distinct. i don't know the legal implications of that. >> host: and we've been talking with chet kanojia, ceo and founder of aereo. matt schwartz of "communications daily" has been our guest reporter. gentlemen, thank you. >> guest: thank you. >> thank you. >> just ahead, house armed services committee ranking member adam smith talks about the relationship between foreign assistance and national security. then a discussion about immigration initiatives to empower immigrant communities in metropolitan areas of the u.s. after that, health care analysts talk about proposals to lower medicare costs by restructuring the program's cost-sharing components. and later former president jimmy carter speaks to the carnegie endowment in washington, d.c. about the israeli/pal stun yang conflict -- palestinian conflict and middle east security. >> house armed services

committee ranking democrat adam smith talked about the importance of foreign assistance to u.s. national security. the political transition in afghanistan and economic development in africa. this one-hour forum was hosted by the u.s. institute of peace. >> good morning. i'm jim marshall, the president of the united states institute of peace, and i want to welcome all of our guests here. i see some of our employees, but most of you are unfamiliar faces to me, so let me briefly tell you what the united states institute of peace does. essentially, we stop fights. we do that globally. all of you are familiar with stopping fights, you've probably done it yourselves. well, the techniques we have to use globally are very different than trying to keep friends from getting into a fight in a fraternity or sorority house. and what we do is terribly important to the country and to

the united states' success in furthering its strategic interests globally. our batting average is a good bit less than .500, it's just in the nature of what we do. but when we get a hit, it's a big deal. now, having mentioned batting averages, i have to first say that adam and i have been teammates for years. not only were we members of congress together, both democrats, both on the armed services committee, but we are also on the democratic baseball team. and i will say that adam batted a thousand in this year's game. he went two for two and one walk, so he was on base all three times. played center fielder, no errors -- of course, that's because we've got a great pitcher right now -- and they couldn't get it out of the infield. had it been hit to adam, he'd

have caught and thrown out whoever needed to be thrown out. he's a really great baseball player, and he's a great member of congress. i've known him for a number of years. i've described congress asking with kind of like a high school, different abilities, lots of different interests, lots of different folks. it's very much like lake woe bewith gone's high school, everybody's above average. but adam is a fellow who's extraordinarily thoughtful, and among other things he takes notes. so, you see, he's got a tablet with him. i don't expect him to be taking notes during today's event, but he takes notes all the time. he's writing what's going on with the intention that, ultimately, he'll probably write a book, and i'm going to read that book because this is a thoughtful guy who's had quite an interesting perch as a member of congress. and then he's been taking notes. so he will have an awful lot of interesting things to say about his experiences in congress. and i'm just hopeful he doesn't cover some of the really stupid

things that i did or said while i was a member of congress. and with that, i want to introduce congressman adam smith who's the ranking member on the armed services committee and a good friend to me and a good friend to the institute. adam. [applause] >> well, thank you very much. i -- it's great to be here at the united states institute for peace. the mission that jim and all of you do here is incredibly important. i got the opportunity to meet with jim and one of his colleagues yesterday and hear more about that work. it is incredibly important, and i appreciate that work, and i'm honored to have the opportunity to come and speak to you today and take your questions and learn more about the subject that i'm focused on which is how development,diplomacy and defense need to work together in u.s. policy to create greater stability throughout the world. and, yes, i do appreciate having played baseball with jim all those years. like my first 12 years there, we always lost.

because, well, the republicans were better. but then cedric richmond who, honestly, i didn't even know got elected in louisiana, and he's young, and he can throw over 80 miles an hour. which doesn't happen very often in baseball. so now we win. 22-0 in the time, as a matter of fact. [applause] [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> so, actually, i came at this issue from a variety of different angles. number one, i've been on the armed services committee for 17 years, and then i chaired the terrorism subcommittee which had juris 2006 over special operations command, so i got to travel around the world to a variety of different conflict zones. obviously, iraq and afghanistan, but many places in africa and the philippines and others to sort of see what our department of defense was doing to try to keep the peace, to try to move forward with stability. at the same time, in the state of washington we have an incredible presence of development agencies. the gates foundation being the

most oven obvious, but path and a variety of others are out there as well. and they sort of pulled me in, and i started doing some traveling to see what was going on in development in places like latin america and africa as well. and what really struck me was the intersection of the two. and the more time i spent with our special operations guys, the more they told me we need to fund development. we need to fund that to get stability. that it is far, far easier to build a society that has opportunities so that you don't get to conflict than it is to have to bring in 100,000 u.s. troops to try to restore stability. that the two go hand in hand and have to work together. and i think we've really learned that lesson. you heard secretary gates in the years before he left talking about how important the state department was and that it's not enough to fund the department of defense if you underfund the state department. they've got to work together closely in order to achievement and stability.

i believe the lessons have been learned. now we just need to implement the policies that reflect that, because there are still many challenges to fully funding and fully supporting the development and diplomacy and arms of this. i mean, you can look at the budgets right off the bat. the the president of defense's -- the department of defense's budget is enormous compared to what we spend on diplomacy and development. and we could certainly use a shift in that so that we could help those elements. and then there's also, there's a trust issue as well. the relationships are improving, but there is still a general feeling, i think, amongst many in the department of defense that on the diplomacy and development side they don't understand why security is important and then particularly on the development side they feel like, well, the military shows up and undermines our mission. now, we're doing a lot better. one of the most encouraging things that i've seen is raj shaw at usaid, brilliant guy

doing a fabulous job, he is meeting regularly with admiral mcraven to figure out how they can work together to actually use the best of all three elements of our foreign policy; defense, diplomacy and development. in order to build and go forward. and i think the easiest way to think about it is, you know, you look at iraq, and you look at the amount of money that we spent, the amount of troops, the amount of lives we lost going in there in what was particularly initially a military-dominated operation. we were not prepared for what came after the fall of saddam hussein. the defense department to some extent tried to take over in an area where they didn't really have the expertise, but we had underfunded the state department where that expertise was supposed to reside so that it was very, very difficult. that was enormously costly. and actually one of the most interesting trips that i took while i was on the armed services committee was a trip to the philippines where we had not

problems as large as iraq and afghanistan to be sure, but they had various terrorist groups and various insurgencies there. and what we did there was a combined effort, and we're still there. special operations command is there, but so is usaid. and our troops there do not, have not fired a shot or been involved in conflict. what they've done is they've trained the local security forces in how to provide adequate security, and they've worked with usaid and other development agencies to build schools and drill wells and create the atmosphere where people don't want to be part of an insurgency. i think one of the greatest misunderstandings or misstatements that i've heard in a long time is it's become somewhat popular to say that poverty has nothing to do with instability and terrorism. and people make that argument because they look at people like ohs ma bin laden -- osama

bin laden and say these people are way above middle class, it's the intellectuals that start terrorist movements, and i think a's unquestionably true. we have a seemingly endless supply of people who are convinced they have developed the one true philosophy that will save us all, and they feel it is their obligation to jam it down our throats. those will always come up. but the question is, do they find people who will follow them? are they just some, you know, crackpot on the corner spouting off ideas, or do they build a movement that really begins to cause damage? and that happens when you have people who don't have a feeling of opportunity t. of freedom. you know, when you look across the world where al-qaeda is recruiting, you look at a world of dysfunctional government, of a lack of opportunity, of a lack of jobs, of a lack of freedom. we have to put in place those broader building blocks of a just society in order to stop terrorism. now, i have no illusions here.

even if we do that, there will still be challenges, there will still be a need for the military, there will still be people who rise up against that. but it will be a much more manageable problem if we properly implement the development and diplomacy legs of the stool in order to build a more secure world. and i think that's what we need to do and where we need to go. and i think things are getting better. i am the cochair of the caucus for effective foreign assistance with andrew crenshaw, and i look at the lessons we've learned and how we implement development policy over the course of the last 20, 25 year, and it's getting better. we are understanding that it's not really effective development to simply spend u.s. money to hire a bunch of u.s. contractors to go into a country and build a bunch of stuff that they then leave. that has got to be bottom up. the millennium challenge corporation, i think, was a really inspired idea. the notion of working with a country for them to develop their own development policy and

implement it through their governance structure with our help instead of a top-down approach, a bottom-up approach. and i think we've made some improvements in those areas and can continue to do so. and i think the other big development in the last ten years in this area is the private sector. again, you know, the gates foundation is the largest element of this. i forget it's like 35, $40 billion, some unbelievable amount of money. but you've seen a ton of other groups rise up to get involved in development policy. and i think they have taken an approach that has helped spur the government side of it to greater efficiency and effectiveness. there's a bill that was introduced last congress that i cosponsored, it's been introduced in this congress to measure outcomes of foreign assistance. what's working, what's not. so we can begin to get a better idea of what we should find and where we should direct our dollars if this is going to work properly. so you're move anything that correct direction.

i still think there are some improvements that need to be made. you know, my biggest argument in u.s. development policy is that we need to elevate the importance of usaid and concentrate the money. right now there's something like 35 different pots of development money run by a whole bunch of different agencies. if raj shah wants to really impact on development, he's got only a tiny little sliver of that money in order to do it. and i always hold out as the model the department for international development in great britain. what they've done is they've concentrated, first of all, thai risen it to a cabinet-level department. it does not report to anybody, it is its own cabinet level, and they've concentrated the money so that if you are in charge of development policy, you are actually in charge of development policy. you control the money and where it goes and where the programs go. it's universeally recognized as the most effective government development policy out there. i would like to see us move the u.s. more in that direction to

elevate the importance of usaid, to begin to consolidate some of those programs. now, the problem with that, of course, is everybody has their own program. and in the u.s. we tend to like to basically protect our own program. and particularly in an era when the budgets are being cut and being challenged, there is that tendency to narrow one's focus to say, look, i care about education for women in africa, so i'm going to make sure there's a line item for that program, and this educate protected, we have to spend a certain amount of money on that. but in doing that you tie the hands of no ez in charge of -- of those in charge of development policy and make it difficult for them to make the decisions that are necessary. we had another example of this is we made an effort to reform the food for peace program. the food for peace program is an excellent program, it's a great idea. u.s. agriculture and then u.s. ships taking, you know, food to places in the world that need it. the problem is we have written

85% of our food aid has to go through that program. finish and there are times when it makes more sense to simply buy the food closer to the source of the problem and get it to the people who need itkyf÷0$. it is a more costly, more >> particularly defense and development. the military spends a lot of its

own money on development programs. they do health care. many some cases in afghanistan and elsewhere they've even built schools and drilled wells. we need to build a greater partnership there and headache sure the people with the -- make sure the people with the right expertise are doing the right jobs. and at the same time the people on the development side need to understand how important security is. yes, there are a lot of places in the world that when the u.s. military shows up, it can undermine the confidence of the local population. i get that. but if you don't have security as a starting point, you don't have development. you know, we've certainly seen that in iraq and afghanistan where you've seen people, you know, pull out development projects because it has not been safe. so you need, definitely, to work with the military to make sure you have a secure environment to do the good work that you need to do. that partnership needs to be strengthened. as i've said, i think there are steps being taken by people at dod, people at usaid and elsewhere to strengthen that partnership, but we need to look for every opportunity to make

that as strong as possible in order to have the proper national security posture, in order to do the best we can to bring greater stability to the world. because at the end of the day, i think if you had to sum up what the goal of u.s. foreign policy and u.s. defense policy, it is stability and security. and then it is the steps to get there. economic opportunity, diplomacy, all of that is critical to security and stability. we have the elements within the u.s. government to do that policy, we need to make sure they're working as well as they possibly can together. so thank you for the opportunity to at least outline those ideas, and i look forward to your questions, comments. as i always joke these days in congress, answers are also welcome. so i'll look forward to questions and thank you. [applause] >> so i would ask that those of you who have questions, maybe you could line up behind these

mics. questions, comments behind the mics. that'll make it easier on us as far as actually getting you heard. on the television cameras. and adam, i guess let me start. >> sure. >> and this is not so much a question as an observation. the national intense committee's -- intelligence committee's 2030 report estimates that by 2030 half the world's population will be mid class. but that means, of course, the other half of the world's population is going to be mostly still poor. are we heading in the right direction? what do you think the effect of in this trend which is more and more people climbing out of poverty and into the middle class will have on questions like violence around the world? >> well, i think it certainly will improve the situation. as i've said, the more people who have economic opportunity, the better off we are. but it is a stark reminder of how many are still left behind. and i think it is, it is a great

challenge to make sure you pull as many people up as possible. look, we're not going to eliminate poverty. we're not going to eliminate, you know, people who struggle. but we can certainly reduce the numbers, and there have been a number of places that have made progress in that area. you can see the difference. >> and i guess if you had a broadly scattered middle class so that the entire globe is, essentially, covered then you've got individuals who really invested in not having violence pop up. and so they can work with those individuals who, you know, are feeling disenfranchised, feeling as if they have no opportunity, lack freedoms, that sort of thing in their communities which lessens the task that we have -- >> yep. >> -- globally trying to keep peace. >> that's a great way to put it, that they are invested in stability. look, there are a number of people who are, as i've said, ideological, they're going to be violent. but most people, you know, who

get forced into that when you read the stories about countries that have fallen apart like lebanon, these are people who, as i like to put it, just want to get through the day. they want to be able to feed their family, have a decent life, and if you give them that, they won't consider violence for a second. so that's the direction we need to go in. >> well, i'm just really pleased that the congress has people in it today that are as thoughtful as adam is about these kinds of issues that are critically important to the united states and to the world with. and with that, why don't we start over here. question, observation, answer. that would be even better. >> congressman, first of all, thanks for your leadership on foreign assistance. that means a whole lot to the community here in washington. i'm anthony garrett from international media development organization, and my question is as the american troops draw down in the coming year in afghanistan, what can be done to protect women, journalists,

human rights activists and the other good folks who have put tear faith in the west -- their faith in the west and in the good work that's happened the last ten years so it's not in vain? >> yeah. it's very difficult. that's what, i mean, what we are doing is we are working very, very hard and have been, particularly since 2009, to train the afghan national security forces. and i spoke with general dunford yesterday. you know, they are now in the lead in all military operations throughout afghanistan except for counterterrorism and that they have significantly improved the quality of that security force. now, i'm not going to kid you, there's going to continue to be challenges, and i think, you know, when you look at development particularly protecting women, you can look at a society, and the societies that educate women are far more prosperous and far more successful than those who don't. it is, i think, the ultimate

measure of whether or not you're headed in the right direction. and it's part of the reason why countries like afghanistan, evening pakistan have -- even pakistan have struggled. so we're going to rely heavily on the folks that we have trained. hopefully, we will get a bilateral security agreement so there will be some u.s. presence still there to help with that. but it's an enormous challenge. but the one thing i'll say about this, and this has come up in the context of syria and elsewhere, we can't kid ourselves that the u.s. military can show up everywhere and protect everybody. that's why i say this broader three-legged stool approach with development, diplomacy, you know, we have got to get to the point where local populations are responsible for their own security. we simply cannot do it all. and we're not in a position to do it. because nobody -- as george w. bush famously said, nobody likes to be occupied, you know? you see the u.s. military showing up, it's going the create a certain amount of hostility in countries around the world. countries have to become

responsible for their own security, we have to help them in the best way we can. >> thank you, congressman. >> here at the institute we're convinced that the political transition is critically important, that the united states and all usg entities need to be focused on trying to help afghanistan get the right kind of political transition. if the government falls apart because of turmoil as a result of a poor presidential election next year and then provincial elections the following year, if the government falls apart, it's going to be very difficult to keep the afghan security forces together. they're well armed, they're well trained. we could see one heck of a civil war, and there would be a terrible retroare depression where women's rights and all kinds of other progress that's been made are concerned. and so we really are very focused on the political transition and trying to get that right, trying to help afghanistan get that right. yes, sir? >> i'm will embrey from bancorp international, former foreign service office. just a quick follow up on the last question is we're

disappointed to see that dod has descoped the program supporting, training women in the afghan national security forces. seems to e many shortsighted -- seems to me shortsighted. there'd been some progress there, lock way to go, and i think that's been a bad thing. but there's within a debate in the administration in aid in the contractor community over the last four or five years on whether it's morefective to use development money -- more effective to use development money for aid to hire contractors to do work in various places or whether they should give that money to the local governments and to local ngos. there are arguments on both sides, firms may cost more but on the other hand, locals may not be able to do it, and in most countries where we have aid programs, the corruption factor's pretty high. where do you and representative crenshaw come down on this? >> well, i think we are more proponents of the local approach for a couple of reasons.

