ina on this issue. >> are well then let me say thank you if you're doing more than what i perceive you're doing. >> well -- >> i want to follow up on something that you discussed with thune and then more specifically with senator scott. you spoke about a $1 million issue as far as the way the president's plan was going to work. when speaking with senator scott, you mentioned that $1 million threshold. specifically. is this an exemption, or is it a dividing point between determining what is or is not a small business? if a business is over -- then more specifically, if the business so over $1 million, are they taxed on the whole gain -- >> we'll leave the last couple of minutes of this program. you can watch it anytime at c-span.org. we now take you to the brookings institution in washington, d.c. where vermont senator bernie sanders is outlining his 12-point agenda that focuses on climate change, college

affordability, tax reform and health care. this is live coverage on c-span2. >> for those of you out there who want to comment on twitter the hashtag is sanders@brookings, that's at, not the @sign. i want to say at the outset before i do the formal part of the introduction that it is a pleasure to welcome a self-described proud democratic socialist here to brookings. you know these days the word "socialist" is thrown around as an end that the, and the socialists i know are insulted when president obama's called a socialist because they argue he is too moderate to be a democratic socialist. but the thing we forget is the vibrancy of the democratic socialist tradition in the united states. and bear in mind we're talking democratic, small d socialist ie scandinavia not the old

soviet union. and in the american tradition we're talking about people from eugene debs to michael thomas to people like barbara aaron right. this is a lively american tradition that has influenced policy in our country in a great many ways. and so it is refreshing to see, to have a senator who doesn't run away from a particular part of our american tradition. senator sanders is the junior united states senator from vermont. he's spent 16 years in the house of representatives, the longst-serving independent member of congress in american history. he's devoted his career to public service. the growing income gap and the shrinking american middle class. he's also been a strong advocate for rebuilding our nation's infrastructure and protecting our environment. he was also the mayor of burlington, and he is the ranking member of the senate budget committee and former chair of the senate committee on

veterans affairs. and i just want to note that we sort of worry a lot these days about congress being able to do nothing. and i think it's worth noting that when two sides are willing to seek agreement and are willing to recognize the urgency of government action, you can actually have things happen. and very recently senate sanders, with senator mccain and others negotiated a very comprehensive bill to deal with the problems in the v.a. medical system. so when we have senator sanders and senator mccain working together, we can produce miracles in public policy. and while senator sanders will not be talking about miracles today, i will close by saying that he is a fan of pope francis. welcome bernie sanders. [applause]

>> well let me begin by thanking brookings for hosting this event and thank e.j. for moderating and thank all of you for being here this morning. before i begin my remarks in trying to explain what's going on in our country and where i think we should be going, let me say a i few words about myself because my journey and how i got here is, to say the least, a little bit different than many others who have been on this platform. i was born in brooklyn, new york, in 1941. my father came to this country at the age of 17 without a penny in his pocket and without much of an education. my mother graduated high school in new york. my family was never really poor. my dad was a paint salesman. he never made much money.

my mother's dream was to get out of the three-and-a-half room rent-controlled apartment that we lived in throughout my entire life, but we never made it out, she never lived to see that dream. and what i learned as a kid is what lack of money does to a family. and the kind of stress and pressures that a family that doesn't have the money they need, what happens to them. and that's a lesson that i have never forgotten. my wife jane and i have been married for 27 years, we have four kids and seven grandchildren. and without being overly dramatic, the truth is that my involvement in poll the ticks -- politics has everything to do with what kind of country i hope that they will be living in. as the longest-serving independent in american congressional history, let me very briefly describe my political journey which is an unusual one.

i first came to vermont in 1964. in 1971 there was a special election to replace a senator from vermont who had passed away. and i ran for the united states senate on a third party called the liberty union party, and i received 2% of the vote. next year i ran for governor of the state of vermont, and i received 1% of the vote. [laughter] i was on the move. heading down. [laughter] two years later i ran for the senate. hadley remembers that race because i ran against him. i received 4% of the vote, and then i ran for governor in 1976 and received 6% of the vote. then i decided to give the good people of the state of vermont a break, and i stopped running for office. but five years later some friends of mine suggested that i could do well in a race for

mayor of the city of burlington which, as you know, is the largest city in the state of vermont. and in that race, i ran against a five-term incumbent a democratic mayor. i ran as an independent and nobody but nobody thought that we had a chance to win. nobody. in that very remarkable election -- and the point i want to make to you is a profound political lesson that i learned -- we did what is not done terribly much today we did coalition politics. and that is, we put together an extraordinary coalition of workers and unions, of environmentalists, of neighborhood activists of low income organizations. very first press conference i had was at a low income housing project of women's groups of college students. that's the coalition we put together. and that type of politics,

bringing people together around the progressive agenda is something that i believe was right then and i believe is right today. i should also state that that campaign for mayor cost something like $4,000 and in the process i personally knocked on thousands of doors in the city. on election night when the votes were counted we won the working class wards of thety by two to one -- of city by two to one, and we won the election by all of 14 votes. it was, in fact, the biggest political upset in vermont history. and after the recount the margin of victory was reduced to 10 votes. now, without going into any great -- actually, there have been books written about this -- i took office with 11 out of the 13 members of the city council, those were the democrats and the republican, in very, very strong opposition to my agenda. and trust me, if you think that the republicans have been

obstructionists to the president obama, you ain't seen nothing with what happened in my first year as mayor of the city of burlington. but what happened, and this is also a lesson that i've never forgotten, by doing what we could do despite the opposition and reaching out to people, what happened is a year later the slate of candidates that i supported won a huge victory against the people who were obstructionist. and the other lesson that i will never forget is that the year following when i ran for re-election we almost doubled the voter or turnout. almost doubled the voter turnout from what it had been when i first won. and the lesson that i will never forget and what i believe is that when you stand up for people and you keep your promise, people will, in fact get involved in politics. so i think it was true then, and

i think it's true today. um, in 1986 i ran for governor of the state of vermont as an independent, received 14% of the vote. 1988 i ran for the u.s. congress, and in that election i was told by my democratic friends that i would be a spoiler, taking away votes and enabling the republican candidate to win. in fact, the republican candidate did win with 41% of the vote. i got 38. democrat got 19%. two years later i ran again for congress defeating the incumbent by 16 points. in 2006 with the retirement of jim jeffords and with the support of democrats, i won vermont's united states senate seat against the fellow who i think was the wealthiest person in the state of vermont who spent three times more money than had ever been spent in our state previous to that. i received 67% of the vote.

in 2012 i won re-election with 71% of the vote. as mayor of burlington, my administration took on virtually every powerful special interest in the city, in the state. we had a very active city attorney's office. against the wishes of the develop ors and the railroad -- developers and the railroad, we created an extraordinarily beautiful people-oriented water front and bike path on lake champlain, we developed the first municipal housing land in the country an idea that has spread worldwide. we won national recognition for urban beatification by planting thousands of trees throughout the city often using a lot of volunteers to make that happen. of we made major improvements in our streets and sidewalks, we implemented the largest environmental program by preventing unat leasted waste from going into the lake.

we started a youth office which created an extraordinary daycare center, after school programs and a sustain center, all of which -- and a teen center all of which 25, 30 years later are still in existence today. we were the first city in vermont to break our dependence on the regressive property tax. we made major changes in the burlington police department to move toward community policing. we started a very active and successful arts center and women's council. and i say all of that to invite all of you to burlington and the state of vermont. [laughter] it's a beautiful place to visit. in 1990 i became the first independent, nondemocrat nonrepublican elected to the u.s. house in 40 years. during my first year there along with four other house members we put together the congressional progressive caucus which today is one of the largest and, i think, more effective caucuses in the house. one of my first votes in the house was a vote against the first gulf war. i believe that history will

record that that was the right vote as was the vote i cast years later against the war in iraq, a war which has cost us many thousands of brave young men and women untold suffering for those who returned and has driven up our national debt by trillions of dollars. it has also -- that war in my opinion -- has also opened up the can of worms which we now see in that region of the world in which we are trying to deal with today. while a member of the house financial services committee, i was one of those leading the fight against the decan regulation of wall street. and i will never forget having alan greenspan up there are visiting the committee, telling us how great deregulation was. i didn't buy it then, and i don't buy it now. i also opposed the free trade agreements that came down the pike nafta, cafta permanent normal trade relations with

china. i never believed then and i don't believe now that forcing american workers to compete against people who make pennies an hour is a good thing for the united states of america. while in the house i took on the pharmaceutical industry, and the outrageous prices they charge our people. and how it is that they end up charging us far higher prices for the same products than do the people that are charged to the people of any other country. the was the first congressman to take americans over the canadian border and will never forget women buying the same exact breast cancer drug for one-tenth of the price that they were paying in the united states. as a united states senator and former cha i remember of the -- chairman of the veterans affairs committee as e.j. just mentioned, i worked hard in a bipartisan way with republicans in the senate a number of senators including senator mccain jeff miller in the house on what turns out to be one of the more significant piece of veterans legislation passed in recent years.

