acts and that is interesting in american politics, that you can reinvent a bit. you can evolve or change or you can be down and then get back up. so i don't see him wanting to get out of it. with respect his age, i think he is among the older but has a more youthful spirit than some of the older senators. his mother is living into her early 100s. so i think he, he would reject the notion that he is too old. that's my guess. >> mark's story is great and people should read the whole thing not just your nice excerpting this morning, mike. one of the greatest anecdotes i heard before but also is in mark's book, john mccain retirement equals death. his dad retired and died. >> the next day. >> when you have, now "the new york times" has roberta, john mccain's mom as 101. i don't know how much your

fact-checkers look into that. >> beyond that. >> 201 [laughter] >> been 101 quite some time now. >> people lie about their age at 100. i'm only 100. but, old age is not a thing and retirement to him honestly is more challenging. . .

>> someone who practices journalism, interest down, i can say i rarely talk about politics with my college. most of my colleagues have no idea what politics are. but let me think about it. i live in northwest washington. none of my neighbors are evangelical christians. i don't know a lot of people and my kids preschool who are pro-life. i just think, and i think of when you do have conversations, all the newspapers i've worked at about politics, you see clu clues. >> jake, you didn't hesitate either. >> i'm glad i had a chance to expand because i know that yes, yes, yes, yes is going to be taken by brent roselle but it is much more complicated and complex, which is a certain type of person who cooked becomes a reporter and generally speaking

these are people who have not generally speaking, i'm not saying every reporter in the world but generally speaking the kind of person who is a reporter in washington, d.c. or new york city, has never worked a minimum-wage job outside of high school, you know, when they worked at baskin robbins or whatever. has never experienced -- is not an evangelical christian like much of the country is. you know, there are a lot of experiences of the kinds of people who are reporters, editors, et cetera in washington, d.c. and new york city have not had. that said, i think it is an awareness of that, and when there is an awareness of it is when the best journalism can happen because people are not aware of the country they are writing for, the country they are on tv for, and desire to get out of washington, get out of d.c. and talk about expenses. it's not just the media leans a

little. most reporters, i don't know their political means but most publications, you can kind ge of get a sense of what the editor is thinking. i would put a lot more on the editors than i would put on a day-to-day reporter. but you don't see a lot of coverage of poverty. you don't see a lot of coverage of troops. you'll see a lot of coverage of faith. it's simplistic to say it's liberal or conservative. it's about experiences and lifestyle, and i think there needs to be working outside of a comfort zone. >> as everybody said, they did service, more reporters report themselves as being liberal democratic do not. i don't vote, i try very hard to stay out of the. my family, i do have evangelical community, i people on all sides, my personal family, and d

that's helpful i think of in different parts of the country but i think our bias, really the issue of bias, the bigger bias is biased toward conflict, biased towards, you know, the quick and easy and the simplistic. and that's our bias and that's what we have to fight everyday y to try to capture the world as we cover it, more sophisticated three-dimensional wacom all the different aspects that we overlook too much. >> before i get tweets about this, i'm not talking about every reporter i'm sure there are lots of reporters out there who have experienced poverty and of serve in the military and have evangelical relatives. >> later in the battle until -- panel -- >> i would say nbc before msnbc

existed. i feel it's important i acknowledge that. at the same time i also think that personally i've worked very hard throughout my career to be as intellectually aggressive about both sides of the aisle in and someplace in between in order to not allow myself to sort of be animated by -- i really enjoy the political discourse. i don't feel particularly swayed one way or another, that has taken a lot of effort over time but if you care about politics, to be able to try to be arm's-length. i think one of the things in -- i've been assigned republicans in recent years and people interpret that i chose to cover republicans. but when you're out in an environment that might be a town hall meeting or an event that is very conservative and have a chance to talk to people, i heard quite a lot of the criticism and i take it seriously. i also think that if it is the

world in which people have lived, they are also less likely to be drawn into the media if they had been raised in a community whether a school church or a down, that thinks the media is not evenhanded of there. you aren't typically drawn to pursue in life something that you think is not doing its job the best way they can. i think that filters some of the people go into the job. >> i will bring into the conversation in a moment. while we're doing that i will ask peter, a twitter question. will obama enjoyed a similar resurgence of popularity after office as bush and clinton? >> yeah, i think the history shows that most presidents do better when they're not president. you know, eisenhower has had a resurgence particularly in the last few years, for my books talk about how he is a much better president than we give them what for truman is the ultimate example.

truman left office in the 20s, '30s. a bad war, really disliked by a lot of the american public. today we venerate him as the architect of the cold war strategist the last throughout for use. look at reagan today. we talk about reagan as an icon and it strikes me at the moment reagan was very controversial. a lot of people didn't like and. most presidents tend to look better after the fact. >> even nixon. >> even nixon. >> specifically on your five, susan glasser's been a fantastic job as editor of politico magazine. they have a piece up right now talking to historians about the 50 year of presidents. who had the worst this year and a very common answer was fdr. >> fdr, you know, comes out of

-- feeling quite empowered who overreaches basically. he gets sort of snapped back as a result. a lesson president seem to learn over and over again. >> he had the best third term bill. [laughter] >> by far. >> do we have a question? while we're waiting for that i will ask jake tapper, you were an early innovator on twitter. you're aggressive, -- [inaudible] how have social media change in the last year? what you see happening in 2014? >> i can't speak for anyone else but for myself, twitter is where -- twitter is my drudge. twitter is my "huffington post." twitter is will -- is were i find stories. politico has always been my political and nothing else will be my politico. but honestly, politico, i find out about breaking news story on politico on twitter.

i fall a number guys. i follow you. you are not particularly active on twitter i should point out. dylan and hell bunch of reporters, glenn, are on twitter all the time and promoting each other's stories and that's were i find out about them. i follow, unbelievably, more than 2000 people. from all walks of life from all over the world, and it's the way i find out about what's going on. not to take away from drudge, but it's honestly it's a real-time newsfeeds. it's also way to interact with people, but i find its most valuable as a news source spent like the old ap wire. >> except better because it's every publication. and even publications to you what's going on from all over the world. when someone will put out a list like 20 unconventional women reporters, muckrakers, you

should be following. i'll follow every one of them. sometimes they're writing about australian social policy, maybe it doesn't enhance my knowledge of things i need to be covering but maybe all of a sudden my eyes are open to some that i didn't know about. >> peter, your chief white house course of a new kind. it's your job to think big thoughts and sikh conversations. how do you do that in the age of twitter? >> that's a great question. look, when i started covering the white house it was 96, clinton's second, heading towards second term and it was -- had beepers and if you wanted to know what's going on they would send out a page letting you know there was a statement. visited go to the white house, wrote more or less once they 6:00. today -- >> with a feather. >> it was awesome. carrier pigeon, and we tracked 20 miles through the snow. it's a thousand times different.

twitter i is that i think and importantly giving out information, giving out news. i learned a lot from twitter. it's sort of like a screening. you can't possibly absorb it. >> i follow everyone here on twitter. you three are pretty good. spent thanks, jake. >> by the time you get to the print edition story, you've gone off in three, four, five, eight times a day different things, podcasts and so things. it's a challenge to try to think and make the extra phone call. >> beyond twitter, just an instinct news era where there really is no new cycle, does that change your job and do you see changes in the way that our leaders at? >> well, i think that in cable news we had a bit of that immediacy that we have been ramping up over time in terms of my deadline might be a live shot at 11 a.m. and then another one at 1:00, and then there's brian

williams at 6:30 p.m., et cetera said. we are writing, rewriting, continuing to report on today. in some days -- in some ways like radio. i think we're multitasking in new ways. i like twitter for the situational awareness it isn't about what's happening on the hill. everything from vice president has arrived, or i'm heading to the floor to make remarks on such and such. it has been very, very helpful. those who really know me know that i am not technically savvy, thank goodness. there are lots of people around me who tell me which apps to use and which technologies to embrace. and i'm glad to follow them. so i bring my eight track and my blue desk and i come to work. i have caught myself at times being at a news conference and the only one with a paper and pen. and i think that there are different ways you can be old school and new school. i think that clearly members of congress have embraced using

some of the social media. some of them do it themselves. chuck grassley who is known for tweeting when he sits on his wallet, or those who have staffers to do it. and you can tell sometimes the voice of the person coming through. and certainly they have used their facebook pages and various outlets to communicate directly to their constituents, which is terrific, but there's a utility for reporters as well. >> senator grassley clearly tweets himself as you -- but a lot of these guys don't spend i often ask them if they actually do it themselves. then you'll find some who will dictate and it will be their voice but they may not be actually operating the device spent is that what senator mccain does? >> i think it's a mix, although he did have his driver tweet while she was driving. [laughter] amber alert. that's one reason why did

