multi-trillion dollar presidential card, that's got to be an extraordinary card. i assume it is encrusted in diamonds and glows in the dark. that's what republican majorities have just given president obama is a diamond encrusted coal in the dark american express card. and it has a special feature. .. spend it and it's somebody else's problem. but, you know, not only is this bill spending us deeper and deeper in a hole, but it's chock-full of gimmicks. and these are gimmicks that everyone writing it knew were there. for example, it contains a spending gimmick that targets single-employer pension plans while ignoring the oncoming union multiemployer pension plan

funding tsunami. beyond that, this bill also addresse addressess o obamacare, but what does it do? it provides a targeted obama care fix for big business. those with more than 200 employees. by repealing the law's automatic enrollment provision whiches requires employers to automatically enroll, new full-time employees with one of the company health plans unless the employee os out. what does it say, mr. president? states exists to provide special exemption for giant corporationa but turns a blind eye, turn as deaf ear to the small businesses that being driven out of business over and over and over. again by obamacare. doe what does it say that if you are a giant corporation in america,y if you have armies of lobbyists, then fear not, the washington

cartel is for you, a special carveout. no doubt just as soon as you hand over your campaignhe contribution. but for the small business, youf know we are facing, a time unique in recorded history,ore where more small businesses are going out of business than are being created. for as long as they have kept records that has never been true until recent years under the obama economy. why does that matter?ds o that matters over 2/3 of all nes jobs come from small business. when you hammer smal businesses, you end up getting the stagnation, the misery the malaise we have he right now. when hammer small businesses you have young people coming out true who can't find jobs. student loans up to their eyeballs but can't find jobs. when you hammer small businesses people like my father in the 1950s was i teenage immigrant washing, dishes unable to find a

job. what does it say that congress will pass a special exemption for giant corporations but for the single moms, for teenage immigrant, for the young african-american teenagers struggling to achieve a better life, there is no answer to their plight. to the some six million americans who had their health the insurance canceled and doctors canceled because of obamacare there is no answer to theirons plight. to the millions of americans who have seen their health insurance premiums skyrocket so they can no longer afford them there is no answer to their plight but fear not, the cartel is here for the giant corporations. and let's be abundantly clear, the cartel is not a partisan phenomenon. it is not just the democrats although it is most assuredly the democrats. but it is far, far too many republicans as well who are mem card-carrying cartel members whn when the k street lobbyists summon action, snap to attention.u l

you look what else does thisal deal do? this deal additionally takes $150 billion the next three years from the social security trust fund and moves it to theae disability insurance fund. mr. president, i would advise all of the members of this bodym next time you're at home, next a time you're visiting with a senior, the next time topicor social security comes up, if yoh vote for this deal comes up, be sure to say, ma'am, just so your know i voted to take $150 billion out of your social security because that's what they're doing. that's what they're doing. they're saying to seniors, wello there is a little bit of money here. we'll take it, move it overctua here. why? because actually fixing the, disability program, reforming ta the program, that would be too difficult. stepping forward to address the fraud in that program, that d would be too difficult. stepping forward to put in place

work incentives, to help people with disability find meaningful' work even if it's not every thing with capable of. many people with disabilities are capable of meaningful work.a reform the program for people to provide work for their families, that makes a difference in people's lives.ecte mr. president, that is not easy. that is actually what we wereo elected to do. far easier to raid the social security trust fund. far easier to go pull $150 billion from our seniors and reallocate it and do nothing, zero, to fix the underlying problem. now the deal also sells 58 million barrels of oil from l the strategic petroleum reserve. now it is always interesting to see the federal government selling off federal assets. i argued for a long time we t should be selling off federal land, far too., fa of which in this country is i owned by the federal governmentt

national parksna which are a i treasure that should be preserved. i'm talking about the vast amounts of land that are held utterly non-productive by thefee federal government. so it's a food thing that this bill is selling some assets but it is interesting, number one, they estimate that that will yield $5 billion because they estimate it will be selling at $86 a barrel. i got to say, representing theno to sell oil today at $86 aian, barrel you are truly a magician because it is sell about half that right now.when but when it comes to budget trickery you make up a number and put it in there because as i said before, on this chart, everyone knows it's a lie. nobody believes it's true. it'ss a game. it is the washington game. and i would note that in selling they're not usingth that revenue

to pay down our national debt. if they're actually selling assets you would think it would go to something like, at home. if you sell an asset and you have a massive credit card debt, the prudent thing to do would be to use revenue from the asset to pay down the credit card debt. oh, no. that is just more and more spending. i would note group called the te conservative action project, consists of the ceo's of over 100 organizations representing all of theaj major elements of e conservative movement, economic, conservatives, they sent a letter to this body, a letter reads as follows, the lateste wh budget deal negotiated by white house and outgoing speakef john boehner, bipartisan budget

of act of 2015 proposeshree increasing spending by fiscalwh years.nclu what the deal doesn't includeest are meaningful accountability measures that assurethe responsibility spending limits. the deal would allow treasury unfettered borrowing power untia 2017 in exchange for theoretical budget cuts down the road. included off set ofs are spending gimmicks at best. b from the congressional budget office and the heritage foundation the deal would resuln in spending increase of $85 billion over the next three years while significant spendini cuts would not take place forhe another 10 years, until 2015. further more, we can not reasonably expect a future w congress will abide by thesemeas measures. moreover, the busting of the caps, presently, is proof that the gimmicks which promised

reformulater, are hollow. the bipartisan deal, in quotes, indicates a dangerous trend that has become commonplace in was washington. rather than answer har tdar questions about spending, the to congress is choosing toe c eliminate possibility of these conversations or votes for next two years. furthermore, the deal representa total surrender on important conservative principles while capitulating to every demand of the white house. it is this sort of irresponsible spending that hases resulted ina debt of over $18 trillion. for the first time in anotherly six years republicans have control of both houses of congress and a real chance to send responsible budget reforms responsible alternative would acknowledge of appropriating fund for government operations while simultaneously addressing

our statutory debt limit and staying within the budget caps., instead, lawmakers have foregone the chance at meaningful reforms, instead are digging us deeper into the mire of debt our nation already has accrued. inti potential the most egregios overseaspo contingency operation or oco fund, dubious in and of itself is typically designated for efforts to support troops od the ground in emergency situations. is turned over to a slush fund n wewe oppose the bipartisan budgi act of 2015 not only because it fails to curtail spending but it prevents future reforms for an entire two years. lawmakers should reject this deal and attach ernest, meaningful reforms to any hike of the debt limit.it i it is signed by former attorney

general edwin meese, honorable becky norton dunlop, and dozens and dozens of names of respected conservative leaders across this country, across the fullull spectrum of the conservative a movement. fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, national security conservatives all united -- many people who worked very hard to elect to us this body, many of the people who worked very hardp to give us a republican majority in the senate, they're now all speaking in unison, in the heck are you doing? some of them may be using stronger language than that. let me point something out. you know, this bill, that we're voting on, this bill was not cooked up overnight. this wasn't a slap dash on a post it last night.

this represents days or weeks or this represent the cartel and cr all of its glory because this is combined work product of john boehner and nancy pelosi and mitch mcconnell and harry reid. the entire time republican leaders have been promising,oing budget. we'll rein in president, they have been in the back rooms negotiating to fund every single thing president obama did. i'm reminded it wasn't too long ago we saw el chapo, dug out ofl his prison cell, one of the first things you realize when el chapo was dug out is that tunnel wasn't dug overnight. that the drug cartels had spent many weeks or months digging that tunnel. i'll tell you, our leadership, the leadership of the washington cartel spent many weeks and months breaking el chapo out on the american people. digging us deeper into debt. dig

and i'll point out it is contrary to the promises. the promises that our leaders have made. in august of 2014, majority quoted as saying, so in the house and senate, we own the budget. that mean?s that means we can pass the spending bill, and i assure you in a spending bill we will be pushing back against the bureaucracy by doing what's cal call, placing riders in the bill. no m money can be spent to thisg or do that. we're going after them on health care, on financial services on the environmental protection agency, across the board.ard, all across the federal government we're going after ite let me ask you, mr. president, have we done any of that?t any of that at all? know, w wait, wait, leadership b might come back and say, well, r sure we have appropriation

bills, there are riders but them democrats are filibustering it. mr. president, everyone. pr understands why the democrats are filibustering appropriation bills.ll. when republican leadership begins the negotiation by preemtore littlely surrenderingr saying we'llre fund everything, 100% of what you want, what rational democrat would everyuld agree to allow a appropriation bill topo go forward?emin i'm reminded of a football gamet where the football game if thehe coach comes out at beginning ofi game and coin being flipped andu forfeits, you know the results in one one% of those games. 100% of those games, that team will lose.hat sadly that team is the american people, because it is republical leadership that goes out and forefits a coin toss over and over again. i would note beyond that, that was in 2014. in 2015, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell vowed, quote,

