should that go up to east with the value of the dollar was when we started that, 181190 today? there has to be a way to do it when no one thinks it's doctored. dunaway where this would've been the natural increments that it should be today. that is where i think the cash flow might take care of itself. but there are people that say that that is just raising the taxes. >> thank you. i just want to point out that when the president proposed moving to a chained cpi, he also proposed to increase the minimum benefit. ..

sure. >> thank you. i would only say in the view of many economists, the issue about how to correctly measure inflation is a completely different discussion. and the issue of whether we can fix poverty in old age. and in my view, personally, if the chained chiropractic pi is a better way to measure the cost of living for senior, we should do it. we need to focus on the issue of inadequate ability in control over resources.

-- we did provow the not going there we proposed a change in the indexization of benefits prior to retirement nap generated enough money to raise survivor benefit which are important. and raise minimum benefits to 120% of the poverty line. so let's just stop there. i want to bring it to your attention. >> senator. >> if i can. i want to go back to the point senator machin raised. when he talk about the decision between using a chained cpi for some people err not others you are acknowledging as it's been laid out, we're talking about over time a cut in benefits. i think that senator colins goes to the right point when she says the fundamental we have to address is whether the benefits are a adequate. we have to find right way to grow them over time for people.

that's the baseline question. and pretending it's a question somehow that goes away, if we use a different inflation index, i think just misses the whole point. we've got to make sure we are paying people enough, exactly as you said, senator colin. so people are not retiring in poverty. >> if i can chime in. i've talked to enough people on the bottom of the food chain and the top of the food chain that this is something socially we have to come to grips as policy makers, basically. we have to have a cost of living or cola, doesn't matter what you call it. even the present formula we're using to do our c. o. l. a. with. there has to be one adequately taking in to account the standard of living cost. the majority of the income that is the social security check. on -- on the other hand there are

others that do well that are handicapped out. the social security check doesn't make or break them. they don't need it. don't look for it they serve it because they paid in to. we don't want to take anything away. i found to be more receptive for the people that done well in the food chain. i don't know where the breaking point could be. and take care of themselves. the people on the top end don't feel like you kept benefit away from them. that might be something we should be looking at. we're looking at revamping and reinventing it. you said if it represents the purchasing power, dr. mitch, that should be done.

it's not being bought that way as senator warren said. if and i know we've had that presentation made to us as senator colin spoke about. there are certain preventions and stopgaps that help people in certain category of the chained cpi. and it just hasn't been accepted that way. with that being said, would they accept another approach? that's what we're doing. we're doing out in the public forum today. we need to be able to talk about this. there are certain people in my state can't make it. and social security in the state of west virginia, 60% of retired seniors that's their income. yes, ma'am? >> one comment abouted yf increasing the level at which you keep paying on social security is for small businesses, particularly those sole proprietor they end up paying social security for themselves ans employee.

and pay for it themselves as an employer. so as you move that number up, that would really hit the small business community very hard. >> any other comments about the senators? well, this has been a most helpful discussion, and i think as you, mrs. paula, indicated the three-legged stool, social security, a person's employment, pension, retirement or private saving, we see how important it is for all of them any one of them may get cut, which then gets to the point that seniors rely on social security benefit because if they have the

misfortune that you've chronicled today, then what is the safety net? okay. now we just got in to today the discussion of having long-term care. what we're going do is in another month we're going have a hearing on long-term care. we've scheduled out for october 23rd. so thank you all for participating. and the meeting is adjourned. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] coming up next on c-span2 the debate in the virginia's governor race. senator mccain, durbin, and schumer react to senator ted

cruz's 21-hour speech. that's followed more about the continuing resolution in the senate with remarking by senator mcconnell, paul, mccull sky, and baucus. there's more about the federal budget and spending issue on thursday. we'll hear from congressional budgeted office director as he testifies before the house budget committee about the nation's long-term economic outlook. you can see that live starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 3. discuss the government's surveillance program and fisa court that oversees them. testifying before the senate intelligence committee, starting live at 2 p.m. eastern on c-span

3. had the era nullify passed. subject to subtle mechanism of wage discrimination, that had even persist even today. and symbolically women would have been recognized. this is even more important, i think, both as mothers as well as workers. and the big e irony of this story is that it was a well-organized, articulate campaign of activist women who engineered the defeat of the era. >> the backlash against the women's liberation movement and equal rights amendment. sunday at 1 eastern.

with the second televised debate in the race to become virginia's next governor. the fairfax chamber of commerce and nbc for washington -- as a moderator. from the mcclain, virginia. this is about an hour. [applause] [applause] >> good evening. i'm chuck todd. welcome to the virginia giewsh naicialt debate. hosted by the fairfax chamber of commerce and nbc for the airing across the commonwealth tonight also nationally on c-span, and streaming live on mbc washington.com. i want to begin by covering the rules. will last one hour and begin with two-minute opening statements from each candidate. our panelists, i'll pose

questions direct will to the candidates. they are determined by nbc news and the panelist and not reviewed by the candidates or the fairfax chamber. each will have one minute and 30 respond to respond. the i as moderator will reserve the right follow up as needed. we'll conclude the debate with one-minute closing statement. there's a device notifying candidates of the remaining time. when it's expired in the interest of trying to cover as much ground we asked them to adhere to the time limit. let's welcome our panelist. blogger after at decade at the capitol hill newspaper "roll call." we have aaron.

coanchor of news for today. lived in richmond for 23 yeerd. he began his career and covered four virginia governors. let's welcome the candidates. former chairman of the democratic national committee. and the attorney general of state of virginia, commonwealth of virginia. let's get a rounds of applause. [applause] earlier coin toss. you'll go first with the opening statement. >> thank you, chuck. thank you to the fairfax chamber for hosting us and all virginia began watching at home. and i would like to we have been raising our five children here in fairfax county. the race in the race is simple. which candidates is going to governor from the main stream, work with both parties, and focus on those economic issues that virginia begans are

concerned about. during the campaign, i have proposed common sense solutions on issues of education, transportation, and work force development. i've also been proud to earn the support of so many prominent republicans. many of whom have never supported a democrat before. the bipartisan coalition that we have assemblied during the campaign reflects approach i would take adds governor. following in the successful model of. a few weeks ago, my opponent chgn staff and tactics. probably because he was concerned that a number of republicans were no longer supporting his campaign. the result has been a harp increase in the most personal of attacks. they have been called the deceitful and false by the press. so i expect more of those kinds of attacks tonight. but what virginia expect from us is to hear how we are going bring folks together in richmond. with the department of deafen

drawing down the overall spending, and now with the sequestration, the next governor will face serious economic head wind. we cannot afford the next four years in richmond to be like the last four in washington. gridlock driven by the tea party is once again risking a government shut down that would be devastating to the virginia economy. in virginia, we have a strong record of working together democrats and republicans, and with the challenges that lie ahead, we must embrace the tradition of main stream solution. we need those solutions now more than ever. >> thank you. >> that's what i look forward to talking with you tonight. >> moderator: thank you. >> i want to thank the chamber and nbc for hosting us today chuck and the panel for their participation. and terri for being here as well. it's nice to be here in the backyard of where i grew up. i'm the only candidate in the race with a lifetime of fighting

for. whether it's preventing sexual assault, helping the home res, or working to help those suffering from mental illnd. a passion of mine. i've served if state government for more than ten years. i'm the only candidate on the race who won't need on the job training if you elect governor this year. in the campaign, my opponent has spent a lot of time telling you why you shouldn't vote for me for governor, but not much time telling you why you should vote for him. you may not all agree with me in the race. you know where i stand and why i hold the positions that i do. when it come to economic competitiveness, job creation, and higher education, i know we can all work together to make virginia a better place to live with lasting results. but it takes a governor who will fight for those issues and not for their own self-interest. where does my come from?

my italian grandfather didn't have more than a sixth grade education. he was one of the tough i, hardest working phone folks have ever known. whether as a welder or scrap yard or a bare knuckle boxer during the description he was proud to work support his family. and today ordinary folks all over virginia like my grandfather want nothing more than to share in the dignity of work. and i have a plan that will create 58,000 new jobs in virginia. creating job, fight for the middle class and fighting for good education for our children, our priorities of my campaign and will be for my governorship. i have proposed detail policy ideas for each. and i'll begin on day one fighting to put the ideas in to action if you'll elect me on november 5-th. >> you were pretty good there. only about five second over for both of you. we are pleading with you tonight it was your talking points and

hit us and try to an our question. let me begin. t going to be a similar question. mr. republican the first question. $20 million are spent on tv ads in the race. 75% of them we did the calculation have been negative. this is both of you. i want each of you to respond to the stereotype you are trying create about the other you. you are a operator, cheerleader more than legislationer or governor. you don't have a experience. and man in a hurry willing to use political connections sometimes in high police places to take shortcuts. your response. >> i'm a young man who grew up in syracuse, new york, i started my first business when i was 14 years old. i had to help pay for college. i have been involved in a number of businesses since that time. chairman of the bank by the age of 30. i've been involved in a wide variety of businesses. i want to bring the business approach and exoarp. i think it's important to have

someone in the governor's office who has the business experience and with sequestration and the budget cuts we have seen in the department of defense $5 00 billion and the next governor's real challenge is how do grow and diversify the purpose. how do we create new economic activity? we love to have our children stay in virginia. we need to have the job in the 21st century. those are what we need grow our economy. we have had a lot of different ads. there are differences. my opponent spent most of his career in a social ideological agenda. he has pushed person of legislation which would outlaw most form of contra accepting illegal in virginia.

he bullied the board of health. women are 50% of the work force in the united states of america. you cannot grow an economy by putting walls up around -- >> stop you there. >> you have 90 seconds. >> thank you. women, in this race, of course we've got our ads on television. i point you to the kind of ad we've been running. right now you can see running the ads about a case i'm proud of. one about thomas hanes worth. he hold the record in virginia for serving more time in prison while innocent than anyone in the history of the commonwealth. and he's out today on a 6-04 vote of the court of appeal. i took the case and joined his side. we won 6-4. 55 5-5 is a loss. that's a story i'm proud of. i think there are reasons not vote for him for governor. we make those cases as well. we have a positive record to

look back on in my case. we have done a great job in the attorney general's office fighting health care fraud, internet predator, we worked even with capitol 1 as we sit here on justice issues. justice access issues. those are things near and dear to my heart. that's where we focus in this race. i'm the only candidate who has gotten both of the major business endorsement so far in the race from the northern virginia council tech pack. and small business the nfib endorsed me as well with the 55 small business members. they obviously think that my preparation and my plan for growing the economy here in virginia is best not just for them. >> you get your 60 seconds to respond on here. i want you to deal with the issue. you one time said to the "new york times" i've met all of them plu politic. it's interrelated. we looked tat. a lot is political tie.

after the -- richmond with the governor governor there's going to be some ethical questionable deals with too many political figure in your life. i spent a part of my life volunteering in politic. i'm committed, passionate. as i started my first business at the young age successful in business. i want to bring the business experience. met a lot of folks. listen, i have stand by everything i have done in my life. dorothy and i decided to move to view about 21 years ago because we knew this was a best place we could raise our family. there's a difference when the attorney general who was in the middle of the star scientific scandal the same gentleman who gave the gift to governor gave my opponent $18,000 worth of give gift. they owe about $1.7 million. instead of taking him to court, he was taken trips to new york city. got $1500 turkey dinner.