1.9 million followers, by far the most of any republican in the senate. marco rubio is the second. >> we are about to get the. anybody can jump in on this. what is the source of news? so that can be a website, a columnist, a publication that is obscure but that you consider essential? >> i wouldn't tell you. [laughter] the iron sheik's twitter feed. everyone should follow the iron sheik. and jose canseco. >> who is a good non-obvious tweeter? you can't say chuck todd. >> michael beschloss, historian. >> he's great. >> is a chuck grassley presidential historian. [laughter] spent he is really smart. >> if you tweak him a historical

photo in twitter did not exist, you have a clash of the moment. the other thing i would say come and look at some of his tweets is you will see -- people were actually looking at the president in the eyes and shaking his hand, not doing it like this where they're trying to take a selfie and meet the president in the same moment. it is dramatically different now there is a blue light at every event that is of major newsmaker because it's the go off of people's devices and not actually looking at that leader or campaigner or politician but it's an interesting social change. >> been as interesting to follow is no longer tweeting? [inaudible] because he wrote nasty, obnoxious things but am not going to defend but his was obviously a very insider, i'm saying this is someone who followed him for months, if not years, very knowledgeable insider take. i did not how inside at the time.

obviously very, very well-informed, which obviously ultimately cost him his job. >> last question, and you can jump in england or the. a lot of people in this audience, a lot of people allies during the want to be you. when you talk to young people what is your advice about how to feed in journalism, ndc, in life? >> me? okay. the one thing -- two things i say are learned how to be a print reporter before anything else, before you enter broadcast, before radio, go to a deity or a weekly and learn how to write day in and do. and work really, really hard and realize that rejection is 95% of the job a it's the 5% that will get you where you want to go. i tend to expand a little bit more but those are the two things i say. >> i think the young people i would say that enjoy the fact that you have some advantages in

knowing the technology being in the moment, getting a post on things. but at the same time have a regard for what experience did you. that's lots of mistakes along the way, lots of learning from being there. the experiences i've had over my years, time and time and time again, there has been a scenario that i've seen before, a pitfall i've encountered, and you bounce back from it comes to keep going. so there is so much more to learn, and enjoy it in the moment. >> i would just say get out of town. i me, get out of -- no, i mean it's funny, a lot of the talks i've been doing around the book, a lot of junk reporters them up to me, one specifically said, a young reporter from the concord monitor, i'm 25, -- suntech 30,000 people following them on twitter and i want a piece of that. it looks so exciting. you are living in the community to the stores you are writing are affecting people you see on

the street every day. i mean, the whole buzz of having a twitter following, ashley being close to the people is something you can do later maybe, but live your life. >> i tell not to do what i did. because the path that i followed and that you followed no longer is the path in journalism. you go to the richmond times, "washington post," metro desk, cover fairfax county, eventually make your way to national affairs or what have you. the world is different today, and every path is different to what i to people is, you know, embrace new techno to, embrace new possibilities out there, but hold onto the old values that we get about and still care about i think today in terms of accuracy and fairness and completeness imbalance and so forth. to me, i've grown -- i get five

papers at home but it don't think it matters as much anymore how you get your news as long as what comes out of it. there's essential value to what we have. >> very quickly in the outpost, the tragedy that is chronicled here was determined to be part way up result of leadership failures. what words the leadership lesson from the outpost and from the reporting that you did? >> i'll keep it here in washington because obviously there were leadership failures that have to do with the placement of the outpost and the location where -- >> to fix it. i mean, there was so many leadership failures. one of the big ones was that in order to do the job that the soldiers were tasked with doing when the book starts in 2006 after the end of 2009 they didn't have enough troops, didn't have enough assets, very. there were not enough helicopters in the country. not enough soldiers on the ground. that's for secretary rumsfeld to discuss at another time.

but that's a huge leadership failure. i would also say that when it came to the obama administration there was a lot of focus early on by not just people in the white house but also people across the river in the pentagon about who is going to control the search can who's going to control taccom who's going to control the next direction of the war. a lot of back and forth between crystal and obama and jones, and at the end of the day i can't help but see all of that wrestling for power and control in recent over leaks and this and that. took away from what the focus should have been. and speaking about the policy makers but also us any media. i served with more focus on the drama that was on what i should been focu focus on which is ulte blogger with a book which is the soldiers on the ground, the families at home, did have enough to do we're asking them to do. those are just huge leadership

failures spend as we say goodbye, kelly, you're the only person on this panel who has been on jeopardy. [laughter] what was that like? >> terrifying and yet it was a charity game that we played last year. alex trebek is a lot of fun. it was a great experience and it's all in the buzzer. all in the buzzer spent we're appreciative of people in life can lead to watch the. anappreciative to the bank of america for making the conversation possible. thank all of you for coming out, and our authors from the stage have been kind each signed three copies of their book. so there are nine visit from santa, and if you look under your chair there will b be a cad can hope is that tells you, you are one of the winners but i want to thank our conversation is to thank our panelists for a great conversation. thank you all very much. merry christmas. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> we are covering another political event this morning that is scheduled to start right about on c-span3. an interview with senior white house adviser valerie jarrett at an event cohosted by the peterson foundation. and then on c-span at 10 a.m. eastern, a senate finance subcommittee hearing on social security and retirement savings. >> when now, part of the national consumer led conference on identity theft and data security. that include a discussion on the role of the federal trade commission and the financial services industry. we will show you as much as we can and to our live coverage of the senate. >> good afternoon, everyone. we are about to get your last epic weapon ever an in up frontf folks want to move up into a little closer to the action. the are a couple tables here so feel free to make the jump if you would like. i also wanted to just remind you

that if you are thinking about tweeting about this conference, the hashtag or twitter is every3seconds. we have a really great closing panel here today. thank you to all of you who have sort of stuck it out through the end here. we are, i think we got a great keynote session. this final panel of the day has three folks who we have invited to talk about the future of consumer protection. i think the first panel of the day really focused on where we were, where we've been on identity theft. this last panel, this last session is sort of talk about where we are today and the final session is where are we going. we have a great, really great panel lined up. first up we have betsy broder,

and she is with the federal trade commission. i keep losing my notes are, so apologies while i find that. we have anne wallace from the identity theft assistance center. so we're going to go right into, if we get handed off to each of you, spend one or two minutes talk about how you, too this issue of identity theft. betsy? >> thanks, john. and thank you so much for including me in this. i brought my copy of the strategic plan from the identity theft task force. i was going to ask debbie to autograph it. so back when this was promulgated, i was working in the division of privacy and identity protection, and was a step with an assembly and working with the task force. i have to say it's one of my colleagues at the time, sort of a cynical person said, you know these task forces, you didn't

work, published a book and you put on the show. this has been a phenomenal and success were planned for this effort. i'm really proud to do this. in my current capacity i am council for international consumer protection at the federal trade commission's office of international affairs. in that context i worked in many multilateral organizations that work on issues of cyber fraud, cybercrime, including identity theft. and so the perspective that i bring both as someone who worked on the report and was involved in the identity theft program from its inception and now more recently through the international realm. >> good afternoon, everyone. we will call this the -- we are the only thing in between you guys getting back to your offices and your e-mail. my name is eva velasquez. i'm the president and ceo of the identity theft resource center. when you heard jim and ramirez talked about the partnership that she is with the itr see,

that's not our position. with a secondary call center that helps victims of identity theft mitigated cases. they can often get very, very complex. so it's not a quick five minute phone call. my advisors are often on the phone for us to an hour helping victims walk through the process. i became very interested in this issue. i've always been a consumer protection advocates. i spent 21 years at the syndicate district attorneys office investing economic crime. for the last 11 years primarily unfair business practices and false advertising, and after that i decide to go over to the better business bureau and around the operations department. so all of the consumer facing education and awareness materials. i've been with the itrc for about a year now, and this is an issue that is growing astronomically. i do think that we've made progress and i push it all those efforts that have been made, but when you look at the statistics that were just released today, it's several million more people

have been affected by this issue just year over year. >> well, i'm anne wallace and head of the identity theft assistance center, most of you know us as icac and icac was great in 2004 by a group of financial services companies. our members come to realize that even though individually they were helping their customers recover from identity theft, they believe there was a lot more that the industry could do on a collaborative basis. so ours is a unique model, the first ever private sector collaboration where a group of companies got together and said we can get a better job, we can do even more to help our customers recover from this crime by working together and i sharing information. so it's been a very exciting project. we have helped close to 150,000 individual consumers.