some big fights, over funding the bureaucracy saying that hisr party would use spending bills nospw being written in the gop-controlled congress to extract policy concessions fromc president barack obama. well, mr. president, where aren, those policy concessions? where are those fights? i don't recall seeing any fights. actually that's not fair. there are fights. fights expense conservatives. fights againstve efforts to rein in the obama administration. there are fights against effortt to stop spending.ndin fights against effort to turn around debt. on that t republican leadership fights ferociously but where are the promised fights against thee obama agenda, on anything?g? name one concession? b and, let's go back to the substance of this deal. one of the things this deal does, it utterly make as mockern

of the budget control act.he it abrogates the caps, budget caps. w wasn't too long ago, that republican leadership wasat touting budget control act as one of the greatest successes of republican leadership. indeed, asked, why does it matter to have republicans innt control,ro typically the answera wouldns be, look at budget contl act.ed, indeed another quote. from majority leader mitch mcconnell. quote, politicians regularlyans come to washington promising fiscal responsibility but too often they can't agree to cuthen spending when it counts. tha that's why the budget control act is such a big deal.ea mind awe bigl deal right now the republican congress issinc abrogating. t since congress passed bca with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 2011, washington reduced level of governmentof spending g for two years runnin. this is the first time that hass happened since the korean war.

leader mcconnell continued. bca savings are such a big deal in fact, that the president campaigned on it endlessly in 2012. and yet, the lone fiscalshme accomplishment of the republican majorities, this deal throws overboard. they didn't have much to point we have budget caps. guess what, we don't have thosee either. and then there is the debt youyo know, in 2011, then minory mitch mcconnell talkedll about what the debt ceiling should be usedou for. this is quote from op-ed he wrote. quote, what republican want is simple. we want to cut spending now. does this do this? no. we want to cap runaway spending in the future. does this do this?

no. and we want to save ourts a entitlements, and our countryby from bankruptcy by requiring the nation to balance its budget. again, this does not do this. wn we want to get our economyin growing again at a pace thatwill will lead to significant job growth.urel surely, there are some pro-growth mesh in this. no. that wasn't an isolated statement. earlier in 2011, leaderconn mcconnell explained quote, no president in the near future, maybe in the distant future, is going to be able to get the debi ceilingng increased without a reignition of same discussion how do we cut spending and get america headed in the right direction. that was four years ago.hat why is it that republican leadership is giving president obama trillions in more debt without any, let's go back to leader t mcconnell's words.

reignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending get america headed in the right direction. you know. , why do these matter. why do we have these fights? to understand why you have to understand the dynamics. of congress today. in congress today, they're essentially three types of spending bills. there are number one, show votes. now show votes is particular favorite of leadership. show votes is anything frankly that men and women who elected

us care about. they will tee up a show votes. we had show votes on planned parenthood. we had show votes on iran nuclear deal. we had show votes, show votes are designed for republicans vote one way, all democrats the other and for us to lose. show votes are a game of political posturing. leadership is happy to give show votes. leadership is irked that men and women who elected us are not satisfied with show votes anymore. there was a time constituent look we don't understand what is going on. we would give them a show vote. a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. the electorate got more sophisticated, much more educated, more more informed. with advent of internet people

can tell a show vote, designed to lose from day one, exercise in political theater, kibe bukky theater is not honoring commitments to men and women who connected us. a second type of legislation which is simply collected spending bill, that pays off washington cartel and pays off lobbyists. that can often get bipartisan agreement. if you're giving money to giant corporations, it is amazing how many democrats and republicans come together to say, hey, these corporations write campaign checks, we're all for that. the pesky taxpayers. they don't know enough to fight against this. we can keep them in the dark. keep robbing single moms waiting tables to give a giant paycheck to corporations. mr. president, that stinks. you want to know why america is mad? that's it there. the legalized looting that

occurs in this city every day. there is a third type of vote. that is the must-pass legislation. i would note this year in the senate there are a number of senate freshmen. and senate leadership has done what senate leadership always does, which is wrap their arms around senate fresh men and bring them into the boss sum. one of the things that i'm hoping that senate freshmen observe first-hand, i have not been here much longer than the senate freshmen, but one of the things you quickly realize is the only fights that have any chance of actually changing law, the only fights that have any chance of actually changing policy, are must-pass bills. if you want to do more than a show vote, if you want to actually fix a problem, if you want to actually address a wrong, you either fight on the must-pass votes, or you do

nothing. those are the choices. leadership knows that typically must-pass votes are one of three things. they are continuing resolutions, they are omnibus appropriations bills or they are debt ceiling increases. if you look historically, how has congress reined in a recalcitrant president? it has been through continuing resolutions, omnibus appropriations or debt ceiling increases. if leadership foreusing any of them we will not use any must-pass legislation to do anything. you know what that means? that means the congress of the united states has become all about irrelevant. and that's what leadership has done. it is all captured in one innocuous little statement. no shut downs. that's what leadership has promised, we'll have no shut downs. to most folks that sound like very reasonable proposition.

in the private sector you generally don't shut a business down, saying we'll not shut things down. that seems very commonsensical. but here's the problem. when you're dealing with zealots, when you're dealing idealogues and you tell them, if you do the following i will surrender, if you tell them, if you say the word zucchini, i will give in, but we all know what happens. immediately they will grin saying zucchini, zucchini, zucchini. that is washington today. republican leadership in both chambers told president obama, we will never ever, ever, allow a shutdown. lord knows the last time we had a shutdown, winning nine senate seats, taking control of senate, and retiring harry reid majority leader and winning largest majority in the house. goodness gracious we don't want that to happen again.

once republican leadership tells obama we will never every allow a shutdown, suddenly the president has a furry rabbit's foot in his pocket on any fight or topic. all the president has to do whisper quietly in the wind, shutdown and republican leadership runs to the hills. it really is a wonderful negotiating tactic. why is that happening? because president obama whispered, shutdown. leadership said, we surrender. if you are not willing to to fight on any must-pass legislation, we will not win anything. you know, leadership respond though. it's not reasonable. you can not win. you can never win a fight on must-pass legislation. mr. president, the problem with

that is history is to the contrary. john adams famously said, facts are stubborn things. last 55 times congress raised debt ceiling it attached meaningful conditions to that 28 times. it is historically proven the most effective leverage congress has. when leadership says, echo leadership in saying it is hopeless, nothing can be done, do not fight on these issues, they never seem to address the reality of history that is directly to the contrary. gramm-rudman, one of the most significant spending restraint in modern times came from the debt ceiling f congress is not willing to fight on the debt ceiling you have no gramm-rudman. yet, mr. president, leadership might respond, okay, fine. historically that was true but not with barack obama, not with

harry reid. this current incarnation of democrats they're too partisan, they're too extreme. it they are too cell us, it will never work with them. the only problem that is not true either. indeed what we're talking about right now, budget control act, came from the debt ceiling. the newly-elected republican house majority, newly-elected majority in the house of representatives used the debt ceiling to extract the budget control act from president obama, which until just recently leadership hailed as their greatest fiscal success in modern times. now why, mr. president, if the tool that yielded their greatest fiscal success was the debt ceiling, why would leadership say we'll never use it again? it is luke like of san francisco 49ers of great, we'll never allow joe montana to throw to jerry rice.

that worked to well. we -- tool that works who in their right mind would say, the tool that has proven most successful reining in the president we'll take off the field forever. i don't know if inin their right mind would, but that is in fact what congressional republican leadership has done. this debt ceiling, it is kicked down the road. till the end of the obama presidency. now, i would note when speaker boehner announced his resignation on that day i predicted this outcome. on that day, within minutes of speaker announcing his resignation i stated publicly what this means, he has cut a deal with nancy pelosi to raise the debt ceiling and fund

entirety of obama's agenda for the next two years. you know, it was interesting mr. president, when i said that those in the media who criticized me. oh, you don't know that! why are you so cynical? why would you say such a thing? i would say such a thing because i understand how the washington cartel operates. how it is knot two parties, the one party of washington. i mentioned that this deal took months to negotiate. we're seeing fruits of it right here. this is exactly what i predicted the day john boehner resigned. why? because that then freed the speaker to pass this through the house of representatives. how many democrats do you think voted for this? i will tell you? every single one of them. 100% of the house democrats that voted voted for this. 79 republicans voted for it. a handful, a small minority republicans. so how did this pass the house,

with all the democrats, house leadership, and a handful of republicans? how is it likely to pass this body? every democrat will vote for it. republican leadership will vote for it, an get some of the republicans. that pattern, a lame duck speaker of house, cutting a deal with a lame duck president. add $85 billion in our national debt, to give away any and all leverage for remainder of the obama administration. that's what this deal means. it is worth understanding. this deal means, that republican majorities in both congress will extract nothing of significance from president obama. this deal means that republican leadership have fully surrendered. it is interesting they call it clearing the decks. that is uniquely washington term. you recall back in december the

trillion dollar "cromnibus" bill? very first thing we did after winning majorities in both houses, was also called clearing the decks. boy, these decks need a lot of clearing. these chairs get rearranged like on the deck of titanic. no one addresses the fact of the ship of the united states is headed toward the iceberg. 18 trillion in debt, that the party of washington, the washington cartel has created and complicit and growing. only people losing are our kids. and their kids. and the future of this country and future of the free world. that is all that is being lost. but hey, there are cocktail parties in washington this week. lobbiests are hosting them. they're writing checks. if we actually stood up to that, that would be difficult. there is a reason so many politicians talk about standing up to washington and yet so few actually do it.

