14%. during the years of barack obama, 17 million uninsured americans were given access to health care, 17 million and the number is climbing. renewable energy production has increased significantly. you drive across america today you see wind farms in the middle part of this country, farmers make more money from producing energy on their farms and harvesting corn and soybeans because of the president's suggested list >> we breakaway as the u.s. senate is gaveling back into work on legislation from senator rand paul known as the audit the fed bill which would allow the government accountability office to review the federal reserve's private communications about setting interest rates, a procedural vote on the bill is scheduled for 15 minutes from now, 2:30 eastern. now live to the senate floor on c-span2.

divided. the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i rise today in opposition to secrecy. i rise in support of auditing the federal reserve. i rise in opposition to the lack of accountability of the federal reserve, an institution that has for too long been +shrouded in secrecy. the objective of the federal reserve transparency act is simple: to protect the interests of the average american by finding out where hundreds of billions of dollars' worth are going. the federal reserve has the ablght to create new money and to spend it on whatever financial assets it wants, whenever it wants, while giving the new money to whichever banks it wants. yet if the average joe and jane from main street printed their own money, they would be imprisoned as counterfeiters. nowhere else but in washington, d.c., would you find an institution with so much unchecked power. creating new money naturally lowers interest rates pric ratee

price of using money. the unchecked printing press creates a price control on the cost of using money. throughout our country's history, price controls have never worked and the fed's price control on interest rates has also not worked. think bank bac back to the housg bubble. artificially low interest rates led to many investing and buying and selling in the housing industry. this led to house prices to soar which led to the spiraling down of the great depression of 2008. since the 2008 financial crisis, the fed has increased its balance sheet from less than $1 trillion to over $4 trillion. although the fed has created trillions of new dollars, it has become apparent that most of this money is not finding its way into the hands of average americans.

from 2009 to 2012, the incomes of the top 1% increased by a whopping 31% while everyone else's income increased by only .4%. the reason for this is simple: big banks, corporations, and government entities received the federal reserve's money long before anyone else. and they bid up the prices of assets before the rest of us can get to purchase them. former federal reserve governor kevin wors this. h once referred to the easy money policy as the reverse robin hood effect. if you have access to credit, if you've got a big balance sheet, the fed has made you richer. this is way to make the well-to-do even more well-to-do. the side effect of this uneven distribution of money is painfully apparent to anyone who shops at a grocery store. over the past 15 years, the price of white bread has

increased by over 50% while the price of aches has more than doubled. -- eggs has more than doubled. the price of housing has also appreciated significantly in many areas. when adjusting for inflation, the price of housing in san francisco has increased by 58% over just 25 years. real household income for regular americans has declined 10% over the past 15 years. higher rent and higher grocery bills cause lower-income workers to incur more loans and credit card debt, which involve far higher interest rates than what the banks and wall street are currently paying. these low-income workers do not get the luxury of receiving the fed's newly created money first, nor do they have the luxury of receiving the near-zero interest rates that the wealthy do. as a result, one thipg is for certain: the fed's price control on interest rates acts as a hidden tax on the less well-to-do.

the fed also exacerbates income inequality by paying large commercial banks $12 billion in interest. this is a departure from nearly a century of practice. while individual savers earn practically no interest, the big banks are given $12 billion per year in interest. there's a revolving door often between the fed, the treasury, and wall street. it's a revolving door in a building that is all too eager to enrich big banks and asset holders at the expense of everyone else. i think it's about time we pull back the curtain to uncover this cloak of secrecy once and for all. who is receiving the loans from the fed today? who is the fed paying interest to? are there any conflicts of interest about how these payments are determined? are there any checks and balances on the size of these

payments? the federal reserve act actually forbids the fed from buying some of the troubled assets that it bought in 2008, yet they did it anyway. given all these unanswered questions and given the sharp increase in the risk. fed's balance sheet, it is unquestionably necessary for the fed to be audited more thoroughly than it has in the past. audit the fed is just three pages long, and it simply says that the government accountability office, the g.a.o., which is a nonpartisan, apolitical agency in charge, that they be allowed to audit the fed, a full and thorough audit. currently the g.a.o. is not allowed to monitor the fed's monetary deliberations or open market transactions. the g.a.o. was also forbidden from reviewing agreements with foreign central banks. during the downturn in 2008, trillions of dollars were spent,

much of it, or quite a bit of it on foreign banks and we're not allowed to know what occurred, to whom this was given, and for what purpose. the fed audit in its current form is virtually futile. when these restrictions were added to the audit in the 1970's, the g.a.o. testified before congress saying, we do not see how we can satisfactorily audit the federal reserve without the authority to examine it's largest single category of financial transactions and assets. to grasp just how limited the current audit is, recall that in 2009 democratic congressman alan grayson asked then-fed chairman ben bee bernanke, which foreign countries received $500 billion in loans from the fed. bernanke was unwilling to name which countries or banks received the half trillion

dollars' worth of funds. the fed swpped a half a trillion dollars to foreign countries, in secret, and did not even have the decency under testimony in congress to report the de-taisms but it gets worse. democratic senator bernie sanders also asked bernanke who received $2.2 trillion that the fed lent out during the financial crisis? again, bernanke refused to give a direct answer. in the 2011 dodd-frank law, congress ordered a limited one-time g.a.o. audit of fed actions. during the financial crisis, that audit uncovered that the fed lent out over $16 trillion to domestic and foreign banks during the financial crisis. mr. president, could i ask unanimous consent for an extra five minutes? the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from ohio.

mr. brown: how much time -- does senator paul has as much time as we have? mr. paul: i would be happy to ask unanimous consent for equal time. the presiding officer: senator paul's time has expired. mr. brown: i only need five minutes, so i'm willing to cede whatever he needs so we have enough time. i lift my objection. rand rand the unanimous consent would be to have five extra minutes and to give you as much time us a need to conclude. mr. paul: the unanimous consent would be to have five extra minutes and to give you as much time as you need to conclude. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: both democrats and republicans agree that it is absurd that we don't know where hundreds of billions of dollars of our money is going. in fact, last year my audit the fed bill received the support of nearly every republican in the house and over 100 democrats. some say that an audit will politicize the fed. i find this claim odd given both side of the aisle support for the bill.

