vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the ayes are 98 and the nays are zero, and the

nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motions to reconsider be inquired made and laid upon the table, and the president shall be immediately notified of the senate's action. under the previous order, there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a cloture vote on the kadzik nomination. without objection, all time has been yielded back. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of peter joseph kadzik of new york to be assistant attorney general, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of peter joseph

kadzik of new york be an assistant attorney general be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the ayes are 54. the nays are 43. and the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: department of justice, peter joseph kadzik of new york to be an assistant attorney general.

mrs. murray: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: following my remarks and those of senator thune, i ask unanimous consent the senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings and the time during the recess count postcloture on the kadzik nomination with the time during the recess equally divided. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mrs. murray: i have seven unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent these requests be agreed to and be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from. mrs. murray: madam president, thank you. senate democrats have been focused on a lot of ways to expand opportunity and economic security for women and mothers in today's workforce. we've talked about the need to ensure equal pay for equal work, to make child care for affordable and to encourage pro--family workplace policies that help workers be good

parents and good employees. we've explained how each of these would give working women and mothers a better shot at success. but it is important to keep in mind that times have really chanked in the last few decades. today two-thirds of families with two children have two working parents. dads are taking a more hands-on role in raising their children and in means in many working families fathers are increasingly facing a hot of the same challenges that mothers do. in fact, more and more fathers report they are struggling to balance work and family. at a time when so many families need both parents to be at work in order to make ends meet, we cheiral need to update our policies so that both mothers and fathers can succeed at work appeared at home. so today, madam president, since it was just father's day, i asked a few dads to come in and speak with my colleagues and i about how some of the policies

often thought of as especially important to working women -- like affordable child care and paid sick leave -- would also do a lot for dads. and i want it thank them for taking the time to share their stories and their experiences with all of us because what we heard was really powerful. we heard fathers speak up about how family-friendly policies helped them raise their kids and meet their responsibilities at work. we heard from a dad who decided to stay home with his twins rather than pay for child care, because it was simply too expensive. we heard from a father and a small business owner who's made fair pay a priority at his business because he knows how fast those lost wages add up and how much equal pay can mean for a working family with a mortgage or student loans or car payments, or all three of those. madam president, what these fathers made clear is that the economic barriers we often see

as impacting women -- like inflexible workplace policies or the high cost of child care or unequal pay -- aren't just holding women back, they are holding 21st century families back. and there's no question in my mind they are a drag on our economy. that is why democrats are fighting for policies that would help hardworking mothers and fathers across the country. we are fighting to make sure women get equal pay for equal work, just like we made sure women don't get charged mured for health insurance, just because of their gender. we have legislation to expand access to affordable, quality child care and early education so that mothers and fathers can go to work knowing that their children are safe and thriving while they are away. we've also proposed raising the minimum wage so that parents aren't working full-time but still stuck in poverty and struggling to make ends meet. and democrats are also fighting to help our workers compete for

good jobs by bringing down tuition costs and ensuring workers can get the training and education they need. there is much more we can do as well. but any of those policies would go an enormously long way towards helping working families get the fair shot they deserve. this is why it's been so disappointing to see that when this comes to everything from paycheck fairness act to the raising of minimum wage for millions of our workers to help easing the burden of student loans, our republican colleagues have so far said "no." even though these policies are policies that would help millions of our working families and even though we know americans across the country strongly support these kinds of changes. i know they would serply mean a lot -- certain i had mean a lot to many of the fathers that i spoke with today. i just came here today to say that i really hope our republican colleagues rethink the approach they've taken on all these issues so far because

i believe, if we take steps to break down the barriers that working mothers and fathers are facing in today's economy, families across our country will have more opportunity and our country will be stronger, now and over the long term. and there is no reason for us not to get to work on these. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. thune: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: madam president, before i begin my prepared remarks, i'd like to just acknowledge my constituents in south dakota who are dealing with unprecedented flooding. we've seen historic amounts of rainfall already in the month of june that dwarf anything that we can compare to throughout our state's history. hail, winds, causing widespread

damage across the state, and not juniojust our state. there are states in the region as well that are experiencing some of these same circumstances and tremendous damage to property. and so i just wanted to express my thoughts and prayers to the people that i represent as well as to those in other states who are dealing with some of these circumstances, madam president, and to say "thank you" and express a prearks to our first read sponders -- express appreciation to our first responders who have been very much in demand and on call in the last few days. madam president, the american people are very tired, they're very weary, they're arguably fed up. "the washington post" headline from last friday summed it up. "obama's image hits record lows in trio of po polls." madam president, it is no wonder. five years ago -- five years i

should say after the recession supposedly ended, most americans still feel like they're in the midst of it. it is not just me saying that. the president's own federal reserve chair, janet yellen stated as recent as march, "the recovery still feels like a recession to many americans." and it also looks that way in some economic statistics." end quote. madam president, let's talk about some of those statistics. unemployment has spent the past five and a half years at recession-level highs. currently nearly 10 million americans are unemployed, more than a third of them for six months or longer. the labor force participation rate sat a 36-year low. a "usa today" editorial from last week noted, "the decline in the labor force participation rate is one of the most troubling trends of our time." end quote. of course, the labor participation rate, madam president, being the fraction of the available workforce that's actually working, or at least

looking for work. so what's driving that trend? americans so discouraged bid their failure to find job that they have literally given up looking altogether. thosthat's what's driving the td in the labor participation rate. now, even after accounting for baby boomers retiring and more people going to college -- and this is again from the "usa today" piece that i mentioned earler why -- this translates to 6 million people who could be working or looking for work. and as the paper points out, the lack of these workers in the workforce means a weaker economy, lower tax revenue, as well as greater governmental expense. young people just getting out of college face a bleak job market. the unemployment rate for young adults is a staggering 13.2% or more than twice the national average. the director of outreach for generation opportunity, a

nonprofit advocacy organization for millennials, recently stated that the more than four out of five recent graduates don't have jobs. currently, 36% -- 36% -- of young adults are living at home with their parents. it's no wonder that cnn/money reports that young adults aged 18-34 are most likely to feel that the american dream sun attainable with 63% saying it is not only unattainable, it's impossible. madam president, everywhere americans look, prices are rising. the price of everything from milk to the refrigerator has increased over the past several years. gas prices have almost doubled since president obama took office. college costs are soaring. and then there's obamacare, which has meant soaring premiums and huge deductibles for way too many american families. madam president, being in the middle class was once associated with financial security.

with a little prudence, middle-class families could be expected to see their kids through college and to retire comfortably. no more. in the obama economy, the future is is less secure. household becomes have dropped by $3,500 under the president's watch. wages have remained flat and economic growth has been tepid, at best. middle-class families are no longer looking forward to a future of economic security. instead, they are praying that they don't get hit with any unexpected bills. they're worrying that they won't be able to send their kids to college p. and they're wondering just how long they'll have to work past retirement to have the economic security they need. in a previous world, low-income families could smect that hard work could bring them into the ranks of the middle class.

