>> the gentleman in the second -- object. >> in the back, yes. >> what our turkeys goals in the same crisis was at our turkeys goals likely to be realized speak with well, i think turkey has gone through a big education on syria. i think they knew very little about syria when they start out, and the gut reaction for all good, much like american reaction he want to stand for democracy. he just succeeded in the victor in a long struggle with the military. he is sunni. he wants to make this larger economic zone for turkey, and shift power really to the south up to the north end of the senate turkey the its and because of houston very successfully. serious credit up for him. by getting into this terrible arab spring, and he went down

and tried to talk to assad, it didn't work and he got mad, and he had to side with democracy. and same with america's to to side with democracy when push comes to shove because its international relations. and i think he did that, but once he got his feet and come he realized how dangerous it is. that's what all the neighbors have been doing. because there's lots of kurds, the kkk is a very powerful organization in syria and they hate turkey and they're hurting other kurds. the kurds are not united in syria at all, in part because the turkish question, many of them are worried turkey will be -- if it's successful. there's alawites, the allergies of turkey, some people put them as much as 20%, i don't know if they are. they are not alawites, syrian alawites although there are some of those into gaza with your shiites who tend to sympathize the shia fishing. so by anything indirectly into syria you would open a sectarian

issues in your own home. it is a lose lose situation for turkey. they only can get more kurdish problems, or sectarian problems. they will lose their money. let someone else do it that is why turkey said will come in behind america but we're not going to go in first because it's a swamp. >> very brief question suspect i'd give my answers brief, too. >> thank you, joshua. i come from a certain christian background. so my question is, if we leave the nest is not to interfere, the only thing that we're going to -- [inaudible] islamist extremists in the country. the people that are secular and very diverse, and by having u.s. outside and and the west outside with of all decisions like al qaeda and other organizations that have no support in a country like syria.

>> if they don't have any support they won't survive i think him and he will be -- you do have a crisis but i think america is trying to pick winners. and i think this has been on onf them basically been one of america's very difficult problems, because we used, we did what we're doing in syria and afghanistan in the 1980s which is to go 50/50 with the saudis, do a sort of sharing program of funding the mujahedin to bring down the regime we don't like. we have given the syrians missiles yet but we could get there. the point is how we ended up with al qaeda and that has terrified i think the u.s. and the regime. so you're al qaeda question is important in the sense that i think it does govern the thing about america's going to do. this is clearly sent to syria to say to not let islamic extremist, we've got to pick some winners. a major outcome of the friends of syria meeting in istanbul several months ago was that

clinton announced that all funding would go to the syrian national council, and that saudi arabia had agreed to do that, which would mean that america would be able to pick the winners and it wouldn't go straight to the muslim brotherhood or two al qaeda, saudi arabia might like to fund. now, that broke down because syrian national council had its heart attack and jettisoned, got in a kurd and a and attacked the kurds were being powerless and bad come and they all began to stab each other in the eye. and so america's plan fell apart in its hands, and he became, and the weapons aren't getting and i think in the numbers that they hoped to i don't know where saudi arabia is on this. if all talk about having, you know, a tagteam group that would make policy, but i think that policy probably is not coming together the way america wants, which is leaving the doors opened for people to fund who

they want to, which is what america was worried about at the beginning i think. so that's a concern. obviously, christians are going to worry about this. the thing is that assad is a loser your assad is going to make syria worse in the short term. he's going to kill lots of people that he's going to destroy the place and he's not going to be there eventually. he's going to lose, and then where does that leave the christians? the christians are going to deal with muslims and they're going to deal with some islamists. and syria is going to be much more to islamic and is today. we seen that in egypt, tunisia, all over. now, the syrians are going to have to suck it up economy, the christians are going to have to suck it up. i mean, i just don't see any other way. they're going to have to decide whether they can live in a new syria and have faith that the syrians, as they say, are

easy-going, not mohave, they always stood for saudi raid. they are not going to be saudi arabia. they're not going to be iran. even if they are not turkey to be more like turkey and christian will be respected as they are. and everybody sees these questions as a successful face. their little angry because you name yourself jon and other western names, human, they always attack you for not being arab enough and not -- but if you can stand that, they won't be so bad i think, and who knows? you know, turkey solve a lot of the problems by ethnic cleansing. if there had been 20% christians, or the were almost 20% before 1920, they either kill them or take them out the a lot of syrian christians of oregon to want expulsion. they are fighting obvious a for good reason.

air than got to be democrats and was able to win elections toledo marks in part because there were no christians. if it into a% who voted with them, would not have succeeded. they would consider buying the now saying it will make us iranians. isn't islamist. i don't know if that's exactly to but you could see to it within every difficult problem. it's a has that problem, because there are alawites, christians and others who are frightened islamists. and have a reason to be frightened at what it would it would have been an olympic look at what happened in turkey. the middle east this entry has been very bad for christians. their fears aren't completely fabricated. but what can you do? syrians, christians are going to have to make their bed with new syria, andrew j. goodpaster and slower. >> -- better to do it faster than slower. >> please join in thanking

joshua. [applause] >> there's been a hostility on poverty. lyndon johnson was the best present and look at poverty issues and spent money on it and talked about it, the social service program, lyndon johnson, fall that. i hate to say this but richard nixon exactly the font of minority business to government. and insight is minority business, as does the small business at michigan, minority business agency and use the term economic justice but richard nixon is,. >> the former president for women's college julianne malveaux writes and comments on politics, education and african-american economic history, live sunday august 5 at noon eastern your question, calls, e-mails and tweets for the author of surviving and thriving, 365 facts in black economic history. julianne malveaux in depth

august on c-span2's booktv. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs we? featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events. and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our website. you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> vice president joe biden on monday spoke to representatives of seniors groups about medicare, social security and other programs affecting older americans. from the eisenhower executive office building, this is a half-hour. [applause] >> hey, everybody. how are you all doing? mom, let her read her book.

