have been aggressive about spending as much time as i can with them, it's not enough and they are never the age they are today. so that's not to say that i'm going to be not working, that these jobs that a certain amount of strain on the everybody's family. and mine has been -- my kids and my wife ha have been extraordinarily patient, and i just feel blessed to have been able to do this for as long as i have. so the timing of this announcement i think was driven by the timetable that i started in april and then by what i told the president which is what i was hoping to spend the summer with my kids and then i really wanted to get out of the trend. [laughter]

>> what was the reaction? >> he spoke for himself today. >> do you have a job lined up? >> i have nothing to announce today. >> does the white house have a copy of the book and are they caught offguard by the secretary's book last year? >> i don't have one. i look forward to reading it. >> press secretary jay carney getting one of his remaining press conferences as president obama came to the briefing room at the top announcing the nine is leaving in may to june. his replacement will be deputy press secretary josh earnest. we have seen him handle briefings on a number of occasions. of course the other big story today is the resignation of the

secretary eric shineski. he is stepping down after a meeting at the white house. we will have the president's news briefing in announcement later tonight at eight eastern on c-span. we've also take your reaction, calls and e-mails afterwards starting at eight eastern economic c-span. also on facebook we are looking for your reaction to secretary shineski stepping down. down. go to facebook.com/c-span. some reaction from capitol hill to today's announcement. the chair of the veterans affairs committee

so what has been the result is we have a classic economic cold out problem that we transmission for the video. you have a company doing this game of chicken where they cut off service to customers and they are starting to block traffic for customers. and the ultimate result is the programming costs. you wonder why your cable bill keeps going up? one reason is that the resolution of the dispute in thd

the transmission where the fcc is really hamstrung by the rules and the way that it's interpreting the congressional mandate to get involved here. the easy result is the parties eventualleventually agreed to dt raised prices and give consumers lots of channels they don't actually want. so that's what i'm afraid of. i think that to say that interconnection happens in a private way is great and i think there definitely should be room for private deals. but if we get to the point where the internet connection i think would be a tragic outcome. >> this weekend the impact of an open internet from the progressive policy institute saturday morning at ten eastern on c-span2 book tv.

the chair of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations held a briefing yesterday to discuss the panel's recent report on its investigation of federal programs that address severe mental illness. the subcommittee started a program within a year ago in the wake of the newtown connecticut school shooting. the committee heard from a psychiatrispsychiatrist that tre mentally ill and a father whose son suffers from schizophrenia to >> i'm the chairman of the oversight investigation committee for the converse. i want to welcome the staff members will be coming in and out and others who are here visiting today. thank you. last weekend, a young man known by his family and therapist to be mentally ill killed six people and himself, and other awful episode of mass violence. before there was only is roger, adam in newtown, jared in tucson, james holmes in rural

colorado and aaron alexis at the washington navy yard and there were many victims. there is also another young man who was in a mental health crisis but was the night extensive care before he killed himself and stabbed his father a virginia state senator. all had untreated or undertreated serious mental illness. all spiraled out of control within a system that lacked the basic mechanism. many parents pleading for help. violence among persons with mental illness is rare and likely to be self-directed. there were 40,000 suicides in this country last year. almost 1 million attempts. the mentally ill are suddenly more likely to be the victims three at robberies and other crimes. the mentally ill are also ten times were likely to be in jail than in the hospital. that's because the seriously mentallmentally ill encounter te

law-enforcement after they refused medical care. what makes these painful episodes so compounding is the reality that so many tragedies involving a person with a mental illness are entirely preventab preventable. for example in the 34 states eliot rogers family would have been able to ask the courts to order an emergency evaluation but in california the law says they cannot. ththe families know when a loved one is in a mental health crisis and the condition is gravely deteriorated, but as my subcommittee report describes the families are shut out from being a part of the care delivery team. as i wrot wrote in the gazette t weeks after the shootings in newtown, quicktime of the lessons for americans from the horrifying tragedy in connecticut is that we had better take off our blinders and deal with such illnesses or we are sure to face the same problem again. it is not only what is in the person's hands that makes his act of violence is what is in his mind.

how many must die before we deal with our broken health system? in a year and a half. even with my 30 year background in clinical psychology i've been shocked to learn how much the country has failed those with persistent mental illness. the report reveals the current mental health system does not respond until after a crisis has already occurred because we do not empower the parents, patients, clinicians, law enforcement and others to stop it from happening. even in the face of the tragedies, we have been too uncomfortable to acknowledge the fact because the last stigma and a mental health concerns those with a serious illness. between january 30 the subcommittee on the oversight investigation held a dozen public forums and in the gated hearings and spent considerable hours determining how the dollars devoted to the research and treatment t of mental illnes

are being prioritized and spent. the committee focused on three areas of critical public policy interest. one, the scope of societies problems tha that is untreated n serious mental illness. number twthe number two health y law they interfere in the care and safety including mental health situations. number three help of federal resources appropriated for the research into and treatment of mental illness being spent. we heard from the director of the national institute for mental health experts and the privacy rule number is mental health professionals interviewed hundreds of parents, providers, law-enforcement officials to get the accurat accurate up-to-date understanding of the routing rod failures of the current mental health system and began to identify the site of path to reinvigorate and build the system. briefly here are the main findings. first, families have been shut out from the treatment team and the inability of the individual experiencing serious mental illness to recognize that they have an illness under the

condition elevates the importance of an individual's family and loved ones to get that individual treatment. it occurs in about 40% of persons with serious mental illness like skip that training and bipolar disorder. number two, health care providers often misinterpret the information portability and accountability act or the privacy rule leaving family members in the dark about the essential and timely information about the loved one's condition. in some cases heard by the committee, the lack of understanding of the privacy rule was so pervasive that family was actually told he could not even give information to the doctor. number three, there is a critical shortage of psychiatric beds shortage of providers and of outpatient treatment options for persons in the midst of a psychiatric crisis. we are not referring to any model that brings back the asylums of the last century. we cannot and will not ever do that. we don't want to go back for mental illness or any other disease the way things used to be when we didn't understand

elements but for those that meet a cute anneeda cute and intensi, there are not enough places or doctors or community support for them. number four, a person with mental illness must be homicidal or suicidal before we will give them treatment. it's like dni invacare until after they have a heart attack. number five, federal resources are not targeted to serious mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major clinical depression. these individuals tha that could unite their needs are often at the end of the line when it comes to receiving effective health across the spectrum of services. number six, legal advocates and anti-psychiatrists activists have used federal resources to block the care for the hardest reached patients. number seven, and finally, we know that proper intervention can be very effective at providing helped to get them back towards being independent, holding jobs and recovering. so the report provides a legislative path rebuilding the mental health system and finally

taking the mental illness out of the shadows and into the hope of recovery because where there is no help there is no hope. i've authored the total health crisis act or hr 3717 that addresses all of the concerns raised by the committee investigation. this afternoon we are joined by several experts who should be familiar to those that attended were followed to the committee work on serious mental illness over the past year. ed kelley is the father of a son who has schizophrenia for over 15 years. he's also an advocate for mental-health reform. his efforts to obtain the best possible treatment for his son was repeatedly stymied in no small part due to misinterpretations by those responsible for his son's hair. next is mr. dj jaffe and a founder of the mental illness foundation and early 1980s he and his eyes became guardians for his sister-in-law who has schizophrenia. he's been an advocate for mental-health reform over 30 years. to my left doctor michael welner

chairman of the firm's panel, clinical and psychiatrist for whom the court invited to examine complex cases of notorious killers in america. doctor welner is an innovator and has been on the leading edge of a eliminating the killings and the catastrophe the past decade. i think a lot of them for being with us today to offer insights on the recently released report containing the principal findings of the committee's investigation and the potential for hr 3717 to begin to address the shortcomings of the current mental health system. i would like to welcome a couple of my colleagues. the doctor from the state of georgia, welcome, and that trainee from virginia. welcome. what we are going to do is some people want to grab a seat you are welcome just want to leave a couple of the center seats for members of congress, for those of you that are standing in the back you can do that. we will begin with mr. kelly and open up as members of congress want to make some questions.