that's a lot of turkey. and his house. we were -- we were owed that money instead of collecting our money, my opponent was actually taking gifts from the gentleman and buying stock and wasn't disclosing it. >> we're going to get to that. 90 second question to you. second question here. talk about the stereo type painted of you. you'll use the governorship -- abortion, guy right, on climate change. you would be a governor simply for conservative and not consider those who are liberal or moderates in your governing. your response to the stereo type. >> i think one of the best responses to this is the broad array of support that we're getting from democrats, independents, and bipartisan groups like the northern virginia technology council in northern virginia. the small businesses across virginia and national federation of independent businesses. the farm bureau, the police, we're getting a broad array of

support across virginia because i've put forward well thought out plans that start with an unking of how virginia government works. and that we can move those plans forward because people look at my record and see that what i campaign on is what i pursue. as attorney general, right here in fairfax county fighting back over -- with the fairfax board we say fairfax county taxpayer and virginia taxpayers about $250 million. look, i believe i have some basic beliefs that are fundamental to me. but overwhelming proportion of my time as attorney general has been spent moving virginia forward economically and protecting liberty in our constitution. that's something you can continue to expect from me as your next governor. the comparison here is someone who has told "the new york times," you know, you help me, i help you. that's politics.

talking about a case where he was an unindicted cospire or it in a teamster election money-launder case. if he is elected governor we have to change the state motto to quid pro quo. today in the "washington post" they have an article about how is higher ed policy changed on a cyme dime when he got certain support. some of them republican. that kind of trading off without thinking through the policies in particularly in an area that is going to make colleges less available to virginia. you followed the time on the table. you got a little more time. you'll get about 95 seconds. >> my opponent has been the attorney general. he's run on jobs and transcription when he runs for office. he gets in to office and serves in the ideological agenda. let it will the health center where bumly the board of health.

sponsored legislation that outlaw most form of contraception. referred to gay virginia as self-destructive. he was one of three attorney general when the violence against women act of being reauthorized. 47 attorney general signed a letter violence again women. not controversial. he's one of three who refused to sign it. it's been a pattern when his attorney general, he sent a rert to every college and university saying they could provide no protection based on sexual orientation against professor and students. what happened? about to move the national headquarter to virginia was between maryland and virginia obviously the employee squawked at that. what happened? governor bob mcdonald had to interject himself to stop his attorney general and save that

deal. 300 high pay jobs up the street where we are today. there are consequences to this mean-spirit attack on women's health, on guy virginia begans, and we're going build new economy in virginia. we're going do it by bringing everyone together. >> as you prepare your 60 seconds respondent, i was hoping you would sphont what the republican lieutenant governor said about you and the entire republican ticket. he said t the most aid logically driive ticket that the g.o.p. put forth. he's worried t pushing away at main stream voter. what do you say? >> until he stepped out my race by a lot of measures more conservative than i am. i think that he has some comments based on not being in this race. the charge is false. the soulless exphent offensively false. the kind of personal attacks that terri opened up his remarks

with today by saying it's going on are coming from terri. you are seeing the ads. it's overwhelmingly negative and unbelievably false. and no one up here, no one up here has done more to protect women, which is a focus of his attack than i have. whether it was an engineering student and a friend of mine sexually assaulted. i response to start a new organization that still function there to protect young women. and a first of it kind in the country. we run multiple domestic violence programs in the attorney general's office. we started from scratch fighting human trafficking. we have done a great job of it. >> ben has the next question. >> you propose spending more money on teacher salary on precious k education and community schenl. we haven't heard enough specific to put a price tag on it. we're wondering how yo i pay for that.

>> very important question. what i've said is responsible budgeting. first of all, when i'm governor we're going look at the efficiency we are bring to the government and work together to get that medicaid expansion. if we don't get it, we can't bring in the efficiency that i agree with. there's not none to be spent. i think it's prudent budgeting to determine how much money you. when you have if you can apply it to the priority. it's a difference. want to get rid of the corporate income tax in virginia. let me tell you what happened to our budget. you will see hundreds of billions of dollars comet out of education. you could see thousand of teachers being laid off at the time we need to complete on a global basis. as i talked about cybersecurity and the important new businesseses we're not going to be able to do that.

it's important have the medicaid expansion. when i talk about the budget it's important to figu out how much you have and put the money in. his plan 1.4 wl a year doesn't say how we fair for it. it's $6 billion over the course of next four years. the former chairman house appropriations committee said it would put a huge hole in the budget. the idea you can cut $6 billion out of the budget and get rid of the corporate income tax. he didn't want the transportation $6 billion. >> time. >> it's like saying i came on a unicorn. >> you have out seconds. >> it's hard find inefficiency in a government you don't understand. and terri doesn't know how virginia government works. he doesn't understand the issues related to virginia government, he can talk at this top line level like anybody if they read a few talking point. he doesn't know how virginia government works. this came out in the tech pack

interrue. it wouldn't have if he didn't try to bully them out of the endorsement. he did. there was reporting on it. and people noted that i understood the issue and he didn't. i was a serious candidate when it came to the subject matter that mattered to them. and terri wasn't. if you don't start with that fundamental baseline knowledge. you don't have an easy time finding inefficiency. governor is not a good entry level job. that's what it would be for terri. i already know what works well. there are things that work very well in virginia government and plane it i them. there are areas where we need to do much, much better. i would point to medicaid not the expansion, medicaid i.t. one of the biggest part of the budget. we're one of the best health care fraud fighting offices in the whole country. my office. i've learned a lot how medicaid works and doesn't. and we can do a lot better just to talk about one area to make

it more efficient. to make it serve virginia's poor better than it does today. i'm the only one prepared to do that. and who has a plan that balances -- >> time. when you get the 60 second response. you didn't give us a price tag. why can't you give us a price tag what spending you want to expand. >> i would say. first of all, i want prek early childhood development. i think that's important. we talk about what we need to do. we need accountability. i've called for a total reform. i they don't work in the present form. we don't have accountability. our students are being taught to memorize. teachers are being taught to take tests and give tests. that's not right. that's not how you build the cognitive mind creative reasons. we thoopped to be involved in the process early to make sure we have progress space data. i talk about community college we need to invest. chuck is going to be the medicaid expansion. i've said it.

my opponent doesn't want it. i want it. it's bipartisan fairfax chamber support the medicaid expansion. the virginia chamber of commerce supports. it so does the lieutenant governor. it's bipartisan main stream. we bring back the virginia over the course of the next seven years $21 billion of our money we're paying in. why would we not bring it back. >> you don't have a price tag. >> medicaid -- >> i know. >> 30,000 new jobs created. it's important. >> i want to clarify. no price tag. >> t a priority. >> there's no cost to it. >> this is why it's important. >> the next question. >> your economic plan cuts taxes by $1.4 billion when fully implemented. you propose creating a commission to find way to pay for it. how do you respond virginias who say i'm voting for a governor

not a commission. isn't leadership about providing some specifics in this case on tax breaks and loophole that go away? >> yes. my tax relief plan was designed to spur job growth. and more job creation, put more money in the hand of our business to reinvest it and our family's budget. i would note north carolina two months ago passed a package where their business income tax will be half of ours if we don't act. and even if we achieve the goals of getting to 4%. they'll get under us if they meet the revenue request.

we need compete and do it effectively. i will eliminate 15% of corporate loophole and tax break that don't work as well as the over 85%. and also cap growth and spending at 3.5% to pay for the package. this isn't the federal government. we don't print money. so both side of the ledger have to match. "the washington post gave my opponent -- for the statement you heard tonight he has no way to pay for it. we put a process in place that will accomplish the financial goal we need to to do the tax cut. if we don't get the cut we don't get to do the -- >> 90 second. >> if you take the attorney general's plan. virginia will be in financial ruin. he did not support the governor on the transportation, the bipartisan transportation bill. i was all in $6 billion able to spend on trpg. when everybody drove in here to

the beautiful hall, you within the underneath the new silver line. my opponent said hef the only statewide foicial come out again it. he would call it after it was halfway completed. i taunt education. this is so important. we need invest in education. his tax plan takes $6 billion out of the budget over the course of the next four years, he and ew jack believe we should get rate of the corporate income tax. he doesn't want the medicaid expansion. called for the end of the department of education. we cannot grow a 21st century economy. we cannot be the global leader. we need to replace with sequestration. we have seen the number. we know what the tax plan dwowltd local community shairch right here in the front row what it would mean to lose the revenue. what it would mean to sharon in fairfax county and the loss of teachers in a time we should be investing in our teachers, investing in the courses, science, technology, engineering, and math.

you can't do this. his plan literally would force us to lay off thousand of teachers. as i say, convinced call han, the former chairman of the house republican committee said it would put a hole in the budget. senator mark came out the other day. >> okay. you prepare the 60 second response. you said loophole. we hear that and doesn't know it. it sound like you're afraid of to tell us what you're thinking about cutting. t too much for the election. >> what we're going do with the loophole is rehabbing them. we know them. they have been identify. >> what are they? >> there's literally scores of them and the standard of eliminating one is what is critical here. if all we're going is -- this is the taxpayers of virginia. instead out of tax credit we get other economic benefits that return to the people virginia's

people paying for it. that's a tax credit to keep. those are the ones that we want to grow our economy. but on a bipartisan basis, we've got to be able to find a sixth of them, 15eb9% that don't perform that don't meet the standard. that's all we have to do to get our 58,000 job creating tax plan put in effect. i'm the only candidate with a plan to grow job. other than to say the word jobs repeatedly.

tragedy we just had at the navy yard. the tragedy we had in virginia, virginia tech. aurora, newtown, connecticut. as a father, and as a husband, i can spook for everybody in the audience when we drop our children off at school, and we drp our loved one-off at work. we want to know they're going to be safe. our communities are safe. it's so important. that is why i'm for responsible gun ownership. i have called for universal background checks. my opponent doesn't support that. i'm a strong support of the second amendment. i'm a hunter. i've owned guns. i've gone through background check. they take a couple of minute. you can buy guns through mail

order. you can go to the gun show loophole. there are certain individuals who just should not own a gun. there are individuals who are mental illnd. i think it's a critical finish for us. how many people have to be killed physical we wake up to have senble gun ownership. i was dismay by the united senate year. 91% of americans support universal background check. in the senate refused to bring it up for a vote. as governor i'm going push. we need universal background checks for everybody. >> could you address in your 90 second why all of the recommendation from the virginia tech review haven't been implemented including background check? >> of course, the tragedy lead us to look at lifetime of fighting things. i've been deeply involved in

working with people suffering from mental illness for years. one of the common theme in the most public tragedies is that we're dealing with people who suffer from mental illness. i would tell you, though, that the more common tragedy in mental illnd is day-to-day one person at the time. that you don't read about in the paper. it's a suicide. it's a family struggling and at the wit's end to try to get one of the family members on a path to recovery and sustainability. we have not found gun control to be effect nigh that area. we have become the number one state per capita in screening out people with mental illnd from gun purchase. we're the best state at that in the country. we're also the number one state that i'm aware of that department of justice didn't keep data on all of them in term of prosecuting people who attempt to buy gun illegally.

that is the best way to enforce our gun laws is to be aggressive and proactive. i'm running against the only f-rated candidate from the nra. the only one of all six running statewide. i will sport the aced amendment. it deserves support. as does our whole constitution. i will continue to focus where i believe the main source of the problem is. that is resolving men tal health issues. without the money there's not a penny for any investment in mental health. not a penny. there's not a penny. it's really just talk. whatever rating i may get from the nra. i may tell you today as governor i want to make sure that everyone of our saints in the commonwealth of virginia are safe.