i was talking to eva a moment ago about putting a real face on the numbers, and i know she's got some terrific stories that she's going to share with you as we go along, but we are there helping customers work through those problems, and both recover from the crime and also the second part of our mission is communications and education. so we partner all the time with ftc and with others on how can we keep getting these messages out to consumers, helping them identify the new risks and be prepared and protect themselves? and then the third part of our mission is partnering with law enforcement, is sharing information with the ftc's consumer sentinel database which as most of you know is accessible by law enforcement agencies all over the country. so the hope is that they can make connections among individual cases and do a better job in catching the bad guys and

putting them in jail. >> great. well, let's start with a general question. over the past 15 years, congress, the executive branch, state and local governments and the private sector can't to great lengths to address the problem of identity theft. as you mentioned and that the bureau of justice statistics did a state id theft rings a problem of massive proportions. what are we doing right on this and what could we be doing better or differently? throwing it out to the panel. >> i'll go ahead. i think that we have made progress, tremendous progress in the law enforcement area. the itrc has been around since 1999, and when it was first started the primary complaint from consumers was that they could not get police to acknowledge that a crime had been committed. they couldn't get a police report which as you know is that critical piece that, where all the protections taken, they need to have that. while we still get complaints about that, they are not nearly as often.

probably a couple of times a month rather than consistently every day. so we have certainly done that part right. i think where we are getting it wrong and where we need to be looking to the future, we segregate a lot of these issues, privacy, cybersecurity, scams and fraud, and they are their own issues in the own right but they all culminate eventually into a high risk of identity theft. if any of these are improperly handled or you are the victim of one type of scam, oftentimes it's that one-two punch so you get the media issue where you've been victimized and then much later you find that your identity has been compromised. we need to take a little bit more of a holistic approach and really look at this from the 50,000-foot view point and say, okay, all these things are affected, but ultimately this is all about identity, identity fraud and theft -- at that

particular issue. >> what are we doing well? i'm a tremendous about of the work that's come out of my agency in understanding that since the fec became involved in this issue, which was when congress passed the identity theft act in 1998, we've got almost from a binary world to a digital world, the complexity of the issues have just become dazzling. so i think our team has done an exceptional job of staying ahead of the trends, if you will. so what's the data showing? medical identity theft, tax letter to identity theft, employment related identity theft. this is where we've had workshops and in studies and worked with all the stakeholders. and i think the staff is here, the team is here, they've done a phenomenal job of identifyiidentifyi ng the key issues. when we started this it was very simple. can i tell a story lacks okay. so the first big identity theft

panic, if you will, and this was well before we created this division of privacy and identity protection, is we heard from an employer in the baltimore area that a group of their employees discovered that they all were having problems with her credit report. they didn't know this until they were hanging around the watercooler and someone said the strangest thing happened, i applied for a loan and i couldn't get it and then ended up seeing my credit report is an open of all of these accounts in my name. it turned out that there was a temporary employee working within that office, and one day he left. and he took with him the paper files, employment files for all of the people who work in that office. and then he spread this up and down the east coast, and people opened up accounts in these names. and so it was like -- it was so -- paper, he still paper and he opened up accounts. i guess that still happens to a certain extent, the people of implement a much better secured

with respect to paper documents, and people also look for a larger bucket of data. let's not go to a boutique. let's go to the cosco, if you will, of information. so the threats have become much more complex, the way to deal with cross-border issues and jurisdictional issues, if there is data that was taken from let's call it the cloud, and you want to ask you a search warrant, you know, where's the jurisdiction? what courts can do that? it just becomes a much more complicated, global and technologically challenging world and i think it's a constant gang of catch-up, although i was tremendous impressed with the first panel talking about the cases and impact of the cases. that's really great. that needs to be the norm and not the exceptional case. >> i would just second what betty said about what are we doing right. we done a pretty darn good job educating consumers. i mean, eight years ago, whenever, people really didn't

know about protecting their personal information. so we've created i think a pretty darn good baseline of information, of awareness about i need to protect this information, and they have the basic tools. yet as betty said, the world has just gotten so much more complex. we always thought of in the beginning, we thought of identity fraud as somebody creating a fraudulent account in my name. but willie sutton was wrong. banks are not just where the money is. what we are seeing today is value is everywhere. and what the criminals are doing are exploiting all of the repositories of value, whether it's, you, medical services, whether it's insurance services, disability payments, the use of

somebody's identity to get a false driver's license, false passport to avoid crime. i mean, so there are just so many opportunities to extract value using people's personal information that, you know, the world has just gotten so much more complicated and consumers think i know how to check the security of my bank accounts. and, of course, in financial services, there are very good recovery methods. we have laws that allow you to correct mistakes on credit cards and bank accounts and so forth. but correcting something like an arrest record, you know, that was created with your information, or a fake passport or social security benefits, or so many of these other forms of identity theft is just -- you know, we haven't really evolved to the place where there's a way for consumers, you know, recognize path to recover from

those kinds of types of identity theft. >> if i could just piggyback on the. i agree with you, especially with the criminal identity theft. there isn't a process in place. the consumers that are harmed by that are truly harmed. generally speaking, they can hire an attorney, especially if it's a family to they can hire an attorney even if they have money to the people we help, 70% are low to moderate income so they generally don't have the funds to hire legal representation. but even if they could, they can't hire them to appear on their behalf. they have to go in person to whatever court -- whatever jurisdiction it was in, and to prove that that is not them and go through that process. it's time-consuming and in this work and they have to pay for the travel and pay for all of those things. generally speaking, from that they are not made all. they don't get reimbursed from anybody for those costs. they are a victim of a crime.

sometimes they can apply for victim assistance through that jurisdiction, but it's not -- while we've made a lot of progress in the other areas, that one as well as medical identity theft is also one where we don't have a very solid set process on how you remediate that. we're getting there, we making progress but it certainly isn't as robust as the progress we use for financial identity theft. and just lastly, i think we also need to start redefining the way we think of identity. everything that were talking but here is all about your eai, we talk about your social, we talk about all the tokens that identify you. but as we keep moving forward all the technology that some of it is scary as that hackers are using it, we need to think about our biometrics as part of identity, something we need to consider protecting. we need to think about our behavior. all of that data, data points about how we behave, yes, were using it in our fraud analytics

but that just means that the crux are figuring out a way to capitalize on that as well. i think we need to think about how we define identity also spent in our first bill today one of the things that came out is that identity theft is a symptom of data insecurity. and one of -- obviously there's been an explosion, i think we heard the statistics of a billion records compromised. there's been a an explosion in data projecting to the extent that is safe to say today it's the primary worry consumers information is being put at risk. we mentioned earlier how in the past it might've been dumpster diving, crooks that got information. today, hackers can get millions of records at the push of a button. should consumers just resigned themselves to the fact that their data will always be insecure? or other additional steps that the government and the private sector can't and should take to better protect consumers?

>> i would never say that you resign yourself. but at the same time, i think that if you talk to any security expert, they will always say, there is no absolute guarantee of security. but because it is the absolute guarantee does not mean that we should tell consumers to be resigned to it. i think there's that balance between what you can expect the individual to do, and then how to allocate responsibly across the board. so there's an allegation, and appropriate allocation of responsibility to the other parties in the chain. one of the things we talk about in financial services is, is the weakest link. the financial services industry is very focused on obviously on data integrity and security. the concern now is in the

industry that there are smaller institutions that may not have the same kind of levels of security that maybe they should have. and that means that they can access the financial services system and sort of go pitching. if you expand that to other sectors, you have this problem of the weaker links really creating increased risk for all the other participants. >> having said that, and referring back to the reference to small businesses that may not have a chinese restaurant that has the compromised swipe for sale, the fec, not only do we consume education, we do business education and we put a lot of thought -- procter & gamble doesn't need to go to our website to begun to build a data security program at smaller businesses do. we have a library of materials for small businesses that are very basic from how you lock up your documents and who you hire and what you that and a skilled

approach to data security, which i think is important and i think certainly we have a very aggressive enforcement program on data security, a number of cases where there has been a further to adopt reasonable procedures to secure data. that having been said, i think we need to look at the flip side which is, once the data is compromised, you know, why can it be used? why can someone use my date of birth and social steady number and name to get a credit card without any other kind of out of pocket way of verifying or authenticating the applicant? both sessions talked about the challenges of authentication, and i think when we look structurally at the lifeline of an identity theft episode, it's at that last point where you get information and you use it to your economic advantage.