make sure that the button is turned on. a few housekeeping items. my main festival is ed kelley and i'm the parent of three children one of whom has the right of schizophrenia an to sce have been going through virtual map is but more importantly this is a different setting than i've been dealing with in the past. we are more intimate and more importantly the cameras and on the off chance that my son sees this i want to tell him i love him and i'm doing this for him because i believe in him. that is a risk we take when we do this. our resume as a family covers 15 years of dealing with our son to sending into a manner that is impossible to describe and those 15 years include over 30 hospitalizations and seven different hospitals in four counties in the city. 15 years in the revolving door

of trouble with the law dealing with the courts and the states attorneys and hospitals and social workers, dealing with everybody that is a gatekeeper in the mental health system years of judges ridiculing us saying we are not going to warehouse your child to make your life easier. there are good people who want to provide good services to our son and refuse to enter they are saddened because with their training they can't do it because he doesn't want them to. so when i tell you that we are committed to this battle, we are committed and i'm about to tell you about an army committed with us but more importantly, our side refuses or help. his illness refuses or help so as a result, we have watched for 15 years more importantly since he was 18 he living years ago we watched the wall support his devotions instead of our needs. my wife is on advocacy boards where she teaches family support groups and i will tell you in

all due respect to reason she left us because she was shocked how they refuse to believe that everyone isn't going to voluntarily accept treatment. it is an impairment that causes you to refuse treatment. through such an extent you are willing to do just about anything. our years with outside he thinks he's in the cia, u.s. marshal, veteran of the both gulf wars committed and believed we were his parents for three years, he has lived under bridges, boarded up his windows and i can't even tell you. he's been beaten, robbed, abused, homeless, crawling in shelters in his own intentions. if you think someone after 15 years that's voluntarily looking to have treatment i ask you how many years is enough? i've spoken in front of federal and state hearings and last year

i had to pleasure and privilege of being a part of the mental-health hygiene continuity of health program that is a five month exercise to examine and i want to in all due respect ask forgiveness for what i'm about to say. five months we focus on one topic. how do we deal with the most serious mentally ill that are 18 and older? and after hearings and after that continuity of care there is one painful fact that has emerged that i must share and that is the opposition groups do not care about my family. they do not care about my son. they only care for their own needs. and if you have a group you can servyou canserve end users whils i wholeheartedly support you. but don't treat the mentally ill who don't believe that they are ill. and in a manner that you think that they are going to seek treatment because they are not. you are putting me and my wife at risk.

we ask for one movement, 1 inch of support to carve out a different set of rules for the mentally ill that don't believe they are ill. not only is there a movement and support to try to make something happen together because the enemy really is mental illness. i've been ridiculed, told my testimonies which have been very not saying i'm lying and that's changing. you see there is something happening and in no small part because of the congressman's efforts. this bill is doing something different this time and it's not the tragedy from columbine and virginia tech and everything else. when i started testifying the families didn't want to do what i was doing and if you were in my situation you wouldn't either. you are pouring your heart and soul out. we are leading you into our lives in a way that no one would want to do. i have seen people crumble and fall to their knees trying to get out their story and that's why you didn't have a lot of people doing this but now they are feeling emboldened and there

are 7 million families who share our plight. if you don't think that is a large number we did pass on our own family. 19 immediate family members within 30 miles into friends in the neighborhood and our son's friends it's about 50 people easily. times 7 million people that are affected. can you take the people that are handcuffed and can't provide a treatment to win for social services. it's unimaginable how many people are touched. the times are changing and i want to tell you the pain of standing here and talking to each of you is far less than the pain of accepting that it will never change and that's why i'm going to do whatever i can to support this bill. our family doesn't know wherever son was. he's been found under bridges and garbage cans and unknown places because they can't tell us that he's been released. imagine you can't be told that your child was released. you call around and we can't confirm if he is here or not. and he's been in seven different hospitals. he has no transition of medical

records every time he's in the hospital he is a guinea pig and the only voice sometimes the doctors listen to are those of his devotions and psychosis. and when he gets released we are not involved in that and that's why we need this so first of all if you do not make it an alternative, then the only hope is in hospitals. because for 15 years, we have prayed and waited for the law that our son was dangerous. what happens? i want to tell you what happens. happened. and this is where i will wrap up. the signs of serious mental illness on the slide are very subtle at first. the families see it first. but we are not listening to them. that poor family that drove out to california and heard on the radio the shooting, i can't

imagine. but we are the first ones that know and we can tell when the delusiondelusions and the voicee taking over. and we can see the personal hygiene declining. the next thing you know he is angry and he leaves and disappears. no bath, shower, shaving cut hair cut, tattered clothes and in about two short months, he is this person with a beard down to here, dirty, can't imagine what he smells like comes as tattered clothing, he looks like he's lost about 40 pounds, sleeping under bridges, going through garbage cans at his own choice, then he walks through our neighborhoods and shopping centers and butters and talks to himself and scares the hell out of people. you want to talk about it not? that's where stigma comes from. that's the face of mental illness that hollywood portrays. that's what happens to someone that isn't treated. so then what happens? supports network pulls back. usually it is too painful to

watch. sometimes they are afraid and now that person becomes isolated, and they become frustrated and angry, and now you've got psychosis, loneliness, isolation, anger them and then they self medicate. and you wonder why things in california have been? that kid acknowledged and what, 120 page document how isolated and frustrated he was. that was his mental illness talking and i guarantee you if you set those parents abound, they could have predicted this long ago. but our system refuses to accept that the families can play a major role in safeguarding world for all of you out there. so when our lawmakers are making decisions, the need to make decisions without fearing the wrong things. don't fear the threat of unconstitutionality. don't fear the threat of lawsuits. because those groups don't care. you need to care. because this could happen to your child or your child's child. try that one. i know a person they are trying to help their child and going through thin goingthrough the si

want to make a public plea to the senator. get to the appropriation money in place for this first part of the bill that passed. it's been made of the law it just needs to be funded for the program. you did it for alzheimer's, you can do it for the rest of the populatiopopulation but are incf taking care of themselves. there's no difference if your mother is under a bridge he would want to take care of her and last, to the lawmakers when you put your head on the pillow tonight can ask your self how important is what pii you if this come if one of your members or family had this going on in your next-door neighbor because you could be the next family. it's growing like crazy. i don't have an explanation for it. you are asking too much of the families and of the families thr give up, you are indeed troubled. thank you. >> appreciate that. mr. jaffe?

spin on a two edged point, both jared walker and james holmes were identified by the mental health system as needing treatment, and in both cases they kept their parents in the dark before the tragedy. so, what he is talking about is this is also new to me and i want t to thank the congressmen that are here today and mr. murphy, congressman murphy. what you are seeing is something different going on. we have had tons of mental health bills. this is the first one that focuses on the elephant in the room, which is how do we get people knows to have serious mental illness, and in particular, adults. there's been a lot of effort to children, veterans, but adults know that go untreated and this is the first bill that does that. we agree with the majority of the report and we are not advocates for mental health. we are not advocates for improving the mental health of

all americans. what we are is advocates for the most serious mentally ill. not all until illness is serious. 20%, 100% of adults can have the mental health improved and that's where a lot of the federal money goes. 20% of adults have a diagnosed mental illness. that's people in this room and your coworkers on prozac doing quite well but only 4% have a serious mental illness that includes the 1% of schizophrenia into the 2% which is why polar and some other individuals. by one message is we have to stop ignoring the most seriously ill. we can't go on pretending they don't exist like the funded groups want us to do. until the 1960s virtually all mental health expenditures were spent on the most seriously ill because they were not in a state psychiatric hospitals.

but after that, at the request of the mental health industry, the funds are now spent on all others. as a result of the shift from focusing on the seriously mentally ill to try to improve the mental health of all others, 164,000 are homeless and 300,000 incarcerated. and a disproportionate number of them are people of color that cannot get treatment. parents come i get calls from people like that all the time. they beg and plead for treatment for their adult children known to have a mental health illness and they turned them away. we know how to -- they find everything else. we do know how to treat them to see that the game -- to see that they get treatment. we have to prioritize spending.