number one, we were so much on the other side of it for so long. one, you know, development advocate, you know, said in response to the criticism we've spent so much money on foreign aid, giving this money away to other people, what have we got for it? we haven't spent that much money on foreign aid, we've basically given the money to ourselves. we're paying our own contractors to go over and do that work. that's not really the same as giving it to them. we erred on that side for too long. that's number one with. number two, it's common sense. i mean, sustainability just doesn't happen if the local population -- the same is true, you know, in security, that's why we're training -- you can come in and do everything for everybody, but you can't stay there forever, and when you're gone, what's left? there are terrible stories of all these great projects being built, then we leave and three years later, you know, it just sits there in disrepair. so i'll say that. i think i would err on that side. but it's going to be a balance too, i mean, because you have to

have the people with the expertise to begin to train the local population. you can't just throw it at them if they don't know how to handle a begin thing. so it's a balance between the two, but where we have erred in the past has been, i think, excessively on the side of doing it ourselves and not truly training. and that's whether you're talking about agriculture, rule of law, governance, health care, you know, education, whatever it is we really need to focus on that point when we're not going to be there anymore. are the people that we're training and working with going to be capable of doing it? i would err on that side. but, see, there's always going to be a role, you know, for experts to come in. i was in kenya not long ago, they had folks from dupont out there talking about agriculture and, you know, they've made enormous progress based on some u.s. expertise in terms of building, you know, more resill credibility crops, and this is without genetically modified. this is just doing it the way you're supposed to.

you know, so it's going to be a balance, but i think if we've erred, we've erred on the side of too much -- some of that's money. some of that is just, you know, groups want the money, obviously. and i think we'd be better off training the local population which is why the millennium challenge corporation, i think, is such a good idea. >> thank you. >> yes, sir? >> thank you, congressman. my name's howard, i spent most of my career with usaid, and if we had a couple hundred more like you in congress, i think we could go a very long way in fixing things. i think that there are a few sort of key issues in the development, sort of the big picture development problems. one is you just sort of alluded to it, public understanding of how much we spend on foreign assistance and what we do with the money, these famous surveys where you ask people how much we spend on foreign aid, and they say about 10% of gdp, and it

turns out it's seven-tenths of gdp, of 1%, and they really thik we should be spending 4 or 5. the second issue is the politics in terms of the food aid programs, and i wonder if you see any way to get around those issues. i mean, i know the problems there. one you didn't talk about much but alluded to is the whole question of accountability for our assistance programs. and i watched over a 25-year career where accountability became the end rather than a way to check on what we were doing, and the amount of resources that usaid puts into measure things and the kinds of silly things we come up with to measure so that we can show results have sort of gotten a bit out of proportion. and i, i understand that we need to show impact, and i understand that we need to start from the

bottom up, but even starting from the bottom up needs institution building. >> right. >> and human development, human resources development in the countries we work with. and those are very, very hard to measure. it can take a decade to build the kinds of government be institutions that will sustain the work that we've been doing on the ground. and so i wonder how you think congress and the american public can ever deal with that kind of an issue. >> let me take the first -- i'll take the last part first, and then i'll talk about public opinion second. i completely agree with you. i think one of, you know, i'm a very enthusiastic supporter of all the private folks who have gotten involved in development, but there is sort of one downside. there's a tendency to assume that everything can be measured, and when you come from the private sector -- and this is as a public sector person, something i've always struggled with -- they're always like why can't they do it like the private sector? we measure efficiency, we know what's going on. and here's the problem. the private sector could no

possibly be simpler. you're trying to make money, that's it, end of story. either you're making money or not. and if you've got five departments and three are making money and two of them aren't, you better choose an arm. it's very simple to measure. so it is not the u.s. government's job to make money. if it was, we would charge you a hell of a lot more to drive on our roads. >> right. [laughter] >> okay? we charge you a hell of a lot more when your house caught on fire. there's a whole bunch of different things we would do, and why the private sector can't get that into their head, and i have seen private sector systems that you have all process, they spend all their time trying to come up with the perfect process. well, if we -- and there is a human element to this that it is art more than science. okay? you may not be able to measure something and the time it takes to try to figure out how to measure it can get in the way of it, so you've got to have that balance. i completely agree with that, and i think some of the private sector folks get out of balance. ..

>> my answer would be utterly and completely worthless because i don't have clue one what i am talking about. people are like, well, 50% of the people think that you ought to do this, but they didn't know what they were talking about. so this whole point, people don't always want to spend on foreign aid. there was a pew research poll in my frustration there is a clear

consensus in the country that we need to balance the budget while providing goods and services for every dollar that people have to pay. it is impossible, by the way. the pew research center poll, they are very concerned about the deficit. and you ask them okay, what areas would you like to cut? and it says, do you want to keep this, increasing or decreasing, and if you add up the number of people that say you can keep it the same or increase it, they came out and say they want to cut little. at least two thirds of the people said they did not want cuts. foreign aid, some people think we need to cut it. but why is foreign-made so important to our domestic

responsibility? welcome we are responsible for more of a stake then other countries. we are increasingly depending upon exports. even for small businesses. i have a guy, there's like five people, 75% of his business is exported. he felt something to do with security gates going to mexico. but, you know, the point is keeping stability and other places, we benefit from that. forget the moral argument or the fact that there is nearly 3 billion people living on less than $2 per day while we have the lifestyle that we have. just in terms of our own interest. i have given many speeches where it is pure, simple, straightforward to make that case. that is all we can do to make that case. >> congressman, i am paul hughes from the u.s. institute of

peace. you are focused on diplomacy development and defense is a very important perspective for the city -- the city to take into account. you are really touching on a whole of government kind of argument. in 1996 under president clinton, he issued a presidential decision directive, ppd 56, which mandated that there ought to be support to tackle these issues. but no one was willing to fund it or support it. you think it's time again for something like that to be crafted and if so, who would be the leader on organizing the training? >> well, first of all, for this to really happen, the best model is how they try to get the services to work better together with the military.

this was the goal, part of it came out of the desert number one disaster. so you'll still have the army, and to the expectations -- compared to what it was, jim, they work much better together. the way the date did it was to mandate this as part of the promotion that if you are in the army, you have to spend time working with them. so you've you built an understanding of the other culture and unique military guidance with the new york state department and the u.s. military. and we have seen some of that within the intelligence community. the national counterterrorism center you have, the fbi, cia,

these guys are working side by side and they build relationships in a work better together. what the state department will tell you is that we don't have enough personnel to do our jobs right now. we cannot take one of our people and send her over. we don't have the room for it. that is the inhibitor to that. if we are really going to get that kind of inner agency, that is what you have to do. you have to have people from one agency to another to work as part of their advancement up the chain. they are very personality driven. and general stanley mcchrystal was the guy who sort of pull together these counterterrorism efforts right after 9/11, and right after 9/11 we came up with the theory that we need to have a network to beat a network. so what comes to security and

got them working together, they were doing a pretty darn good job. but a lot of that comes down to individuals as well and it's one of my favorite quotes from admiral olson. if the terminator from what you said, special operations command, it is in regards for our military ways to go on and work with the state department within 70 some odd different countries. they want to be there to help prevent violence and it's like preparation of the environment. i went to one country i was working really well and then another and it is like the ambassador couldn't stand -- they didn't know what a mission with was and they were talking about all kinds of problems and we have him fix this, what can we do about that and he was a very kind of deadpan guy.

if you have seen one mle, you have seen all mle you have to look for the right people to have that ability to not just be excessively poke focused, but working with other people and you can change the structure and really comes down to the individuals who are involved, those who know how to engage the cross agency until the culture. >> i would like to interject and observe that we are about to have a vessel operations command liaison right here at the research institute. it is in part because we work globally. but we work with the military, and the military of all people understand the value of. it is one of the reasons that socom has people around the globe trying to help his development. you know, it is better that we help these folks help themselves

and we have to step in at some point and help them undue the mess that has been created in order to further this. it is absolutely true that we benefit economically, as adam just sad, from stability globally. but then there are other threats. the proliferation of deadly weapons and deadly viruses and things like that, it is really quite remarkable in the modern age. so we have the economic benefits and then we can also realize that we have problems with these threats the they are circling right now over here. >> below, i am from the professional securities reform and i would like to follow up on the last question. we should have a motto that it's good to have good leaders and work untempered organizations and you don't have to choose between them. in that regard it has been sort of frustrating watching that this reform has had a lot of energy to reform it, it is good

to hear in congress behind the obama administration that to the matter and interest in this, i would like to comment about the plea to institutionalize this in statute. it is incredibly difficult to get. interagency cooperation in an operational strategic sort of way, something that you can count over a long period of time, developing people with these capabilities. could you comment on what little interest verizonmac? >> i am not sure where that would go, but i think it would be some way to analyze the whole government approach. i don't know that with qddr, but it merely was that, it was merely the state department's view on the world and in fact, in the qddr argument, i guess

what i would say is i think it would be great if we had something that was an inner agency analysis, just like qddr your -- you are mentioning. you have to have more than just state department. you have to have more than state department doing now. we have to pull that together, if that makes sense. but your question has prompted me to look into that a little bit more closely. because i think i would be very helpful. >> for the benefit of the audience that is not familiar with washington window, qddr means absolutely nothing to anybody out there. like 99.9% of americans. diplomacy and development review models on the qddr. >> yes. >> is a correct?

>> yes. >> you wonder what direction we can head into the qddr, defense, development, review on a quarterly basis. >> it would be nice to maybe try to do all three at once since we're talking about the whole government. >> that would make sense. >> i am from the center for national policy and i just want to thank you for your time in answering our questions here. earlier when you're talking about building closer links between defense and defense and development, i immediately thought back to africa, when it was established it was supposed to, you know, try to be something different from the other combatant command. incorporating more civilian people into the structure in regards to transcend. when it comes to defense and

development, in a broader sense, what do you think there is too much development -- that they should sort of focus on what they are good at? >> i would say that those people are wrong. because there is too much crossover between the two. now, if you want to say the need to be careful not to get out of your lane and to make sure of that, he.is fine. i think the developmental people have to know what is going on to provide a defense. which is to say that they should provide back, i don't agree with that because it's too much crossover. a lot of times the reasons the dod gets involved in development, they are their first providing security. they are the ones that are there, they are the ones that have the money.

if part of this security is providing medical care to local community, they do it. but what i would say is that if they need to do that, it is temporary, if you have to do short-term and then get the development expert dan. i may be one of the few people who feels this way, but i think raj shah testament are good job of what they have incentive to do. the best example of that right now is another piece in africa. another thing that i haven't mentioned yet. how we take approach to security is willing the capacity of friendly nations to do a variety of different things that are in their interest in our interests. that is really what happened in somalia. people talk about how afghanistan and how we can possibly reduce the troop levels from 100,000 to whatever, we have to keep that out there, and

afghan pakistan and somalia in that area, they rival with that kind of chaotic stuff. but it is a triple digit of military personnel in that higher area. if you are doing a reasonably effective job containing the violence in yemen and somalia and spreading out, versus the close to 100,000 if you're counting nato and everything else still in afghanistan. well, how did they do it? they did it because they built the capacity of kenya, uganda, to help us. they cared about somalia being chaotic as well. so it isn't like we just are paying them to do our bidding. we have mutual interests. we have built their local capacity, and they are doing most of the work.

by the way, is vastly more effective if you have a at local military that is effective. i think that that partnership, the military has trained the folks i have just mentioned and you also have a ton of development projects in there. so it's going to be a great challenge to try to figure out how to make it work in the mali and nigeria region, we have also not had as much that is successful in other places. but we can see our model and how to build local capacity and it makes sense to build it that way. >> i was participating in a business for peace awards process a couple of months ago, and part of this was a seminar

was you cannot say who was there and who said what, but i gave some remarks arguing that internationally businesses need to be more actively involved in trying to pursue peace. the response of a hat from one of the participants in the seminar was, well, we have to be careful about roles and missions. it is really our role in our mission to do that and that is why business should not be doing it. so i could not agree more with adam on the initial comment. that is just dumb. clearly you don't want whoever going out there, trying to further peace in a competent way. but all of us have an interest. >> this is back to the point of africom. part of what has helped rwanda is the u.s. business involvement. costco and some other people got involved, saying how can we attract business pacific region. there are some small companies that are beginning to source

some of their cocoa from the eastern drc. all of them are key to development. >> we have been talking about maybe having a catchphrase here and one of the things that somebody came up with was we stoplights, join us. i mean, who wouldn't want to join people in trying to stop fights? everyone has an interest in this. yes, ma'am? >> make you very much, congressman, for being here. i would like to turn the conversation as to how we can help countries from other nations promote those 3d strategy. i work for a small ngo and that is just one nation of many that we have a very large defense interest and a great relationship with. but it is also not the filling

their obligation or developments for all citizens and oftentimes people say when i asked this question -- they say that we have these conversations and we can pressure the government, but i think that there is more to be done and i would be interested to hear what you think can be done both in congress and ngos and the private sector and seattle residents. so i'm a big fan of what the work is that they are doing, a lot of the ngos there. and i think that there is a role for them in these countries and i am curious to hear your views. >> that is a great question and one of the great challenges when we look for local partners in the way that i just described. there probably isn't a single local partner that we have had that has said that yes, there government is awful. certainly i have heard that ngos are substantially private, they

are in my district, there are concerns about government. bahrain is very well documented. and now we are wrestling with that question in egypt of course. and it is a very difficult one to answer. it has to go case by case. i do think that there has been a tendency for us to overreact and cut off our nose, despite saying this government isn't doing what we like, we are out of here. the most famous example of this -- and i don't know what to do about it because i certainly think that human rights, in the case of pakistan, the pressler amendment, most americans don't know what the pressler amendment wise. every single pakistani knows what the pressler amendment is. because it cut off all aid. now, it was bad that they were developing a nuclear weapon. and certainly lead to greater instability and aim manner of problems. but it also meant that there was

a lost decade in the relationship between pakistan and the united states. while we have certainly had many reasons why the pakistanis dislike us as much as they do, that is one of the biggest ones. did that help us more than hurt us? i don't know. you had this debate over the leahy amendment. the leahy amendment, it says our military cannot continue to train if there is a proven human rights abuse. and i completely support the leahy amendment. i think we need to have that mechanism. the question is how broad it has been applied. with human rights abuse when you have to pull completely out. because the other argument is that the admiral makes to me, we need to be there to help fix this and that is where a lot of people haven't caught up with

us. our military is not what was in the 60s and 70s and 80s. we have decided that human rights is an enormous part of training security. when i mentioned the philippines earlier and how we trained the security forces, a big part is how to get the local population on your side. spoiler alert, kicking in doors and shooting people is not the way to do that. so how do you build back? that is what we train them to do. if you have these human rights problems and we pull out, does that make it better? well, i'm not going to suggest that that means no matter what we say that we never draw the line. i just think that it is a difficult balance to strike. do things get better if we simply abandon the situation. that is why it is always easiest to not be the decision-maker and say on the outside what you ought to do is maintain relationships before force them to do what you want them to do. well, yes, that's what we would like them to do. i think of parenting, actually

when i think of this. it is a delicate, delicate balance that we always have to strike. and i am never going to be one of those who is self righteous and say how dare we do this with these people and they are awful. it's like, yeah, but how much better would they be and you have to balance all of that out. as you can tell from my answer, i have not figured out how to balance that out yet. we are continuing to learn about it. >> now, when i was in congress, i would get letters from people who wanted to to close the school of the americas. that was causing all kinds of problems with the officers and acts that they committed in south america with training in the united states. the assertion was they were better with brutality and human rights violations and consequently the saudi americas should be closed.

so the name was changed to the school of the americas to the school of the western hemisphere. part of the cover is the name has been changed for the school, as the school of the western hemisphere. what i would say is, yes, i do think that we should close the school of the western hemisphere and have a school of the world. we should continue to do this, we have to have these relationships and we have to do it at this kind of capacity. but at the same time we need to train and teach and educate those who come through our schools that the best course is one who respects human rights, better for the individuals who have the power and certainly better for those who do not have the power. >> we need to be mindful that we do not have the best record in the past on this. we have, in fact, when you go back to some of the people that we were doing business with in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. we have to convince the world that we have it and we are changing the way we approach this.