let her read the book, grandma. i tell you, there's a beautiful young child and it looks to be about 16. i think six maybe. seven, eight. how old are you? seven years old. well, honey, you are, please, have a seat. you are so good to be here. somebody does you a big surprise for having to sit through all of this, and it's okay by me if you reach a book while i'm speaking, okay? [laughter] it really is. you're such a good girl. hey, everybody. how are you all doing? welcome. welcome to washington. i am told some of you are from out of town. now you know why -- i was told him i think this was true. i was told back in the '20s and '30s and actually earlier than that, any diplomat representing great britain in washington, d.c. got tropical duty day. you're understand why that's the case now, but although the place you came from, those of you who

came into town, probably almost as hot as we are here, but i thank you all for being here. let me start by quoting my dad. a phrase my dad used to always use, whenever you would say something someone would say, well this is what i valley, this is what i support. my dad would go like this, he would say look, don't tell me what you value. show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. seriously. show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. don't tell me you value women in your office space, in your corporation, if you have a budget where human of any women that are being paid like a man. don't tell me that you value, and are deeply concerned about seniors if, in fact, you eviscerate the things that you know they rely on. not only for their well being, but i'll return to this, for

their dignity, for their dignity and their pride. rock-a-bye in where joe biden starts, i come to retirement security from a different angle that is usually discussed in this town, or anywhere for that matter. i had a great privilege, like many of you, of having my mom and dad live with me in their last years. my dad would only move in with my mom when hospice was necessary. and it turned out, god love him, he beat the odds. he always did. instead being six weeks it was five months. i had a great pleasure like all of you, and like every child who wants to take care of his parents, of being able to kiss him good morning every morning and kiss them goodnight when i came home. my mom after that moved out. she insisted she was going to stay in her home. because we always had a parent,

and uncle or aunt, someone living with this entire time, but for three years that i was in my parents household from the time i was born. she said she never wanted to do that. finally we convinced mom to come and moving. move on to where we live. and she lived for a number of years. until age 92. the reason i mentioned that to you, you'll understand better than most people, and this town understands, that this is about more. this is about more. than just whether or not it's going to be the financial wherewithal to care for people to obviously, that is the core of the debate. but about preserving their dignity, preserving their pride, preserving their sense of being able to care for themselves, even if a little bit of it is a fiction, for as long as they can.

because they know something you know. that again we don't talk about. they know there's very few children out there, grandchildren, who would give their medicare, medicaid, social security work to be cut, but those children wouldn't step in and fill the void. and they know what a burden that is for the children. that sandwich generation, trying to help mom and dad, try to take care of the kids in the middle of this god-awful recession that we inherited. so i do this, i come at this from a very different place. doesn't mean i'm right or wrong, but i just view it differently. i view this as a family affair. i really mean that. i view this as a family affair. and quite frankly i resent when i see on television, usually the other team, but once in a while

our team but usually the other side. they say we'll have to cut it to preserve for the other generation. there's a tendency, i'm not even sure it's intended to, to pit one generation against the next. that's bizarre. i don't know anybody i grew up with in my neighborhood who isn't going to do whatever it takes to make sure their mom has her prescription drugs. i don't know anybody. i don't know anybody in my neighborhood that i grew up, that isn't going to do all they can to make sure mom has a place to live, no matter how much pressure it puts on my children. or your grandchildren. do you guys know any people like that? i don't. i don't know these guys who sit there, young people and say hey, let's cut it now so we are going habit. i want to be up front with you while.

i do this literally as a family affair. i view this as a value set. i view this as about people's dignity. people who have built this country, people gave us everything we have. my siblings and i, as i said, we couldn't separate the security for my mom and dad from her own well being, and we were well off. you pay me a lot of money as vice president of the united states. as the president said when we had our first meeting a couple weeks after we were all sworn in, he thanked everybody for the sacrifices they make it any look and got my eye and he said except joe. he got a pay raise. [laughter] and i have successful brothers and sisters. and it still was a stretch. i don't know how people do it.

i don't know how they do it. but tell you what, no matter what their income, they will try to do it. i think that what's really missing in this whole debate is that we really are in this together. i don't see any automatic separation. based on generations. so there's no question, to state the obvious, that there are new pressures on medicare and social security, and they are real. you can't play a game that these aren't real. the question, in my view, as vice president of the united states, getting to be the last guy in the room with the president, i can say the president shares my view, or i

share his view on this, this is were i can speak for him without worry that there's any space between what i'm saying to you and what he believes in his gut. see, i trusted most when it starts in your gut and goes to your heart. and then as articulated by your intellect. they are the guys, the women who don't change their minds under pressure. it starts here. with my president, with your president, it starts here, in his gut, and then it goes here. so, question is, what do we do to strengthen this, sustain these programs? now and for the future. question also is, are we going

to let others, others use this challenge, and it's a real challenge, as a pretense to dismantle these programs? i was speaking about a year ago in florida to a group, and i pointed something out. it's not accidental, that the other team from the beginning on every one of these issues has been me to but not as much, or shouldn't have done it in the first place. look, when you get to be our age, and i know a lot of you are a lot younger, you can smell it. doesn't have to wonder if all of a sudden the guy who has been against social security or against, or wanting to make massive changes, or not happy about medicare in the first place, or not thinking medicaid, they think it's too much of a burden. and all of a sudden they get religion and tell you how

they're going to save it for you. this is not our first rodeo. [laughter] take medicare. no matter what the other side says, we know we can fix medicare without gutting it. we've already started it. in our health care law we extended the life of medicare by eight years. by 2024, not nearly enough. what do we do? we asked hospital to take steps to help ensure that seniors who leave the hospital don't come back. don't have to come back. you know the studies. i'm preaching to the choir here. fundamental changes in the way hospital care is delivered, without fundamentally altering it, accountability of the care, actually saving it, hundreds of millions, and over time

illusions of dollars can be safe. we cut 100 billion in payments to insurance coverage the independent study said were excessive. we stepped our efforts against fraud, and we've already, begun in earnest recovered $10 billion. i won't bore you with the details but there's a whole lot more we can do, and there are more ideas. right now, for example, drug companies give discounts on drugs for people on medicaid. we've been pushing and continue to push the ability to save $100 billion just by getting drug companies to give those discounts to just the most vulnerable of the seniors on medicare, the so-called dual eligibles. but we need real partners. we need real partners on the other side to get it done.