how many of our parents started out lisk o living on a shoestrit ended up sending their kids to college and retiring comfortab comfortably? 14 million more americans are on food stamps today than when the president took office. policies like the obamacare 30-hour workweek are hitting americans the hardest. and many jobs lost during the recession are not being replaced. just 56% of the jobs recovered have been high- or mid-wage jobs. that means that almost half of the new jobs that have been created are low-wage jobs. that's not the kind of climate that enables upward mobility. and the woifl worst part, madam president, is it doesn't look like things are going to get

better anytime soon? "the new york times" reported last week, and i quote, "the federal reserve's persistently optimistic in its previous forecast said in march that it no longer expected a full recovery in the foreseeable future." let me repeat that, madam president. "the federal reserve said that it no longer expected a full recovery in the foreseeable future. four years ago president obama and his administration proclaimed the advent of the summer of economic recovery. president obama claimed that the country is shed heade headed int direction. vice president biden predicted in april of 2010 that sometime in the next coupling of amongsts we're going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and $500,000 jobs a month. in august of that yier, treasury

secretary tim knee geithner published an op-ed entitled emption welcome to the recovery." as the american people know, recovery summer never materialized. four years later the american people are still waiting. and according to the federal reserve, they're going to have to wait longer. in 200 9, the president's economic advisors predicted that unemployment would fall belo. the federal reserve bank p in san francisco has suggested that 6% un-imhoiment should be considered the new normal. well, madam president, i don't accept that. and republicans don't accept that. we don't accept 6.3% unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and struggling middle-class families as the new normal. because it doesn't have to be that way. we can get our economy going

again. but it's going to take something a lot different than the policies of the last five and a half years. it's going to take the kind of policies that ipolicies that res burdens instead of increasing them. it is going to take policies that encourage businesses to create jobs, not to cut jobs. and republicans have a lot of ideas about how it get started. ideas like repealing the obamacare medical device tax that has already killed tons of thousands of jobs and will kill thousands more, if it is not stopped. or restoring the 40-hour workweek so businesse businesseo longer be forced to cut employees' hours under obamacare mandate. or stopping the president's national energy tax which would make it more difficult for american fathers particularly low-income families, to afford gas, heating and electricity, or enacting trade promotion authority to open new markets to american farmers, workers, and businesses, and to create new good-paying jobs for american

workers. madam president, the list goes on. these are just a few of the ideas that republicans have to get our economy going again. and if democrats were serious about wanting to help american families, they'd be workin workh republicans to help us get legislation passed. madam president, we don't have to accept the president's economy as the new normal. chronic high unemployment, sluggish growth, massive amounts of debt. that shouldn't be the norm and we shouldn't be satisfied with it. republicans are going to be working every day to ensure that it isn't the new norm, and we will continue working until our economy is flourishing again and every american has the opportunity for a good job and a prosperous and a secure future. and we hope, madam president, that democrats will work with us toward that end. and it means opening up this floor on the united states senate to legislation that will grow our economy and create

jobs, allow us to openly debate, allow us to offer amendments, something that hasn't happened here since the last year. since july of last year there have only been nine republican amendments voted on on the floor of the united states senate. nine. nine amendments in almost a year. the ironic thing about that is the same procedures are being used to block republican amendments are also blocking democrat amendments. in that same time frame, democrats have only had seven amendments voted on in the last year. in the world's greatest be deliberative body, the place where we're supposed to have open debate, open amendment process, republicans have had nine amendments voted on. we could take it as a personal affront but that's not it. it's about the people we represent because they want us to come out and represent them and make sure their voices are heard on the debates here in washington on the big issues important to them and their families. when amendments are blocked and this process is shut down here

on the floor of the united states senate, it's the people's voices who don't get heard and don't get represented. that's got to change. and it needs to change soon because the issues are big, the problems and the challenges that face middle-income families in this country are consequential. and many of us in this chamber come here every single day hoping to offer legislation and amendments that we believe will be solutions to get the economy growing again and to create jobs. and every single day for the last year, at least, we've been shut down. we can do better by the american people. they deserve better, madam president. i hope we will do better and we can start now. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m.

omni's to serve and district court in washington, illinois and florida and advance the nomination of peter joseph ka i kadz kadzik. the senate will start consideration of several federal departments spending bills including funding for transportation, commerce, housing and agriculture. you can see live coverage of the senate on feretta when lawmakers return at 2:15 eastern this afternoon. from the associated press the pentagon says a militants, in benghazi is in u.s. custody. the capture marked the first time the u.s. has apprehended one of the accused perpetrators in the 2012 attack. he is a senior leader of the benghazi branch of the terrorist group that left the u.s.

ambassador in three other americans dead. the pentagon will hold a briefing on the capture this afternoon and 2:00 p.m. eastern, c-span3 and c-span radio will carry it live. president obama is in pittsburgh where he will be speaking at tech shop, a chain of local community based workshops for inventors and the entrepreneurs. you can see the president and the one:45 eastern on c-span.org. later the president will go to new york city for several events including a gay and transgendered gala sponsored by the democratic national committee. monday the president directed his staff to draft executive order that would ban workplace discrimination against lgbt employees of federal contractors. the president will speak at 8:00 eastern, you can watch it live on feretta. >> religion is a powerful identity forming mechanism. part of human society is figuring out who is us and who

is the them, who is my group and to is the other group. religion answers that question pretty easily. if you prey like me, if you eat like me, if you go to the same churches i do you are us. if you don't then you are them. you can see very easily how that kind of us/them in group out group mind-set can very easily lead to extremism, march generalization, i remind people religion may be the most powerful form of identity formation, just as powerful is violence. how do you know who is up or down? if you are fighting alongside me you are us. if you are fighting against me you are them. far from religion and violence been two things that are at odds and should have nothing to do with each other, as everyone knows throughout history, they are much more aligned than we would like them to be. >> reza aslan is the booktv in

depth desk, he will take your calls and comments starting at noon eastern july 6th. in the months ahead, august 3rd former texas congressman and republican presidential candidate ron paul. september 7th the former chair of the u.s. commission on civil rights and children's rights advocate mary frances berry. this month on our online book club discussing the forgotten man, a new history of the great depression. start reading and join others to discuss the book in our chat room at booktv.org. booktv, television for serious readers. >> republican senator and former white house budget director rob portman with ranking democrat in the house budget committee chris van holland outline the federal budget priorities speaking at the national press club in washington. this is about an hour. >> approach. >> basically mikeing from up

here. hi, everybody. welcome to the national press club. where news is made. i am bob weiner, the event coordinator for today's bipartisan, bicameral news conference by two national leaders on the federal budget future. our two speakers will address future federal budget priorities and methods to achieve them. they will cover areas the budget should attend to, programs that should or should not be funded and to what extent, usefulness and future of shutdowns and sequestration, strategies for bipartisan cooperation and action and projected timeline. only an hour. we think they will indeed make news by telling us what they think will happen and when and what they think will not happen, namely will we have more shutdowns that close portions of the government and will we have more sequestration that slices programs across the board without prioritization?