we have to start sending them to the head of the line. if we start to address the problems that we see we've talked about have hippa. it is an unpleasant truth that there are mentally ill people that need to be in hospitals who don't have enough hospitals for them. it recognizes it and starts to fix it. we have to get if we can only do one thing i want to cut spending. stop them from funding the anti-treatment advocacy and stop them from and how worrying abo

about. we have to recognize that some people are so sick that they don't know they are sick. when you see somebody going down the street screaming at the voices only they can hear him yelling that they are the messiah. and as the messiah they are never going to volunteer for treatment. we have to assist the treatment for the small group of the more seriously ill. earlier i talked about the four or 5% being seriously mentally ill. there is a small subset of that group who don't recognize their ability to get to the need for treatment who already have

multiple arrests among multiple incarcerations, multiple incarcerations, multiple instances of homelessness all associated with going off of the voluntary treatment that are made available to them. including a lawyer it allows the judges to award them into six months of mandated and monitor treatment. it's been proven to reduce violence, serious violent 66%, reduce the homelessness, 74% each. the peer support and the trauma do not do that. consistent with the spirit, they prevent us from needing

expensive and inhumane and an impatient incarceration or hospitalization that allows people to live in the community. it's perhaps the most humane thing that we can do. it is an offering up before jail. it's like putting a fence at the edge of the cliff rather than an ambulance at the bottom. the parents and the children of the seriously mentally ill. the only opposition comes from the funded mental health industry. that is the only opposition and they are basing their opposition based on stuff that is not fact. they do not take away everyone's rights. the courts have ruled that an appropriate way to protect the individual who can't help themselves and public safety. it does not force people for

care. 80% of those enrolled said it helps them get well and stay well. it doesn't cause a stigma. research shows those that received them by being integrated in the community precedes less stigma than others. the police chief said it best when the he told the committee e have to mental health systems today. they become a law enforcement responsibility. if mental health officials especially seen on willing to recognize and take responsibility to the second more symptomatic group that puts them back at risk. so i think the representative murphy and the congressmen that supports it and i especially

support my fellow democrats. i am about as liberal as you can get it for too long we have failed to recognize the unpleasant truths like not everyone recovers. sometimes hospitals are needed and if left untreated, there is a small group of the most seriously ill to do become violent. so what i say is we have to pass hr 3717 and moved from the system that requires the tragedy to one that prevents it. "-end-double-quote a site i attach my statement and you can find more information. thank you. ..

because of that denial, think about it. because we denied that the serious mental illness, i managed, can go away, just because you will it, what you think happens to serious mental illness? what is the difference between series mental illness and just mental illness? if this is enough to work treatment and it doesn't just go away because we deny it exists and we covered our day. we're here because we're in denial that serious mental illness doesn't go away just because hospitals close, to the people are poor and hospitals get discharged discharge. where do they go. we are in denial because the biggest institutions of the world in america are now

prisons. congratulations. you have the right to remain silent. feel better now? you are not institution which could benefit from modern medicine. forget the sanitariums. there is more than just a reason of regulation and accountability that congressman murphy speaks to for why we're not going to go back to the psychiatry of old. this is where psychiatry has to step up to the plate. this isn't your father's like i could. we had better treatments. we have more accurate treatment. we have more precise treatments, more humane treatment, more research treatments. we spend a gazillion dollars in previous administrations on the decade of the brain and we have something to show for it, other -- when you contrast that with the money we spend on wars. we have a windfall from decade of the brain which could be treating people who need serious treatment for their serious mental illness.

it's there and it's humane and its digestible and it's palatable. and it's not savagery. in one flew over the cuckoo's nest is about as outdated at this point as shirley temple. it's time to get past that thinking. it's quite antiquated. but we are in denial. not just about serious mental illness, but about crisis mental health which is what brings us here today. we've heard already about schizophrenia and bipolar illness, and i'm here to tell you as a forensic psychologist, and i've interviewed mass killings of spoken to me a link and identity people who carried out crimes that we think are unthinkable, and sometimes they are psychotic and sometimes they are not. much as we hate to admit. but one thing they all have in common is that they are in crisis. and we're here because we are in denial. that if someone gets discharge from an emergency room or a

hospital, the crisis goes away, magically. we are here because we are in denial that if someone decides if someone is not dangerous enough to be hospitalized, well, that means the crisis will just go away. we are here because we have denied -- forget that -- how many of you in this room know someone who is suicide? was made that choice? and who has made that choice thinking it out? not delusional. people make permanent choices because they want things to be dramatically different, and they may be in crisis and the world may be black, and that's a blackness that they can't endure. and you know and i know as people who are still here and greeting them, that if they just got the right care and the right intervention at the right time from the right people, that they would be here with us today. do we feel so much better that

they have their rights succeed under at room temperature? does that make us feel better? does that make us a better society? i'll let you answer it. i'll let the members answer it. this is a crisis mental health bill. it doesn't direct itself at every single person who has ever had a diagnosis. it doesn't direct itself in an intrusive way. it directs itself as mr. kelly pointed out to the individual who is in a place at a moment in time who lacks the insight to recognize that they are in a place where they are about to make a catastrophic choice. you cannot let the crisis run the situation. this is why one has leadership. members of the house of representatives our leaders chosen by the people to lead, not to placate. doctors are chosen, doctors are trained to make choices that may be difficult, and sometimes, and i can tell you this as a clinician who started my career

treating the violent, imagine if you will, close your eyes and imagine this nor do i experience of someone and you'd be violent as an unarmed person not owning a gun. let's put the gun thing aside for a moment. with someone whom i knew would have no qualms about being violent and feeling that that person was on the cusp of being violent, and should i commit him or should i not because the repercussions might be that he would be so angry and feel so betrayed that his next violent victim would be me. so no decision that a clinician makes to commit someone forcibly is made without great ambivalence, because we are on the front line. i live in new york city where any of you who follow the news in new york know about a psychologist who was knifed by patient we have our own safety issues. we don't see patients behind bars. we see that in private rooms. we are exposed. i've had patients in my room, in my office get violent.

i had one guy beat the hell out of his father. i had to drag them both down to the tree because i didn't want him to mess the office of anymore. hold one down while i called the ambulance to come. when you have those kinds of experiences you recognize that you are vulnerable, but that you also have to preserve and protect the alliance with the patient but, of course, we try to negotiate a voluntary resolution. but sometimes it's not possible, especially when a person in crisis who denies that there is something wrong. well, and then you reach a point where denial is no longer possible. and isn't that why we are all here with this i love this to thank? and what i do this to has blown the doors off of is the denial that when someone carries out a mass killing, ill or not, that they snap. i think he made it quite clear that he was contemplating it as least before he bought his first

gun, way back in 2012. can we now dispel the idea that gee, all we have to do is get these people help? just getting help and this will never happen. he was in help. he was getting therapy. he was getting therapy from before woody allen was getting therapy. all right? and guess what happened? and he was still in therapy. but a mass killer is so invested in the life choice. we may think it's irrational, but that's our world. and a person who makes an unacceptable choice that his worldview so invested in, that he will pull it together in such a way that police who may be very trained can come, not just one policeman but multiple policeman can sit down and say, nice boy, have a good day. you take care. but the parents know, right?

families know. and sometimes the relationship is frayed and sometimes as a doctor you draw history from those folks. you rely upon them. i tell you asked a physician with a person who is in crisis, and i feel that i can help a person in my office at the crisis is not resolved, what happens when the person goes out the door and the family can be an auxiliary safety net? if. >> says i can't talk to them because the patient is not imminently dangerous. so the family has no idea what's happening. it's a betrayal this is a long it is a betrayal of the sacred relationship of intimacy, a family that would do anything for a loved one more than he dr. witt. it's not fair. it's not right. i am plenty confident in my ability to assess a person in an emergency room about whether they are a danger to themselves

or others. but, but i could see you, for example, and you know you don't want to come to the hospital. you do not want treatment. you're looking at the world the way you want to look at the world and we're going to agree to disagree. you know that you have to tell me no, doctor, no, we just had a misunderstanding, that's all. orgy, i just had lived too much to drink, but i'm okay now. or i was just crashing from the cocaine but i feel better now. i will get into detox. give me that card for a referr referral. but the family that i'm not allowed to talk to, they say, she's going down a drain. somebody do something. this country is full of people who have thought in the head, somebody do something, please. somebody do something, please. before the suicide. before the self injury.