i've been here a long time. i was a senator, i got elected by 29 years old. elected seven times in the senate. vice president. i've never quite seen it this way before. where the destruction is so endemic in terms of the process. but we are prepared to sit down and workout with our republican friends, which i started to do as you remember, that biden committee were we met for 40 hours with the leaders, appointed leaders by the house leaders and senate leaders, democrat and republican. there's nothing easy about it but there are solutions that can save the program. programs. but we need to start from the premise that medicare, as we

know it, is preserved. that's the premise we are not prepared to yield on. [applause] >> unfortnuately, the other side has staked out a very different position. and by the way, these are decent, honorable men and women. i'm not playing a game. these guys are bad guys. they just have a different value set as to what is the most important thing that we should be doing. just look at congressman ryan, bright, bright guy, phenomenal man. his budget, which has been embraced by i believe every member in the republican side and the house of representatives. you might remember the first ryan budget last year, there was nothing subtle about it. it dismantled medicare and would've turned into a voucher program over a ten-year period. independent report found that out of pocket health care cost for the typical 65 year-old would have doubled. that's $6400 a year more than

being paid now. again, my mom and dad had four kids who could help. but that's all my mom and dad had. they had no -- my dad worked his whole life, pension did not exist. social security and medicare, and putting four kids through college and graduate school. were the legacies. another $650 matters. you also probably remember that this plan was overwhelmingly rejected by the american people. it passed every house member voted for it. didn't get through the senate. and you all started talking about it, and the public,

overwhelmingly rejected it. they said how did you know that? well, they didn't come back with the same plan this year. they got a new one. this year they came back with one that is more subtle. but it really didn't change. it didn't change the core of what they want to do. they are still pushing medicare vouchers. it's a plan that would still mean higher costs for almost everyone who depends on medicare. and that goes for medicaid, too. folks, you know how important this program is to seniors. medicaid pays 40% of the long-term care spending in this country. not only by bringing peace of mind to seniors, but to their children and grandchildren as well who otherwise would have the burden. and if i could digress for just one second, the vast majority of folks in long-term care are women.

and the overwhelming majority depend on and are there only because of medicare. it helps about 5 million seniors who can't carry their medicare premiums or cost-sharing on their own to get the health care they need. house republicans propose cutting the funding by more than a third. taking away 19 million, taking 19 million americans on medicare off the rolls. 19 million. why? because they want, they have other priorities. and they really believe that these other cars have promoted, the whole economy and everything will be better and everything will grow. i'm not sure how it's going to seniors immediately, but that's the thesis. and what's it based upon?

well, it starts off with insisting on extending the tax cuts for people, not just, primary for people making over a million dollars. it cost $800 billion to keep the bush tax cuts, just for people making over a million. i want to put this in perspective. of the total trillion dollar cost of the entire bush tax cut for people making over 250, do you know how much of that goes to 120,000 families in america? $550 billion. to 120 families. let me say this again. maintaining the top tier tax-cut cost over 10 years a trillion dollars. maintaining for just people making a million or more costs 800 billion of that. maintaining it for people with

an average income of $8.4 million a year, which comes out to be 120,000 families in america, costs $550 billion over the next 10 years. that's a fact. they have made a clear choice, lower the standard of living for those on medicare and medicaid, rather than ask anything of the wealthiest among us. and by the way, i come from a wealthy state of delaware. i think it has the highest per capital income still. the wealthy in my state are as patriotic as caring as the poor. i have never seen any distinction between patriotism or generosity come from poor folk and the wealthy guy. but we are not asking anything of them. they are the only group in this entire recession we have not asked anything of.

we launched two wars, one necessary, one not necessary. and on the way, the same time gave them a multi-trillion dollars tax cut over the same period of time. i don't get it. and on top of maintaining the bush tax cut, and we want to maintain it for middle-class people, on top of that, and on top of what it will do to all the other benefits of seniors have, that they want to undo, the house republicans voted to repeal the health care law last week. let's not forget what that means. what they voted against. let me go back to taxes for just a second. there is the 800 billion that is set aside over here for people, the million dollars or more, of

that 550 billion to 120,000 families. in addition, paul ryan introduced a new budget which calls for an additional $2 trillion in tax cuts, almost $2 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years for people who make an average, a minimum of a million dollars. so over the next 10 years we are going to spend 2 trillion, roughly $2,800,000,000,000 on people who make over a million dollars, because their tax burden apparently is too high. so you wonder, how could these guys come out with a ryan budget. i mean, it doesn't seem logical, does it? well, they are honest guys. they've got to. they've got to eviscerate everything else to come up with another $2,800,000,000,000.

and with the health care law that they voted to repeal, our health care law closed the doughnut hole for 5.3 million individuals. medicare, in the medicare doughnut hole. saving those folks those 5.3 million, $600 a year already on their prescription drugs. and our health care law provides more preventative services, checkups, bone mass measurement, mammograms. which you now have to pay for. you had to pay for, but no co-pay. we want to keep you healthy. it makes sense long-term. it costs the government less money to make sure you go in when you feel something when you have something you're worried about, and get it taken care of front end than it does waiting until it happens.

they want to repeal all of it. folks, we would be much better off if we spent a lot less energy fighting off efforts to dismanelt medicare, medicaid, get rid of the affordable health care act, more time working to figure out how to provide better health for the american people, and preserve medicare and medicaid. we all have to make tough decisions to do that. but look, they have the same deal on social security. it doesn't affect you all. they will come back and say they did a generation thing in reverse this time. oh, don't worry, we're not going to affect anybody on medicare now, on social security. and they are right. they're not going to do that. but guess who they do? they've got this great idea, republicans have come up with, come up with another approach for social security that they claim saves social security, solely though by cutting benefits. what do they do?