because it's far easier to take path of least resistance. far easier to go along to get along. far easier to simply to agree. to be agreeable. to get along. why can't you get along? with the politicians that are bankrupting your children and my children? you know what? i don't make it a habit to acquiesce to people who are doing enormous damage to this country. that's what we're seeing. now, what could have been done? instead, imagine, hypothetical, mr. president. imagine we just had republican leadership that wanted to fight on something, on anything. for pete's sake, at this point i think most voters would take, give me something that matters and fight on that, whatever it

is. they are so frustrated. how can it be we won majorities in both houses, there is nothing, nothing, nothing, that matters to the people you're willing to fight on? now do i think the continuing resolution or the debt ceiling could have magically transformed this country? do i think we could have done fundamental, wholesale reforms if probably not. that would have taken truly inspired leadership and that may be asking too much. but is the alternative, if we couldn't have solved every problem, is the alternative that we really could have solved nothing? is the alternative, really, we had to give obama everything and do nothing to fix problems? let me suggest seven things this deal could have included. number one, how about the default prevention act? legislation pat toomey introduced. calls it the full faith and

credit act. every time we have a debt ceiling fight, the democrats scaremonger. they say, if you don't raise the debt ceiling, america will default on its debt. now let us be clear. that is a blatant lie. they know it's a lie. i will note when barack obama was senator obama, he voted against george w. bush raising the debt ceiling. he said it was unpatriotic to raise the debt ceiling. that's when the debt was about half of what it is now. everyone who votes here later tonight, you should remember that senator obama said, if you're voting to raise this debt ceiling, what you're doing is unpatriotic. those are the words of a young barack obama. but reason it is a lie, every month federal revenue is about $200 billion. interest on the debt runs between 30 or 40 billion a

month. means in any given month there are apple revenues to service the debt. no responsible president would every allow a default on the debt. and indeed, what a responsible president should do, stand up at very outset, let me be clear. under no circumstances will the united states ever, ever, ever default on its debt. that is what a responsible president would do. sadly that means that is not what president obama has done. instead what he does consistently when we approach a debt ceiling, we will default on the debt if you don't give me a blank credit card. what does the default prevention act do? it says in the event the debt ceiling is not raised, we will always, always, always, service our debt. we will never, ever, ever, default on the debt. now i recognize there are some skilled demagogues in washington, but mr., let me ask you? how does exactly the democratic party dem bog republicans for

risking a default on the debt in order to pass legislation preventing defaults on debt? that is some slick talking. you know what? republican leadership didn't want to do that. because if we did that, the next debt ceiling, conservatives would expect, okay, now let's use the leverage to fight for something and they don't want to fight for something. the democratic scaremongering is useful. because they are working to meet the same priorities. if you pass the default prevery act, suddenly some spines might stiffen and people might be prepared to fight. and that is a nightmare to leadership. that we would actually fight so, no, no, no, we will not attach the default prevention act. how about another one, shutdowns? you would think senator rob portman has legislation prohibiting government shutdowns. would you think for republican

leadership that has made one promise carved in stone, we will never, ever, allow a shutdown, if there were anything on earth to attach to this deal it would be that. senator portman legislation says in the event continuing resolution isn't passed, in event appropriations wilt expire funding continues but slow down over time. we will pass that bill, there will never ever, every again be a government shutdown. if i listen to rhetoric of leadership they would want to pass the bill. why isn't in this? the answer is simple, because if it was in this, members of body would actually expect us to stand up and fight for something. instead leadership wants to be able to tell freshmen, new members of the senate, a shutdown is terrible. worst thing in the world. so we can't fight for anything. so you must acquiesce everything

obama wants. if we actually passed legislation prohibiting shutdowns, that scaremongering would be taken off the table. now democrats don't want that. because democrats support shut downs. you look at the last shut down over obama care. revisionist history aside because the media loves doing revision it history, republicans voted and over and over again to fund government. harry reid and president obama shut it down. reporters scoff at that. harry reid acknowledged that we think shut downs help democrats politically. why is it a difficult proposition of the leader of the democratic party thinks shut downs are beneficial, why is it hard to understand they are forcing a shut down? the last thing democrats want is to take shutdowns off the table

but the dirty little secret, mendacity in this body is republican leadership doesn't want that either. they don't want us standing and resisting anything because it is not two parties. it is one. what else could we have done? how about growth? remember mitch mcconnell's growth about economic growth? why doesn't this bill have provision lifting ban on crude oil exports? that would produce economic growth across this country. it is a no-brainer economically. is this in there? no. did we try? no maybe it was brought up behind closed doors and democrats laughed and said nope, we surrendered. i don't know. doesn't matter. because leadership is not willing to fight for it. if you're not willing to fight for it won't happen. what else could very have done? we could have repealed waters united states rule, one of the most crushing rules hammering farmers and ranchers. that imposes immense threat to

jobs across this country. by the way, you have bipartisan opposition to it in this body but fear not, mr. president, we have a show vote on waters of the united states bill scheduled. leadership is very happy. we'll have a show vote. we'll get to vote. it will fail. every farmer and rancher facing one of thousand of dollars in costs because of this rule should rest assured our show vote will allow to us pretend to be with them. why not attach to this a provision rescinding waters of the united states bill? because that actually would prompt a fight. how about another option? on the spending side? how about putting in work requirement for welfare? mid 1990s, welfare reform, one of most successful public policy reforms of modern times, moved people off of welfare, into work, out of poverty and into the middle class. lifted their spirits, their hopes, their dreams.

provided dignity of work. provided children with homes that were more stable, had more future, more opportunity. we could have added that to that. is that here? no. why? because president obama would fight it. because it is contrary to his big government agenda to expect anyone receiving welfare to work or look for work. by the way, let me say as an aside, you are not helping anyone when you make them dependent on post government. you're not doing them favor of sapping them dignity and self-respect going to work. arthur brooks has a wonderful new book out. one of the things he talks about happiness of going to work and working hard. the dignity that comes from looking your kids in the eye and having a job. the democrats are not helping the people they trap in dependency. they are hurting them profoundly. i have said many times, when my

dad was a teenage immigrant in the 1950s, washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour, when he couldn't speak english, thank god some well-meaning liberal didn't put his arm around them. let me take care of you. let me make you dependent on government. let me give you a check. let me sap your dignity and self-respect. would have been the most destructive thing you did to my father. we could have fought that fight. did we do that? no. what about adding provision internet tax freedom, permanent. the internet will be tags-free in perpetuity. i tried to bring that up numerous times. democrats routinely can be expected to block it. why? because they want to threaten taxing internet. that is money. ain't nothing politicians in washington like more than a chance to get their grubbily little hands on our dollars and our freedom. how precisely do we lose this fight in the course of this we simply attach permanent internet tax freedom to this fight?

are republicans really that lousy at political battle? that we fear the president would shut the government down blame us and we would collapse inning know my because which fought for internet tax freedom? holy cow, if we're bad at that why are we doing it? one other option. how about auditing federal reserve. something else that has bipartisan support. something else would addressee effects of debasing currency. one. effects of debases currency, seniors. seeing their savings devalued. people struggling paycheck to paycheck, single moms are seeing harder to make ends meet. those are seven things we could have added to this. and by the way i would note when leadership says, gosh you're being unrealistic to expect us to fight, i didn't say anyone of those is must-have. i gave a choice of seven.