just how does this budget and funding process work any way? maybe they can tell the american people who have seen what to them looks like a house. and will that be improved in the near future? so it is a lot to cover in an hour. two expert leaders will speak 10 to 15 minutes followed by questions from the me as club members. now i will introduce our two speakers. congressman chris van holland is ranking minority leader meaning the democratic leader of the house budget committee. he was elected to congress in 2002 and beat some well-known people with big legacies. in addition to representing that eighth district of maryland and serving house leadership he was reelected by his colleagues in 2012 to serve on the house budget committee. in this position he serves as a key point person on budget and economic position for the democratic party. the washington post described chris as a bonafide budget

expert and the l.a. times that he is among his party's best budget minds. he gets near universal respect from his colleagues for his intellectual firepower and combination of policy and political tops. a few years ago he was a rising star. now he is just a star. van hollhollenwas recognized as best metro area at member of congress and the best local elected official by bethesda magazine. there may be some in congress today who have lost elections who will tell you local service recognition can be. an effort to pass comprehensive health care reform, young adults receive expanded access. he continues to lead the fight for the disclose act to end secret money in elections and champion bills on lobbying disclosure reformat whistle-blower discussions that

re-enacted. a former professional staff member on the senate relations committee and i empathize of a former staffer myself, van ho e hollen as a background in national security policy. maybe his interest comes from being the son of a former service officer. .. >> he grew up in a small business family where he learned early on the value of hard work, leadership and fiscal

responsibility. when rob was young, his dad, bill portman, borrowed money to start portman equipment company where rob and his brother and sister all worked growing up. his father and then his brother built the family business from a dealership with five employees with rob's mom as the bookkeeper to one that employed more than 300 people. that's a nice story, i really like that. rob became a lawyer representing small businesses n. 1993, rob was a partner in a since that thety law firm when he was elected to congress where he represented the second district in southern ohio. he served in 12 years, and in all seven elections, he never received less than 70% of the vote. during his time in congress, he was actively involved thiscrafting the historic welfare reform efforts and was an advocate of the balanced budget bill that passed in 1997. he gained the respect of both republican and democratic

colleagues through his bipartisan legislative initiatives including measures he authored to reform irs and add over 50 new taxpayer rights, curb unfunded mandates, reduce taxes and expand drug prevention and land conservation efforts. in the spirit of disclosure, it's his support for community anti-drug coalitions as a house member while i was the white house drug officer, drug office director of public affairs when we organized an event together in ohio that we first met and became friends, and now as a senator he represents my alma mater, overland college. in 2005 rob left congress when he was asked to serve as the united states trade representative, the cabinet level official responsible for u.s. trade policy. under his leadership, american exports increased, and the u.s. brought successful legal challenges against international trade law violations. following his accomplishments there, he was asked to serve in another critical cabinet post relevant to today's discussion,

director of the office of management and budget. he made his mark as a deficit hawk, proposing a balanced budget, fighting earmarks and putting in place new transparency measures for all federal spending. he was listed as the vice presidential high prospect in 2008 and 2012. and we wonder, will he also be in 2016? so the national press club is privileged to have two superstars here today and their staffs. caitlin dunn for senator portman and bridget frye for congressman van hollen have been immensely helpful and also display the kind of bipartisanship that we are seeking to augment today. i want to also introduce my wife, dr. patricia burg, who's professor at george washington medical center and i say has a real job looking for cures for cancer. and also i want to thank the

national press -- oh, and also rebecca vannedder lend if you'll raise your hand because rebecca will be carrying the mic around through the audience so the media will be able to take advantage of the questions from the audience. and i know that's important to crushes span also. and i -- important to c-span also. and i want to thank the executive director joe mccarron, and is though what st. john still here -- noah st. john still here? our audio people at the club. so we'll lead first with the senate, senator rob portman. >> thanks very much. and, bob's right, we have worked together in the past. we consider him an honorary ohioan, and it's always good to be with him. he works with barry mccaffrey who was our drug czar for a while, and he's worked with

republicans and democrats on the drug issue, and he has been an advocate for not the current approach to drug abuse and addiction, but rather one that focuses more on prevention, education, treatment and recovery. and i think this is one of the issues that although we're not going to talk about directly today, it's an example of something on the discretionary part of the budget that is getting squeezed more and more as we don't deal with the larger problem on the mandatory side of the budget. so as we're talking about that, maybe keep in mind that's an example of a program, for instance, like the second chance act that i authored ten years ago that's on the discretionary side that's under more and more budget pressure even though it actually is a program that is not a top-down washington program, and it actually saves money because it incomings states -- encourages states and localities to put in place prisoner reentry programs. and, in fact, some encouragement, and it's been

very successful in getting people into productive lives where they're taxpayers and taking care of their families and, of course, better for our communities, but also better for the taxpayer. so just an example, bob, of the kind of things we've been working on over the years that i fear is going to be under increasing pressure if we don't do something about our bigger problem. this is a nice turnout, i would have come thursday, if i were you. i looked at the web site, and the description for today and two budget wonks talk about the intricacies, whereas on thursday it's marion berry's idea. known as the disgraced mayor caught on camera smoking crack, marion berry jr. has led a controversial career, and he will be here on thursday. [laughter] i don't know why you're here, but thank you for coming. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. [laughter] i don't know, van hollen, maybe the two of us could make this

more interesting. [laughter] >> we've got to stick to budget stuff. that's what we're supposed to do. look, i've worked with chris a lot over the years, we were on the so-called supercommittee together which ended up being not so super, but it was a serious effort on behalf of some of us on that committee to try to find answers. we were not, ultimately, successful although, in fact, some of what we proposed you could argue later happened through sequestration, and what we really didn't get at was, again, this broader picture of how do you deal with the biggest part of the budget, now two-thirds of the budget which is called mandatory spending. within ten years the nonpartisan congressional budget office tells us that will be three-quarters of the budget be, so it's the fastest growing and the biggest part of the budget, so we have our work cut out for us. but, again, chris van hollen and i have had the opportunity to work together before, and i hope we'll have the opportunity to work together in the future to try to find common ground on this and other issues. this debt that we currently have

and the deficit is very serious and threatening to our economy. erskine bowles has said it's the most predictable economic crisis in our history, and i agree with him. the deficits are projected to top $1 trillion within the next decade, and yet it seems like it's off the headlines. [laughter] i want to thank the national press club for having this, because by shining a light on it and asking us to be here, it shows at least they believe this continues to be an important issue, and we ought to be talking about it more. some of us suggested, as you know, that because the deficit is only about $500 to billion this year that that's okay. and, first of all, $500 billion doesn't seem okay to me. when i was at the office of management and budget, bob mentioned that the deficit was $161 billion, i thought it was way too high. and that's why we proposed a balanced budget over a five-year period. so i think $500 billion is certainly not solving the problem. but it's also way too high

because we are looking at, again, trillion dollar deficits within a decade, and that's based on the congressional budget office analysis. it's due, by the way, entirely to the costs on the mandatory side of the budget. the vital but unsustainable entitlement programs. i'll talk about that in a second. and by the way, it's a pretty rosy scenario when you assume a trillion dollars a year in deficits a decade from now, it assumes no wars, it assumes no recessions, it assumes no terrorists attacks, it assumes interest rates are going to stay at relatively low rates, in fact, historically low rates over that period of time. so there's a lot of danger that the deficits could, in fact, be far higher than that. cbo projects a $10 trillion increase in debt over the next decade, so you go from roughly $17 trillion where we are today, at the end of this year it'll be $17.7 trillion to $27 trillion in debt 20 years from now. again, relatively rosy scenario.