what they do is they say somebody who is now 42 years old, or 45 years old, we're going to cut your social security. so when it comes time for you to get, you ain't getting anything like what your parents got. that's how they are going to save it. so love how they do this shell and the pea game. don't worry, you should not worry about how you do. you should be for these changes it will really nailed your kids. i'm serious. that's the reality. i know of a bad reputation, speaking plainly. [laughter] i'm going to continue to speak plainly. it served me well my whole life. [applause] i don't like people who don't speak plainly to me. i don't understand -- actually i do understand them. so folks, we can resolve the challenges of social security. and we can do it in good faith. i did it before.

i was part of a relatively small group back in 1993 -- 83, senator that extended the life of social security well into the 20th century, the 21st century. social security as about to run out of money. so we sat down. we worked with republican leaders, bob dole, my colleague from delaware, conservative as can be but a great friend, chairman of the finance committee. ronald reagan, tip o'neill, pat moynihan. and we literally sat down, together and separately, in smaller groups here and we made what was a difficult decision. people didn't like the nobody wants any change. we said gradually, months over years, you're not going to be able to retire at 65.

very, very, very, very unpopular decisions. nobody wanted a change. except we knew it had to be done. so what did we do? we joined hands, never forget what bob dole said after getting up from a meeting he said, he a great sense of humor. he still does. he said with all got to get out. he stood up from his chair and, we've all got to get up and put one foot together in a rowboat at the same time. and then altogether put two feet in so it doesn't tip. so we are all in the boat together. getting in that boat together with leaders like reagan and o'neill, what did we do? we preserve the system. [applause] preserved the system. again, this conversation we're having here, nobody is saying there are easy answers to this. any of you go there's no problem, keep everything, you're wrong. you are wrong.

but there are solutions. and democracy solutions come when people of good faith wanting to resolve and save a specific thing, make hard decisions. but when one team says let's preserve and the other team says let's basically get rid of it, do something different, there's not much room to compromise. look folks, you know in your gut what i know. it's about putting politics against -- it's about putting the country and the seniors up against your political interests. just for a moment, to preserve one of the most significant government initiatives in the history of the united states of america, and that's what we need today. that's what's missing this time. today, our republican friends are fixated on one thing, additional tax cuts for the wealthy. they won't budge an inch on this

and they have a very different values as i do. my father said don't tell you what you value, show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. and with the value is different than what my team values. that's not to say they don't care about the elderly. i believe they do. they just have a different way. but it's always basically been this way. they have never initiated any of these changes we are trying to preserve. folks, it's simple math. you either preserve medicare and medicaid, fix social security and draw down the deficit, or you spend another several trillion dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy and you make nearly, and you make more room for another $2 trillion tax cut proposed by congressman ryan, and his republican colleagues. but you can't do both. you can't do both now. the president and i refuse to shift the burden, particularly

of this god-awful recession we have, on the backs of the people who work so darned hard their whole life, who earn their retirement, and had nothing to do with this collapse that we inherited in the economy. nothing. but now the other side argues that cutting is the only way to save the programs for the next generation. as i said, they just don't understand. they just don't understand. that retirement is multi-generational. as i said, it matters to you. it matters to your children. it matters to your grandchildren, because if you don't go, they won't step up. i'll tell you one story in conclusion. my mom was a very proud lady, and mom, god love her, was in great health to the very end. and my mom moved in with us and she actually moved in, there was a piece of property that had a

little tiny barn on it. i become it was like a big garage and it was at the top of the driveway. and i sort of, my brother said gingerbread it a bit i put nicer doors on a, shutters on the windows were didn't look like an old dilapidated barn when you walk in. couldn't get my mom to move in with us, even though the whole downstairs i built for my mom and dad. it was a walkout. it was glass looked out on a nice view, and she would moving. taken after my dad died there. she said, she just wasn't going to do it. so when they were walking, driving down around christmas time, joey, build me a house there. a cottage. i said mom, you know i don't have any money to build a cottage, honey. i built the house. she said no, sell my house and you go ahead and build a house right there for me. a little cottage. the humorous part was, by the way, i designed this great little cottage with one bedroom in the so i had the architect

coming with me and laid out on the dining room table. she only has one bedroom to it. i said well honey, if there's something want to tell me about? i don't know -- is this something you want to tell me that i don't know? she said no, when my children and greg rentschler i want to stay with us. mom, it's 500 feet to the house, i've got five bedrooms. she said joey, they are not my bedrooms. the generic point is my mom drove until the very end, and so she used to go up to what used to be called happy harry's, a chain of drugstores. now it's walgreens. so my sister suspected that mom -- do you know any senior that doesn't have come especially an octogenarian over 85 who doesn't have six, seven, eight prescriptions they take, and for a child, it's one of the hardest things to do is make sure they get it right. and so, my sister, valerie who is smarter than i am, she said joey, i don't think mom is

getting all her prescriptions. so i followed her up one day. this is before i got elected and had a secret service team. i followed, only about a mile and a half, and i went to happy harry's and as a blood pressure machine. the blood pressure machine at the end of the aisle, i sort of hid behind a blood pressure machine because people were lined up to get their prescriptions at the window, the pickup window. and there's a beautiful lady, beautiful personality, the drug is better. and what happened is my mom went up, and she got like the deck of cards, handed all these prescription. she said i don't need this one, honey. i need this one. my mother was ashamed to tell me. i could easily afford, my sister could easily afford. my brothers could easily afford, and we all did. mom was too proud. too proud to say i'm short getting this prescription. that's why this country is so

great. because people with pride and dignity like my mother. that's what made this country. and the idea, at the end of their lives, we are going to do this. is beyond my comprehension. we need your help. a you all have impact in your communities. you are parts of large organizations, and some not so large. please go out, as they say, as i say, speak plainly, speak plainly. to the people you know. you influence people. they respect you. it's not just the organization. you wouldn't be here if you weren't leaders. we've got to go out.