>> yes, sir? >> hello, i work at the department of the army and the u.s. africa command. i just have one observation since there's a lot of references and questions. the observation is that years after the command, when i was there up until about april 2012, they had a staff of approximately 2000 individuals. various components and whatnot, for the marines, special operations, army and etc. we had a 2000 person staff, we only had approximately 21 individuals from the interagency community. it was the department of state, usaid, department of justice and whatnot. when i was there, of those 21 some people, there was only one individual from usaid, and she was extremely valuable in our staff planning processes, execution and whatnot. when we only had the one person, it was very difficult for her to

be around the commands in subcommands and working groups and whatnot. i'm a proponent of having more interagency cooperation through embedding staff members throughout. my first question is, over the last decade, say with iraq and afghanistan, the department of defense has either expanded or developed capabilities for development, specifically civil affairs, reconstruction teams, example would be afghanistan. it is your opinion that the department of defense should retain those capabilities were or should those capabilities migrate along with the resources to usaid? >> it is my opinion that they should maintain most of those capabilities, but that they should do so in close cooperation with usaid. so that it is not a permanent responsibility of dod to do that.

the reason dot started doing this stuff as they were the only ones there come the only ones that had the money, and they should've figured out when they went. even if they go to an area that is not secure. it is not a seamless transition to say, okay, it is all good, let's fly into the development with the development guys. it also improves the cooperation with the two of them. it is really tough because the dod guys have got to have greater respect for the development and the other people. which, as you know, in iraq and afghanistan, that did not always happen. it is like, light, we are doing this, get out of here. and i think that that has changed a lot in the last decade. but your average dod person has developed a great deal more respect for what development diplomacy people do. and that is going to be the key element. but i wouldn't say that that is something that dod should stop doing. i think it is just too integral to a long-term mission. >> if i could interrupt, you said that was your first

question, we really don't have time to ask more questions. >> okay, actually been fired to second on quickly. >> very quickly because we really need closeness in probably about one minute. >> what is your view about dod's expanded authorities were conducting foreign security assistance to build partnerships and a capacity of foreign security forces? >> i think it is great and a very helpful thing for us. >> that is a good answer. very quick question. >> will it take to restart the peace process with the taliban and then announcing zero option -- even at the height of the surge we never had a clear taliban stronghold in the southwest and now kumar and other areas. >> it is really a matter of this zero option and oscar there

really isn't a zero option. it's not the same situation as a rock. even if we don't get a bilateral security agreement, we still have the ability to stay with some numbers that is complicated. that is true and i don't think that this is going to happen. as far as this, it all comes down to the election. do we have a reasonable transition from hamid karzai to what comes next. but i think that to really get through the election, it shows that the next government is going to be and we will have a better chance restarting this. we have to have negotiations with some elements of the taliban. >> i want to thank you for your inspiring speech. the only question i have very quickly is dozens of foreign aid encouraged dependability on

foreign aid? >> it depends on how you do it. if the foreign aid is helping you build a better health care system so that your doctors and nurses can then run a hospital, that is actually operating, it does not build dependency. if you are building schools and local people are working and maintaining it, no, that is exactly why we need to shift from simply coming in and saying, well, get out of the way because i'm going to do it. worker cooperatives and turned cooperatively with the local population. you are going to do it, but if we have a little bit of money to help you build something to help you do it, we are headed in a better direction. >> i think we have a big round of applause for our very thoughtful commentary. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

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>> jackie was raised as her mother was raised. she was the same kind of wife and housekeeper, the home and the children, the entertaining with style and panache. that was her heritage and she did it again in the white house. right after her administration, during the johnson years, the whole world of updated just like volcanoes. we had women who went to work and got divorces and went to equal rights. we had free love and children and sex, and boy oh boy, did i miss that. [laughter] the whole world changed, and it became a whole new concept of women. and i think mrs. clinton today represents the new woman. >> as we continue our coverage on first ladies, leticia baldridge, secretary to jacqueline kennedy, talked about the role of the first lady and

how it has changed along with the nation tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> live now to the brookings institution for discussion on the impact of the immigration policy on local and metropolitan areas. speakers include the executive vice president of salt lake chamber of commerce and the commissioner of new york city mayor's office of immigrant affairs, and the executive director of the building skills partnership. we will look in on this for a few moments and see if it is about ready to start. this is live coverage here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> again, we are live at the brookings institution and waiting a discussion on the impact of immigration policy on local and metropolitan areas. immigration policy was among the issues discussed by texas senator ted cruz last week. on friday he was the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for the iowa republican party in des moines, iowa, shortly after his remarks come he spoke with reporters for a few moments and we will have a look at that now

while we wait for the brookings event to begin. >> he's considering running in 2016 in the he wants to speak about the direction he's moving in. >> i do not know mr. john mccain. he is certainly entitled to his opinion. i'm going to keep my focus on policy. i believe that our country is facing enormous challenges right now. we are facing a fiscal and economic challenges and we are jeopardizing the future of our nation and kids and grandkids. in my view, we have to do two things. first, we have to preserve our constitutional liberties for the obama administration sadly has followed a pattern of disregarding the law and undermining our constitutional liberties. number two, we have to restore economic growth and opportunity. for the last four years, our economy has grown 0.9% a year on

average for the only other period since world war ii of four consecutive years of less than 1% gdp growth was 1979 to 1982. coming out of the jimmy carter administration, the same failed policies of out-of-control spending and taxes and regulation has produced the same economic stagnation. the biggest problem of the obama agenda is the people that were hurt the most of the most vulnerable among us. those who have been hispanics or africans or single moms, we need to get growth backs of the people who are struggling can have a full and fair opportunity to achieve the american dream. >> the president to spoke on the trayvon martin george zimmerman verdict. they said that there is a perception in the african-american community that is trayvon martin would've been

wiped from the whole thing would've been different. do you understand that perception in regards to the aftermath? >> i did not see the president's remarks see the president's remark. and anytime you have a teenager that loses his life, that is a tragic thing. number two, i think the entire proceedings had some unfortunate elements to it. i think there were some and that this political sphere, taking this tragic encounter between george zimmerman who is defending his neighborhood and trayvon martin, and turning it into a racially polarized battle. and i think that that is unfortunate to the political discourse. in this case we had a trial in the jury rendered a verdict and we need to respect the verdict. i will say to the president's credit that following the verdict, he said the same thing. he said that we need to respect the jury's verdict. and i appreciate the president

saying this and i will say more broadly that there is no doubt that in the african-american community, there are great challenges because many children in the african-american community are facing less opportunities than they would like them and that they would deserve. they are often failing educational systems and their chances of getting a job and climbing the economic ladder, achieving the american dream, it is minimized. i think that we ought to have more passion for improving african-americans, young hispanics, young people throughout the country. we also, for example, see far more competition and school choice. so the young kids are trapped in schools and they are their failing, they have the opportunity to go to a school and learn because education was foundational to achieving the american dream.

i have loved to see a renewed sense of passion as to how we can see renewed passion. the two best ways to do that are improved education and educational toys. educational growth is meaning that the jobs were people fried. >> the president also called for the national stand your ground law's and that this is part of the problem. >> it is not surprising that the president uses, it seems, every opportunity he can to try to go after our second amendment rights to bear arms. i think that it is unfortunate that this president and this administration has a consistent disregard for the bill of rights. whether it is the first amendment. whether it is the amendment to

bear arms, the fourth and fifth american amendment rights for unreasonable searches and seizures and to be protected from arbitrary targeting by jones. this is an administration that has undermined the bill of rights two welcome to brookings. we really appreciate you joining us this morning for a discussion about immigration reform. as well as its implications for silly intensities and metropolitan areas. i would like to start by talking about, to set the conversation today and why we are focusing on cities and metropolitan areas, in particular as the focus on this really important topic. the brookings institution recently co-authored by bruce katz called the american revolution and how cities and metros are fixing our broken politics and fragile economy. the basic premise of the book is

this. at a time when washington is paralyzed in gridlock, leaders and cities and metropolitan areas across the country are stepping up with innovative and often bipartisan solutions to some of the supersized challenges of our time. such as providing the manufacturing sector sector in northeastern ohio, one firm and university partnership at a time. it was primarily local funds or export and trade at the point of production, such as we are seeing in portland, oregon. today's forum is about local leadership in another supersized issue. it is managing the flow and integration of immigrants. now, this morning, we will hear how leaders in regions as diverse as los angeles and silicon valley, salt lake city and new york, are moving forward to advance opportunities for

immigrant families, workers, and employers in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform. to be sure, we as leaders must lead. because they know the unique needs and assets of the economy at best. the national sets of rules and policies goes a long way to enable on the ground social and economic success. so in that spirit, our panel today led by our senior fellow, audrey singer, will remind us why comprehensive immigration reform matters, strengthening regional economies and regional opportunities. akamai also hope that you will learn that washington cannot make inroads on immigration reform, then there remains a silver lining after the hard

work and positive collaborations. starting us off this morning, we have good fortune of hearing from one key partner and that is cecilia munoz, the director of the white house domestic policy council. now, cecilia munoz has long been a champion for immigrant rights, prior to joining the demonstration when she was senior vice president for the national council of rwanda and now she has been working tirelessly within the administration and members of congress to get both programmatic and legislative reform done. as a testament to our commitment, cecilia munoz received a macarthur genius award in 2000. i also wanted to note that cecilio was born and raised in in detroit and her father was an engineer at the motor company of

ford. time permitting, it would be interesting for her to give us a window as to whether or not there is a short-term role for us to get out of the fiscal crisis emerges in my mighty center. in the meantime, please join me in welcoming cecilia munoz. [applause] >> thank you so much for that kind introduction and for having me here for foreign policy. this is an incredibly important form and i appreciate being part of it. i've been working in our

nation's cavity and 10 capital for over 25 years. while this issue is pretty much decided upon in washington, the impact of these discussions and this decisions have been filled in countries and towns across the country. we are innovators in dealing with immigration and helping americans become fully integrated in american life. as. as you have her come i know this from personal experience. i am from detroit, and i grew up is that eight daughter of an immigrant. and my grew up with people from all over. i see people from all over and this is very much part of the detroit story and the american story as well. i started my three are providing services at ngos in california and chicago and building coalitions worked on issues of integration because integration happens in local communities i

managed. in that role i work very closely with local leaders as they struggled to recover from this historic recession. many of them from both political parties understood and understand integral role that immigrants play in helping their cities and a great, grow the local economy, and get through difficult times. i can say the president obama understands this as well. as a u.s. senator in a state senator previously from illinois. he developed his view that it is an economic imperative that impacts all sorts of communities in all sorts of ways. two weeks ago the white house highlighted the benefits of the bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the senate in june, and a significant cost to our country is sales tax.

the report makes clear how high how high the sales tax. higher productivity, more investments, over the next two decades, our economy will grow by an additional 5.4%. deficits will rise by $850 billion and i guess we will shrink in the economy if congress passed the solvency of the trust fund, it will be extended by two years, and the 75 year shortfall will be reduced by nearly half a trillion dollars. if congress asks things like the visa waiver program, office of customs and border patrol, it will provide a significant

vitality around the country. so yes, conference of immigration reform is a moral imperative. it is a security imperative. and on top of all that, it is simply too high to delay the economic costs. the impact of the debate, i should add that if congress acts, we can finally address the challenges that cities have been facing as they grapple with the systems of our broken immigration system. the fact of the matter is while congress and the federal government have the authority to set immigration laws and enforcement, local governments live with the result of what congress does what they failed to do. local governments wrestle with the challenges of large numbers of undocumented immigrants living in their communities. in a variety of ways.

attempting to engage this and it is a federal function, two states that have passed in state tuition laws so that students have better access to college. this includes when a safety hazard emerges. school districts work to integrate school districts for fear it that they have that their parents may be deported. and while some state legislators have responded to these challenges by passing laws which reflect a variety of the purchases from the fact is that states can't regulate immigration, that is the job of the united states congress. we can hardly say that this is a rational immigration policy.