so i hope nobody's declaring victory, and i hope we continue to keep this very much on the front burner and talk about how do we solve this problem. and the problem is entitlement spending. i do think most folks on both sides of the aisle now understand that, so i won't spend a lot of time talking about the math. i don't think it's a big mystery. i don't think it's a matter of ideology or point of view. i think it is a matter of arithmetic. the numbers are simply overwhelming. social security, health entitlements, net interest comprise just over half of the budget, and yet they're responsible for 86% of all new spending over the next decade. entitlement spending is set to double over the next decade. it will consume almost 100% of tax revenues within a decade. in other words, the entire discretionary budget from defense to health research to education to the second chance act we talked about, infrastructure, all of that would have to be funded through the nation's credit card because

every penny of revenue coming in will have to be used to pay for this expanding entitlement spending, again, over 100% increase on the entitlement side. so what do we do? well, we've got to act. we've got to do something to save these vital, as i said, but unsustainable programs. of -- and if we don't, we're not serving the very people who rely on them. social security already faces a $62 billion deaf set this year -- deficit this year. the cash deficit will be $62 million going out in terms of benefits than are coming in be in terms of payroll taxes this year. the primary trust fund will go bankrupt in just over 20 years which when you think about it, we're now at a point where those who are retiring today, most will be alive at a time when the social security trust fund goes belly up. and as you all know under law, that means a 25% cut in benefits

unless we change the law. so this is happening, you know, now to folks who are currently moving from work into retirement. social security trust fund goes bankrupt this 2017, just around the corner. the medicare trust fund in just over a decade. so, obviously, these programs need to be modernized, need to be reformed, and the longer we wait, the more painful those reforms will be. if we're going to do it, of course, we're going to have to take some tough steps, and it's going to take reaching across the aisle, and it's going to take both parties being involved. and just as was done back in the 1980s the last time this was done with ronald reagan and tip o'neill, each party's going to have to be to involved, in my view. there are a lot of myths about spending and entitlements and deficits, so let me attempt at least from my perspective to clear the air here today. i'm going to touch on five of what i think are the most persistent myths out there that

help to keep us from doing this important work, finding common ground and finding solutions. myth one, declining tax revenues are the problem. foghorn leghorn used to say in the cartoons, that's mathematics, son. and i think it is. he says, you know, you can argue with me, but you can't argue with figures. since 1960 tax revenues, regardless of the tax policy, have stayed at around 18% of gdp. so that's been the average, you know, is since the '60s. that's about to change. cbo projects revenues will exceed the historical average starting next year, and over the next few decades soar to the highest level ever as a percent of the economy. in terms of nominal tax easily, but i'm talking about percent of the economy. more specifically, individual revenues as a percent of the economy will shatter all records in the next decade. so within a decade be higher than it has been previously. and that's, again, the

congressional budget office, not me or some other partisan group. unfortunately, of course, spending soars even more. so those higher revenues, it doesn't keep up with the higher spending. spending about 20%, so revenue's about 18, spending's about 20, the cbo projects that health spending, net interest costs will drive that spending to 25, 30 and eventually 35% of the economy in the coming decades. cb be o used to have -- cbo used to have a baseline that i kind of liked which was called the alternative baseline that laid all this out. i think they said that would happen in the 2030s time frame. they didn't offer that last year, i'm sorry they didn't. but if you project the numbers out, the tax system simply can't keep up with the spending. in fact, you couldn't have an income tax system that collected taxes high enough to keep up with the spending. so i guess one way to say it is that cbo projects that entitlement costs and the resulting high interest on the

debt, those two things are responsible for 100% of the rising long-term deficits. even the highest sustained tax revenues in history won't come close to paying for that. if entitlement spending is driving this, then shouldn't the strong majority of reforms come from those programs? or should we just keep chasing record spending with higher tax levels? again, that's a race we're going to lose, because we can't keep up with it eventually. myth two, social security ask medicare recipients receive only what they pay into the system. i hear this a lot, i'm sure chris does too, from our constituents. for social security that's becoming more true, but the typical person retouring into medicare today -- retiring into medicare today will receive $3 in benefits for every $1 paid into the system. typically a couple retiring from anywhere in the country will have paid about $119,000 in lifetime medicare taxes and

premiums, premiums included, yet receive about $357,000 in lifetime medicare benefits. when you multiply that by about 77 million baby boomers, you can see why the medicare math doesn't make sense. myth three, social security and medicare trust funds will shield taxpayers from additional costs. the trust funds are an asset to social security, but they're also a liability to the treasury. so while the social security trust fund assures seniors that all social security deficits through 2035 will be funded, it doesn't provide any actual economic resources to do it. so the general fund still has to come up with trillions of dollars to fulfill that pledge. this that sense, the existence of the trust fund does not save current or future tack payers a dime. -- taxpayers a dime. during the clinton administration, the office of management and budget had a quote about this that i thought was appropriate, and in a moment

of candor, they said these balances are available to finance future benefit payments only in a bookkeeping sense, they do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future, instead they are claims on the treasury that will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public or reducing benefits for other expenditures. pretty simple. and i think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what the trust funds really mean. myth four, we can tweak our way to fiscal sustainability, making changes around the edges. grin, look at the math -- again, look at the math. social security and medicare face a combined $40 trillion unfunded liability over the next 75 years. that's trillion with a t. tweaks can't close that gap. you know, the recent expiration of the upper income tax cuts which the president was committed to close raised about $620 billion over the next decade.

and a lot of folks said that was going to solve the problem. it's a big sum, $620 billion. it's about 3.3% of the projected social security, medicare and medicaid costs over that same period. 3.3%, about one-thirtieth. on defense consistents forget just bringing the troops home, let's say we could permanently eliminate the entire department of defense, it would delay the reckoning by about 15 years. there's no plausible tax hikes or other spending cuts that could pay for more than a fraction of these entitlement costs. the entitlement themselves require fundamental reform. myth five, because obamacare's paid for, that makes it fiscally responsible. again, a new entitlement was started. some defend obamacare by saying that it's paid for, at least language all paid for -- almost all paid for by new taxes and medicare cuts. my view is that doesn't make it

any more fiscally responsible. a family that makes $100,000, they figure out a way to find $10,000 in savings through hard work, scrounging, bet tightening, and then they take that $10,000 and go to the hall and spend it. i don't think they'd say that the spending spree was justified because that $10,000 was paid for. i think we need to look at this in terms of particularly what it does to medicare. i think with regard to medicare we can debate whether the obamacare cuts are appropriate or not. cbo has recently said some of these provider cuts are unsustainable, meaning they won't be sustained by the congress, or unsustainable in their view under the health care system of our country, but let's take that aside, let's assume that was the right thing to do. the savings from obamacare was about $700 billion. if it's appropriate, shouldn't it have been used to deal with

this problem with medicare? some say, well, you can double count it. it just doesn't make sense. i mean, it was used to fund obamacare, and otherwise it could have been available for medicare reform. so facing these record spending and debt levels in obamacare that our government did scrape together 1.5 trillion in tax increases and medicare cuts. but then spent the entire amount on a new entitlement program. so this matters because the options from budget savings are pretty limited, and washington does affect the economy in a negative way. medicare providers can only cut so much before they just stop participating in the program. some have already, as you know. the antipoverty programs, education programs, veteran spending programs as well as entitlement benefits of the already retired have mostly been taken off the table by republicans and democrats. so the options are really pretty limited.