and make this a fight. some things are worth fighting for, folks. this is worth fighting for. god love you all. thank you very much. [applause] and may god protect our troops, thank you. this weekend on american history tv, 30 years of the administrations of ronald reagan and bush and clinton and bush and obama have done more to confirm the protection of the rich getting richer and everyone else falling behind and 75 years of the soviet union perhaps. >> socialism in america, columbia history professor on the rise of socialism in 20th century america, saturday night at 8 p.m. eastern, and sunday more from the contenders.

this week, is do we -- thomas do we. the new republican would lose to both fdr in 1944 and harry truman in 48. american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> if budget sequestration custom effect in january as scheduled, $500 billion will be cut from the defense budget over the next decade. anything looking at the pentagon budget where they released the results of a survey on americans opinions about defense spending. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> good morning. i am here with matt leatherman from stimson, and jeff smith

from the center for public integrity was held up on a train. as i was held up on the red line earlier this morning as i'm sure some of you are familiar with. well, as you all know, defenseman has been the foreground on the hill, in the news for some time now. ..

>> they hear arguments on both sides of the issue, going to debate like where you deliberated come to a conclusion. what is interesting is that if you look at the standard pulls, it is somewhat ambiguous. they are finding things that are contradictory. if they asked people do you are doing you not want to cut defense, the majority do not want to cut defense. but if you bring up the context of the deficit. well, is maybe as many as half do. then what is particularly interesting is where they are given more information about the size of the budget, how much it is relative to other items in the budget. and you do find the majority wanted to cut it. information seems to be a key variable. now, we did a study a little over a year ago where we give

people the discretionary budget and they saw how it was distributed and they were able to redistribute it as they saw fit. in that context they made rather substantial cuts in defense. on average they cut about 18%. there were comments made. but they didn't feel all the perspectives. they only saw the perspective of the discretionary budget. what if they had seen how much it is as a percentage of gdp and how that is going a down. what they saw how much it is relative to social security and medicare. most of all, what they heard the kind of key arguments for why it is important to not cut defense, what would they do that? all of these were incorporated -- these suggestions were incorporated into our design and we talked to people across the spectrum as we developed different frameworks for understanding the defense budget

people in the different arguments that were presented pro and con we wanted to divide up it up into ways that are meaningful for people to understand. matthew leatherman wanted to divide this up in a way that he thought people could relate to based on our previous experience with them. moving forward, the survey was done with a company called knowledge networks. it was started by two stanford professors. it is another old survey standard among survey methodologist. it was drawn by a probability-based process, telephone and mail.

people who do not have internet access are then given internet access in the whole process is conducted over the internet. it has tremendous advantages, particularly for the kind of experiment that we are doing in this. because people have to take as much time as they want to look at the statements and they can actually work with a budget, which is what they did. it was done in april. with 665 people. the person we wanted to do was to give them information about the magnitude of defense spending. first, we presented -- there were different ways of looking at it. the first one we presented with the discretionary budget. this is the one that people have seen before, and in this context, they seemed like they were looking at a lot. but they cut defense more. now come we asked them, is the amount of defense spending for

2012 what you expected, less than you expected or about what you expected? the large majority said it was more than what they expected. this suggested that people tend to under estimate their defense running. we need to look at it from some other perspectives. we compared defense spending to social security and medicare, which is often emphasized as a perspective that elicited a different response. in this case, when we asked was a more or less what you expected, it was more divided. 45% and was more and what they expected. here you have a more mixed response. basically people not very surprised. then we presented spending historically with this graph, breaking out spending and dagestan and iraq. here again, it was more or less

what they expected, and 60% said it was more than they expected. then we presented the amount of defense spending as a percentage of the economy, the gdp over time. as you can see, this number has been going down quite a lot because the economy has been growing. this one was -- the largest numbers are less than they expected. 40%. so then we presented defense spending relative to potential enemies and allies. we used as potential enemies, china, north korea, and iran, and on the allies aside, nato, japan, and south korea. here again, the majority said that there were more than they expected.

66%. the next thing we wanted to do was to actually take them through that process that is like a debate where they can hear arguments pro and con. and that started with we had four pairs of arguments. i'm just going to show you briefly three of them, and i can't read them all. they are in the materials that we brought today. we have full copies of the report for anybody who wants to look at them. here is a key one, and the one that among the people we talked to in the national security committee, the thought that was most often cited as a key argument come in the united states is exceptional and should be leading the world, not following it. the u.s. military powers have been a major stabilizing force that has contributed to global peace. the u.s. should have the ability to object military power anywhere in the world, cutting defense spending would undermine his ability.

it will send a signal that we are no longer committed to play a leadership role. our allies would lose confidence in us, adversaries would challenge us in asian countries might increasingly come under china's influence. how convincing do you find that argument? not necessarily disagree or agree, 61% found it convincing. the democrats were more divided. the republicans overwhelmingly found it convincing. then we give the other side of this frame. the united states has far more military power than any other nation. more than enough to protect itself and its allies. we are playing the role of policemen too much and we are building up our military powers to be projected everywhere in the world. we can deal with global threats by working together with our allies and sharing burdens. we don't have to have a military so big that we can do everything and do it all by ourselves. this was also found convincing by 72%. a larger majority slightly.