the g.a.o. is engin nonpartisan. it does not lean republican or democrat and is not interested in influencing policy. i can't seem to understand how a simple check by the g.a.o. to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest will politicize anything. instead of cri criticizing a standard audit, maybe the individuals who work at the fed and within our central bank should begin curbing their own actions. my bipartisan bill will not politicize anything. i simply want t the fed overseen to ensure that our central bank is not picking favorites. like every asian the fed reserve was created by congress and is supposed to be overseen by congress. auditing the fed should not be a parlt san issue. regardless of mustn't one's monetary policy sliewrks

whatever of whj you think interest rates should be higher or lower, everyone can and should agree that for the sake of the country's economic well-being we need to know what has been going on behind the federal res. cloak of secrecy. it's time we quit this guessing game. it's time we audited federal reserve once and for all to restore transparency to our nation's checkbook. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you. i rise to oppose the audit the fed bill. one of the things that we learn around here as new members of the house and senate -- and i served with the presiding officer almost my entire time in the house and we all learn this is if you can name the bills around here, you have tremendous advantage. called the estate tax, the death tax, about 1% pay it, call it bill awe audit the fed, how canu

be against auditing the fed? i am concerninged this way. it won't make the fed stronger, more effective, more accountable. it will impair the fed's functions. it will give conservative members of congress more tools to second-guess the fed's decision making and it makes the system ultimately less sound and responsive. if you think about what happened in 2009, president obama took office, we're losing 800,000 jobs a month. congress passed the recovery act, passed the auto rescue, which mattered so much to the presiding officer's state and my state, and frankly to the senator from kentucky, to his state, too. but then with the change in -- the election elections 2010, ths congress engained in austerity. it -- engaged in austerity. it took a bush-appointed federal reserve chair, ben bernanke, who engaged in enough pump priming, if you will, through low

interest rates and then q.e., to get the economy going. would we have want add federal reserve then where congress had its tentacles in monetary policy? congress failed in fiscal policy. chairman bernanke and now chairman yellen have had to move on monetary tolls polic policy . i don't want to straitjacket the congress and the federal reserve. i know some of you have supported audit bills in the past. many supported the dodd-sanders amendment during wall street reform. this one doesn't include provisions to he radio view the independent foreclosure review pravment it doesn't include protections on some of the sensitive information that g.a.o. could review. what this is about, mr. president, in addition to congress meddling in monetary policy is this: we know that the fed is charged with a dual mandate, to balance,

to deal with the tension between combating inflation and combating unemployment. we know that in past years the fed has leaned far more towards the bondholders in wall street and combating inflation than it has towards main street and employment and cutting -- combating unemployment. we also know that with the pressures in this town when president obama signed wall street reform, the chief lobbyist for the financial services industry said it's now half time meaning that conservative members in this congress, influentialed by wall street, would immediately try to go and weaken these rules going directly to the agencies. we'll see the same thing here. we'll see congress, many members of congress pushing the fed to side with the bond holders and wall street on combating inflation rather than siding with main street and small businesses and workers and dealing with unemployment. that's fundamentally the biggest

problem with the paul proposal. i ask my colleagues to defeat it. i yield back my time. the presiding officer: all time has been yielded back. the clerk will report the motion to invoke low tiewmplet. the clerk: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with rule 22 of the standing rule of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close calendar number 289, s. 2232, a bill to require a fall audit of the board of governors of the federal reserve system and banks by the comptroller general of the united states and for other purposes. signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is: is it the sense of the senate that debate on the motion to proceed to s. 2232, a bill to require a full audit of the board of governors of the federal reserve system and the federal reserve banks by the comptroller general of the united states and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory

under this rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: have all senators voted? any senators wish to change their vote or to vote? on this vote the yeas are 53. the nays are 44. three fifths of the senators not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to complete my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: mr. president, i rise today to urge my colleagues to take up a piece of legislation that i'm sponsoring that recently passed the house of representatives. the searching for and cutting regulations that are unnecessarily burdensome act, or the scrub act, s-c-r-u-b. federal regulations by some

estimates pose a crushing burden of $8.8 trillion on our economy, roughly $15,000 per household. excessive and often unnecessary rules imposed by unaccountable washington bureaucrats strain family budgets and create conditions where small businesses struggle to create jobs. nevertheless, the regulatory burden keeps growing year after year. the code of federal regulations is now more than 178,000 pages long. it contains more than 200 volumes. since 2008, regulators have added on average more than $107 billion in annual regulatory costs, and as we near the end of president obama's time in office, americans should be prepared for a deluge of new rules as has been widely reported, about 4,000 regulations are working their

way through the federal bureaucracy with some experts predicting their cost to exceed well over $100 billion. every president since jimmy carter has affirmed the need to review our existing regulations to make sure that they are efficient and that they are no more intrusive and burdensome than is absolutely necessary. nevertheless, administrations of both parties have failed to make meaningful reductions in the regulatory burden with some retrospective review efforts, even adding costs to the economy. most notably, according to a study by the american action forum the obama administration's efforts to review it's own rules added more than $23 billion in costs on the economy and mandated nearly nine million additional hours of paperwork. with family budgets stretched thin and our economy badly in need of job creation, we need to act to turn this long-standing

partisan -- bipartisan commitment to effective retrospective review into a reality. but to do so, we need to take the responsibility of reviewing old rules away from the bureaucrats who keep failing to make meaningful reductions to the regulatory burden. that's why i've joined my colleagues, the junior senators from iowa and missouri, to interviews act. it establishes a bipartisan blue-ribbon commission to review existing federal regulations and identify those that should be repealed to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens. it prioritizes for review regulations that are major rules, have been in effect more than 15 years, impose paperwork burdens that could be reduced substantially without reducing regulatory erveghtiveness, impose high costs on businesses or could be strengthened in

their effectiveness while reducing regulatory costs. it also sets other basic commonsense criteria for recommending repeal of regulations, such as whether they have been rendered obsolete by technological or market changes, whether they have achieved their goals and can be repealed without target problems recurring, whether they are ineffective, whether they overlap, duplicate or conflict with other federal regulations or with state and local regulations or whether they impose costs that are not justified by benefits produced for society within the united states. once the commission develops a set of recommendations, our bill requires that these recommendations be presented to the house and the senate for approval by joint resolution. if congress votes to approve the commission's recommendations,

