dumais jor tax reform and come back and address the tax code again. that led the president to the view in july while he wants to pursue comprehensive tax reform and hopes we're in an environment we have a fiscal frame that permits us to make progress there, on the business side there ismuchore there is convergence of general approaches whereas if we were able to succeed you would do something new for the economy by having the business tax rate able to succeed we would do something very good for the economy by having the business tax rate, the statutory tax rate come down. our average tax rate is already lower because of all the loopholes that are bringing many companies special benefit. but our statutory rate is one of the highest in the world. th that's an extra burden for companies when they want to have their headquarters in the united states. it's an issue in terms of base erosion and our international conversations about making sure we don't have stateless income. i think it has the added benefit

that there are one time savings where you really have two choices. you can either use that money to reduce the deficit which is a la laudable objective so we don't discredit that as an objective or use it for one time expenses. what you can't do is lower rates as if the one time savings is genuine forever because you would in the next period of time be losing revenue. that's why the president proposed pairing business tax reform with an infrastructure initiative. i think there is the basis there where you've seen proposals on both sides that have elements of agreement. i think that it's something the more we talk about across party lines and with each other the more we have an opportunity to get something important done. >> very good. senator thune. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary lew, nice to have you here. welcome back. i also want to welcome our new chairman and really look forward to working with him. as chairman wyden mentioned we worked together on a number of

issues, digital goods and digital trade and a letter we spearheaded by 33 senators for charity and tax reform. we believe it's very strongly the importance of encouraging charitable contributions. i noticed the budget this year did have the 28 appearance limitation on itemized deductions many of us think will negatively impact charitable giving. i'm wondering the rational for doing that. shouldn't we do everything we can to increase charitable giving to reach those government can't or hasn't been able to assist? >> senator, i think we totally agree we ought to provide incentives for charitable giving. the limitation doesn't take away the incentive for charitable giving. what it does is say the value of a deduction should be capped at 28 percent roughly where the $250,000 a year income puts the value of your tax deductions right now. i would point out we've seen tax

rates higher and lower. we haven't seen the small changes on the margin lead to a decline in charitable giving. most people give because they want to give. there's a tax benefit that goes with it. i don't think we've seen historically when tax rates went down we saw a decline in chartible giving. i don't believe our proposal would have the adverse effect some have worried about. we expressed an interest in working with congress on this because we do share the goal making sure there is a strong encouragement to charitable giving, there's so much important work that goes on in this country not through government or commercial activity but not-for-profit sector. i think we're in total agreement on the importance of it. we perhaps don't have exactly the same view what the impact of the limit is. i think the history of experience with different tax rates supports our analysis. >> i've seen a lot of analysis. i don't think people give because of the tax deduction but i think it does affect the

amount they give. it does have impacts and i've seen a good amount of analysis that suggests capping it would in fact reduce the amount that people are giving. i think people are still going to give to those causes but i don't think it's going to be on the same levels >> the only point i would make we didn't see the amount of giving go down when rates came down. it argues it's not quite as variable. we're happy to continue this conversation because we really do have the same goal. wanted to ask, too, you probably answered many questions on this already, i get from my c constituents and people across the country to the whole issue of the bonuses that went out to the irs employees. whether or not it's appropriate for bonus s es to go out to an organization that so brazenly destroyed the public trust, even if you don't agree and i don't

think you probably do the targeting of conservative groups was politically motivated it's hard to not agree there wasn't gross negligence there how they processed these organizations. do you think that these employees associated with that decision whether politically motivated or not, to target these tea party group deserve bonuses? >> senator, i think it's really important not to describe such a large agency as the irs as if everyone was involved in one activity. we've made clear that what happened in the c 4 experience was unacceptable. we believe it was bat judgment. you'll reach your own conclusion when you complete your investigation. we've seen no sign of political inference in any of the reviews we've done. i think the policy on compensation for the irs broadly has to reflect the fact we have an enormous number of people who are tireless hard working public servants who do a fine job under

very difficult circumstances and we're not seeing the level of funding for the irs to make it possible for them to do everything we really need them to do. in that world, making sure that we have proper compensation and fair compensation is an important thing. i just note that there was a pause in the -- in those payments. there were some collective bargaining issues that arose and in resolution of it, there's a new policy in place. >> i would just say, i know there's a lawsuit and the union issue that you referenced there, collective bargaining thing, there were an awful lot of bonuses paid out to executives who weren't a part of that lawsuit, too. i just think it's awfully hard to justify to the american people in an agency that has been so -- whose credibility has been so badly damaged somehow you could pay out bonuses. i think it flies in the face of everything that's logical to the american people. to have them -- to have the

american people have to see what happened with this whole episode i think reflected very badly with the irs and then find out they're being awarded with bonuses. >> i would point out other things happening with the irs on a bipartisan basis applaud over the same period of time. we implemented a law that passed with bipartisan support to make sure we would have transparency across country lines so illegal tax evasion could be stopped. the work done by our irs on this has become the world standard. we now go to international meetings and from what i hear other finance ministers saying we want fatka for all. we have fine people who have done work during this period and recognize it's a large agency doing a lot of things. >> if that's true. big mission, big agency, but we know for sure there are certain folks in certain offices who were associated with these

actions that have i think reflected so unfavorably and so negatively upon the agency, knowing i guess last comment i'll make and perhaps a follow-up question, is there a way you can selectively figure out how not to reward the people who are doing these sorts of things? we ward the people doing the good things you just alluded to but please don't reward the people responsible for this behavior? >> obviously the irs commissioner would be more responsible than myself. i would note the senior managers in the chain of command that exercised bad judgment running the program are no longer there. i think that reflects the seriousness with which we took the bad judgment and consequences of it and the fact that we had an acting commissioner who took quick and decisive action. any who was responsible for doing things that they shouldn't have done does have to be held accountable. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

thank you, mr. secretary. >> thank you, senator thune. a couple business matters and then we can wrap up on the question of hearing from you with respect to ukraine, secretary lew. all we're interested in is getting a sense from the department what kind of guidelines and principles we ought to be using in evaluating those of proposals that have been advanced by senators in terms of holding russia accountable for the incursion into the ukraine. obviously, matters like timeliness, effectiveness is what we want to hear from you on, if you could get that to senator hatch, that would be great. althou also, i expect senators may want to submit questions to you in writing and hold the record open until friday on that. also, just because i know members and staff have some questions with respect to the business meeting that have been noticed for this morning, we obviously don't have a quorum at

this time. we do have some organizational issues to work through. it's my intent to consult with senator hatch and have a business meeting off the floor. thank you for your patience. it's been a long morning and we didn't expect all these votes. on a personal level i want you to know how much i look forward to working closely wit you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> after the senate voted today to not move ahead on one of its nominations, president obama's said the senate's failure to confirm debo adegbilie delete this civil rights division at the department of justice is a

travesty based upon wildly unfair character attacks against a good and qualified public servant. the qualifications of debo adegbilie are impeccable. democratic senators bob creasy, bill donnelly, heidi high camp, mark prier, harry reid, and john walsh joined on republicans president and voting against the motion to move ahead. majority leader reid switched his vote to know for procedural reasons. we spoke with a reporter who covered the debate. >> the headline on philadelphia in acquirers agreed senate defeats obama nominee tied to mummied case. jonathan is the washington correspondent for the philadelphia inquirer, was in the senate today during the vote on the nominee. debo adegbilie. what can you tell us about the case first and the nominee himself and others became so controversial.

>> right. the cases been a flashpoint for more than three decades now. a murder in 1981 of a philadelphia police officer who was killed after pulling over mumia abu jamal and of the people in the car with him. the officer was shot. and while he was lying on the ground shot and killed. jamal was a popular radio host, convicted of the murder it either has been long-running disputes over whether he got a fair trial, whether it -- what if any role race played. and so you have got people, celebrities across the country, really across the world -- european parliament said taken up with are not he got a fair trial and deserve the death penalty. and of the people simply think he is a cold-blooded cop killer who's been made into a celebrity. you can imagine the motion that

stirs up in philadelphia. >> and the man dead -- so how did he get involved in the case? what was his involvement in the case? >> he worked at the naacp as an attorney at the legal defense fund. the legal defense fund had have a role and the case. eventually when he was the head of the legal defense fund they formally became his attorney. this was after the death penalty had been thrown out that there were still on going appeals trying to get it reinstated. he supervised the team that fought against the death penalty, which was never reinstated. >> the senate vote was 47-52 against moving forward with the nomination. that includes eight democratic senators. pennsylvania's two senators. what are we hearing about the motivation for the pennsylvania senators voting against cloture?