i also led the effort with representative jim clyburn to put some $12 billion into federally-qualified health centers which has result inside some four million americans -- resulted in some four million americans, lower income americans now getting health care, dental care -- which is a huge issue in our country -- low cost prescription drugs and i'm proud of that. with senator bob menendez, i helped pass the energy efficiency block grant program which put billions of dollars into weatherization and sustainable energy as we do our best to try to reverse climate change. now, that is my life and political history in five minutes. let me get to something more important now, and that is the future of our country. on saturday just this last saturday, i had been invited to speak in harrisburg, pennsylvania and my friend and i were driving back to d.c. and we drove through gettysburg and we stopped there for a while at the battlefield of monuments and

the museum. and while we were there we, of course saw the lincoln statues, and we read from his gettysburg address. and you all know about lincoln's extraordinary gettysburg address where he said a hell of a lot more than i said in ten times as much time as he said it. but he said a hope that this nation would have quote a new birth of freedom and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth end of quote. what an extraordinary statement. and as we drove back from gettysburg to washington, it struck me hard that lincoln's extraordinary vision -- a government of the people by the people for the people -- was, in fact perishing, was coming to an end and that we are moving

rapidly away from our democratic heritage into annal backerric form of -- annal backerric form of society where today we are experiencing a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires. today, in my view the most serious problem we face as a nation is the grotesque and growing levels of wealth and income inequality. this is a profound moral issue it is an economic issue, and it is a political issue. economically for the last 40 years the great middle class of our country, once the envy of the world, has been many decline. has been in decline. despite, and here's the important point to make that we have got to answer, despite an explosion of technology, can despite a huge increase in

productivity, despite all of the so-called benefits of the global economy, millions of american workers today are working longer hours for lower wages and we have more people living in poverty than almost any time in the history of our country. today real unemployment is not the 5.7% you read in the newspapers, it is 11.3% if you include those people who are working part time when they want to work full time or those people who have given up looking for work entirely. we don't talk about it. pope francis does, by the way. but we don't talk about the fact that youth unemployment in this country is 18% and african-american youth unemployment is nearly 30%. shamefully, we have by far the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth. i hear a whole lot of discussion

about family values from my republican friends but nothing about the fact that almost 20% of our kids are living in poverty. despite the modest success of the affordable care act, some 40 million americans continue to have no health insurance while even more are underinsured with high deductibles high co-payments, high premiums. we remain today the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right ask can yet we end up spending almost twice as much per perp on health care -- per person on health care as do the people of any other nation. now, as all of you know, there are a lot of angry people out there. all across the country. some of them are in the occupy wall street movement and consider themselves progressives, some are in the tea party movement and consider themselves conservatives. but let me give you an

explanation as to why they have every right in the world to be angry. since 1999 the typical middle class family, the family right in the middle of the economy, has seen its income go down by almost $5,000 after adjusting for inflation. incredibly that family earned less income last year than it did 26 years ago back in 1989. the median male worker that guy right in the middle of the economy, made $783 less last year than he did 42 years ago. while the median female worker earned $1300 less last year than she did in 2007. that is why people are angry. they're working longer hours for lower wages, they're seeing an explosion or technology they're

watching tv and seeing all the great benefits supposedly of the global economy and they're working longer hours for lower wages, and they're scared to death as to what is going to happen to their kids what kind of jobs are their kids going to have. are we better off today economically than we were six years ago when president bush left office? of course we are. but anyone who doesn't understand the suffering, anxiety and fear that the middle class and working families of our country are experiencing today has no idea about what's going on in the economy, and i fear very much a lot of the pundits here on capitol hill don't understand that. it might be a good idea to get off of capitol hill, go into the real world and find out what's going on with working people. meanwhile, while the middle class continues to disappear, the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well, and the gap between the very very rich and everybody else is growing wider

and wider. the top 1% now own about 41% of the entire wealth of the united states while the bottom 60% own less than 2% of our wealth. and this one is incredible. today the top one-tenth of 1% -- that is the wealthiest 16,000 families -- now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. one-tenth of 1% owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. is that really what the united states of america is supposed to be about? i don't think so and i don't think most americans think so. today the walton family the owners of walmart, and the wealthiest family in america are now worth about $153 billion. that one family owns more wealth than the bottom 40% of the

american people. in terms of income as opposed to wealth, almost all of the new income generated in recent years has gone to the top 1%. in fact the latest information that we have shows that in recent years over 99% of all new income generated in the economy has gone to the top 1%. in other words, for the middle class gdp doesn't matter. 2% 4%, 6% doesn't matter because middle class and working families are not getting any of it. it's all going to the top 1%. in other words while millions of americans saw a decline in their family income, while we have seen an increase in senior poverty throughout this country over 99% of all the new income generated goes to the top 1%. an example an example the top 25 hedge fund managers made more than $24 billion in 2013.

that is equivalent to the full salaries of more than 425,000 public schoolteachers. anyone really think that is morally acceptable economically acceptable? is that really what our country should be about? but income inequality is not just the moral issue of whether we are satisfied about our country where we have seen a proliferation of billionaires at the same time as millions of families are struggling to make sure they're automobile to feed their kids -- able to feed their kids, it is also a profound political issue. as a result of the disastrous supreme court decision the 5-4 decision on citizens united, billionaire families are now able to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars

to purchase the candidates of their choice. the billionaire class now owns the economy k and they are working day and night to make certain that they own the united states government. according to media reports it appears that one family -- the extreme right-wing koch brothers -- are prepared to spend more money than either the democratic party or the republican party in the coming elections. in other words, one family, a family which is worst about $100 billion, may well have a stronger political presence than either of our major parties. now, i know that people are not comfortable when i say this but i want you to take a hard look at what's going on, take a deep

breath and you tell me whether or not we are looking at a democracy or whether or not we are looking at an oligarchy. when you have one family that has more political power than the democratic party, than the republican party which can spend unlimited sums of money not only on campaigns but on think tanks, on media, i worry very very much about the future of democracy in our country. and that is why it is absolutely imperative that we pass a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united and, in fact, why we must move forward toward public funding of elections. i want young people out there, whatever their point of view may be, who like the idea of public servants to be able to run for office to get involved in politics without having to worry about sucking up to billionaires

in order to get the support that they may need. now, given the economic crisis that we face -- i talked a little bit about the political crisis given the economic crisis and i laid out a little bit of what that's about where do we go? what should we be doing? how do we rebuild a disappearing middle class? last month i introduced a 12-point program that's i called -- that i called an agenda for america but relate me briefly summarize it. first of all you ask the average american what the most important issue he or she is concerned about, and the answer is a four-letter word called jobs. we need a major federal jobs program to put millions of americans back to work. the fastest way to do that is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, our roads, bridges, water systems wastewater points, airports railroads and schools. it has been estimated that the costs of the bush/cheney iraq

war with a war we should never have waged, will total $3 trillion by the time the last veteran receives needed care. a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure could support 13 million decent-paying jobs and make our country more efficient productive and safer. and along with senator barbara mikulski i introduced that legislation two weeks ago. further, we must understand that climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and it is already causing devastating harm. we must listen to the scientific community and not fox tv and lead the world in reversing climate change so that this planet is habitable for our children and grandchildren. and what that means that we have the technology to do it, transform our system from fossil fuel to energy efficiency, weatherization and sustainable energies like wind solar

geothermal and other technologies. and when we do that we not only lead the world in reversing climate change, we can also create many jobs. we not only need to create jobs in this country we need to raise wages. the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage. we need to raise the wage to at least $15 an hour over a period of years. no one who works 40 hours a week in this country should live in poverty. we must also demand pay equity for women workers who today earn 78 cents of what their male counterparts make for doing the same work. we must also end the scandal of overtime pay. we are people at mcdonald's who make $25,000 as quote-unquote, managers who make 60 hours a week but because they are managers, they don't get overtime. further, we must make it easier

for workers to join unions by passing card check legislation. ..