every one of our children when they go a classroom should know they are safe. when anyone of our loved ones goes to work, what happened at the navy yard the other day is continued pattern of what is going on. we need to eliminate guns from the folks who should not own guns. there are many reasons why individuals who are dangerous, have issues with mental illness in a background check i've done it. it takes two, three, four minute. >> thank you. we're going do a pause here for a brief commercial break. we're going to be right back with many more questions for the candidates of the governor of virginia. after the debate, you can join me and julie for a special google hangout on nba nbc washington.com. we'll be right back. [applause]

plltd we are back live here with the two candidate of governor for virginia. next question you're going get 90 seconds to respond. just a few miles away the possibility of a government shut down which affects thousand of virginia people as you know. a quick out second both of you on this. i want do you go first. you support ted cruise's effort to use any means necessary to prevent the implementation of the health care law? do you think president obama has shown the right leadership to resolve this stalemate? >> first of all, i'm a northern virginia. i lived here my whole life. none of us want to see a government shut down. we don't want to see it. wouldn't be good for america. we're seeing in the virginia economy the problem associated with the uncertainty of federal

budgeting as it is. since i'm run forking governor it's not the kind of thing you see happen in a governorship as we put together a virginia budget. ten days ago, 11 cay ago last weekend my opponent repeatedly said he wouldn't sign a virginia budget that didn't have the medicaid expansion. you heard him talk over and over about how this isall funding heck ni. for everything he want to develop. it's clear he's committed to medicaid expansion. i understand is it. it's not the be all end all for virginia budget. particularly if you're willing to shut down virginia government get the medicaid expansion. he won't sign a budget without medicaid expansion. i disagree with him on medicaid expansion. this is not an appropriate

tackic for virginia, this is a washington tactic. and if you like the way washington works, you will like a governor. if you don't like washington works right. if you think it's dysfunctional as i do. i'm your candidate in this race. you didn't answer the ted cruz. >> i continue want federal government -- >> you don't support his effort. >> he measured the sort of filibuster today. at some point you have to vote. >> you don't support what he's doing. >> i like to see bark pulled out. we have to move forward. >> okay. >> shown the right leadership. you're both talking about it. ly work in a bipartisan way to

get done. that is why a dozen former republican legislators have endorsed my candidacy. many never endorsed a democrat before. the republican mayor of the largest city never endorsed a democrat in his life endorsed our candidacy. i have six of the 7 mayor in hampton road. they know we will work together. we won't have any government shut down. the only one on the stage that almost has that effect is ken. he tried to shut down the government. i think it's a disgrace what is going on in washington. sequestration should never. the issues we have --

supposed to be -- [inaudible] never happen. these thing should never be used in tbar beganningship for our budget. so until they get it resolved, i say shame on everybody. we know you're firmly against virginia expanding medicaid to give health care coverage to a family of four making $32,500 here. what do you say to the low-income virginia people who would not be able to get medicaid coverage but could if they lived across the plateau mick in maryland. >> i understand right now we have approximately 1 million virginia people in the medicaid program. it can work better if the folks in it. a 40% expansion of medicaid is

not the way to help make it work better. governor mcdonald took a broad view of government row form. ii have a narrow and deep form. we can address mental health if we move if from one waiver program to another within medicaid if that's our priority. for me it's a priority. i think we need to make medicate system we have now work better for the people who are in it. there are ways to do that. we're losing doctors and nurse and mm practices. we try desperately to keep them in. that's a tremendous struggle for us. i believe we ought to lower the liability for medical -- practices for those work in the program.

like our good samaritan standard we have for doctors, for instance, that come as cross accidents. this is below cost medical care that we're getting for virginia's poor overwhelming the system we have now that is struggling as it is isn't a way to get good health care. >>let be clear. we should walk through the numbers quickly. beginning next year 400,000 will get access to quality life saving care. some conservative governors agree to accept it. we are bringing back we're going pay $26 billion over the next ten years to the federal government. why would we not bring $21 million back to the virginia economy to turbo charge our economy. use the money to bring efficiency to the health care delivery system. make it more cost-effective.

if we don't take the medicaid expansion money, many of our rural hospitals could be jeep jeopardized. that is slowly being ended. today was a low-income individual go a hospital to get reimbursed it may go away and freeze up over the next eight yearsed 00 million which we can use for the priority. i go back to the point. protected against -- >> go ahead. 60 second. >> first of all, unlike my opponent. i do my homework.

and congressman ryan told me, ken, it doesn't matter whether democrats in charge or republicans. we don't have the money in the federal government to meet these matches that are proposed in the federal health care bill. so the question then becomes for a state when we're thinking of getting in whether you trust the money will be there even if you have a fund to fund the state chair which my opponent does not. i'm not willing to risk virginia's budget which the federal government is taking the position many of them taking the poghts they can't afford it even if they want it to. that will explode when they don't fund. >> aaron the next question.

you are among those who support it. the legislature wouldn't be able to overturn the state's baseball on gay marriage. why not use the office to lead on the issue. >> we could. i have tremendous challenges because of the issues of economic development, job creation i need to to co on. but i've come out for marriage equality. irish-catholic kid growing up. we spent a lot of time discussing it. what turned it for us is don't ask don't tell. the idea question spend them and they don't have the same equal opportunities and equal rights. i think it's wrong. i support marriage equality. i've said that. this is quite a difference from my opponent.

it's not true. "the new york times" reported a governor mcdonald administration official who told "the new york timeses" that his actions almost cost him the deal. i would go back to his administration and ask the individual why he said that then. this is a very important issue. i was out early on the pressure. it with he get bill a through i would sign it. >> well, it actually doesn't happen in the form of a bill. it's a constitutional amendment. it never comes to the governor. by to your point, a governor can still lead on the issue. it will never come to the desk of the virginia governor. look, sinned and respect the fact this is a sensitive issue to a lot of virginia begans. but i'm one of those who do believe that the institution of marriage should remain between one man and one woman. i would appoint my opponent --

no defend our state constitution. look, as attorney general, i've defended laws where i like them or not. and as pointed out by a former democrat attorney general, tony troy, a pattern for terri emerging is that he seems to think he gets to decide whether laws and which part of the virginia constitution you're obligated to defend as a virginia governor. we have two lawsuits running right now on this matter, and the duty of the attorney general and the duty of the governor is to defend our constitution. if they want to change it, one could lead the question suggested to try to get the general assembly to make the amendments and put on the ballot. but the office has duties that come with it. and i respect the office and i respect those duties. i respect virginia's history. and this is part of it now. it may change in the future. but right now the next governor is obligated to defend our constitution. i intend to do that?

>>ly support legislation allowing equal rights. i said continuously my opponent that is continually attacked gay virginia. you cannot grow a business by doing that. clearly, if we get through the general assembly and come back as relate to gay marriage. i have issues facing in front of me. he talk about the duty in office. i have to tell you, we had thousand of landowners in southwest virginia who had met than gas taken off their property. they -- what was the attorney general's responsibility? what they were doing telling out of state energy companies how to get out of the deal and give them advice how to beat the landowners. now, my opponent took $100,000 in contribution. while he was taking contribution, the folks who were owed money thousands and thousands of virginia landowners were denied their money from gas

taken off the property. >> thank you. all right. thank you. the next question. >> why do you think that john my williams the ceo of star scientific gave you the top law enforcement official $18,000 in gifts? now we know you wrote a check to charity. why were you willing to accept them in the first place give your office said he was not a close friend of yours. >> i would say that, you know, i met mr. williams through the governor, and at the time, you know, what was going on there didn't seem like a big deal. i didn't know about any business he had before virginia. as far as i know, except their tax case. they had none. the only thing we did in the tax case was oppose them. they never got a break from us, and they're still fighting it today.

and we're still through free council to the taxpayers defending that. and i did give the 1*89d ,000 to -- $18,000 to a charity. it was the right thing to do. it took awhile to get it together. it was a hard thing to do. i call thed the summer for a special session forth rick reform. i'll remind you in 2009 when i ran for attorney general. i put forward an ethics platform. we got about half achieved including inspector general which was a big deal in the state senate and attorney general. i think that's a big step forward for virginia. we have more to do in the area, but i would say that this is an area lead on as attorney general when i ran for that office, i have run on a platform this time. i would like to have gotten it done during the summer. the governor didn't agree. >> as you formulate your an. you talk about it tonight. can you explain why you haven't released more tax return? you pushed mitt romney to do

it. you said by not releasing them the imagination has gone wild. >> i have gone beyond what the last the governor have done. i have gone beyond that. the issue about the attorney general star scientific,let be clear. it owed the state $1.7 million. this suit languished for two years, nearly two years. instead of the attorney general going after that, bringing the money back to virginia, taxpayers he was being taken to new york city and smith mountain home lake resort. he spent time when the staff stayeded at his house. he bought stock in the company and it wasn't disclose. the company had business before the attorney general. it was his legal responsibility. that's why i called for ethic reform. a bipartisan commission, number one. and number two, i have called

for $100 gift ban. any state elected official cannot take a gift of more than $100. i'm going to propose it the day of my inauguration of governor. i'm not going wait. i'm going to issue an executive order for myself, my family, and employee they cannot take anything over $100. you can buy at lifetime of -- a lot of turkey for $100. >> first l of all, the star materials are -- i reported them. it's important for virginia to know i brought it forward. i december closed them. i called a press conference to do it. that's how committed i am to transparency for virginia. i understand there are problem there. i'm the one that brought it forward. ..

to have them be talking about ethics now. >> the good news for you is that a little bit of time i will do a little bit of a lightning round. take 30 seconds, would you be open to virginia joining most other states in the country and allowing school districts to start school before labor day and somehow not allowing it in the state?

>> no. >> is too important, the change would result in costing us about $369 million. it is a vital part, second part of our industry. agriculture and forest we are one in three. >> even though kids could fall behind in things like that. >> there's a lot of best practice that we can do. i was down in newport news, they go an hour longer during the day, they go on saturdays. many things that we can do. but we cannot give up $369 million in economic headwinds. >> mr. to tonelli, go ahead. >> okay, i had this on the board of fairfax county when i was on the senate. children outrank tourism. there are changes we can make like appropriate reforms the standards of learning. we focus on that day very much. there are things we can do

before labor day, but ultimately, locality should have the locality to make that. >> moderator: okay, i have one sports question. the redskins. should they change their name? >> i don't think the government should be telling private businesses what they should do. >> moderator: even it is offensive to the people? >> as governor, i am not going to tell dan snyder or anyone else what to do. >> mr. ken cuccinelli, you think it is time for the redskins to change their name? >> i think that is up to them entirely. eighty years of history of that team is kind of hard to leave behind. i understand that and i don't think that it should've been played in the second quarter of the playoffs either. [laughter] >> moderator: that concludes our question, and now mr. mcauliffe

coming of a closing statement. mcauliffe: thank you to the fairfax press for hosting this election. we must work in a bipartisan way if we want to create jobs. my opponent talks a lot about experience. but his experience has been in dividing people by pursuing his own ideological agenda, introducing legislation that would outlaw most common forms of birth control. in bullying the board of health, which resulted in the shutting down of some women's health centers, frankly i think that virginia women have had just about enough of the experience of ken cuccinelli. the approach that will bring to richmond is different. building on bipartisan coalitions that we established in this campaign, i will work with both parties to find mainstream solutions a mainstream solutions to the big problems that we face.

it worked for mark warner and it is an approach that we need desperately now in virginia. >> moderator: mr. ken cuccinelli, you get the last word. cuccinelli: virginia small independent businesses have endorsed me this week or last week because they know that i am best prepared to fight to grow virginia's economy. my opponent is the only one in this race that has driven jobs from the state and he has no plan to bring them back. he sold more visas to chinese citizens than his failed company has sold cars. his jobs history with green jobs is terrible. i'm a governor that will fight for you and terry will fight for him. if you give me a chance on november 5 come i will fight for economic policies that grow jobs for the middle class and by leaving families and businesses with more of their own money so they can invest these hard-earned dollars right here in virginia. my jobs plan that will grow

58,000 good, full-time jobs in virginia. i have faith in the people of virginia that if we remain true to our noblest ideals and principles like limited government and strong family. that we can do better in the future than we've ever done. >> moderator: thank you both very very very much. voters, it is up to you. thank you to the chamber and nbc for hosting this debate between both candidates, mr. cuccinelli and mr. mcauliffe. thank you. thank you to our great panel of reporters. stay with nbc for all election coverage live. >> according to a new "washington post" poll, mcauliffe leads over cuccinelli, who at 39% and libertarian candidate has 10%. >> coming up on c-span2 tonight, senators mccain, dick durbin and ted schumer reacted a

speech on defending the health care law. that is followed by more about the continuing resolution in the senate with remarks by senator mcconnell, paul mikulski and ser baucus. nba retirement issues facing baby boomers. on the next "washington journal", westmoreland of virginia talked about a provision that he helped to sponsor to strip funding for the health care law. then representative jan czajkowski of illinois discusses a debate over a possible government shutdown. and shingled mocker talks about his take on capitol hill. and the government executive media group examines the effect of government shutdown in what would have on the public at large. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.