and how can we tightened up the system there to make it less -- make the information less valuable? it's not the people at social steady number is because they like the strings of numbers. it's because with that information they can get a value. value. so we needed to get how to turn off the access of their between the number and the product, which they are getting of some economic value. so we should never be resting on our laurels. ftc keeps bringing data security cases because companies, you know, keep neglecting to employ the most reasonable off the shelf, let available saturday measures for their systems, or fail to vet probably the people who are dealing with highly sensitive data. i think everything else that needs to be a holistic approach. >> you know, betsy, early on the first panel today i was struck -- i think it was from the u.s. attorney's office who talked

about how in russia, the cyberthieves are told don't leave the country. or don't go to a country where you might get extradited from. it seems to me that's extremely troubling that he would be such an acknowledgment that this problem exists that you would tell people don't go there because you might get arrested for what we know you're doing anyway. and i think it points to the larger issue that identity theft is really a global problem, and that identity thieves are often located far beyond the reach of u.s. law enforcement. the ftc recently agreed to an m.o.u. with two nigerian law enforcement agencies to increase cooperation on identity theft and other issues. what are the challenges that the ftc faces? and other financial services industry is welcome what of the challenges they face in achieving more of these types of agreements? >> we are really pleased with

this agreement, the m.o.u. with the economic and financial crimes commission of nigeria which is a criminal enforcement agency in the consumer protection council, which is a civil organization on consumer protection. and the goal, it's not directed specifically at identity theft but to find, challenges. nigerians have consumer protection problems but it's not just a bunch of what they call the yahoo! boys with rich uncles were wanting to give you money. exhibit complex situation. so we have a much closer relationship with the nigerians and hopefully we can use that to the vantage of both countries. but in looking at the problem of identity theft and the global reach, not all the people that we think have the keys to the solution feel like playing with us and signing mous. site is one of the biggest challenges is they don't care. like the russians give an example, there are safe havens after for identity thieves and

their bring immense amount of resources into their country. one of the recommendations of of the entity that pass for what identify those safe havens and do something about it. i really can't speak to what the measures have been taken. but on other countries where there is an awareness of the problem, sometimes they lack the technical capacity to bring enforcement actions, even though they have the will to do so. and so the department of justice along with the department of state and others have been doing technical assistance missions to countries that have particular vulnerabilities so that the local law enforcement can be trained, the technologist and investors can be trained on how to identify these risks and prosecuted. we need more cops on the beat, especially in those countries with compromised networks, if you will. so you know, safe havens, lack of will, like of capacity, lack of resources, the list goes on.

the good news is that there are lots of venues for countries both with resources and without to work collaboratively, and so one of them is under the rubric of the budapest conviction which is a cybercrime document, of which about 50 countries are members of them including the united states, and which common basis for cybercrime legislation and information sharing. but we just need to expand that tremendously. >> and is there a role for international cooperation in the financial services industry? >> i think there is in all industries. as becky was talking about, countries that are safe havens, i was thinking about the outsourcing and global expansion. after all, we live in a global economy, and many companies now look -- they obviously look at

protections that the country's -- the country they're considering where to put my factory, where do i put my sales, descriptions and, whatever. they are looking at that countries reduction of intellectual property, and they look at things like security and the infrastructure to protect their people and to protect their location. i believe that they also look at things like security and protection of their information. and they probably should be looking even more closely at those kinds of considerations. let's face it, when we talk about what has value, it's information. and so that is obviously the first -- most fundamental thing any company has is its information. and so is part of the expansion of their global operations, the ability to protect their information has got to be a part of that.

>> i think when we talk about protecting financial information for companies and really it's about protecting not only for data that they have for the own operations but it's the data they get from consumers individually. it seems like there's much more collection going on of data on consumers. but i wanted to sort of go back to eva. one of the things that we hear about at the website i run, from consumers who have the same frustrations that i think -- law enforcement not listening to them, not finishing what the problem is when a face with a variety of types of fraud, including identity theft, you talk about that and you also talk about sort of frustration and inability of consumers to get reimbursed for the time and money they spend trying to make themselves holes. are there other frustrations that you are hearing from consumers, someone who was on the grand hearing these calls

every day from consumers that folks who worked on this issue at a higher level need to be thinking about as we come up with policies to address the evolution of identity theft? >> well, the issues, of course the lack of support from law enforcement, which as i said in my expense has actually gotten a lot better. that is one of them. one of the other ones that we hear a lot is that most of the consumers that we work with, they really don't have a broad understanding of the financial system on the whole. so they don't understand how they have become a victim of identity theft. parents calling in because they are starting to get collection notices for bills for the nine year old child are not understand how that happened. and that is part of their frustration. they go, how is it that someone simply got that information, made up a birthday and a name, these synthetic identities now,

and that has run of $50,000 in credit card bills? how is that even possible? i think you talk about authenticators and his secondary authenticators for these types of things, and that system as it is right now really does need to be addressed as far as child identity theft is concerned. medical identity theft is also another source of frustration, because people were stunned to realize, we are doing a lot of awareness in this. the survey that we did just that the beginning of this year and one that we're doing at the end of the year, we are seeing increasing numbers of people actually understand what it is. most people didn't even know what is that, how does that work and how does that affect me? the frustration of those people is that they now have medical records that are mixed with this stranger's medical records, they don't know how to resolve. they will sometimes have

diplomatic quick to them if they said at a victim of i can be theft and request their medical records. now the hospitals and care providers feel compelled to protect the information based on that law, feel compelled to protect information of the. they don't want to have any hipaa violations. so the mechanism that we have in place help protect people in this instance, are harming them and making it more difficult. and it really is when you look at this, it's a financial crime, yes, but this particular type of medical -- or particular type of identity theft does have violent crime consequence. people can die. they can lose their health. they can be misdiagnosed. they can be mistreated if they got the wrong blood type in those medical records, and they don't know what. it. these are a big deal. we get calls from people -- identity theft to get prescription narcotics and

painkillers, we will have people call up trying to get their legitimate prescriptions filled by someone has stolen the identity, used it to get these are comics, and now there's a contraindication on sunday can't get their legitimate prescription. they often go days or weeks without something that they need to manage their health. it's really a big focus of ours and really a big frustration of the victims. >> your mention of child id that i think made me think, you're really not safe from identity theft that really almost from the time you're born. >> unsafe at any age. >> i was about to say this, a few years ago i picked up the death master file being used to commit identity theft. the database associate uses this announcement of folks who passed away. so the point is you're not safe from identity theft when you're born or not even when you're

dead. you know, we talk a lot about what the sec is doing, and protecting consumers. i do like to delve a little bit into the role of the private sector should play in ensuring customer data is secured from reach adulthood from identity thieves. is breach notification enough, or does the government have to play a role in managing businesses to improve their data security procedures? are there incentives that we should be thinking about for private businesses to make this happen? are there particular technologies? we talked about other challenge of authentication to either particular technologies that businesses should be looking for to implement to better protect their customers from identity theft? i'll throw this out to the panel. >> that's a lot of questions but let me start with, is breach notification enough? no. because that's after the fact. so yes, we are on record in

favor of a national federal law relating to breach notification. because right now we have a patchwork of state laws, and so a national law would make a lot of sense so that everybody, and really should apply across the board to all kinds of businesses. as we've all discussed, whether it's a hospital or a college or utility or whatever, they all have sensitive personal information. but breach obviously isn't enough because as the other panelists have pointed out, it's the time at which the value is given your whether it's the irs giving your tax refund to somebody else or, you know, some other transaction where the that government agency or a private sector company does not have the capability or the incentive to truly authenticate the individual to whom, with whom they are dealing.

so authentication is a huge part of it. and we are seeing improvements and promise of a lot more improvements in the whole authentication area. now, i would say that that comes with the challenge of helping customers understand why there is this process. you know, there's always that balance of do you have a short password like password? use the same password on every account, or do the customers understand and accept why a company or a federal agency goes through another step of verifying that person's identity before they distribute whatever it is, whether it's the benefit or the tax return or whatever. so there's that the customer bringing the public along with you and helping to understand the need for security and say okay, it's a little inconvenient. it will take me five seconds more to get to the transaction but that's okay, i did it.

