they are there to help and i know for example of the manufacturing

council meeting a couple of weeks ago we met with representatives from the epa and they said they are designing their web website so we have the projects going on and i think that there needs to be some way to get this information outside of the beltway to the employer so that we understand it but at this point in time, we have not sought out any help from the federal level. our founding of that's available. >> what percentage of your business is overseas? >> very little of it. we are somewhat fortunate in the fact that, you know, we're split about 50/50 in terms of military and aerospace and a lot of that is remained here. however, with our fear is as some of our customers are helping the company's overseas develop their aerospace industry to supply chains are going to exist as well and we have no intentions of moving our

business overseas. >> thank you. >> mr. space? >> thank you, mr. chairman. we heard earlier today about investments and education needed to fill the vacancies in michigan. can you tell me the economic benefit of investments in education? >> short-term it is probably one of the best understood and most widely agreed upon relations in the labor economics for every extra year that a person has schooling their earnings are typically seven or 8% higher, and the idea that education complement's how your skills and how your earnings has become all that more important in the recent years as technology and

the employer skill demands have increased the pace. so despite the fact that we are helping the workers improve their levels of education is very closely linked to their employability and earnest. i will just say, let me add one point. if you have the education without the jobs you were all dressed up with nowhere to go so there is a supply side. ideally we want workers with good skills. there's also the demand side. right now we have too many people chasing too few jobs to this committee indicated that the 70,000 jobs in michigan was in that clear but it sounded like a lot of them were going unfilled because the employers couldn't find people that were qualified. >> certainly heard that recently and i think there are definitely pockets through the country where there is a mismatch between the skills the work force on the ground house and

the employers' demand. but speaking more broadly, we definitely have a demand side problem as well. historical there are one or two job openings per one or two employed people per job opening in the recent months. that ratio is down for the unemployed people per job opening. service is a tough game of musical chairs brought the speaking to the estimate and it is also even worse when there is a mismatch. >> exactly. >> if you invest in education, that has an economic stimulus effect, too. if you gave money to a community college, for example to improve the educational opportunities, could you say a word about what i would do to the employment? they would have to hire people. >> for years, this committee has been -- in the thick of the federal government has played a

role in helping support training programs. what we now know, summarizing the research that i referenced in my submitted testimony is that the type of program that you described, congressman, are among the most effective. we have found the sectoral employment in the strategy, and the ranking member miller pathway to the opportunity bill also seeks to this sweet spot in the education policy to be at the idea is to link up in full years at the most local level with community colleges so that the employers themselves can identify in the most granular terms the kind of jobs that they are going to be fielding in the coming months and years. it's a different approach to training than the kind of blanket soft skills basic training good luck. it's a much more granular look at the occupational demand of the future labor opportunities.

those and plan a strategy is linking the employment of the college's i think is the way forward. >> in the community colleges where it receives money for the training as to how you're an adjunct professors, people to buy books, and even that expenditure has short-term effects on the economy. >> that's right. clearly there is very much a demand for precisely this kind of training. and in fact if you look at one of the constraints, we talk about the community colleges and if you look at one of the real constraints of the community colleges face right now, they are actually way overcapacity in many places throughout the country. part of that is the function of the downturn. a lot of people going back and getting more schooling but it is the emphasis of the groups and committees -- >> another question very quickly. the developments have been laying off people because the balanced budget requirements. can you say a word about the

importance of the federal government providing the revenue sharing so they would stop fleeing people of? >> absolutely. we have seen this almost every month past few years we've added private sector jobs. the public sector has shed literally hundreds of thousands of jobs over the past few years and it's because they are facing budget constraints. one of the most successful programs in the recovery act was the state really sort the towns and cities, preventing the layoffs, teachers, sanitation workers, the key workers in the community, and in the american jobs act, the president provided, introduced an extension of exactly that type of help and it is very much in the interest of providing from what is still a fragile recovery. >> the gentleman's time has to expire. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, we are going to be hearing a lot more as we have

today about burdensome regulation and how the federal regulations impact negatively on business and i think one that we are going to hear about over and over again is osha's proposal to develop the illness prevention program, a rule that would require employers to implement a plan to find and fix before the workers are hurt instead of waiting for osha to find violations. the opposition, the opponents will claim that this is simply going to pile of paperwork and would be a new regulation that we don't need. well, to justify the opposition, some have mischaracterized the study by the corporation on california's injury and illness prevention program and stated that it had little impact on the worker safety because it deemed it as a preventative.