before the homelessness. before the child under the bridge. before the loved one who gets the tar beaten out of them. before the next a beating from the abusive husband. before the next father who was abusive within the home because his seven year old is too immature to articulate. somebody do something. hipaa is a wall that stands in the way of crisis situations. and i want to underline this just to dispense with the political distortion. we're talking about crisis situations where the doctor can make an elected decision. this person is going to walk out of my office, i'm not going to commit them, but this is a precarious situation. i need help. hit the mac will not let me -- hipaa will not let me help me help my patient. in the humanistic profession. that law would not allow me as a

psychiatrist to be human. item of any psychiatrist who doesn't go through that experience and who would not feel that they trust themselves with the latitude to make a decision when something is a crisis but if you don't have that confidence in your doctor, go pick another doctor. it's a free country. you know? but if you trust your doctor, you trust them to make that appraisal. and if we come to appreciate how denial brought us to this situation, we have all these police officers who went to check out on this, check out this one individual who did a disgusting thing in california, let's call it for what it is, that it's a familiar pattern. family expresses concerns, family smells it, authority looks into it, person in the mental health crisis doesn't

want help, or lacks the insight, or is invested in a bad outcome. let's stop for a minute here. people who carry out mass killings, these are long premeditated crimes. they are invested in making it happen. they will pull it together and they will do everything they can to protect their agenda. you have someone who couldn't hold down a job, couldn't keep himself in school, couldn't be unselfish enough to maintain a personal relationship. but what he could do is write and rewrite and stage-managed a production for youtube. you think he really looked like that? that was the best possible, a best possible camera angle that he could ever summon from the director's son. and that's not saying anything flippant about the family. the same thing with this a little gunplay that he put, that he sent over to abc. you think you look so tough in

real-life? do you think that's how we looked? that's how we get there in the first place. the point is he is invested in becoming a different person. because of that, because of that we have to appreciate that if someone spells trouble and the danger is so catastrophic, we've got to trust families. we've got to trust families to know there's trouble ahead. we are not getting families the wherewithal to be involved in commitment. i respect psychiatry's capabilities. i personally believe that families need to be directly involved in commitment of a loved one. we have court systems. we have the ability for judges to sort it out, but we also have a revolving door of commitment here that people are for me with. how does that go when someone is able to get care and able to get help and the family input isn't disregarded? and left with no safety net. the person goes into a hospital where they agreed with as strong

and sent to discharge them as quickly as possible because there are not enough beds. as congressman murphy has so properly and courageously pointed out. and the person in crisis ones out also so they know exactly what to say. if they don't know what to say, they ask the other patients. just say this, just say this and then you will get discharge. thethey get discharged and as mr. kelley pointed out they go right back to the, with no owners manual. what happened with family? family loses confidence in psychiatry. it happened enough time the family is going to people, what's the point? the family loses confidence in mental health, the person which is mental illness or crisis is lost to treatment and then there is a bad outcome. want to give everybody opportunity for asking questions. and i'm just going to make a couple of very weak points and then opened the floor and allow everybody to get involved.

but there is a certain amount of talk about the stigma. let's take two hypothetical people that are walking down the street. and let's take a bullet the works for the week person to prey upon. -- boley. those folks are identical twins and they both have a serious mental illness. and one takes his medicine and one doesn't. and persons taking his anti-psychotics is not experiencing side effects because these medicines are easy to take. and the person who is not taking his medicines is experiencing floor symptoms. which when you think is going to get stigmatized? let's put both of those folks as job applicants. which one do you think is going to get hired? which one you think is going to be able to pass a class or to be thought of as more intellectually capable and to have more ability? it is the denial of illness that is responsible for stigma.

it is the denial of treatment that is responsible for stigma. it is a disrespect for psychiatry and what it has accomplished that enables stigma. no medical specialty has to encounter the adversity that psychiatry has. you have pediatricians who promote vaccination and they are never stigmatized for causing a public health problem, and jeff psychiatrist who treated with medications and have to contend with a budget, a budget that's controlled by folks who are anti-psychiatry. would we have -- i respect respt holistic medicine as much as the next person. you should see the diet my wife has me on, all right? but be that as it may be would not have holistic medicine control the budgets of medicine and surgery in the united states. they are just competing perspectives, nothing against

the organizations involved. so with that said i realize that the members have a difficult choice but i also realize we have a full room and we have a nation watching. and for that reason i want to underscore -- you think you are tired of it? do you think you're tired of the adam lanza's? do you think you're tired of this clown in california, looking for his 15 minutes that everybody will see in a different way? well, so are we. people are doing something about this. if it matters to you, we have an election coming up in november. ask yourself. you're going to go into a ballot box, make a choice. would you vote for someone who ran on a record that said that he would not change commitment laws to make sure that adam lanza's mother could get intriguing in a community? would you vote for a person like that? would you hold your elected

officials accountable? would you want him to run on a record-setting do you support laws that keep joe's parents from knowing he was going down the drain at virginia tech? to think that is a person who ought to be representing your interests? would you vote for some it would run on the record saying that jared shouldn't get forcible treatment? would you vote for someone like that? would you think that he will stop putting political concerns above your own? of course it matters to us. of course, come and do you know why? because if we're into now we can always say the illness happened to somebody else in someone else's family. but when you have a mass shooting, guess what? you have to hate everybody to kill anybody. i don't think gabby giffords anticipated she would be shot. i don't think anyone in california ever thought that we would happen to them when they were reflecting on newtown. and i don't think anyone who works in this building forgets that it was 16 years ago that wrestle weston tried to get into

the u.s. capitol and shot and killed two officers and got into congressman tom delay's office shooting before he was subdued. let me tell you, i didn't forget either that it was a physician who saved his life was in the u.s. senate. dr. chartrand help them solve this problem. i think we are advantaged and we are blessed that a psychologist as devoted energy as a way congressman murphy has to this and i would encourage you to have a dialogue with your congressman, and to tell them that you feel that it is important, that it is imperative for us to change commitment laws to enable people who need help, who are in crisis, to get help before they are dangerous and that families can be involved in a way because families know and families love and families can keep us safe. thank you for coming. >> thank you, doctor. i know they called both by want

to recognize in addition to dr. gingrey, marsha blackburn of tennessee, bill johnson of ohio are here. we have a few minutes. i want to see vinnie my colleagues want to make any comment or question on any issues regarding anything that has come up. anything anybody wants to say? >> i appreciate what you're doing, and we need to move forward on this legislation. this is very, very important. thank you, doctor, ma thank you to the rest of the panel who are here. this is such an important issue. it's timely to craft to prevent these things are mapping. the only way we're able to do is if we act now on good legislation that will help empower families and patients in the mental health institute. >> thank you. i want to make one question of the panel because one of the things that comes up that has to up that has to do with will issue a denial and it is a neurologic a basis for down. we've heard some people say there really isn't such a thing. they call it a non-consensus

reality. just in a brief comment, dr. welner, is there such a thing or is it non-consensus reality that they just have unveiled a? >> we are still learning a lot about it. briefly, the physiological appreciation is that when a person suffers a stroke on the right side of the brain, they neglect an entire side of their body. and so one learns just from that that from one single event, that one could actually be of the belief that part of them doesn't even exist. so there's a physiological basis for denial of illness, and that's where it originates. there is a lot of thinking within psychiatry that for those who are irrational to the degree that they are psychotic, that there's something going on within physiologically that resembles it. but in a bit of a holy grail no one has ever captured. but guess what? everybody in this room has

denial of something. and so the question is at what point are we talking about the physiology of a psychological complex, as opposed to an actual physiology of illness? it may be specific to the diagnosis, but some folks, for example, the chronic mental illness who are young men, the night illnesses such as schizophrenia because they've been exposed to too much stigma, saying they have no. we can promote public health that encourages people that if you get treatment early and appropriate, such as avenues of accomplishment open to you and that will have an impact on denial. so the answer is both. >> thank you. i'm going to see if other, members of staff of questions. just members of staff of clarifying questions on hearing or anything like that. i know some of us have to run to the force what i would say is if

the press for example, has questions want to ask for the panel, you can stick around, if that's okay. you are a staff member for who? [inaudible] >> can we -- i want to ask staff first and the people and to ask questions of the panel afterwards. >> sounds good. >> i want to make sure we're going to run and make our votes on the floor. know are the questions from members of in? i will let us go. this is a briefing on our findings, and this panel has been involved in is aware of many of the findings of the hearing, participated hearings so please feel free to ask clarifying questions. if one of my staff could moderate. doctor, did you have any questions? you're okay? thanks. dr. burgess is the vice chair of the oversight investigation and

welcome member of the committee. i will let you all continue if you would and i will see if some people of questions from the audience. laszlo, go ahead. >> thank you very much. so, part of this bill that congressman murphy has put forward seeks to integrate behavioral health and primary care -- integrate behavioral health and primary care. you said that, dr. welner, you would have much trouble in er setting telling if someone had troubling, they had warning signs, they would hurt themselves or others. mr. rogers manifesto seems to suggest that an aggressive and violent incident that he admitted he instigated or suggested he instigated brought into the er and that was the final straw for him. so there is the suggestion of telemedicine in this bill as a way of keeping mental health professionals in the loop with

er care. however, there is a competing bill, or maybe another bill that represented barber has put forward, the strength and mental health in our committee act which was introduced earlier this month. it has 40 cosponsors and it actually seeks hhs awards for cole getting behavioral health services in primary care settings, and i was wondering how you think that place with telemedicine. is a better, can telemedicine work as well? i would appreciate your input, thank you, gentlemen. >> i think both but some who thinks they are my site isn't going to go to their primary any more likely than their going to go to a psychiatrist. if you attach to my testimony, there's a comparison of the bill barber propose with the bill that is being proposed by 86

cosponsors, including democrats and republicans. i think that those who are supporting the barber bill have been misled by the mental health industry. again, i am and goober liberal democrat, but when -- huber -- nancy pelosi told roll call she wants to build a the mental health industry, the barber bill got it. it gives the mental health industry more money without requiring them to serve the series and mentally ill. we can't pretend they don't exist. telemedicine is really related more to getting primary caretakers in rural areas access to psychiatrist who don't live in those areas for consultation. >> i want to take, i want to add to the response.