>> in pennsylvania it -- you do not want to be on his side as a pennsylvania lawmaker. i don't think that's a difficult call for them. any appeal, anything defending him, strong opposition from law enforcement. democratic district attorney in philadelphia have also opposed his nomination is broken down on a. and so i think that it is a matter of pennsylvania lawmakers a want to be seen in any way at all to be on the side of a cop killer. >> ahead of the vote what kind of lobbying effort was made on behalf on capitol hill? did the administration, did they actually at some point think there was a chance that they could win this vote? >> it seems like of the vote was part of this morning it is unusual to have a vote where democrats know that there not coming to the defense that they're going to fail.

so i was personally very surprised that came up short. the senator had spent a lot of time writing op-ed, campaigning with the district attorney, talking to his colleagues. i don't think that even they thought they had the votes this morning. and that think there were even surprised when they saw how many democrats turned out to about. >> we showed your tweet a moment ago about reaction from the white house, a statement issued, following the vote today, what is the likelihood that this nomination to be brought back to the senate floor? >> it is not clear about that. asked about that. we have my yet heard back. it seems like with the size of the deficit here, the votes, 47-52, senator john corning, a republican, certainly not here. he would be another vote to get that many people to turn around and change their votes and highly unlikely and is worth pointing out that a number of the democrats who voted against

this either come from red states or are up for reelection this year or both. clearly they're concerned rock casting a vote that would be seen as taking this side of jamal. >> washington correspondent for the philadelphia enquirer. you can follow his reporting. he is also on twitter, as we mentioned. thank you for joining as. >> thank you for having me. >> democratic senator tom harkin of iowa talk about the vote on the justice department nomination for ten minutes. >> earlier today of the vote was taken in the united states senate that to this center marked about the lowest point that i think this senate has descended to in my 30 years your . i'd don't say that lightly. i was here during the impeachment process, trial for president clinton.

i kind of thought that was a sham. but that did not compare to what happened to them. the vote, on debo adegbilie to be assistant attorney general of civil rights said a strong message. here is the message we sent to that, young people listen up. if you are i young white persons and go to work for law firms your lawyer sworn into the bark and go to work for a law firm, young white person. and that law firm assigns you to a pro bono case to defend someone who killed eight people in cold blood. and they as i knew to defend that person. my advice from what happened today is you should do that. it is part of the legal

obligation, part of your profession. so because if you do that hanover someone, you might wind up to be the chief justice of the united states supreme court. however, if you are a young black person and go to work for the naacp legal defense fund and the as i knew under your obligations as an attorney in keeping with your oath of office , they assign you to appeal the case of someone who committed a heinous murder. and you do that. you sign your name on the appeal. not that you are defending this person. you have never done that, but they ask you to sign an appeal. and you do that.

and you are asked to do that. you are a young black person and york of the naacp legal defense fund and are asked to sign an appeal for someone convicted of murder, the message today was don't do it. don't do it. you know what, if you do that in keeping with your legal obligations and your profession you will be denied by the u.s. at from being attorney in the u.s. department of justice. i guess what i am saying is we send the message, we have a double standard, a terrible double standard. the chief justice of the supreme court defended a mass murderer and florida who committed eight murders. he is the chief justice of the supreme court. did we hear one people from the republican side, from any one? no one on the senate floor at

that time ever raised that as an issue of all for his qualifications to be a judge on the appeals court or to be the chief justice of the supreme court. and rightfully so. he should never have been an issue. he was fulfilling his legal obligations. yes, his moral duty. aside from his legal duty. but debo adegbilie working as an attorney for the naacp legal defense fund, he was not even asked to defend a murderer. he was just passed to join on an appeal to a sign an appeal on a technicality, and he did. and because of that and only because of bad he was excoriated here on the senate floor and denied, denied his opportunity to be an assistant attorney general for civil rights.

did anyone raise an issue of his qualifications? no. that person after person spoke about the heinous murder that took place in philadelphia, the murder of a police officer by yet another -- buy and black man had bragged about it, a heinous crime, horrible crime. debo adegbilie did not defend him, did not even know this guy. and yet -- and yet i listened to the senator from pennsylvania this morning, had a big poster year with the picture of the police officer and his wife on their wedding day talking about how horrible crime this was cahow the murderer had bragged about ten of that terrible stuff. had nothing to do with debo adegbilie, but the senator from pennsylvania said that is why he should not be approved to be an

assistant attorney general, because he signed an appeal. what about that guy sitting over there, the chief justice of the supreme court defended a person who killed eight people. maybe we should institute an impeachment process. maybe that is what we ought to do. many my friends on the republican side did not know this about john roberts, that he had defended a mass murderer. maybe that is what we ought to do, bring up and become process. let's and he's the chief justice because he had filled his leader of the -- legal obligation to defend a murderer and. well, i hope that you see the ridiculousness of that argument and how unfair it was for debo adegbilie to be denied this not

only on the basis of any qualifications. i had not heard one person said he is unqualified or that he has done something that would disqualify. no. he did what he was supposed to do within his legal profession. and denied, shame, shame on this senator, us shame on every senator cranston be a lawyer, who went to law school, raise their hand and sworn into the park or shame on every lawyer who voted against mr. debo adegbilie because of what he did on the appeal, because of the fact and he has signed on the appeal. now, if somebody have some question about his qualifications that he is totally unqualified for the lead is a different story. that's a different story. i challenge anyone to come

forward with anything remotely connected to his glove the patient for eight -- i will pull the sub, a quote, the president of the american bar association. listen up the lawyers from a fundamental tenet of our justice system and constitution is that anyone who faces loss of lurie has a right to legal counsel. lawyers have been ethical obligation to uphold the principle and provide zealous representation to people who otherwise would stand alone against the power and resources of the government said. even to those accused or convicted of terrible crimes. i was alarmed to learn that there is some opposition to the nomination of mr. debo adegbilie based solely on his efforts to protect the fundamental rights of an unpopular clients while

working at the legal defense fund. his work on like the work of aba members to provide thousands of hours of pro bono legal services every year is consistent with the finest tradition of this country's legal profession and should be commended, not condemned to. shameful. shameful vote today. our rush to judgment based upon a motion, based upon a motion. i will not name names, but i have one senator sake of my head tells me that he should be confirmed, but my gut, in motion says no. we make our decisions based on that around here? of helpless. cut helpless. >> maybe we ought to all go back and watch the movie again, to kill a mockingbird. read the book. know what it is to stand up

against the powers of the government and offend someone who is unpopular. and mr. debo adegbilie did not even do that. he was not the defense attorney. he was only on an appeal. sir shame on the fraternal order, shame on them. i have been one of their strong supporters for my 30 years, but shame on them for doing this. shame on them. then mounted a campaign just on that one thing. shame. on all this year, especially the lawyers, especially lawyers. well, it was a rush to judgment. a shameful episode in the history of the united states senate. i know that senator reid file a motion to reconsider. i hope that you will. i hope people will premise. think back especially the

lawyers or here, think about think about the ethical obligation he had to do, and he did, and he did nothing wrong. hopefully mr. debo adegbilie on the motion to reconsider will have the votes to take his position as assistant attorney general to civil-rights and the justice department. a shameful day for the united states senate. i yield the floor. >> with the u.s. senate reconvenes at 9:30 a.m. eastern, the opening prayer will be delivered by the dalai lama. live coverage of the senate is here on c-span2. and a few moments the house budget committee hears about the president's proposed budget from zero in b director -- director burwell. no one in two hours more about the budget in a conversation

with zachary goldfarb of the washington post. and we will read air shaklee testimony on the administration's budget plan. >> on our next washington journal you will talk to a former health care adviser in the obama administration, dr. ezekiel emanuel about the implementation of the health care law. his recent book is reinventing american health care. republican congressman of wisconsin joins us to discuss the president's 2015 budget proposal and that gop alternative. washington journal live each morning at seven eastern on c-span2. reminder, you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. >> three elements of the triple package are first a sense of exception malady. you can get it from lots of different places, but start by filling the you are special and destined for special things. the second element is almost seemingly the opposite, and that

is a-of insecurity to offset that exception melody. that is a feeling that you have not quite done enough yet or not quite good enough yet to be the third element is impulse control or discipline and the ability to persevere and resist temptation. >> individuals who have these qualities crop in america, they tend predictably, second-generation, to have a kind of interesting, creative, destruction relationship between their culture and american culture such the second-generation kids and their immigrant communities start very typically looking back at their parents' and grandparents' generation and saying, you know what, we don't want to do success the way you want to. we are not interested in those jobs. instead they make their own decisions when they see a stand-up comic or artist and get what we found is aspirational bill of these same qualities can help them do that and achieved a

very different kind of goal. >> superiority, and security command impulse control, the troubled package saturday night at 10:00 eastern and sunday at 9:00 on after words, part of book tv on c-span2. and for march book tv we will discuss. go to c-span.org to enter the chat room. >> white house budget director sylvia burr well testified wednesday before the house budget committee chaired by paul ryan. a wisconsin republican is criticizing the president's nearly $4 trillion plan which proposes less spending for the pentagon and health and human services but more for the departments of veterans affairs and education. this is a little more than two hours. >> the meeting will come to order. good afternoon. i want to start, i think this is the director's first time here. >> it is. >> welcome for your first time here. i'm sure you are going to enjoy