>> i think the financial institutions have really been a the pioneer in that education to their consumers, because for a while when you are starting the two factor, making it more difficult, there was a bit of consumer pushback but we don't hear that anymore. we don't hear, i can put my bank is making me have to jump through these hoops. is actually a level of participation for the protection. we just need to kind of have everybody else come along and educate consumers that yes, you're going to have to give up just a little bit of the convenience factor for security. and i understand the role that business has trying to balance those. you want to make your customers happy. i get that but it can be done with messaging that you can make them happy by demonstrating that this is good for them and they want it. >> so, i think there's consensus -- of course, everything i'm saying today is my opinion of him. doesn't necessary represent the

position of the ftc or any particular commissioner. i usually remember to say that right before i say something like way off the reservation. but i think there's general consensus on data security breach notice. i mean, we are there. so let's look -- >> just a couple minutes left in this program. we will leave this at this moment to go live now to the u.s. senate. a quick reminder that you can see this program online anytime at c-span.org. looking at the u.s. capitol here. the senate is about the gavel in to begin the day. more work is expected on the federal budget agreement with a final vote on that due to hit at about 4:30 p.m. eastern today although centers could you back some of the time to move that vote forward. we expect work on the 2014 defense programs bill, procedural vote on that could also occur today. and now live to the floor of the u.s. senate here on c-span2.

the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. our father, the giver of every good and perfect gift, live within us so that we will be established in faith and abounding in thanksgiving.

today, help our lawmakers to seek the things that are above, as you empower them to embrace kindness, compassion, humility, patience, and forbearance. may they give you preeminence in all things, rejoicing even in the trials they must endure for your sake. lord, inspire them to persevere with joy in the calling you have given them to protect freedom and to keep america strong. enable them to bear fruits that will bless this nation and our world.

we pray in your great name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., december 18, 2013. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable edward markey, a senator from the commonwealth of massachusetts, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore.

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i move to proceed to calendar number 243, s. 156. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: motion to proceed a pill to amend the work force investment act of 1998 and so forth and for other purposes. mr. reid: following my remarks and those of the republican leader, the senate will resume consideration of the motion concur in the house message with respect to the bipartisan budget agreement postcloture. roll call votes are possible throughout the day. we'll notify senators as soon as we have votes that we believe will be forthcoming. mr. president, i'm told there are two bills at the desk due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the titles for a second time. the clerk: s. 1845, a bill to provide for the extension of certain unemployment benefits and for other purposes.

s. 1846, a bill to delay the implementation of certain provisions of the biggert-waters flood insurance reform act of 2012 and for other purposes. mr. reid: i would object to further proceedings with respect to these two bills. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the bills will be placed on the calendar. mr. reid: today the senate is debating the house ph.d. budget agreement which was an important step in avoiding another dangerous and costly government shutdown to our economy. like we had in january. another shutdown caused by the republicans would undercut the economic progress of the last four years. when republicans closed the federal government for business in october, it cost $2 billion in lost productivity alone. the combined costs of the shutdown and republicans' threats to force a catastrophic default on the nation's bills cost the economy 120,000

private-sector jobs in the first two weeks of october lien, 120,000 jobs. but the agreement the senate is considering today will help avoid another costly shutdown. the bargain rolls back the painful cuts of the sequester including devastating cuts to education, medical research, infrastructure investments, and defense jobs. this isn't a perfect bargain. no compromise is ever perfect. but the senate should pass this agreement quickly so the appropriations committee under the leadership of chairwoman mikulski can begin crafting appropriation bills. it's unfortunate that republicans are forced the senate to run out the clock on this measure, even though it passed the house on an overwhelming basis. and a bipartisan basis. and has the support of the majority of the senate. why are we wasting the time? it's time to get back to setting fiscal policy through the regular order of the budget

process rather than hostage taking which takes place so often here by my republican colleagues and it's time for congress to show the american people that democrats and republicans can compromise rather than lurching from crisis to crisis. yet republicans have insisted on wasting 30 hours of the senate's time before allowing a final vote on this measure even though they know it will pass with bipartisan support. i read that the republican leadership may force the senate to work through the weekend and next week by dragging out the consideration of several important executive nominations. that would be unfortunate. but if it happens, it happens. the senate could wrap up work on the budget bill, pass the defense authorization legislation and confirm these nominees by tomorrow afternoon. the only thing keeping us here is more republican obstruction. i was troubled to hear the senior senator from kentucky say that the nominations we've considered this session and those in which i filed cloture

yesterday are nonessential. nonessential? how about the secretary of the department of homeland security. that's nonessential? the person assigned the task for protecting us from terrorist attacks, nonessential? i think that's wrong. does the republican leader consider the secretary of the air force or the diplomats who run the state department nonessential? there's a long list of people that have been confirmed that are essential to running this government. does the republican leader consider the judges that try judges in overcrowded courtrooms across the nation nonessential? we can confirm talented and dedicated individuals to these essential posts last week and does the republican leader consider the chairman of the federal reserve who sets this nation's monetary policy to be nonessential? we'll consider janet yellen's

nomination to lead the federal reserve, we'll do it this week. we'll also vote on a number of other nominations including including a new director for the internal revenue service, nonessential? and the deputy secretary of the department of homeland security and brian davis of florida, a classic example, mr. president, to fill a district court seat that has been declared a judicial emergency. his nomination has been pending for more than 650 days. nonessential? i don't think so. on the contrary, these are absolutely essential nominees. it's their job to carry out justice, protect our country and safeguard the economy and it's the senate's job to confirm them but, mr. president, how long will it take the senate to complete its job? it's up to my republican friends.

mr. president -- a senator: will the majority leader yield for a question? mr. reid: i would note the absence of a quorum. quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: i ask unanimous consent to speak for two minutes as if in morning business.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the house message to accompany h.j. res. 59 which the clerk will report. the clerk: house message to accompany h.j. res. 59. mr. vitter: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for two minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from louisiana is recognized. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. obviously, i'll be brief. i was simply trying to engage the majority leader in a simple question and i'll add the question here and i think it deserves an answer, not to me but to the american people. last week, i had written the majority leader noting that several press reports have stated that he has exempted much of his staff specifically his leadership staff from

obamacare, from the mandate of the obamacare statute that he and our staffs go to the exchanges for our health care and he has exempted much of his staff from that. so i laid out some specific and pertinent and important questions related to that in a letter to him dated december 10, last week, got no response, i obviously got no response this morning, in fact, he wouldn't even yield for any question, i think that's unfortunate. it's unfortunate not because i personally deserve an answer, it's unfortunate because this is important. i think his constituents and the american people deserve an answer. so i restate those four specific questions in my letter and they are in my letter and i ask unanimous consent to make the letter part of the record. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the minority whip. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i know we are going to be voting on the budget that was negotiated by senator murray and paul ryan, and 67 senators have voted for cloture on that, so we will have a vote on passage this afternoon, i think about 4:30. but i wanted to raise an issue that has been raised previously yesterday, and that is with the process by which the senate is operating where no amendments are being allowed either on the budget or on the defense authorization bill, which is the next bill that we will turn to by the decision of the majority leader. i have congratulated senator murray and i congratulate

congressman ryan for their negotiation, but i do think there is an error that has been identified that needs to be corrected in the bill and which could easily be corrected if the majority leader would reconsider his decision not to allow any amendments. and this specifically has to do with the discriminatory way in which active duty military pensions are being penalized in a unique way and not even federal workers who are going to be treated differently prospectively, not even civilian federal workers are being treated in the same way that our active duty military are. several of my colleagues came to the floor here yesterday, the senator from new hampshire, the senator from south carolina, others, and pointed out this discriminatory treatment which could easily be fixed. i don't think have any doubt

that the senate would as we attempted to do yesterday, the senator from oklahoma -- from alabama offered an attempt to take down the amendment tree that the majority leader has filled and that for people who don't follow the minutia and the detail of what happens in the senate, the majority leader has basically blocked any opportunity to offer an amendment that would fix this discriminatory treatment for our military service members, and i think -- i've heard at least two of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that we can come back and do this next year. well, why do it next year if we could do it now, and i believe that if the senate was given an opportunity to make this correction, i don't blame the senator from washington and senator -- and congressman ryan in their efforts to come up with a budget to do what they did,

but i do blame us if we don't fix it now, this week when it's within our power to do so and it's within the power of the majority leader to allow us to vote on that and to make that happen.. and i don't have any doubt whatsoever if we were able to come up with an appropriate pay-for and substitute for this cut in military pensions that it would pass like a hot knife through butter in the house of representatives when they reconvene. so i think unfortunately this is a product of the way that the majority leader has decided to run the senate, and i have another example of that which i want to turn to now. this has to do with an amendment that i've offered on the defense authorization bill which is the next bill that we will turn to after the passage of the budget. now the defense authorization bill is a very important piece

of legislation, and i congratulate senator inhofe and the house both majority and minority party for coming up with what i think is a pretty good bill. but the problem is once again the majority leader has decided to transform the senate into basically a railroad and to jam this bill through this week, probably by tomorrow night, without any opportunity to offer any amendments. and i think that's a terrible mistake. the last time in recent memory that the majority party decided to jam through a piece of legislation, that was obamacare. i remember voting on christmas eve, something i hope we don't repeat again this year, voting on that bill on christmas eve, and that was a party line vote in the house and the senate. and now we're discovering as