i have mixed feelings about telemedicine. i think what congressman murphy has been attending to underscore and that hasn't come across more clearly, i want to underline it. there's a serious shortage of mental health professionals, terrible shortage of mental health professionals. and above all a series of shortage of needed specialists. so what do you do? you want to make an immediate fix to people who have mental health needs in non-serb areas, let alone underserved areas. you could use technology to wrap up a solution, and i've you telemedicine as a bridge. i don't view it as a long-term solution, but we have a problem that needs immediate resolution. i think the solution is on a national level we've got to turn the behavioral sciences into a growth industry. and look, if we did spend a gazillion dollars getting people to like obamacare, and i'm not telling you my position about it, but consider the amount of

money that went into just promoting obamacare so people would experience it as warm and fuzzy, particular feelings about it. i'm just talking about the promotion alone. if we spent a fraction of that budget on promoting the behavioral sciences for how wonderful it is, i could tell you this as a psychiatrist. did some of their life back, the outlook back, their hope back, to restore their soul, to give them some sense of future. what an amazing gift. i went to medical school. i picked psychiatry. i made that call. the recent others don't make that call is because psychiatry should be promoted the way obamacare gets promoted. we should have people saying, hey, i want to be a psychiatrist. i want to make sick people well. and not only that, i want to be a crisis psychiatrist. it is the mental health equivalent of navy seals. if you look at people in crisis and recognize how meaningful it

is too broader society to take someone who is fragile and help carry them through to a place where they have strength, we're making an enormous societal contribution. and if you can't invest in making obamacare and other national imperatives attractive, you can make mental-health attractive and you can make the doctor-patient relationship attractive. if patients come to appreciate the potential of mental health care, that will have as big an impact on denial as anything. do know what? maybe they can help. so much of what the pharmaceutical industry invest in is just demystifying the treatments. and they say, invariably, ask your doctor to ask your doctor. because maybe the solutions exist. so i think part of the solution is, if you what mental-health to solve these problems, then you have to invest in mental-health and just invest it and you have to promote it. otherwise you have a

mental-health system that doesn't even believe in itself. >> we have 10 or 15 more minutes. doctor, to want to chair the panel for a little bit? >> after 10 or 15 minutes and then we will wrap up. >> dr. welner, if you don't mind, a question opened up all sorts of trapdoors. >> i'll tell you, please answer and i won't give you -- in case of the people of other question but look how to get everybody in. >> so the elephant in the room, there are two of them. one is, everybody is afraid of severe mental illness. i can look in your eyes. i could probably pick up three quarters of this room who fear severe mental illness. it's scary. and if you are going to get away from psychosis, it will blow you away. my wife is five to and ways nothing.

but when my since iconic, there is no reality. so fear of mental illness is a biggie. our hollywood movies have gone to great lengths to make sure we stay afraid, right? the other elephant in the room is we are literally saying, even if we did the right things, we don't have the money to do it, so why bother? at the state and federal level that's what's going on. we know it's needed behind closed doors. we know it's needed, but we don't have the money so why even bother? and the other thing is, is you've got burnout in the mental health care industry like you can't believe. i know social workers who just gave up. i know emergency room physicians who got overwhelmed trying to make a three-minute to see without them belly to consult with family to just give the. i know -- i do good friend who was 30 years, 15 a 15 that perks and 15 at springfield and she's going to testify next year and she's going to make a lot of its

swivel completed off the shoulders. the things she's seen at the things they do to release patients prematurely and the way we treat the series when mentally ill, now she's retired she can say whatever she wants to see. it's going to blow people away. you think of the hospital issue is big? i think this is just as big. >> other questions? please. give us your name and where you're from. >> i'm with the voice of america. i have a question for you, father. i does one make sure i'm understanding correctly that you feel that your son needs to be hospitalized to protect himself but you've not been able to accomplish that. >> no. i have to come in five minutes you can't tell the story, so what i think people need to know, whether it's schizophrenia or bipolar or, there are different things that affect you in the same way. you are not that way all the time.

you go through spikes of up and down. what you tried to do is catch a downward fall, get them under control. but it used to be medicines, we had to get our son to take a pill in the morning and in the afternoon. he didn't want to take that so he would stick them under the cushions and we find them in the toilet. then they invented the dissolvable tablet. once went into his mouth, once the counties that are not taking that every day. i'm not deal i don't need that medicine. the longer he went without the medicine, and what is psychosis and his symptoms deteriorated. that's we need to get them into the hospital. that's when they are a danger to themselves or somebody else. but the laws and the standards of what gets you in the hospital are too high. so you go past that moment of safety and now you're just clinging. then you try to get him into care. there's no aot so you get started early. he doesn't want to care. so you try to get them in the hospital. you fail, you fail, you fail and then you finally get them in.

to finally get them in, succeeded, he gets care, he's safe. he gets treatment and then sometimes he gets released prematurely and the cycle starts all over again, sometimes not. gets out and the whole cycle starts again. so you want to get him into care when he needs to care. i don't want them in the hospital all the time. he was kept in one hospital for one year because the hospital refused to give him medication but i ask you, which is worse? that he went in the hospital and didn't take the medicine, or that you to stay in the hospital for a year? that's on public record. >> other questions? >> i'm the mother of a daughter with a series of mental health condition. and i'm a sister of a brother who died by suicide. and i know where you're coming from. i've been there. i've done it. the systems are really, really broken. that's why i have the career

that i have where i try very hard to find solutions to get money to come up with programs that engage people. i commend representative murphy for being interested in a. i also commend representative barber. what i'm asking the panelists here today is how do we work together to bring the knowledge of connecting people who really want to change the system's? the way hipaa is hidden behind is part of the. i have been that there because any better, just like mr. kelley knows better. i have been listened to the people who don't know that don't know how to do that. so changing the laws doesn't change the culture. it doesn't fund the programs and the outreach. i designed lots of programs to do outreach to people who have been on the streets for a long time, but unless we're working together to get that money, no matter how we change commitment

laws or no matter how we change tonight, we are still not there. how do we get the money to get the services and change the culture? >> i want to have you get sick and. a dj to speak, go ahead. >> if i misled i apologize but your with mental health america, correct? [inaudible] >> i want to find a way to get health -- help for people like your son and my daughter, and my brother who was in treatment, who did exactly what dr. welner talked about. he had that suicidal intention and he kept it and she's dead. >> -- and he is dead. my question to you though is do you believe that everyone will eventually seek treatment voluntarily? that that's the mantra of mental health america. >> it is not.

i don't want to get into a debate with you. and sometimes, i myself have committed people, including my brother, including people i worked with. so i submit to you that that is an incorrect -- >> i will set aside a guest room. you can stay at my house for the next year and i will work side-by-side with you to do whatever we have to do. i have been reaching out for years. >> that's what we need to do. we need to join together. >> if i could talk about suicide. before, i just got word that the webcast isn't hearing the questions. and so i want to repeat the question. the question was, you have different perspectives are offered in legislation. how can people necessarily work together in order to get more money is available to solve these problems? go ahead spent and what i would say, money is great but we all have to prioritize the most is usually bill.