this is a majority of republicans, 60%, as well as the large majority of democrats. i'm just going to quickly skim over the other ones more closely. another argument against it was that national defense was the first priority, called for in the constitution and so on. it is just 4% of the economy that has been going down. again, 50% on this convincing. the large majority of republicans and again democrats kind of divided slightly. the defense budget increases the deficit on the other side of it. the majority, 63% from this convincing. the republicans were kind of divided on it. then, also very popular in

policy circles is the cuts would cause job losses. that actually interestingly got the lowest numbers. still the majority, 54%. but not that big six in 10 republicans found it convincing. the one that got the most disagreement was the argument on waste in the defense budget. the overwhelming majority of bipartisan, they wanted to reduce it without affecting your security given the amount of waste in the defense budget. after going through these hearing of both sides. and the story of the rabbi coming in and one person present

his side of the dispute, he and he says you are right, and here's the other side and then he says, you are right. and then he says, you are right. in the end they have to make a decision and they have to take some action in this is basically to set what level of defense spending they thought should occur for 2013. and they can specify down to the dollar, they have had this actually. first of all, let's look at how many cuts are at the same level or increase. 76% cut it. 67% of republicans and 90% of democrats. on average, overall, they cut at $127 billion, republicans cut at $83 billion and democrats $155 billion.

we also discussed the area of afghanistan come they have an explanation about what was going on there and they had one pro and con argument about putting it relative to the 2013 budget bill. and here they cut quite a lot, 35 billion and 45%, and this again was in regards to cutting more. then we wanted to say, what we really have to think through all the things the defense budget does. where there are big numbers of defense, what if they really had to break it down and make their own budget and in some areas with a couple of another's? and so we carried the framework that we thought that we could relate to. air airpower divided into existing capabilities, ground forces, naval powers, nuclear weapons, special operations forces and missile defense.

for each of these areas, they were introduced, they got an explanation for what they were like and what it involves an april and con argument. a pro and con argument. these forces give the u.s. capability to control airspace, strike hostile forces or other targets on the ground, and help protect u.s. ground forces, planes and satellites also provide intelligence. here's the amount of u.s. spending in 2012. we plan on replacing current airpower capability. that is a hundred and $13 billion, then we are building and testing prototypes and early production -- $30 billion. then we hear an argument against reducing power spending -- air

power spending. it could limit our ability to strike during short notice and the decisions played in targeting al qaeda and things like that. 77% found it convincing. on the other side, turns her forces several decades behind, nonetheless, the defense industries always come up with new technologies. the majority found that interesting. when we went through the areas, the arguments against cutting did better than they did when we talked about defense spending overall. in this case, for example, the majority of republicans did not find it interesting. after going through that process

, they specified what they thought the spending level should be. i'm not going to go through all of the areas, but you can see if you want in terms of the arguments given, summarizing now what they did overall. it changes by percentage. the biggest cuts were to nuclear weapons, which was cut 22%, followed by ground forces -- existing ground forces and new naval forces. ground forces cut 23%, new naval cut by 23%. all areas were cut except one which was a new capability for ground forces. it really affects the troops. putting it in terms of dollar amounts come the biggest cuts were to existing ground forces,

which were cut an average of $36 billion, followed by airpower, which was cut by $19 billion. the dollar amount that you ground forces capabilities were increased approximately $1 billion. putting all of these areas together, they were cut on average 18%. interestingly, this is the same number that they had with the budget exercise without all the information. republicans cut on average 12%, democrats 22%. now, we also wanted to look at this issue of personal personnel costs. i don't spend a lot of time on these, because the proposals are much more detailed. the making co-pays, more typical for drug prescriptions, increasing premiums for retirees

under 65 years old, raising costs on retirees. and the dollar amount associated with each one. the dollar amount in savings. in making the growth rates more typical, and i got a majority of six in 10 who favored it. a slight majority opposed, increasing the premiums and the larger jordy opposed raising the caps for our retirees. then we looked at a number of proposals for cutting costs related to personnel slowing the growth of tax exempt allowances, changing military pensions, capping wage increases, there's a lot more detail in what is presented. i'm just trying to giving you a quick overview. these that a little bit better, the clear majority favored slowing the growth of allowances, the slight majority changing military pensions. the majority of prose calving

military rate increases. putting out together, the cuts to the nine different areas and the savings that came from tri- care and personnel costs, basically overall on average, about $103.5 billion of cuts. republicans cut $74 billion and democrats cut $124 billion. there's one other question i have which is maybe some of the people cut a lot and changed the average. that is true. some cut more. the key question is what with would the majority of people be willing to agree to? and emphasizing a lower number, and overall it is $83 billion that the majority specified cuts are $83 billion or more. republicans $50 billion or more, democrats $106 billion or more. we wanted to go through specific weapons systems to see how they felt about those. the numbers here are those who

favor canceling or eliminating, and the majority favored canceling a new aircraft carrier, reducing the number from 11 to 10. 54% wanted to cancel the joint strike fighter. and 52% to two canceler generation plowman and the large percentage onto clinic bombers as part of the nuclear triad. another interesting question as well, we divided everybody into the whole sample, according to whether they live in their districts. basically the short answer is not much.

he made a little bit of difference, but not much. in terms of average change overall, 18% made cuts, but in registered -- the cuts were slightly lower on average, 15% in the blue districts, 22%. interestingly, when it came to military health care, well, our views are different in districts where people have high levels of defense spending, where it could really have some impact on the economy. and we broke it down into tents.

the top 10 -- we broke it down into numbers. it is really focused on small number of districts. according to break it down, basically the short answer again , there is no level of defense spending in these districts. so you have the top 10, actually the top 10 has the highest level of cuts, 22%, and the next one down, 13, then the next one, in

the next one. there is no pattern or significant variation. the top 10th is the one where there is big money. that is the highest levels of cuts. this, you know, this is just one number that we could go through all the different parts of the budget in the different areas. all the different patterns. there is no significant pattern here. i'm going to pass that over to matt now. >> i want to first say thank you for all of you to come in. my name is matt leatherman. i am with the budgeting project for foreign affairs and defense. we are a project that specializes in national security spending and strategy in office. this is our first form in the public opinion polling. we want to thank stephen for bringing us along and also for jeff for doing this.