this. >> i hope so. i can't say that i envy you right now. regardless, wanted thank you for being here and taking time to speak with us and for coming back in government service. that we truly appreciate. this is the fifth time in six years that the president has submitted his budget passed the statutory deadline. it is the worst record in history for any president, and it will further disrupt an already very much broken budget process. in fact, the administration will deliver the key details of this budget until next week. all i can say is that next year i hope that the president will submit its budget full time and on time next year. i realize you came in late in the game and we and other circumstances. hopefully next year it will try and get a better record going. even if it had been on time in our judgment this budget is nothing to write home about. last month cbs said the deficit

will start to grow again in two years. by 2020 to we will be running a trillion dollar deficit even though we will be taking a historically higher share of our revenues. that is because spending will grow twice as much as revenue. over the next ten years we will add 10 trillion more to our national debt for a grand total of $27 trillion according to the cbo. spending is out of control. we have to take back the reins to my address this before it gets too late. the president's budget would only lose in the grips. it is just more of the same from our judgment. higher taxes, more spending, and weak economic growth. take a look of some of these major proposals. $790 billionproposals. the president wants to increase spending by $791 billion over the budget window. he also wants to increase spending from the already insolvent highway trust fund by $90 billion. the president has abandoned his

so instead of doing anythingmb called a more accurate measure of inflation. soin stead of doing anything to reform our sbietmentes, the president is backing away from the one significant reform that he had embraced in the past. he's going in the other direction. and the president wants to increase taxes on families and job creators by another $1.8 trillion on top of the $1.7 trillion in tax increases that he's already imposed. meaning families will pay more so washington can spend more. this is a moment that calls for leadership and collaboration. we had something to start with earlier, or at the end of last year. we have to fix this spending problem before it's too late. we've got to start moving toward common ground. instead, this budget goes in the other direction. instead of meeting legal deadlines and building on bipartisan progress, the president continues to miss those deadlines and seems to want to undo last year's bipartisan agreement. instead of looking for more ways to preserve and strengthen

entitlements, he's abandoned the one proposal he recommended last year. so i'm disappointed to say that 2014 is shaping up to be yet another missed opportunity. i had wished that we would start tackling our fiscal and our entitlement problems. usually leaders do that. this president has chosen not to do that. so what i see in this budget is basically a white flag on tackling our fiscal challenges. more tax increases, more spending, and more debt are not going to get people back to work. they're not going to increase take-home pay. they're not going to grow the economy. that's what we should be doing. we should be talking about how to do that. instead, what we have here is more of a campaign document, if you ask me. promising more for everybody but not tackling the challenges for those people who don't have a vote, our children and our grandchildren. so hopefully we can turn this around and go in the right direction. with that, i'll yield to mr. van holland. >> thank you plrks chairman. i want to join the chairman in

welcoming you, director. thank you for your service. as the chairman indicated, this it your first time before the committee. early in your tenure, you experienced a baptism of fire in having to confront an unnecessary and destructive 16-day government shutdown. i hope those antics are behind us now. this budget zeros in on three major goals. boosting job growth, making vital investments in our future, and responsibly reducing our budget deficits. combined with an increase in a badly needed minimum wage, these policies will ensure a growing economy and shared prosperity. it lays out a detailed plan that adheres to the spending caps established in the bipartisan budget act. but throughout the budget, the president makes the case that the status quo is not good enough, that america cannot stand still. even though we've seen steady job growth and more than 8

million prooit sector jobs have been created over the last 47 months, we know we can still do better. that's why the president's budget proposes an opportunity growth in security initiative for the jum coppi upcoming year. this would fund break-through scientific research and advanced manufacturing. it would also boost our military readiness. the president's plan would also boost our economic growth by ending the perverse tax provisions that encourage companies to move american jobs overseas and instead use those savings here at home to build out our infrastructure, the lifeline of part of our economy. and to ensure that the next generation of americans are equipped to thrive and win in the global marketplace, the president has again asked congress to support an early education initiative. this budget establishes a responsible plan for steadily reducing the size of our deficits as a share of the economy. it has been cut by more than half since the president took

office, and this budget reduces it to 1.6% of gdp by the end of the budget window. the president achieves this with a mix of policies that cut spending, raise revenue, including policies that make medicare more efficient and closing special interest tax breaks. and at the same time, embracing the pro-growth benefits of comprehensive immigration reform. interestingly, chairman camp's tax plan identifies some of the same tax loopholes for closing as does the president. the difference is that the republican budget would apply every one of those pennies saved to reducing tax rates for the very highest income earners and not a penny for investing in our future or for deficit reduction. finally, mr. chairman, let me say a word about the war on poverty. we had a good hearing in this committee on january 28th. all three witnesses recognized while we still have unacceptable levels of poverty in america,

that the array of economic security programs has kept tens of millions of americans out of poverty. in fact, the january report by the council of economic advisers concluded that those programs had cut poverty by nearly 40% from 1967 to 2012, lifting 45 million americans out of poverty in the year 2012. you would not know that from reading the report that was issued by the majority of the committee just two days ago on the poverty programs. if the goal of this committee and the majority is to improve the performance of various programs and help more people climb out of poverty, we again say, as we did at the earlier hearing, we're willing to work with you. what we will not accept are trojan horse policies that use the rhetoric of helping people actually cut huge holes in important safety nets and push more people into poverty. the real test will be the

republican budget this year. last year's budget here in the committee slashed those important safety nets while providing windfall tax breaks to the very wealthy. we hope this year will be different. we could start by allowing this house to vote to extend the unemployment compensation safety net to 2 million struggling americans who lost their jobs and remain out of work through no fault of their own. let's vote on that measure. that would be something different. i look forward, mr. chairman and director burwell, to today's testimony. thank you for being here. >> great. thank you. director burwell, the floor is yours. >> thank you, chairman ryan, ranking member van hollen. thank you for welcoming me here today so that i have an opportunity to present the president's fy-'15 budget. the president's budget provides a fiscal road map for accelerating economic growth,

expanding opportunity, and ensuring fiscal responsibility. it includes fully paid for investments in infrastructure, job training, preschool and prowork tax cuts. at the same time, it reduces deficits and strengthens our long-term fiscal outlook. through additional health care reforms, tax reforms, and by fixing our broken immigration system. and recognition of the important bipartisan funding compromise reached by the congress in december, the budget shows the president's funding priorities at the 2015 spending levels agreed upon by the bipartisan budget act. however, we believe those levels aren't sufficient, both in 2015 and beyond, to ensure that the nation is achieving its full potential. for that reason, the budget shows how to build on the progress made with the compromise agreement with a fully paid for $56 billion opportunity growth and security initiative that supports

investments in critical areas such as education, research, manufacturing, and defense. building on the model established in the ryan/murray compromise, the initiative is split evenly between defense and nondefense and is fully paid for with a balanced package. supporting what the president has said in the state of the union, the budget includes a series of measures to create jobs and accelerate economic growth. for example, the budget lays out an ambitious four-year, $302 billion transportation proposal that's paid for with transition revenue from progrowth business tax reform. it invests in american innovation and strengthens our manufacturing base by supporting the president's goal of creating a national network of 45 manufacturing institutes. it maintains u.s. leadership in research by making rnd tax credit permanent and continuing to support groundbreaking basic

and applied research in a range of fields. and it enhances the administration's management efforts to deliver a government that is more effective and more efficient while supporting economic growth, focusing on areas directly impacting citizens and businesses. the budget also includes measures designed to expand opportunity for americans. for example, it doubles the maximum value of the earned income tax credit for childless workers to build on the success in encouraging people to enter the work force and reduce povertpov pover poverty. and it invests in new efforts to drive greater performance and innovation in work force training to equip american workers with the skills they need to match the employer's needs. to ensure the nation's long-term fiscal strength, the budget focuses on the primary drivers of long-term debt and deficits,

particularly health cost growth and inadequate revenues to meet the need of our ageing population. it builds on the savings and reforms of the affordable care act with another $400 billion in health care savings aimed at continuing to slow health care cost growth at the same time we improve the quality of care. it curbs inefficient tax breaks that benefit the wealthiest and ensures everyone is paying their fair share. it also calls for progrowth immigration reform, which we know would promote economic growth and reduce the deficit. under the president's leadership, the deficit has already been cut in half as a share of the economy and has the largest sustained period of deficit reduction since world war ii. by paying for new investments and tackling our true fiscal challenges, the budget continues that progress, reducing deficits as a share of our gdp to 1.6% by 2024, and stabilizing debt as a

share of gdp by 2015 and putting it on a declining path thereafter. the budget shows the president's vision for moving the country forward. it provides a responsible, balanced, and concrete plan for accelerating economic growth, expanding opportunity for all americans, and ensuring fiscal responsibility. i look forward to working with the congress and this committee throughout the year on this effort. >> great. thank you. let me walk through a few things. let's get back to -- thank you. i want to walk through some discretionary just to be very clear. you support the current level of fy-'15 at 1014. and you support the appropriations process moving forward at that current 3028 level. you would like to go more and had this proposal to do more, but you support where we are and support keeping the agreement

where it is, correct? >> we are providing our budget. we have provided our budget as quickly as we can in seven weeks after we received our budget. usually we receive numbers october 1st. we received our numbers seven weeks and one day ago. we did that because we want the appropriations process to move forward. that is correct. we're providing the details of our budget, our 1400-page appendix as well as this budget so the committee can go forward. >> but the white house does support 1014. if you can't get what you want on the extra 56, you support 1014. >> that is correct. we have given the numbers so we do that. we also have expressed our vision of what we think are appropriate trade-offs. >> you also propose extending the discretionary caps through 2024, correct? >> extending the caps -- >> the discretionary caps. right now they expire in 2021. you support extending them through 2024, if i'm not mistaken. >> what we do is we just do current surfaces growth after 2021 in terms of the question of is it a cap or not a cap because we have the levels.