we know that this happens especially on the issue of immigration. and it is important that congress acted as their jobs regulated and in the framework we can be giving them the support that they need for emigrating us into one community successfully. so i should start by saying i should be hopeful that by june 27, 2013, it should be a data goes down in history. i was fortunate enough to participate in the bipartisan bill that we have all been talking about for so long. that growth was a result of countless hours put in by an extremely dedicated bipartisan group of senators and staff in administrations providing technical support all along the way. nobody got everything they wanted, including the white house, but the final bill was

his commonsense immigration reform and it was consistent with our history as a nation of laws in the nation of immigrants. when the time came to vote on that bill, the senate passed it with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. sixty-eight to 32. just put that to put that into perspective, only two places, it utah and washington dc, gave either candidate 58% of the vote. the reason this book got so many votes as it is a smart compromise and agree that policy. it creates a fair pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working in our community. a pathway that will require them to pass background checks and learn english and pay taxes and the bill will create a new path to citizenship for our culture workers to contribute and put food on the table. these are those that will play an integral role on the pasley

pathway these immigrants have to citizenship. immigrants that were brought as children, those who have lived in constant fear of deportation. but they will also represent the best chance at our country has had in decades and modernizing our legal immigration system it also creates a meaningful pathway for others we know that the fight immigration reform is never easy. we don't expect it to be easy this time. plenty of people predicted that we will never get this far and that we won't get any further according to some. there is no question in my mind or that the senate bill or something like it would pass if

the house got a chance to vote on it. when the bill left the senate, now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so that they can stop commonsense immigration reform. but i believe that the coalition calls for action that is too broad, two d., and too forceful to acknowledge. keep our sense of urgency in our sense of purpose they listen to the leaders from across the spectrum, law enforcement, civil rights movements in state and local government. all of who are calling for immigration reform. they will listen to leading voices in both parties. just the other day the architect of the obama presidential campaign and steve schmidt,

senior adviser to the 2008 john mccain campaign wrote a joint op-ed with a less than vague title. pass the immigration bill. let me leave you with this, we are engaging a clear majority of americans that support reforms and telling them that now is not the time to let up. it is the time to speak up and make sure that everyone, not just in the city, but around the country knows what is at stake. to make it clear to families from all backgrounds and all parts of the country why this matters to them. i came to this work because families like mine are still working hard for their piece of the american dream. we have done so much as a country to put that dream within reach. and we have come too far to quit now for immigrant families and communities all over the country who are dealing with our broken immigration system. i will not quit. i know that president obama will not click. with the hard work of an unprecedented broad coalition with voices from around the country, we can get this done. so i think you for your

contribution in shining the spotlight on what is going on for municipal governments and cities and towns around the country. and i look forward to this effort, informing our work, and getting this place where the president signs this bill into law. thank you all very much. [applause] >> thank you so much, cecilia, for being with us this morning. she's been working on immigration issues for most of her career, we are lucky to have someone as competent and compassionate as she is working in the white house. good morning and welcome, everyone. i am audrey singer, i am a senior fellow and i will be moderating the discussion today. we have three awesome panelist for it and we are going to talk today about what immunization and reform it means for metropolitan areas. i want to ask the panelists to

come up. while that is happening, i will say a few words and make an awkward move to the seat and get us to continue talking and then we will start the discussion. you just heard there are many reasons for immigration reform. many facets make up a comprehensive set of measures to make our immigration system work better and strengthen the u.s. economy. the immigration debate is very much alive in congress is a hot debate, many were just mentioned, border security, legalization, a worksite verification system, temporary worker programs for immigrants in different industries, and policies around the admission of legal permanent residents. we do not know yet what the outcome of the current effort will be. we don't know whether or not we will see a law that resembles the package that was passed in the senate about a month ago or whether congress will take a different approach, such as introducing a number of discrete

bills like those being discussed in the house presently. or orwell congress not be able to come to an agreement with the status quo and what are the consequences of that, the things that we will be discussing. we do know several things. u.s. immigration policy has not been overhauled in more than 20 years. in 1986, the immigration control act was primarily for the legalization of about 3 million undocumented immigrants in the united states. the 1990 immigration reform act followed four years later, increased overall immigration levels, establish a priority system of employment and family-based immigration, and also created well-known programs such as the h1b and visas. this is what is still in place today. but what is different is that the u.s. economy has changed,

creating new demands for workers in industries, some of which barely existed 20 years ago. while other industries have been managed. in addition, national economies have developed a broad and with changes to transportation and technology limitations, there is a global economy where the u.s. competes. on top of that, the u.s. now has twice as many immigrants, more than 40 million of them today, then we did in 1990. these are some of the sources of pressure for the united states and in immigration policy that is in keeping with the time and works better with our economy. i will make my awkward move over to the chair right now. [inaudible conversations]

>> okay, so we are discussing today about federal immigration reform while congress is debating the changes to the immigration system, cities and suburbs in states across the country are already in the business of incorporating immigrants and their children. we are going to help put this issue into perspective with our three guests, who i will introduce in a moment. over the last seven years, we understand that localities of where the effects of immigration exists. success upon immigration reforms are implemented at the local level ultimately. and someone sends most of america's immigrants live in metropolitan areas, the debate over immigration reform does as well. in some ways it does.

cities are very different from each other, and industrial structures and they have different housing markets, competitions of workers both native and foreign-born and the responses vary considerably and cities in the great lakes region to put out the welcome mat for immigrants. ..

in their cities. to my far left is fatima shama from new york city where is she is the president of american affairs. she brings a perspective of a proactive municipal government in a city with more immigrants than any other in the united states where two out of five residents is an immigrant. she recently put out a blueprint for emmett ration of creating a municipal integration agenda. she is is a true leader among city officials both in the united states and abroad. next to her it is jason mathis executive vice president of the salt lake chamber of commerce where he leads policy initiatives are immigration and urban development. he is also the executive director of salt lake city's downtown alliance. he is one of the creators of the utah compact a pragmatic statement of five principles that guides immigration discussion and we will hear more

about that this morning. salt lake city is a relative newcomer when it comes to receiving immigrants but the 125,000 immigrants that live in metropolitan area make up about 17% of the population very substantial and to my left is aida cardenas the executive director of building skills in los angeles a collaboration between the janitors union and employers that works with skills and opportunities in workers across california. she has worked with low wage workers and employers her entire career and brings a unique perspective that of understanding both sets of -- and help building skills of workers adds value to workers families and the communities that they live in metropolitan los angeles is the second-largest immigrant gateway and they are 40% of residents born outside of the united states. these three metropolitan areas and many others have been focused on making sure that the children of immigrants learning

english in schools that immigrant owned businesses thrive that health care systems have ways of communicating with immigrant communities and that workers have access to programs that help them build skills and that immigrants who are ready to naturalize get the help that they need. our guests today are some of the most innovative practices and programs across the country. so, as you have just heard there are lots of possible ways that immigration reform might unfold over the coming months with a comprehensive set of measures are separate bills and discrete issues like high-skilled immigration the d.r.e.a.m. act various enforcement measures and we just heard from the administration about what they would like to see happen with reform. so i want to start with fatima. which parts of immigration reform resonate with you? can you talk about some of the efforts in your organization that remind the goals of immigration reform? >> first good morning and thank

you audrey and think he did brookings institute. i have to say i think what we care most part is the reality that comprehensive immigration reform is a must and has to happen. mayor bloomberg is someone he cares a great deal about this conversation is invested a lot in this conversation started a national coalition that brings together business leaders and mayors really speaking to this. for us it's an economic argument. the reality that 40% of our city nearly 40% of foreign-born if we add the children 60% of new new yorkers are immigrants. half of our small businesses are immigrant owned and nearly half of our legal market are immigrants. these are individuals in our school system. they make our city, they make everything from main street to wall street prospers in our city and so for us ensuring that any member of individuals that come out of the shadows are truly a part of our economy is truly

important to recognize dreamers and these young individuals to graduate from our high schools to realize their full potential in our cities to become professionals in our cities to add to the tax -- is critically important to become the homeowners of tomorrow. so for us immigration reform is really critical. i think i would have to say that the mayor would prefer to see something that is not piecemeal. we talk a lot about the realities and we have got to fix this now and the senate bill provides a framework for us certainly in the city to be able to think about this. it challenges to think about the strategies in english language acquisition and other opportunities to get to prepare if you will a portfolio that allows them to apply. >> are there particular facets that are more important for new york city? >> well i mean -- see that you see in the senate bill?

>> in the high school space we in new york recognize that we are building what we hope to be competition for silicon valley but we have got a whole new incredible tech campus that is coming. we have got a number of institutions that are universities that are in new york so clearly the opportunity to any number of individuals who are in ph.d. programs become part of the infrastructure of our city and become the professionals that allow us to compete globally is critically important. with that said we believe in new york or you can't have if you will the doctor without actually having the janitor in the hospital. you need both to fundamentally make that work. so we need to recognize what it means to help these individuals come out of the shadows to be part of the wage and what i think is important to recognize the individuals who help care for children and maintain our streets and our buildings. very much a part of the fabric

of who helps us maintain the vibrancy of a city that is over 50 million tourists a year. the reality of having a diverse community be a part of our city without -- is really who we need to continue to be. >> jason do you want to jump in and talk about what resonates with you and what kinds of efforts a line in your place is? >> i will maybe mention salt lake city is not merely the size of new york city but a lot are essentially the same. it really boils down to seeing in simple terms if we want to be an inclusive place and a place that welcomes people who want to contribute to our community whether his high skills or hourly employees and i think that the current system now doesn't work for anyone. it's for people who are concerned about amnesty the current system does back amnesty

in a lot of ways so we went i think just agree with everything that you said, that the time is now to solve this problem. people from around the country not just big metropolitan areas but around the country need to come forward until members of the house of representatives that now is the time. there is a great sense of urgency to really claim all the things he talked about and all the great research partnerships and to document that. we stand in solidarity with everything that you said. see i imagine that in some ways immigration reform is something that we know is going to change life as we know it somewhat. if we are working with immigrants and serving immigrants in certain capacities but in some ways things are going to stay pretty much the same and i'm wondering aida people talk about that. do you anticipate or, what do you see in this next group?

>> one of the areas that we have already been working on regardless of what happens that is really critical to integrating and building success for immigrant families is language acquisition and education and education and in the cycle of poverty for children, for immigrant children and the language acquisition really helps with participation with engagement, confidence. we have been able to really focus and do vocational esl development and partnering with dozens of employers across california who are employing janitors who are cleaning our buildings in silicon valley and downtown los angeles and all over the state to keep our buildings safe and clean and are embracing and enforcing our green practices and diverting waste management. all these issues that are really important to our community are part of our community. one thing to understand and highlight is that immigration

reform is not about what's happening to the immigrants. it's a tool immigration process and this was happening to our community. if we create a path not just for legalization but for citizenship and incorporate workforce development those are the keys and those are the indicators that we see create successful communities and what we see create adaptable communities that can really adapt to the changes socially, financially and our community so i think it's important that we look at language acquisition regardless of -- i know one of the possible requirements in one of the requirements written on the table is language acquisition so that is something we are already working on. it is important to becoming integrated into our community. >> well, let me turn this question around a little bit. it's clear that a lot of local areas have been doing a lot of work with immigrant communities

and immigrants and their children in schools and neighborhoods and with businesses locally. in many parts of the country is gone really well. say in new york or los angeles this is a the way that these cities have built themselves have grown and survived economically. in other places there is conflict and there are struggles and so i want to -- jason sort of touched on this but can you talk a little bit about what action at the federal level would mean safer salt lake city or places that are welcoming and supporting immigrants at this point? >> sure. as cecelia indicated there were two places in the country during the last presidential election where there was a preponderance of those in one camp or another. washington d.c. was obviously close to 70% for obama and utah

was close to the other side of the spectrum. that shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. utah is a conservative state although there are pockets of moderate and progressive people in utah and i would say sometimes it's difficult to be a a -- and a conservative place like utah. but for our state really what it boils down to i think is thinking not just about the economic impact that immigrants have and i think it is clear that immigrants are a net positive for high-skilled in hourly employees. they helped to create more jobs for americans. they contribute to our communities. you know there is any number of why this matters but it really has to do with the kind of country we want to live and in the kind of community we want to live in. do we want to be a place where people are hiding in the shadows where people are making decisions based on fear or do we want to be a place that is welcoming and inclusive where we are looking to contributions from across the spectrum and

recognizing the diversity and the talents and perspectives and worldviews that immigrants bring to our community or something very positive and helpful. i think that and in thinking about the history in my state over the past few years where immigration has really been a target and so many people have talked about it a lot we went from making following an arizona style example a few years ago. i think we were moving in that direction and do the work of the business community, religious organizations and community leaders and citizens it's not the right approach for a community we were able to dramatically change that. utah has the privilege card for undocumented people. we have in-state tuition for undocumented people. we have a community that is truly quite welcoming and sometimes i think it doesn't have as much to do with being on the right or the left side of the political spectrum. really immigration up reform isn't about right or left politics. it's really about doing the

right thing and i'm proud of the things are state has done. my big push now i think as a community what we are hoping for is that our members of the house of representatives will find a way forward to really enact comprehensive immigration reform. that is something that is critical not just do our little economy or to the state but to the nation and moving forward in a way that really addresses our economy and creating again a place that we want to live that we are proud of. jason i know you worked on that utah compact and it might be worth talking about it briefly how that came about and maybe mentioning the principles. i know the entire, the entire piece was less than 300 words so maybe you could describe how that came about and what the goals are. sure. in 2010 the summer of 2010, it seemed inevitable that utah

would pass a law similar to arizona's. we have legislation that we drafted. we had a majority of our legislature moving forward on that path and it was really being driven to my mind by very small but very vocal group of people who felt this was a priority and wanted to move forward on this. but the people who really won my state, the people who care about the state where the talk university presidents are captains of industry, community leaders religious organizations were very uncomfortable with that but it seemed like this freight train that was barreling down the track and there didn't seem to be a lot of ways to divert that. every time some would withstand a pony had great profiles in courage. my boss the present of the chamber was opposed to this and the police chief of salt lake city said if you pass this i'm not going to enforce this. our republican attorney general said this is inappropriate and we are not going to be supportive of this. individual profiles occurred at people standing at the same

errors on this approach is not the right approach for our community but they got beat down and kind of smack down. we thought if we could have a group of people stand at the same time and articulate a simple value space solution to immigration that would be empowering enough to change the course of the conversation so over the course of several months we had probably 100 people working on this document called the utah compact. its 227 words in a highlights five principles that we felt were very critical to the immigration discussion. the first is that it's really a federal issue that immigration is not an issue between utah and the other countries. we wanted to focus on the economy recognizing the economy recognizing the role that emmett bands play as taxpayers and consumers, the very real and necessary role that immigrants play. it focused on law enforcement that we wanted law enforcement to actually pursue criminals and not at team to pursue federal

violations of a civil code. that's not the role for a police officer and in fact this aggressive approach really limits police officer's ability to become part of the community and to get to know what's going on. we care about families in utah and it's not just lip service. we don't want to create policies that unnecessarily separate children from marriage parents or that make children afraid or as was alluded to earlier fear of going to school for fear of what might happen. the society we live in that we live in a just and free society and we have a wide spectrum of people from across political religious community organizations, very prominent conservative think-tank in utah spoke up in favor of this. we had a science ceremony on a think it was the anniversary of the signing of the mayflower compact which was a similar document where people came together and created a values-based document that talks about how they were going to build their community. we had two former governors of

former u.s. senator of former congress member along with several other people who all signed this document and said these are the values we are going to use to make determinations about immigration in our community and it was a sea change. it really change the tone. it changed the discussion and helped our state to become a little bit more thoughtful and compassionate and civil in the conversation about immigration. now i think our hope is that the federal government will approach something similar to that and may use that as a template for their plans. fatima and aida you are from two of the biggest of the gateways whether we measured by city or metropolitan areas. and, you guys personally but your cities historically have really been instrumental both in terms of city government but

also non-profits and community organizations and faith-based organizations and those types in bringing an end receiving immigrants and providing the kinds of services that help them make it move up. so is there anything that you want to say about what federal inaction -- what it really change much on the ground for either of you? >> so, i mean i have to say that we in new york recognize that immigration is a federal issue but immigrants are a local issue. they are our responsibility. they are our human capital. they are very much for new york in particular. they are our past, they are our present and they are our future so federal inaction is a problem but we do all that we can as

innovatively as we can to make sure that what we create in new york is a place for individuals who choose new york as their home are welcomed, are able to enroll their children in schools without concern or fear. we do well to ensure that if someone wants to start a small business to be part of our community that there are methods and opportunities for them to engage. we care a lot about reintroducing government and making sure they understand that we are here to serve them and to provide services to them. our police department i think is a really great job working with our communities really understanding that they need to understand the needs of the communities. we have had graduating classes of our police department that represent individuals over 50 different countries. the languages language is spoken so there is a real fabric of who we are. the truth is that we have any number of young people who are

in our schools who have graduated from our high schools that have any number of dreams and they are unamerican in every way but in a document. so in action is a problem. as these young people absolutely want to be a part of their city. we want them to be a part of our city. they can be our teachers, they can be our doctors or they could be the next mayors of our cities and so there needs to be something they are. i would say we lose a tremendous amount of human capital and brilliance and individuals who come to new york and create patents and are graduate institutions and creating any number of wanting to be a part of what is the american dream in our cities so we lose that. then i put say that there are -- we recently did a financial services study of our immigrants