in order to get good paying jobs. all of you know the hundreds of thousands of young people have literally given up on the dream of going to college while others are graduating schools deeply deeply in debt. a result of that crime is that she is $300,000 in debt. that is nuts. and we have got to learn countries like germany scandinavia, many parts of the world people are smart enough to understand that the future of their countries depends on their education their young people get, their college education in graduate school is free. we have got to learn that lesson. free public education does not have to end at high school. president obama is, president obama's initiative for two years of community college is a good

start. we have got to go further. further we cannot run away from the fact that the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on wall street caused the worst economic downturn in this country and, in fact the world since the great depression. that's a fact. i know it's easy not to talk about it but that is the fact. today six huge wall street financial institutions have assets equivalent to 60% of our gdp. close to $10 trillion. if teddy roosevelt, a good republican, were alive today i know what he would say. and what he would say is that when you have six financial institutions issuing half the mortgages and two-thirds of the credit cards in this country, it is time to break them up, and i've introduced legislation to do just that. in terms of health care we have

got to grapple with the fact that we remain the only country without a health care program. right now, in fact i say in this as the ranking member of the budget committee, my republican colleagues are going to begin their effort to try to cut social security benefits. they're going to start off with disability benefits and go beyond that. in my view, at a time when senior povertity is increasing -- poverty is increasing, people are trying to get by on $12 $4,000 a year -- $14,000 a year. we should not be about cutting social security benefits, we should be about expanding those benefits. as i mentioned a moment ago, we need a progressive tax system in

this country and an effective tax rate. it is absurd that we lose $100 billion a year revenue because corporations and the wealthy stash their money in offshore tax havens like the cayman islands, bermuda and other places around the world. the time is now for real tax reform. so let me conclude by saying this: the struggle that we're in now is not just about protecting social security or medicare or medicaid or making college affordable to our kids or raising the minimum wage. it is something deeper than that. it is about whether we can put together a vibrant grassroots movement all over this country which says to the billionaire class,çó sorry government in this

country is going to work for all of us and not just the top 1%. thank you very much. [applause] >> for the cameras i've got to connect. hold on. >> we connected? thank you, senator sanders, for that carefully-hedged, cautious political speech. [laughter] >> i was very quiet. this is brookings -- >> yeah. >> and i didn't want to -- >> this is a moderate version of the speech. i have a whole lot of questions

i would like to ask. i'm going to try to limit myself to a few, and can then i want to bring -- and then i want to bring in the audience. i am going to have a bias. i'm going to ask members of the media to ask questions because they're bringing this to other people, but i will open it up to everyone before we're done. i want to start with one philosophical and one political question. the philosophical question is what do you actually think of the market economy? you know, in this long list of proposals you do not propose you know, public ownership of the means of production distribution in exchange, and you are very critical of the way capitalism works. but what is your view of the market economy in general and capitalism in particular? >> well, in that regard i think i come down somewhere where pope francis is. who i think, by the way, has

played an extraordinary role in the last several years in raising issues internationally that have not been raised by such a prominent figure. i think casino capitalism, runaway capitalism which is what we are experiencing right now, is a disaster. there is no way to defend internationally the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 90% of the world's population. i think it's impossible to defend that. it is impossible to defend the incredible inequities that we see in american society today. what i believe when i talk about these issues what i look at is countries like den mark, and we have -- denmark, and we have the danish ambassador coming to vermont a year and a half ago,

and it's not that the government is going to take over every mom and pop store. that is not what we're talking about. but what we are talking about is that in a democratic civilized society, the basic necessities of life should be available to all people. not a radical idea. it exists in scandinavia and elsewhere. should everybody have a right the health care? the answer is yes. should everybody regardless of their income, be able to get as much income as they need? the answer is yes. in the united states when you have a baby, we managed some years ago to do the family and medical leave act, and you get three months off if you work for a large company without pay. how many americans know that all over the world that women get six, eight months off with three-quarters pay in order to bond with their babies? when you get old, you should have strong retirement security, stronger than we have right now. so e.j., capitalism does a lot of good things. it creates wealth, you've got a

lot of vibrant, small businesses entrepreneurs that are coming up with fantastic ideas, that is great. but we cannot at the end of that process have these situations where a handful of people own so much and so many people have so little. so the government plays a very important role in making sure that all of our people have the opportunity to succeed in life. >> now you hint at this, but i'd like you to be more specific. this is a very ambitious program, a trillion dollar investment in infrastructure broader rather than narrower social security, free higher education and so on. how are you going to pay for this? >> well, it addresses the issue of income and wealth inequality, and you're doing two things at the same time. in terms of social security, everybody in this room understands that if somebody's making ten million a year somebody is making $118,000 a year, both people are paying the same amount into the social security trust fund. if you simply lift the cap and begin taxing at $250,000, you

will extend social security for decades and be able to expand benefits. in terms of other infrastructure, for example, we are losing about $100 billion every single year because corporations and wealthy people are stashing their money in the cayman islands and elsewhere. real tax reform should be used for infrastructure and education. >> um, there is many years ago two folks you probably disagree with, but they made a very interesting point richard stanton and ben wattenberg said the problem with liberals is they often come along and say our programs have failed, let us continue. and i raise that quote because while you do say that we are better off economically than we were six years ago, you have a pretty tough litany of what's wrong with the economy as it exists. the real unemployment rate is 11.3%, youth unemployment 18%.

i'm sorry 30 -- and african-american unemployment 30 percent and so on. yet you voted for a number of programs to try to get the economy moving including the recovery act otherwise known as the stimulus. if somebody listens to you and says, you know, bernie sanders is saying that the programs of the last six years haven't worked, what do you say back to them? >> compared to what? you know i think history, and, you know i was on the floor eight and a half hours a couple years ago in opposition to president obama's tax proposal so, you know, i have been very critical of him. but i think what you will find is history will judge president obama a lot better than his contemporaries have. i'll tell you programs e.j. that have not worked, and that is trickle down economics. trickle down economics, which means tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, deregulation of wall street, etc. etc., has been a grotesque failure. and any economic analysis will

suggest that that is true. has the obama program, has the stimulus percentage worked? of course it worked. it created millions of jobs at a time when we desperately needed those jobs. so i would argue in terms of infrastructure, putting money into infrastructure and creating jobs, it's not a question of whether it works how do you ignore the fact that our infrastructure is crumbling? so i am proud to defend in terms of single payer, health care. i live 100 miles away from the canadian border. they have a conservative premier, they have a single-payer health care system because it is more cost effective, provides health care to all of their people. >> but more generally i mean i guess when you look back on the last six years, what would you have done that we didn't do to get the economy moving to deal with some of the problems you're talking about here? >> i would have been stronger

than president obama in a number of areas. i think he missed the opportunity politically of doing what roosevelt did when he was elected. and making it clear to the american people what is happening and why is it happening? when he was elected, this economy was on the verge of collapse, financial system maybe wouldn't make it. and at that point what he should have done is what roosevelt did. he should have looked in that camera and said -- what roosevelt said was the economic realists hate me, and i'm going to take them on. i think that's what president obama said. these people have destroyed millions of lives because of their greed and recklessness. i will take them on, ask is we're going to rebuild -- and we're going to rebuild an economy so that it works for all people and not just for the economy. i voted for the affordable care act. we managed to get $12 million

into community health certains very important. i would have gone forward trying to fight for a single payer or at least greatly expanding medicare making it simpler more inclusive. >> and what do you say to folks who put a heavy emphasis now on the cost of retiring baby boomers? in other words basically you're saying that if we simply lift the cap, we can cover that problem. is that your answer to that critique? >> we are exactly where people anticipated we would be when the last social security adjustments -- no great surprise, people can add. they do know demographickings. and right now just -- demographics. just a couple of points on social security, because there's a lot of misinformation that dose out there. social security is not going broke. there's $2.8 trillion can pay out every benefit for the next 18 years. social security, obviously, doesn't add to the deaf fit because it's paid by an independent source of revenue, the payroll tax. so the answer is, yes, should we strengthen social security? absolutely.