repeal must take place. mr. president, i've served long enough to know that washington's preferred solution to a tough problem is to create a commission that once established is rarely seen or heard from again, no matter how compelling its recommendations. therefore, i want to lay out a few key features of how scrub avoids the pitfalls of so many do-nothing commissions as well as the problems encountered with other attempts to implement retrospective review. first, our bill sets a hard target for the commission. the reduction of at least 15% in the cumulative costs of federal regulation with a minimal reduction in the overall eivelgtiveness -- effectiveness of such regulation. the obama administration's efforts at retrospective review perhaps by mistake, perhaps by design lacked a quantified cost reduction mandate. the result was the manipulation of the review process into a charade in which highly

suspected new benefits were touted as a reason for adding costs. our bill structures the retrospective review process in a way that prioritizes cost cutting while maintaining a responsible respect for benefits by calling for a minimal reduction in general overall effectiveness. second, our bill does not artificially limit what costly and unjustified regulations could be repealed. under some superficially similar but fundamentally unsound proposals through retrospective review, review would be arbitrarily limited by time or subject. such limits would not only seriously hinder the prospect of meeting a meaningful cost reduction, but also put numerous regulations off limits for review just because they have seen minor tweaks after a certain arbitrary cutoff. third, our bill guarantees an up-or-down vote on the

commission's package of recommendations as a single package. this element of our bill represents the single most important feature that distinguishes it from a do-nothing commission that far too often characterizes washington's approach to intractable problems. we should be under no illusions that every single special interest in town is going to fight to preserve the favors they have won by manipulating the regulatory process over the years and gathering the votes to get the commission's recommendations enacted will certainly be a difficult endeavor. following the models of other successful means by which congress has addressed situations in which the costs are concentrated but benefits are widely disbursed, it is absolutely vital that the committee's recommendations be packed together as a single bill, not subject to dismemberment by amendment. further, to put it simply, an

up-or-down simple majority vote requires an actual viable pathway to repealing these regulations. subjecting the package to the supermajority threshold would represent nothing but a death knell for the prospect of repealing these onerous rules. moreover because extended debate in the senate exists to allow senators to modify a proposal under debate, the lack of amendment opportunity seriously unrmines the rationale for subjecting it to the supermajority threshold typical ly required today. this tailored exception to the rule has hardly allowed departure from precedent. rather, it follows the precedence set by numerous other pieces of legislation such as trans-pacific partnership and the -- trade promotion authority and the congressional review act, both of which have long earned bipartisan support. fourth, for any given

recommendation the commission is authorized to recommend either immediate repeal or repeal through what we call cut bill procedures whereby agencies on a fuller basis would have to offset the cost of new regulations by repealing commission-identified regulations of equal or greater cost. these procedures allow immediate repeal in the most urgent cases and staggered repeals of other regulations to assure a smoother process for agencies and effective entities. mr. president, a process like cutgo proves critical for two particular reasons. first, it provides an answer for addressing the many regulations on the books that impose unjustifiable costs in pursuit of a legitimate goal. while some regulations on the books could undoubtedly be repealed without any meaningful

negative consequences, numerous others provide important protections. but an inefficient -- i should say in an inefficient and costly manner. the process allows agencies to review costly rules and replace them with more sensible ones, for example, proscribing performance standards instead of specific ofttimes outdated technology in a manner that reduces costs on the economy while maintaining or even improving regulatory effectiveness. second, the cutgo process holds agencies accountable to congress' laws, a perennial problem in the regulatory process. bureaucratic agencies so often devoted to increasing their own power and insensitive to the cost imposed on the economy frequently use the excuse of limited resources to avoid retrospective review. by imposing a reasonable limit on prospective rule making until an agency complies with

congressionally enacted repeal recommendations, cutgo ensures that the agency cannot simply ignore its duty to repeal. mr. president, these are just a handful of the numerous reasons why the scrub act provides a uniquely visible pathway to accomplishing the long-standing bipartisan goal for repealing outdated and ineffective recommendationses, i want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, both sides of the capitol, by the way, who have joined in support of this bill, especially senator ernst for her leadership on this issue in the homeland security and government affairs committee. even though she has only been in the senate for a year, her strong and effective leadership on this issue has been a model for how to hit the ground running. i call on my colleagues here in the senate to follow the house's league and pass this effective common sense approach to rooting out unjustifiably burdensome

regulations. and as i also understand it, the house has passed this bill just today. now, mr. president, i also wish to address another subject, the subject of religious liberty. congress is convening for the second session of the 114th congress at a moment in time rich with significance for religious freedom. january 6, for example, marked the 75th anniversary of president franklin roosevelt's famous four freedoms speech. during the depths of world war ii, president roosevelt used his 1941 state of the union address to describe a world problem on what he called four essential human freedoms. one of these is -- quote -- the freedom of every person to worship god in his i-95 way, -- his own way, unquote. on january 16 is religious freedom day.

it commemorates the 230th anniversary of the virginia general assembly's enactment of the virginia statute for religious freedom. thomas jefferson authored the legislation, and after he left to serve as u.s. minister to france, his colleague james madison secured its enactment. of his many accomplishments -- and jefferson had a lot of accomplishments -- excuse me. jefferson directed three of what he called -- quote -- things that he had given the people -- unquote -- be listed on his tombstone. one of them was the virginia statute for religious freedom. which laid the foundation for the protection of religious freedom in the first amendment to the u.s. constitution. mr. president, last fall i delivered a series of eight speeches here on the senate floor presenting the story of religious freedom.