my role was not as a methodologist, but is rather someone who can take that 2012 defense appropriation and carved up into way that is acceptable to respondents. the way they saw it subdivided in steven's presentation. we also helped to develop the pro- con statement which you saw developed, as well as context statements that preceded them. that work is done, so now my job is as a context guy. what does all this mean when you apply? and i'm going to walk you through that in several different ways. we will start with the big context and talk a little bit about the innovation that is within our survey. a little bit of surprises that i found and then conclude by applying it to the disco year

2013 process. i found the preferences were similar to the pentagon strategy, but stricter than the spending plan. both sides of the coin are significant. both the similarity and the dissimilarity. it is easy to focus on the side of the cuts and not the pattern in which they remain. i will walk you through what i think are four examples of the most important. the first has to do with the war in iraq and afghanistan. a major definition of our national security now is concluding the war in afghanistan and moving away from that type of conflict. in the future, it was the president in april or early may, was in kabul and said the area of where the presenter will also end here, specifically in 2014. responding to preferences that were consistent, as you saw, the overseas continues the operation of the budget as they thought,

down to $53 billion. the context and 2012, that number was $115 billion. it has been requested in 2013 as $89 billion. they are more than halfway below the 2012 value. more than 40% the request, similar to than stricter than. when you cut back on those types of conflicts, it also allows you to make changes in your structure. the pentagon has proposed that as well. the strategy said we are not going to be sized for stability operations. as a consequence of that, you can change the size of your ground force. both the army and marine corps will be restored to prewar strength. we also saw that. it was the ground force that responded to cut the most. they cut it by 23%. that is more than the cut they made to the air force, 17%, and more than accompany me to the navy of 13%. you are seeing a similar sort of preference being expressed

there. when the pentagon made the decision to downsize the army and the marine corps and move away from counter insurgency and stability operations, there was a consequence of that and it was putting more stress on priority on special operations forces. when secretary panetta testified on hell with the release of the 2013 request, he said that the pentagon had the ability to increase special operations forces. they delivered the so-called posture statement, looking between 66 and 71,000 strong force is more than we have now. respondents in our survey still cut special operations surveys. it was one of the lowest cuts that they made. they center their agreement or their consensus around this statement. special operations forces are less expensive, more rapid and precise than their counterparts. a stricter budget decision, but

when it comes to the preference being expressed very similar to the pentagon's strategy. when you prioritize something like special operations forces, there is usually something else overseeing this in the document. there was a statement that keep a lot of people's interest. it may be possible to deter a smaller administration's force. this has been a obama priority. every expectation that they will pursue that if the president wins second term. the largest cuts were made to nuclear forces. the bottom line is, according to my survey, policy makers are moving in the right track with respect to people's preferences, but they are doing so tentatively. again, it was an average cut of

$104 billion, about 18%. the conversation that you see going on right here right now. on an administrative note, i would point out to you that sitting out front is an op-ed that i put in the defense is that summarizes the subject -- specifics. respondents expressed them by responding to service shares and other budget categories, not to the strategy. that is if you can. most often people will think in strategic terms rather than spending terms. why did we do this? strategy and spending have a connection that is important, but not absolute. the services build a budget, that is how the dod engages. there is a subtext that bureaucratic politics matter and inertia matters. this was an inspiration as to why we moved in this direction.

the national defense budget looks like this, it is not an accident. we see the shares are very stable, they are stable within 1.5% of their average, and they are roughly equally divided for that entire forty-year period. in that time frame, the national defense in the united states has changed on several different occasions. if the strategy spending connection was total, you would see this very far more than a hat. the fact that it hasn't suggests that something else is going on here, that the service input is significant. this is the reason why we chose to design the survey the way that we did, asking people to approximate those sorts of issues. and our hope was that when they responded, their answers would be relevant to how this plays out. whether it should change, not change, or not participate in something. our findings back that up.

again, they had ground being cut by the 23%, air being cut by 13%, maybe by 17%. an indicator moving forward, whether respondents preferences are being implemented and strategies having the desired influence on spending, is whether this picture changes. i would not bet on it. there was a statement that the secretary made the middle of last year, there is no expectation that it should or not change. when it came to that fy13 request, the army share the budget increase. it increased more than the navy chair. the air force is decreased. as you see, all of these strategic things being said, it is important to keep an eye on that as well. we will see whether that changes over the coming decade. a brief word about what

surprised me in the survey. the first is we cannot take it for granted that people would differentiate between these services. that could've turned out to be ineffective. i was pleasantly surprised that they did. they did have different ideas about how air, ground, and enable should be budgeted. i was also surprised there was not a clear pattern between how they treat current and future spending. i was of the expectation that people might choose to cut current spending, and maintain or increase future spending with the idea of there being we can afford to take on a little bit more risk now, but we need to be able to manage things in the future. not that that didn't happen, but there was not a pattern that i observed as to how they treated those two different categories. i was a bit surprised about how the high beneficiary districts of the defense spending didn't have different opinions of those elsewhere in the spectrum. that threw me off guard.

applying it to be fy13 cycle, sticking with the surprise teams -- i was not surprised to see that red and blue districts don't have major differences among them. there is an idea percolating in washington right now that democrats favor defense cuts, and republicans do not. that has not been substantiated by the evidence to the best that i can tell. this is the national defense budget in inflation terms. the bottom line is it is the basic budget. when you adjust for inflation, our national defense budget has been declining for the past two years. that is this congress. even the high end of the appropriations, which is right now the house side, it would still be a nominal freeze and adjusting for inflation, a cut that would be year three of cuts. we are already two years down, a

third year is coming irrespective of what position is. it is also worth noting that despite all the heartache that it is causing now, this congress passed the budget control act, which cut defense spending. that includes both republicans and democrats. finally you saw the slide that was put up early in the presentation by steven, it has cost administrations of both parties, historically. it was president eisenhower to cut it after the korean war, nixon and ford to cut it after the vietnam war. the old work continued through the bush administration and clinton administration -- portraying this as a start part of difference does not seem to be true. the evidence does not back it up. history is important. we do have ebbs and flows in our defense budget. what we don't have is plateaus.