there are only so many programs that can be scaled pack or eliminated. is there waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government? of course. they pale in comparison to these costs we're talking about. so if washington keeps using its limited supply of realistic savings, there'll be nothing left for the so-called bargain. not a grand bargain, at least some kind of bar gain to deal with -- bar define to deal with entitlements and scale back the debt. the president's budget, $1.2 trillion in new taxes, is used to pay for his spending. the senate democrats prefer a tax increase which is called the buffett tax has been proposed as an offset to nearly a dozen proposed spending hikes. for those who follow congress carefully, you'll recall this happened again last week. the buffett tax was proposed to get another spending increase, not to reduce the deficit. the buffett tax would close, by the way, less than 1% of the budget deficit.

or zero, of course, if it keeps being used to offset new spending. it's, it's a struggle, frankly, as chris will acknowledge probably because we've worked on this together as did patty murray and paul ryan to find these savings. so, look, before i close let me just add one, i guess, point. we need to have ideas out there. it's easy to criticize the ideas when they come up. you know, paul ryan's budgets get criticized regularly, but they do balance in ten years. democrats don't have an alternative that does that. i often talk about means testing and medicare as an example where we could make a step in the right direction. does it solve the problems we talked about today? no. but it does take a step in the right direction. it's in the president's budget. be it does provide that folks who makeover $17,000 a year have

to pay more premiums under part b and part d of medicare. it saves about $60 billion in the first ten years according to the analysis that we have, probably 425-450 billion over the next ten years which is why it's the kind of proposal we ought to be talking about, because it has this expanding benefit to the debt and deficit that we ought to be looking for. this long-term problem can only be solved by those kinds of reforms. and yet we can't seem to even make progress there. and so my proposal today is let's make a commitment at least to take what's in the president's own budget and put that out as a spending reform here even this year. because it seems to me that's one where we should with able to find bipartisan consensus and take a small step towards dealing with these problems. i think this success begets success, and we cannot allow the current situation the continue without making some progress.

i raised this in the confirmation hearings recently with sylvia burwell when she was before our finance committee wanting to move from omb -- i don't blame her -- [laughter] to the health and human services job. and her response was, well, we can't move on that without a balanced approach. and when pushed, the balanced approach is, of course, raising taxes. and it's, of course, raising taxes on upper income americans, businesses who pay their taxes on the individual level. and i understand the balance sounds great, but think about this. think about the logic of this. we can't ask wealthier seniors -- by the way, over $170,000 a year is roughly equivalent to a $2.5-$3 million annuity. so we are asking people who i believe can't afford it given the situation we find ourselves in with medicare to pay more on their premiums for part b and

part d. but her answer was we need to raise taxes on those people in order to ask them to pay more in terms of premiums which is also revenue. makes no sense. there's no longic there. so i'm hopeful that we can make progress on these broader issues and come up with this grand bargain. i think this year's going to be difficult to do something grand. certainly next year is an opportunity for us, particularly the first part of next year before we get whole wholeheartey into the 2016 cycle. but in the meantime, let's take this small step together. let's take the president up on his budget, and the one thing in his budget that does deal with this entitlement concern that we talked about today. thank you all for being here today. look forward to your questions. [applause] >> we are honored by the president of the national press club, myron, who is here with us. anything you'd like to say, myron? >> [inaudible] >> here comes the mic. we're live on c-span.

>> i know senator portman. he's a fellow buckeye. always nice to see you. >> we adopted bob today too. >> very good. and you know the ohio state buckeyes are coming to maryland to play in october, so thank you, senator -- congressman van hollen also. the national press club has a motto, this is where news is made, and thank you to you both for helping news this morning. i don't want to take more than a moment of my time to thank you both, because i know everybody's eager to ask questions. [inaudible conversations] >> okay. congressman van hollen. [inaudible] >> there we go. >> well, first, let me start by thanking bob for bringing us together today. it's great to be back here, and thanks for all your leadership. myron, thank you for your stewardship here at the national press club, and it is great to

be here with my friend and colleague, rob portman. as he indicated, we've worked together on these budget issues. they are tough, they are challenging, and i am hopeful that at some point down the line we're able to resolve them this a more comprehensive fashion than we've been able to to date. we've had some piecemeal progress, but really what we need is more comprehensive progress on these issues. now, before i talk about the budget issues, i also served as co-chair of the bipartisan congressional soccer caucus, and i want to congratulate team usa on a terrific victory in the world cup. [applause] yesterday. and, hopefully, that's a sign of things to come. as everyone knows, they're in a tough bracket. also bob indicated that my father had served in the united states foreign service, and earlier in my career i was on the senate foreign relations

committee. i do want to say a word about iraq because when we look at the situation there, obviously it's a time of great chaos and uncertainty. and we've learned over the last week that when it comes to foreign policy pundits in washington, that there seems to be no accountability. because what we are witnessing in iraq is the fallout of one of the biggest foreign policy blunders the united states has ever made. and yet when i turn on my television or i look at the newspapers, i continue to see unrepentant architects of the iraq war offering advice today as to what we should do. and in my view, that's a little bit like asking the arsonist how to prevent fires. and i do hope that as we go

forward in this debate, we will have a little bit more accountability with respect to some of the pundits that are out there. and, of course, the iraq war is directly related to budget issues. we lost, oh, close to 4,489 americans. we've had over 32,000 wounded. and in terms of the budge cost, it's well over a trillion dollars up paid for. all on the credit card, all adding to our debt. so now let me turn to the budget and the economy. look, the good news is the economy has been steadily improving. we've seen a growth in jobs month after month. still, i think we all recognize that we could be doing better, and our focus right now should be on boosting job growth and boosting wages. that should be the priority in our budget process.