i explained why religious freedom itself is uniquely important and requires special protection. at no time in world history has religious freedom been such an integral part of a nation's character as it is here in the united states. the story of religious freedom includes understanding both its status and its substance. the status of religious freedom can be summarized as both inalienable and preeminent. as james madison put it, religious freedom is -- quote -- precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation to the claims of the civil society, unquote. madison also explained that religious freedom is the freely chosen manner of discharging the duty an individual believes he or she owes to god. as we have affirmed so many times in statutes, declarations and treaties, it includes both

belief and behavior in public and in private, individually and collectively. tonight president obama delivers his final state of the union address. according to "the washington post" this morning, president obama will speak about unity, about coming together as one american family. until very recently, religious freedom was such a unifying priority. last month, i described to my colleagues the unifying statement about religious freedom called the williamsburg charter. published in 1988, it brought together presidents and other leaders of both political parties, the heads of business and labor, universities and bar associations and diverse communities to endorse the first principles of religious freedom. the charter boldly proclaims that religious freedom is an inalienable right that is -- quote -- premised upon the inviolable dignity of the human

person. it is the foundation of and is integrally related to all of the rights and freedoms secured by the constitution, unquote. it asserts that the chief menace to religious freedom is the expanding power of government. especially government control over personal behavior and the institutions of society. and the charter also declares that limiting religious freedom -- quote -- is allowable only where the state has borne a heavy burden of proof that the limitation is justified, not by any ordinary public interest but by supreme public necessity, and that no less restrictive alternative -- and that no less restrictive alternative to limitation exists, unquote. now, congress made these principles law five years later by almost unanimously enacting the religious freedom restoration act. an act that i had a great deal

to do with. one way to know the value of something is by the effort made to protect it. government may burden the exercise of religion only if it is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental purpose. that is the toughest standard found anywhere in american law. by this statute, we declare that religious freedom is fundamental. it is more important than other values or priorities, and government must properly accommodate it. the coalition for the religious -- for the free exercise of religion supporting rifra was the most diverse grassroots effort i have ever seen in all of my years in the united states senate. five years after rifra, congress unanimously enacted an international religious freedom act. 21 senators serving today, 12

republicans and nine democrats, voted for it. so did vice president joe biden and secretary of state john kerry when they served here. that law declares that religious freedom -- quote -- undergirds the very origin and existence of the united states, unquote. it calls religious freedom a universal human right, a pillar of our nation and a fundamental freedom. now, that is what unity looks like with a presidency no less than any other aspect of life, however -- with a presidency no less than any other aspect of life, however, actions speak louder than words. while president obama has paid lip service to religious freedom, as i assume he will in his annual religious freedom day proclamation this week, the actions of his administration tell a different support. in 2011, the obama

administration argued to the supreme court that the first amendment provides no special protection for churches, even in choosing their own ministers. the court unanimously rejected that bizarre theory. the administration ignored religious freedom and rifra altogether when developing the affordable care act and its implementing regulations. when religious employers argued that the administration's birth control mandate did not adequately accommodate their religious freedom, the administration fought them all the way to the supreme court. the court again rejected the administration's attempt to restrict religious freedom. yesterday, 32 members of the senate and 175 members of the house of representatives filed a legal brief with the supreme court supporting religious organizations that are again arguing that the obama administration's birth control mandate violates the religious freedom restoration act. i want to thank my friend from

oklahoma, senator lankford, for working with me on this important project. i know that religious freedom was important to him when he served in the house, and he is already a leader on this critical issue here in the senate, and i'm pleased to see him in the chair here today. this mandate requires religious organizations to violate their deeply held religious beliefs or pay crushing monetary fines. the plaintiffs in these cases, including christian colleges, catholic dioceses, and many organizations that minister to the elderly and disadvantaged as part of their religious mission. they want to provide heavy -- they want to provide health insurance for their employees and students in a manner that is consistent with their religious believes. the obama administration, however, is working hard to make those religious groups knuckle under to its political agenda. it provides blanket exceptions for churches that do not object

to the birth control mandate but denies exception exemptions to religious employers that do object. the administration exempts for-profit companies employing more than 44 million workers including some of america's largest corporations, even if they have no objection to the mandate. yet it is fighting to force compliance by religious nonprofit organizations that do object to the mandate on the basis of deeply held religious belief. not only is that policy simply irrational, but it treats religious freedom as optional. here's how i put it last month -- subjugating religious beliefs to government decrees is not the price of citizenship. to the contrary, respecting and honoring the fundamental rights of all americans is the price our government pays to enjoy the continued consent of the

american people. if that is true, then religious freedom must be properly respected and accommodated. and i believe it's true. religious freedom should be a primary consideration, not an afterthought. religious freedom should be given the accommodation that a preeminent right requires rather than begrudgingly be given the least attention politically possible. if our leaders wish to abandon the religious freedom that undergirds america's origin and existence, they should say so. if members of congress now reject what they once supported and insist that religious freedom is less important than the political preferences of the moment, they should make that case. if the obama administration wants to repudiate treaties we have ratified asserting that religious freedom is a fundamental human right, the president should be up front about it. there are many things that

happen in the twilight of a press did -- presidency, i expeo hear much in the state of the union tonight that speaks to president obama's legacy. what will he be remembered for? what great principles or causes will be associated with the obama presidency? part of president roosevelt's legacy is that state of the union address 75 years ago in which affirmed that practicing one's faith is an essential human freedom. what a tragedy to have president obama be remembered for hostility, too, rather than protection of religious freedom. in the coming days, i will be presenting to each of my senate colleagues the collection of speeches on religious freedom that i offered here last fall. i hope they will encourage us in congress as well as our fellow citizens to night to this fundamental right. mr. president, this is important

stuff. even though we may agree or disagree with certain religious beliefs. i have the right to believe them. the right to worship the way we want to. the fact is that has made america the greatest country in the world, bar none. i don't want to see it destroyed because we are -- we are doing everything we can to undermine religious freedom in this country. i refuse to allow that to happen, and i hope my colleagues will take this seriously as well, as i know a number of them do, including the chairperson. i just want everybody to know that as long as i'm here, i'm going to be fighting for religious freedom, and i hope that all of us will also. god bless america, and i yield the floor. in fact, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: mr. barrasso: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, tonight president obama will be coming to congress to deliver his final state of the union address. his advisors have been all over television talking about what the president is planning to s say. tonight i expect president obama will talk a little about the health care law. last year in his state of the union address, the president bragged, he actually bragged that more people have insurance