but, what the corporation found as noted in a memo that the press release sent is that california's program can help prevent injuries to workers but only if it is adequately enforced. the press release said that when inspectors from the failure to comply with provisions to train workers identify and have the hazards indeed there is a decline in accident and injuries. so mr. chairman, 20% is not a minor impact. it is not a burdensome regulation. it saves $74 billion every year in the workers' compensation and impacted employers could cut 20% of this cost which it would be about $15 million per year that would improve their

competitiveness. so, i don't want to trivialize the value of injury and illness prevention programs. i want us to step up to the fact that there are regulations that helped and will make a difference. with that mr. chairman, i respectfully request the need to place the generate 263 code 2012 press release into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you very much. ms. johnson, are you the beneficiary as a small woman owned business of the women owned small business contract program? >> yes. >> has that worked for you or has it been a burden? is it difficult to comply with? >> not necessarily, and i think that in fact it probably works more in favor for our customers who have some offset programs where they have to divert or

contract with the minority owned or women owned businesses. >> so they contract with you and there are programs that actually work in favor of those like yourself and others. >> you that there are and i would agree with the injury and illness prevented of program where there's no doubt there are regulations that are necessary. we are not disputing that by any means, but we are talking with the difficult and the uncertain economic times we are in right now, and just with so much we here in the news and the media and the malaise we need to stop for a second and figure it out. >> i appreciate that. dr. mitchell, and figuring out, can you list of the regulations that you would eliminate from the most to the least important? >> sure. thank you for asking because i think this gives an opportunity to highlight something that is

important to understand about the regulation. both on the left and the right there's a tendency to think about the cost of the regulation is the burden of filling out the paperwork, right? ai sorry? >> the savings is -- >> people will weigh that against the savings. some conservatives will go and count the cost to comply. >> we are on the yellow light. will you list the regulations you would eliminate from the most to the least important? >> i would say that the division's most important to eliminate or those that favor entrenched interest. because that is the hidden cost of the regulation. the regulation -- this is important work that has won the nobel prize to use >> okay. give me an example of that regulation. >> i think that there's a lot of opportunity in the health care and all for example to look at ways in which the regulation that were passed very quickly

and apparently subject to the not particularly good analysis and the privilege to favored industries. >> okay. like the insurance industry. thank you mr. sherman. >> the gentlelady's time is expired. we've got to put our questions here before i choose to think the panel i would like to recognize mr. payne for in the closing remarks he might have. >> thank you very much. i think that you have all added to the hearing today. i appreciate you coming and spending time. i also like to commend the governors. i thought that the had a very balanced approach, and i think that we really need to see how we can get america back on the job truck. i think a lot of the bickering that goes on is really discouraging to the american people. and i think that we can do together to help the nation in this time and i just hope that at some point in time the

congress will come together and try to put american people first. also i would like to agree with the governor mentioned this secretary ray lahood did an outstanding job and i would have to agree he is one of the more accessible and energetic forward thinking members. estimates before. i yield back to the estimate of course ray lahood has been a friend of many of ours for a long time and shows the value of the education that you get here in congress and move to the cabinet. i want to thank the witness is providing that underscore some of the differences we have and some places where we might come together. as i mentioned in my opening remarks i think there may be an opportunity we can come to agreement in streamlining and consolidating as the president suggested to make them work better and to match the needs of the employers with the output if you will love schools. the testimony also underscored

some fundamental differences. sometimes it is bittering due to bickering that we get engaged with and it's unfortunate. sometimes it is fundamental differences and how what we think is best for the american people and best for the economy and the best way to get americans back to work. that debate will continue and to have been very helpful in our consideration of those in the den i want to thank the witnesses and with there being no further business, the committee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

i laid out a blueprint for the economy that is built to last that has a firm foundation. we are making sough and selling stuff and moving it around. ups drivers are dropping things off everywhere. that's the economy we want. >> if i'm president of the united states i will stop all the regulations and make sure any of those that killed jobs we eliminate and i get america back to work again. >> i think you'll see the economy start to recover. the people realize that obama is gone -- [applause] that is how decisive the changes going to be and how rapid the changes going to be convinced an

excellent candidate as they meet with voters. and use our website to the recent video from the campaign trail and read the latest postings from reporters and other viewers from the social media sites at c-span.org/campaign2012. president obama made several recess appointments recently to sell to the post including the director of the consumer financial protection bureau. bypassing senate confirmation. the house oversight committee