and we have one challenge immediately before us which is the transportation trust fund. the transportation trust fund is currently scheduled to have a big shortfall as early as august. what does that mean? it means the money coming into the fund is not enough to pay for current programs. and you're already seeing slowdowns in projects around the country. states don't know if they'll get paid, so they're much her cautious about bidding -- more cautious about bidding jobs out. and this is threatening thousands of construction jobs around the country. so priority number one when we deal with our budget issues shop addressing issues like that. the president has a plan in his budget not only to provide current funding for the transportation trust fund, but actually to boost investment in our infrastructure. it's a $302 billion, four-year plan. it is paid for largely by closing some of these special interest tax breaks that actually encourage american

companies to ship american jobs overseas. he would end those perverse and counterproductive tax breaks and invest those funds in jobs here at home in infrastructure development. unfortunately, the house republican budget has no solution when it comes to the transportation trust fund. it essentially assumes no more revenue coming in, and it assumes the shortfall coming up. now, there is a proposal in the house that's being put forward by the house republican leadership to essentially extend it by ten months, i believe, by ending saturday postal delivery on a permanent basis, permanently saturday postal delivery. that is not a long-term solution to our transportation trust fund issues, and we really should bite the bullet and make progress on there. on that. some other things we should do right now, we should deal with the huge burden on student debt

and loans. i think everybody here knows that student debt is now over a trillion dollars. that means when students are graduating from college and university, they don't have the funds to help by a new apartment or get a mortgage. they have to struggle simply to repay those debts. and be so the president's put forward a plan to relieve some of that. there was this plan that senator portman mentioned in the senate. if we're not going to do that, we should have an alternative to address this very important issue. we should be boosting our investment in science and innovation and early education. senator portman has a great proposal dealing with energy efficiency. that's a deficit-neutral proposal. we should adopt that in the senate and in the house. those are the kind of investments and initiatives that i think make sense. we should extend emergency

unemployment insurance. you now have more than three million americans out of work through no fault of their own. the congressional budget office tells us that extending that unemployment insurance will also create jobs between now and the end of the year. again, senator portman was part of a bipartisan agreement to pass that in the united states senate. it's now sitting in the united states house. we've asked speaker boehner for a vote on that measure, and the speaker has denied us the opportunity to have that vote. as he has also denied an opportunity to have a vote on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform. and there's a direct link between comprehensive immigration reform and our budgets. the congressional budget office tells us one of the things we can do to both grow our economy and reduce our long-term deficits is to pass comprehensive immigration reform. in fact, they scored, they analyzed and what we call scored the biartisan senate bill and said -- bipartisan senate bill

and said it's good for reducing the deficit over the next 10 and 20 years. which is why the president actually included the comprehensive immigration reform measure in his budget as did the house democrats. so that's an issue directly related to budget just as related to other things. and, again, speaker boehner is has not allowed us to have a vote either on the bipartisan senate bill or on a house bill that has been proposed by many of us. so those are some things we can do right now to help boost jobs and wages. another thing we can do to boost wages, of course, is to pass an increase in the minimum wage. we should do that now. in the state of ohio, they've indexed their minimum wage. we should do that at the federal level so that it keeps up with inflation, and we should have some catch-up provision. because right thousand the purchasing power of the -- right now the purchasing power of the

minimum wage is lower than it was when president truman was president. and we should pass equal pay for equal work legislation. those are two measures that we can take now that would also boost wages in the united states. now let me talk about the sequester and dealing with the long-term budget challenges. because we had a bipartisan agreement last december, we have some period of relative of calm when it comes to budget issues. we have an agreement that provides the top line numbers for discretionary spending for fiscal year 2014 which we're in now and fiscal year 2015 that begins in october. we've also set the caps for defense spending and nondefense spending. so we should be able to avoid that dispute at least going into fiscal year 2015. therefore, to answer your sort of query, bob, i would say that

prospects are good that we will avoid another shameless and unnecessary government shutdown this year because of that short-term agreement. but lurking below the surface be is -- surface is the sequester. and in fiscal year 2016 it's going to rise up and hit the country again unless congress comes together to resolve of that issue. i would like to see us resolve that sooner rather than later, before november, but i think the prospects of doing that are relatively remote right now. which means right after the midterm elections, that should be a priority. again, it's important to provide some certainty this having this sort of damocles in the -- sword of damocles in the form of a sequester will create unis certainty in the country -- uncertainty in the country, and the congressional budget office has indicated that because of some of the provisions in the

house republican budget, you'll actually see a drag on the economy in the short term, and i would hope we would avoid that. now in terms of dealing with the long-term deficits and replacing the sequester, the president has advocated what we call a balanced approach. the house democratic budget that i've advocated and proposed on behalf of my colleagues also calls for a balanced approach that involves reductions in spending, continued reductions in spending. we've already seen some significant reductions as senator portman alluded to, but we also believe there should be cuts in special interest tax breaks to help are deuce our long-term -- help reliefs our long-term deficits. and the you look at the president's budget proposal, it actually has less revenue over the coming years than simpson-bowles provided in their balanced plan. i want to say that again. the president's budget that was submitted to the congress has less revenue from closing tax

breaks than does the simpson-bowles proposal. because what simpson-bowles recognized was that there are about a trillion dollars a year in so-called tax expenditures. these are provisions in the tax code that provide for deductions and credits. some of them have good public policy purposes and should be kept. but some of them are simply there because a strong political lobby has succeeded in getting a special break for themselves at the expense of everybody else because when i get a break, it means everybody else pays more. and those should certainly be be on the table in terms of a long-term deficit reduction plan combined with looking at other things. and the unfortunate reality is, yes, paul ryan has budget. in fact, house democrats have a budget. but in the house republican

budget, they don't give a single tax break for the purposes of deficit reduction. not one. not one. now, if you actually look at the last times we've balanced our budget in the united states, it was four years. 1998 -- 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001. what was revenue as a percent of gdp during that period of time? it was over 19 percent. it was over 19 percent. yes, as senator portman said, right now it's about 18%. but the last time we actually balanced our budget it was 19%. and if you look at current congressional budget office projections at the end of the current ten-year window, revenue as a percent of gdp will still be around 18%. not where it was the last time we balanced our budget despite the fact that we will have tens of millions more americans on social security and medicare,

right? so we'll have tens of millions more americans on health and retirement plans, and yet the current projection is that revenue as a percent of gdp will be lower than it was the last time we balanced our budget in that four-year period. that doesn't make sense from a fiscal perspective. that's why we've called for a balanced approach going forward. now, let me just close, you know, with a little reflection on where we are now in the political process. because all those items that i listed that we should be doing now, in our view, unfortunately we've not even had a chance to vote on those things in the house. we've had votes on the budget alternatives but not on things like comprehensive immigration reform, not on the emergency extension, not on minimum wage, not on those other measures i

talked about. and, unfortunately, i don't see a high likely hood in the near term of us getting to move forward on those issues. and i fear that the situation in the house has grown even more difficult because the signal that was sent to the house republican caucus by congressman eric cantor's defeat was don't even whisper about compromise on these big, national issues to help move the country forward. don't even whisper that, or you'll be called a traitor ask called, you know, traitor to the cause. because eric cantor, for all our differences and, you know, i'm not predicting that we would have made a lot of progress on these issues before, but at least on things like comprehensive immigration reform he had expressed some openness to a conversation. and unfortunately, the signal that was sent in that election was don't even talk about those

issues, or you're going to be punished by right-wing talk radio. so i hope that, i hope that sort of moderate, reasonable voices can hold this conversation back on track, at least after the november election because that's what the country needs. we need to tackle these issues, and i'm hoping that once we get through the political season we'll be able to do that. in the meantime, the american public is going to have to make a decision as follows to the best way forward. so thank you. [applause] >> maybe you could both stand up here for the questions, and then we'll be able to give a little better presentation to the tv that way. well, let's make some news here. let me just lead it off with