now than when he took office. i expect he'll probably say something similar tonight. well, mr. president, i want to talk a little bit about the other side of the sorry. i want to talk about what president obama is not going to say tonight to the american people. the president is not going to admit that many americans are actually worse off under his health care law. he's not going to say that under the health care law, there is a very big difference between health law insurance and being able to actually get health ca care. the president focuses on the word "coverage" and as a doctor, i focus on the word "care." now, "the new york times" had an article about this just the other day. the article, page 1, monday, january 4, page 1, "many holdouts roll the dice and pay

i.r.s. not an insurer." rather pay the foanlt the internal rev -- penalty to the internal revenue service than pay the insurance company. why? turn to page 9 of the same page, dated january 4, "many who refuse insurance see i.r.s. penalty as the most affordable option." "the most affordable option for the american people is not the obama health law insurance, it's actually paying the i.r.s. the penalty. now, the article tells the story about a number of different people. one is named tim fesco from culver city, california. now, he and his wife had an insurance plan that cost them more than $5,000 a year but it came with a deductible of over $6,000 for each of them. $5,000 for the policy, $6,000

for the deductible for him and another $6,000 for her. well, they decided to drop the insurance last year. he told "the new york times," he said, "it literally covered zero medical expenses." now, i wonder if president obama is going to talk about this man tonight, tim fesco? will we hear anything about him in his speech tonight? will the president point to him in the gallery as somebody that the president claims to have helped by making insurance so expensive and so unaffordable that it was much better to just pay the penalty than deal with what the mandates of the president's health care law call into play? is he going to talk about how the deductibles and the out-of-pocket costs have gotten so high for americans all across the country? the article talks about -- also about clint murphy, sulfur springs, texas. now, clint murphy expects that

he'll have to pay a penalty of about $ 1,800 for being uninsured this year. the article says, he said, "in his view, paying the penalty is worth it if he can avoid buying the president's law insurance -- health insurance, a policy that cost $2,900 or more. this man in texas went on to say, "i don't see the logic behind that and i'm just not going to do it." is president obama going to talk about these people, people who think that it's better to pay the steep i.r.s. penalty than buy the president's expensive and in many ways useless insurance? there are millions of americans in this same situation, as clint murvey, as tim -- clint murphy, as tim fesco and other people who are mentioned in a story in "the new york times." and if "the new york times" is writing about it, you -- they are supporters of the health care law, even they are pointing to the damage that this very

unpopular law continues to do to the american people. according to a report by the kaiser family foundation, about 7 million americans were finding it cheaper to pay the tax penalty than to pay for this unusable insurance. now, look at this chart. of those people who don't get subsidies, not eligible for subsidies, 95% would pay -- all those people would say less for the tax penalty than for the obamacare bronze plan, which is the cheapest level plan that there is. so for people who don't get a subsidy from washington, 95% of them would pay less by paying the tax penalty than they would for an obamacare bronze level

plan with high deductibles and high co-pays, so high that the people who look at it say it is unusable. now, remember, again, these bronze plans are the cheapest option, the cheapest option, and they -- people are just saying no. because even the cheapest option under obamacare is more expensive than dropping insurance and paying the penalty. bronze plans are the ones most likely to have a $5,00 5,000 to $6,000 deductible per void the plan -- per individual on the plan. do we expect president obama to talk about any of these things tonight or any of these people that have been harmed by his law? you know, after the president gives his state of the union address, much has been made that he's going on a tour of america. he's going to visit baton rouge, louisiana, omaha, nebraska. what the president may not know and certainly won't mention is

how much obamacare premiums that increased in those states he's going to visit. in louisiana, prices for the benchmark silver plan on the obamacare exchange went up over 9% this year. in nebraska, the same benchmark silver plan rates went up almost 12% this past year. now, that's for the people who are willing to actually shop around and switch their insurance from last year to try to hold down the costs. remember when the president said, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan? well, if you only want a 9% or a 12% increase, you can't keep your plan, you've got to shop around and try to switch to a different plan. maybe even change your doctors or the hospitals you go to. that's the only way you can find rates of insurance that still go up a lot but don't go up even higher by staying with what you have. the president probably won't mention that when he goes to

louisiana or nebraska. he probably won't mention either that the obamacare co-ops in both of the states that he's visiting collapsed last year. fundamentally collapsed. tens of thousands of people lost their insurance that they had in those states. and now taxpayers on the hook for over a hundred million dollars. the law has not come anywhere near what president obama promised the people of louisiana or the people of nebraska or the people of america, all across the country. the american people know that obamacare was not what they wanted. they know that it's never been the right answer for the problems in our health care system. that's why majorities in both houses of congress voted recently to repeal the key parts of the obama health care law. we passed the legislation, we sent it to the president's desk

and when president obama vetoed the bill, he rejected the judgment of the american people. in his speech tonight, now, i expect the president to continue to pretend -- pretend -- that there are no problems at all with american health care under his law. well, republicans are going to keep offering solutions to fix health care in america. almost six years ago, president obama sat down with members of congress to try to sell us on his health care law. i was part of that roundtable discussion. i told the president at the time that low-cost catastrophic plans could be a good option for people as long -- as long as they could use health savings accounts to help pay their day-to-day medical bills.now, the president had -- now, the president had no interested in that idea or any of the republican ideas that we brought forward that day. so now under his law, people are left with the equivalent of catastrophic coverage and

they're paying far too much for it because of all the law's mandates. now, on top of that, the law cut back on health savings accounts. the law specifically cut back on them. so people all across the country have fewer options to help them pay for their care. republicans are going to continue to bring up better ideas. we'll talk about real solutions that give people more options, not more mandates. we'll talk about the ideas that help people get the care they need from a doctor they want at lower costs, not just as it is president talks about -- just as the president talks about, coverage, coverage that most americans find they cannot use. tonight, president obama's probably going to make a lot more promises. when he does -- and i think everybody should remember clint murphy from sulfur springs, texas, who doesn't see the logic in paying overpriced obamacare insurance. they should remember all of the