, three immigrant communities the mexican community in the ecuadorian community and the chinese community. all three of these communities whether they were -- overwhelmingly articulated to us that they were all interested in education and homeownership. every single one of them. they all have bank accounts at different points but every single one of them had absolute investment in re-creating their success by these very markers that make our city successful educational outcomes in homeownership and owning a business. and so inaction in texas but without it we will do all we can to help these communities thrive. >> i would just add that something we have been working on in los angeles is the council of immigrant integration and it's a group coming together of community-based organizations, the chamber of commerce, labor,

the sheriffs department, the mayor's office to come together and have these discussions, where are our principles in terms of immigrant integration and what are our principles around comprehensive immigration reform. it's also important to have comprehensive immigratiimmigrati on reform because it is bringing their workers out of the shadows and in los angeles 14% of undocumented workers are business owners so it's really bringing those economies to the surface and really doing integration work. i think in times the most conflict is where we most need to come together to figure out what our cities needs? it's going to different it might differ in l.a. than it would in silicon valley or salt lake city utah or new york. those are the conversations that leaders need to step up and have discussions and to be able to understand where is it that we have common ground?

if it's 100 words or 200 words or five in her words, start there and that alone can start to be that guy. for us to work that we started doing in terms of helping set the frame and building also collaboration to do services for education or information for not just the immigrants in our cities but also everybody in our city about immigrant integration. >> i think all all of you has made really important points and i just want to highlight the distinction that aida -- fatima made that immigration really is a federal concern but immigrants live in places. they are people that live in places and institutions that are in those places are affected by immigrants and immigration policy.

so i want to ask now, what kinds of services are you already providing that might be helpful or be extended or prepares you for the implementation of some kind of immigration reform, whether it's around legalization of some or all of the undocumented population, widespread e-verify system for employment verification of immigrants or temporary work visas that would bring different kinds of workers in and out of your cities? and what kinds of challenges do you see ahead in scaling up? anything that kind of contacts and we can start with you. >> something we have been doing in the last eight years or so is building skills partnership as i mentioned earlier is verification of esl program and we do this in partnership with employers. our curriculum is based on the

needs in terms of providing better customer service and changing the of the green economy and the work of a maintenance worker and the janitorial workforce and what is needed over the different language acquisition skills needed there so we have been working on this partnership. talk about ringing different points of view together. it is a labor-management partnerships of these are folks who are often on opposite sides of the table with competing and conflicting interests in terms of you know a bottom line who can sit on the site and say what are the things that our industry needs together, both as labor and management so together with the workers and with the union. the united servers -- service workers and 40 janitorial companies from small family companies to the largest

national and international janitorial companies to be able to sit down together and say what is the program needed to do workforce development that will be an added value to my company but it's also an added value to the quality of life of those workers who are being invested in. that alone ,-com,-com ma building that confidence in knowing that my employer and my industry is investing in me. we have also brought and client companies to contract with these companies so a lot of high-tech attack companies in the largest commercial real estate owners who are also at the table and are saying this is what i want to see my building. i have a janitor cleans my office who has been cleaning my office for the last 20 years. to my bottom line in a building in terms of being picked up that so being able to bring that together. but we also provide computer

literacy skills. we also provide citizenship classes and wellness and health education and we do a lot of the training and the partnerships are at work sites so you will have a building that has seven janitors in one building, 40 and another and 200 another depending on the site so workers are spread out everywhere. we work out of date work out of the union offices as training centers as their hub and we work with a variety of employers. so we are set up to fail to have that relationship to reach some of the hardest to reach folks. these are folks who are immigrants and they have language barriers but they are also working late at night while most of us are asleep. they are cleaning our offices and they are the hardest to reach. with the cuts that are happening particularly in california in

our areas with adult education and other programs, i mean these opportunities wouldn't exist for workers for these workers in these families if we were not reaching them and are able to reach over 2000 workers throughout the state every year who are part of our program. so i think that is where we are already set up in terms of if and when immigration reform happens, or just additional investment in the workforce what that means as these workers can move up to be higher-level service workers and it creates opportunities. these are unique jobs with living wages and some form of stability and access to health care. that's a really critical and important for the workforce coming out of the shadows. >> i guess i will add to that what kinds of services you are

providing that directly relate to the forum. what are you anticipating in terms of scaling up or investing in the core services that you are already doing? what is the impact looking ahead thinking of fatima on budget and the like? >> so i would say action for childhood arrival was a good test case for us and hopefully many other entities and parties around the country. in new york we estimated that we had approximately 80,000 young individuals who would be eligible and the city of new york made a very conscious decision that we would create a partnership with an art agencies interagency task force interagency task force at the will to figure out what documents would any child needs so that the child could -- we could put out a message if you need your school records or immunization records or you are part of an after-school program,

if you perhaps got married and needed a marriage license. we put a process in place and i will tell you all of my colleagues were wonderful champions of this. in fact several cities around the country said cam me borrow your model and we weren't happy to share it. we learned a lot from that experience which namely was we only sought in the state of new york we estimate 180,000, we can't get down to the city level because the data we get but about 26% of the eligible population has applied. so there's a whole reality for deferred action, essentially dreamers who would get temporary relief of deportation and work authorization, work authorization been a big one. we narrowed down the dataset to figure out what's going on? we realize there were a number of individuals in a pool that were disconnected terry they

might've dropped out of school. they might have been on the pathway to a ged but disconnected for some reason or another so perhaps they started an english-language class but had to disconnect. for us this was an area of concern. we have 16,000 people that fit into that category. again this is work authorization for these individuals bringing them out of the shadows. there is an economic argument for that. last week, wednesday i want to say, we were able to announce in new york city that $18 million was being invested specifically for the population of young people eligible for deferred action and never going to try our best to reach out to provide english-language classes and provide additional pathways for the enrollment in the ged program perhaps to get into a certificate program and legal services. the first time in any city across across the country a

concentrated amount of money being put into a focused audience like this. the truth is that we need about six times that amount of money to do what really needs to happen for not just the best audience that are undocumented population. english-language acquisition is going to be a really big one. i want to talk about the legalization process. legal services will be one of the greatest challenges we will witness what this reality. we in the city of new york aarp fortunate to have eight law schools, a tremendous number of law firms. we have got a nonprofit community network that has robust legal services that we have got quite a number of legal minds if you will in the state of new york. the reality is we need one attorney for every 10,000 new yorkers. what that will mean for legalization will be incredibly important.

any number of snow the reality of immigration fraud and the number of individuals who hang shingles freely to say i'm here for -- to help you. pay me x amount of money. we see this down with individuals putting out messages that we can help you you and we had to put a counter messages saying there is nothing out there. do not pay anyone a penny. we started a program a pilot two years ago with law students where we actually trained them in a curriculum too into high schools and talk to immigrant youth and high school's english-language learners in particular. it's a pipeline process we think we think we are embedding in law students a piece of information that we can hopefully engage them thinking about maybe coming in immigration attorney but hopefully when the process happens they might be lawyers. we can call him than to come back and go through some sort of additional training to become lawyers in this space.

it also gets in front of high school students talking about their rights and their responsibilities. undocumented youth get stopped by a police officer and they decide they want to mouth off. that could easily result in a young person being arrested and therefore questioning their good moral character. so for us it has been really a preventive strategy on the young person but a recruitment strategy. we also do a similar program around citizenship focusing on the pro bono attorneys engaging them in working with us to naturalize new yorkers. financial empowerment has been a big one for us. we really want any number for families to connect to banks and to start bank accounts. we have started a number of relationships with banks to recognize that i.d.s are a form of secondary i.d. to open a bank account.

the city of new york, it's a state issued idea so it's not something we work on. this is the state of new york. we also care a lot about english-language program so we created a tool that could be used by volunteers to work on conversational english skills including libraries and houses of worship. we are now going to be working with the largest volunteer service, new york cares to start training volunteers to help conversational english classes again in response to immigration reform. we have done a great amount of work on civic leadership really engaging individuals in our communities around, trained around leadership. they are our ambassadors so graduated over 200 of these students. we really think these folks will be our ambassadors when we need to get messages out there. ethnic press matters but so does

a local voice but to your point of the challenge how do we scale this up? we are trying trying out the weekend using human capital and neighbors using new yorkers to help us to this in a volunteer service space but money matters and we are going to have to be creative with money. we are going to really lean on our tax levy dollars but also demographic dollars and we will have to argue for money from the demographic space. >> well if new york needs more money than i don't know what other places are going to do but jason? >> i want to address one of the issues that you brought up that the panel a student mention which the e-verify. we haven't e-verify law but there is no penalty if you don't do it and for the past couple of legislative sessions there has been a push by some legislators to create a penalty so if you are found to have hired someone who is care without papers he you would lose your business license.

our organization so that's really inappropriate. that's not a fair solution and it doesn't really do anything to address the problem. one of the things that argues for a comprehensive solution is e-verify. what we have said is we are not opposed to an e-verify system that has some teeth but it has to be in national system where every state has the same system where our state is not disadvantaged. it has to also dove and this is really a critical point. it has to work with visa reform so employers can have the workers that they need. it has to come along with recognizing a legal status for people who are here existing currently. you can't just cherry-pick one aspect of immigration reform and say we worked us to e-verify. we are just going to do enforcement. we are going to do visa reform. any number of these things don't work in isolation and it's a complicated problem but the answer really has to be a simple one which is you've got to do everything at once.

none of these things will work on their own. they are all related so i wouldn't say it's not just the conference of reform that is important. conference or perform is essential in representing the business continued so we are tired of waiting. we have waited way too long or the time for reform is now only 10 make sure that our representatives understand that. my organization has taken out multiple full-page ads in the dailies in salt lake city encouraging that. we have had multiple press conferences for business leader saying this is important, not just important but essential. there a lot of things we can do to improve our economy. all kinds of different things we can do to improve the national economy. some of us take money. some of us take resources. immigration reform is something we can do that will require a little bit of money as we integrate people into the community but it's a decision we can make right now that will have enormous positive economic benefits for the entire country

and they're frankly is no excuse not to move forward on this. the time is right in the time is now to add comprehensive immigration reform. >> so, before we take audience questions and a few minutes i want to give each of you a minute starting on this and to say what is one or two things you are doing that you think other organizations could learn from, the way you were doing it or the federal government could? >> i think what's worked for us and for a longer. of time than we thought is collaboration and to collaborate with folks who may not be your more traditional partner. through collaboration it's surprising how much farther and faster we can get things done and being clear and setting principles and guidelines on the front end. i think that has helped us a lot

in terms of the work that we have done with an art and our organization to the point where it gets everyone to trust each other to work together. we understand that we can respect each other's point of view but we still have one mission. sometimes we have a different strategy of getting there but those we can work out and those we discuss and tryout and those strategies might change but our mission -- just in terms of being able to grow so fast and build our capacity, those are the elements that come to mind when you ask that. in terms of the work we are doing within the city and the council of immigration, i think it's the same thing of being patient with ourselves and really taking those smaller steps forward and really the cooperation and peace. >> i hope congress hears this. i think that really is an important issue.

>> i would build on that and talk about the issue of trust. it's really about trusting people. i really do think there is a wealth of goodness decency and compassion in this country that we have to rely on and we have to go back to i don't care what political persuasion you have or what your feelings are. americans are really good people. we need to go back to that and trust each other and trust ourselves to do the right thing. i think that aspect of trust is so critical to the collaboration but that is really something that if we were to build in our organization that sense of trust, that you can trust other people and ultimately it's about getting to the larger goal of what is going to be the best society for us to live in. trust is an integral part of that and without trust nothing gets done. with trust you can accomplish anything but trust is really critical. see i actually want to say what we have learned in new york is

that our city has absolutely realized its economic reality because we invest in our community. when you invest in the community they invest back in you. we have been able to work with -- who we are working with cities across the country to help them realize that they don't have to wait for immigration reform that they can do a tremendous number of things right now with their immigrant communities recognizing the aspects of their communities and recognizing what they do for every resident in their city and how they respond to the needs of the community. that can bring so much capital, so audrey mentioned this. we created essentially a toolkit , a blueprint for immigrant integration. the one thing that i think is -- when city start to engage we will be able to collectively say this is what we have been able

to benefit, these are the benefits are cities have realized and the federal government as a collective we can say to them or to do it, you cannot ignore the reality in our localities. we have a responsibility and we have been able to do this for our communities. economically we have thrive so i would love to see a way to pipeline money to help support some of the integration that has happened in cities. that is where opportunities matter and the money will go to the states. i don't know in many ways how it's going to pipeline into admissibilities into suburbs where many communities are living and are staking their claim as their home. for me now we have moved into what we have learned in new york and we have been interested in new york like other parts of this country because i agree that time is now.