but the question of a cap is not addressed specifically. >> okay. but you carry the cap levels through the window. you don't believe we should just keep the caps on place? >> basically, we keep the levels. once we've replaced the nondefense discretionary, we just continue -- >> your letter says the budget provides comparable increases to the defense and nondefense caps and extends both caps through 2024. >> yes, yes. we don't have the official caps from the congress beyond 2021, though, but that is the way we would do it. >> i'll just interpret this letter as saying you extend the caps through 2024. you think that's a good thing, by the way. i'm not trying to blow back defense. two years ago we had then-secretary panetta in here. he presented that a $487 billion reduction to the defense budget. he said if we cut any more than then we would, quote, hollow out the force, close quote.

since he testiftestified, the sequester took another out of defense. i think there are strong bipartisan concerns here and throughout congress about those continuing cuts to the defense budget. when i was working through the bca in this latest round of negotiations, i was beginning to get a little concerned. it seemed to me that defense was being used as sort of a bargaining chip to get higher domestic spending and higher tax increases even though it seems clear to us from prior administration statements that they didn't think defense could go any lower. i hope that's not the case. so here's my basic question. would the administration be willing to revisit the fire wall to increase just defense spending if it was offset with other savings? >> we've stated in our budget what we believe is the appropriate approach. i'm thrilled to hear -- >> i know that, but -- >> -- that we should be at the president's level of defense spending. >> no, actually, i don't.

that's my next question. we're way below where leon panetta said we could go. so the question is, if we're below where the administration had said we could go, are you willing to set aside your preferences for higher domestic spending and higher taxes to address this issue on defense on its own? >> with regard to the levels as the chairman has said and as the secretary of defense has said, if we fund at the president's level, we can fulfill the strategy -- the defense strategy of the nation. i think that argues that the president's levels are those appropriate levels because we do buy back sequester. we believe that in addition to doing that on the defense side, you need to do it on the nondefense discretionary side. >> right, but if you can't get nondefense, would you do just defense? >> we've propose what had we believe is the best approach. that is to do both of those. both are important to the nation. both are important to the national security. as you heard secretary hagel throughout the year and even chairman dempsey, the importance of education and other issues to

our national security in making sure we have the fighting force we, those things are important. >> well, we can go on and on on that point, but i won't. let me get into the numbers themselves then. looking at your spreadsheet, you proposed increased in defense spending above the caps through 2021 by $185 billion. then you cut defense in the last few years by $141 billion. at the same time, dod's proposing to delay investments in weapons, which as we know increases costs in the long run. you have a growing problem with compensation funding. so how do you achieve your savings? where does that drop of $141 billion from the dod line come from if you're pushing weapons out to those years and if you have this compensation issue? >> what we have proposed and what the secretary has proposed is a defense budget that does a number of things. number one, in terms of achieving the numbers that we have in our budget, the first thing is we believe we need the president's numbers, which buy

back portions of the sequester. number two, we believe that what we need to do is we need to ensure that the secretary and chairman dempsey, as he said yesterday, have the flexibility to do the things that they need to do and whether that's brack or other changes, need that flexibility in order to have our troops get the funding they need for modernization, training, and readiness. and finally, we believe, and has been articulated by the secretary and the chairman, is we need certainty in terms of the ability to plan over the five-year defense planning window. >> but that doesn't explain how do you get the $141 billion in save in addition the last three years? >> in terms of the specifics of where those savings come from? >> yeah, because you're pushing weapons procurement out. you've got compensation growing up. so where is it coming from? >> the defense plans that have been put together to show what happens at the lower levels, both of those plans -- the five-year defense plan does it within the five-year window. >> all they've given us is five

years. we don't see how you're getting the second five years. >> i think that will be dependent on how the first five years is achieved. and in the ten-year plan -- >> here's my concern. this is a budget-driven strategy, not a strategy-driven budget. so we've got these numbers to make your total add up. it sounds like to me, you don't know where you're going to get this savings from. we have leon panetta coming here a couple years ago and say, the sequester is death. we can't go below that. here's 487 and that it. no more. otherwise we're hollowing out. now your budget takes half of that sequester, absorbs it. you give relief for about half of it. so you've moved this line down every year. now you're saying we're going to have an even lower line that where we said two years ago we would be past the breaking point of hollowing out our forces. now you're pushing money into the out years saying you're cutting this spending but you're not telling us where you're going to cut it with.

my fear is next year it will be worse than this. >> mr. chairman, our levels are above the current congressional levels. they're above the current ryan/murray agreement. they're above the current legislative law. and if the question is that we believe nondefense discretionary spending and defense spending should be even higher than the president's budget levels -- >> so that's back to my original point. >> if that's a question and the point being made, that's one we would be open to having a conversation about. >> on defense only is what we're asking. if you can only get the guns and not the butter, would you take that? >> and what i've said, mr. chairman, is we believe that keeping the two things together are very important. it was the philosophy that your approach and the deal that you led with chairman murray on kept the two things together. and that's the way we can make progress as a nation. both are important. we need to do both. both are important for our national security and for our economy. >> i've got two more. i see my clock going. i want to be mindful of time.

i've got a number of concerns. my other one is you're beginning to take discretionary programs and shift them over to mandatory. there are several cases where you convert discretionary to mandatory like amtrak, federal land acquisition, pre-k funding. there are many, many more. why do you propose doing this? are you doing this to avoid discretionary caps or avoid congress spending annual, you know, doing annual discretionary appropriations and therefore annual overset on these things? what's the reason for shifting these? >> in various accounts, it's for differing reasons. as you know, with regard to the question of mandatory, sometimes mandatory proposals are done that way because the policy is set. with regard to how one is going to spend, it's ooert for a limited amount of time or it is onset policy. so various cases are in various approaches in terms of how we do it. one of the things on the mandatory spending we do is make sure that we are paying for it because one of the things that i think is an important thing that you're indicating is the

importance of fiscal responsibility and making sure that we're constrained. if you are going to do something on the mandatory ensuring that it is paid for is a part of some of those changes as well. >> i see that it's taking fiscal responsibility in the wrong direction, but let me leave it at that. this is one you might have to get back to me in writing. the bipartisan budget act provided enhanced protections for the so-called death master file. i'm not sure if you're up to speed on this or not. in order to protect people from identity theft, we were witnessing a lot of identity theft occurring with this unlimited access to the file. during the congressional debate, we made very clear that the ideas to ensure continued access for those with legitimate uses of the information while denying it to fraudsters. after the bill's enactment, the department announced they intended to keep the file publicly available through the rule making needed to implement the law. my understanding, though, is that commerce has been overruled by omb on this. can you give me an update on what's happening here and what you're doing to ensure that legitimate users of this data?

for example, insurance companies that use this information in order to pay claims will not see an interruption in their access to this information. >> certainly will get back to you on the specifics of the question of the rule make. it's not one that i'm familiar with. in terms of the legislation, we believe that was part of program integrity and some of the positive things that were included. >> we all agreed on that and agreed there are legitimate users who ought to get access to this data so they can keep doing their businesses. omb has stopped that. look into it, please. >> i will do that. >> mr. van hollen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to spend a little time on defense spending. i have to say, i've been a little stunned by the comments identify heard from our republican colleagues in the press claiming that somehow the president's budget hollows out our defense spending. that is an absurd claim. it's important to remember, number one, that the fiscal year