and the way to do that is to lift the cap. i would start at $250,000. >> is there a place for something like wall street in a bernie sanders economy? >> well, look, banking plays an important role, obviously in our society. and in that i am pretty conservative. what banking is about, traditional banking is i work, i make money i put it in the bank. i get a guaranteed interest rate, the bank then invests money into the economy. what has happened in recent years is something radically different. wall street, instead of being the grease for the economy taking money in and getting it out to small businesses, medium-sized businesses, what wall street has become is an island unto itself where its goal is to make as much money as it can in however way that it can do it. and i don't want to, again, you know, try to be, you know too dramatic here.

i happen to believe that the business model of wall street is fraud and deception. and as you know, recently you pick up the papers every single day there's another large bank that is fined reaches a settlement with the government. so their job is banking plays an important role. it helps get money out to the economy. the businesses that are producing products, producing services. that is what we want from a banking, the banking community. we don't want a small number of people coming up with incredibly complicated, speculative dangerous financial tools. and then when it all goes down the taxpayers of this country bail them out. that is what we don't want. >> by the way the headline on the event so far is bernie sanders calls himself "pretty conservative." [laughter] i just wanted to note that. ..

when climate change threatens not only this country but the entire planet, when you have a handful of billionaires in the process of buying a united states government and our particle system, i think it is important with candidates who stand up for the working comes of this country who are prepared to take on the big money interest. i am giving serious thought -- don't tell my wife actually. she doesn't necessary agree. >> tell her to turn off the tv right now. >> on the other hand, i also want to say when you take on

the billionaire class, it ain't easy. and if i do something, i want to do it well and it's important not just for my ego i do it well it's important for millions of people who share the same set of beliefs that i hold. so to do it well we would have to put together the strongest grassroots movement in the modern history of this country with millions of people are saying, you know what? enough is enough. we are going to take on the billionaire class. we're going to have a government that starts working for working values rather than just the top 1%. to be honest with you, i am going around the country and talking to a lot of people. a lot of people coming out. there is a lot of sentiment that enough is enough. that we need fundamental changes, that the establishment the economic or political or the media establishment is failing the american people. account feeling i'm going to have decision on the draft

reaches whether that willingness to stand up and fight back. if it's not i don't want to run a futile campaign. i want to run. we need millions of people actively involved. in terms of money that's all other so -- story. this is out absurd the stories. if you had a candidate who reached out and generate a lot and you had 2 million people, we are going for 100 bucks into the campaign, and by the way in my senate race you know my average contribution was? $45. if you had 2 million people putting in 100 bucks that $200 million, that is 20% of what the koch brothers themselves are prepared to spend. can you take that on? i don't know the answer. maybe the game is over. maybe they have bought a united states government. maybe there is no turning back. i don't know. i surely hope not but we have to look at that reality. >> last on that issue, when

candidates run for president, they often have two objectives. the first objective obviously is to win the nomination of election but there've been plenty of candidates in our history who have won to advance an agenda even when they didn't win. and so obviously you've had to have thought about both sides of this equation if i run and when i run and win. but if i run and lose how can i have an effect on the agenda of the winning candidate which at this point under -- on the democratic side we assume will be different understanding -- will be hillary clinton. can you analyze the politics? i think the politics limited measure trying to advance an agenda not simply win an election spirit if i do this and people have to appreciate how difficult a decision that is but if i make the decision i would be running to win. but having said that let me also

take something about myself. you are looking at a candidate who ran four times for mayor eight times for the house and place for the senate. you know how many negative ads i run it during the whole period? zero. never read a negative ad in my whole life. negative ads disgust me. in my state they don't work. if i run and if secretary clinton runs what i would hope would have is that we would have a real choose debate this is a woman i respect clearly a very intelligent person why think is impressive in issues by the way. i think we have a debate about how you rebuild a crumbling middle-class. a debate about how you reverse climate change, a debate about the foreign policy in the wisdom of the war in iraq and how we deal with what we deal with. a debate about trade policy. a debate about wall street, and that would be i think good for

the american people, to be honest with you. but it is not my style to trash people. it is not my style to run ugly, negative ads. >> which you reregister as democrats be? that's a decision i get to me. as i go around the country there are a lot of people who say look republican party, democratic party, we are the same. you've got to start outside of the two-party system. a lot of people feel that way. and other people do and say you've got to run to you been in the democratic caucus, and if you want to go where the action is and you want to be in the debates and to want to get media attention, you've got to run within the democratic caucus. >> we have a lot of voices. by the way, as i begin with a journalist first and i want to have my colleague david likes of, at any point if you want to jump in now or later -- david

wessel. who among journalists who are here would like to ask a question? right in front. hold on. say it again. >> been shrunken sure from political. does the pressure to comprise up to hillary clinton make it harder for you to introduce or sell to voters on their own terms? >> well, i'll tell you a funny story. i do a number of interviews. often i do when doing today, talk about the issues that if you are important and some were at the in sum has asked the question that hillary and i try not to attack her. usually no matter what i say becomes hillary clinton. so to answer your question, to me if i run what i am running on are the issues i talk to you about today, issues by the way which i think the vast majority of the american people understand and support. clearly in terms of hillary clinton, her name recognition is about 10 times greater than money.

if i run it will take a lot of work getting around the country, introducing myself to people. but i would say this and this is the interesting point if i may. when you look at the republican agenda which boils down to more tax breaks for billionaires and large corporations cuts in social stratum medicare medicaid and education, what percentage of the american people do you think support that? i would say, 10 15% but when you look at my agenda, massive jobs program to put people back to work, rebuild our infrastructure, raising the minimum wage tackling climate change, we have a lot more support. so the question is how we get out the people and how we bring people together to go forward. >> and do you do the working families endorsement of elizabeth warren as a setback? >> i'm not sure senator warren is going to be running. >> be have a thought on senator

warren? >> i knew elizabeth warren before she was elizabeth warren. [laughter] she was a mere brilliant harvard law school professor. we brought senator, well elizabeth warren to the town meetings and she blew me away with her ability to deal with complicated economic issues in a language that people could understand. we had meetings around the state. i'm a fan of elizabeth warren and we worked together on a number of issues. >> way in the back. >> thank you. kevin with the hill. i'm wondering if senator warren, she says she's not running for president if she were to get in the race, would that change your plans at all for 2016? >> this is kind of what media does. like to speculate. you will forgive me, i'm not much into speculation. >> mark, you want to come in? mark shields in the middle. welcome, mark. great to have you here.

>> thank you, e.j. thank you, senator. no one which issue of being morning in america with your presentation today. >> with a you may be spent but what does give you hope? >> my often tells me that after i speak we have to pass up the tranquilizers and the anti-suicide gets. [laughter] i've been trying to be more cheerful. you didn't catch that obviously. i'll tell you i'll tell you there's another part of my speech that often give and i'll tell you where i am. this is serious stuff. regardless of one's political views, if we sat in this room mark, 30 years ago and i was thank you, i think our country which has a terrible history of racial prejudice, in the year

2008 we would elect an african-american president of the united states, you know, what the hell, maybe reelected four years later. if we would overcome our racism into that, you would have said what are you smoking? ain't going to happen. we did it. we did it. 30 40 years ago you had one or two members of the united states senate who were women. today, you have had, we have had states, the government is a woman, senators are women, members of congress are women. and while we still have a long, long way to go to break down sexist barriers in this country, nobody would deny that we have come a long way. i remember when i was mayor i appointed the first woman police officer back in the 1980s. what a big deal that was. walk around capitol hill today, it's not such a big deal. overcome huge beers in terms of sexism. disability issues. when you and i were kids and

families had a baby born with a disability, it was an embarrassment in the part of the valley. kids were institutionalized. today we have come a long long way as a result of the ada and other programs where kids with a disability are loved and welcomed into our schools. they are a part of our communities. we have made more progress on that than anyone would've dreamed up the last but certainly not least, and i know this firsthand because the state of vermont helped lead the effort with regard to civil unions, if you and i were talking 10 years ago and you said i think maybe some of the more conservative states in america, gay marriage would no longer be a big deal in fear 2015. you would have thought that would be completely crazy, right? and yet i go to kids schools in vermont and as kids, what you think about gay marriage? a look at me like i'm crazy, what are you talking about? no problem. you ask me about optimism, those are the areas some of the

areas. where we have now taken it for granted, you've got a black president, so what? 20, 30 years ago no one would've dreamed that would be possible. so i believe we have the capacity to change but i think what we're up against now, by the way, is something tougher. because you are taking on the greed and the power of the billionaire class, of the koch brothers who are out to destroy social security, medicare, medicaid et cetera. we go back to 1920 to have the money to try to do that. this is a tough fight but am optimistic. i think we have the capacity to bring change to this country and we have done in recent years. >> thank you, mark for allowing the senator to listen to his wife's advice. who do we have over there? the gentleman who has his hand up. could you identifies the? >> my name is peter. i would like to ask you your opinion on the speech that prime minister netanyahu is planning to give to congress, and would

you consider boycotting the? >> yes. i think look again people disagree. the president of the united states he argued the president was even consulted, that is wrong and not a good thing. are you thinking of not going? >> i'm not thinking i'm not going. i am not going. i may watch on it on tv but i'm not going. [applause] spent how many of your colleagues do think we'll do that? spent e.j. you are sunny like the media. you want me to speculate. no idea. >> i am the media. >> oh, that's right. [laughter] >> the lady in the front please. >> anything but don't ask me to speculate. >> i'm wondering what we can do and what you think we can do to stop this path we are on of endless war?