is it really the case, mr. president, that we could have fought for nothing? is that really the case? that's what leadership tells us, no. nothing pro-growth. nothing limiting spending. nothing addressing any of the promises we made. that's the position of leadership. i asked my republican colleagues, to name one thing president obama is unhappy with regarding this deal? you know there is an old line, if it's a good negotiation both sides are unhappy? both sides will have given something. name one thing president obama is unhappy with. what did we get in return? name one thing? the answers to both questions are exactly the same, nothing. the fact is, president obama has already told us what he thinks of this deal. just this week he stated, quote,

i'm pretty happy about the budget deals because it reflects our values. whose values are those? he's right. this budget deal reflects the obama values. and who negotiated this budget deal? that would be republican leadership. what does it say, mr. president, that republican leadership's budget deal gives president obama everything he wants, because it reflects obama's values. this is why the american people are so frustrated. we keep winning elections and nothing changes. 2009 we were told if only you had republican majority in house of representatives things would be different. we rose up, millions of us in 2010. won a majority. very little changed. then we were told the problem was the senate. harry reid and senate.

if only we had a republican majority in the senate, then things would be different. 2014, millions of minutes rose up again. won another historic tidal wave victory. won nine senate seats. retired harry reid as majority leader. you and i have been here 10 months. can you point to one single accomplishment the republican majority has given to the men and women who elected us? now mind you, there are things we have accomplished. it just wasn't anything we promised men and women back home. one of the things i discovered as freshman, how often leadership would effectively pat you on head, say, now, son, that's what you tell the folks back home. we don't actually do it. you don't expect us to actually do those things? you know, a few weeks back i was meeting with a number of house republicans. i suggested to them, go back to your district, convene a town hall. set up a whiteboard.

and just ask your constituents what should be top priorities of republican majorities in both houses of congress and make a list. if you make a list of 20 things from your constituent, yours in nebraska, mine in texas, i guarranty you of those 20 things, 18 will be not on leadership's priorities. these are not simply what majorities are endeavoring to do. i suggested to house republicans, go down to k street, assemble biggest lobbyists in washington. take out same whiteboard, 20 list of top things. 18 of them will be leadership's top priorities. that is the divide. people ask me, is it that leadership is unwilling to fight? is it that they're not very good? do they not know how to fight? sadly, it is worse than that. they know how to fight. they're actually quite capable

of it. it is who they are willing to fighting for. washington is working. it is not just not working for american people. it is working for giant corporations. working for the lobbyists. it is working for rich and powerful. six of the 10 wealthiest counties in america are in and around washington, d.c. that is who the washington cartel works for. that's the basic divide. and indeed as we look back over the last 10 months, one is left with the conclusion that is rather shocking conclusion. which is that majority leader mcconnell has proven to be the most effective democratic leader of modern times. now, that is in the parlance of washington, a surprising statement. but let's take a moment, to review the statistics. between january and september 30th of this year,

there have been a total of 269 roll call votes. in the same time period, in the prior congress, up harry reid, there were 211 roll call votes. let's look at differences, in particular, i want to focus on the total number of times a majority of democrats voted aye, a majority of republicans voted no, and measure passed? now, if someone is an effective democratic leader you would expect them to be able to pass legislation when a majority of democrats supported it and majority of republicans opposed it. indeed if you're a partisan democrat that would be almost definition of a effective democratic leader. 19 times in the last nine months this so-called republican majority has passed legislation,

has had a vote succeed where a majority of democrats supported it, and a majority of republicans opposed it. one example. we can look to is dhs funding. funding for the department of homeland security. when president obama issued his lawless an unconstitutional executive amnesty. you know republicans across the country campaigned promising to stop it. you and i campaigned together in your home state of nebraska. i spent two months in the year 2014 campaigning with republican senate candidates all over this country. in those two months before that election i slept in my own bed about five days. over and over again republican senate candidates said if you give us majority in the senate we will stop this unconstitutional amnesty. have to tell you i shared with republican leadership, how about

we honor that commitment? the response from leadership was, i didn't say that. i can tell you senate candidates across this country did because i was standing next to them when they said it. what happened when we voted for it, all 45 democrats voted aye. 100 percent of them. that's impressive for a leader to get 100% unanimity among his party. but notice i said his party. there is a reason i said right now sadly majority leader mitch mcconnell is most effective democratic leader in modern times. 100% of democrats are united. how about republicans? 31 voted no and 23 voted yes. under this majority leader the democrats had their way an a majority of republican lost. well, surely that is an outlyer. yes, the president was behaving lawlessly. yes, he was behaving unconstitutionally. yes, indeed he was behaving in his own terms like an emperor.

let me note, calling a president an emperor that is fairly overheated rhetoric but it is not my rhetoric. it is president obama's. president obama was asked by activists, could he decree amnesty unilaterally, and he said, i don't have the constitutional authority to do so. i am not an emperor. those are barack obama's words. i am not an emperor. just months later, magically that same power he said he didn't have under the constitution, just months before presidential elections materialized, suddenly the man who said i am not an emperor, apparently became an emperor in his own assessment. and yet what did the republican majority in the senate do? it joined with 100% of the democrats to overrule majority of republicans in funding president obama's lawless amnesty acting as an embore record.

-- emperor. you and i both sat through republican lunch a couple weeks ago where colleagues quite puzzled why approval of the republican majority is at such low levels. they couldn't understand right now republicans in congress have 10% lower approval rating than we had in the middle of the shutdown. they were utterly befuddled by this. i will suggest a very easy reason. when our leader acts like effective democratic leader, the people who elected us their heads explode. surely you might say this is isolated example. look at the next example. not that one. that is not the next example. they were in a different order. climate one. yet another example, the bennett climate change amendment. a climate change amendment saying, climate change is real, it is man-made, national security threat and we need to

act to stop it. listen, let me say something on global warming i am son of two mathematicians and scientists. i should we should be driven by science and evidence. sadly far left is not interested in science or evidence. they're interested in politics an political power. when it comes to global warming they do not want to confront the "inconvenient truth" as al gore might put it that satellite data dem straight there is no significant warming whatsoever for 18 years. they get very angry when you point that out. well, we had an amendment on that. how many democrats voted for it? oh, look, again, 46, 100%. every single democrat. how many republicans voted against it? 47. just seven republicans yet it passed. now, that is an impressive victory for democratic leader. you have just got 46 democrats. for a democratic leader to get a

win with just 46 democrats, that's impressive. that's what the current majority leader did. produced a win, ran over the wishes of 47 republicans. let's use another example. motion to waive the budget rules hr-2. this is so-called doc fix. the doc fix has been a perennial challenge in congress. part of medicare that assumed unreasonable cuts in doctor reimbursement rates. now for a time it serve ad purpose. it actually allowed washington politicians to shake down the doctors, election after election, after election to write checks. for a time the washington cartel liked the doc fix. came a time to get rid of it and

getting rid of it is a good thing. here's the problem. when we got rid of it we didn't pay for it. we put it on a credit card. we didn't do hard work of finding spending cuts. we didn't do hard work figuring out how to pay for it. we said more debt. well, at least not that much more debt. unfortunately it is. this so-called doc fix will spend more than $200 billion and add more than $140 billion of our deficits over first 10 years. and more than $500 billion to our nation's deficits over 20 years. $500 billion. look even in the world of washington, $500 billion is real money. $500 billion, but surely it is unreasonable to expect anyone to figure out how to pay for a doc fix? interesting since 2004, congress passed periodic doc fixes.

since 2004, doc fixes have been fully offset 94% of the time. 98% of the time, if you count some of the budget gimmicks. if you count the gimmicks, 9% of the time. just this time, $500 billion. we'll not offset. we'll put it on the credit card. after all obama has a platinum encrusted glow in the dark amex. we'll put it on that. the bill goes to your kids and my kids. now what is that irirresponsible profligate spending do? how many democrats voted for it? there is a surprise. every single one of them. 46 democrats. yet 29 republican vote know, 25 vote yes. for a democratic leader what a great victory! a democratic leader with just 46 democrats added $500 billion of spending without paying for it? holy cow. i don't recall harry reid ever being able to campaign saying give me a democratic majority i

will add $500 billion in spending without paying for it. this is an accomplishment. the prior democratic leader, harry reid was not able to achieve. yet the current majority leader got this win for the democrats. let's look at the next example. lynch. confirmation of the attorney general loretta lynch. i serve on the judiciary committee. i participated in multiple hearings. where miss lynch over and over again refused to acknowledge any limits on president obama's authority whatsoever. when miss lynch was asked how she would differ from eric holder the most lawless and partisan attorney general this nation has ever seen, she said no way whatsoever. when pressed repeatedly, if she could articulate even a single

limit on the authority of this president who since implicit i declared i am self an emperor, she refused to articulate even a single limit. when asked if she would appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the irs for wrongfully targeting citizens because of their free speech, because of their political views, mind youing something when richard nixon tried to do it, the career professionals at irs refused. richard nixon was rightly denounced in bipartisan terms using irs to target his political enemies. when obama administration not only attempted but succeeded in doing so, no one has been held to account. instead, the holder justice department, appointed in charge of the investigation, a major democratic donor who has given over $6,000 to president obama and democrats.