2015 defense number was negotiated as part of the ryan/murray bipartisan budget agreement. >> can i get you there fast? >> my niece's name is murray ryan. let's go with ryan/murray. >> now that we realize the impact it has on defense, it's murray/ryan. i'm kidding you. so that agreement, just to remind all members here, set the levels for fiscal year 2015 defense. i would urge everybody to look at the testimony delivered today in the senate armed services committee by chief of staff general dempsey as well as secretary hagel saying that those resources are adequate to meet all of our defense requirements. i would also emphasize what director burwell said, which is the president's budget for fiscal year 2015 sets aside an additional fund, both to help grow our economy, because that's important to our national

defense as well as our kids' future, as well as restoring additional funds to defense to increase our military readiness. so if our republican colleagues would join us in supporting that effort, we would welcome it. yes, mr. chairman, we do believe that paying for those additional tax -- you know, those additional defense costs by closing special interest tax loopholes like hedge fund loopholes and others, is an important trade-off and one that we would make and would hope our republican colleagues would join us in that effort. i would also just point out that some of the reasons for the numbers changing like that in the out years has to do with different baseline assumptions, which we're happy to go over with you. i should say, the president's budget increases defense above what is the law of the land today, which is sequester, and continues that upward trajectory even after the sequester ends. i think that's an important point. i'd also just like to put up a

chart here as to how u.s. defense spending currently compares with the rest of the world. as you can see, you know, we're the 100-pound gorilla, 1,000-pound gorilla, whatever you want to call it. i would point out many other countries on this chart are our nato allies. you can see russia in the top right-hand corner. i have to say, it's been a little astounding to hear some of our republican colleagues, not on this committee, but many others in congress making the absurd claim, the absolutely absurd claim that somehow the president's defense budget consistent with the bipartisan budget agreement has emboldened russia and putin to go into ukraine. it's reached new levels. i would urge all my colleagues to read the piece by david ig nashs in "the washington post" today that says former secretary bob gate, of course a republican, tells republicans to

cut back on the criticizing of obama's ukraine policy. i would point out to my colleagues that in 2008, after we'd had seen dramatic increases in defense spending under president bush and after we had invaded iraq, somehow putin was not too worried to go into the state of georgia. okay? so to suggest that somehow it's president obama's defense policies that are them boldening putin, that's just nonsense. what we should be doing is, number one, making it absolutely clear that there will be economic penalties to pay if the russians continue the policy that they pursued and continue to maintain troops in crimea. and we're working with our european allies as we speak to do that. second, we should do everything we can to support the current government in kiev as they transition toward elections. and our european partners moved in that direction today.

and the president is going to be asking congress for loan guarantees and frankly to deal with the imf so we can leverage some of our funds, the rule changes and reforms that the united states is asking for at the imf would leverage additional funds for ukraine. so i hope in the midst of all this rhetoric that we hear people focus on substance and join the president in taking these concrete actions to actually help in ukraine. now, i want too to ..part of the budget, which dea with the immigration reform legislation, which as we know has passed the senate on a bipartisan basis. we have other legislation here. you incorporated the economic growth benefits that cbo calculated from that change in your budget, did you not? >> we incorporated the cbo score of the senate bill into our budget. >> right. i just again think for our

mutual benefit, the cbo estimated that legislation would increase economic growth by 3.3% in the year 2023 and by 5.4% by 2033. a good engine of economic growth. so we again ask our colleagues to let us vote on comprehensive immigration reform legislation. in fact, i might point out that if you compare the economic growth benefits of the comprehensive immigration reform legislation to the claimed economic growth benefits of chairman camp's tax reform proposal, i think our colleagues might be surprised with what they find. because the reality is when the joint tax committee looked at that proposal, they ran eight different scenarios. now, our republican colleagues seized on the scenario that had some very unrealistic assumptions that said by the

year 2020, you'd have 1.6% increase in growth. the lowest one said, ready, it would have a whopping 0.1% increase in economic growth. and some others were in between there. we also know that from all outward signs, in the second ten years, that plan would lose revenue, increase the deficit, and actually be a drag on economic growth. so i just want to point out that in the year 2023, the comprehensive immigration reform would get about twice as much extra gdp boost as the most optimistic joint tax projection of chairman camp's plan and 30 times more economic boost to gdp than the lowest one. whether you take the highest or the lowest, comprehensive immigration reform is good for

the economy. and so i really hope that we will move forward on that, mr. chairman. it's not only right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do and the economic thing to do if we want to grow our economy. finally, let me just turn to the earned income tax credit. i iated we had a good hearing in this committee back in january and all three of the witnesses if i recall correctly agreed that the eitc had been an effective tool for promoting work, making work pay and it has been a bipartisan policy agreement so i was pleased to see the president decide to expand the eitc coverage to childless adults and i hope we can move in that direction. i was a little disappointed that the chairman camps plan actually scaled back some of the out-year benefits for the eitc and in

fact the center for budget hired these estimated that a mother with two children who works full time with minimum wage would lose $2000 a year if the chairman camps plan were put into effect with respect to eitc so rather than scaling back what we i thought all agreed was a bipartisan tool i hope we will move forward on that and if you could direct your burwell talk about the eitc in the tax child child -- child tax credit and the tax provisions, tax-cut provisions to help families. >> to do you highlight are probably two of the most important terms are supporting those who want to work and that's the idea between the earned income tax credit and something that's been in place for many years and was exley started under a republican administration. the idea of an earned income tax credit encouraging those who are working to be able to not be in poverty so you use the tax credit as of warm we think is an

important way to encourage work and an important way to address poverty. in addition one thinks about the needs for those who are working the issue of child could -- how care is something that many people who are parents in this room have faced the issue of how does one make sure that if you have to have two parents working that you are able to do appropriate childcare for your children so that is a place where we think it's important and we do the tax credit. at the same time we also emphasize making sure some of the childcare that is out there is of that are quality and we try and do that by not building existing things but using existing channels such as building on some of the better head start or for brands in terms of what we would do. >> dr. price. >> thank you mr. chairman and i too want to add my welcome director burwell and thank you for your service. budgets, people's eyes glaze over when you talk about budgets but it really is how we set

priorities for the country and sadly when we read through the president's budget once again greater spending significantly greater taxes increasing debt and no significant address of the fundamental drivers of spending here in washington. that is social security medicare and medicaid, to a great degree so when i look at it and review what the president has proposed is really disappointing. which is also reveal whether or not the assumptions that are made are honest and objective. as mrs. and families don't honestly evaluate their situation. where they are they will never be all to put in place a course correction so i want to visit the growth assumptions that omb makes him by way of doing that i want to revisit where we have been in the past couple of years. omb projected in 2010 to 10 year growth projection would be 3.4% in the actual for the first four years was 2% so significantly

off. 2013 omb projected their growth rate would be 4.2%. actual, 1.9% so why is it that the american people should leave the administration now when they projected a growth rate of 2.7%? >> one is with regard to all of the projections that occurred during nap reed whether it's the blue-chip, the fed or even cbo the growth the nation has experienced has been slower than all projections sought. i would also say that many of the proposals we believe our proposals actually could cause and create growth and what we have seen in the past several years is a very strong fiscal drag that has come from policy pursued and that comes in a number of different forms. sequestration. >> i don't have the 10 minutes the chairman gets to let me just suggest that we would agree that it's related to policy but we

would agree that it's related to the administration's policies in the policies put in place often unilaterally without the congress agreeing to them sometimes extralegal we would suggest are in fact putting in place a huge drag on economy and that is why we are seeing the decreased or formants. let me just the two-point seven number over 10. at the omb you project your .7 over 10 and cbo projects 2.5 overton and the ranking member says .1. what does one point -- .1% difference in growth may? at the growth is .2% lower than omb projects what is the increase in the deficit? >> congressman i do want to reflect that sequestration in the shutdown in terms of the ramifications on gdp in terms of what cbo estimated and job growth are in the .6 range in terms of what happened there and in the shutdown we lost $2 billion worth of productivity.

>> if .2%, 2.7 is what omb projects and 2.5 is what cbo projects. if cbo is right was the increase to the deficit based upon those numbers? >> in terms of the direct translation when one looks at those out your numbers and you look at where we are with cbo it flips in terms of when we are above and below cbo. the question of the last five years in terms of where we are. >> how much money? >> specifically a point on the gdp i don't know exactly. >> i think .1 is $300 billion increase so if omb is not correct and cbo is correct in your projections would be off by millions -- $600 million. the independent payment advisory board as a physician i can tell you that doctors are shuddering about how they will be able to care for patients. last year year budget projected

$4.1 billion in savings would be able to be arrived at because of the independent payment advisory board decreasing services to seniors we would suggest. that number i thought was fictitious but this year you all have a projected savings triple that. is there any object information that you can provide us that evidence is how you will be able to get triple the savings? >> in terms of some of those changes that occur i think you publicly know the average is over a five year window in those windows change. another thing that is happen because of the changes in the cbo baseline because we are seeing a decrease in health care costs in the cbo baseline. in the period from now until 2020 you see a 1 trillion-dollar change in the cbo baseline which are reduce health care costs. how those in directing how the numbers change. the issue of long-term deficits and entitlement reform we see

that as an important way to control those costs. >> ms. castor. >> thank you mr. chairman and welcome. i was very pleased to see the president's budget a very substantial investment in america's infrastructure our roads, our bridges, our ports the airports and transit systems. this is very important for job creation and important expansion of distances across the country but it's also important because america's infrastructure is in need of great modernization. everyone across every district in this room has a bridge a transit system something happening at their airport where we have fallen behind. so we have great challenges ahead here. i would like to know in greater specificity where the administration through this budget is placing the priority for investments in infrastructure and growth and

opportunity for the folks that would find jobs in these kinds of businesses? >> with regard to infrastructure the president has talked about a 302 billion-dollar plan to do those two things. one is to meet the debt that we are going to have this year with regard to funding, our highway trust fund funding in that is in the august september timeframe to me that so we can continue on the path we are on. in addition to that we believe there should be additional investments in infrastructure and those are paid for by the transition that comes from internatiinternati onal corporate tax reform. i would also build on your point and expand the concept of infrastructure. we all then think of roads bridges and railways but infrastructure is also veterans hospitals in the repair to those hospitals. in the presidents growth and security initiative if we were able to take, to do other spending cuts and revenue changes and do that those are

also the kinds of infrastructure important to job creation. another type of vince infrastructure i would reflect on its new 100th anniversary the park system in this country. our park system for those of you that have arts in your district know that some of those parks have infrastructure issues. we are hopeful that we have some in the base budget and also the opportuniopportuni ty and growth initiative. that's another place where we believe job creation especially the veterans harry is going to be important if we can get the funds to do that infrastructure. infrastructure we defined specifically even more broadly as we try and take care of needs in the country and promote common growth. >> so back to your funding aspect we have a real problem because the gas tax revenue doesn't go as far as it used to. some of that is due to cars getting better gas mileage and electric vehicles. there is one parked in the congressional garage right now.