>> thank you for phrasing it that way. that is exactly what my nightmare is come is endless war. look, it goes without saying that this isis, it is beyond pathetic to think this is going on in the year 2015 the barbarianism we are seeing. and anyone who tells you have a magical solution to this problem is kidding you. they don't. but wanted to believe that most important thing we can do is to demand that the people in the region, by an extremely -- plate an extremely active role militarily and politically. it will shock people in this room to know that the country that has the fourth largest defense spending in the world is not france not the uk it is saudi arabia. owned by a group of billionaire thugs. do you know what? that's the neighborhood and i think the united states and the west will should be very

supportive but i think nations in that region are going to have to put some real skin in the game, more than our right now. >> can you imagine a use of force resolution against isis that would be framed in a way you could vote for? >> again i don't look isis is beyond, what they've done to you can't even speak about it it is so horrible. i want to see them destroyed. but as this woman aptly pointed out, there are some of my colleagues in the congress who really have the mind, you know, god knows how many years we were in afghanistan and iraq. i was chairman of the veterans committee. we've got 5000 men and women who came back from iraq and afghanistan with ptsd and traumatic brain injury. thousands of lives have been terribly impacted. i do not want to say an endless

war in the middle east. i don't. having said that, i don't have any magic so sure but i think at the heart heart of its county regional activity on the country's foremost impacted. >> let me press you on that because this is not a speculative question. if president obama called you up and said i know there are a lot of people in the senate and the house were very reluctant to keep edwards in the middle east, get you agreed, we agree that isis is a particular threat. can you write me a resolution that you could vote for? >> again, the devil is always in the details added don't want to speculate not seeing a document. i think it's fair to say i do not disagree with the air attacks the united states is coordinating, forks over. but i just want to see is the ground presence and never ending war. >> who else? a lady in the back on the aisle. those two folks on the aisle. >> leeann, sputnik international

news. just had a follow-up question on what you have raised about the oligarchical trend in u.s. politics. and i just would like to know what kind of impact that has on the united states as a world leader, so how this trend in the u.s. impacts economic justice worldwide? >> thank you. that's a great question. i mean, i will answer any couple of ways. first off the weight impacts american politics, and again i don't mean, everyone knows my political views, but if you were the republican party or any group of people, you would think he would put up the keystone pipeline as your first order of business? i'm against the keystone pipeline, thought it very hard. do you really think that a

canadian pipeline which will provide 35 private jobs is the most important issue facing america's? you would make -- that's your first bill. what you think it may have something to do with the fact that the koch brothers are major donors of leases in that part of canada? i would -- how it impacts our foreign policy is that i'm afraid people who have the money will have more influence than the ordinary americans. i will give you an example. i want to applaud the president. this is not get a lot of attention. the people of greece are hurting terribly. unemployment increase is 25 26% to the economy has shrunk by a quarter. there are people living in dire poverty right now. and right know what you are having is an effort on the part of the european central bank to talk about more austerity for

greece, rather than letting the new government start implementing the agenda and the promises that it made. and president obama spoke on the issue and talked about how more austerity in a country whose economy is shrinking is not the way to go. but to answer your question globally, the problems we're facing in the united states are not dissimilar to what many of the countries are facing around the world. more and more wealth and income inequality, more and more austerity. i think the american people got to work with people around the world to say that when you have a handful of billionaires owning as much wealth as half of the people in this world we need radical changes in the way we do economics. >> the gentleman right there. >> larry. i agree with most of what you say, senator. i would offer one caveat. if you're going to invite people to vermont, to burlington, do it in the summertime.

>> the skiing is good. >> but yeah keep away from speculation on my office as -- what scares me a little bit is are you willing come if you don't go over to the democratic side, to run as a democrat, would you run as an independent? only because are you willing to be the son of ralph nader speaks no, i will not. i will not be a spoiler. there are ways to do this but let me make it very clear. i will not be a spoiler. >> the gentleman in the back. somebody tell me when we are running short of time. we are at the end of? this gentleman will ask the last question so you have the heavy weight on your shoulders. >> a to be a good one. senator kohl thank you. i've talked to some of your constituents in vermont and they said something they like about you and the charm about you is your independent major spanish i believe that's the word they use to associate me with. [laughter] >> i'm keeping it nice.

fact that you are an independent, they like that. do you think that if you become a democrat to run for president does that hurt you with another constituency people around the country who may vote for you like the fact that you're not good with a party by the? >> as i mentioned earlier, i think i could be wrong but i think in the last election, for example, in for what i think we got about 25% of the republican votes, which is i think have a lot of working-class republicans who are not uncomfortable with what i i am saying. and i think in vermont and around the country of enormous number of people who say you're not a democrat, you're not a republican? i don't know what you stand for but i love you. because there's so much frustration with the tea party system. -- to party. i am getting bolder and bolder cankind figure these things out. on the other hand, you know what, i am not mr. bloomberg of

new york and i don't have billions of dollars. and to try to put together an independent political effort, you'd have to spend an enormous amount of time and money and it getting on the ballot in 50 states. will then be the cover you if you run as an independent? these are some the issues. >> i just want to close by saying that the late mike harrington used to say that he was for the left wing of the possible. and i think that senator sanders is pushing the definition of the possible, and i thank him and all of you for a very enlightening exploration of what can be done. and if i may use the phrase, what is to be done. thank you very, very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> a brief reminder that if you missed any of this program you can watch anytime at the c-span video library. go to c-span.org. congress has a full agenda this week at the upcoming presidential debris greathouse we work on the senate passed measure approving the keystone xl oil pipeline and the senate will be voting on the nomination of michael botticelli to be the next director of national drug control policy. senators will try to move forward on the department of homeland security spending. for more on the week ahead we spoke with a capital reporter earlier today. >> joining us is mike lillis, a congressional report with the hill to talk about what else is happening in washington. mike lillis what's on the agenda on capitol hill? will start with the senate this week. >> guest: the need to pass the funding bill for the department of homeland security. big issue, big contentious issue

because of the immigration amendment that the house passed last month when the senate over to the senate. and use of mitch mcconnell struggle with his lastly. he brought it up three times just the house passed bill thinking beating the drum over and over would erode some of the opposition from multiple democrats to it didn't work. the house bill as passed the go to passed the senate. so now republicans are faced with the question of what do we do how do we best the department of homeland security funding bill and that threaten to shut down of that agency but also satisfy the conservatives who want to push back against obama's executive action on deportations and that, of course is what why the house attached is a minister there's nothing plan in the senate now ask is because they don't know what the next step is at least they're not telling us. we are awaiting and sing what mitch mcconnell will come up with, how does the thread that needle how did he walk on a

tight rope satisfy conservatives but that's something that will not get a veto threat to to the immigration language and, of course the dhs bill, the funding expires on april 27 so there is a timeline, a tight timeline because they're not supposed to be next week because of the presidents' day holiday. we expect that bill will be back on the floor. we just don't know what it's going to look like. >> homeland security secretary jeh johnson said yesterday you can go ahead and have this debate over executive action on immigration but don't tie it to homeland security funding. what's the argument here by the administration? is a tapping, is a working with her own party, with the democrats? >> guest: they are saying dhs/ina has nothing to do with immigration, why are you tying this to something. something so vital in the context of these attacks in paris, pointing out that the ice

is threat has been rising. of course, this is all bent in international headlines that they're reaching out to. they are using that sort of urgency to say why are you playing around with the department is supposed to protect the homeland? the republicans understand that argument and that's why the house passed six weeks in advance. they did want to play with the department of homeland security funding to they knew it would be a political issue and they said over and over, they keep saying over and over we're not going to threaten the shutdown of this agency but we do needs to do something on executive action. remembered how -- the house delayed this debate in december, anchored concern is that they diddid hold obama's feet to the fire them then and so they're under pressure from the right flank to do so on this most pass homeland security bill. again and puts them in a very tough spot. immigrations put them in a tough spot. this is no exception to the archive between the republicans and their party who are really

running a hard line on this, guys like boehner and the which is like to pass something and get it onto the president. >> host: this is playing out in "the wall street journal"'s editorial today. they wonder, can the gop change? this is what "the wall street journal" says that this restrictionist caucus you were just like not can protest all at once but it can't change 54 senate votes into safety without persuading some democrats democrats. it is too soon to say -- it is not too soon to say that the fate of the gop majority is on the line. precious weeks are wasting, and the commendation of wheat house leadership and around nine already -- a rump minority unwilling to compromise is going into democratic hands. the only winners will be obama nancpelosid mike lillis, how is this playing out between leadership and the rank-and-file?