>> general keith alexander, the director of the nsa, spoke about media leaks and the safety of security personnel at a cybersecurity conference. you can see his remarks in their entirety anytime at c-span.org. here is a look. >> i would like to step back. what i'm going to do is walk through some of this with you for about the next 2.5 hours. then i am going to shift over to cybersecurity. we need your help, upfront. we need to get these facts out and we need our nation to understand why we need these tools and what those tools mean to civil liberty and privacy and what they need to defending this country. everyone in this room can remember 9/11.

the impact that it had on our country. almost 3000 people killed by terrorists events in new york, pennsylvania, and washington. we remember how those firemen tried to save lives and they themselves were killed. what i most remember and what i think you in this room really remember is the military picking up the flag and saying that we will take it. we will defend this country. and they did. i am proud of that. and i think it is what david petraeus, ray odierno, martin dempsey, it is what we look out with our nation in this country,

we ran into a rock and afghanistan and a lot of lives from our soldiers and airmen and marines were lost. the nsa in 2005, some of the folks said that we can help. we will help. we will provide the intelligence that our troops need to survive and win. and we put those folks forward. over 6000 nsa employees that went into iraq and afghanistan. david petraeus and some of his memoir said that that turned a rock around. it shifted it to our favor. he put it where it needed to be.

twenty-two cryptologists have lost their lives in iraq and afghanistan. they are the heroes. they are the ones that take that flag up and the folks in new york who did it in our nation will we needed them to do. they did more. that is a joke. [inaudible] they did more. we understand that this job is to defend the country. >> thursday, general keith alexander and national intelligence instructor james clapper discussed a government surveillance program in the pfizer court that oversees them. they testified before it the senate committee on c-span3.

c-span online archives redefine social studies education in america. the c-span video archives and capabilities are treasures and it is a great resource for you to view and share content anytime. it is easy. here's how. go to c-span.org and click on video library to watch the news video. click on what you want to watch and press enclave. you can also search the video library for a specific topic or a keyword, or you can find a person. type in their name and hit search and go to people. go to their biography page and scroll down to their appearances and you can share what you're watching. use the set buttons or handle tools, and then click share and send by e-mail, facebook, or google plus. the c-span video library is searchable and easy and free, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable

and satellite provider. >> senator ted cruz spoke on the floor of the u.s. senate for over 21 hours in his fight to get the senate to define the health care law, finishing up at noon today. senators john mccain and dick durbin and senator schumer responded to comments made by senator ted cruz. this is 20 minutes. >> madam president, i won't take a lot of time here on the floor. the floor has been well used over the last day or so. but i would like to make sure that my colleagues, and especially those who are not here in 2009 understand that there are many of us who are opposed to obamacare, as it is called the affordable care act, and the opposition that we

mounted in 2009. it is a matter of record that the senate, to start with, the senate finance committee considered the affordable care act over several weeks and approved the bill in october of 2009, at that time the members of the finance committee submitted 564 amendments, 135 amendments were considered, 79 roll call votes taken, 41 amendments were adopted. then the senate health education labor and pensions committee approved the affordable care act by 13 to 10 after a month-long debate, 500 amendments were considered, more than 160 republican amendments were accepted. then it came to the floor of the senate. the affordable care act was on the floor for 25 straight days,

including weekends, between thanksgiving and christmas of 2009. 506 amendments were filed and 228 that were republican, 34 rollcall votes were held, most of them resulted in partyline votes. this includes a motion which i had to commit the bill to the finance committee for a rewrite, the final passage of the bill, because of our insistence in exercising every reasonable parliamentary procedure that we could took place on christmas eve of 2009. much to the discomfort of many of my colleagues. but we have fought as hard as we could in a fair and honest manner this including

democracies almost always in the majority, that govern and pass the legislation. but i was extremely proud of the effort that we've we, on the side of the aisle have made to attempt to defeat what we thought was a measure that was not good for america. it was an interesting debate. i think an educational one. i see my friend from illinois here on several occasions, he and i have basic debates on the floor of the senate. which of course, i have one everyone. but the fact is that this legislation was hard-fought, a legislative process. i didn't like the end of it, but i'm proud of the effort that we made, and frankly the other side of the aisle allowed the debate to take place. again, we finally finished up on december 24 of 2009, at

7:05 a.m. so to somehow allege that many of us haven't thought hard enough, i think it does not comport with the actual action that took place on the floor of the senate. now, many of those in opposition right now are not here at the time and did not take part in that debate. i respect that. but i would like to remind them that the record is very clear of one of the most hard-fought and fair, in my view, debate that has taken place on the floor of the senate during the time that i've been here. i like to remind my colleagues that in the 2012 election, obamacare, as it is called, i will be polite -- the aca was a

subject that was a major issue in the campaign. i campaigned all over america for two months, everywhere i could. and in every single campaign rally, i said that we have to repeal and replace obamacare. the people spoke. they spoke much to my dismay, but they smoke. they reelected the president of the united states. now, that does not mean that we give up our efforts to try to replace and repair obamacare. but it does mean that elections have consequences. and those elections were clear in a significant majority that the majority of the american people supported with the president of the united states and renewed the stewardship of

this country. i do not like it. it is not something that i wanted the outcome to be. but i think that all of us should respect the outcome of elections which reflects the will of the people. we just went through a long many hours -- i can't call it a filibuster because it is intended to delay passage of legislation. there is no doubt that there was a time certain, that the time on the floor would have to expire. so i guess the kindness depiction that i could say is extended oratory that took place for many hours on the floor of the senate, which is the right of any senator to do. i respect that right. obviously, the longevity of the discussion was something that was certainly admirable.

but during the course of that discussion conducted by my friend from texas, he said that if you go back to the 1940s nazi germany, we saw in britain neville chamberlain that yes, they will dominate the continent of europe, but that is not our problem. let's appease them, why? because they can't be done, we cannot possibly stand against them. then he went on to say that i suspect those same pundits who say defining obamacare can be done. if it had been done in the 1940s, we would have been listening to them. and up until then we could not defeat the germans. i resoundingly reject that allegation. that allegation was a great disservice to those brave

americans and those who stood up and said what is happening in europe cannot stand when this is turned back and the passengers on that ship were sent directly to the gas chambers. when czechoslovakia fell in the slaughter continued. there were many who raise their voices. there were those who went to war because of the barbaric and great threat to civilization and everything we stand for. amongst them, my father and grandfather. i do not agree with that comparison. i think it is wrong. and i think it is a disservice to those who stood up and shouted at the top of their lungs that we cannot appease and that we must act and we did act.

it is a disservice to those who did not. now, i spoke to senator ted cruz about my dissatisfaction about his use of this language, and he said that he only intended it to be applied to pundits and not to members of the senate. i find that difference without a distinction. i find that something that i think i had to respond to. i do not begrudge senator ted cruz or any other senator who want to come and talk as long as they want to as long as they can, depending on the rules of the senate. but i do disagree strongly to allege that there are people today that are like those who prior to world war ii did not stand up and oppose the atrocities that were taking

place in new york. because i have an open and honest disagreement with the process of not agreeing to move forward with legislation, which i agree with, which was passed in the house of representatives, and comparing it to those who appease and are the appeasers as senator ted cruz has described them, as an inappropriate place for the debate on the floor of the united states senate. i think my colleagues. [inaudible conversations] >> madam president? >> the senator from illinois. >> would you be kind enough to tell us the state of time remaining? >> there are 15 minutes

remaining to the majority, no time remains for it the minority. [inaudible conversations] >> senator schumer is going to come to the floor shortly. as soon as he arrives, i'm going to yield to him. i would like to say in response to senator mccain, senator mccain, his father, father grandfather and son, as well as other family members, have made an extraordinary contribution to this country. i know the pride that is taken. i am proud to count him as a friend and fellow colleague in the senate. we have debated and i think that leads to a draw on several occasions. i respect him very much even when we disagree. and i know that he, he has statements that were heartfelt. we started in congress with senator reid and senator mccain and i together in the house in

1982. i hope that his statement is taken for face value, that we respect very much all of those those that have stood up and fought for america, though we may have many differences politically on the floor, we will never question those who have raised and given their lives in defense of this great nation. madam president, at the risk of taking more time than i should, i would like to say a word. at the conclusion of this debate, we will have an important vote here on the floor of the senate. it is a vote on cloture on the motion to proceed. basically what it says is we shall proceed to consider the bill that was sent to us by the house of representatives, the bill that was sent to us is not one that i agree with. and i hope we can change it. i certainly believe that it would be a serious mistake for us not to get the 60 votes necessary to proceed and debate on this bill. it would bring us to a point

where the government faces a shutdown. i do not want that to occur. whatever one may have is a position on affordable care, or the other position, i hope that we have resounding bipartisan support and votes to proceed to the debate and 30 hours after that we will vote on the motion to proceed and then we will talk about bringing this bill to a close. senator reid has made it clear that he wants to move this through as quickly as possible in an orderly fashion so that everyone has a chance to state their positions on important issues that are before us. what i feel is very basic. first we have responsibility to fund this government. one of my assignments here as chairman of the defense the provisions of subcommittee. it is an awesome assignment. almost 60% of all the domestic discretionary spending of the united states government goes through this one subcommittee. it funds are department of defense and intelligence agency.

any failure or reduction or delay that we have in bringing this forward ken jeopardized the important activities of securing the safety of our nation. my colleague has returned and i yield the floor. >> thank you, and i thank my colleague from illinois. >> the senator from new york. >> thank you, madam president. i think my colleagues for his courtesy and the senator from arizona. i thank him for his outstanding remarks as usual. for 21 hours, madam president, we have heard the senator from texas hold forth. what has he accomplished? he has alienated many of his own colleagues. he has taken 21 hours unnecessarily, although he is entitled to speak what he wants because the vote would have occurred whether he said 10,000 words or one word or no words. so as he said it is not a filibuster.

but most of all he has shown the american people what he's willing to do. we all know the senator from texas has very strong views about obamacare. fair enough. that is why we have a senate. there is a time and a place to debate it. but he, in his view that he is right and everyone else is wrong, is willing not only to hold forth on the senate floor at in a meaningless exercise, but more importantly urged his colleagues to hold the american people hostage until everyone agrees with his view. he wants to hold a cancer patient hostage, who won't get treatment if the government shuts down. he wants to throw the construction worker out of work, one who is doing a job that is federally funded grid and one that will be funded at the government shuts down.