you know, there's a yiddish word for that, huts hutzpah, when you appoint major obama donor in charge of investigation whether the obama administration is targeting political opponents of the president, miraculous, miraculous, results we just saw, a whitewash. everyone was exonerated. misstates were made we were told. rather classic, same passive tense, passive joins r voice in the watergate scandal, mistakes were made. yes, mistakes were made. . . now, a number of members of this body, a number of republicans voted to confirm eric holder. that may or may not have been a mistake. i was not here at that time. i did not have the opportunity to examine his record prior to his being appointed attorney general. i can understand those who voted "yes." prior to becoming attorney general, eric holder had built a reputation, by and large, as a

law-and-order prosecutor. and so you could understand senators who would believe that his tenure as u.s. attorney, his tenure as deputy attorney general might suggest he would not be partisan and lawless. with miss lynch, it was qualitatively different. with miss lynch, she told us she would do the very same thing. i suspect there are quite a few people on this side of the aisle have given speeches about the i.r.s. targeting. no one should be surprised the department of justice has now exonerated everyone, because you know what? genera no one should be surprised the department of justice has exonerated everyone, because we confirm that the attorney general who basically told us she would do that. and i would note by the way the majority leader had complete and unilateral authority. if we hadn't taken up this nomination she would not have been confirm. indeed, when president obama put in place is illegal executive amnesty a publicly called on the soon-to-be majority leader.

at the president violates the checksum balances in the constitution, if he usurped the authority of congress, if he ignores our immigration laws been the majority leader should've responded and said the senate will not confirm any obama nominees, executive or judicial. other than vital national security positions. unless and until the president sends his illegal amnesty. now that would have been strong medicine to be sure. that's a serious pushback. it happens to be an authority directly given to the congress by the constitution as a check and balance. how to get an aerial presidency? when the other branches lay down and hand over their authority. nothing prevented the majority from doing so, other than thou violates the norms of the washington cartel. and so instead it was the majority leader brought this up for a vote. what happened?

sadly there's no drama or suspense anymore and looking to what happened. with the democrats, all 46 democrats voted to confirm loretta lynch. all 46. 34 republicans voted no. and yet she is confirmed and the lawlessness continues in the department of justice. now, i've got a super democratic leader it's not clear to me harry reid could have gotten this done. harry reid in charge of this floor with a just 46 democrats, it's not clear to me at all he could have gotten this done. but i've got to say leader mcconnell has proven to be a very effective democratic leader. with just 46 democrats the outcome is exactly what harry reid and the democrats would want to. mr. president, business not a curious state of affairs? what is a republican majority leader fighting to accomplish the priorities of the democratic

minority? we will look at one another example. the export-import bank. president obama when he was senator obama described this as a classic example of corporate welfare. over $1 billion in taxpayer-funded loan guarantees going to a handful of giant corporations predominately. and yet as we talked about before it is one thing the washington cartel is good at, it's corporate welfare. the export-import bank of how they democrats or here's a shock, only 42 democrats. not 100%. you would want to i believe bernie sanders. i were committed senator sanders are standing up against this corporate welfare. on becky and i aren't exactly the same page. and yet 42 democrats, just 20 republicans in favor of this corporate welfare, 28

republicans voted no. and yet what happened? it passed. now it's not at all clear that harry reid as democratic leader with just 42 democrats come is not at all clear he could've gotten this. but leader mcconnell once again is a very, very effective democratic leader. and i would note one of speaker boehner's parting farewells was duty of the export-import bank and the house of representativ representatives. it expired this summer. we talked before about other budget control act was one of the few victories republican majorities could point to get actually the expiration of ex-im bank is another one. an example of over $100 billion in taxpayer loan guarantees to a handful of giant corporations, and it expired. what does a say in a period of two weeks republican majorities

in both houses are working to undo not one bulk of the only two meaningful victories the republican majorities have produced? and mind you, for the same reason. because the cartel demands a. because a giant corporation want it because they want checks. what does that say? what does that say indeed, well, if you want to know what it says we can look to the previous democratic leader, harry reid. who tweeted out, i commend senate majority leader for setting up a vote to reauthorize the export-import bank. this bill is critically important for u.s. businesses. set aside how rich it is for the democrats to be claiming to be fighting for u.s. businesses. anytime they say that what they mean is cronyism. because when washington particularly under the obama

administration fight for u.s. businesses, it is a giant corporations and not the little guy. over and over and over again it is a those who employ armies of lobbyists and lawyers and accountants that it favors from washington. because when washington zandio favors, it empowers politicians. ayn rand wrote in "atlas shrugged" about how productive members of society, business owners would be forced to go to parasitical politicians, although some may suggest that's a redundant phrase. to go to parasitical politicians on the indignity bagging for special dispensations. when you are safer business a means of giant corporations that pay little to no taxes because they have tax loopholes carved and. it never means the mom and pop it never means the little guy. it never means the sabena lovings of the world.

who is sabena lovings ar quick sabena lovings was a woman who testified before the senate inherent i chaired a couple of weeks ago. said being a loving is an african-american, single mom who start a small tax-preparation company and the southside of chicago. while the obama i here's put in place new rules regulating tax-preparation authorities, and rules for which they the legal authority. in fact, they used a statute called a dead horse act as their justification for regulating tax preparer's. the obama i here's regulation exempted lawyers. it exempted high-priced accountants to get exempted the rich and powerful. the giant accounting firms, they didn't have to worry about it at all the news lobbyists are this business on the southside of chicago was facing thousands and costs, costs she felt with driver at a business. she said the irs and she won. you want in a row, incredible story, of a single mom standing

up against big government, and the lawless regulation of the obama iran's, you know what? said being a loving has no lobbyists in washington. washington cartel doesn't listen to the sabena loving. it listens to the rich and powerful corporation the right check to both parties because it's one party, the party of washington. that is the sad reality of where we are. you want to know why the american people are frustrated him you want to know why they're ticked off, you want to know why they cannot understand. it's not that we keep losing elections. that would be frustrating. you could understand that we've got to do a better job, motivate people, get a message that resonates. we keep winning and the people we elect don't do what they said they would do. by the way, to lead the ex-im

bank unauthorized all comes out to do was do nothing. if there's one thing that china congress is good at doing, it is doing nothing. and yet the phrase that gets repeated so often, washington is broken, that phrase is actually not true. washington is working. it's just not working for the american people. it's working. the cartel is working for the lobbyists and the giant corporations and those with power and influence in the obama administration. this deal is a classic example of the washington cartel. and i would note by the way, today we have a new speaker of the house, paul ryan. i congratulate paul ryan under speakership i hope that we see bold prints will leaders from the new speaker.

one other thing speaker ryan articulated was the ryan rule, that under speaker ryan they would not bring to the floor of the house being built that could have majority support among the republican conference. mr. president, i ask you something. white as majority leader mitch mcconnell articulate a similar role for the united states senate? if the ryan rule is good enough for the united states house can why is it not good enough for the united states senate with everyone at the examples i just gave you were a majority of democrats, typically unanimous democrats, beat a majority of republicans, every one of those would never have come to the floor. if the senate followed the ryan rule. how about that way meaningful reform? that is the majority leader disputed the characterization that is the most effective democratic leader modern times have seen, how about the majority leader promulgate a similar role to the ryan rule

double nothing to the floor of ththe senate something that doesn't have the least majority support from republicans? that would be a sensible reform. sadly i think the odds of it happening are not significant. because here's the round of the making people understand and get frustrates me. the cartel is all one happy family. the lame-duck speaker on his way out will no doubt land in a plush, easy chair in the washington cartel. will soon be making millions of dollars living off the cartel. the lame-duck president when he moves on, like bill clinton before him, will make hundreds of millions of dollars. the cartel operates in one. innocent we have one leadership team. it is the mcconnell reader

leadership team. in the house we've had the banner below cilicia teen. they operate in harmony growing washington. that frustration is what's driving every day the growing and growing rage from the american people. and the truth of america's republican leadership does not spend time thinking how can we be president obama, how do we beat nancy pelosi? had we changed any of these disastrous policies that are hurting millions of americans? instead leadership spends all their time thinking how do we beat the conservatives? in the house how do we crush this freedom caucus, these crazy radicals who actually we should do what we said we would do. what a shocking revolutionary, radical statement for washington, d.c. that elected

officials actually do with all our constituents we would do. republican leadership with recent deals on planned parenthood, republican leadership led the fight to find planned parenthood. entity that pressing went to the presence is a great? we box out conservatives. we play the procedure game so that nothing conservatives could do to stop $509 in taxpayer funding for planned parenthood. what does it say? when i said majority leader mcconnell is most effective democratic leader we've seen in modern times. harry reid it's been that much nothing but how to beat republicans. leader mcconnell spent more time focused on how to defeat conservatives than harry reid ever did. that is the problem. it is our own leadership that cooks up deals. why do you think, mr. president, we are voting at one in the

morning? is that an accident? it is by design one in the morning, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. pay no attention to another $85 in debt. pay no attention to the fact that it is republican majority in a like credit card to barack obama. votes at one in the morning, republican leadership hopes no one noticed. so we can run out and get implants and filed our constituents and say we've got to stop the debt. i shudder to think for him and standing too close to a politician is as we've got to stop the debt after voting for this. the lightning strike that make them. the mendacity of this city. leadership always counsels prudence and reasonableness. how is it prudent to continue bankrupting this nation?