>> guest: there's real tension there, particularly in the house. we've seen it all year long. the republicans picked up 13 seats. john boehner picked up 13 seats but he thought he would come in and rollover obama's agenda in the last two years of his presidency. instead of at this very tough vote for speaker where more than 20 republicans voted against him for speaker, so there's a lot of tension there. and it brought up a number of those they thought were low-hanging fruit and they were just going to pitch, their softballs they're going to hit out of the park innocent it seemed these results. useful on the immigration issue. you've seen on antiabortion bill that they had to go because they didn't have enough support. he saw it on the homeland security bill, a border bill a couple weeks ago they had to pull because they didn't have the support of conservatives. these are traditional conservative issues and have had to pull the stuff off the floor. so it sort of you know, obama and pelosi and harry reid have to sit back and not do anything.

kind of watch the republicans struggled and enjoy these headlines on their own. >> host: what is else is on the agenda? health care and also what about new authority to fight isis for the president? >> guest: i think we should mention first in the house can we just mentioned the senate, but in the house there's a big vote on keystone and that's the other big contentious issue that we will be seeing. of course, of the senate passed it last week at a got nine democrats on the bill so it is bipartisan. that does put some pressure on obama and house democrats to support it. it will pass the house on wednesday, and then obama is going to veto it. big vito biggest veto of his presidency. only the third veto of his presidency. the house and senate will have the democratic support to sustain the veto. this is all political messaging. eastham has been around for five

years and of course it's an enormous proxy vote on climate change and the violent and everybody is playing to their base. it's an interesting debate because there are some amendments on their that the senate passed climate change and, assess climate change is not a hoax that it might be some conservatives in the house who are weary to that matter. of course, there will be democrats who support the keystone bill. that will make obama's veto look a little bit worse for having a bipartisan bill and republicans are going to frame this as obstructionism. how many bipartisan bills is going to veto? that will dominate the house, and i'm sorry, go back to your -- >> host: what else is on on the agenda? will be president be sending over to congress his outline for a new authority to fight isis? >> guest: we don't know that's going to come. they are anticipating that. john boehner said on thursday he expects in the next few days.

that could come over and that's going to dominate the whole congressional dialogue because of course that's what the parties, that is not a partisan issue. you hear liberals screaming, it allows for boots on the ground. you're going to conservatives scream if it does allow for boots on the ground, i will be a very interesting debate and nobody knows what that light which is going to look like. everybody agrees that we need a new resolution. the old one is 13 years 14 years on everybody agrees that those outdated and need some freshening up. but tons of discreet about what that should look like. and when that hits whenever it hits, that's going to be sent. >> host: mike lillis, congressional record with a over the weekend in congress. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> guest: thanks, greta. >> today german chancellor

angela merkel is intended with president obama to discuss russia's intervention in ukraine to the two leaders will hold a joint news conference and we have that live for you on c-span. ahead of today's news covers we're asking you should the west armed ukraine against the russian backed rebels? rebels? you can weigh in at facebook.com/cspan. hundreds of responses so far. and again you can offer your thoughts at facebook.com/cspan. >> tonight on the committee chairs special counsel for the fcc on chairman tom wheeler's proposal for net neutrality including writing the internet like a utility. >> the gymnast to win a going to regulate and take him under no what the next step of the chairman is. he may try to throw out this whole regime and do something

that is more free market oriented or less regulatory. i don't really buy the next chairman argument because the rules are only as good as the guy or the gal on the eighth floor enforcing them. we've got to do our best to set up an infrastructure that will protect consumers, preserve an open internet the greatest of economic development free speech and innovation is world has ever known. >> tonight at eight eastern on the communicate is on c-span2. >> the center for strategic and international studies hosted a discussion friday addressing u.s. drug policy both domestically and abroad. speaker for michael botticelli acting director of the white house office of national drug control policy and william brownfield, assistant secretary starr for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. a note that the senate will be voting on a confirmation of mr. botticelli at about 5:30 p.m. eastern today and you could watch it live right here on c-span2.

>> good afternoon. welcome. i'm senior vice president here at csis. we're delighted today to be able to host michael botticelli acting director of the white house office of national drug policy, and ambassador william brownfield the assistant secretary in the inl. of the department of state international narcotics and law enforcement. let me just say a few words here. this event which is the first time we've had this opportunity to welcome michael botticelli to csis, this event falls a couple of different opportunities we've had over the last year, year and a half to focus on policies around both domestic and international drug policy. on march 31 of last year we hosted ambassador brownfield come along with ruth dreyfus former head of state switching

former health minister along with michelle, both of them here representing the global commission on drug policy. last september september 11, we had the good fortune to host richard brandt and michel also on the release of that commissions most recent report. i want to offer special thanks to a number of people who helped make this possible my colleague from csis it was prevention and pulling everything together. will jenkins from ondcp, very helpful as well as erica green from state department inl, special thanks to them. we are here really to talk about a drug policy at home and globally, and i think what we'll do is there's quite a bit of dynamism that intersects and crosses over among these two domains. the obama administration has been quite active as we will

hear in this period of quite energetic innovation and reform across the spectrum of different issues. president obama just recently had an extended set of remarks, youtube interview in which he was speaking directly to the efforts underway in the several states in this country in terms of legalized nation of cannabis. and what that meant in terms of the power of referendum, what that meant in terms of states' rights and how to navigate the differences between federal government and the department of justice equities indices you in the states' rights issues. so it was very interesting and very forward leaning statement from the president, and i think quite encouraging. we also got the u.n. special session, sessions good for the early part of 2016 on global drug policy. this is the first occasion since 1998 when there's been such a gathering to review where we are

in terms of the conventions and further refinement of the global approaches on that. and so it's a great opportunity as we move towards vienna in march, and beatings in vienna on drug policy narcotic approaches to hear from ambassador brownfield about the preparations of what lies ahead in this period. what we're going to do is we're going to ask michael and bill to each open up with six to eight minutes of topline prepared remarks about their respective areas and the points they want to get out in terms of the major policy considerations at the moment, and then we'll have a conversation across those lines among ourselves, and then we'll open the floor to you all for your comments and questions. when we get to that point we will bundle together a number of interventions. please put your hand up.

we will bring a microphone to you. please identify yourself, be very succinct. we will bundle those together and come back to our speakers. i'm going to ask michael to open up him if he would mind. >> i would not. >> and thank you so much for being with us. >> thanks for the invitation to i relish this six to eight minutes because i love being with ambassador brownfield but did in my interventions in place when we worked together is always an interesting dynamic. >> i always there for. >> -- defer. >> it is a pleasure to work with the ambassador. i want to spend the majority of my time in terms of opening remarks talking about where we are with drug policy in the united states, because i think that under not i think, under the obama administration we have really undertaken some significant reforms as it relates to drug policy in the united states. i think for a long time we've

relied on anecdotes to guide policy, and under this administration we have really focused on a science-based evidence-based strategy to do that. as a context for this the best maturity of my career, i spent in public health and i worked at the massachusetts public health department. pretty forward leaning state with a pretty forward leaning health department and i remember being there when the inaugural policy was released at our member ben director kerlikowske talking about the fact that we couldn't arrest and incarcerate our way out of this problem, that we need to rely specifically on public health approaches to this disease that while law enforcement plays a key role in what we do is not going to be the solution to our problems are i was like, this is not the only issue i'm used to. and really embracing some cutting edge at least for the

administration, kind of cutting-edge activities like overdose prevention programs. so from my perspective i had, i was really fortunate to have the opportunity to come to ondcp in november 2012. so i think it really is a singapore for us to understand where we've tried to go both in terms of policy and budget as it focuses on that. one of the areas that we have been really trying to focus on our public health strategies, really looking at from both a policy perspective and a budget perspective, focusing on things like prevention, treatment and recovery. let me give a couple of exams of what are some of the significant reforms that we have seen. the other piece i will share with you i'm recovering from own addictive disorder, so the fact that i am the hopefully soon to be director, if the senate votes the way that it wanted to on monday, you know it is emblematic of where we are. so i am not a general.