you can go and check that out but this is a real problem because how does the federal department of transportation and the other transportation agencies meet the obligations to our states and local communities with good dwindling revenue source? you propose some -- could you go into the gap funding and what is the future hold because we are going to fall further and further behind in atlanta costing us more unless we can create jobs and modernize america's industry. >> is part of our international tax reform proposal there will be a one-time transition revenue and it's important how that revenue gets used. but we did do is use that revenue a portion of that to cover the gap that you are speaking of in terms of the highway trust fund and another portion of that to fund additional investments that we believe are ready now and appropriate for the nation to go forward.

with regard to the long-term issue i think one of things that is happening right now is there are bipartisan efforts on both sides in the house and senate to work on that and in our budget have committed to work on legislation and work with the bipartisan effort that is already ongoing. i am working with the congress that is started on these issues and that plan is hopefully a place to start. >> mr. garrett. >> thank you direct her. doing budgets is obviously very complicated and we never get exactly what we want and i presumed you are presenting a good budget. one if you had your druthers and would rewrite your own budget is this one that you would resent? >> it would be. it would need. >> i hear a number of different things for my constituents back at home on budgets and what have

you one of which is that we borrow too much and it never seems to balance soon enough so a simple question. when does this budget alan's? >> in our current window it does not. >> when people don't know what that means current window means 10 years? outside of the 10 years and he tells one that balances? >> the question of the balance budget. >> so outside of the 10 years when does it balance? >> it's not a question of when you do it. the question of a bounce budget is related to what those constituents want a day-to-day basis which is jobs and economic growth. they don't ask you about the economy. >> is a question they ask me so i just want to throw the question out and get a yes or no. the year the budget balances is? >> the in terms of our budget our budget is it a 10 year

window. speaking you give me one quick answer so i can go back to my constituents? what year does this budget alan said is that never balance? the answer is? >> congressman we do a 10 year budget. >> i can go back to my constituents and say the budget doesn't balance. >> congressman may i finish? >> is for an answer. can you give me a year or? will you give me a year or? the reason they ask me this question is along the lines of dr. price was asking because many don't balance you continue put a burden on our children and grandchildren. what dr. price was was asking it says you continue to borrow if we make mistakes like omb has done repeatedly in the past on projections then you'll be wrong as to how much we borrow and what miss --

dr. price was pointing out if you're off by one tenth of 1% he asked you how much more would you have to borrow? how much more would we be in debt for children and grandchildren. he didn't know the answer and he told me the answer in its $311 billion over 10 years. simply by being off by one tenth of 1% and obviously you are off by the entire 1%. that would be $3 trillion over 10 years and you didn't know the answer to that but i think dr. price informed you of that and that is why we asked you a similar question, when do we balance and of course your answer is we never do. >> congressman might have the opportunity to work on the balance budget. ia worked with for balanced balance budget. >> the question is why is the loss of complex? on your web site he talked about trying to fix the situation with

regard to taxes and tax reform and you say we would like to have tax reform which would be simpler. tax reform going forward but i see nothing in this budget proposal that would simplify the tax code. what i see is that you make it overly complex with additional rules new taxes and regulations. is there anything in his this proposal that would actually shrink the 72,000 pages of the tax code? >> there are simplification measures and congressman there are codes in the tax code that i would like to go back to your other point. he issue of a balance budget --. >> is there anything in this that would reduce the size of the tax? >> congressman you don't want to let me complete my statement? >> is there anything in here that would reduce the complexity of the tax code? is over 72,000 pages now and you're adding more new taxes. you are not lowering the

individual tax rate in your adding more regulations so with the size of the tax code increase or increase after this would become law? >> the question on pages is something i would differ to the secretary of treasury that their sympathy haitian measures. i do in a 28% change that will reduce deductions. >> will the tax rate for individuals go down? >> the questions of individual tax rates in the commitment the president has made is they will not go up. >> will they go down? >> for higher income hoax they will not go down. >> thank you. >> mr. pocan. first come first served. >> i will try not to ask a question about the deficit. can you tell me in the budget what are the major provisions

that help spur job creation? >> a number of things that will help promote job creation. we believe our tax changes on the corporate side will stimulated and we believe the investments we make in terms of infrastructure and manufacturing and in terms of the investments we are making in education right now will come down to benefits later on. the plan is both short-term and long-term putting in place fiscal policies that are important to the nation in terms of short-term growth as well as long-term growth. >> can you talk specifically about it or structure in the -- >> many people unfortunately the agreement that was reached the ryan murray agreement and then rogers mikulski what that did was make double-digit increases in infrastructure in the tiger grants which are in all 50 states in the nation directly going to infrastructure right

now. we will build on that. in addition to making sure we can commitments in the highway trust fund and expand broader in highway and rail and other areas. >> i want to thank you for that because i was the chair of the finance committee back during infrastructure dollars passed down to states. we had a roadbuilding industry probably your strongest progressiprogressi ve allies. 54,000 jobs were saved or created in the chairman and my state of wisconsin. we saw what it did before and we know what he can do now and we appreciate that. what about on the site of job-training? >> in the area of job training the proposals there there are a number of different proposals and the president has asked the vice president to lead an effort there. when you think about the concepts of job-training we need to do job training that is more job driven art demand-driven understanding what employers want is what we need to train

people for. getting those connections are better carried in addition to that we need to improve the quality and think about the right ways to do that. often that is about making sure you are training for the right things but doing the training in the right way and those are the investments you will see. in addition we'll see investments in apprenticeships. apprenticeships or something that private and public sector believes great lead to greater employment because people about the opportunity to do as they learn. >> i would like to also associate with the chairman's remarks earlier. we have a lot of folks in wisconsin and a lot of insurance folks with policies. while we are in this process if he could find a solution that protects the privacy but also is dealing with the industry we would appreciate that. it is something that's important to a lot of people. >> i was a former member of the metlife lord and i have familiarity with it various. >> thank you and finally unemployment trends a new report

came out from the ways & means democrats looking at numbers and would you like to comment on that? >> the importance in wall when you do in terms of encouraging people and the economy and we believe this is an important step and one that has been taken many times under other administrations republican administrations and the unemployment rate was even at a lower rate. we believe it's an important thing we need to do in terms of our commitment to americans who have been working. >> thank you and i yield back my time. >> thank you chairman. i have to run and i will be back but i wanted to tell you we are expecting fouts and the director has agreed to stay following that. as soon as the votes and we will reconvene and we will try to go and tell five or 10 minutes left in the boat so we can get into more questions. >> mr. campbell. >> director burwell isn't this fun?

we just need to do it again sometime. and the presidents less budget he had entitlement reforms including social security and that's not in this budget so why did the president removed that? >> everything but cbi is in there from last year including the premium issues including all of the other entitlement reforms we had last year. the only one that is not as cbi and in the written volume of the budget you will see we are still committed. if there is a deal and a large deal that includes revenue we stick by whatever we have proposed and will be willing to do that. >> i'm just trying to understand the president is willing to do it but we moved it from the budget. why not keep it as a pro postal? >> because last year the president did something in his budget which is to present a deal, a negotiation as it were and my experience when i was at

the office of management and budget you present your vision, you present your first choice not what you think is a compromise position. we have chosen to return to what is the regular order of what budget stew. this would not their first choice. having said that it would be something we would do with an offer and we stick by that. >> the president never really wanted to do it. it was simply an olive branch? >> i think the issue of what it all comes together in a deal i think the administration did and still wants to create a situation where we can -- glad we made progress on rogers and mikulski but in doing that we understand there will be compromises and they want to be a part and are trying to show that. >> okay well i understand what you're saying. this is the presidents vision no attempt at olive branch is at least this time but when you

look at the entitlements we can bring in people from brookings, from left, right-center and they will all say these deficits are not sustainable. maybe you disagree with that and i will even a sure response on that if you want to but deficits are not sustainable and we can't fix them without reforming medicare and social security and medicaid and perhaps student loan sand disability insurance and a number of these programs will be bankrupt and will require something radical within the next few years if we don't deal with it. so what is the presence proposal to deal with that? >> the president has a number of proposals and issue the debt and debt that are very important issues for our fiscal health. i think the real question that we are all talking about at -- on both sides of this is the