obamacare is being implemented that a lot of the promises made to the american people, like if you like what you have you can keep it, the cost of your health care will go down an average of $2,500 for a family of four, that all of those were false. that's what happens, the kind of mistakes made when there is not bipartisan effort to come up with a compromise legislation. and instead the majority party uses the power it has to jam things through. we make mistakes. things aren't adequately considered. and i don't care who you are; we all can benefit from other people's ideas and suggestions. and that is the genius of the checks and balances in the united states senate and under our form of government. but the majority leader has decided to put all that aside. i read today in "politico," he said he doesn't care that people

are complaining about his "my way or the highway" approach. but it's not about just about our rights as senators to participate in the process. it's not only about the rights of the 26 million people that i represent in texas who are essentially being shut out of the process. this is about making mistakes that hurt people. the mistakes we would not make if we took the time in a bipartisan way to try to address some of these concerns. and this discriminatory treatment of the military pensions is one example. but here's another one. when members of al qaeda struck our nation on september 11, 2001, they made it clear that they viewed the entire american homeland as the battlefield. we were reminded of this again about four years ago when a radical jihadist who happened to

be wearing a uniform of the united states army, major nay -- nadal hassan opened fire at fort hood army base in killean, texas. that shooter killed american soldiers and one civilian and shot and injured 30 more. this is a terrible tragedy, and i remember president obama coming down for the memorial service where we honored the lives of these people who lost their lives in this terrible attack. but no matter how you slice it, this was a terrorist attack on american soil. not much different except the means by which it was carried out than what happened on september 11, 2001. prior to committing this terrible terrorist attack, the fort hood shooter exchanged no

fewer than 20 e-mails with a senior al qaeda operative, walk walk -- anwr al-alawaki. the shooter, major hassan, had essentially become more and more radicalized over time, and this is a real problem with our military that seemed to have turned a blind eye. but it's also a problem when the federal government calls this workplace violence and doesn't call it a terrorist attack, which it actually was. he opened fire in the name of global jihad, in hopes of defending the islammic empire and supporting his phupls -- muslim brothers. that why he asked the late

alawaki if islamic law quoted killing his brothers. that's why he yelled out allah abg -- akbar before committing this massacre. if a u.s. soldier is killed in afghanistan by an al qaeda-inspired terrorist alongside the taliban, he or she will posthumously be given a purple heart award, and his or her family will receive the requisite benefits that go along with losing your life in the service to your country. and yet, the united states government has chosen to discriminate against these people who lost their lives at fort hood four years ago at the hands of a terrorist who happen to be, tragically happen to be a

member of the uniformed military of the united states, major nadal hassan, who has subsequently been convicted of these crimes. even though major hassan saw himself as an islamic warrior serves -- serving the cause of an officially designated terrorist organization, the united states government has chosen to treat this as something it is not, which is an ordinary crime. or in the orwellian use of the phrase, workplace violence, it is an exercise in political correctness run amock. but the government's argument is that the fort hood's shooter was not acting under the explicit direction of a terrorist group, these victims of a terror attack four years ago were not eligible for purple hearts or the benefits that they deserve.

now al qaeda, as we know, doesn't issue business cards or staff i.d.'s, so sometimes it's a little bit difficult to say which terrorists are, quote, officially part of al qaeda and which ones are not. but the distinction is irrelevant. the war on terrorism as we know has evolved considerably since sense -- since september 11, 2001, and al qaeda has evolved too whether it's in iraq or afghanistan and now yemen and other places. al qaeda has morphed. several months ago the group's top leader al zawahiri urged its followers to conduct the terrorist attack that occurred in boston in 2013.

he said -- quote -- "these disbursed attacks can be carried out by one brother or a small number of brothers." now let's imagine that a radical islamist heard these words, contacted an al qaeda cleric to ask about killing americans and then went on to slaughter a number of u.s. soldiers. well, it shouldn't matter where those killings took place, and it shouldn't matter whether the killer had -- quote -- "formal ties with al qaeda or not. this isn't -- there really isn't any doubt about hassan's ties to al qaeda or his being inspired by someone who the president of the united states put on a kill list for a drone because he knew they were recruiting and aspiring attacks against the american people. so if it's good enough for the

president of the united states to issue -- to order a drone attack on an american citizen in yemen, it ought to be good enough for this body to recognize this was a terrorist attack because of hassan's inspiration and communication with these very same terrorists, and we ought to award these families the purple hearts that these service members are entitled to and the benefits that they deserve. well, it's clear that these casualties at fort hood were part of america's struggle against al qaeda in the global war on terrorism. they were casualties of war that continues to rage in afghanistan and that just recently claimed an additional four american lives. but also extended to places like

benghazi, libya, where four americans were killed. whether or not the fort hood shooter had al qaeda stamped on his forehead or not is irrelevant. he was unquestionably a disciple of al qaeda's poisonous ideology, which has fueled deatd destruction around the globe and here in our homeland. well, as i indicated at the beginning, i've sponsored legislation that would make the fort hood victims eligible for the honors and benefits available to their fellow u.s. troops serving in an overseas combat zone. i've offered a modified version of that bill as an amendment to the defense authorization bill which we will take up immediately following passage of the budget legislation this afternoon. but the majority leader has refused to allow a vote on it. you may recall before the thanksgiving recess, we had, i believe it was two amendments to the defense authorization bill,

and then the question was what other amendments might be offered. the majority leader made clear he wasn't going to allow any other amendments except of his own choosing, thus denying the minority any opportunity to help amend and improve the defense authorization bill, one of the most important pieces of legislation this body takes up every year. and so cloture was not invoked. and now in the waning days right before the christmas holidays, the majority leader seeks to jam through this bill that was agreed upon by basically four people behind closed doors and denied me representing 26 million texans and deny those of us who care about calling a spade a spade when it comes to terrorism an opportunity to offer an amendment on the

defense authorization bill. and it's a mistake. no less a mistake than denying an opportunity to fix the mistake of discriminatory treatment of our service members whose pensions are being cut as a result of the budget negotiation. not only is the majority leader refused to allow a vote on this purple hearts amendment, he's refused to allow any other amendments both on this budget negotiation or on the defense authorization. as i said, the budget agreement passed by the house of representatives would slash military retirement benefits by about $6 billion over the next decade. i've heard on cable tv at least two members of this body of the other party said we need to fix that. the senator from new hampshire has offered legislation, i believe, and i heard the senator

from virginia, senator kaine, say we can come in and fix this with a scalpel after the fact. well, we don't need to wait for that. we can do that today. i'm confident that we could reach an agreement in this body today to remove that discriminatory treatment for our active-duty military contained in this underlying bill if the majority leader would just listen, listen to his own members, listen to the american people, listen to those who care about our service members and want to make sure that they are not treated in such an unfair and discriminatory fashion. but instead, the majority leader has decide it had's my way or -- it's my way or the highway. we know these cuts will even affect combat-wounded veterans who have been medically retired. now, my state is proud home to more veterans than any other state other than california.

and many of my constituents are outraged that the majority leader won't even allow us to vote on this issue. and i would tell my friends across the aisle it's going to come up again. it came up yesterday. it will come up again. we will be reoffering these amendments to fix this discriminatory treatment as long as we're in session. and i hope members of both parties can put politics aside for one minute, come together and address the needs of our military families and those who have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to preserve our freedom. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maine.