he wants to tell the recipient of social security that they may not get their checks, that there are not enough people at the centers to send those checks and make sure that they get to the right place. because he wants to shut the government down. the senator from texas has passionate views. fair enough. but when the senator from texas thinks that he is so right that he can trample on the rights, not only of his own colleagues here, and those who are in a bit of a tizzy about what he has done, but far more importantly on the needs of the american people, something is wrong. you know, madam president, in this country we have always eschewed this. people are sure that they are so right that they don't listen to

anyone else and they don't care about anyone else and they don't care the damage that they cause as they pursue their goal. that seems to be what the senator from texas is doing. and i was appalled last night when he tried to make the analogy to world war ii and hitler as someone who lost relatives in the holocaust, to compare the two of them is absurd. i know that my colleague from arizona mention that as well. i was also surprised that he used the book green eggs and ham, as he read to his daughters. because anyone who knows that book knows that the moral of the book is try something before you condemn it. you might actually like it. but the main character in green eggs and ham resisted eating green eggs and ham. maybe if he were a senator he would speak on the floor for 21 hours. but then when he tasted green

eggs and ham, he actually like them. maybe senator ted cruz, as the president's health care bill goes into effect, you may actually find that you and your constituents actually like it. so the bottom line, madam president, it is very simple. there is a time and a place as the scriptures say. we will certainly debate in the 2014 elections obamacare. i would know that we did in the 2012 elections, and not a single democrat who voted for obamacare in the senate lost. every single person that was up for office had voted for obamacare and was not defeated, even though that issue was used against them over and over again. if we have that election in 2014 again, fine. by the way, we welcome and 2016 as well. if you want to have a debate on the floor of the senate about

obamacare, fine. but do not, do not hold justice body hostage because this was meaningless. don't hold us hostage simply because you are so sure that you are right and everyone else is wrong. do not hold a social security recipient hostage. don't hold the road worker hostage. don't hold the person who depends upon inspectors to inspect our food or patrol our borders hostage. debate obamacare all you want. but please do not threaten to shut down the government because you cannot get your way. i yield the floor. >> senator mitch mcconnell and senator rand paul came to the floor to discuss the health care

law and why they feel it should be defunded. this is 20 minutes. >> mr. president, to say to my friend from kentucky. i have had over 50 hospital town hall meetings in our state over the last year and a half. you and i have done a couple of these together. as a health care professional of yourself, looking at it from a hospital and health care provider, which you and i both have, what do you think is the most devastating impact of obamacare on the world? >> but if you look at the different hospitals, many of

them will go out of business. many of the bottom ones are driven by this, but they rely upon private insurance to make a profit. hospitals in most communities have to make a profit to stay in rofit.ss. hospitals in most communities have to make a profit to stay in business. so these hospitals particularly in small areas, some of them have already gone bankrupt in kentucky. they are very concerned about people shifting from private insurance to public assistance. the president says it will be free, but it has a cost. we all pay for higher taxes and the other way we pay for it is we have to ration care or ration what we pay for care, so we limit what we pay hospitals, which are already part of this, even more so now, same with doctors. and everyone who is it on medicaid or medicare, they are waiting in line to see a doctor. >> speaking of it, i remember

our governor got teared up when he announced that he had decided to accept the additional medicaid mandate, which the supreme court had actually said was optional. i remember having this feeling as well, but for a different reason. because i gather what will happen in our state is between three and 400,000 new people with free health care rushing towards the emergency rooms, and what i heard in a number of my town hall meetings is that they cannot handle the medicaid low that they have now. all of these new people who are headed their way, coupled with the $750 billion in health care provider cuts over the next 10 years. to help provide subsidies for people who are not old. coming out of medicare to provide subsidies for people that are not old. what is your take on this? >> when you look at the big

picture, i think it is a noble cause. and you look at what we have, the government already provides for medicare, everyone over 65. medicare is 35 to 40 trillion-dollar short. why exactly but it's nobody's fault, we are just living longer and a lot of people are retiring. a big baby boomer generation. but they are short. they are instituting a brand-new entitlement that is very big. and that we are going to pay for it by shifting for medicare that is already $35 trillion. that gives people pause. the other thing that should do is we should give them -- we can't have signing up for free, and the president promoting it, begging for something free. you know something is disorganized people won't take something that is free. >> this bill has also sold, as we both recall, is doing something about health care and

trans health care costs, i was noticing that hhs's own after he revise their projections just last week to say that obamacare will actually increase health care costs by $621 billion in the economy. is there any way that i would say to my colleague how this could possibly hold down the costs? >> there were problems in health care. but as a physician for 20 years, when i heard most was the cost of health care. people came to me and said it is so expensive, or if they were a small business owner, insurance costs too much. this does nothing to control costs, and in fact, obamacare does the opposite. it is a collection of mandates. i was talking earlier about the difference between freedom and corrosion. it will polos contract

coerce them to buy insurance. yes, it is good that it is not free. it will cost them more money. so if you are the working class and the working poor, it will cost more. he states in the middle class, but they will pay more for their insurance. they are to have insurance and they are going to pay more across the board. so there are a lot of problems and this bill does nothing to control the cost. >> one of our constituents that i was going to mention here, it you probably got it from that same constituent that i did two -underscore the rising cost and how it impacts people outside the health care provider world, regular people in business. this is from a fellow constituent of ours who writes, my father began his kentucky fried chicken business with the colonel himself in with the colonel's family. we proudly served his original recipe for 40 years, and it saddens me how well-intentioned

this law will undermine my ability to provide employment and deplete resources that could otherwise be used to grow my business. you and i both have known from a lot of kentucky business people, indicating that this franchise underscores the impact of this on the private sector. >> i met with the a group today and i had here 68,000 americans, senior citizens, who signed a petition from conservative alliances. saying that they wanted to demand led, anything to try to show slowdown this monstrosity. we have also heard from folks that work for ups. one of our biggest employers in kentucky, 15,000 spouses losing their insurance coverage from ups. it is a great company with great benefits. but they are forced to cut back because of obamacare.

we hear from individuals throughout the state and we have gotten thousands of letters, one couple that i've met recently was actually profiled on fox news, and they said we have to buy our insurance. we are self-employed, we do work and we are going to $900 per month. this is exactly the opposite of one of the real things that we had. especially expanded if we were in charge and talking about this is how savings accounts work. people can say for things that were not covered by their insurance. cosmetic, elective kind of surgeries, deductible, a lot of things in a tax-free account. we have noted this bigger and bigger over time, obamacare makes it smaller. you have a kid with autism or special needs, you need to save that money tax-free so you can help your child with the extra stuff. the president has narrowed that. also, health savings accounts

help to keep the savings down. you call them up and say how much would that be and you ask them how much will that cost. that simple question of asking is concerned on the consumer that drives prices down and we have gotten rid of that. >> you know, the other thing that is clearly happening here is that all indications are that we have a record number of part-time employees in our country now. employers are downsizing in order to try to get below the 50 employee threshold. of course even if they do that, they are not necessarily unaffected by the rising cost of health insurance premiums. but looking around at that some level, they are trying to prevent the worst taste scenario here. all of this disruption in our economy is actually the reason that we have so many part-time workers, is it not?

>> gas, and the thing is that there was a french philosopher that talked about the seen and the unseen. under the president will show as the person who gets insurance, that is the scene person, the unseen person is the person who doesn't get the job because we don't know their managers, the person that never got the job. the person i was going to be the 56 employee, or the part-time worker that had 34 hours. it is unseen. i don't question the motives of the president. i think they want to help people, but they didn't think this through. so even their side is questioning it. authors of the bill are calling it a train wreck. they are saying that we didn't know we'd have to pay taxes on our health insurance. warren buffett, former president clinton, all the people questioning that this will really hurt some of the people that you tried to help. that is one of my concerns and another there has been a lot of talk about this, that we ought to have the ability to amend

this. to make this better for the american people. now, are these people willing to talk about fixing obamacare or making it less bad for the american people. >> you know, you're not here yet, but you are fully aware of how this bill passed in the first place. not a single member of our party in the house or senate, he brought us into the session the day after thanksgiving of 2009 we were not allowed to leave for a month. we were here seven days a week for a month, we managed to eke out. they had 60 democrats and 40 republicans, not a vote to spare. on christmas eve as a result of things like the cornhusker kickback, a special deal for nebraska, the louisiana purchase, the special deal for florida. all while the vice president is up here telling us that you are

going to love it by default. here we are four years later. it is more unpopular today, i would say, than it was on the day it was passed. and isn't it reasonable to conclude that that is because of what it does? >> absolutely, but it is also because there has been no end. obamacare is 100% the president's bill and the work of the democrats. and i think that people -- they do want us to have some dialogue and work together a little bit. there has been no working together on obamacare. i think the president got it exactly wrong the other day and it was bad to misinform the people this way. he said republicans want 100% of what they want where they are going to shut down government. i think it's the opposite. i think it's 100% of what he wants. he doesn't want any compromise. there is a discussion about obamacare, but why not nearly

80% of us voted and said the medical devices tax is going to be a disaster in the medical industry. it is a bad piece of the bill and we should repeal it. why not have a vote on that? but to my understanding there will be no vote on any amendments to make obamacare any better. >> you know the president himself seems to be kind of conceding that some things are not working out well. he decided to delay the employer mandate for a year. apparently he has been meeting with some people to try to figure out what he can do for them. i believe the 100% view of the republicans is that if we are going to have a delay for business, why not have a delay for everyone. obviously we would like to defund the law entirely, there is a math problem with the senate. fifty-four democrats and 46 republicans. but couldn't we all agree on just the way in this train

wreck? and that was what the democratic chairman of the finance committee here in the senate, one of the authors of the bill called it. >> there is also something important about how we change obamacare. if a law has problems and we incorrectly pass a law that has blemishes, it should come back and we should re-debate and try to make it less bad, that's a way to put it. but it is illegal and it is unconstitutional and unprecedented for a president to do this on his own. to my mind, win or lose this week, this is an important philosophical battle bigger than obamacare. as big and broad as the country is. whether or not congress writes the law and the president executes the law. if the president gets to write this and execute, it's a type of tyranny. when it becomes the executive power, that is a type of executive journey and we have to

do something that says, this needs to be pursued and rebukes the president and says, you're not a king, you are the president and the legislation comes from congress and not from you. >> you know, we we have another example that affects our state. even when the president had a 40 victorian house in 60 in the senate, could not get cap and trade through the congress. just couldn't get through the congress. yet last friday he announced that he is going to do it anyway. all indications are that there will not be another coal-fired generation plant built ever. perfect example of what you're talking about, kind of an executive idea that if i can't do what i want from congress i will do it on my own and see you in court or whatever limited options we have left. if he really believes that he has the power to delay obamacare, why not delay it for everyone and not just business?

>> i think people see this as unseemly. but if there are problems, is a right for him to just give exemptions to his friends. you see a lot of people going to the white house that are big contributors of his. and it's like, can you buy access and can the president change the law only for people who gave him money. can he give out grants and loans to people who are his contributors. that sort of belies his tail when he says for the middle class. i don't see the middle class or any of my friends getting any special deals at the white house but i see them bearing the brunt of people who do get special protections. if you have really good health insurance, many of the units will get that, i stand here and fight tooth and nail not have a special tax on the unions. but it's not for me a union or nonunion thing. it's about is a good for america. some executives have good insurance as well.

should we have a special tax on something good? it doesn't seem like the right thing to do. >> at some point regardless of the differences of opinion that we have had on our side or a procedure, what is likely to happen is that we are going to have a 51 vote on defunding obamacare. something we have not been able to achieve here in the last four years. four democrats who had second thoughts, who had an opportunity to take a look of the carnage of the last four years could actually pass the bill that the fund's obamacare. i say to my friend and colleague standing at this very chair four years ago, looking at the other side and say if just one of you would come with us, this bill would pass.

and i also said, however, if none of you do, every one of you is responsible for its passage. any democrat on the other side, anyone of them said this is a bridge too far and i'm not going to do it and it would not pass. consequently, every single one that was responsible for the passage has a second choice or a second chance. an opportunity for a do over at some point here this week. and a chance to cast a real vote on an up or down basis to say, look, i have watched this for four years and i really don't think that we ought to go forward. it will be interesting to see if party loyalty will be so great that none of these folks will be able to bring themselves to admit that they made a mistake four years ago. >> i think one of the disappointing things about the debate both then and now is that we're talking about something that all americans want.

affordable health health care, and what most people do have insurance. but we have made it a partisan battle. not weak, but the congress and the deliberate process has become very partisan. in reality there are things that we have, the problems, some of them agree that there are problems and it needs to be fixed. but because there is a stubbornness that we are getting, 100% of what we want or we are willing to risk shutting down the government, that is what we get from the other side. they're way or the highway. all obamacare where they want the government to shut down. in reality there is a lot of good things that we could actually come together and work on. because obamacare never addressed this. there is 85% of the public and their prices going on. so we really need to get together and talk about how we need to bring cheaper health care for people. >> the tragedy of all this -- and correct me if i'm wrong.