slope of the line, the slope of the line of deficit reduction. that gets to the question of when you are in balance or when you are not in balance. in terms of the slope of the line is as deep as it's been since world war ii. we believe we have been on the right path and in terms of doing more what are the benefits and costs? >> what it did budget slope line goes back up? >> the debt-to-gdp ratio in 2015 stabilizes and goes down to 2024 starting around 74. >> the entitlements though so the president doesn't believe we need any entitlement reform. >> we have entitlement reform that builds on top of what is a trillion dollars in savings that comes by 2020 that's built in the baseline by cbo. since the affordable care act has passed there is now a trillion dollar adjustment in

the cbo baseline so the starting point before you add or changes in vital months is already a trillion dollars in when you look at the deficit reduction is 3 trillion right now and their budget takes a 25. >> lets take disability. i know you have something on disability but disability dropped it in just the last three years. what do we do? >> appreciate the concern about disability and with regard to 2016 the question of the congress at the internet in the short-term but in long-term there are two things in the budget that are pretty important for us to do to start to get to some of the length of the trust funds. one is making sure we do appropriate program integrity and there are proposals in the budget for funding to make sure that we check that the people that are applying for disability disability. >> in my last 30 seconds let me just say this and i'm not trying to be difficult. i hope you can see that i'm not trying to be but each of these

entitlements has problems. we have to at some point as a congress all of us we have to deal with them or they will go way for the people receiving them or the country will go broke or both and we have to deal with it. we need serious proposals on that, we really do and we don't need to be drawing back. we need serious proposals. we have done some in the chairman of this committee has done some and i hope the president will do some. >> there is a model program that we would like to see supported consisting that having the disabled not become, go on disability but to stay employed. we do want to see changes and improvements to the program. >> thank you. you are able to stay after votes? i just want to confirm that. >> thank you mr. chair and welcome direct her.

you are trying dutifully to answer question moment ago about whether the budget ever balances and you were asked repeatedly to name a year and you wanted to give an answer but you weren't given an opportunity to do that. i want to give you full opportunity to be responsive to that question. >> what i wanted to say is what i think people find important is the economy and jobs every day in their lives. what they are during in terms of trying to make ends meet and do that so the question of the deficit isn't really what's important to them. what is important is the nation's economic health and what rough we have. as a nation we are recovering. we see some job growth. we believe that the growth can be better in the nation we believe you can do policies to do that. we believe that policies such as continuation of the sequester are not the way to do that. we believe in progress things like infrastructure which we talked about him the job

creation that can occur. because i've worked on balance budgets it's not that i have an aversion. i have worked on three and i have on my shelf a black button just because it was in the black i believe there's a time in a place but i don't believe it's in and in enough itself. actually believe as a means to an end that's the economic health in the national security of our nation and i think we have to make choices and that is what the budgeting process is about as making those choices and it does get to the question of the slope of the line in the deficits in terms of dollars and the deficits in terms of national security readiness. the deficits in terms of our infrastructure. thank you for giving me the opportunity. >> thank you for your answer and i wanted my remaining time to change subjects and go to energy we know that the fossil fuel industry has had a pretty good run things. we continue to leverage billions of dollars in subsidies, special

limited partnerships only available to energy projects in depreciation rules in the field seems to be permanently tifton favor of fossil fuels while we continue to pay lip service to the need for lean energy and yet the comparatively meager -- are always temporary and we are is fighting for them. in fact we just lost a bunch of tax credits from last year. i want to ask what this budget does to give meaning to our rhetoric about the meaning to give energy a fighting chance. we know we need to get serious about it in this country. >> we see in the presence budget number of investments in terms of renewables in new energy. you see the investments in r&d in different forms throughout throughout the energy budget as

well as things impacted in the department of interior as well. so you see that in addition to that the president's opportunity growth initiative you will see additional investments there. much of the research i think will impact how we make choices. >> last question on medicaid reimbursement rates. this committee and others have criticized medicaid for the lack of her biter axis driven by low imburse met rates. the affordable care act provided at least a couple of years reimbursements to try to address that access problem. what does this budget due to try to make sure that we continue to provide access to folks that desperately needed? >> three things, won the budget extends those provisions and number two the budget locus is on graduate medical education so we can make sure they are trained physicians to go into those communities and the other

is that there is funding for not just physicians but all types of people who are providing medical services. it's both through our investments and the extension. >> thanks very much for your testimony and i yield the balance of my time mr. chair. >> we will continue for at least one more. >> thank you mr. chairman and think you for your service. as you know the department of defense has a history over all of mr. nations of presenting processes in budgets that are later proven to be let's just say they were overly optimistic. this trend certainly undermines the ability of congress to make well-informed decisions and set priorities however the office of cost assessment program evaluation existing within the department has a history of fair

and accurate projections. given historic lee it is accurate most of the time and cost projections would you agree that perhaps a better way of surviving cost estimates would be through the cape rather relying -- rather than relying on services? >> i'm going to apologize and say i have not spent as much time on the cape in terms of how we get the investments so my ability to come on that -- comment on that is limited. as the director of omb i'm sure you are talking about it in defense and they're a number of other areas and we continue to put pressure on making sure those estimates are up front. >> both mr. cole and i have served on budget appropriations. the next question, congress has heard official and unofficial testimony in the past and this is coming from former secretary comptrollers in the department

of defense that they could use some assistance in better managing its civilian group specifically the high proportion of retirement eligible employees then the difficulties and terminating employees has raised red flags. the secretary is told us it's easier to shrink the size of the force by tens of thousands of ursa now then to discharge a single civilian employee. i'm introducing a bill this week that a way that would mandate a reduction in the civilian workforce specifically targeting individuals who are underperfunderperf orming. i think there is a discussion long overdue. can you share your thoughts on the civilian work force and how reducing number of civilians and the department would provide cost savings in both the near and long-term? >> certainly i would defer to my colleague the secretary of defense with regard to the specifics of the questions in what he believes he needs back

to your larger point the question of management of the government workforce one of the things you'll see in the current budget and move much more forward is the issue of management which is a part of omb's mandate and you will see when you read through the four priorities i won't go to the mall with our limited time but one of them as people and making sure we have the best people doing the best job and motivated to do that and rewarded for that. >> that is what we need to have. >> we have in fact asked the secretary of defense to join us and hopefully he will be able to do that favorably. we still have 398 votes. mr. blumenthal. >> i would like to -- mr. blumenauer. as i think about the comments of omb's wildly inaccurate projections i would like

permission to enter into the record a series of projections from my republican colleagues about what was going to happen when the package does she work done when she was in the clinton administration was working its way through. my favorite quotation is john kasich. this plan will not work. if it was to work than then i would have to become a democrat. i know where governor kasich is on that and it's part of his re-election's ready to go with all due respect i think they're lots of people who have made projections. this is a tough business. there are two areas that i would like to explore with you. one has to do with the department of defense and i would just like to request some thought about this but it's a great interest to me. the department of defense is looking hard at how we take the

largest, strongest most expansive military in the world and to be able to coax more value out of it and address the engage threats not those of yesterday yesterday morn poured me what we'll be facing in the future. in particular i would like to have you supplied to us what specifically is going to happen in the area of nuclear weapons? my understanding is actually the numbers that are projected are understated and it's very likely we will be looking at up to $700 billion over the next 10 years on three redundant systems of delivery, bombers, land-based missiles, ocean-based missiles to be able to keep delivery systems working, the staff, the upgrades that could be upwards of 700 billion dollars on weapons that we have not used in 69 years that haven't helped us in the challenges that we face today that are dangerous yet are

sapping the strength for other areas of our nation's defense at least two, three, four, 500 billion may be used more effectively. if we could do a deeper dive on what those projections are so we could have it before we deal with the secretary of defense it would be very helpful. i appreciate your reference to infrastructure. i was pleased to see the president call for 300 billion dollars in investment. actually the same day her friend the chairman of the ways & means committee suggested $150 billion go for infrastructure. both of those i know were declared dead on arrival with no support on either side. there weren't a wide array of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them when they were announced. we are facing as i understand it the department of transportation

is going to have to start restricting the funds that they disbursed this summer because of how close we are coming to zeroing out the trust fund which means and i've been meeting with local officials in transit officials from all over the country. they are cutting back on contracts this spring so i would hope that there would be a way that you would help us do a little deeper dive so the committee understand what happens if we continue to play a game of chicken and we don't have stable long-term infrastructure funding. i would put on the radar screen that there is another proposal floating around. i announced legislation house bill 3636 which would increase the gas tax 15 cents over three years. now of course people said that as a bit of a lift but it was interesting i was joined by the flc iao by the chamber of commerce by the contractors and one of my favorite was the