how is it prudent have gone from 10 trillion t to over 18 shown n debt but how is it prudent to stay with the lancashire economic growth from 2008 today's economy has grown on average 1.2% a year. that's prudent? how is it prudent to watch as your show and my children's future is washed away? how is that reasonable? how is that pragmatic? why are we not instead trying to fix these problems? and not even just fix them all. not even solve everything with a perverted magical ball. because leadership like this again, welcome you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. mr. president, where is the good? leadership's position is we can't do anything.

leadership's position is that with republican majorities in both houses, we should spend more, $85 billion in that would give with a democratic majority, $63 billion. leadership, you shouldn't set unreasonable expectations. gosh, things meet with leadership who said if we had a republican majority in the senate, then we would fight on what are we going to fight? we may have some more showboats. by where we just had a show put on sanctuary cities and kate's law. mr. president, why wasn't kate's law attached to this bill? why was of the sanctuary cities attached but because i would been something we campaigned on the promise our constituents and democrats wouldn't like the. remember my question what in this barack obama is unhappy about? nothing. because leadership's position is we can do nothing.

if we can do nothing. then it makes one wonder what was all the fuss about winning a majority? i don't believe we can win every fight i don't believe we can magically transform everything. at least not without winning the presidency. but surely the alternative is not we can deduct the. is there not a reasonable middle ground that we can accomplish something? i would note the last time with republican majorities in congress and a democratic president was newt gingrich as speaker thousand bill clinton as president. we accomplish a great you. we accomplish walter bauer -- welfare reform. we balance the budget or what have these republican majorities done? made the problem worse. and as a result, mr. president, with apologies to the late great a journalist michael kelly, i

want to some of my views as simply saying i believe. i believe. i believe what republican leadership tells us. i believe that every time the mainstream media echoes leadership wisdom, of course it is right that we cannot set expectations too high. we cannot promise too much. we cannot be expected to deliver on any of our promises. i believed republican leadership when they said if only we had a republican majority in the house, then we would stand and fight. after winning the house in 2010, i believed leadership that if only we had a republican majority in the senate also, then we would stand and fight. today, i believe republican leadership, that if only we had 60 votes in the senate, then we

would stand and fight. and pepper to get 60 votes, i will believe republican leadership when they tell us that only we had 67 votes in the senate, then we will finally stand up and fight. i believe there is no way congress could do anything whatsoever to stop obamacare, or even to try to provide meaningful relief to the millions who are hurt by that failed law every day. i believe that congress has no power to do anything about the prejudice unconstitutional executive amnesty. or sanctuary cities. or anything else that might secure our borders. i believe the republican majorities in both houses of congress can do nothing meaningful on spending or the debt or tax reform or regulatory reform. that we can do nothing to rein in the epa or the cfpb, no matter how many millions of jobs

they kill. i believe that congress must acquiesce to the obama administration is declaring the internet to be a regulated public utility. and administrations attempt to give away control of the internet to international cartel of stakeholders, including russia and china. i believe that congress can do nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop this catastrophic iranian nuclear deal. yes, it will send over $100 billion to the ayatollah khamenei, who chance death to america in front of mobs burning american and israeli flags. and even though it threatens the security of israel and potentially the lives of millions of americans, i believe that congress has the constitutional power of the purse, but i believe congress can still do nothing whatsoever to protect the american citizens.

i believe that congress can do nothing to protect religious liberty or free speech, that congress must quietly accept an irs of the targets citizens for exercising their constitutional rights come into president who ignores federal law. and federal judges who disregard the text of the constitution. i believe the republican leadership when they promised the american people that if only we had congressional majorities, we would fight obamacare and amnesty and lawlessness. and today i believe the public and leadership when they say of course we cannot and will not do any of that. and it was unreasonable for anyone to have believed that those promises in the first place. i believe that anytime president obama threatens a shutdown, republican leadership is exactly right, to surrender and fund all of obama's big government

priorities, to find obamacare and amnesty come and planned parenthood and the iranian nuclear deal. otherwise obama might shut down the government. and it would be our fault, so we must do whatever we demand, no matter what. i believe that it is unreasonable, radical even come to expect congress to do any of the things we promised the voters on the campaign trail. i believe that what republican speaker joins with nancy pelosi at the democrats to fund all of obama's priorities that it is the republican freedom caucus who are the crazy ones saying we should stand for something. i believe that when republican senate majority leader publicly promises there is no secret deal to reauthorize the export-import bank, then one month later than towards procedural rules, to

force through the deal that he had claimed didn't exist, that it is not his public life that matters, but rather it is his junior senator who has violated the core of by pointing it out out loud. i believe the only thing we can expect republican majorities to do is expand government, reauthorize corporate welfare and grow the debt. that's called governing. always said one octave lower in washington. governing is measured by how many bills you pass, and one cannot govern without agreeing to democrats across the board. if we passed a lot of bills? even if they do nothing to address the debt or bring back jobs or economic growth, even if actually expand washington power and make the problems worse, and i believe we should celebrate.

i believe that democrats can never be forced to compromise on anything. that it is always unreasonable to ever try to win a political battle with them. and so it must always be the republicans who agree to the democrats big government priorities. and i believe the only way republicans can win is to continue making these same mistakes over and over and over again. of course, i do sometimes wonder why it matters if we have republican majorities in congress. after all, leadership is told me they cannot accomplish anything different from the democrats, that it is an unreasonable demand to expect them to fight obama on anything. since it is only the crazy,

causing caucus who thinks we can fight obama on any issue, anything whatsoever -- kamikaze. i believe that leadership is right to fight on nothing. to pass the very same bills filled with pork and corporate welfare, obamacare funding and amnesty, and confirmed the very same attorney general, that the democrats would have done. i do wonder sometimes as hillary clinton would have put it, what difference does it make? but then i put aside such foolish thoughts. instead, i believe. i yield the floor. >> every weekend to see spin networks feature programs on

politics, nonfiction books in american history. saturday night at nine eastern politics and internet experts on whether social media hurts politics and its effects on campaign 2016. sunday evening at 6:30 p.m. texas legislators and other officials look at the has been vote in 2016 and 2018 elections.

>> all persons having business before the are both the supreme court of the united states draw near and give their attention. >> this weekend on c-span's "landmark cases" will discuss the historic supreme court case of schenck versus the united states. in 1917, the united states entered world war i. patriotism was high and some forms of criticism of the

government were a federal offense. charles schenck who was general secretary of the philadelphia socialist party handed out and out leaflets against the draft. >> this is a fire that was produced in 1917. 15,000 copies were produced and the point was to encourage men who are liable for the draft not to register. the language is particularly fiery. he equates the conscription with slavery and calls on every citizen to resist the conscription laws. >> who was arrested, tried and found guilty under the resort enacted espionage act. he didn't appealed and the case went directly to the supreme court or find out how the court ruled, weighing the issues are clear and present danger, and freedom of speech. that's coming up on the next "landmark cases" live monday at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span,

c-span3 in c-span radio. for background on each case while you watch order your copy of the "landmark cases" companion book available for $8.95 plus shipping at c-span.org/landmarkcases. >> it's a very touchy business being a son or daughter of a dictator. you wouldn't wish this kind of life on most people really. so it's a collection of very interesting sometimes lurid stories. but there are also point about tierney, about loyalty, about nature, nurture, about politics. even about democracy because of sunday night on q&a, "national review" senior editor jay nordlinger on his book children of monsters which looks at the lives of the children of 20 dictators including stalin, mussolini, mao zedong and saddam hussein. >> i was able to talk to some knowledgeable people.