.. >> on migration -- [inaudible] high-level dialogue -- [inaudible] similar to the ones that we are having here. so i will touch base with you later. but i have two comments and a question. now, we were talking about the communities -- [inaudible] and you were talking about how i did a survey also immigrants in different parts, and they were

doing the same investing in -- [inaudible] and investing in some firms and having some say. the only problem is that the banks that they approach more are the community local banks. they don't go to the other banks. now, there have been new legislation by the united states and also now in u.k. where the community development banks even the ones that were working to migrants closed the accounts of the money transfer companies, especially for the somalians, so malleys. so now they have stopped them -- [inaudible] money laundering and counterfeiting problems, terrorists have been an issue. i would like to see your views on that and how community development banks are dealing with this approach. that's one. second one, in terms of the diaspora, for example, peru and other countries the diaspora help them to provide community

service so they have groups here or in the uae also where they provide these legal services, so maybe you can approach some of that diaspora, the somalis, difference in new york -- >> okay, hold on to that thought. we're going to take another question right there. with the redskins. [laughter] redskins fan. >> so my friend is harrisson mccabe, i'm with the dhs, and you guys have been talking about your cities seem pretty stable economically, and i see how immigration reform would benefit your cities, but when we talk about a city like detroit that just tried to file for bankruptcy, how is this going to get us, give them a spark so they can become the city that they once, that it once was? >> okay. and we'll take one more question for you right there in the back.

hey, it's good to see you. >> hi. my question was for ms. shama, and i was interested in what she said about interagency cooperation in new york. and it seems there would be challenges in upscaling that to a federal level, so i was interested what she thought the challenges had been in new york and how such cooperation could translate on the federal level. >> okay. so we've got banking stuff from sonya, we've got the detroit question and upscaling question. i guess we should start with you, fatima. but everybody else can talk. >> yeah, yeah. so on the community development financial institutions, so in new york i would say that our local credit union community has been incredibly, incredibly responsive. i have to also admit that many of our big banks have too. and it's really based on the local sort of at the branch level. and so in some hands, in some

ways it's a lot of hand holding, but we have a robust financial empowerment network that works with the community development financial institutions as well as local branches. there are challenges when you sort of look up the line. i will say that what we also learned in this study was that individuals feel much more comfortable doing remittances through the traditional way and not through financial institutions. they prefer to go the route of western union versus allow that money. but i think it's a learning process. i think we've learned a lot in that initial space. the second question around diaspora, so the truth is that in new york we celebrate where people are from and where they are today, so everyone in new york is comfortably identifying themselves as a hyphenated american. we have any number of different, you know, bar associations that are ethnically affiliated whether it's the dominican bar association, the latino bar association or the muslim, you know, bar association or the asian-american or south asian, i mean, it can go on. so when the time is right, we

will activate all of them to be critically important to us. so, but thank you. i want to just answer the question on interagency which is i think leadership matters, right? and so when the mayor makes a statement like my expectation is that you're all going to do this and i quickly follow up and say i'm following up on the mayor's mandate on this, you know, we've been chargeed to lead this, very few of my colleagues will push back because it is an articulated decision from the mayor, and i have to tell you that i think you said this, but there are lots of good people, lots and lots and lots of good people not just in the city of new york who work if government, but across this country. and i think the reality is this is the time for us to come forward, and this is the time for us to think how do we work together. i will say that in absence of having a, you know, a point person in federal, the federal government whose job it is to

coordinate all this stuff, i think you might have a challenge of who has ownership over that role. in the city of new york, we have, you know, a perp whose job it is -- a person whose job it is to think about, literally the definition of my job is insuring the well being of immigrant new yorkers and their integration. so we're able to work that way. are there challenges? absolutely. have we overcome them? yes. and there's always a chance to overcome them. so i'll give someone a chance to talk about detroit. >> do you have any -- >> i'll mention detroit, and i don't know a ton about detroit's economy other than what you might read in the national press, and i would say that comprehensive immigration reform isn't the only thing that is going to help detroit come back to be the great city that it was, but it's one of the things that will help to make that happen. anytime you've got a group of people living in the shadows afraid to access law enforcement who may be not able to not pay taxes, who are not contributing, who may be not getting the education they need, not having english as a first, you know, to learn english, that's a problem. that creates a sort of subset of

people living in the shadows, and that will drag down any community to have these two different groups of people. so that's just -- immigration reform, comprehensive national immigration reform isn't the only thing that will help detroit, but it is one of the things that will help detroit and every city no matter where your local economy is, this is something that will help. >> let me just add on to the detroit thing. so detroit has a lot of immigrants and has -- metropolitan detroit, i should say, i mean -- yeah, metropolitan. most are living outside the city, but there are a fair amount in the city has a long history of immigration. it was one of the big gateways in the early part of the 20th century, so the legacy and the culture of immigration there although the groups have changed over time is strong. and the immigrants that are there are strongly participating in the economy at all different levels. in fact, it tilts towards the higher end of the scale because

immigrants have been there longer and have found ways to stay in those kinds of occupations and industries. there's also an initiative called global detroit, and it's affiliated with global michigan. its main mission is to attract and retain and support immigrants and has a number of different strategies within that, and it's something that's become an important part of initiatives all throughout the great lakes to develop these kinds of programs because of the energy and the investment that immigrants bring to these places. >> i just want to add that there's this really in-depth study that the center for city of immigrant integration has done out of usc that really did this real detailed work around these indicators in the scorecards of immigrant integration, and it uses indicators, civic participation,

so the directory into becoming citizens and the nationalization process, the economic status of the immigrants, the trajectory of tear economic status -- their economic status and how welcoming the community was to immigrants. and the higher the score of communities, the better they could adapt to the changes that needed to happen. so a lot of times in our cities our economies change, so for whole communities to adapt and change because of the economy or the situation that cities who had higher scores for being able to integrate immigrants into their communities were more successful in making these changes, and that doesn't mean that just that alone, i think that just shows the type of environment overall that it was probably more collaborative, there was more trust, there was more investment overall. so, but i think those are very important indicators, and that study has shown being able to adapt and change.

and in that place i think earlier talking about, you know, it's not just about the federal law and the reform, it's what are we doing with it, how are we doing the integration, how are we doing work force development and how are we making sure there's a path to citizenship. because even as citizens, naturalized citizens are actually more likely to buy a home than the native-born americans. so that is a huge indicator again of what that can mean to the economy and the stabilizing x. so it is investing in those, in workers and and not just immigrant workers and all workers and really integrating it into all of our work force be strategies. >> we have time for a few questions, two more questions. one here, and i guess we should go way to the back next. >> hi, i'm joe, retired, formerly an economist that worked on urban policy.

i wanted to raise a question and focus on new immigration into this country given the fact that we have a declining labor force related to the total population and also i think it seems to we, and i wonder if brookings has done any studies to show that those cities and metropolitan areas which have the highest rates and growth of immigration have had the highest rates of economic growth. because in addition to immigrants adding to the supply of labor, they also get involved in demand. they're buying houses and furniture and services. so i think you can show that, and i wondered if brookings has done anything in that line. and then the question of cities like detroit f that's the case, shouldn't we be trying to get incentives for new immigrations to move into the cities like detroit which have suffered a population growth, and what kind of policies can we adopt at the federal and even local level to stimulate more immigration into those places that are losing population? >> okay. and then we'll take the one in

the back. >> hi. my name is -- [inaudible] i'm a medical student with the american medical association. my question is twofold. first, in this changing health care environment where we are trying to focus more on moving individuals who live in the united states towards more primary care-based health system what is the future of health care for individuals that fall under the population of immigrant status? because the assumption or the kind of general understanding is that a lot of times these individuals tend to be consumers of the emergency room system which is what we're trying as a nation to move away from. so what's the future of health care for immigration populations in the united states? and the second part of my question is as a population in general, what is the health

issue that is of the greatest importance or most relevant to the population in general? thanks. >> thank you. okay. we don't have too much time. i'll start with joe's questions. yes with, the demography of the united states is such that we're looking at an aging population over the next couple of decades. we're going to become very old. we need younger people coming in to take over to build our labor force and to build it well for this globalized economy. so immigration seems to be one of the main focus that -- it should be the main focus that we have for strengthening and maintaining and growing our labor force so that we can support ourselves going forward. on the impact of immigration and immigrant growth and economic growth, we have a number of studies that touch on that including one looking at the

geography of immigrant skills across metropolitan areas and a firm of other things -- a number of other things. other organizations have done very specific metropolitan work. i'm thinking here of the new york fiscal policy institute that looked at immigration and economic effects across 30 metropolitan areas. but i'm going to turn the rest over to my fellow panelists here. if you want to talk about health care, labor force. >> oh, go ahead. >> i actually just want to pick up on the point of incentives and what that could mean for detroit. we in new york have seen very directly in areas that have had some blight the incentivizing of putting, connecting real, you know, sort of landlords to immigrant entrepreneurs and sort of figuring out some sort of, you know, two months of their rent waived so that they can open up a business.

the absolute reality is this change in neighborhood and the economic outcome of that neighborhood becoming, quite honestly, a corridor. i will say that i was in minneapolis last week, and minneapolis tells a very similar story with the mexican community in minneapolis and the african community, the somali community in particular very much aligned around neighborhoods that experienced a lot of blight, high crime, sort of gang infested. the city negotiated the ability to give them a building, give the economic development corporation a building. they transform toed it into a central market -- transformed it into a market, just brilliant work. so there really is an opportunity, i think, for detroit to think about that. on the question of health care, i think the reality of what is going to be the realization for immigrants is quite real. i think the space large arely becomes for individuals who are d largely becomes for individuals who are legal permanent residents and undocumented.

in a place like new york, we have a very large public hospital system that is fantastic, but they already work tirelessly to make sure that we meet, make ends meet. they're going to be doing that and so much more because many of our communities do use the health care system in a way where we do need to regulate primary care as a not the emergency room, but primary care. we are actually changing a number of our health care facilities to become federally qualified health care centers which we think will change the practice. but there's a real gap there that i think is not being discussed, so thanks for raising that. and just what is the greatest health care challenge, i will say and my mayor has a very large voice on this and cares a lot about this reality, but obesity is a huge issue in america. and it will continue to be. lack of movement, greater engagement in poor eating habits. many people know us to care a hot about the size of the soda

you drink. [laughter] but the truth is that, you know, sugars and lack of movement and poor eating habits are resulting in tremendous realities of obesity that lead to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and so on. >> all right. we're officially out of time, but i'd like you both to just, if you have something to wrap up -- >> i would just point out that i think these questions are actually related in some ways that typically immigrants are often younger, healthier and less fat than many americans. [laughter] and so, you know, there is a preponderance of people not to have a primary care physician, not to know where to go for health care until it becomes an emergency. a lot of that is really education and making sure people understand there's an inexpensive, better way to get health care and get rid of problems like diabetes or heart disease or something like that. that's not unique to the immigrant politician. that's something all americans could benefit from, but probably there's some additional education that might go into making sure immigrant populations understand that.

>> just one thing i would add to is that the santa clara county had the highest scorecard for immigrant integration in all of california, and it's due to silicon valley. and we had a lot of, we've had a lot of recent immigrants, we also have, you know, investment and higher-skilled immigrants. but with that comes all the service workers behind who are also immigrants. and we actually have this program as the high-tech biotech companies out there where we do the vocational esl for the janitors, and we actually have a tutoring system set up with employees. so often you have maybe a higher-skilled immigrant who's tutoring and working with the janitor, and their immigrant experience is just so different. and the reality is just so different. but being able to work together and teach each other about their experiences and also addressing, you know, language skills and

practicing but at the same time becoming part of this community, you know, we have this at sites like, you know, google and cisco and stanford and uc berkeley. and so you have folks really coming together and learning about each other and, again, integrating into the workplace and becoming part of these, you know, exciting, you know, silicon valley high-tech, you know, googlers, right? so they get to be a part of that community, and they're coming out of those shadows. and that's a great example. they have the highest scorecard of, you know, immigrant integration, and they, you know, they have a lot of recent immigrants. it's just quite diverse. >> thank you. i want to thank our three terrific panelists for a great discussion. they left us with these three important concepts, and this was totally unplanned which i think is a great thing. they didn't talk to each other, i didn't talk to them about it;

collaboration, trust, investment. these are the things that are important when we think about immigrants and immigration policy going forward. so thank you all for being with us, and -- [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> our live coverage here on c-span2 comets at 12:15 when the alliance for health reform looks at plans to lower federal medicare spending. speakers include health care experts from the kaiser family foundation and the bipartisan policy center. then at 5 eastern we'll be live again, this time with former president jimmy carter. he joins a discussion on israeli/palestinian peace talks. secretary of state john kerry

said last week that both sides of the issue are meeting soon to set parameters for renewing negotiations. vice president biden begins a six-day trip to east asia today to focus on trade and regional security ties. he arrived today and is making a ceremonial visit to a museum dedicated to gandhi. this is vice president biden's first trip to india as vice president. he visited new delhi in 2008 as a senator. tomorrow the vice president and indian officials will focus on ways to expand bilateral trades. the bidens will then head to mumbai where the vice president will meet business leaders before heading for singapore on thursday. >> we think of aereo as a really new way of thinking about how people are going to consume television in the future. it's an online platform which is direct to consumers, and people

can get access today to live broadcast television along with a dvr on any device without a cable connection, just using the internet. the key element, the foundational piece of the aereo technology that's a microantenna. and think about it as how you used to have over-the-air antennas in the past, they were large. we miniaturized them. i think there is a desire to support be innovation. i think there is a desire to create competition. i think there is a desire to have choice. >> streaming broadcast television signals to any web-enabled device, tonight on "the communicators" at 8 eastern on c-span2. jackie was raised as her mother was raised, she was the same kind of wife and hostess. the home, the children, the entertaining with style and panache, that was her heritage,

and she did it again in the white house. right after her administrationing during the johnson years, the whole world erupted like volcanos. we had the women who went to work and got divorces and demanded equal rights. we had flower children, and we had free love and free sex. boy, oh, boy, was it great for the young. i missed all that. [laughter] but the whole world changes, and it became a whole new concept of women. and i think mrs. clinton today represents the new woman. >> as we continue our conversation on first ladies, letitia baldrige, reporters and others closest to recent presidential wives talk about the role of the first lady and how it's changed along with the nation. tonight at 9 eastern on c-span. in about an hour, the u.s. house gavels in. they'll begin the day with general speeches.

legislative work starts at 4:30 eastern with debate on six noncontroversial bills. later this week in the house, defense spending and environmental regulations. you can see the house on c-span. the senate meets tomorrow at 10 eastern, and they begin work on transportation, housing and community development spending for the next budget year. you can see the senate live here on c-span2. for a deeper look at what's happening in this congress, we talked this morning to the managing editor of "the hill." >> host: and with just two weeks to go before congress adjourns for its annual august recess, it's a busy time on capitol hill. joining us now to help guide us through the issues is bob cusack, managing editor of "the hill" newspaper. mr. cusack, thanks for joining us. let's start with the must do. what are the legislative priorities that the house and senate want to get done over the next two weeks, if you want to start with the house. >> guest: well, the house this week is going to be working on a defense appropriations bill.

that is interesting because there could be a number of amendments that could complicate the passage of it whether it's on nsa or egypt aid or on syria. the house rules committee meeting tonight to discuss what amendments will be allowed. so that will be a spirited debate, especially we don't know what the rules committee is going to allow as far as amendments. on the other side of the capitol, the senate's working on a transportation appropriations bill. this is actually fascinating because in committee six republicans voted for spending levels that went beyond president obama's budget. and beyond, of course, what the house republicans have proposed. so republicans a little split on that transportation bill. the big thing that everyone is watching, of course, is immigration. what will the house be doing on immigration. the senate has passed a bipartisan bill. a lot of pressure on the house. looks like the house is going to be passing narrow immigration measures and then go into conference, but we don't have word when that will be, and it's

not going to be this week. some members think some of these bills which have been approved by the judiciary committee will all be voted on the same day but not lumped together in the one big bill -- >> host: plan to break them -- >> guest: break them up and then go into conference, and that's when the real negotiating starts. >> host: speaker john boehner was on cbs' "face the nation" talking about the senate immigration bill, want to play you a bit of that now. >> would you allow a bill on the floor that provides a path to citizenship? >> bob, what we're going to do -- >> 11 million people. >> what we're going to do in the house is we're dealing with this in a common sense, step-by-step approach. we want to deal with this in chunks that the members can deal with and grapple with and, frankly, chunks that the american people can get their arms around. >> host: and bob cusack with "the hill" newspaper, you say we don't know the specific timing of when we're going to see these chunks. >> guest: yeah. i think it'll be next week.