heard from the president's critics who argue that the move was unconstitutional and suffered a bad precedent. this hearing is three and a half hours. >> good morning the committee will come to order. the oversight and government reform committee session is that we exist to secure the two fundamental principles. first, americans have the right to know that the money that washington takes from them as well spent. second, americans deserve an efficient and effective government that works for them. our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibilities to hold the government accountable to taxpayers the cost tax payers have the right to know what they get from their government. we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen

watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring a genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy. this is the mission of the government reform committee. i will now recognize myself for an opening statement. president obama on january 4th executed a political power play. he put us in and chartered territory. at the very least uncertain environment and significant risks by his own attorneys writings. although as i know too well if you shop enough you can always get an attorney to give you the opinion you want. you can go to the attorneys and you'll get it and if you hire a good attorney, they will even tell you you can harden a criminal that is still a

fugitive from justice. we know that from history, recent history now you can get an opinion that is exactly the opposite of the centuries of precedent, exactly the opposite of your predecessor. exactly the opposite of still majority leader harry reid's own view of recessed brokering or not occurring. vice president biden in 2005 said no president is entitled to the appointment of anyone he nominates. no president is entitled by the mere fact he has nominated someone. that's why they wrote the constitution the way they did. it says the advice and consent. the senate did not consent. the senate shows specifically not to act, even bringing to a

vote and failing to get cloture. ultimately, we will decide nothing here today. we are here to evaluate the risk to the american people of a government that has appointees who may not be able to act on behalf of the american people with a formal law. the courts will soon decide for the matter whether these are valid, and if so, whether or not the law limiting tax is to the american people is valid because there can be no doubt the two of them cannot be dealt with. you cannot be in recess and not in recess. you cannot choose while in recess to pass law and choose not to be in a recess for purposes for the recess appointments. ultimately these and other issues will be decided but the

committee is here to understand the risk to understand the likelihood, and at least to ensure the government begins facing the real problem of this uncertainty that may last only a few weeks or may last the rest of this administration to be on december 23rd while and performance session the senate passed and president obama signed the temporary payroll tax continuation act of 2011. i'm just as concerned the irs is not collecting the taxes when clearly they were in recess according to the president. this creates another constitutional question. the constitution didn't consider the hershel recess or the reasons for this purpose and not the purpose. you are either in recess or you are not. more importantly, the senate may

not act to be in recess to the exclusion of the other body. we in fact act together. we are either together as required by the constitution or we are not. there is no such thing as the house is in session and the senate is not. because if we are in session and the senate is not, noval can be passed. our founding fathers anticipated us coming to washington or new york before that for a period of time and going home to our constituency for a rather significant period of time to get many americans rightly think that we were better off when we left town for a period of time and got in touch with the people we represent. but that is not the issue here today. we are now at 365-dollar a year congress to read the article of the president and can be back in a matter of hours. when we are in fact in

performance session in anticipation. the anticipation that if needed we will be back with a koren in a short period of time to the u.s. senators informed that in fact they could be called back. they were informed that they were not in recess and they made a decision. today we will hear from a prominent united states senator, but more importantly we will hear from constitutional scholars, the son of a constitutional scholar about the leaves as a center that we will go on to your from other witnesses but most importantly there will be a lively dialogue here today because clearly the decision now is on a very partisan basis. minorities will insist both our legal while the majority will at least question that both cannot be legal and binding. one has to give. with that i recognize the ranking member for his opening statement.

>> thank you for holding this hearing and you come as naturally, welcome to the committee. structure man, if the committee really wants to conduct an even-handed examination of the president obama's visas appointments, we need to get a much bigger issue first. the unprecedented obstruction by the republicans of the constitutional confirmation process. republicans have raised the constitutional concerns about the president's recess appointments. but the real issue here is the effort of the 44 republican senators to seven tawes the mission of the financial protection bureau. in the letter the republican senators wrote last may they declare the opposition to any nominee to head the consumer financial bureau. these republicans admitted that the president's nominee richard cord ray was highly qualified