i couldn't talk to any family members, which was usually the case in the preparation for this book. the are only so many around to talk to and only so many willing to say what they know or to divulge their feelings or experiences at all. i was digging around for any scrap come into that i possibly could because these sons and daughters, most of them, some of them are famous and important, some of them become dictator, but most of them are footnotes and asides educated to find out about them. >> sunday night at eight eastern and pacific on c-span q&a. >> on c-span2 we're live at the center for american progress in washington for a discussion on tax reform. the center for american progress says that more than half of all working age councils are in danger of having to make severe and painful cuts to their standard of living as the great older basically the same american families need more and

more money for retirement. experts and government officials will be looking at the financial charges facing those in retirement and explore ways to address the crisis through tax reform by means of promoting things like refundable tax credits for retirement savings. it should get underway shortly. we were showing you some of the debate from last night and into early this morning from the senate floor on the two-year budget deal that passed in the senate in the wee hours of this morning. the vote was 64-35. the ap singh president obama says he is eager to sign the two-year budget deal in hopes of breaking manufactured crises that for the years to come. president obama saying in his statement about the budget urging congress to use the momentum of the deal to get moving on spending bills. a statement from the white house saying this agreement is a reminder that washington can still choose to help rather than hinder america's progress. no word on whether that will be

signed by the president today but we will keep you posted. live coverage are on c-span2 from the center for american progress. their discussion should get underway here shortly. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] a [inaudible conversations]

>> good morning and welcome to the center for american progress. i'm christian, senior fellow at the center for american progress professor of public policy at the university of massachusetts-boston. carmel martin was supposed to give opening remarks but she is unfortunately sick. with each passing generation america's retirement crisis is going to in 1983 almost a third of america's working age households could face, could expect to learn to live on much less during retirement. by 2013 the number had grown to more than half of all working age adults. this trend is getting worse not better by any measure. young families are having even more trouble than previous generations to save for retirement. while this problem is most acute for all middle income families, and there are some families are suffering more than others from the retirement crisis in the respected shortfall in spin every turn, typically lower income households are more likely to experience.

this is typical for household who didn't work for an employer who offers retirement benefits at work. so what can we do to tackle this problem? federal and state governments offer substantial tax benefit to help people save for retirement. the federal government forgoes more than $100 billion each year in tax revenue to incentivize people to save for retirement. states with income tax also forgo substantial amounts of tax revenue to encourage workers in the states to save for retirement. even though the federal and state government are spending a lot of money for growing pattern to help people save for retirement, we will be facing a crisis. part of the problem of this dichotomy of more government spending and less retirement savings is that many of the attacks and since we have are not take a well-designed. they are often inefficient. height income earners get sort of the biggest help from

existing savings have is multiple times for as we show on our website and lower income families. so which clued we have to do more to families save, tackle the retirement crisis and part of the solution is to think about ways how we can reform the tax code and improve those existing savings incentives to help those who need the most help. possible solutions include expanding refundable credits, sampling savings incentives and offering more ways to all people save for retirement outside of their employee employer relationship we are fortunate to distinguished panels today to help us dig out whether they actually say, what are potential solutions that would compound talk about the solutions in the crisis. first and will be moderated by professor teresa ghilarducci, the director for schwartz center for economic policy at the new school university in new york who will lead a discussion of

the depth of the crisis and the second panel will be moderated by rebecca vallas, director for policy, director of policy for poverty to prosperity program. were not particularly good about shortenings, we'll focus on strategies to make asia for households to say that we will be joined by karen dimond, this is a good for economic policy chief accounts at the treasured one who will offer keynote remarked on retirement crisis. with felony welcome the first panel and moderator by teresa. thank you. [applause] >> really wonderful to have you three here with me. there's many questions i wanted to ask all three of you. let me start with just teeing off of what christian said, that we have a retirement crisis. many people have focused on this

idea that government may not be able to pay for all the elderly who will be retirement age. but a bigger problem, not what you think of the retirement crisis is just that these folks will not have enough money when they get to retirement age. so in your remarks i would like you to address what are the salient facts of with others to take the crisis might be? the second issue is also teeing off of what christian said is that we spent a lot of money in the federal tax code and also in the state level that is invisible. indirect come in the form of tacit's pitchers. money we don't collect because people get a deferral went to contribute to their qualified tax retirement account, or come and the contributions and adjustments that build a. so this indirect subsidy is large. how large is it? and what kinds of reforms?

not what might happen a for years to hear, what policies would best help the people we just talked about get more savings adequacy, more retirement adequacy? >> thank you so much for having me. this is a wonderful organization. i'm glad to be here today. and as both christian and you mentioned we are facing an ongoing retirement crisis, the retirement security of people have enough to spend in retirement, that they can maintain their consumption level to some degree relative, prior to retirement and particularly low-income people can have a very basic level of income. this is a problem that is officially gone straight on lower and middle income households, households of color. part of the solution is probably to increase the minimum benefit for social security would to this point is now below the poverty line. but another huge piece of the puzzle which is the focus of

today's tax incentives for retirement which cbo estimates cost about $2 trillion over 10 years and then teresa's work suggests that maybe 20% more if you included the state level impact because states attended piggyback on the federal rules for defining incomes. i want to focus on three pitches today related to this. the first is the fairness of the current incentives in terms of people who are participating in employer plans at the second is how to increase access to employer plans. unless one is how to improve the effectiveness of the plans themselves better improving retirement security. so on the first subject, the evidence is about our current retirement savings incentives don't increase how much people save out of their own money for retirement. they did increase how much of

savings they have for retirement which may sound a little paradoxical, and one way to think of it is supposed that i take on $50,000 of income and would say 5000 retirement without any savings incentives, and then you can when thousand dollars savings instant. what the evidence is suggesting that basically that $1000 will go to increasing my 401(k), to some degree, probably most or all of it i won't act to increase how much i'm saving the i will end up with $45,000 of consumption like i did before and $6000 in my 401(k) rather than 5000 but not changing my consumption and a much i'm saving up my own money. this is a really important factor it means that these incentives are not spurring people to save more. they are instead sort of like the government deposit and the subsidy into your 401(k) and possibly a bit of it into your checking account as well. i think it means we need to

focus a lot more on the fairness of these incentives and who's savings we should be supplementing the most. my answer would be low and middle income households rather than the wealthy. but, in fact, the current retirement incentives vary disproportionately go to the wealthiest households. so cbo has estimated that about two-thirds go to the top quintile, two-thirds of the value of these incentives, whereas only 7% go to the bottom 40%. if you look at just the top 1% they get 50% more of the benefit than the whole middle quintile. so one way and probably the main way to address this unfairness issue would be to shift more towards refundable tax credit, it and you could completely replace the current system of deferral and deductions and taxing the money when it comes out and often many years later, our taxing the money when it goes in as iraq the model is a

not taxing the earnings at all, a bill proposed replacing the current system. you could also shift to more in this direction by cutting back on the tax incentives for the wealthy, whether that's through reducing the contradiction limits, something like to present the proposal to limit the value of lots of deductions and exclusions including those retirement savings at 20%, a cap on the amount of tax preferred savings you could have as an ad group did -- advocate of using some of that to make the saver's credit refundable potentially expand it. you might even want to use some of that revenue for deficit reduction for other priorities, given that $2 trillion actually an awful lot of money. i want to mention of a refundable credit is that it would enable you to structure the tax incentive, the match that is directly deposited into

the count and do some empirical evidence that this would increase the responsiveness due to framing effects. spin can you explain that, just a little more? >> sure. this is just the fact that let's say i get a refund equal to 25% of my savings. so i save 1 dollar i get 25 cents back. i'm putting in 75 cents out of my own pocket to end up with 1 dollar in my account. but instead if it's a magic have the same result and frame it as a 33% match. i put in 75% and then the government in this case would match 33% of my savings your most people don't do that math internet as a 33% of bigger than 25% and they respond more. but also just the fact that we go into the account in some reform ideas would eliminate some of the friction. >> the second i wanted to talk

about with expanding access. right now about a 30 people don't have access at all to a retirement plan. about have to participate. these numbers are much higher if you're low-wage, part-time, working for a small business. so about 60% don't even have access. the fact of the matter is people really don't see it for retirement if they are not covered by an employment plan. very few people directly contribute to an ira. so even if you make the tax incentives more progressive, you would be failing to cover or increase retirement savings among a lot of people who are not covered are participating in employer plans. and i think that's a very important aspect of retirement security that we need to focus more on. one way to expand coverage would be through the automatic ira proposals that some folks come i see pioneers of, the president has proposed his proposal would

require businesses to more than 110 employers to offer a payroll deduction ira and would provide tax credits if they do so including larger ones if they are auto enrolled or creating a qualified plan. while the study was ritual i bipartisan idea, it has really been stymied by the fact that it is included a mandate that brings up images of health care reform in the '90s, a lot of republicans on the hill. so another approach is john's proposal which is substantially to increase the credit for employers offering plans but not necessarily applied mandates. >> and anytime i think another wrote important effort is to get states to be pioneers in this. if we are not going to see the slightest of proposals enacted in the very near future, there are states that wanted to create auto ira plans and the department of labor is working on guidance clarifying that they are allowed to under erisa. the final they want to touch on