broken promises from the health care law and all the hardworking americans who've been hurt by the obama health care law. even though president obama won't admit it tonight, america can do much better. if the president won't say it, then it will be up to congress to lead on the issue. that's exactly what republicans intend to do. president obama's speech tonight will be looking to define his legacy. tonight and for the rest of the year, republicans will be offering solutions for the american people. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. coons: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. coons: i ask unanimous consent to be able to enter into a colloquy with a umin of my colleagues, including the senators from virginia, sph flo,

and from new jersey. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coons: mr. president, i have just returned from a trip to the middle east, an absolutely important and eye-opening trip at this vital moment when the threat of extremism and the threat of violence and when the risks posed to regional stability by iran and its regional ambitions could not be clearer. senator gillibrand of new york led this delegation and a group of eight of us had an opportunity to visit turkey, to visit saudi arabia, to visit israel, and to visit austria. let me begin by saying that all of us were deeply moved and concerned when we heard this morning news of a terrorist attack in istanbul literally in an area that we had just visited sat did i morning. and i reached out, as have a number of others on this trip, to express ourcondolences and concerns to the american ambassador and those we met on our trip there. that is reminder of the instability raging throughout

the middle east and of the threats to our concerns, interests, and to regional stability posed by terrorism. let me first invite the senator from virginia to join me in making some comments based on his insights and his experience on this trip. the very first place revisited left an impression on me. we visited with the iaea, the international atomic energy association in vienna to hear about their progress towards implementing the nuclear deal with iran. and what they're going to be doing now and in the future to ensure full and thorough and valuable inspections of the entire cycle of iran's nuclear efforts. senator kaine, would you care to offer any additional comments, as a member of the delegation, what were the things that you saw and what are the concerns that you've come home with that we ought to share about our constituents is and colleagues? mr. kaine: thank you, mr. president, for the opportunity to engage in the

colloquy. it was remarkable visit with the eight senators to israel, vienna and saudi arabia and turkey. and the issues are iran and the war against isil. with respect to iran, since the conclusion of the negotiation and the green light for the deal to go forward, there have been some positive developments and there have been some troubling developments, and i just want to spend time talking about both. on the positive development side, because of the deal that the united states and other nations entered into with iran, as of yesterday they have permanently decommissioned the plutonium reactor. they have disabled huge percentages of the centrifuges that was also a requirement under the agreement, the centrifuges that are used to enrich uranium, another path to a nuclear weapon. third, irch ha iran has worked e

iaea to structure the level of inspections and under the inspections required by the agreement, iran will be the most inspected nation in the world because the inspections will not only go to the nuclear sites but will go to the entire supply chain. those are inspections not required in any other nation. the iaea is ready to move fiewrnd those. and finally, the last bit of positive gnaws in my view is -- news that in my view is the most compelling is that iran took more than 28,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium and because of this deal they've shipped that uranium ought of iran. it is closely monitored 24/7, 365. so any movement of the material wilwill be understand. having that nuclear material sufficient for multiple nuclear weapons out of iran's hands and out of that country would not

have happened without this deal and it makes the world safer. there are some challenges. in october iran fired a missile and a number of us on the foreign relations committee immediately wrote to th the president and secretary of state and said we think this violates a separate u.n. security council resolution. mr. president, the u.n. imneled a team of experts to dig into the factual and technical evidence and they concluded in mid-december that iran had in fact fired a missile in violation of a u.n. security council resolution, separate from this deal. and we all think it is very important for congress and the administration and our global partners to make sure that there is a consequence for that. our strategy, those that -- whether we supported the deal or not, the strategy should be strict enforcement and strict implementation and requiring that iran meets every last detail, not only of the deal but of their other international obligations. and we need to continue to press the administration and congress to do that.

so on iran, that was basically the gist of the conversation. we had a lengthy discussion with prime minister netanyahu where we said, look, we disagreed on the deal, imu now the important thing is, let's loo make sure tt we implement it. finally a word about isil. everywhere we went in the republican, we heard about the threat of ire sill -- everywhere we went in the region, we heard about the threat of isil. where many of us were standing just 72 hours ago, this event clearly has the ear"mmarks isil bombing. it is very critical that we take this seriously because we're not only seeing isil extend their field of attackers we're seeing them engage in rogue activities around the globe. the u.s. is at war with isil.

we're in the 17th month of that war. we spent billions of dollars and deployed thousands of troops and seen both american hostages and service members killed in this war. as i hand it back to my colleague, i guess i'll conclude and say, congress has been strangely silent during this war. it is congress under article 1 that should declare war and yet we've not been willing to have a debate and vote, even as we're deploying people, even as merse are being killed, even as we're spending billions of taxpayers' dollars. the only vote that's taken place really in this body on the war directly on the authorization question was in the senate foreign relations committee in december of 2014. it was a vote to move forward to an authorization, but when this came to the floor, it got no action. and i'm reminded of the great irish poet w.b. yates who talked about a time to best lack all conviction but the worst are

filled with passionate intense. we see everyday evidence that isil is filled with passion and intense tivment i believe america is the best. i believe congress should be the best and yet we've been strangely silent and lacked conviction in the face of anen mi that- of an enemy that is dangerous and threatens us abroad and at home. with that, i would hand it back to my colleague, the senator from delaware. mr. coons: mr. president, i would like to thank my colleague from virginia for his service on the foreign relations committee and for his real leadership on the question of our prosecution of the war against isil and the role of this senate in confirming that we are in fact engaged in that conflict and for his role on the armed services committee and for the important and tough questions he asked on our visit to the four countries that i just referenced in the opening. and i appreciate the senator detailing the four different big, positive moves forward that are happening as the jcpo anchts the iran nuclear deal, moves towards full implementation. i would like to encourage my

colleague from florida, the second-most senior democrat on the armed services committee to offer his thoughts on how this deal contributes to our security and what the kerps ar concerns e remaining. mr. nelson: i just want to point out what wuf a already brought out and underscore, the fact is that the plutonium reactor in iraq has now been filled with concrete. the fact is that 12 tons or 24,000 pounds of enriched uranium has been shipped out of iraq to another destination, mostly to russia. now, before the agreement, it would only take three months to build a nuclear weapon.