i am not a law enforcement person. i am a public health person. i am an openly gay man in recovery, ma and so if that's indicative of kind who the president has chosen to lead drug policy then, i hope we have more reforms to come. one of the areas i think is particularly import is the affordable care act as we talked about this issue. so if you think about substance abuse disorders, we have about 20 million people in the united states to meet criteria for substance abuse disorders. previous to the affordable care act only 10% of those that care at specialty treatment programs. is one of the reasons like myself of people with untreated addiction actually intersect the system is we don't do a good job at increasing in making sure people have access to treatment. so the affordable care act revolutionizes that in two ways. basically and makes substance abuse disorder and essential health benefit of any of the expansion plans that we have both a medicaid and in the

exchange plan. the second piece that does is it basically says that insurance companies have to offer these benefits at parity with other health benefits. for a long time and particularly in the private insurance world they use a variety of mechanisms like lifetime limits, co-pays and deductibles to limit people's access. so that is a real profound change in how we think about drug policy and we think about access to recovery. so i think it's really important that we talk about that. the other piece that think this administration really needs some credit for is how we look at things, how we've approached sentencing reform activity. adamonis i think important to understand the track record of both the president and the attorney general, particularly as relates to low-level offenders who are coming in contact with the criminal justice system largely as result of their own addictive disorders. when we think of our policy we look at in three fundamental ways. ..

and trying to explain those arrests records but i think it provides an opportunity to do that. the other piece i want to share with you is how we have begun to work with law enforcement in a different way and i think many

of you have seen the reporting about the dramatic increase in the deaths in the united states so we now have 120 people die in every single day of a drug overdose in the united states. that's largely driven by prescription drugs and threw the work of our office, we are basically trying to make sure that law enforcement is equipped with a remarkable antidote to reduce the overdose and we have seen two things happened. one is the incredible take of law enforcement on saving peoples lives and we people's lives and we now have the entities across the country as well as the state law that provides immunity from people regarding overdose from criminal prosecution. but we were at a conference the other day and it dramatically changes the relationship of local law enforcement with the

drug use in the community and it precipitated a conversation about how can the law enforcement community have a response not only in saving their lives but using that as an opportunity to get people into care and treatment. so i think that these are kind of pieces that we want to make sure that our part of the work that we do. it's interesting to me and i will turn it over to the ambassador i don't come from an international background but one of the things that is astounding to me is how drug policies in the united states get reverberated across the world and it's really a tremendous and i see the ambassador has been a huge part of that is how many countries across the hemisphere and across the world quite honestly are talking about and moving toward implementing public health strategies as it relates to their own issues. i would like to see the funding

of public health strategies but also things like alternatives in the incarceration and this is not the country that it is a really bad heartening to think about how the u.s. drug policy has precipitated a conversation among many countries as they rethink their own policy. the last piece i will say that is heartening to me. we actually passed a resolution. we believe that the discussion how we continue to promote the concept of treating people with dignity and respect and diminishing the barrier so it has been heartening. the last thing has been our view

of legalization. i don't come at this from an ideological start with, i cannot this from a scientific perspective. and the american academy of pediatrics have excellent policy pieces that came out last week not supporting the realization and one of the reasons that resonates with us about how we think about legalization efforts is that the most salient criteria as we think about drug policy in the united states should be what are the harms as it relates to the youth of our country and that is the pivotal reason why we haven't been supportive of legalization efforts. it doesn't mean however that we don't need to continue to think about how we reform our criminal justice system or deal with issues of disproportionality.

it's not about legalization and i know people talk more about that so i will put that out there as we thought about how you formulate policies and our position around marijuana. in this discussion ladies and gentlemen there are some logic to the fact that i am following that in this presentation. no matter what the director of the national drug control policy has done for you and for me is to lay out the domestic reality of this issue here and in the united states of america and that to a very considerable

extent as my starting point as i try to engage on behalf of the united states of america in the international community on this issue. i obviously cannot take positions and express the views and offer a u.s. position. that isn't the only set of realities that i must deal with as i prepare for the year 2015 and the international conference another set of the reality is that we are going to have in about four weeks time the meeting of the un commission on narcotic drugs that will establish for the united nations drug policy reform ideas concepts and lead onto a special session of the united nations in the year 2016. regardless of the u.s. domestic

realities those international meetings will occur. some of us in this room obviously not including ambassador simon who's aware of everything i am saying and will say any point for the rest of my life the others among us may not be so much over here. first there is a tremendous debate in the international community between those who wish to reform and continue current policies. of those who wish to change or completely alter the three international drug control and those that wish to preserve them. to make it as simplistic as possible to support legalization and those that support prohibition. this is not an exclusively u.s. argument ladies and gentlemen. and as i prepared to work through this set of challenges

in this year and the year ahead, we have to take these into account and i will offer to more realities that while they may not sound overwhelming to you, the major major issues that we have to factor in from the united states foreign-policy perspective any change in the international legal architecture related to drugs requires by un rule something in the vicinity of 120 member states to endorse before the change is enacted into the conventions. it's nearly 60%, almost two thirds. in other words, there is going to be no major change unless they tremendous number of government agree. second reality for me although

it sounds domestic it is quite international as well. there will be no change in the u.s. position on any treaty or convention unless i can line up 67 united states senators. how easy it is to provide and produced a 67 senators in agreement on any major issue in the world today. and i will not go any further down the road because while i may be done i'm not completely stupid. so, my challenge i suggest to all of you is to try to find a way whereby the united states continues to exercise leadership in this field, which i hope

most, if not all that most would agree is a helpful and positive thing. leadership that in my opinion should be pragmatic practical and realistic in terms of where we are trying to guide, prod or work with the international community representing the 7.5 billion inhabitants of planet earth at this time. i would suggest and i will write now right now suggests that we should start with some sort of common understanding in terms of the legal architecture. some of you have heard this before because i rolled this out for the very first time i believe in this exact room about a year or so ago. when i suggested the world

should be able to reach the consensus on four basic principles the first principle don't try dramatic change in the three international conventions. not because they are perfect because i acknowledge like any written document they are not perfect but rather because getting something new probably is beyond the realm of the possible at this point and something that is good but not perfect is a separate and having nothing at all. principle number two what i call the flexibility principle. i want to be clear by what i mean on flexibility. i do not mean that every government should be allowed to interpret the convention as it wishes. that would be a weak set of conventions but rather within the conventions themselves there

is discretion and flexibility that is permitted by the text of the conventions. why not take advantage of that discretion and flexibility to accomplish some things in terms of reforms new ideas and new approaches? the third 30 principle when my perspective is what i call tolerance of differing national policies. let us accept that over the past four years the international community's attempt to get all 194 members of the united nations to adopt exactly the same drug control policy has not been an overwhelming success. let us assume therefore and accept that governments and nations responding to their own

national conditions and realities will have somewhat of differing policies. let us have an international approach that accepts the reality quite frankly because it is going to happen whether we accept it or want it or not. and my fourth principle is regardless of our position on legalization versus prohibition on reform versus continuity, we all agree that the criminal organizations those institutions that conduct activities for purpose of economic gain using violence and blood as the mechanisms for earning revenues in order to traffic and market an illicit product should in fact be resisted by all nations on the planet regardless of what our

individual national drug policies might be. integrity of the convention except some flexibility in the convention tolerance for differing the national positions and consensus against the criminal organizations. that is a framework. mr. morrison would say a framework is not a policy. he's right and i would throw out some ideas that would constitute a policy and you will hear more on these in the course of this year and next. one we just heard from the director of national drug control policy. public health, public health. this is not a criminal justice problem. at least it is not exclusively a criminal justice problem. we should quite curtly focus more of our international attention on the health aspects of this issue. second, let's say it right up