you talked about suicide. most of the money that goes to suicide prevention is going to advertising and public relations. there is zero evidence that advertising not to commit suicide is effected. most of the money is going to colleges, college aged students are in college are least likely to commit suicide. if you want to use evidence-based practices, suicide is most, in first degree relatives of people with serious mental illness and those who have previously attempted suicide. so we would use science-based and start getting treatment based on science rather than what feels good, which is doing the advertising. likewise, we are funding an awful lot of side just. i congratulate you for doing outreach. that if you want to do outreach to find the seriously mentally ill, stand outside a shelter,, stand outside edge he or stand

outside a hospital and you will find every when you need. the idea that we are funding talks to pdas and going to schools and telling people how to identify people who need treatment, parents beg for treatment. people known to be certain mentally ill so we have to prioritize most certainly fail and that means cutting programs and that's what the objection to the bill proposed by murphy comes from but it cuts non-evidence-based programs and uses the funds for evidence-based programs. there's an entrenched group that wants to prevent that. for instance, there are groups who are giving money to prevent mental illness. we do not know how to prevent schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. if anyone knows how to prevent those disorders, they deserve a nobel peace prize. yet the government is funding prevention. so i would argue it's prioritizing, getting rid of that spending. that's what the murphy bill does

and that's what is engendering opposition to it. >> i will briefly add, i want to do for duty others expertise but i want to add something that has not been said. i buried a sister. and so i appreciated from a number of levels and i want you to know that you are, and i hope that god comforts you in your morning, and i -- on a daily basis, as a forensic psychiatrist, i am not only dealing with death but i am also dealing with people left behind and all of the shards of glass from a shattered story that cannot be reassembled. i've learned a lot. in practicing for 20 odd years with responsibilities on my shoulders. i probably work on more death penalty cases than anybody he will meet. i say that to say that i don't understand what i'm even still intact. i can tell you that upon tell you that it probably him tell

you that are probably and intel and watch a violent movie and i just can't bear it but that's just me. i'm saying this because it informs my perspective. i have had more than my share of gun violence. i'm not saying that guns are irrelevant to this discussion i do think that a lot of the focus on guns versus mental health is inappropriate and its politically driven. we will work together when people recognize that they are not fooling anybody by saying it's either or and say that there are certain cases it would be prevented by resolution of certain gun laws. and that there are certain instances that nakedly expose problems in crisis mental health, such as the california case which is what brought everybody here. one cannot deny the obvious of the relevance of a gap in the system. so i think that's one way for us to work together, that if we experienced tragedy on a national level as something that ought to transcend who takes credit for the bill that passes, well then, we will just got her

act together anybody jump in the pool and resolve the problem. my appreciation for hipaa and commitment, not only comes as a forensic psychiatrist who has identified cases that would not have happened with hipaa and commitment laws otherwise but i lived as a family member. and i lived in the worst way you want, been able to survive someone who you say that if commitment laws were different, i was that family members saying somebody help me. it's not why i went into psychiatry, but when you have proximity to it, you feel like you're living your worst nightmare. you say, i'm a psychiatrist, should have some kind of authority? nobody is immune. just like creigh deeds, just like gabby giffords wasn't immune. it can touch any of us. god bless any of you that you should never have to go through any of this and just suffered

enough as time goes on. any other questions? >> do you know what? it's that point, i think the mistake we're making as a country, unfortunately, the political polarization is just out there and it infuriates me, is we're saying it's got to be either this or even that, right? gun laws our gun laws. that's what we hear. having community based treatment and the right continuity of care for the mainstream mentally ill, absently on target, should continue. but we need a car that. that carveout has got to be a series of mentally ill. the more we dumbed us down the more since it makes. that's we're talking about, change the rules. just like you don't treat cancer and the common cold the same. >> other questions? okay. i feel like i'm at the antiques auction. going once, going twice, i believe that we will adjourn. thank you very much for coming and for your attention. if there are any questions, i guess my colleagues will stay up here for those who want to speak

to us privately. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> coming up tonight on c-span at eight eastern, today's announcement by president obama on the resignation of after secretary eric shinseki along with your phone calls, again on c-span starting at eight eastern. on c-span2, booktv in primetime brings you in depth with mark levin. on c-span3 as american artifacts and look at the newark city transit museum, the national firearms museum and a visit to the national cryptologic museum. that's all tonight on the c-span networks starting at eight eastern. >> so what's been the result when you have this classic

economic holdout problem with retransmission for video? you have companies doing this game of chicken where they cut off service to customers. they're starting out to block traffic on the internet services for customers, and the ultimate result is programming costs spiral up in the. you wonder why your cable bill keeps going up? one big reason is that the resolution of disputes over regions mission with the sec is hamstrung by the rules and what it's interpreted the congressional mandate to get involved here, the easy result is these parties eventually agreed to deals which wage prices and give consumers want to just they don't want. that's what i'm afraid of. i think that to say that interconnection happens in a private way is great and i think there should be room for private deals, but if we get to that point i think it would be a real tragic outcome.

>> this weekend on c-span, the impact of an open internet from the progressive policy institute saturday morning at 10 eastern on c-span2's booktv, our life through program in depth with author and columnist amity shlaes at noon on sunday. on c-span3's american history tv, real america features use government films made during world war ii. >> to expire tax cuts made out of committee yesterday and will now head to the house floor. house ways and means going marked up by bills dealing with charitable contributions and another would make the 50% bonus depreciation permanent vote for the tax extensions though most own party lines. this hearing is just over three hours. >> the committee will come to order. we are meeting this going to consider six different bills within the committee's jurisdiction to consider each

bill individual with a separate opening statement and walk-throughs for each. the first order of business is a bill introduced by mr. gerlach and mr. thompson to make permanent the special role for contribution of qualified conservation contribution. mr. gerlach, you're not recognize for an open statement on this bill. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for your leadership in bringing h.r. 2807 before the committee today. there's no doubt that we must transform our tax code along with providing simplicity and fairness, comprehensive text from will promote robust economic growth, create new jobs and allow american businesses to compete in the global economy. that being said while we must continue our efforts to shed those sections of the tax code that's not out opportunity and very job careers and amounts of paperwork, we also must work to preserve those provisions that have proven successful in allow individuals, business owners to thrive. today we highlight one such provision in our tax code that the farmers property owners and committee leaders of my district believe is worthy of

preservation, h.r. 2807, the conversation easement and incentive act which was introduced with my friend mr. thompson of california a simple straightforward legislation that would make permanent the conservation easement tax incentive. not only to my constituents support this, this proposal, but over 200 of our colleagues in the house and senate including a majority in this committee have cosponsored this bill. earlier this year, it was great to see the provisions of this legislation included as part of your tax reform discussion draft as will the administration's fy '15 budget proposal. in washington it's hard to find that level of consensus. but in seniors across the country our constituents labor should a permanent a permanent enhanced tax incentive for conserving open space and farmland. the conservation easement is a proven, effective and important tool that allows property owners the ability to retire development rights on their land

to conserve significant natural resources, protect clean water and preserve wild habitat and safeguard farmland and working forests. the conservation tax credit workforce and expiring at the end of 2013 property owners, family farmers and other land owners utilize this incident to voluntarily protect millions of acres of land across the country. further, benefits derived from conservation easements extend well beyond property lines. for example, a regional study released in november 2010 by the green space alliance and the delaware valley regional planning commission found that preserve open space and the five counties of southeastern pennsylvania added 16 points $3 billion of home value to the region homeowners. supported nearly 7000 jobs annually in industries including agriculture, tourism, hospitality and recreation. save more than $130 million in water treatment and flood control costs, after enhanced recreation at area parks and

trails, avoided $1.3 billion in health related cause. in closing, whether as a farmer looking to preserve land that's been in the family for generations or local organization working to protect a community of natural resources this legislation is a bipartisan solution to provide property owners with freedom, opportunity and certainty they deserve when making critical choices about the use and future other land. thank you, mr. chairman. i get back. >> mr. levin, you are not recognize for an opening statement on this bill. >> thank you. a month ago republicans on this committee voted to add $310 billion to the deficit by making permanent six separate tax provisions. today, they will nearly double the number, adding another 287 billion to the deficit. with a vote on a single tax provision that not only was never meant to be permanent, but one that loses its effectivene

effectiveness. i and many of my colleagues have and continue to support a temporary extension of bonus depreciation. because it provides capital intensive businesses with an incentive to invest in new equipment now, allowing them to write off the cost at a faster rate than normal. it is called bonus depreciation for just that reason. but what the majority is doing today completely eliminates that incentive. indeed, the congressional research service notes that the measure called temporary nature is critical to its effectiveness, end of quote. what's more, making it permanent contradicts the republican tax reform draft which in february proposed repealing the measure entirely. as crs noted, i quote, moving to permanent bonus depreciation is

inconsistent with chairman camp's proposal. the last decade highlights the temporary nature of this policy which was put in place during the recession that the early part of the last decade, before being allowed to expire in 2005 as the economy improved. in 2008, as a new deeper recession took hold, the policy was put in place again. without an offset, the $287 billion price tag would bring the total that this committee has voted to add to the deficit in the last month to $600 billion. that's not only more than the entire federal deficit this year, it's greater than all nondefense domestic discretionary spending in 2014. in moving forward with the permanent extension of a select group of tax extenders, the