mr. king: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that i be able to address the senate for 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: madam president, i ask unanimous consent an intern in my office, deanna wilbur be given floor privileges for the purposes of being here during these remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: madam president, we're going to have a historic vote this afternoon, historic at least in recent history because for the first time in three, four years, we're going to pass a budget, at least i certainly hope so. it's historic because it was a budget that was arrived at, the process was not perfect but it was arrived at fundamentally through negotiations, through discussions, through compromise between the chairman of the senate budget committee and the chair of the house budget committee, and we finally are talking to each other. i think this agreement is important, i think this vote is

important for really three basic reasons. one is that the agreement maintains the momentum of deficit reduction that has been in place here since the summer of 2011 when the budget control act was passed. in fact, rather than breaking the budget numbers, it actually improves in terms of deficit reduction by some $22 billion and it maintains, as i said, the momentum. one of the points that's been lost in the discussion about the budget and the budget deficit is that the federal budget deficit has fallen faster in the last two and a half, three years than at any time in the past 40 or 50 years. it has fallen from almost 10% of g.d.p. to under 4% of g.d.p. over the past two and a half years. that's progress. i think one of the problems we have around here often is that we don't know how to declare

victory. we don't celebrate our successes. i'm not prepared to declare victory in the fight for fiscal responsibility, but i am prepared to declare progress, and i think that's what we've made. when we had more than trillion-dollar deficits that have been cut more than in half. so the first reason i think this bill should be supported is that it is not a budget buster by any means, it is instead a continuation of the momentum toward rational fiscal policies that we have been on and i think it's something we should continue. number two, this bill, this budget bill, will finally get us out of the business of governing by crisis, of lurching from crisis and threats of shutdown and continuing resolutions year to year, month to month, quarter to quarter. it will provide some certainty to the congress, to the government, and to the country about what the legislation numbers -- the are going to be

to be. it's important people realize what we're voting on today. essentially it's one number. it's what's called a top-line number. this is not the budget that embodies all the detailed decisions about where those dollars go. those decisions will be made by the two appropriations committees of the two houses between now and the middle of january. but by providing a number, those committees now know what their targets are, they know what their limits are, they know what they have to work with and it will enable them to make the kind of decisions of priorities and spending that we should have been making all along. but by governing by continuing resolution essentially what we're doing is using last year's priorities and the year before and the year before that. and then, of course, the sequester on top of a continuing resolution is really a double budgetary whammy because the sequester is a cut -- that's

difficult enough to deal with, but it's a cut that was designed to be stupid. and it succeeded. it was designed to be so unacceptable that the congress would feel they had to find an alternative. unfortunately, this past march that didn't happen. so the sequester went into place which was across-the-board cuts by account, so within the military, within the pentagon, within the navy, within the f.a.a., within the department of transportation each account had to be cut. some accounts probably could use some cutting and other accounts desperately needed the funding that was made available. so this bill relieves that irrationality of the sequester while maintaining the sequester's downward pressure on spending. and finally and i think most importantly, what this bill that we'll be voting on this afternoon will do is demonstrate to the country that we can do our job.

i was talking to people in maine yesterday, they said why should you be puffing up your chest and pounding your chest about doing what you ought to be doing all along and i couldn't really argue with that except that we haven't been doing that. we haven't been doing our job and the fact that we're at least inching toward doing it in the manner that we're supposed to is progress, at least its progress in recent history. and i think that's one of the most important parts of this bill and i think that's the signal that it sends to the country that we can in fact talk to each other, we can, in fact, compromise, we can, in fact, make arrangements, financial and fiscal arrangements around here that make sense, that are prioritized and we can do our jobs. when i was in maine last weekend the most common comment that i got was, why can't those people down there talk to each other? why can't they work things out? we do that in our town meetings, we do that in our businesses, we do that in our families, why can't they? well, in this case, they have.

it wasn't a perfect process. but at least it involved bipartisan, bicameral negotiation that gets us to the point where we have a budget that we can vote on today. do i like it? i don't like every piece of it. i don't like the pension hit that the senator from texas just described. that wouldn't have been in my proposal. in fact, i made a proposal at the budget conference that was quite different from this one. it wasn't accepted. that's how this place works. my favorite philosopher, mick jagger, says you can't always get what you want. but if you try sometimes you just mind find you get what you need and what we need right now is a budget. is something that we can work from that dwifs us some certainty and i believe we can fix this pension program, i've joined with senator shaheen of new hampshire on a bill that would replace the cuts to the

military pension with some dealing with some offshore tax benefits that i think is a much more sensible way to fill that $6 billion ghap and we can do that because the pension whole doesn't take effect for two years till december of 2015 so we can fix that but we've got to get this budget passed now. why can't they talk? they have talked. and i think that's important. i want to turn to a slightly different topic but it is related to the budget. in 1997, the congress passed something called the sustainable growth rate which was designed to control reimbursement rate for physicians and providers under medicare. the problem is, it's turned into a monster that reduces physician fees to the point where they won't serve medicare patients unless it's fixed and each year since 2002 we have fixed it year by year but it's

always temporary, it's always a patch. in fact, it's gotten inhad its own name in the lexicon of washington, the doc fix and is something we have to do, everybody knows we have to do but why not fix it for good? the congressional budget office tells fuss we fixed it once and for it it would cost $116 billion over the next ten years. that sounds like a big number but it happens that there's a place we can go to get that money that i think fits with it very well. in 1990 under president george h.w. bush the medicaid drug program was created and because the government was buying drugs under medicaid in large quantities they sought a volume discount are the pharmaceutical companies. personal rationale. any of us asked ask for a volume discount if we're buying in large quantities and indeed, medicaid-eligible beneficiaries had discounts or rebates on their drugs from 1990 to 2006.

in 2006, part d of medicare was passed which provided a drug benefit to medicare recipients, but one of the wackiest parts of that bill said that the government can no longer negotiate for volume discounts. now, i hear a lot of discussion around here about private enterprise and business and we should run the government like a business. no rational business would buy any product, cars, gasoline, drugs or anything else, in enormous quantities and not seek and gain from the sellers some kind of volume discount. senator rockefeller has introduced s. 740, which essentially says let's return medicaid beneficiaries -- not all medicare beneficiaries but medicaid recipients -- to the status of prior to 19 -- to 2006 where they will get applied to their drug purchases or the government alley, actually, gets the same kind of rebates

they got for the 16 years from 1990 to 2006. what will this produce? $140 billion over the next ten years. it will not cut expenses to recipients, it will only save the government money. it just seems to me that this is a sensible way to fix the doc fix once and for all and to do something that makes sense for the taxpayers, which is to acquire for them volume discounts, volume rebates that are available today for other medicaid recipients who aren't under medicare and for the v.a., and it just puts them on the same status. these so-called dual eligibles, people eligible for medicaid and medicare. just this change would save $140 billion, it would enable us to fix the doc fix permanently and it would also contribute about $30 million -- $30 billion to

deficit reduction over the next ten years. madam president, i think we do have a historic opportunity this afternoon to pass a budget, the first budget, by the way, produced by a divided congress where the two houses were in different political hands, the first budget produced by a divided congress since 1986. and i think that's -- that is an achievement. it's something that a month ago i wouldn't have bet too much on, but i'm really appreciative and admiring of our -- of chairman murray and chairman ryan for coming together, putting their ideological issues aside, coming up with an arrangement, an agreement that allows us to have some certainty and can signal to the country that we are in fact capable of doing the most fundamental responsibility we have, which is to pass a budget. madam president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the assistant majority leader. mr. durbin: i thank my colleague from maine foreign policy his statement in support for this effort. this is an historic moment. it's been four or five years since we have enacted and passed a budget agreement between the house and senate in a divided government. we have found many excuses and ways around it, but we are facing our responsibility today in the united states senate and we are hoping that yesterday's procedural vote with 67 democrats and republicans joining together is an indication of the success we'll find later today when this measure comes up for a final vote. before i go any further i want to salute my colleague, my friend and my fellow leader in the united states senate, senator patty murray of washington. patty a few years ago was given a tough assignment. she was given the assignment to

chair the so-called super committee. i'd been involved in a lot of deficit negotiations to that point and i thought my goodness, she's walking into a minefield. she did a professional job, a bipartisan effort. it didn't succeed, but she learned in the process not only more about our budget challenge but also more about the leaders in the budget process. and i think it was that painful experience with the super committee that set the stage for the much more successful negotiation over this budget agreement with paul ryan. paul ryan is no stranger to those of us in illinois. his congressional district borders on our state in wisconsin. i know paul, i like him, i respect him, we disagree on a lot of substantive issues but i respect him as a person of substance and as a person of values who tries to solve problems. he showed with senator patty murray that democrats and republicans can sit down in a room together, respect one

other's differences and come to an agreement. what a refreshing development in this town where so many times we just fall flat on our face trying to come up with a solution. i also want to commend paul ryan while i'm on the subject for his leadership on the immigration issue. it's not easy for him to step up as a conservative republican and support comprehensive immigration reform but he's done it. he came to chicago and made that announce ph with luis gutierrez, a national leader on immigration. i only say that because if we have more of that kind of dialogue, more of that kind of agreement, we will have a better congress and the american people will know it. right now we are languishing in approval ratings across the country and a lot of it has to do with the fact that we spend too much time fighting and not enough time trying to find solutions. this budget agreement is a solution. is it perfect? of course not. there are parts of this budget