plateau right now is where the pentagon thinks it is going. it tracks the future defense plan. we are on a path that would take us about 6% below peak year spending, which is fiscal year 10. budgets go down by about 30% historically. while it might not be a strictly partisan difference, we do have a little bit of a disjoint between where we typically are going with the defense cuts and where we presently are. i would note that the pressures on us are a lot deeper than just the budget control act. two things are underlined. the first is that we are ending the wars. that was something that the administration at the pentagon stressed. also, our respondents seemed to favor in their decisions. that reduction is important, irrespective of the legislative vehicle that and -- it and

sought revenue and spending cuts needed in order to do so. the budget cut is a $2.1 trillion measure. which means that in all likelihood, something is going to come after it and we will have to have something that will substitute for the sequester. national defense will still be part of that. that is my take away. views as they were expressed in the survey are a big reason why after the election, you are likely to see further reductions to the national defense budget. if you put that in another way, the national defense is going to remain on the table, even in the debate to avoid sequestration. i'm going to turn over to jeff smith. >> hello, i am sorry that i came late.

the perils of mass transit. this was not a typical survey, as everyone has said. it did not ask respondents whether they wished to cut the defense budget, he pushed them into a context where policymakers make judgments and they get information. pro and con arguments and they render a verdict. this can be dangerous ground. we build in some safeguards. first of all, the survey asked the same question over and over again, but in slightly different ways and in different contexts, with seeing if the answer came back in the same way. we talked about america spending on defense and ask each time, are you surprised? this is what happens in the real world. people get information and their opinions can be shaped by the frame that the conversation is occurring. we gave them five frames and watch what a difference it made. then it asks, how much should we be spending? respondents gave an answer.

the survey provided neutral balance information of nine key areas. when they were given a chance to give the sum of all their proposed cuts, he came out to be what people said at the top of the survey, very close. they gave more or less the same answer. secondly, the survey did not push people into corners. they do not force people to choose certain answers. they wanted people to express how they thought was the best way to cut the deficit. they gave them the chance to say that they wanted to cut defense, non-defense, or raise taxes or any combination of the above. they did not have to pick just one or if they picked defense cuts the most. how authoritative are these results? we took comfort in the fact that there was matches to what we previously understood. more democrats support cutting the budget, although not by a lot, it turns out. people like spending on special

forces, they like the idea of a defense more than they like spending on nuclear arms. they are weary and this time of austerity about spending on big-ticket items like the trillion dollar fighter jet and a new aircraft carrier. does this matter? i would argue that it does. even those polled, if they don't have access to the same information that our military officials have, they don't see the same data used to help military requirements. they have formed strong opinions that were surprisingly widely held. fiscal outcomes are sometimes determined. it is interesting to call attention to some of the strongest views. let's see. so here we are just showing some of the opinions were people held these views most strongly. the u.s. pro arguments, the u.s. is exceptional, we live in a

hostile world. defense matters more than the deficit. defense jobs are important. these were some of the most strongly held views. then you have to look at the collins. the arguments against defense spending. they have to see that these were among the most strongly held and they were more strongly held in the pro argument. we spend more than enemies. don't feed the world policeman, and there is waste in the defense budget. these are summary. these are long full paragraphs that people have had the chance to read when they took the pole. i urge you to look at the actual language. these are summaries. i want to call attention to this viewpoint because it was the most widely held of all the viewpoints in the pole. 80% of all republicans and 86% of democrats basically said that members of congress often approve unnecessary spending for

their districts or keep unneeded bases open just to benefit their own supporters. military branches by duplicates of weapons, they do a poor job of tracking where the money goes, defense contractors persuade lawmakers to approve weapons better not needed in large campaign contributions and other personal benefits. this is the way the system works according to the vast majority of those we hold it. this view is strongly held by democrats and republicans and it was the most strongly held view of all the options that we gave people a chance to express or say that they share that point of view. the survey, i believe is a genuine reflection of where the public wants leaders to go in broad strokes. it is why the cuts that have been settled on so far, as matt and steven havarti said. the last thing i would mention

is that the survey results have been circulated widely, and so far have not been challenged. the results have appeared in more than 70 publications including cnn, reuters, the financial times, time magazine, national journal and et etc. with that, i think we would invite your questions. >> i would like to ask about both candidates visiting virginia. the virginia could be -- no, it is a big swing state. mostly because they are a recipient of big tax dollars. you are survey would disprove that headline. i would like to know what some of your comments are on that coverage. >> well, it is important to

remember that when you hear the recording about political activity, it does not necessarily mean that it represents public opinion. there are interests in virginia, and those interests are activated and are making contributions to candidates and so on. but the individuals who are ultimately the voters, when you ask them to talk about the big picture and you give them the information, they come to pretty much the same conclusions. it is an interesting dynamic that in general people don't, you know, look out for themselves when they are making a judgment about public policy issues. but they will probably be influenced to some extent by the way the money is being spent in virginia. if one side has more money to spend, that can definitely have an impact. they probably will not be so

focused on -- you know, vote for mitt romney, he is going to keep and save your jobs and i don't -- i would dispel that there was a lot of advertising along those lines. >> i would like to add that concerning the other polls, this is not an issue that is occupying peoples minds. motivating and electorate around it, you are deaf definition was -- and the hierarchy, people are not considering at or even near this at the top. i would also like to point out and add a little bit of information to what steven already set. this is a complicated survey. it hinges on providing people information. what their attitudes have been as they were polled. we took pride on providing that information as dispassionately as it can be.

the information received does matter, and information that people in virginia and other parts of the country is not framed the same way as you see in this survey. we expect that to have some effect on their attitudes and their opinions. the last thing is also worth noting. the effects that an organized minority opinion can have. just because this is not necessarily giving them the majority opinion, it does not mean that they are not well organized and influencing the political process. despite some of these attitudes that you see, organizations also matter. >> i would like to add that actual data on job loss related to defense spending is very scarce. good data is even more scarce. there has been a survey done by the industry. the aerospace industry that