this: am i right to understand that you both believe there will not be a shutdown even though nbc and others have reported that the debt ceiling is coming in august or is september? in your expert views, will we not have a shutdown by the end of the year, and will we have resolution that accommodates to get us past the election? yes or no, we can make some news here. >> yes or no. [laughter] no, i think because the ryan-murray budget agreement was put in place for two years, i think it's very likely we'll not have any kind of a government shutdown. i do think that this gives us an opportunity this fiscal year ends in september, and then we're into the final fiscal year of ryan-murray, so that's the time period, you know, i think early next calendar year we've got to deal with these issues that i talked about. and the obvious way to deal with it is to focus on the mandatory

side of the budget. ryan-murray did that, but frankly, they took all the low-hanging fruit and doesn't take on the tough issues -- and didn't take on the tough issues that deal with these important but unsustainable programs, medicare, medicaid and social security. and we also didn't do the tax reform we should be doing because we talked a lot about revenue as a percent of economy. chris and i have a difference of opinion that can be resolved by the congressional budget office because they're the nonpartisan arbiter here. i think our revenue as a percent of economy actually gets to record levels in the next couple decades and gets above that 18%. chris talked about the fact that we had 19% back in 1999, 2000, 2001. we also had about 18% when i was at omb, and we had, you know, a deficit of $162 billion, 1.2% of the economy. so we can get back there. but instead of talking so much about how much the taxes are a burden on the economy, we should talk about growth and pro-growth

tax reform by lowering the rates, broadening the base. could be revenue neutral; in other words, not have an impact from a static perspective, but from a macroeconomic perspective through growth. and, frankly, creating more jobs and opportunities for the american people would also reap more revenue, and that's what we ought to be doing as part of this discussion, i think probably realistically next year. what i talked about this year is let's just take the president's own budget and put in place as part of a continuing resolution, as part of what we'll have to deal with this year, maybe even as part of the debt ceiling, something that takes that first step, even a baby step, toward dealing with the programs where we have an agreement between democrats and republicans already, and that's a mean testing on medicare. >> okay. chris, shutdown? no shutdown? i think you addressed it. >> yeah. i think, i mean, fingers crossed, but more importantly as a result of the at least short-term bipartisan agreement, i think we will avoid a

shutdown. whether or not we will come together to work out all the separate appropriations bills is another question, but i believe we will avoid a shutdown. >> okay. and one other and then we'll go to questions. and, bill, i thought since we started a little late, maybe we can go until ten after? okay. the situation in iraq, you addressed it a little bit, chris. what's the impact of that on the budget? could iraq military action bust the budget? >> oh, it certainly could. there is, you know, there are two budget baselines, and the one that people talk about where you have defense spending that continues the spending we've had in reeves years which would be the current law baseline and current policy baseline is a little bit different. you know, it wouldn't the budget. but as a real matter, yeah. if we have an additional commitment there, it will cost

more. so regardless of what the baselines show, it could be an impact. i would just make the obvious point which is that if we'd had a status of forces agreement with iraq which is what many of us pushed for, and we were very disappointed we didn't have one, some of these prop problems could have been avoided. now, it's a dangerous world out there. and clearly, what's going on in iraq and syria and their related is part of a bigger issue we have to deal with as a country in terms of terrorism in this particular group, the isis group having ambitions well beyond item iraq. but having said that, not to have an agreement with iraq to provide for continued training, to provide for some sort of special operations response to terrorism to insure that iraqi government would be able to sustain it in terms of their national security, many of us felt that was a mistake. and we're hopeful that we are now learning, having seen the tragedies unfolding in iraq.

i saw on news this morning, you know, people being summarily executed and so on. we'll learn that as it relates to afghanistan and as we continue to withdraw from afghanistan. we do put in place an agreement with the government, the new government of afghanistan, to insure that we don't have these kinds of security problems that could have been avoided had we had, again, some training and some ability to respond quickly with a strike force from some -- [inaudible] within iraq. >> well, let me just quickly respond to a couple of those points. first, with the status of forces agreement with iraq, i think as everybody here knows, the maliki government rejected the proposal that we make sure that americans have, you know, are held harmless from any actions against them legal or otherwise,

and, you know, maliki said, no, and is i'm not sure we should have bent to maliki's wishes in that situation. second, i just urge all of you to go back and look at a great quote from dick cheney back in 1991. happy to provide it to you later where he's explaining why at the end of the persian gulf war when the united states went in to eject saddam hussein's forces from kuwait, why u.s. forces did not then go into baghdad. because the bush i administration was criticized by some for not taking advantage of the situation and marching into baghdad, and dick cheney posed the question if we do go into baghdad, what kind of government are we going to create? he asks is it a sunni government, a shia government, a

kurdish government? how long will it last, and what will happen when the united states leaves? he said the president made the right decision by not going too baghdad. and i think, you know, those who have followed events in that region over decade recognize that we essentially took the lid off pandora's box. and the idea that the united states can micromanage events in these parts of world, in my view, reflected a lot of hubris. not that we shouldn't engage. i'm an internationalist, but i'm not a serial intersensist. and i think that's -- interventionist. we do expect a status of forces agreement in afghanistan. and we should be careful in how we exit afghanistan. after all, the last time the united states left that region, we left after the soviets left,

and in that vacuum you did have chaos, and the taliban government took over and invited al-qaeda or allowed al-qaeda to become part of the country. and they, of course, launches attacked. -- launched attacks. with the respect to the budget issue, we have the overseas contingency fund. that fund is expected to come down in the, in fiscal year 2015. the president, while he submitted his budget, has not yet submitted his request for the overseas contingency fund. he has in recent weeks talked about setting aside $5 billion for certain other purposes. as you saw with respect to nato commitments, and some of our objectives there. but, certainly, events in iraq could have an impact on what that ultimate number is with respect to the overseas

contingency fund. we're going to have the defense appropriations will, at least we're expected to have it on florida how this week, and i'm sure we'll have lot of debate on these issues going forward. >> okay, questions? rebecca, where are we going? [inaudible conversations] >> thank you. this is -- [inaudible] longtime member of the club. concentrating on chris van hollen, chris van hollen is a very impressive personality, born in pakistan. we feel very hard. >> your question, please, we're short on time. >> and the question is on the five mythical things you had mentioned, chris, would you please respond to senator rob portman's five mythical thing? would you do that, please? so that makes the air clear. >> i think they weren't mystical, they were mythical.