now it would take at least 12 months. so we would have a one-year advance notice in order that we could do what we needed to do to determine -- to deter iran. may i say that it is irritating that we're going to continue to deal with an iran that is going to do things that are going to provoke us, and they have certainly done this. in the strait of who ar hormuz w days ago doing a live-fire exercise while we have the air carrier battle group going through the strait of hormuz, only 29 miles wide. that's a provocation. the provocation of shooting off two missile tests, which is a violation of u.n. sanctions, and

i hope that the president will follow through and sanction them for that, regardless of their protests that say, oh, well then tour a violating our nuclear agreement. no it is a nuclear agreement. and they have complied. they have now stretched the time to 12 months before -- if they decided today that they wanted to build a nuclear weapon. that was the whole purpose of the nuclear negotiations in the first place. to take off the table that iran would be a nuclear power and upset the balance of power in that part of the world. i thank the colleague for yielding. i thank all of my colleagues for making these insightful comments. mr. coons: thank you. i would like to manage my -- i e to thank my colleague from florida and ask my other colleague to offer his comments

on how the iran deal actually contributes to regional and global security and what the remaining concerns are that we have to tackle together. mr. booker: first of all, i want to echo the concerns of my colleagues here. it was going to be able to travel with senator heitkamp, senatosenator kaine, as well ase eight-member delegation to go to the iae anchts sit with the people -- iaea, sit with the people in charge of the briefings, go to israel, sit with benjamin netanyahu, talk in a private meeting with him about the concerns as were ash particula-- aswere articulated r kaine. then visit with the turkey and israel. we're seeing important steps being taken that immediately -- in the immediate take away the threat of a nuclear-armed iran, in the immediate, and the steps they're taking are definitive, measurable, and specifically

aligned with the jcpoa. and it is important to understand whether it is moving the iran prohibiting their earvetion setting up inspections along the entire supply chain, these are all important steps to undermine the immediate pathway to the bomb, taking away that threat. and i think that is encouraging. but i want to make two very clear points. the first is that we need to be prepared -- and this was a part of my consideration over the summer in my direct conversations with the administration -- that even with the smallest violations, there would be a response, that we would not tolerate that, that there would be a reaction. if we allow iran, as this deal goes on, as this agreement goes on, to push the bounds and cross the lines within this deal without a response, we are undermining the strength of this

agreement and actually putting, i believe, in jeopardy the security of the region. and the second point i want to make is clearly what's happening right now. separate and apart from the nuclear sanctions that will be lifted, there are other sanctions in place for other issues going on with iran. iran is a dangerous actor. it has provennen to be so throughout that region. they are a state sponsor of terrorism and other destabilizing activities in that region. while the threat -- immediate threat of the nuclear issue might be on the table, they are still a regional threat, and so when we have clear transgressions that are measurable, that have been done in flowntsing of international law like the testing of two intercontinental ballistic missiles, there must be a response. and i'm calling on the administration not to hesitate any longer.

we must respond with sanctions appropriate to these violations of international law. to do -- to not do so, to me, is unacceptable. this region continues to engage in being a -- this regime continues to engage in activities that must merit a response. as far as destabilizing activities go, like threats from intercontinental ballistic missiles, which endanger our allies in the region and can endanger countries far afield from iran, but there are other things that we cannot lose sight of, like the fact that iran's surrogates are using proxies in syria, iraq, lebanon, and yemen to further undermine the security of the region. let's not lose sight of the fact that there are americans being held in that nation right now, like namazi, a graduate of

rutgers university in new jersey, being held by the iranian revolutionary guard, for unspecified reasons. let's not forget about jason rezaian, who continues to languish in jail without a clear and justifiable rationale for his imprisonment. and so -- as well as saeed abedini, and amir mirza hekmati, and robert levinson, americans held by a regime for no specified reason. these are particularly egregious violations and iran should be, in my opinion, held accountable. right now again, i repeat, that we should be collectively in the senate calling on the administration to take action against iran, to sanction iran for their violation of u.n. security council resolution

1929. i want to finally say what my colleagues and i witnessed and saw when we sat with our -- israel, as was said by senator kaine, is an administration in israel that understands the deal is done. let's make sure that it is enforced. let's make sure that we have eyes in so that we can make sure that the nuclear threat is pushed back and back and back and we remove that. but let's stay united with israel and our other allies in holding this dangerous actor to account if they violate international law, if they threaten their neighbors, if they engage in destabilizing activity, if they support terrorism. we must share intelligence. we must double down our efforts to interdict the movement of arms. we must stop their terrorism. and we must work together for larger, a larger piece in that region. with that, i'll turn it back to

senator coons. mr. coons: i'd like to thank my colleague and to briefly recognize success in the fall, in september, a raid off the coast of yemen that seized arms destined for the houthi rebels. this massive weapons shipment of 56 tube launched optically tracked missiles and associated sites and mounds and tubes successfully interdicted in international waters. this is what my colleague from new jersey was talking about, which is the need for more and more aggressive and successful interdiction to push back on iran's destabilizing actions in the region. but i'm grateful now to be joined on the floor by my colleague from the state of new hampshire, who is also my colleague on the foreign relations committee, who wants to contribute to our conversation today about the

being positive that's being made in the implementation of this deal and what remains ahead in order to make sure we're implementing it effectively. mrs. shaheen: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: i'm pleased to join my colleague senator coons and others on the floor today, especially those of you who had a chance to travel to the middle east. i didn't get a chance to go with you on this trip. but like senator kaine, i do serve on both the armed services and the foreign relations committee, and i supported the nuclear deal with iran because i was convinced and continue to be convinced that it is the best available option for preventing iran from developing a nuclear weapon. and as my colleagues have already spoken to some extent, we see the effects of this nuclear deal already in iran's actions. on december 28, iran shipped over 25,000 pounds of

low-enriched uranium to russia, including the removal of all of iran's nuclear material enriched to 20% that was not already fabricated into reactor fuel. we know this was one path for iran to get a nuclear weapon. they've removed this low-enriched uranium. it's in russia. they've increased -- the iaea increased the number of its in inspectors on the ground in iran, dedeploying modern technologies and set up a comprehensive oversite program. the iaea is now inspecting all of iran's declared nuclear facilities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and they will have access not just to the facilities where we know iran was trying to build a weapon, but also to the uranium mines and mills which will give the iaea and the rest of the world complete access to the entire