the house republicans, they say they're not going to vote on the senate bill, and that is not going to be happening anytime soon if it ever happens. but they do feel some pressure to move something -- >> host: and does that pressure come from what the vote score was on the senate side with their bill, that there was a good number of republicans that got behind this -- >> guest: yeah. they feel that now the ball is in their court. it's interesting what speaker john boehner said to bob schieffer of cbs that, you know, he's not going to propose or endorse any type of bill. he has been critical of the senate measure, but he did also back the farm bill before it went to the house floor. but this is a tough, tough challenge for speaker boehner. a lot of his members don't want to pass anything like a pathway to citizenship that was in the senate bill. but as a party the gop feels like they must pass some type of immigration reform bill. and be a lot of people on capitol hill think if immigration is going to get to president obama's desk, it's got

to happen in 2013. so this fall is going to be very busy. and, remember, in the fall we're going to be dealing with a possible government shutdown, the debt limit showdown, so other things are going to be grappling for attention on capitol hill. >> host: to stay on immigration for just a second, schieffer pushed the speaker several times in that interview to try to say whether he would support be specifically the path to citizenship, and the speaker didn't want to say his personal opinion. talk about the dynamics that speaker boehner is dealing with and be why he wouldn't want to give away his personal opinion. >> guest: well, he's got a lot of conservatives who are worried about primary challenges who don't, frankly, have a lot of hispanics in their districts and don't trust the obama administration to enforce be border security -- enforce border security provisions that are in the senate bill. they think it's worthless because the obama administration on various things has deviated from what congress dictated including recently on the health care law where congress did not authorize the one-year delay of

the employer mandate, but the administration went ahead. republicans say that this administration has skirted congress. so boehner's in a tough position. now, the one other thing to watch on immigration is that majority leader eric cantor and judiciary committee chairman bob goodlatte are crafting legislation that would be the republican version of the dream act. republicans say it's not going to be the dream act, but it's going to be, you know, the children of illegals who come here dealing with them. we don't have that language on that now. i don't think that's going to be passing or even being introduced over the next week, but that could come into play when the house and senate go into conference. >> host: you talked about spending bills earlier on must-dos and what's coming up in the next two weeks. talk about how the spending process is working this year in the face of possibly more sequestration cuts to come. >> guest: yes. the senate budget committee this week is holding a hearing on

sequestration. it's something that's really evaporated from the headlines and certainly democrats are trying to put the emphasis back on sequestration. as far as the budget process, there's not a lot of optimism on capitol hill because what the house budget passed, the house passed and the senate passed as far as allocations for appropriations bills are vastly different. so today couldn't agree even to get into conference between the house and senate spending levels, so that's why some people are saying that there could be some type of government shutdown. but there is very little hope that appropriation measures are -- at least a lot of them, are going to be signed into law anytime soon before the fiscal year ends september 30th. >> host: you talk about the vast differences between some of the bills that are moving on capitol hill. here's a story from "the hill" newspaper talking about the transportation housing and urban development bill that's moving forward, it's called the thud

bill. the difference between the house and senate versions is about $10 billion. the senate will consider a $54 billion bill, and the house is weighing a $44 billion bill which is a cut of $7 billion from last year. are these, the differences between these bills, is this particularly -- is this unusual this time around of how far apart they are? >> guest: i mean, yes and no. i think they're more far apart than they've been in previous years, but with republicans controlling the house in recent years as well as democrats controlling the senate, we've seen these vast differences. and some of those spending comes across community development blocks that grants that are in the senate bill, also high-speed rail. there's no money on the house side for high-speed rail. senate democrats have embraced that. now, senate democrats may seek when they debate the transportation bill on the floor, i'm sure there's no doubt that they're going to be noting that six republicans in committee voted for it.

so that could split the senate republicans from the house republicans on this. but whether that gets a deal, i think that's unlikely at this point. >> host: and just want to read a little bit more from that "hill" story on maybe why the thud, the transportation housing and urban development bill is moving forward first here. the story notes that the senate budget committee chairwoman, patty murray, who served as the subcommittee chairwoman overseeing that bill said the bill was chosen because it will illustrate the impact of sequestration across the country on infrastructure and economic growth. are we going to see a return to sort of the impact of sequestration messages coming out of senate democrats and from the white house? >> guest: yeah, i think to some degree. but a lot of democrats -- well, certainly republicans and some democrats believe that the white house at first overplayed its hand on sequestration, and republicans mocked the white house for saying, you know, the sky would fall once sequestration went into effect.

the economy is getting better and, of course, the if sequestration weren't in effect, the economy would be humming along better, and we're still not there yet. democrats are trying to make sequestration about the economy. they think over the long term this is going to have real affect on middle class families. but republicans say they don't like sequestration, especially the defense cuts, but at the same time they want cuts one way or the other, and that's why they've gone into effect. >> host: here's an editorial in today's baltimore sun written by senator ben cardin, a maryland democrat. the headline is sequestration hurts. despite claim toss the contrary, meat cleaver budget cutting is hurting marylanders. i want to read you just a little of that. ben cardin says: recently, some in the media have expressed that the cuts aren't causing drastic effects. a washington post report found the cuts less scary than predicted.

tell that to the 46,000 department of defense employees in maryland and another 103,000 in the capital region who are being furloughed resulting in up to 20% reduction in weekly pay through the rest of the fiscal year. >> host: are we going to see, be seeing more of these types of editorials coming out from democratic members? >> guest: i think so. and you've seen more stories or at least some stories at the local level. i was talking to a member last week very concerned about suicides in the military and saying there have been cuts to the mental health services to help prevent suicides in the military. but whether it moves congress to

actually get some type of deal, that's not going to happen before the august recess. however, maybe sequestration to some degree is altered, revamped during the debt limit discussions later this fall. >> host: we're talking with bob cusack, managing you editor of e hill" newspaper here on capitol hill. if you have comments or questions for him about the two weeks ahead before the august recess and what's on congress' agenda, give us a ring. lines are open, democrats call 202-585-3880. republicans 202-585-3881. independents, 202-585-3883. and if -- 3882. and the you're outside the u.s., it's 202-585-3883. we've got a call from derek this morning from seattle, washington, on our democratic line. good morning, derek. >> caller: thank you. i would like to, you know, get

your guest to just take a look at what i'm going to say. i'm going to write it down right quick. you know, the clinton presidency and obama presidency, if you really look at them, what they're trying to do, they're trying to do the exact same thing. clinton got a tax increase, that's all he got. but then look at all the bad policies that we put in place, doma, nafta, wto, glass-steagall. the same thing with obama. he got a tax increase. and now what they are trying to do, put in all these bad policies, bad abortion policies, trying to destroy the government. they took bill clinton into impeachment. if the democrats do not realize this, they are going to lose in the midterms, because black people are not going to come out and represent them. we are not just going to automatically go out and vote for hillary because hillary is not progressive. we are not going to support hillary clinton because she might bring back the triangulation of bill clinton which devastated -- i thought the welfare reform he cut.

>> host: bill, let's give bob cusack a chance to bring in here. the caller brings up the midterm elections coming up and how some of the policy issues that president obama is pushing right now might affect that. what are you seeing in your stories in "the hill" on this? >> guest: one of the things we wrote on the weekend is at the beginning of this cycle after the election that obama won convincingly over mitt romney, that he was eyeing winning back the house, and he wanted to aim for that. now, that is a real uphill climb right now, and now there's more talk about how democrats could lose the senate. >> host: a story from "the hill" as you talk this over, mood turns somber for democrats in 2014 contest for senate control. i'll let you walk us through it. >> guest: yeah. recently the big with news is, of course, brian schweitzer not running in montana, democrats had really hoped he could aim to succeed retiring senate finance committee chairman max paw cuts. he opted not to run and

congressman steve dangerous is likely to run -- danes is likely to run on the republican side. so thinking that republicans have a sight edge. the math favors republicans in this cycle, it does not favor them in 2016. but democrats are defending a rot more seats than republicans in the senate. as far as the house, democrats need to pick up a substantial amount of seats, i believe it's 17, and right now there are a lot of democrats who have to worry about their seats as well as republicans. but few think the democrats can win back the house in 2014, but it's a long way away. obamacare, let's see the implementation of that. if that goes very smoothly, democrats are going to do well. if it doesn't, then republicans will do well. and the other issue, of course, is going to be the economy. and both parties want to get out their base in the midterm elections. >> host: we've seen in recent midterms the sort of wave elections, big wins for one side or the other. what is the prediction of this upcoming midterm right now?

is this going to be a wave or more closer on the margins? >> guest: i think it's a little bit too early to say. history has not been kind, they call it the six-year itch, where if presidents have been in their second term, their second midterm election. now, remember in 2010 as you mentioned president obama, he had a tough midterm election 2010, call it a shellacking where republicans took back the house, and they cut into the democratic majority. here very important for senate republicans, this is probably their last shot to win back the senate for a while because, as i mentioned, the math in 2016 is not going to be good, republicans defending a lot of seats. so can republicans win back the senate? yes. they need to pick up a net of six seats. that's going to be challenging. but at the same time i think it's a little too early, but be right now because of history most people think that republicans will pick be up seats. >> host: we're talking with bob cusack of "the hill" newspaper.

he's well read on all the political and policy issues that are going on on capitol hill right now. i'll take you to a policy issue. how important is energy, carbon credits and coal policy, asks sea of tranquility on twitter. will congress pass a bill to limit the executive power in these areas? >> guest: well, i think the house certainly will try, and there are two energy bills on the house floor this week that deal with the economy. republicans say they want to cut back on energy regulations so that that would help the economy. one is by congressman bill cassidy who is running against senator landrieu for a seat in the upper chamber, and then the other one is offered by congressman david mckinley, and that deals with actually specifically coal ash, the epa has made coal ash, labeled it a hazardous material. and this is actually a bipartisan bill that will be hitting the house floor. i think as you see gas prices rise and, you know, sometimes they do in the summer, you

always see on capitol hill more talk of energy. and it's no surprise that in the heat of the summer that house republicans have scheduled a couple energy bills to hit the floor this week. >> host: in the his big speech on global warming issues, environmental issues, president obama talked about doing things through the executive branch and not through congress to lower carbon emissions. is anything happening on capitol hill right now, have members tried to move some of these issues to cut carbon emissions? >> guest: well, president obama failed in this trying to get climate change legislation through the house and senate when democrats controlled both chambers. it passed the house, nancy pelosi said it was a top prior my for her. she was able to muscle a bill through the lower chamber, it stalled in the senate. so president obama is going through using his administration powers to address climate change, and there'll be a series of rule makings that they will

issue. now, congress can overturn these rules through the congressional review act, but they have to be final rules. and true the congressional review -- through the congressional review act you actually don't need 60 votes. >> host: and the big rule that's being talked about is carbon pollution from power plants, new and old ones. >> guest: yes, yes. and so there is question of when that rule is final, somebody would move think the house a congressional review act challenge of it, and then the question is would the senate pass it? of course, president obama can veto it even if it gets 51 or 52 votes, but i'm sure the administration doesn't want to be in that position. there are democrats nervous about what the administration is doing specifically on climate change, but the administration has made it clear they're going to address it through rulemaking. >> host: bob cusack is the managing editor of "the hill" newspaper. we're taking your calls, questions on congress' agenda heading into the august recess. bruce is up next, an independent

from baltimore, maryland. bruce, good morning. >> caller: good morning, how you doing? >> host: good. you're on with bob cusack. >> caller: i'm registered independent. i've always, i used to wear that badge upon my chest with honor being a liberal. but i've drifted much more conservative, and one of the things is immigration. i have nothing against people that are legal immigrants, but i'm totally against any type of comprehensive immigration reform because of personal experience. i've had a number of illegal immigrants that have moved into my neighborhood that have made no attempt to simulate and showed no respect for the neighborhood. [inaudible conversations] >> host: if the immigration bill is being broken up into pieces, are there pieces of this bill that you do agree with? did we lose you, bruce? >> caller: i'm here. i'm so frustrated with --

there's a house where illegal immigrants are coming from texas, south carolina, north carolina, the same houses that took code violations that took me a year to finally get an inspector out there. they don't care about the law. >> host: what do you want to see from congress? >> caller: i vote, i'm conservative, now i'll vote republican. the conservative republicans got to stand up for themself. stop pandering for votes. >> host: bruce from baltimore, maryland. we'll go to kenneth from mariana, arizona, on our democratic line. good morning, kenneth, you're on with bob cusack. >> caller: yes. i'm from mariana, arkansas, not arizona -- >> host: oh, sorry about that. >> guest: yes. what i would like congress to look into is these stand your ground laws. in 1947 jackie robinson got ran out of sanford, florida. he had death threats against him.

the white citizens down there got together, and the mayor caved in, and they had to move the whole ball team out of sanford, florida, to daytona beach, florida, to complete their training. there is something wrong down there with that jury that was picked down there. but congress needs to look into these laws, especially stand your ground and how these juries are formed. because these citizens that ran jackie robinson out of sanford, florida, those are the jurors that were sitting on that jury. a lot of people need to look at this. eric holder's getting ready to do an investigation down there. he needs to look and see the relationship of what's going on, how these juries are pass picked. but congress needs to get involved. >> host: bob cusack, talk about these stand your ground laws that were brought up because of the trayvon martin case. >> guest: yeah. that's another issue that's certainly going to be talked about, especially after president obama's extraordinary press conference on friday which was totally unexpected and his

reaction to the verdict which was nearly a week after the verdict came in. so democratics are definitely echoing that call, that caller saying we need to have hearings to take a look at these state laws. republicans, for the most part, saying it's an issue of state power and if states want to pass their own laws, then they're free to do that. but certainly you're going to see a lot of reaction to what the president said on friday because congress was out when he had that press conference. >> host: a story from "roll call" newspaper on the hill citing trayvon martin, durbin plans hearings on stand your ground laws, on friday announced he would hold a hearing on stand your ground laws like the one that's generated so much controversy in florida following the shooting death of trayvon martin. on the issue of trayvon martin, congresswoman marsha fudge, a democrat from ohio, was on nbc's "meet the press." she's the head of the congressional black caucus, and she talked about the trayvon martin case and some of the

larger issues that she sees at play. want to play you a little bit of that now. >> you look at what has happened in 2013. we've got, obviously, the trayvon martin that everybody's talking about. this is happening to black boys across this country every day. >> uh-huh. >> you look at the fact that that we have a supreme court that just voted -- gutted the voting rights act and trying to do the same thing with affirmative action. you look at the house of representatives who just last week took food stamps out of the farm bill. you look at this past week where they have decided to block grant title i. we are being attacked from so many sides. you have to at some point decide where you can have the most impact. >> host: and bob cusack of "the hill" newspaper, of the different issues that marsha fudge brought up there, are any of those coming up in the next two weeks having to do with the supreme court voting rights decision, the exclusion of food stamps in the house farm bill? >> guest: well, yes. definitely the voting rights act. there was a big hearing last

week on the senate side where congressman john lewis, a democrat from georgia, civil rights activist, of course, and jim sensenbrenner, republican from wisconsin both agreed that congress does need to address the voting rights act after the supreme court decision. of house republican leaders have not indicated what they're going to do on that just yet. but at the same time, there is some bipartisan calls for that. and as far as the farm bill be, debbie stabenow who heads the ag committee in the senate, she's ready to finish the farm bill because the house passed a farm bill after some difficulty, and the senate has passed a farm bill. but the food stamps, as congresswoman fudge mentioned, was not included in the house side. so house republicans indicating they may pass a separate food stamp legs and will -- legislation and will not go into conference until that is done. so the farm bill is something that probably is not going to be settled anytime until maybe after the congressional recess.