we passed a 2700 page bill on this bipartisan basis, got about 20,000 pages of regulations issued. i use them in a speech recently, 7 feet tall, we had put it on a dolly to put it up on there. i would ask my friend and colleague from kentucky, did not read the other day that even after we do all of this, the 2700 page bill, the 27 pages of regulation, there still may be 30 million people uninsured? >> yes, i don't think it has fixed the problem. so i don't think we have fixed half the problem. these are the people that didn't have health insurance, a third of the people without health insurance had insurance but made more than $50,000 a year. they were not getting health insurance because it was too expensive. what we do to help them? we made it more expensive. >> well, i think that this law

has no chance of working. i don't believe that even if we are unable to defunding here in the next few days that we are necessarily stuck with it. i have been here a wild and you have been a longtime observer through your father's career and her own, and i think it's pretty safe to conclude that the things they can't work don't stick and they don't last. because we are, after all, a representative of the democracy, people complain and discuss and tell us how they feel. but i don't think that this law can possibly stand. it's pretty hard to predict the day which it ends. but it is cracking. when you have jimmy hoffa, same bed he is destroying the 40 hour work week.

and their cadillac health care plan. don't you think this thing possibly can't work? >> i think once the bill comes due at the state level, we will have an uproar on their hands because it is pretty impressive that washington, in the state capital, they are limiting it leads to a certain extent on their borrowing, the medicaid bills that come due in kentucky, our state and other states. i think there will be another war over obamacare. the question then is do we draw the governor who increased our medicaid by 50% and bankrupted our state in the process. >> i think my colleague from kentucky for the opportunity to exchange some views here about the impact of this on our state. as well as our country. i yield the floor. >> democratic senators max baucus and barbara mikulski came to the floor to discuss the continuing resolution and why they are in favor of the health care law. senator mikulski discussed an

amendment that she and harry reid will introduce that strips the health care language. this is about 30 minutes. >> the senator from montana. >> thank you. >> the senator from maryland. mr. mikulski, 15 minutes. then senator alexander from tennessee. >> without objection. he met mr. president, today we start with a quote. the conservative leader speaking out by the new health care law. he said, we are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program. he went on to say that he called pending legislation socialism

and said that our natural unalienable rights are not considered to be a dispensation of government and freedom has never been so fragile or close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. those are fighting words, mr. president. when were they spoken? not spoken in 2010 or 2011. not spoken in 2012 or 2013. rather they were spoken in 1964. who spoke them? ronald reagan, president reagan, speaking out against medicare that became law the following year. fast forward 20 years and things are quite different. president reagan said in 1984 that millions of americans depend upon the medicare program to help meet their health care costs. and it continued, and i'm

quoting, and ensure the long-term solvency of the medicare program, and i'm i am confident that we can find the right solutions in a bipartisan manner. well, what do you think happened to change president reagan's mind? the hysterics ended and people gave the new program room to breathe and it worked. medicare gave america's seniors access to health care that they had never have before. the same pattern emerges when you look further back into history and consider social security. in 1935, one senator said that social security would go a long way to destroy american initiatives encourage. another member of congress said the lash of the dictator we felt. these are criticisms of landmark legislation, monumental loss and are not vital to every health

and welfare formation. but criticizing the conception, social security, medicare, our searches content considered one of the best programs in the nation's history. i'm confident that history will treat us in an affordable fashion. i'm confident that the blades and 10 complaints of those have gone so far to call the affordable care act a crime against democracy or a centralized health dictatorship that will soon be drowned out by the voices of the american people whose lives are better off because of the health care act. already, the ac has done more than any in the past century to expand health care. the past three years, the aca has provided 71 million americans free preventative services. more than 6 million seniors have received discounts and vital prescription drugs. more than 3 million young people have peace of mind, knowing they

can stay on their parents health care plans until they turn 26. i'm i am especially proud of the fact that no child could ever be denied health care coverage because of a pre-existing health care condition. all of that and the full benefit of the law have not yet taken effect. the american health care act -- the affordable healthcare act is my easy thing, but neither was security when it passed congress. adjustments need to be passed to make the aca better. it would be easier to make improvements of everyone participated. that we are not betting that chance from happening. instead, opponents are making every effort to destroy a formal care act, fighting to take away its many benefits. last week the house passed the resolutions for the remainder of the year, including amendments

to eliminate all funding to implement the affordable care act. i want to be very clear that we are not going to let that happen. we are not going to go back to the status quo. we are not going back to a broken system for more than 50 million americans that lack health insurance. we are not going back to a system that allows the cost of medical care to overwhelm a family and force them into bankruptcy. we are not going back to a system that allows simple lack of insurance to contribute to the deaths of thousands of americans each year. we are not going back to return the status quo. no, we are not going to do that. but we are going to go full speed ahead on implementing the portable care act. the health exchanges in just six days will open for business in the formal care act will kick in. what does that mean? for the majority of americans, nothing really.

despite all of the scare tactics and the rhetoric, nothing will change for millions of americans who already get health insurance for their employers or medicare or medicaid or the veterans administration. but for those almost 50 million americans who don't have health insurance, they will now have access to affordable care and peace of mind. ..

gain access to come brands of coverage that doesn't make them go bankrupt or break their household jets. past president congresses and other policymakers have tried to fix his problem time and again and we sit here today with a solution the affordable care act. for the first time every american will be guaranteed health coverage. they will no longer be legal for health insurers to deny someone coverage for pre-existing condition might wrest cancer pregnancy. before a ca pregnancy was a pre-existing condition if you can believe it. that is just wrong and it's no longer the case. pregnancy is not a pre-existing condition. the house wants to discontinue access to affordable care. the aca provides free preventive

care. the house wants to take this away. under the aca insurance can no longer impose lifetime annual limits. this means more than 105 million americans no longer have it cap or limit on their coverage to no longer can insurance companies say no, no, no more. the house wants to take this away too. possibly 3.1 million young adults gain coverage to the aca provision allows them to stay on their parents health insurance plans until age 26. we have all heard so many favorable comments about this provision from so many in our home states but know the house wants to take that away as well. i'm concerned about the effects of the house continuing resolution not only on health care reform but also seniors on medicare.

leader reid and i wrote a letter last week to health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius nasr what the impact the cr would have on the operation of medicare. specifically we asked how would the cr affect beneficiaries access to care and last friday we received a response that confirmed our fears. the house bill would have much broader and more harmful implications for the medicare program and for seniors. in her letter secretaries of the he is says the cr cr would quote severely impact the medicare program and quote. she was -- goes on to note that it would limit restriction drug coverage forcing seniors to pay more for their prescriptions. the secretary also said the house carp with payments to doctors and cut off wellness visits forcing seniors to pay out-of-pocket for preventive services.

in addition medicare beneficiaries would be forced to drop their medicare advantage plans and enroll in traditional fee-for-service. it's clear the house carp would have dire consequences for the more than 46 million americans who rely on medicare every day it in her letter secretaries sebelius stress the severe impact the house cr would have on children and working families the most vulnerable among us. the aca expanded medicaid allowing states to cover low income for the first time read the house cr would end this coverage sending this vulnerable population back to the emergency room for treatment and putting hospitals on the hook for providing care. the aca expanded access to services for people with disabilities and other long-term care needs. the cr would put them in an

immediate stop to these programs and send people with disabilities back to the nursing home. the affordable care act extended the children's health insurance program for two additional years. the house cr you guessed it referred back to prior law ending funding for this vital program at the end of this month. the house cr leaves 6 million kids without access to coverage. no doctors appointments no prescriptions no caps to heal the occasional broken arm. mr. president victory is a group of republicans in the house have wasted taxpayer money time and resources trying to stop the act over and over again. in fact they tried to repeal this law 48 times. they even took the argument all the way to the supreme court and of course we all know what the supreme court said. the supreme court said the affordable care act is the lava land. it is the law. people fear what they don't know. i understand that. but let's all take a deep wrath.

as one republican senator recently noted it is quote not rational to think the senate will vote to repeal or defund the aca. he is right. it's not. we don't want to go back to the status quo. this is complex legislation and i'm hoping to strengthen the law to serve the american people is just as this congress did with social security and medicare. wouldn't it be better if both parties work together to improve the law. let's work to improve it. that is what the american people expect of us. they don't want the government to shut down. they don't want america to default on its debt or the aca. a recent poll by cnbc found the vast majority of americans, 59% opposed the funding the affordable care act as a cost of government shutdown or a debt

default. almost 65% say don't do that. we all have a responsibility to lead to the affordable care act is a lot the lan. the ability to work together to make it work for families and businesses who depend on it instead of using it as a political football. enough is enough. it's time for the hysterics to end. the people need to get the aca and a room to burt -- breathe and his chance to succeed parent confident america will be better for it and we will all be on the right side of history. thank you mr. president and i yield the floor. mr. president i have one question. i asked that the following staff allow -- kevin mc millis carli board stephan jenkins sipple tolson taylor harvey matthew deavers craig dobson lewis evans

danielle harness and robert andrews. >> without objection. >> mr. president? >> the senator from maryland. >> mr. president i rise to speak about obamacare. and i to call it obamacare. you know when we passed the dash it was called the affordable care act him before he leaves the floor i would like to complement the senator from montana for the important and crucial role that he played in passing the affordable care act act -- health care act and it was his excellent stewardship and the funding committee where we could expand access to health care modernize the way we do it to go from volume medicine to value-based medicine and to be

able to expand our access in a way that also was fiscally prudent. he also pave the way of expanding the children's health initiative. so why no later on he is planning in his life a new future for himself but i want you to know that while he is thinking about how he will be getting a different life he really impacted the lives of many people. i stand here today to thank him personally in a heartfelt way for the way he has improved the lives of people particularly the lives of children and women in this country. >> mr. president? >> the senior citizen from montana is recognized. >> mr. president i am deeply humbled by the senior senator from maryland. coming from her that is a high compliment and i to greatly appreciated. >> mr. president here we are.

we are having a national debate on the senate floor about should we provide access to help -- health care for all americans and be able to do do away and modernize is the way we deliver health care to emphasize value health care over volume health care. and we are having this debate even though we passed legislation in 2010. now i thought when you passed a bill and it was signed into law, that it was the law of the land. no, no here we go again. we are trying to take legislation that was passed and then do it by defunding it. i don't know what we are doing here. you know first there was an attempt to delegitimize president obama.

the american people have said we want a rock obama to be our president. when he ran the second time we have passed the health care initiative so that was another affirmation that there was public support for that bill. now here we are on the eve of the funding for fiscal year 23 and there is a manufactured crisis bringing the government to the brink of a shutdown because the other party are sore losers. they lost the election. they lost the battle to get that close. we have the opportunity to vote and amend and change the affordable care act so now here we are and i think that it is an outrageous use of the senate's

time and we need to be able to move on with the serious business governing our country. i worry about unemployment in our country. i worry about the fact that our children are no longer achieving the best in the world. i worry about my small to midsize business having access to capital. i know that many here call this bill a job killer. do you know what is a job killer? our behavior here the senate. this gridlock, deadlock, a hammer lock on the united states senate means we cannot do the business of the country in an orderly and predictable way. therefore when businesses want to plan what are going to be the rules of the game coming out of the united states government they are not going to know. so if they are planning what they should do about their business -- should they expand and what should they do, they need certainty. as long as we play brinksmanship

policy you cannot have certainty so one thing is certain though that we definitely should keep the obamacare. i am happy to call it obamacare because i think obama does care that i think all of us here who are democrats certainly in the senate and many on the other side of the aisle also support the fact that we want to increase the universal access. so let's go to what the legislation meant. when we pass the affordable care act, number one they provided access to more people for health care. when we passed that bill 42 million americans did not have access to health care. so that means here in the united states of america, if you needed a doctor that doesn't mean that you would have fun. if you needed a prescription drug it doesn't mean that you could afford to buy one. in many instances this put a

hardship on many families. what's also the affordable care act did it and it abuses by health insurance companies. when we pass their legislation people were denied health care on the basis of a pre-existing condition. that often meant that for children in the united states of america that they had juvenile diabetes, that they had cerebral palsy their families couldn't get health care insurance because these children have a pre-existing condition. and if you were a woman, it was even worse. pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition. in some instances where you had a premature birth or a c-section you were denied health care because that was considered a pre-existing condition. in eight states if you are a victim of domestic violence that was counted as a pre-existing

condition and you couldn't have access to health care. now what is that? the affordable health care act we change that law so we created the opportunities that the punitive practices of insurance companies would not be a terrier to be able to get health insurance. then there was this other issue of lifetime caps are that means if you had a condition and you hit a lifetime cap then tough luck for you. what happens if you have a child with hemophilia? that's a hard, hard thing for that child to face the rest of his life for her life and for the family. don't you think there should be no caps are in a benefit? what happens if you are struggling with cancer and you hit a cap? it doesn't meet that your need for treatment ends. it just means that your incense company won't pay for.