is plan design. this can have a tremendous effect on coverage. a lot of people know that if you auto enrollment, if you have auto escalation plans to see a lot more participation from a lot more savings. people's behavior is a lot more influenced by how easy it is to save and the structure of savings advantages by these incentives. we've seen a big shift towards auto enrollment since the pension protection act that there's more that we can do to spur that. and even more ambitious i think we could think about, but in some of our incentives. trying to get employers to calibrate their defaults towards adjusting the auto enrollment default based on income. so given that social security is in that progressive and a lower wage workers get higher share of income replaced, in an ideal

world you would probably have different savings rates among different income groups. you could go in that direction. one other thing i think we need to be thinking about long-term is how this savings is invested. one important development has been due in part to the increase in auto enrollment. we see a lot more investment in target date funds which automatically adjust your portfolio over time to be less risky as you approach retirement. i think it would be great if we could begin to think about defaulting people, this would potentially require legislation archives into products that gradually annuitize and/or purchase long-term care interest over time. of the goal is to ensure a certain level of retirement income and address health care shocks in retirement, you actually need less money saved to do that if you're partially -- or purchase long-term care interest. the final important initiative i

have to mention with respect to how funds are invested is the department of labor's conflict of interest rule that the been working on, and this is addressing the very larger problem of people are losing about $17 billion per year due to receiving advice from the financial advisors that is not in the best interest because of conflicts of interest that these financial advisors are receiving. the proposal which still needs to be finalized would require financial advisors who received his conflicted payments to provide advice to say it is in the best interest of the class. i will stop there. i have taken up too much time. >> you talk about the lack of coverage of most private-sector workers. you have given us some ideas about how to tweak the design a people who have it. you were hoping auto ira scum were the people who don't have an employer with a treatable designs and to talk about the

big fault line in the way people invest now. most of the time asking experts for advice is one big fault line. and that interest led on apple here from john framing about what about the obvious on with in this country which is that we allow lump-sum withdrawals. we are seeing already this week was happening in the uk now that they've just given the sort of pension freedom to take a lump sums. it's not good. whether or not you think, you are not in politics anymore so whether or not you think we should start lump-sum withdrawals or withdrawals at all before retirement. such as key, i would love to hear -- >> okay speed and john, how would you frame the problem is that has been a people problem, not sort of a budget problem and then have which you frame and have people pointing the way forward to fixing it with the

money we already have on the table? what do you say, 120, 2 trillion -- add another \20{l1}s{l0}\'20{l1}s{l0} % from the state. so every year that's 100 -- 200 speed is over 200. of elizabeth birch and a little more the 10th year. >> so if you show that gun in the first act it will be shot in the second. so the gun is $200 billion a year, all right. can we use that better speak with first of all, thank you so much to the organizers and to teresa from authorizing this panel. that's a great pleasure to be here. so i think you phrase this as this is a budget problem or is this a people problem. the easy way to see this as a deeper people problem is that i think if you substantially expanded the budget that we are putting forth on retirement incentives, the way they are organized are you still wouldn't go very far towards fixing the problem. and i think that that's because

of these tax incentives and really the research suggest most forms of incentives whether they are company matches or savers credit or the tax deduction, they just are not effective at increasing savings. that's for three reasons. so first, editing civil not come as a great surprise if you will talk to people that are not in this room, most americans do not get a great deal of attention to the fine details of savings policy. so for instance, if i think you'vofdoubled or have existingx incentive for a savings i don't think most people would notice. not that they would respond a little but i think it would literally do nothing. now, of course, will be some people who will respond and so that leads into the second problem with tax incentives, which is that it does not appear to actually increase the amount people are saving. just to give you a sense of why this might be true, say you're from comes out and to give yo ya great match record govern what you get is a great texture and

you say this is fantastic, i want to put more money in, that's only the first step. you have to not just deposit the money in the retirement account to start with but you have to actually spend less on what it tells you going to do that year and it turns out to be much, much harder. so what we see is that people do put a lot of money in retirement accounts when they are offered these incentives but essentially for each value put in this retirement account, you either save less in some other form for your credit card debt goes up and adjust its offset in the way that certain does increase your savings and might even make the problem worse if for instance, you are borrowing on a credit card that has a much higher interest rate than your savings account will return. this reprinted in tax incentive more as lump sums deposited them as they can certain people savings account i think you want to didn't evaluate that on the basis of fairness but and also the basis of efficiency. what is it we're trying to do by

augmenting people savings and i think in addition to distribution concerns the motivation for government support of retirement savings is that we think some people on their own will not be able to save enough for retirement. so what i think that clerk points to is we should be directing the subsidies which are effectively lump sums towards those people who are least prepared are least able to save for retirement and by structuring it as a match were doing exactly the opposite of that. first we're giving the largest lump-sum to people who are already saving the most and second the people already safety even if they are saving less the people who are saving more likely to be kind of aware there understand the problem, thinking about retirement in the way that the people who really have the deepest problems are the ones who just are nothing but the problem at all. if they haven't started saving the because they thought about it really hard and decided it was not best for them to say,

these are people just not have thought about the problem at all. how do we help the people? i think there's increasing evidence that default or matches or you can call them what you want but these other forms of increasing, encouraging participation are much more palatable. for each of the three ways in which incentives are ineffective, default or an auto escalation or another nudge is effected. so first just take a default for instance, it's exactly what some people who are not paying attention. now your primary going to affect the 85% of people who are not paying attention as opposed to the 15% who are. second it turns out that defaults when the increased contribution to retirement accounts and actually did increase to say things. there are a couple of different reasons why that might be the case but in contrast to the tax incentives which i think is the increase in savings in response

to the tends to be more of a well-thought-out thing. when people get the default into contribute more to the retirement account, sometimes money is just a -- disappearing from the paycheck to paycheck is less, the indus penniless which exactly what you need in order to save more. then the third comp the defaults are targeting exactly to those people are paying the least attention who often have the least savings and to be the most help in making the lading a nest egg. in this way i think defaults can imagine the political problems with mandates, i think defaults might be better than mandates because it is going to help target this government intervention in a way that is most effective. with a mandate there may be some people who really can send your they should be saving. they should be saving overall but maybe they're earning much less than they otherwise would. lily just came out of government service so she was taking it for the sake of the country.

navy wasn't worth it so much work to save while she was earning the government but now she's back at nyu and earning princely sum for teaching, it makes sense to sought more money away. that's a silly example but there are people who go through bad times and good times and forcing of want to save the same amount, no matter what's going on i think is not right, were asked to give a default, if you encourage people to say but if you we need the money, it's not forcing anyone. i think that these types of images should be put at the forefront of policy efforts to try to help retirement savings crisis do everything even though the normal things that go with tax incentives coming from tax reform may not be as effective. tax policy can be very effective in encouraging firms to take up these types of berries to a very effective policy for encouraging firms to give workers access to these retirement accounts at all.

for instance, being able to direct deposit of saving strictly out of your paycheck instead of having to save up and write a check at the end of the year turns out to make an enormous difference in how easily people are able to save. so i think just in a minute or two left, kind of to other things while we think about the tax system is trying to encourage better retirement savings behavior more generally, kind of two other big deal things we talked a lot about getting the money into the account. lily talked about how the money is invested in the account. there's enormous amount of evidence that people pay just extraordinarily high fees relatively to what they need to pay. it's been getting better over time. i think think the conflict of t will is a good step further in that direction, but a lot more encouragement for people to invest in index funds, target date funds, things that are low-key as opposed to these specialized in ig products.

the final thing is it turns out to be way to to easy and to tryr people to take money out of the retirement accounts to give in to the lump-sum withdrawals at retirement or bigger problem is when they take out before retirement because at least you got my intel 65. yukon part of the weight of the evidence suggests for every dollar that is invested in their retirement savings account, nearly 50 cents is coming out in that same year. some of that is coming out due to real-life hardship withdrawals that we don't want to shut down but a lot of it is coming out in ways that i think are not great. people take out loans from the 401(k) and then if you switch from should automatically have to repay the loan and which is almost that of a default and that money is just lost from the retirement system. ..

>> you say that we are spending that money incorrectly because we qualify plans with bad design. and you would want designs with lots of tweaks, but you would not mandate that the money go in and stay there. and i've been intrigued by this idea that that would disrupt people like lilley or somebody else -- lily or somebody else who have consumer needs and that the government would be forcing people to save too much, and ey