agreement i don't like at all. but i've come to learn that if you're going to get anything done in washington for the good of the people of this country, you have to be prepared to accept in an agreement some things you might not agree with. we found that with comprehensive immigration reform. we'll find it today with this budget agreement. this plan isn't perfect, but it's going to enable us to avoid a shutdown of the government. did we learn a lesson or not just a few months ago? we shut down the government of the united states of america for 16 days. one senator came to the floor and -- on the other side of the aisle speaking 21 hours in an effort to inspire others to join him in the shutdown. and sadly, it worked, for 16 days, 800,000 federal employees or more were sent home with the promise that eventually they would be paid. and millions of americans were denied the basic services of our government during that government shutdown. well, we managed to emerge from

that, but the promise that we would fund our government with a continuing resolution until the middle of january. but then the burden fell on patty murray and paul ryan and the members of that conference committee to come up with a solution. and they did. and that's what's before us today. those who are voting no on that don't have an alternative. they really don't have a plan. they're just angry or upset or basically opposed. but they don't have an alternative. and if it means that they would want another government shutdown, well, so be it. but thank goodness an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the house of representatives voted for this plan, and yesterday, if i'm not mistaken, we had 12 republicans join us and all of the democrats, 55 democrats. 67 voted in favor of this bipartisan budget plan. what is especially important to me as a member of the appropriations committee is that not only is it avoiding another government shutdown, it's a

two-year plan. and i said to senator murray when she called me with the details, that is one of the strongest arguments in favor of this i can imagine. to think now that the appropriations committee can sit down and do its work for the rest of this year with a budget target number, i have a pretty substantial responsibility on the appropriations committee. i chair the subcommittee on defense and intelligence. in that subcommittee, our bill alone is about $600 billion, just a little south of that, and it embodied almost 60% of all the discretionary spending of the united states federal government. we're going to get a chance now -- and i've already sat down with the congressman from new jersey who chairs the same subcommittee in the house -- to work out a bipartisan appropriations bill for the defense of america. is there anything more important than our national security? we have to start there.

and we're going to be able to do it now in a thoughtful way because of this budget number. those who are voting no would cast us again into the darkness. a continuing resolution. for those who are on the outside looking in, a continuing resolution is like saying to a family, listen, next year we're going to give you the checkbook ledger from last year. keep writing the same checks for the same amount and we're sure everything will work out. well, it doesn't. instead, because of this budget agreement, we can start looking at ways to save money that will not harm our men and women in uniform and will keep america strong and create a national defense. we're going to also work in this bill to start to repair america's fraying social safety net. in other words, protecting the most vulnerable in america. because this agreement stands for the premise that we are going to treat defense and non-defense spending and cuts equally. that was an agreement we

started. it's one that they've honored with us. we made real progress in the last four years to cut our federal deficit in half. the president inherited an economic mess. he has put this ship of state sailing forward with deficit reduction. we're going to cut the deficit even further under this bipartisan budget plan, but in a much more thoughtful wail. -- way. i'm going to be voting yes for the budget and i urge my colleagues to do the same. i see the republican leader on the floor and i know he has a very busy schedule, so i'm not going to give the rest of my speech as promised. but do i want to leave with one closing thought. there is another deficit in america beyond our budget deficit that is even more dangerous to america's future, and that's the rapidly deteriorating situation that many working families are facing. we have an opportunity deficit in america. president obama called this opportunity deficit the defining challenge of our time, and he is

right. we are starting to lose our balance between personal wealth and our common wealth. i don't begrudge anyone wealth and success in america. we celebrate it. but we also believe in fairness. we believe in the dignity of work. we believe if you work hard and follow the rules, you ought to be able to provide for your family with the basics of life and with the dream of an even better life for the next generation. after we pass this budget, after we get our appropriations bills underway, we are going to come forward, and i hope in a bipartisan manner, address some of the pillars of income equality in america. an increase in the minimum wage overwhelmingly supported by both political parties and independent voters across the united states. an opportunity to make sure through the affordable care act that every family has an opportunity for health insurance in america. a press conference which i'll have later today with senators warren and reed on the student

lone debt crisis facing so many families. we have reached a point now where the student loan debt in america is greater than the credit card debt. it has devastating impacts on working families across america. these and so many others should be part of an agenda to repair the opportunity deficit. and i hope the republicans will join us in a bipartisan effort. and i ask consent that the remainder of my remarks be placed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i yield the floor. mr. mcconnell: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i'm going to proceed on my leader time. the presiding officer: the leader has that right. please proceed. mr. mcconnell: i rise today to give voice to the people of eastern kentucky who are hurting due to this administration's war on coal. recently i traveled to pikeville. pikeville is in the central appalachian coalfields. to hear firsthand from coal

miners, their families, those in the energy industry and others about how their communities are being ravaged, literally ravaged by e.p.a.'s excessive, overly burdensome regulations on coal. now, the e.p.a. didn't want to listen to these folks. i tried to get the e.p.a. to have a hearing in eastern kentucky, and they refused. so i did it. i held a listening session to put a human face on the suffering that is being felt in appalachia due in large part to this administration's war on coal. and so i want to share my -- with my colleagues just a little bit of what i heard in that listening session down in pikeville a few days ago. this is a picture of howard abshar right here. howard abshar. he's a former production foreman and a fourth-generation coal

miner. howard abshar. in the audience during his testimony was his son right behind him right here, griffin. he's a fifth-generation coal miner. what the father and son have in common is they're both out of work. the father and the son are two of over 5,000 kentuckians who have lost their jobs in the war on coal. two of the casualties of the president's war on coal. howard and griffin out of work. now, howard is holding up a piece of coal right here in his left hand. coal mining is what the e.p.a. wants to stamp out, but coal is also the powerful substance that powers our homes, provides light and heat and fuels the commerce

of goods and services worldwide this is coal, he said. this is coal, he said. this keeps the lights on. howard is only one of many coal miners laid off for lack of coal mining work this is what he said. look at our schools. look at our nursing homes. look at our pharmacies, howard said. we're hurting. we're hurting. we need help, he said, but we don't want to be bailed out. howard said we don't want to be bailed out. we want to work. howard doesn't want to be bailed out. he wants to work. seated next to howard is jimmy rose, right here. this is jimmy rose. he's a veteran. he fought in iraq.

he's a former coal miner. jimmy was perhaps the most famous attendee at the listening session because he brought attention to the war on coal to a national television audience on america's got talent. jimmy's a song writer and a singer. his song "coal keeps the lights on," "coal keeps the lights on," that was the song he used in his competition on "america's got talent." and it spoke directly to the hardship in his community caused largely by the war on coal. this is jimmy rose right here, and here's what he had to say. it's in our heritage, he said. it's in our blood, addressing the obama administration, jimmy said, look at what you're doing, who you're affecting.

coal mining, jimmy said, is a way of life, just like i say in the song. don't kill our way of life. i hope one day i can always say coal kept the lights on. i also heard from monty boyd, the owner of wayne's supply company and walk erma sheenry, a mining and construction equipment distribute tor that serves be kentucky, indiana, west virginia and ohio. the company employs 1,900 people and operates 25 stores. wayne's supply this year celebrated 100 years of operation. yet -- yet -- this is what monty had to say. at a time when i should be excited about our future, i am full of concern and uncertainty because our future outlook is bleak. bleak due to the regulatory

ambush of the coal industry by the e.p.a.. he went ton say coal in -- he went on to say coal in kentucky is more than just mining. it is the driving force that keeps our energy rates affordable, keeps our manufacturing sector competitive and is the economic lifeblood of eastern kentucky. monty went on. he said i'm disheartened to continually see the federal government and the e.p.a. take such an antibusiness stance that destroys an industry that is vital to our regional economy. monty said that the federal government appears to be choosing the winners and losers in regard to the energy sector of america. those are strong words from someone with a good perspective of kentucky's coal industry. i also heard from anita miller,

over here in the photograph. anita miller. she's a manager of safety for apollo fuels in middlesboro in my state. she's worked the industry for more than 15 years. here's what anita had to say. my son walked earlier than my daughter. every time she would try to stand up, he would either knock her down or put his hands on her head so she couldn't stand. she said this is what's happening to our coal industry. anita went on to say every time we try to stand up for ourselves, somebody either knocks or holds us down. you can't really buy anything or make plans for the future because you don't know what the future holds. my wish is that the people who are trying so hard to destroy the coal industry would just stop for a minute and think

about the hot showers they take, the lights they turn on, and that first hot cup of coffee in the morning, and remember that it came from electricity powered by coal. i couldn't agree more with what anita says. it is apparently too easy for e.p.a. bureaucrats and the obama administration to make decisions that have a huge impact on the people of eastern kentucky. they don't think about the consequences, and i might add bothering to meet face to face with the people they hurt. the e.p.a.'s scheduled listening sessions only -- only, madam president -- in cities far, far away from coal country, both geographically and philosophically. cities including new york, boston, seattle, and san francisco. they