[laughter] >> well, i have to say i didn't write them all down. number one which is, i think, the biggest issue that has stymied the negotiations at least from my perspective has been this december agreement over whether or not as part of reducing our long-term deaf it ises we're -- deficits we're going to have to have additional revenue contributions. achieved by closing some of these tax breaks, eliminating or reducing some of the tax expenditures, you know, and rob mentioned the simpson-bowles framework. i just want to underscore the fact, and i urge all of you to go take a look. the simpson-bowles proposal called for more revenue as part of its deficit reduction plan than the president's budget that is before congress today. so i'm glad that a lot of our colleagues have embraced the framework and balance in simpson-bowles, but sometimes

they leave out the fact that simpson-bowles included additional revenues generated from tax reform. they had tax reform, but they also had a tax reform proposal that generated significant revenue in the be -- positive. >> okay -- >> one comment. >> sure. >> we talked about closing loopholes today -- or chris is. i believe tax reform is urgent, and i say this because when you look at the democrats in the senate and closing loopholes, it has to do with the business tax code and taking individual parts and making away a presence. our corporate tax code is to uncompetitive and so inefficient that we are losing jobs of investment even as we sit here. some of you saw medtronics over weekend talking about doing what pfizer was talking about doing two weeks ago and what has

already happened with other companies including some ohio companies where they simply stop becoming a u.s. company because our tax code so onerous for them, they can become a foreign company. in this case they're talking about merging with a smaller company that's in a jurisdiction whether t ireland or the u.k. that has a lower tax rate and has a better international it can cam. and that's aping. what also is happening every day is u.s. companies can't peat. so if there's me competition for an acquisition or, again, based on their my usually isn't and whether they can complete with another kid from another company -- this is frightening. try to find an american-owned beer. biggest one is probably sam adam with 1% market share. the rest are all foreign owned because of our tax code.

once the challenge is made on that, i'm happy to talk to them about it. i've sat down with some of the members of these companies, and i will tell you, we've got to deal with it. so it's going to exacerbate that problem and result until more investment overseas. instead, we should reform the entire code, and that means getting rid of a lot of these preferences. in other words, these very loopholes we're talking about. but in the context of overall reform where you get rid of preferences, and as a result you able to lower the rate and come up with a more competitive international system that's consistent with almost all of our trading partners. we, unfortunately, in the united states are sitting on the sidelines while other countries do this. we're the only country that has not reformed our tax code, and zero suffering the consequences. who's suffering the most? the workers in these companies. congressional budget office says

blue collar workers are going to get higher pay, higher benefits and actually have a job. so we need to be very careful as we talk about let's get this loophole and that loophole. let's reform the code and help everyone -- >> let me just briefly respond to that because -- [laughter] actually, if you look at the president's budget, most of the revenue is generated not by closing the business tax preferences. if you're a millionaire, for every dollar of deduction you take, you get a 35 credibility men facility whereas -- benefit whereas if you're a middle income taxpayer, you get a 20%.

the president has proposed and i support the idea of corporate tax reform where we lower our rates and broaden the base. i mean, rob is absolutely right that at 35%, our corporate tax rate is not competitive. but our effective corporate tax rate is actually kind of average. the problem is that creates huge winners and losers within the united states. and so we need to find way to deal with that issue. i didn't support all of dave camp's proposal or most of it, but at least it was a professional effort. i would say that people who ran the fastest people who have made h.r. 1 meaning the first bill introduced in the house the top priority decided to run away from their own ways and means committee chairman when he actually put something on the table.

so, yes, let's do tax reform, let's simplify the code. but in the process, we also have to do what the bipartisan simpson-bowles commission did which is generate some revenue. >> okay, we're running out of time. we'll go one, two, three and that will be where we go. >> jonathan nicholson with bloomberg bna, this is for both you guys. the senate last week approved legislation to deal with the va that the cbo says could create entitlements of about $50 billion a year, unpaid for. the house last week did tax breaks that added on tom of other -- on top of other ones, about $360 billion unpaid for. these are getting bipartisan agreement, yet there also seems to be bipartisan agreement to not find ways to pay for these. why should joe schmo six-pack

voter think that either of your parties has an interest in deficit reduction given those two pieces of legislation? [laughter] >> great question. and, jonathan, it's beyond that because, again we're not going to things we should do to deal with the deficit and debt issue, and we're not paying attention to even the existing deficit. as i said, i appreciate this opportunity to talk about it today because most people think $500 billion here in washington is somehow we shouldn't worry about. of course we should, particularly when it's going to over a trillion dollars a year welcome back the next decade -- within the next decade or so. on the veterans issue, the understanding was, as you know, that we would conference that with the house. the house version of it scores as a lot less. there still is some emergency

spend anything the house version, so we need to figure out a way to work with the house to come up with something that's fiscally responsible. the congressional budget office's analysis of the senate bill was done about an hour before the vote which i think was a huge mistake. i think you need to have time to look at what the analysis is. some have challenged the cbo's assumptions that they make with regard to how many veterans will use the private system. let's have that debate, let's talk about it rather than rushing a vote so quickly after a cbo analysis. i was very discouraged, frankly, last week by that. and it put us all in a tough situation which wasn't necessary. we've got to take our time and legislate correctly. we now have the opportunity to work with the house because the two bills are quite different in some respects and come up with a more fiscally responsible. >> okay, chris? >> let me address both those

pieces first with respect to veterans. you know, i agree with rob that we're going to have to reconcile the senate and house piece of legislation, but we were dealing with an emergency situation, and we've got lots of veterans who, it turns out, have not been getting the care they deserve and have been promised. it is another example, frankly, of the costs of the war in iraq and the fact that it continues to impact the country in these ways because you have a huge influx of new veterans who have been severely wounded in many cases on the veterans system. i was at a veterans service discussion the other day. from now on when we decide to use military force, we should require costs to what the va for

fighting the war and wounded veterans. second very important question of -- did not go, wasn't that followed, i think, by many which is in the house over the last couple weeks the ways and means committee has passed tax breaks on these extenders adding over $500 billion to the deficit over the next ten years. >> chris, let me just break for a second. senator portman has to go because there are votes on the senate floor, so let's do the myron presentation -- >> all right. [laughter] >> myron? >> yeah. it's a tradition at the national press club to present to our distinguished speakers and visitors the traditional national press club mug. may you use it in those late night sessions appropriately. thank you both for coming and contributing to the success of the event. cheers. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, cheers. >> thanks. >> [inaudible] >> i'll just really wrap up.

i don't want to take advantage of the senate votes here. [laughter] so jonathan raised the point in the house last week we voted on a number of measures to permanently extend business tax preferences unpaid for. and if you look at all the bills coming out of the ways and means committee, that would add over $500 billion to the deficit. the house had to waive their own rules because it immediately made the claimed house republican budget out of balance, the budget they claimed to be in balance which, by the way, included a trillion dollars from the affordable care act in order to claim balance at the same time they said they were getting rid of the affordable care act. so it was already chock full of gimmicks, but even on their own terms, this would have put the house republican budget way out of balance in terms of the passage of these tax breaks that

were not offset, as you point out. and we made the argument on the floor that this is a violation of the house rules and the house budget. but to no avail. but hopefully, people will come to their senses over the next couple months. >> all right. well, we're close to concluding when we wanted to. the senate increased our leaf time, but thank you -- leave, but thank you very much for coming. this was an example of the kind of bipartisanship that we really all hope, as americans, to see in congress. so, representative van hollen and senator portman, thank you very much, and we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> the u.s. senate is back from their weekly party lunches at 2:15 eastern today. this afternoon we expect more work on 2015 spending bills