front, criminal justice reform. we dance around the issue sometimes. sometimes we say it quite bluntly or use simplistic expressions and sometimes people speak for 45 minutes trying to say the same thing which is we should entertain reform of our criminal justice process where it makes sense. what might mike sent? sentencing reform, i think we should be open to that. alternatives to incarceration might not be a bad idea certainly in some situations. drug courts rather than the criminal justice records to manage, process or into the case of these sort of issues. these are the sort of ideas that smart men and women i hope will roll out into international dialogue in the course of 2015 2016. a third concept that i am pushing as hard as i can is

let's find ways for greater international cooperation. we will have to accept, ladies and gentlemen, the troubled is a conflict and there are today some countries that have chosen to legalize entire categories of blood and other places are prescribed drugs and other countries are executing people who traffic those drugs. we have somehow got to find enough common ground that we can do some things together, accepting that different countries will take different approaches. and the fourth in my so-called policy prescription since i said it once i will say it again let's think of new ways to address the organized criminal side of this equation. not the people who consume or the people who are buying and selling in small quantities but the people who constitute multibillion-dollar multinational enterprises that

are marketing the stuff. ladies and gentlemen i would close by suggesting optimistically that we have had some success in opening up this a picture of dialogue and having a useful conversation. ambassador simon just in case you are not aware of who he is sitting just to the left of the aisle as i'm looking at it he had considerable success about four months ago in bringing together the nation of the organization of american states to address just these issues and they came up with what i think was a pretty good declaration. i hope others will ask me about it in the course of the question and answer session. ladies and gentlemen, my closing sentence is this. there is room for reform in this

field. 2016 is not 1961. the world has changed. we are not idiots all of us in this room. i think that we acknowledge reality. but let's acknowledge one other reality as well. as mentioned in his own closing remarks and that is there is a reason why 100 years ago most of the governments in the world decided to control access to a certain number of drugs. it is because they were found to be harmful to those who used them. so, as we address reform, as we think about a change and we discuss new ways of doing things, let's not forget that there was a reason why we paid particular attention to these

drugs and make sure if i can use the old saying of so many decades in the past we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. thank you so much. i would relinquish the floor. >> thank you so much. thank you both. michael, congratulations and i wish you the best -- >> not yet. >> we will congratulate you in advance knowing that will raise your probability. i want to ask you about the agenda that you've outlined which is quite consistent with what bill outlined. his reform agenda and emphasis on human rights and changing the law enforcement out of luck, this is all reflected at some level to the changes in our society. normatively, it reflects the

shift shifts that have happened across party lines. it's something that is tied to broad trends in terms of the reform of the u.s. health systems and the like. tell us a bit more as you are thinking about this and talking to the members of congress as you are out talking url talking to different constituencies within the united states what do you see -- how do you see this change that is underway and folding because it seems to me that it's creating a space for you to carry forward. what is a true reform agenda. it's made that possible in the period that the division and many other places have been quite prohibitive. so what is it that permits you to feel so confident about your ability? >> it's interesting and if it is

confirmed, it's because we actually have folks who are coming at this to the same place for sometimes different reasons. so, if you think about judicial reform and committal justice reform, there is very conservative people in this country who are undertaking significant criminal justice reform largely because of cost. so you think of texas quite honestly as the incarceration capital of the world. i would like to think that he added from the humanistic standpoint but i think i'd honestly they came at it from a cost standpoint we can't keep this up. others in health care i think her mental justice causes are the expenditure at the state level and so you have very conservative people and very conservative folks coming at this from a cost and quite honestly i think you have the the healthcare system coming at this from the same angle and they know that quite honestly

honestly untreated addiction has a significant level of cost as it relates to the cost containment strategies to do that. i think the other piece and i'm not being overly optimistic by this coming as we see the evolution and policy change on a whole host of issue and i think of marriage as being one of them, so how do we fundamentally change the policy? part of it was people have a willingness to come out about who they were. fundamentally change the way that all of us think that gay folks. someone gave me advice that they don't drive policy to let people drive policy. part of this movement around the -- i am not open to the self-congratulatory. i'm open about my recovery because we need that kind of political movement, that kind of visibility to change public perception and to change the way that we think about this.

so, i do think that part of what draws very different folks to very different places on the political spectrum they come to the same place but i think they come at it for different reasons. >> have you had a chance to get out to speak with different audiences here in the united states? about the international agenda? >> before i say that i do wish to protest the taunting of the state of texas. [laughter] >> i returned to the valid and legitimate questions. i'm not going to suggest that there's a monolithic set of views when i'm working around the country working on this issue i would suggest that it makes perfectly good sense that most american citizens look at the drug issue through the prism

of their own experiences. family, school, community business and are not thinking necessarily in terms of the international aspects. when they are thinking of the international aspects they tend to see the negative side of it on the gangs in the community that are perfect as process or that belief sometimes erroneously that the product comes in universally from overseas and from foreign countries. at the end of the day the dialogue tends to be more than 50% on the impact of the drug issue, the international drug issue on their lives their families, the communities and considerably less than 50% in terms of what we are doing or can do overseas. that is partly my responsibility. that's one of the things i'm going around the country to do to try to establish with them as

well as with everyone in this room that there is a link between what we are doing or trying to do overseas and then what happens here on our own streets and in our own communities. our success or failure in terms of addressing the root causes that generate drug productions or transportation to the united states has an obvious impact on our lives. that would be my long winded long-winded response to the question. >> for those of you standing in the background come and grab a seat you don't need to stand up. >> please come down if you care to. let's stay on the domestic front for a moment.

we know we have a very serious epidemic right now linked in with other opiate drug abuse. can you say a few words about how you understand that and what is driving that? i know that it is a top issue, top preoccupation in the kind of strategy needed to roll that back and it has affected communities across the country and is always quite surprising when you are in a college setting to see a billboard on heroin addiction and people are talking about this in very new and compelling ways. can you say a little bit about the root causes in which you see a strategy in the past? >> this does have international implications. so look at where we are with heroin use. we know that the root cause has been overprescribing of

prescription medication by physicians in the united states. recent report by the cpc showed that we now -- physicians are prescribing enough pain medication to give every american a bottle of painkillers every day. and again, we want to make sure people that need those medications for pain gets bad. if you look at heroin, new users, four fifths of them started by misusing prescription pain medication. so as people progress in a courtesy and opiate production on prescription drugs, what appears to be a small percentage of them are transitioning to heroin. why are they transitioning to heroin clicks one of the causes is that we have been inundated largely from mexico and south america by a very pure supply of hearing. so if you are going to pay a dollar a milligram down the street for a 60 milligrams pill or you have the opportunity to

spend five or $10 on a bag of heroin that has the very same effect it doesn't take an economist a lot of math to say i'm going to start using heroin. so we have seen this progression and that is one of the areas that has been of significant concern. while prescription drug overdose is still a clipping of the heroin overdoses we have seen dean's debate with significant increases in heroin users. to get to the question you asked before steve, it's also why we have been able to have folks abroad continue to engage with us on drug policy because this is kind of -- you know we have had heroin use for here been used for a long time. it is a threat come at the different demographic. it's in more suburban and rural areas than we have seen before. so, we have been engaged with all of the governors in every state as well as folks in congress who historically for

whom drug policy has never been their top priority issue. as of so again, it is another area where we have been able to work with people who have historically not seen the drug policy issues as one of their top rarities. >> one of the issues that surface is often in the domestic and international debate is improving access to palette of care for folks that are end-of-life for folks that are suffering from a severe medical condition and requires that and try to get greater flexibility both domestically but also globally this is an issue under consideration. how does that match up against the emergency in the epidemic? the abuse that predates and drives that. >> it's interesting and this conversation has come up a

number of times and you know when you look at the countries that have a post up chandra issue the united states, canada, it is about relative access to health care. and i think part of what we have offered quite honestly to the rest of the country thinking about how they give good medicine to people who really need them is to basically keep them lessons learned from us and say we think that there are lessons we have learned about how you can minimize some of the abuse issues as you think about how you implement the public health practice and think about the clinician guidelines and care to make sure people do get really good access to pain medications when they need them. as we have often offered some kind of opportunities and cautionary words for other countries as they think about and try to look at access to health care and