we lifted the annual lifetime caps. for we women a double insult of paying more for health insurance simply because we were women was repealed. in the health care affordable care act there is no gender discrimination. we felt in our hearings that women were paid two to 10 times as much for their health insurance as men at the same age and health status. we don't think that is fair and we changed it. we also improved health care for seniors. number one the added new medicare benefits. one, free cancer screenings. early detection means better treatment and a better chance of surviving that dreaded c word. it also provided an annual free check-up for you could go and we could get an identification of those killer's, early on.

so if you have high blood pressure, if you have high blood sugar we found those early and could intervene before they either moved to a deadly situation or worse. we know that high blood pressure undetected can lead to a stroke or to death. so we help i think get better health care and better value for our seniors. then there is the prescription drug benefit. this prescription drug benefit asked called part d. there was something in a called the doughnut hole. the doughnut hole was hard to swallow because it meant once a senior's drug costs exceeded a certain amount they went into not a doughnut hole but a dark hole and they have to pay for the full cost until they reached

a catastrophic threshold. now mr. president, have but for many people with chronic conditions not only does dramatic things like cancer but a chronic condition like diabetes, you could reach that doughnut hole pretty quick and that's exactly what it enables you to manage your blood sugar, working with your doctor following a program of diet and exercise. you still need a medication to help control that blood sugar. if you don't get that medication you could be headed for worse problems related to diabetic neuropathy, to vision loss, to the need for dialysis. you need to be in a program that you can follow and that you can afford. that is why closing the doughnut hole was so important.

it saves lives and it saves money. i could go on to other examples about what is in the affordable care act. there are many advances in terms of women. there were many advances in terms of children. i want people to know because i'm getting a lot of vitriolic tweets that somehow or another maryland isn't being served. when i looked at the data from our own states health commissioner's, 48,000 young adults in maryland were able to go on their parents plans and have health insurance while they looked for a job or finish their education. also, 485,000 marylanders on medicare were able to get their annual check-up. 72,000 marylanders were able to participate in the eliminating of the doughnut hole. that saved people an average of

$700 a year for a total of $51 million that was pumped back into the maryland economy to do other things and create jobs for other people. so when they say they want to do fund obamacare what is it that they get to replace it with? do they want to go back to big insurance and their practices of denying a child with a pre-existing condition? left them call the parent of the juvenile diabetes or someone with cerebral palsy. do they want to make a phonecall and say they know you were working hard to find a job or working hard to finish her education? do they want to eliminate closing the doughnut hole? no, they just say they want to eliminate it. i want to eliminate this from the cr so let me tell you where

i come in as the chair of the full committee. i in a very short time and the majority leader will offer an amendment to the cr sent over by the house. i'm going to get rid of this brinksmanship slapped down showdown politics. the amendment that we will be offering will strike the provision to defund obamacare. it will strike the provision that was put in on the debt ceiling which means the way they want to structure it the house and over is the pay china first and americans at the end of the line. i then want to set into motion working with the democrats -- it's not only lead democrats. we are to have a cr -- you are holding your finger up.

i want to have an amendment to strike the defunding of obamacare, strike the language on the debt limit, moved the date for the continuing resolution from december 15 to november 15 so that we can get to a situation where we focus on completing our budget, and eliminating sequester for two years. i want to get rid of the theatrical politics that get into the real business of running -- helping him govern america in a way that provides jobs, economic opportunity and insurers our internatiinternati onal security. mr. president i yield the floor. >> at the end of wednesday's senate session leader reid found cloture on the house passed government funding bill that would keep the government

running past october 1 and to defund the health care law. this sets the stage for two amendments, one that would remove the language that defines the health care law and another that shortens the length of the temporary limit to november 15. a.

>> originally in the 1840s this was two houses. they were joined together. the downstairs was used as retail space. the upstairs was the dash this is the birth room of edith boling wilson. thisthis is the bedroom after parents. she was the seventh of 11 children warned to the bowlings. she was one of over 20 family members that lived upstairs in the rolling home. this is the back sleeping porch. this is where he edith would gather with her family where they would enjoy evenings

together. edith parents center to washington d.c. to keep her away from an older gentleman who was wishing to court her. there she met and married her first husband and it really changed her life. >> according to the bureau of labor statistics 18.5% of americans over the age of 65 will working last year. next the senate aging committee looks at the difficulty many baby boomers face when trying to retire. this is 90 minutes. >> we welcome our witnesses. i want to thank you for being

here as we discuss their retirement security of senior citizens particularly baby boomers. the american senior is in some difficulty and financial trouble. changes in the retirement systes and this recent recession have all combined to put baby boomers on a shakier financial footing than their parents and their grandparents. the american dream if you work hard and play by the rules, you can be rewarded with a comfortable retirement. for some of our seniors, that is fading away.

people today are not only retiring with less money coming in that more money is going out to pay off expenses like debt or medical bills and that doesn't even factor in the financial challenges faced by seniors with long-term health care needs. so, here in the congress in the midst that we are now as we speak going through a harangue on the floor about whether or not we are going to pay our bills, whether or not we are going to have a continuation of appropriations next tuesday. well it's important to think about all of that impact on the people who are already living with too little to no disposable income. more than three in five adjusted

my state of florida on social security get at least half of their income from those retirement benefits. over 3.5 million floridians,, one in five residents, rely on medicare. and what about the people in our state who could get medicaid if the state would expand its program for 1.2 million people under the affordable care act if the state would expand it to its eligibility? that would cover health care for 1.2 million floridians that otherwise are between the eligibility levels in state

medicaid and 130 8% of poverty. so, folks between the ages of 50 and 64 are particularly going to be affected if they don't expand medicaid until they get to the age of 65 for medicare. now we have had all kinds of stories from my state about how shaky finances are in retirement michael aveda from miami works for a financial planner so all of his papers and investments are in order but even he is only bringing in $50 more per month than he has to spend so any real expense that comes his way could have a real impact on its financial well-being.

jim mrsa no of tampa says he is nowhere near where he was a decade ago before the recession. he has been out of work a total of three years. he kept being told he was over qualified for jobs. now both he and his wife are working and between the two of them they are me king what he made by himself 11 years ago. so he too will be working for a long time. and so what can be done to stem this tide? what can we do to make sure our seniors have enough money to last them for retirement? and that is what we are convening today on the aging committee. this is a crisis that is not only in the making, it's made.

and i hope our witnessed today will shed some light on this. i want to turn to ranking member senator collins for her comments. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. i also want to thank and welcome our new colleagues to the senate senators god for coming today. >> welcome. >> i know he is very eager to play an active role in this committee and its great to have him as well as senator warren join us as we explore this very important topic. on january 1, 2011 the first members of america's baby-boom generation celebrated their 65th birthday. since that day, the more than 10 million americans have reached that milestone and 10,000 more will be added to

that number every day for the next 17 years. after four decades in the workforce these americans should be confident that they will have the resources to enjoy their retirement years without fearing that they will run out of money and fall into poverty. yet, far too many american seniors struggle to get i and have real reason to fear that they will outlive their savings. nationally one in four retired americans has no source of income beyond social security. in my state maine the number is one in three and four in 10 rely on that vital program for 90% of their retirement income. bear in mind that social security provides an average

benefit of just a little over $1200 per month, less than $15,000 per year. it is hard to imagine stretching those dollars far enough to pay the bills, certainly a comfortable retirement appears to be out of the question. the importance of social security to low income retirees cannot be overstated. social security benefits represent 85% of the income of low income retirees. by contrast retirees in the top income quartile received 17% of their income from social security. according to a survey published last year more than half of all americans are worried that they will not be able to maintain their standard of living in

retirement, up sharply from 34% two decades ago and they are right to be concerned. projections published in the year 2010 by the employee benefit research institute showed that nearly half of the early boomers, those between ages 56 and 62 are at risk of not having enough money to pay for basic costs of retirement including uninsured health care costs. they found that the rate of an adequate retirement income has risen across all age groups and income levels since it's previous study in 2003. early boomers will need to save an additional 3% of compensation each year to cut in half their chances of running out of money in retirement just to make up

for the losses they sustained in the 2008/2009 financial crisis. to a great extent combat the decline in retirement security is traceable to the severity of that crisis which wiped out nearly one quarter of the accumulated wealth of all u.s. households. seniors were particularly hard hit. while the weak financial recovery has restored some of their loss as, many retirees have been forced to accept a lower standard of living that may well be permanent. other factors that have weakened retirement security of today's retirees are rising health care costs, that the need for long-term care and the fact that americans are living longer. the shift from employer-based defined-benefit plans to defined

contribution pension plans like 401(k)s has also played a role. employees of smaller businesses are much less likely to participate in employer-based retirement plans. according to recent gao study or than half of the 42 million americans who work for businesses with fewer than 100 workers lack access to a work based plan to save for retirement. proposals to make it easier for small businesses to provide retirement plans for their workers could make a significant difference in financial security for many americans as long as they do not impose costly new mandates that discourage smaller companies from hiring employees in the first place.

again mr. chairman, thank you for calling this important hearing. i look forward to hearing from our witnesses. >> after we hear from our witnesses, i am going to turn it over to our committee members questions and then i will do a cleanup of remaining questions of you all. we are delighted to have you all today. your written testimony will be entered into the record. i would ask you to keep your comments to about five minutes so we can get into the questions and we are going to have ms. joanne jacobsen. she is a senior. she is experiencing some of these difficulties that we have talked about. dr. olivia mitchell, international foundation of employee benefit plans professor at the wharton school.

paula calimafde -- close. give it to me. calimafde. she is chair of the small business council of america and richard johnson, dr. richard johnson senior fellow and director of program on retirement policy at the urban institute so we welcome you all. ms. jacobsen we will start with you. >> thank you, sir. chairman nelson, senators collins scott and ms. warren my name is joanne jacobsen. i am 63 years old. i was born, who grew up and lived in massachusetts until i was 56. i now live in venice florida whose average age by the way a

67.6 so i'm speaking for the other 24,000 people that live there. i have to sons who live in new england won in massachusetts and one in a hampshire. i have saved money. i supported my sons. i plan for retirement. yet when i reached what should've been my retirement age the promise that i would receive health and benefit for the rest of my life was broken and so were my hopes of retiring comfortably in florida. like many baby boomers battered by the recession i'm still in the workforce and will probably remain on the job force in the future. i have worked in some form since i was 15 years old. although i dropped out of college because my father got sick i had a good job at the phone company is weiss to call it. then at&t. i got married, they got divorced raise two sons with no support.