majority is once again leaving to an increasingly uncertain fate provisions like the work opportunity tax credit, the american opportunity tax credit, the new markets tax credit, the mortgage relief debt forgiveness, and the renewable energy tax credits, as well as the long range status of eitc and the child tax credit. and that is not to mention their complete in action so far on federal unemployment insurance. the cost of bonus depreciation of extending it this way could pay for a full year extension of unemployment benefits 10 times over. the majority has cloaked the extension of bonus depreciation within a package of important tax incentives that supports charity and the good work that you -- that do and are committed. indeed, i co-authored alongside congressmen garlock the bill to extend a deduction for food

inventory donations. but we are not here today basically the debate the good works of charities or nutrition programs or conservation across this country. there is agreement about the significance, but it is a mistake to approach them in a way that makes provisions permanent. without consideration of the place in the broader framework, and with reckless disregard for the cost and impact on other provisions, especially at a time of immense pressures on nondefense discretionary programs. i yield the balance of my time now to mr. thompson. >> i'm in support of this measure extending conservation easements long-term. i'm a co-author with mr. gerlach as you mentioned. before that, chairman camp was when we were my co-author on the other a lot of co-authors, the reason there are a lot of co-authors is because it's a

good bill and we should make it permanent. a lot of people benefit. people in rural areas, conservation groups, hunters, fishers, farmers, ranchers, city folks benefit, too. look no further than new york city. they are watershed is under terrible pressure and it was through conservation easements that we were able to protect the water of the citizens of new york. so passing it is the right thing to do, but to do by adding to our national debt is just absolutely wrong. we need to pay for this bill. as the ranking member pointed out, with the passage of these bills today we will be up over $600 billion added to our national debt. we need to pass these good build but we need to do it right. when you do it by paying for. mr. chairman, i have an amendment that would pay for this provision when the time is right i would like the opportunity to introduce it. >> all right. the cabinet will now proceed to consideration of h.r. 2807. without objection the bill would be considered as read and open for a minute at any point.

i offer and and and and the nature of a subsidy which was issued in advance along with a green sheet explaining it. without objection the amended shall be considered as read open for a minute at any point and considered text for purpose of amendment. i will now turn to chief of staff of the joint committee on taxation to provide the technical description of the amendment and the nature of substitute and ask if members hold the questions until after his presentation. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and mr. levin. members have before them joint committee documents, jay d. x. 53 which describes the underlying bill h.r. 2807 and j.c. x. 59, chairman singh them and the nature of a substitute. by way of beef background the proposal of the provision of law which expired at the end of 2013 provide in the case of conservation easements, that the otherwise applicable 30% percentage limitation on an annual charitable donation and

they carry forward period of five years would be 50% and a 15 year period. .. the reported bill, the race

buyer to act as it was named by the finance committee did a two-year extensions of it extended this provision and a member of others for the calendar year 2014 and 2015. to the extent that it was a straight extension of prior law or the present law offsets were not required. within the committee markup they would ask for offsets if there were modifications that expanded or otherwise lead to an increase loss beyond the two-year extension. so relative to the two-year extension, there was no offsets for this. it's beethis. >> i intend to offer the provision. >> and herbs of the substances though and in answer to mr. neil there are very similar provisions in the time.

>> of the expire act from the finance committee would extend the law for two years identical to what the provision before the committee here today does. in addition what's before the committee today would make a permanent law. >> would you yield for a second? isn't that what we are doing today? >> what we are trying to do since this has been extended to -- >> they probably get defined very quickly. >> i think it's important not to have temporary policy especially when you look at long-term investments made in the conservation easement so that is the reason why i think it's important to do it. >> of the reason we are giving this is because we were not able to move forward with tax reform fundamentally. that is the challenge is that we are going to end up giving a

two-year extension which is going to be a one-year extension based on the fact the first year has already passed. so rather than having this markup today, we should have just dedicated some of these issues to understand you're going to come close to accepting the senate provisions. >> i don't think we are just going to accept what the senate has done. we have a different view in that they are happy with temporary policy. i'm not and i think many house members are lost and we ought to try to make them permanent. that's what this provision does. i had a staff drafting the bill and assume that you were a great help to the draft bill that was

prepared. >> we try to assist in any way that he saw it as we try to help all of the members o in the tax writing committee. >> since we are confident that the chair was trying to reduce the deficit and his courageous attempt to reform the tax code, is it not true that in the draft most of these extensions were either repealed or paid for and did not increase the deficit? >> i can let the cherry and speak for himself, that as a general matter the chairman did lay oulayout as a goal that he d produce a revenue neutral package and make policy choices to extend some expiring provisions and allow others to either affirmatively reveal them or to a loud provisions that had

expired to remain expired. >> but in the sense of trying to make certain that the extension's permanent did he not provide the revenue to make it revenue neutral? >> as my colleagues estimated in the table that we prepared for the chairman's discussion, the chairman was successful in achieving the revenue neutral though. >> that's my point. could you share with us the economic reasons why what was either repealed or paid for as to what it looks like a complete reversal that increases the deficit and allows issues of extension that were issues that were repealed.

is there any economic sense to that's what you can share with us because i respect the chair as the draft because i thought that it was pretty forthright. if that is actually an economic reversal of the policy i think the american people in the committee who are placed are not just a vote on what is popular, but to vote for what is right and we selected by both parties of that reason that mad made the permanent provisions that are before us today. >> my opinions on the policy matters don't count.

>> i'm sorry to put you on the spot it's embarrassing to us as well. extensive early another year or two in the permanent seat of the legislation allows for. for those that have a very significant and open space that they go in there area they know very well that it is very difficult to have a continuity those efforts to preserve valuable habitat and farmland year after year giving up the development for the conservation easement through the municipalities and the state programs that want to contribute dollars with other organizations that help in that process. the value of the permanency aspect of the legislation is such that it sends the signal to

all of those organizations both as governmental program implementers as well as those that are charitable organizations aorganizations ass interested individual citizens. having this aspect of the tax code made permanent allows them to do ongoing work day after day in the community to line up the parties and about different levels of funding and streams of funding eventually to have a landowner say yes all of this is going to work for me and my family today. it's going to work for future generations. it's time to put the land and conservation easement. so the value in extending outward expired in 2013 is the permanency of the policy and so all of those organizations and people interested in conserving land in the communities are going to have a green light to work every day together to allow a lot of good projects to move

forward. with all of the talk about the sure to be extent of one year or two years on a permanent basis area so thank you mr. chairman. >> i think that you correctly pointed out that generational issue but these often have revocations for particularly farms, ranches and virtually every other kind of decision how critical that is. i just want to mention that our good friend, the former speaker said the longer the temporary matter continues the more likely it becomes permanent. when does a temporary extender become a permanent extender is a question we ought to answer. we ought to answer yes. this is critical enough. 200 house members supported it, 300 members of the means committee support an equal number for the republicans and democrats to put the permanency in this area and i think it is very valuable and i yield back.

>> the dispute is not over the policy outcome or the substance of the proposal. by and large, we are all for it. it is a worthwhile undertaking. the dispute we had this morning is that we are here because they couldn't proceed with the tax reform so now we are to argue about the likelihood of this becoming permanent. everybody here today though there's very little prospect. >> i yield back. if we are going to pay for this which we haven't done in the two or three times it has been extended by think that we should be honest about it and call it what it is. we're either goinwe are either t depending on the senate provision prevails or if the house position prevails i hope

which has become the house position that would make it permanent. so that's why i think it is relevant to do that. >> just very briefly, it's one thing to not pay for and do it for a year or two, and it's another thing to make it permanent and not pay for it. we didn't participate in putting it together but our reaction to it was modulated because it was i think an honest effort to try to look at tax reform and to do so in a way that was revenue neutral. and we disagreed with the principle of only the revenue

neutral neutrality because we thought there should be additional revenue. but at least it was revenue neutral. it was paid for when made permanent. and the step that is now being taken is to essentially say we can make the tax provisions permanent and not pay for them. and so, when you add up what it's doing today from the previous action, with the total here it is well over 600 billion. and that doesn't include other provisions that we know will be in the tax extended bill and beth we would want him to one or two-year bill like like the work opportunity tax credit or other tax revisions relating to the sales tax and other provisions that are still to come. and so i just want to reinforce

the conservation provision is important and no one is denying that. but to say contrary to what was done in your proposal that we are going to make it permanent and not pay for it is i think not only inconsistent but it's irresponsible. so let's not say that we don't care about this. we deeply care about this but we also care about how it is done. >> are there further questions or should we move to the amendment. >> i do have a question. this committee is fully aware just a few weeks ago to the chairman of credit he produced a comprehensive tax reform discussion after three years of endless hearings into discussions in task force and meetings, and i commend it to the chairman and now and i

continue to commend him for the courage that he shared that released the discussion draft. but there were some specific provisions that we are dealing with today that were also addressed in the discussion and i would like some clarification for you how the chairman and treated those provisions in the comprehensive draft that he proposed. for instance do you recall how that was treated in the comprehensive draft? >> in the chairman's discussion draft, he had substantial rewriting of the number of cost recovery rules as a general matter he went to the system of depreciation rather than extending the bonus and also had a number of other changes related to the amortization of different types of capital expenses. >> so in effect, he repealed the provision that's before us today. >> he did not extend it.