for the position and the attorney general of the state of ohio recovered billions of dollars for the retirees, investors and business owners and he was on the front line of protecting the consumers from the fraudulent foreclosures and financial predators. senator likely was called for the position, and i quote to my decision to oppose the confirmation by the senate has nothing for the qualifications. rather i feel it is my duty oppose the confirmation as a part of my opposition to the creation of thus efp be itself. the gang of 44 republican senators oppose the creation of the consumer protection bureau. according to the existing law, once the department the permanent director is put in place, the bureau will have authority to issue the regulations protecting the

consumers from the unfair and deceptive or reduce its financial practices by the mortgage servicers, pay lenders, debt collectors, private student lenders and credit reporting agencies these are exactly the protections that republicans wanted to blocks. article 2 of the constitution says the president shall nominate and appoint officers of the united states both with the advice and consent of the senate and quote, know where does the unauthorized senator block all nominees regardless of their qualifications because they object to the current fall of the land and do not have the votes to change. the constitutional scholar calls this republican boycott, and like what, the nullification end of quote, and says, like what, there is nothing normal work routine about this.

as our committee has heard repeatedly, there are millions of american families who are currently in foreclosure. many of them in my district. many of whom were subjected to the widespread and illegal abuses by the mortgage servicers. nearly 20 million consumers take out the pay loans and an industrywide well-known in this theater. what is the republican response? they want to cut the legs out from under the agency that congress created to protect american families from exactly these types of abuses by the mortgage servicers, paid a lenders and credit reporting agencies. today's no concern about litigation of rising from the appointment is a red herring. the corporate interest opposed the creation of the bureau can begin with are the same interests that are now challenging the consumer protections importance as with the consumer bureau the republicans also oppose the entire mission of the national relations board.

and have blocked the appointment in the effort to prevent the board from functioning properly. in short they left the president with no choice. these recess appointments were the only way to comply with the congress's intent is still watching and maintaining the fully functioning agencies. the fact is president obama has been extremely constrained in his use of the recess appointments. during the full term, president george w. bush made 171 recess appointments. president clinton made 149 recess appointments. and president ronald reagan had made 240 recess appointments. in contrast, president obama has made just 32 at this point in his presidency. i hope we can ask our witnesses today lonely about the president's recess appointments but about a much more significant issue.

unprecedented obstructionism by the senate republicans that is intended to cause harm to the american consumers. and with that, mr. sherman, i have a minority report that we produce and i would ask an enormous concern that it would be included in the record. >> it doesn't appear to be the report but the documents you have we've reviewed them and i have no objection they will be placed in the record. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> we now go to our first witness. our first panel is center mike leavitt utah. senator lee has spent his entire life but studying and participating in our judicial system. as a child, she attended arguments before the united states supreme court given why his father who was the solicitor general under president ronald reagan. center senator leader clerked for justice alito both when he

was a member of the third circuit court of appeals, and a leader a supreme court justice. after spending time in the private sector, he was asked to serve as the assistant u.s. attorney in salt lake and then as general counsel to general jon huntsman. few people with this type of experience and understanding of our constitution and our judicial process have served in the congress. so although senator lee is a freshman, he is certainly not new to the questions that the senate faces and the country faces here today. and with that, senator, your understanding that your vote due to both test fighting and will then take questions; is that correct? >> yes, sir. estimate as is customary for everyone except for members of congress, you will not be sworn in that you are a number of our body. with that, the gentleman is recognized. >> thank you, mr. sherman. and ranking member for the

invitation to come here and to address you and the other members of the committee. it's an honor to be with you here today. i'm here to defend the constitutional prerogative of converse. and i want to be clear from the outset but whatever political concerns i might have with of these nominations, my overriding dominating concerns here is not partisan. rather it is institutional and a constitutional concern that i am here to explain and the answer any questions that you might have regarding those concerns. president obama's january 4th, 2012 appointments are unconstitutional because they did not comply with the requirements for appointments set forth in the constitution to be a those requirements i might add are important because as the founding fathers the five discussed in that fateful convention in the summer of 1787 in philadelphia the founding fathers were unwilling to grant

this power on an unrestrained basis to an executive as they offered that there wouldn't be wise to, quote, grant power to any single person as the people would think we are planning to much towards malarkey, end of quote. these appointments were unconstitutional because they need to receive the advice of the senate, nor were they made during the senate recess. the kind of recess cognizable under the calls. they are different than the previous recess appointments made by any president from any political party in the nation's country. no president has ever unilaterally appointed an executive officer during a recess of less than three days. neither to my knowledge has a president of either party ever asserted the power to determine for himself when the senate is or is not in session for purposes of the recess appointment clause. in making these appointments, president obama has not to my