truckers and aaa said raise our taxes. even though it's not popular with the people we represent. i would hope if we get down the line in the spring and we are running up against massive cuts to infrastructure around the country that the administration and people in congress might take a step back and look at something they actually have broad bipartisan support with the world out there something we have been used to and in fact ronald reagan signed a nickel a gallon tax increase that was real money. if you could help us understand where we are at and asked that somehow people look at this before they dismiss it as the other proposals allegedly are going nowhere. hank you for your time and i have five more seconds. if you want to say anything that's fine. >> i would just say certainly be an nsa and that nuclear issues are important both in terms of maintenance of what we have as well as we have done the

drawdown. i'm certain the secretary of department of energy will be speaking to that and since we are over time i won't speak to the other issues. >> thank you director and we have three votes in the series and we will resume immediately upon the vote series. we want to thank you for your patience. mr. flores. >> thank you director burwell for joining us today. appreciate your testimony. last year i asked a number of questions to your predecessor at the asked for those to be submitted before the hearing so i had time to answer questions. the omb answer those questions so i would like to have us answered if i could. the first question is, and that i will go into some other questions after that with the president like his budget put on

the floor of the congress? >> if that is what the congress desires. >> all right, thank you. coming into office five years ago and the president came in with a vision or agenda whatever you would like to call it, he talked about his vision and in this vision that he had it led to the following policies. $1.7 trillion in new taxes, $800 billion in stimulus sending handouts to solyndra and friends and supporters that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to hard-working taxpaying american families. legions of unaccountable bureaucrats that have put the boot of the federal government on economic acts of americans paychecks and then there have been the growth of $7 trillion in our federal debt that will be placed on the backs of our kids

and grandkids. now here are the outcomes of those policies. one is the middle class has shrunk. we have middle-class incomes have shrunk and inequality has increased. the ranks of those living in poverty has increased dramatically. the labor force participation rate is the lowest since the disastrous years of jimmy carter's presidency and there has been an explosion of families that live off of taxpayer provided benefits. now notwithstanding those results tied to those policies and the economic failures of those policies the president has come up with the same budget again and here's what he has proposed. hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending. it's called investment that is still new spending. $1.8 trillion in new taxes. more washington regulations and economic interference, trillions of dollars in new debt on the backs of the future generation

so these are the questions i would like you to answer and i think in the interest of time i would like you to since we are running late today answer these in writing for me. i asked omb staff to provide the question. first the president's policies fail the first time in a hurt families and paychecks. when you started out you said this is all about jobs and paychecks that the first rounds of the residents policies had failed to improve jobs and paychecks so why are we doing it again? why are we going to do the same thing and get a better result so please answer that. and the second one is please reconcile omb's forecast which are more optimistic than cbo's forecast to which are less optimistic and talk about in the reconciliation talk about the deficit and also the impacts on unemployment if you could and that is all i have. i asked the submit that in

writing and i yield back. >> mr. jefferies? >> thank you mr. chairman and we thank the witness for her parents are today. in an earlier exchange there was a statement that was made by you and i believe you are interested but you are beginning to make the point that there are many proposals contained within the president's budget that are designed to help spur economic growth but there also have been actions taken i believe you're responsibly by this congress over the last 14 months or so that have limited the ability of the economy to continue to take off. now reference was just actually made during the previous questioner to the note that the president's economic policies

have failed to create economic growth but am i correct that over the last four to seven months during the sadness ratioo stop doing things that could shurt our economy. >> that is true. the adding fiscal drag needs to slow it. and allowing the sequestration

to take effect. it could cost $750 thous jobs. >> that is correct. the cbo projection was that it point 0.6 off our gdp. >> the government shut down that was un-necessary, that it cost us about $24 billion in lost economic productivity. i think we can all agree that it was harmful to our economy. yes, the estimates are 0.2, to 0.6 gdp. was the ceconomy hurt in anyway createded by what i would term serial flirtation with a default on our nation's debt? >> i believe we had fiscal drag that was being created by unseru

uncertainty and the shut down last year. are we hurt by the failure? >> yes a drag on the economy. could you tell us why that would be a positive thing for the c econo economy? >> i think it is in two in terms of when these projects are able to move in ready to move, the job creation but it's also what it does to growth and infrastructure which is providing that core infrastructure for a nation's economy. having come from previously a retail organization that uses the roads to transport goods these are important parts of the back loan of our economy throughout whether it's roads or rail. >> can you speak about the

proposal on the air and income tax credit and how that might be helpful and stimulating our economy are promoting economic growth particularly as it relates to low income individuals and/oand/o r working individuals in this country? >> the most important things the earned income tax credit does is encourage people to work which we think is important to overall economic growth and by boca singh on this category of people childless workers this is not been focused on previously and by extending 25-year-olds down to 21-year-olds who are getting a key group of people we want to encourage to be in the work force. >> is it fair to say that providing america with a raise if congress were to move forward on the proposal which i believe is supported in the budget in terms of minimum wage increase of $10.10 an hour would help turn the economy around and move it forward? >> we believe it's an important

part of an overall picture that's about growth as well as opportunity. >> thank you and i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you ms. burwell for being here. we talk a lot about problems with guaranteed and if it's an entitlement programs in reference to your experience in the private sector. all of the indicators tell associate case -- social security and medicare are scheduled to go bankrupt. the most immediate thing we have is social security disability program scheduled to go bankrupt in 2016. i see a couple of minor recommendations in this budget but nothing that will repent and cropsey so i have to ask does the administration support the social security disability

program going bankrupt a year from now? >> in terms of the administration supports congress taking the efforts that it has historically taken with regard to reallocation of the trust at the same time taking steps that we believe that our inner budget that will work to improve the length of the life of the trust. >> and as that outlined in the budget plan? >> in the terms of the two changes i spoke to earlier there are two specific changes. one has to do with program integrity and that gets to an issue that i think is a concern to all of us, making sure that those who are receiving disability are appropriately qualified to making sure that we invest in the ability to review the applicants and do the proper adjudication so we have the right people in the pool. the second thing is working on models that prevent people from going on to disability because if you can catch people before they make that shift and you can keep them employed, so what we

have proposed is trying to do some pilots to see if there ways you can keep people in the workforce before the shift. if we can get those pilots to be successful we believe that's another way to work on making sure we extend the life. >> so we enacted to when will it end lay the bankruptcy dade? >> on the entire trust it's 2033. with regard to what those changes will do i think we will need to see what results from the pilots and how much money we get to do the program integrity. >> before this time next year we come back to specific recommendation? >> in terms of social security the president has laid out principles that he believes are important to the question of making sure that we extend the life of the trust and meet the commitments and i'd think we believe that's a good approach to do things. we have seen different times in

different places when the administration expresses principles such as in the case of immigration that when the congress is able to understand the parameters similarly in the process that chairman ryan and chairman murray we try to put forward our principles so you know the parameters of where we stand and engage in a constructive way. >> shifting gears a second, last year the administrations budget did a strategic review of the tennessee valley authority. what were the results of that? >> one of the things i think has been a result is that some of the ways in the roaches that the tva is taking to thinking about its long-term needs have been improved. we are excited to see those changes. still want to continue to understand whether this will be implemented and the other thing that came out of the piece of work is making sure that any conversations about the tva make sure they consider the impact on

those who would be affected especially those in the state of tennessee. >> what about mississippi? >> as well, as well. >> when will the comments of the stakeholders of that review be made public? >> congressman i will say in terms of exactly which type of review i apologize, don't know the answer that question. we can get back to on that. >> tva spends approximately $100 million a year of nonpower related activities such as flood control recreational management and i am not convinced that investing in tva takes into account how is that going to be paid for so i would ask you to look at that in terms of any future budget recommendations you may have on that subject. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman and i yield back. >> i think listening to the

whole discussion you can see where the philosophical differences are in the proposed budget of the administration and some of the comments from the other side and i think it is helpful to go back to the last couple of decades. i was hearing congress when we implemented the republican economic policy. we had a supply-side economic policy. we had several instances that lack fiscal discipline at all, two wars on the credit card, a prescription drug bill completely on the credit card. deregulation. the economy collapses and democrats come in and criticism on house ackley we have these things together and we haven't done it quickly enough so i want to say thank you for your hard work paid i know you did this in seven weeks and a day and i'm sure you need the extra day but as we talk about this is the

philosophy we have had as democrats going back to the clinton budget. we said there have to be investments that are made that are going to yield growth, create value, hire people, 20 million jobs and every sector of the economy went up because of the investments we made and we were prepared to start paying down the debt until he came in and passed the bush tax cuts. if you look at the growth in the first 10 years of the 2000's, it was stagnant at best. what you are doing here is proposing that we go back to those investments that we made in the early 1990s and others and i want to say in northeast ohio we have the first of the 45 institutes in youngstown and i would share with my colleagues what has happened with a small

amount of money, $70 million. the unit other institution will be more and that's another discussion we do have the sense that is happened we have had every major corporation who is interested in manufacturing in the hearts of the old steel belt in youngstown, downtown. we had siemens come in and they donated $440 million worth of software to youngstown state university. you can begin to see how this is going to have a ripple effect. the people who manufacture 3-d printers and want to be involved in manufacturing are calling our chamber of commerce our chamber of commerce in saying hey we want to relocate and expand the net region. .. tiger grant, $20 million bucks it stimulated $150 million worth