i worked for the phone company for 18 years got my bachelor's degree at night which enable to meet to get a promotion to management. that is how i was able to send my sons to college and returned to college and i got my masters degree at 50. in january of 2002 i was laid off at age 529 months short of full retirement of 30 years. it was a time when thousands of management employees were being laid off for downsizing measures in many industries. during my time i did all the things i was supposed to do. even though i was involved in the company's defined benefits pension plan i also participated in a company savings plan. i even bought a few stocks. i participated in financial planning offered by the company and i kept track of my promised in retirement earnings benefits. right here, got all my booklets

i have saved all these years. i began planning my retirement in my 30s. my goal was to retire to florida in my 50's. i'm aaron saltz type of person. all of my financial retirement planning was centered on my employers promise of benefits and pension and retirement health care benefits. all of that was factored into my budget for retirement. after being laid off i spent the next two years in three different jobs before for filling one of my retirement dreams which was to move to florida. because i was concerned about what would happen to my pension payments and retirement given all the turbulence of the company and changes of ownership rights of the lump sum and rolled it over to an i.r.a.. i was not in any position to stop working with children and college however i took a series of jobs that were all unfortunately impacted by the

recession. one government job in sarasota county was eliminated. even finding a job is tough because i suspect i was a victim of age discrimination. still at the age of 62 i felt confident enough about my financial status to convert might hire ease into annuities and enroll in social security benefits. six weeks after i and rolled in social security out of the blue and one day before the the affordable care act was ratified i received a letter from my company that took over my pension plan stating that they would no longer provide health care benefits and would discontinue my life insurance. try buying life insurance after you are 60 years old. for those people 65 and older be rescission of these benefits

took place almost immediately, within 30 days. for those under 65 like me health care premiums increased immediately. my health care premium doubled. all of the company subsidies for health care at the end of this year when the affordable care act goes into effect. i have shopped around for health care plans. they will all be very expensive especially if i want long-term care at my age. i am paying for health care. my annuities in social security barely cover my basic cost of mortgage taxes car payments utilities daily living business expenses but then i can't make too much money drying social security benefits because they will be taken away. because i am not hit at the full retirement age of 66. although i've visited my sister

to office four times this year i did not learn that i will get enhanced benefit at age 66. that does not help in now because living on a limited budget the last year or so i've had to charge doctors visits dentist visits along with anticipated expenses to my credit cards. and talmud now my dad has been managed by my credit rating near 800. now it has swollen to five acres in my credit rating is diminished. i even lost an opportunity to refinance my house because my credit score it dropped. there is no vacations or cruises are luxury items for me. they will be in no thoughts of ever retiring and i will be working into the foreseeable future are until my health holds out. what we are seeing here is we are witnessing the demise of the pension system in america is major corporations divest themselves of their fiduciary responsibilities to long tenured employees and retirees.

these corporations have ignored their obligation to fulfill pension benefits stated, stated in writing as part of their employee retirement compensation package. making it an option, cannot in obligation. what we need here is relief. this is truly a life or death matter. people will die for the lack of affordable and quality health care. i thank you today for inviting me to share my story and i ultimately welcome your questions. thank you. >> thank you ms. jacobsen. dr. mitchell. >> thank you for inviting me to discuss the changing face of retirement security of america. my name is olivia mitchell and i'm a professor at the wharton school and wrecked of the pension research council. as a researcher and a baby boomer i commend you for bringing up this important issue.

i believe like many here that this is a very challenging time to be reaching retirement age. 30 years ago my parents retired. at that time they had a secure lifetime pension a generous retiring radical plan. interest rates were high enough to secure them a steady income without spending down their nest egg too quickly. they also have inflation lifetime benefits from social security and medicare and they hope that death. moreover they had four children they had sent to college who were always ready to help them out. by contrast we boomers face a very different future. we worry the social security and medicare as well as the disability insurance system are fragile. few of us have retiree medical coverage for traditional defined pensions. some of us with defined contribution plans have not put enough in and what we put in have declined. nor are we converting our assets into lifetime income so that we

can't run out in old age. interest rates are so low that holding tips is a losing proposition and with longer life spans in the offing we very much need protection for long-term care costs but the product simply are not available or unaffordable and the topic of my discussion today is that. many more boomers are in debt than ever before. in a recent report i can. three cohorts of people aged 56 to 61 in the health and retirement study. this is a study where you can follow cohorts over their lifetimes. the focus on people aged 56 to 61 in 1992 and 2002 and then in 2008. for each group write on the threshold of retirement we measure totaled that as well as the ratio of debt to assets. additionally we focused on patterns of financial fragility

using both the h.r.s. and the finra national financial capability study. we came to two major conclusions about older americans debt levels. first americans today are much more likely to arrive in retirement with debt than in the past. for the earlier group back in the 1990s about 64% held that, over 70% of the boomers now do so. moreover not only to more people hold that, they hold more debt. that is median debt more than quadrupled between 1992 to 2008 and the top of the distribution owing the most owed $50,000 back in the early 90s and they now owe over $100,000. this is important because boomers retiring in the next several years are much more likely to carry this debt into retirement compared to previous cohorts and since debt payments

typically rise faster than interest rates that retirees can earn on their investments people will likely be more vulnerable. a key reason we found that tumors are spending -- facing retirement was so much more debt as they spend more on housing ended previous generations. as a result numbers are much more likely to have very expensive primary residences and of course some of those declined somewhat invaluable for the last few years and their mortgage values have run faster than the value of their homes. medium home loans relative to assets rose from 6% in the early 90s to over 25% now. so boomers will need to continue servicing their home loans into retirement and they are going to continue to need much more leverage than groups in the past. we drill down further to look more closely at debt. we found that in addition to mortgage debt boomers have had expensive financial habits.

they have not paid off their credit cards in full. they use their credit cards for cash advances. they are charged fees for late payments or exceeding their credit card bills. another piece of the story is medical bills also a source of financial problems. this has been mentioned by almost a quarter of the baby depot -- baby boomers. even more striking is the fact that only about a third said that they thought they could not not -- let me state again. only one third said they were likely to be able to come up with $2000 in the next month if faced with an unexpected bill and this is not a huge bill. this might be a car repair bill or a moderate sized lump appeared in the back of a financial crisis recession we now know that more can be done to protect americans from these problems. we know in particular that there is a strong positive link between financial literacy planning saving for retirement and assets into retiring.

those who are not financially savvy are much more like a ted debt and have lower savings. protective legislation can be useful when people lack the opportunity to make repeated purchases such as for example with annuities were you probably buy them once. it can also be helpful to better inform americans when they face potentially expensive decisions that they don't really understand such as buying a home picking out a mortgage hashing out their 401(k) plans are taking on credit card loans. i also believe boomers boomers could do better month for access to financial advice which could generate potential import rewards in the form of lower debt for those daring daring retirement. they also need more information on the benefits that delay inflating their social security benefit. in fact a number of baby boomers have already reached this conclusion on their own. for example delayed benefits from 62 to 70 and not that is what everyone should do but that in itself will mean an

additional 76% more in monthly payments. that can do a lot to help the income streams in retirement. let me stop there and thank you for your attention and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you dr. mitchell. ms. calimafde. >> it's still calimafde. calimafde. quite honestly all the teachers knew me by my first name on the first day of school. they did not want to deal with my first -- last name. the small business council of of america in the small-business counsel appreciate the opportunity today to submit testimony to you. the spca is a national nonprofit organization which represents the interests of privately held and family-owned businesses in the federal tax health care employee benefit matters. through our members we represent well over 20,000 successful

small businesses in the retail manufacturing and service industries. fortunately all of our members provide health insurance and retirement plan benefits for their employees. that's a somewhat unusual statistic or small businesses but that is the statistic. the sbl spl see is a 35-year-old permanent independent coalition of 50 trade and professional associations to share a common commitment to future of small business. and again as plc members represent areas as diverse as manufacturing retail distribution professional technical service construction and agriculture. the way we decide our policies is developed by consensus all the different trade associations hammering out what they think will work in small-business areas. i am the chair of the small business counsel of american and member of the board of directors and i am also a practicing tax

attorney and a practice in the area of retirement plans and employee benefits. i'm here today to present our views as to how important retirement plans are to america's retirement security and also to discuss how small-business retirement plan coverage can be increased and finally i wanted to discuss ways to incentivize employees to increase their savings. we have some statistics that are pretty startling. one of the statistics is and this was done by -- that individuals of all economic levels are more likely to say inside of a retirement plan that outside of their retirement plan and the actual statistic is workers are 14 times more likely to save a retirement plan offered by their employer than to save through an i.r.a..

14 times more likely. for those of us who work with small businesses and of course the statistic applies across-the-board as opposed to midsize and larger business as well. the magic is payroll deductions so you have your paycheck and your contribution you are making three-year plan is automatically taken out of that paycheck. there is nothing the employees doing. it's all on automatic pilot and not only do you not have to do anything to get the money into the retirement plan but it's not in your pocket so it's much harder to think of spending it because it's not there. i think we all have -- we have all walked down the street with a dollar in her pocket and without a dollar in her pocket and we know what happens. when he don't have a dollar you don't spend it. the retirement security of our nation is resting on three sources and very often we may have heard this referred to as the three-legged stool. the first to social security,

the second is the voluntary private retirement plan system and the third is individual savings. we know social security is the defined benefit system based on annuity type framework. there is not that much choice on the part of the individuals. the social security you can pick a few different start dates and that's about it. you cannot outlive your payments coming from social security. the qualified volunteer private retirement system today is primarily based on a defined contribution system and methods of payments out of these plans can include annuities installments, usually that is coming from an iraq, lump sums or a combination of one or more of those different methods of payments. the voluntary private retirement system is heavily regulated by the department of labor and the irs. but even though it's heavily regulated there is a lot of

flexibility in the system so that small businesses and its sized and large businesses are able to create retirement plans that fit their particular business their particular employees census the best. individual savings is totally open-ended and initially it was thought that this would be done outside of the retirement plan because it really wasn't until the 401(k) plan it became clear that this was going to be a major vehicle for americans to save. the social security system i think we all know it's probably in pretty good shape i imagine with our don't believe great amounts of -- [inaudible] the private retirement system is in fairly good shape in large part due to a series of laws passed by congress in the last two decades that recognize the system had become too complex, that there was not enough in the

system for small business owners join the system and the result of that is those laws were first said the cost benefit analysis for small-business owners became so that an owner would say it makes sense for my company to verse -- sponsor a retired or been planned because they outweigh the cost of of the burdens inherited not system. let's just talk about payroll deduction quickly because we know it's an easy and painless way to save. we know it's done automatically by the employer. we know it's not -- it's much harder to spend money you don't have in the third thing about it in the 401(k) area employees to not have easy access to the money so not only is it taken away automatically, is sort of locked inside. you can't get to it by loans and hardship but neither are easy ways to get to your money so

they went it keeps growing tax-free. i hope by now you were understanding in part what i'm getting to, encouraging savings and a retirement plan is a very good thing for all of us to do only should be trying to educate all employees particularly younger employees to take advantage of this feature in their plan. interestingly what we do know is that does not matter if it's a large business a midsized business or a small business. once a plan is offered to an employee it's almost the same take a break by the employees regardless of the size of the entity so once again we know that it's to the benefit to the retirement security of americans to promote these plans and encourage formation of retirement plans particularly in the small business act there. too many things we know are very successful right now.

one is auto enrollment and what auto in rome it means is when an employee is hired they are automatically enrolled in the plan. to get out of the plan you have to take steps to say i don't want to be in the plan and take me out. the other is auto escalation which means that you might start off with a 3% contribution being made meaning the employees putting 3% of their income, their compensation from that employer into the plan. the next year might be 4% of the next or 5% in the next year 5%. that's called auto escalation. you would think -- i mean i would think when i first started hearing about these is why is it successful? when i started realizing and thinking about what i what i knw that small-business employees not only from my own business but from spca members is inertia is a huge thing going out there with small-business employees. i'm not sure i know why but it

is easier to be enrolled and stay involved and it is to take all the steps to get yourself out of the plan.