knowledge asserted that his january 4th, 2012 appointment can be justified based on the adjournment that occurred between january 3rd, 2012, and january 6, 2012, and this is for good reason to read surely any such assertion of the recess appointment power would be unconstitutional. the department of justice has repeatedly and over the course of many decades upon that adjournment of significant length particularly in the three days or less that is any adjournment that is of insignificant length because it is of three days or less doesn't constitute a recess for purposes relevant to the recess appointments clause and in the context of the constitution the framers did not consider the adjournment like this. to be constitutionally significant it's also a significant here that article 1 section 5 provided that neither

house during the session of congress shall without the consent of the other adjourn for more than three days. so, if an intersession adjournment of less than three days were to be considered constitutionally sufficient for the president of the will to exercise the recess appointment power is not clear what if anything would prevent the president from bypassing the constitution's advice and consent requirement and appointing the nominees during even the weekend adjournment, which routinely involved the periods of 72 hours or even more in which the senate may not be actually in the process of holding the committee hearings and so forth. instead assuming they are constitutional president will rely on the memorandum of the opinion produced by the office of legal counsel in the department of justice also known as the olc. this is the president may unilaterally conclude that the senate's brief performance session such as those held on

gentry third, 2012, and continue every tuesday and every friday until generate 23rd, 2012 somehow do not constitute sessions of the senate for purposes relative to the calls. this assertion is deeply flawed because under the procedures established by the constitution, it is for the senate and it's not for the president to decide when the senate is in session. indeed, the constitution expressed the great power to determine the rules of its own proceedings. to assert the president had an unconstrained right to determine for himself when the session is or is not in session and to appoint nominees unilaterally at any time if he feels the senate is not responsive or as responsive as you would like to be even in the senate is meeting is to trample upon the constitution's separation of powers and the system of checks and balances that animated the adoption of the advice and consent requirement. i look forward to answering your questions, and as i answer those questions i will continue to

emphasize again and again that ours is not a government of one. these are rights upon which the president has trampled. this is power that he has taken that doesn't belong to him. it belongs to the american people. and under our constitutional system, that power is to be exercised by the representatives in the senate, and not by the president alone. there are people were about my state and across america who feel powerless and that is why i have made the comment that i have that this is the action we need to object too strenuously. i olc the gentleman to really did not limit you to five minutes but i appreciate your accuracy. i will now recognize myself for a first round of questions. >> we will call the professional courtesy. i always appreciate when people look at themselves to five minutes as well. >> being a house member i've noticed that when house members could to the senate, there is forgetfulness that we somehow say.

senator, the cfpb pass under dodd-frank isn't unique or fairly unique that it receives funding without appropriation from congress? >> gutzman understanding this because the position is embedded in the federal reserve, because the federal reserve bank is not in a sense in the literal sense and the traditional sense the government agency but rather a private for-profit corporation, it's not an entity that congress controls in the sense of controlling its strengths and so that is a significant concern that many -- >> so you had no other way to ask for reform, consideration or anything else other than this confirmation? it was an unusual situation in which one of the ordinary powers of the house and the senate is to not funding something that a previous congress has chosen to do it in the case of the cfpb

that is in the case; is that correct? >> in that case it enjoys the degree of insulation from the normal controls on any government, and the degree of insulation historically has been reserved. >> good word. one of the points i've been given and i ask unanimous consent devotee placed in the record is on their website to note that 97% of president obama's nominations in 2011 were confirmed by your body to be discussed roughly your understanding? >> the fact is you are practically a rubber stamp to the president wants. some of us try not to see ourselves that we but we have been very cooperative in confirming the president's nominee, despite the fact i harbored a significant policy, a theological and political differences with the president's nominees on the continued to vote for them and most of them have been confirmed many of them

with my vote. >> so you have exercised the advice and consent in the affirmative 97% of the time. let me go to another portion because you are both personally and as a family historically better informed than we are. hasn't the senate exercised this refusal in the past, even at times to the supreme court? and hasn't yet been the view that if the senate decided not to have a supreme court all they would have to do is wait for them to die of? that ultimately it is within the power over a period of time for the senate to choose not to fill the vacancy? that that is within its historical power and the have asserted in the past? >> to the supreme court certainly is on a different plan for other governor officials. the supreme court unlike many other officials on like the people who serve in a the nlrb or the cfpb or elsewhere are not people whose positions are