>> host: charles is from killingworth, connecticut, on our republican line. good morning, charles. >> caller: good morning, mr. cusack. >> guest: good morning. >> caller: my question is probably more economics than politics, but what i'm interested in is this: we have this supposed debt limit. now, what i want to know is why do we have a debt limit when nobody pays any attention to it? and i'll just get off the line and listen to your answer after you think about it for a second. >> host: mr. cusack, do you want to take that on? >> guest: well, yeah. i mean, we have -- the united states has debts, and we borrow a lot of money, and some members are kind of confused why we borrow money from other countries when foreign nationals cannot contribute to politicians. so, but in order to pay our bills, they need to, the united states needs to lift the debt limit. now, this has been going on for decades, and usually the process is just to schedule a vote, a

clean debt increase. now, republicans have said we're not doing that anymore, and we saw that in 2011, we saw a major showdown in the summer of 2011 where republicans said we're going to do -- need some spending reforms. finally, a deal was brokered. one of the credit rating agencies after that downgraded the united states' credit rating. now we're facing that again. it's unclear exactly when the date is going to be. it's been moved back because the federal government has received more revenues partially because of the fiscal cliff deal that was reached in january. but within the next several months, the debt limit is going to have to be raised. the president has said i'm not negotiating like he did in 2011. that was a very ugly time in washington. but republicans are saying, listen, we're not -- the votes aren't there for a quote-unquote clean debt increase, and we need some spending reforms. so it could get quite ugly again. >> host: and we're looking at a fall time frame? >> guest: yeah, fall or possibly even late fall. but it looks like it is going to

be this year. treasury department is always reassessing how much money they have and how long they can keep going. but at some point they're going to say, okay, we need the debt limit raised by in this point. and really there has been no progress on the grand bargain. the president has done a charm offensive after his re-election. republicans mostly in the senate have credited the president for getting together and having these dinners whether it be at a restaurant in many d.c. or at the white house -- in d.c. or at the white house, but they haven't yielded much as far as negotiating some type of grand bargain whether it's on medicare, medicaid and the dealt limit. that is -- debt limit. that is probably not going to happen. >> host: if you could talk about detroit and the bankruptcy. lauren pillar writes in that republicans are trying to prevent a nationwide detroit bankruptcy. talk a little bit about what's going on in detroit right now and if there's anything on capitol hill that might be impacting what's happening out

there. >> guest: well, it's something that i saw a press release from john conyers, obviously from michigan, that it's big news in detroit, really extraordinary that the city has filed for bankruptcy. it says it's the only way it can survive this. this has angered a number of constituents in detroit. i haven't seen a lot of what congress will be doing, but certainly as this moves forward a lot of people think that it's an easy way out whether it's for individuals or for cities to file for bankruptcy, but others say it is absolutely a must in order to save the city. >> host: let's go back to the phones. chris is from wall that many, massachusetts, on our independent line. chris, you're on with bob cusack of "the hill." >> caller: hi. well, first of all, i don't know how supporting those billions of dollars of unfunded pension liabilities would helping get detroit back on the right track.

but what i was trying to or what i was thinking when i was watching the show was that the democrats and the republicans are, do the same thing. and we're still talking like this is some professional wrestling like blue versus red, democrats versus republican when we've seen for the last 10-20 years the illusion of our civil liberties, our economic decline. you talked about the debt limit. what are we going to fund it with? it's basically magic paper that we just pull out from under the bed and say, hey, take this money or we're going to shoot you. >> host: chris, if we're talking about priorities that congress needs to get done in the short term here, the two weeks that they have left in session before they adjourn for the month of august, what do you think congress' priorities should be?

>> caller: to and themselves some very difficult questions about why they're doing their job the way they're doing it. and to absolve themselves. >> host: juan writes in on twitter, it may sum up the caller's points, he said the week ahead in congress continued gridlock. [laughter] we'll go to mike now from beaverton, oregon, on our democratic line. mike, you're on with bob cusack. >> caller: yeah, hi. i'm just real concerned because i'm autistic, and i wrote a speech, and it made people cry because i was talking the truth. but my new speech is in any religion, any country man's

inhumanity to man. so basically, the americans have a national debt, a gross debt of $17.2 trillion but, and expected to be 18.2 trillion in fiscal year 2014. this means that the federal debt per person is about $52,691 per person. and there are companies like chase manhattan bank that have not paid taxes in 15 years. and i know this for a fact because i do my research. >> host: well, mike, let's let bob cusack jump in here. the president this week is going to be giving a series of

speeches talking about the economy, the pivot back to the economy as it's been described in some papers. is he going to be talking about some of the issues that mike brings up? >> guest: i think he'll be talking about how the economy looks like it's getting better at a slow pace, a frustratingly slow pace for the white house. but that was the message of president obama's re-election campaign is that we averted economic disaster after the implosion in 2008, and i think president obama's going to be talking a hot about that. as far as the debt, you talk to some democrats including senator charles schumer who has said we're on an unsustainable path. whether it's a long way out or a short way out, there are different opinions of how quickly the u.s. needs to act. but at some point it needs to act because of the ballooning deficit. so i think the president, he's had, honestly, he's had a rough six months. a lot of his agenda items other

than immigration, gun control, died in the senate. they're trying to revive it, but immigration reform doesn't look like it's a sure bet to pass, and gun control and immigration were his two top priorities. but on the economy there is, there are signs of life especially in the housing sector. so that's, it's not surprising that the white house wants to talk about that. >> host: this is a positive place that he can go to. >> guest: yes, exactly. >> host: another issue that's important to the white house is presidential nominees. give us a refresher on the deal other the presidential nominees that was reached last week, and is there any timeline for moving them over the next two weeks? >> guest: yeah. a fascinating week last week on capitol hill. they had the nuclear option, the threat of the nuclear option went down to the -- >> host: and for those that don't know nuclear option. >> guest: yes, this was senate majority leader harry reid threatening to change the rules of the senate so that for executive branch nominees -- not for judicial nominees and not for legislation -- but for president obama's nominees he

would change the rules of the senate so that it would clear a straight up or down vote, and they could not basically -- the threshold was 51 votes. now, there were seven nominees that were in dispute, and that's what ready kept saying. republicans can avert the so so-called nuclear option, i won't do it if you let these seven nominees through. and what happened in a deal negotiated with senate republican leaders and certainly senator john mccain was in the middle of that deal is that they reached an agreement to avert the nuclear option. what the democrats gave is a pretty good deal for harry reid. they gave up two nominees from the nlrb -- >> host: which is the -- >> guest: that's the national labor relations board. that is one of the most important agencies for organized labor. and because of the gridlock in washington and the lack of approval for these nominees, the nlrb has been, basically, powerless. the agency has not been working because it doesn't have enough people on it. so, now there was a court ruling that ruled that the nominees

that president obama on the nlrb, they were unconstitutional because of how they were recess appointed. so what democrats said, fine, we will withdraw those two nominees. president obama then after the deal was reached quickly nominated two replacements, and they now go through the committee -- they will now go through the committee, the health and labor committee, this week and should be on the floor as early as next week. so what harry reid got out of the deal not only he got the nlrb back working, he also god richard cordray -- got richard cordray consumed. that was a major, major battle between the parties. so the nuclear option to, he still has the power because as part of the deal he struck, he still has that club if he wants to bo back to -- go back to it and say wait a minute, you're blocking too many nominees -- >> host: it sounds like you're saying this was a win for democrats, is that how it's being viewed on capitol hill? >> guest: absolutely.

some republicans, they were divided on the deal. but at the same time, what the republicans say is that we department, those two what they call unconstitutional picks are no longer, they're not going to be at the nlrb so they were at least saying they got that. harry reid had more leverage in that negotiation, but he also got a pretty good deal. >> host: back to the phones, john is from michigan on our republican line, you're on with bob cusack of "the hill." >> caller: good morning. >> guest: morning. >> caller: i guess my outlook on what's going to happen in the congress is we're just going to be looking at more gridlock. my next question is to the commentator, i've known this, and i watch c-span pretty much every morning. i noticed that republicans get skipped in the process quite often, and my other comment is i also notice that of your callers

i don't know if you realize it, but only 13% of the population is black in this country, and you're pretty much at a 40% rate of which they call in. >> host: john, are you, are you running the numbers? are you -- we want everybody to call in on c-span and give us their opinions. are you concerned about when we go to republican be, independent and democratic lines because we pull them up as the calls come in, john. >> caller: well with, i've called in, you know, pretty much every morning and, of course, don't get a -- i get through maybe once a year. and i've noticed that even this morning you skipped a republican or -- in your process. ..

. the big difference between the debate during george w. bush's administration also the immigration bill passed the senate but it did not get to his desk that is business and organized labor back then had some major concerns that the members were going to lose jobs too because of the immigration legislation. this time around laborers on board and the chamber of commerce is on board and there are prominent republicans arranging for grover and norquist to karl rove who are for comprehensive immigration

reform legislation but in the house there are a lot of conservatives who don't like that bill whatsoever. >> host: virginia is up next from port orchard washington on our democratic line. good morning. >> caller: hi. i am a very old lady and i like the equality that we show to the poor, to the people that are ill and to the black people and it's time that congress especially the house change the tax laws. and also can everyone remember their ancestors, their forefathers came on the boat and are immigrants and therefore i wish there was humanity on the republican side and the farmers who are getting too much meany meany -- money being poured into them and also congress.

to see people grocers have been so many people that are overweight because all they can buyer fattening foods. >> host: from port orchard washington she brings up tax reform and her comments and in the minute we have left do you see anything moving forward on some comprehensive tax reform? >> guest: that's another thing that is going to happen at least a push for it in the fall. both max baucus and ways & means committee chairman dave camp have had a very good relationship and going on the road. they think they can defy the odds and pass some type of tax reform bill even though the parties on the great whether it raise revenue which most democrats want or it should be revenue-neutral but at the same time camp and baucus have worked together well on the payroll tax bill so don't count them out yet. they will be making a major push in that has gotten lobbyists very nervous that they're our industry tax breaks that could go by the wayside if this bill some hour to pass. >> host: bob cusack is the manager of the hill newspaper.

we appreciate you coming on.

>> we think of it as a new way of thinking about how we consume television in the future. it's an on line platform which is direct to consumers and people can get access to live right has television along with their dvr device without a cable connection, just using the internet. the key element, the foundational piece of the technology is a microantenna and think about it as how you used to have over the air antennas of the past. they were large. we have miniaturized them. i think there is a desire to support innovation. i think there's a desire to create competition. i think there's a desire to have choice. streaming broadcast television signals to any web-enabled device tonight on "the communicators" at 8:00 eastern

on c-span2. president obama is beginning a two-month series of speeches across the country focusing on the economy and jobs. on wednesday he will return to an alumni college he visited as a freshman u.s. senator, knox college in galesburg. he will speak wednesday at the university of central missouri in warrensburg. we talked to a reporter who is following that issue. >> host: this morning on "washington journal" we continue our monday series looking at the federal health care law. today we will focus on education outreach in hard to reach populations and heart to serve populations. our guest is the political health care editor. thank you for joining us today. let's start out by talking about

how important education and outreach is to the success of this law. when we think about a lot we don't think of it in terms of being a success. why are we talking about that with this law? >> guest: people know less about this law than they did three years ago when it passed. there has been so much fighting about this law and its complicated so if you take the political messaging which people are hearing two really different narratives and you take the fact that it's a new system for any people and they don't understand some of the terms. what is a health exchange? exchange? exchange? if the marketplace on line. a good analogy is something like travelocity. it's not a perfect analogy but for the ordinary person it's a good analogy. people that don't understand it don't sign up. then you have, you don't have people participating so it won't work. >> host: where we add in the pr of this law ,-com,-com ma the selling of this selling of us

love versus the actual implementation class. >> guest: the selling of the law on a one to 10 scale we are at about a 20 and i don't see that dropping it and that is the challenge in the next few months. the implementation is a technical matter. it's getting the marketplamarketpla ce is set up and getting insurance companies to participate. it's getting these complicated computer systems working and hhs and the federal health officials say we are on track. we won't know if we are totally on track until october 1 when they go on line. certain things we know. some states have a lot of insurance plans in some states don't have as many. that is the way it is now. some states have more active insurance markets than others. in terms of the education component we have heard a lot. in terms of trying to break out and sit down with people and explain what is this then do you benefit the advocates of the law there is a catch phrase because if you don't get out that

message people don't hear it. they hear the criticism but if you get too detailed but the person and can't say okay i have read a lot less go do it now, they can't do it until the first. the administration is trying to ramp-up complicity in ramp ramp-up education and be prepared to clench at starting in october. >> host: what is the danger people not signing up? >> guest: people know that this covers, if you have had -- to if you have been injured or you are ill or have had cancer it's hard to get insurance unless you are getting it at the office. i think people know that option there is a larger awareness of that option. the fear is that people who are our ready set go and that's their expensive. that is why current insurance companies don't want to cover them right now. they have the potential to cost a lot of money. they need to get younger healthier people in too and in the workplace to have that mix

here you have the 25-year-old -year-old person in the 64-year-old plus two retirement person and spreads the risk. they are trying to create that in these new markets but you've got to get the younger and healthier in. they are skeptical. >> host: talking with joanne kenen politico health care editor. democrats to a 258 -- independent colors (202)585-3882. there will be outreach efforts and hard to reach and hard to serve populations in particular. who are the hardest people to reach to teach about the law and to get them onboard with it? >> i think they're a couple of groups. one is called the young invincible. if you are young and healthy and you are not make you a ton of money and just starting out and you have an entry-level job and not sure if your job will be there than the next year or depending on college loans are trying to get your first car or

spend a lot on starbucks do you want to be spending money on health insurance? you are feeling the rage shock. in fact we don't have all the prices get and for an awful lot of young people they have subsidies so it's not as expensive. for some individuals beginning on your income and where you live it will be a lot of money but for many people there's a sliding scale based on your income and what you actually pay. that is one. the younger people who are insured, a high number of them are insured now and nobody is expecting all of them to run and sign up. they want 2.5 or 3 million million to sign up in that first year that young population. the other group we know traditional groups that are hard to reach in this country. there may be language barriers lower literacy, they're not watching the same mainstream media so how do you reach these targets as her populations many of them who are not taking advantage of benefits they are are entitled to. there is so much confusion.

you keep hearing about small businesses. how do you define small business? and a small-business america if you are under 50 employees they don't have to do anything. if you define small business as 75 there are no obligations that they have been put off for a year. when you hear about these really small businesses that is one of the biggest sources of confusion. you don't have to do anything but if anything but a few do their tools you can use what you are are not required. >> host: late last week the fine print of obama's health care pitch. the president said last thursday as health care laws already providing savings and despite some expected glitches and unrelenting political opposition. the president gave a speech at the white house on thursday. let's take a listen to the message he delivered. >> generally speaking what we have seen is that health care costs have slowed drastically in a lot of areas since we passed the affordable care act.

we got a lot more work to do but health care inflation is not skyrocketing the way it was. and because of this new rule, because of the fact that it improves the value of the coverage that you purchase last year alone american saved $3.4 billion in lower premiums. that's $3.4 billion on top of these rebates. so that's just one way this law is helping middle-class families but it represents everything the affordable care act means for folks who already have insurance , better benefits stronger protections and more bang for your buck. the basic notion that you ought to get what you pay for. >> host: joanne kenen that is a middle-class message. who is the president trying to reach? >> guest: i think he was rich and the middle class because this bill has a lot in it for working people and people who are