his depreciation changes were delay it a year in the start. >> what about the charitable deduction for the food donations do you know how that was treated in the draft? >> that was not included. that wasn't a part of his discussion. >> you can correct me he was silent about the role before us today. >> and effect that is allowed to remain expired. >> when you introduced a draft,, you find certain tax breaks in the code to get rid of in the way to pay for this application that you were aiming for and lowering of the raids and get today we are coming forward with another six provision package not of its offset and none of it

paid for. this comes on the heels of just a few weeks ago when you had your own budget resolution that called for the offsets for any permanent tax changes. you voted for that. and now a few weeks later you are here with another package of $287 billion worth of tax extenders over the next ten years and not a nickel of it paid for so i don't think it's fair to be on the floor a few weeks ago arguing about the fiscal sponsor to the of the budget resolution that you are offering the american people. and in a few short weeks later you are coming forward with tax extenders without paying for it. a few weeks ago at a cost of $310 billion none of it paid for and another list of extenders at the cost of $287 billion in just the first ten years, none of it paid for. and i guess that is the concern that many of us have on this site is the lack of any type of

fiscal consistency or fiscal responsibility with how we are addressing these major policy tax changes. and if there is a way for us to go back and described the list of the expenditures that you got rid of in your discussion draft because he wanted to make it revenue neutral. there's a lot of the nomination of the tax provisions to pay for other changes in the tax code i think we can give to a bipartisan place that's going to require some tough decisions and quite frankly having the same note and some very powerful special interests in this town in order to pass these on a permanent basis, which i think makes good policy. that is fiscally irresponsible to be offering it in this fashion especially knowing the direction the senate is going and especially given the threats coming out of the white house right now. i think as the policy we are discussing today there isn't

going to be able to daylight separatina lot of daylightsepar. the issue is what does this mean what is going to be the revenue impact into the budget implications, and i think that to the chairman of the budget committee credit about we produced a budget resolution that required under that resolution with offsets any permanent extension within the tax code. so which is it going to be? are you going to stand and defend the budget resolution or are we going off into another direction of $597 billion of unpaid permanent tax changes in the tax code and if that's the way that it is let's be honest about it and jus just start takg ownership of the large budget deficits and the national debt that we had a rather than trying to leave us at the doorstep of the current occupant in the white house. that's the point i wanted to make today. >> since you raised the draft what we say we do want to be

honest about it and if we go the direction the senate is going all 60 plus extenders will be extended and not paid for. if the conservation easement is one of those that will be the fifth two year period that's basically a budget window so we have extended it, not paid for it. we do need to be honest. the discussion draft said we asked for comment on the extenders what should we do about the extenders, should they be made permanent and paid for iforit the answer we got overwhelmingly was extenders should be made permanent to the extent that they are long-term and we shouldn't pay for the extension. we shouldn't have to raise taxes other places in the economy to keep the current tax law. there is no rationale for that so i appreciate the argument that you are making that it's very important that if we have extended something for ten years, i think -- but call it what it is, that is permanent policy.

>> your time is expired by now be to have you respond. >> as far as the policy implementations i'm with you 110% on that. but where you lose me is the inconsistency and the argument of the budget resolution and the unpaid for aspects today in the implications of going to have not just within the ten years it's tremendous. >> the last speech i woul to coe because we've never required offsets in the committee. we have always allowed the bills to pass the committee without offset. so, there is not a new standard that is going to be developed now in terms of that policy. >> there's no way of finding acceptable bipartisan offsets before this comes to the house? >> i don't want to mislead you on that. we shouldn't pay for the extensions in the current law where there are other places in the economy. but anyway, i'm happy to

recognizi am happy torecognize y further questions -- >> i think you sort of responded to this but let me make sure that i'm clear. this would add how much to the deficit? >> on the green sheet before you, we have our revenue estimate for this position and over the ten year budget it would lose approximately $1.1 billion. >> 1.1 would be added if the provision were enacted into law? >> that is correct sir. >> do you have any idea of -- there were 310 or 12 million americans in this country. my understanding there are about 160 million tax filers in other words because some members -- >> there's about 165 when units

annually. >> 160 million. >> the 160 million americans filed taxes for the 310 million americans. how many people would benefit from this particular provision that would add a billion dollars to the deficit? >> remember the billion dollars has over a ten year period so this would count a number of gifts across that. i do not have an estimate of the number of individuals. generally, just to tell you how we have tried to estimate this in the past, we have tried to track the dollar values of the contributions not thinking that it was particularly important if there were three, you know, 30-dollar gifts as opposed to one mighty dollar gift in the thrust of the provision in terms

of the total value of the easement set aside. so i don't know that i could easily get you an estimate of the numbers, but i will check with my colleagues and i can try to get back to you. >> but let me make sure if we have 160 million tax filers, not 160 million families the tax filers would benefit from this provision correct? >> that is certainly the case. >> would it be fair to say that less than half would benefit from this provision? >> it would be a subset of a number of people that claim the charitable deductions and under the present law basically one third of the taxpayers itemize and that is where you can claim that charitable deduction and of that one third, not all take the charitable deductions. >> so we could say without

hesitation that more than two thirds of americans that filed taxes will not benefit from this tax break. >> i think that is a fair estimate. >> and this would make that particular provision permanent, so instead of a three year examining whether this provision has value and there are many provisions that we are going to discuss some i think all of us would agree have great value and some we probably would look at and wonder if they are publishing their stated goal but the bill itself would make it permanent so it would never have to be examined to find out if it is achieving its stated purpose; is that correct? >> to be fair to the committee, it doesn't preclude the committee from undertaking its

usual oversight activities, but it wouldn't come up as part of an extended package for the vote and discussion. >> so it would automatically go through every year as a tax break. >> it would be part of permanent law >> said it would go through every year without examination in the oversight. >> that's correct. >> i would just say the charitable contribution is of a conservation easement is to the greater good and the environment not simply and i think the sponsors of the bill would agree that it is not just the individual taxpayer but it is to the society as a whole to provide a fragile land and other areas.

the point is about the fiscal response ability of doing it this way. >> if there are no further questions i will go to mr. thompson for a minute. >> if the gentle men would a point of order is reserved. >> [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> mr. thompson is recognized for five minutes on his amendment. >> thank you mr. chairman. i just want to repeat briefly some of the things that have been mentioned by myself and others today in regards to the program of the conservation easement. it is an important program and it does have wide bipartisan support. over 250 and then consistent. when you and i carry this bill, we had over 300 co-authors on this bill and the reason being is that it's important, and it's

important to everybody. not only those who get the specific monetary benefits but the societal benefits are important and i think this is an important bill and i'm very high on this measure in part because of the policy stuff, but in large part because i have seen it work. i've been on the ground. i stood on the farms and ranches that are still in existence today because of conservation easements. the pressure from development would have otherwise taken it right out of the community. and that's not only bad for family farming and individual farmers and ranchers but it's also bad for the communities in which those farms and rangers are rotated. everybody will tell you, hunters, fishers, conservation groups, environmental groups, everybody understands the value of this particular program.

and i just wanted to talk a little about the permanent versus the temporary aspect of the bill. if anybody has ever tried to do a conservation easement, you have to have permanent to get it done. you can't do one of these in a year. it's hard to do one in two years during a there are a lot of hurdles that need to be cleared in order to make sure that this resource is protected for future generations, so i commend the chairman for recognizing the value and the importance of making it permanent. but what i cannot agree with is the idea that we would put this on the credit card and pass it on to our children and our grandchildren. now, granted it is only $1.1 billion, but that 1.1 is part of that $600 billion that this committee is participated

in moving out of the house hopefully in the law and on the backs of our children and grandchildren and i can't go along with that. it's the right policy to pass it. it's the wrong policy to pass on the debts to the future generations. for, i would have this amendment to offer is accepted by repealing the provisions of the 199 to pay for this come and i think everybody agrees that it's an important bill and it should be paid for, and this is a small cost of making sure that it's done, not only the right policy, but the right fiscal policy as well and i would ask for the committees support of this investment. >> does the gentle men insist on the point of order? spinet i would make a point of order on the amendment because it is not germane. the amendment violates the 16 and 17 because of the domestic manufacturing