nuclear fuel cycle. the iraq reactor which has been spoken to already will be completely disabled. its core is being filled with concrete. once the iaea verifies that iran has completed the steps related to the iraq reactor, iran's plutonium pathway to a bomb will have effectively been blocked. iran has been dismantling its uranium enrichment infrastructure including the removal of thousands of centrifuges and again, taken together, these and other steps will effectively cut off iran's four pathways to a nuclear weapon and they will push its breakout time to at least a year for the next ten years. now what should congress be doing? my colleague from new jersey, senator booker, was very eloquent in talking about some of the actions that we need to take both at congress and the administration to continue to address iran's terrorist

activities throughout the region. but i think one of the other things we ought to be doing as congress is confirming key obama administration foreign policy and national security nominees, because many of these nominees are critical as we look at the implementation of the iran agreement. they're critical as we think about what we need to do to protect this country, to protect our national security. you know, i would ask my colleague on the foreign foreign relations committee, senator murphy, what does it mean that we have failed to confirm adam szubin as the treasury department's under secretary? i was at the conference with senator rubio and the additional sanctions we can put on hezbollah to limit their activities. yet we still are missing one of the key players in making that work at the treasury department. what does that mean, senator

murphy, for the fact that congress has failed to confirm these nominees? mr. murphy: thank you very much, senator shaheen, for the question. i would hope that regardless of how any individual senator voted on this deal, we would all be rooting for its success, because success in the end is an assurance that iran never obtains a nuclear weapon. but the results of this senate failing to confirm adam szubin, the under secretary for terrorism and financial crimes, undermines the implementation o not only this important achievement, but also all of our efforts to try to root out the financial sources of terrorism all around the world. the fact is that this gentleman, adam szubin, is particularly qualified for the job. in fact, there's no one on the republican side that's raised any individual objection to him.

he's been doing the job very well for the united states under president obama. he was the advisor, the senior advisor to this appointee under president bush's administration. he's done and worked in this field under both republican and democratic presidents. and it seems as if it's just politics that are holding him up. but he's not the only one that's on that list, as you know, senator shaheen. laura hol gate has been appointed to be our u.s. ambassador to the u.n. offices in vienna which includes the iaea. she was nominated on august 5, and her nomination hasn't even gotten out of the senate foreign relations committee. wendy sherman's replacement, tom shannon, was nominated on september 18. his nomination is on the floor today. we could vote on that this week if it was our pleasure. and so if we want in agreement to succeed, if we want to make sure that iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon, if we want to cut off the flow of funds from

iran to places like hezbollah, then you actually have to have people in place who do those jobs. so i wanted to quickly come down to the floor and thank you for asking me the question, to make the point that in addition to, i think the important points that are being made by my colleagues about the success so far of the agreement with respect to implementation, if we all are hoping that the end result of this is despite the predictions of many republicans that iran doesn't obtain a nuclear weapon, then you have to have these people in these important roles. mrs. shaheen: would my colleague yield for another question briefly? because i didn't give a date that adam szubin was nominated. and that he has been before the banking committee. do you have that information to share with everybody? mr. murphy: wholegate was august 5 and shannon was september 18. adam szubin has been before the banking committee since april

16. h he's a few months away from being before the senate for almost a full year in a job that we can all agree is one of the most important, when it comes to protecting the national security of this country. that's pretty astounding. mrs. shaheen: i thank my colleague on the foreign relations committee, both my colleagues; all three of my colleagues on the foreign relations committee. i would just close and yield back to senator coons with saying that i would hope that one of the thingdz that we would all agree to, as senator murphy has said, is that regardless of where we stood on the iran nuclear agreement that the goal now is to make sure that that is implemented in a way that makes sure that at least ten years from now we have at least a year's breakout before iran, if they decided to do that, could go back and have a nuclear weapon. so i would hope that we would

all share that as our most important priority with respect to iran. thank you, and i yield back to my colleague, senator coons. mr. coons: i'd like to thank my colleague from connecticut and new hampshire and i invite my colleague from north dakota who serves on the homeland security commission and was part of our delegation who traveled to israel, saudi arabia, turkey and austria and from austria to here from the iaea. the reference made by my colleagues on the foreign relations committee are in one part to the vacancy in the position of u.s. ambassador to the u.n. offices in see yen in a. i -- in vienna. i want to reemphasize that ever since august 5 of last year, that mission that we visited, that the senator from north dakota and i just visited that is responsible for directing and supporting the work of the iaea to the extent the united states helps fund it and supports it and is a participating member, they have been waiting for a new

confirmed ambassador for more than six months. i'd like to invite my colleague to make comments based on her experiences and her reflections on this recent trip. ms. heitkamp: thank you, mr. president. thank you to my great friend from the state of delaware. i'd first like to comment on adam szubin because i also serve on the banking committee and have had a chance not only to meet with him personally but to witness the excellent testimony that he provided during his confirmation hearing. and i -- we all see very, very smart people. they come through and they agree to serve their country in these appointed positions which frequently get bogged down here. and not taking anything away from anyone else who has ever appeared before the banking committee, i would tell you he is one of the brightest america has to offer. a wonderful family, deeply devout in his religion, which is

he's jewish, and a friend to israel, a friend to this country, using his enormous talents to keep this country safe. there is no excuse -- none -- zilch -- nothing -- that would recommend that we not confirm adam szubin in one of the most critical positions we have in the treasury department. if we're serious about stopping iran from getting a weapon, if we're serious about enforcing a regime of sanctions, then we need our best and brightest. and he clearly is our best and brightest. and one of the points that i want to make coming to the floor is that we cannot let incremental creep, incremental violations, small, little violations. you know how it is with we're all parents and you watch kids take advantage, take advantage and take advantage until pretty soon you don't really have the

role anymore of a parent. we want to make sure that when we're enforced this agreement and when we're looking at this agreement, we send a clear message from the very beginning, which is we will not tolerate a breach. and i think it's disturbing that somehow this has become such a partisan issue. we should be all on the floor encouraging the administration today to not let this agreement be eroded by the failure to enforce. an agreement is only as good as the enforcement capability. and we need to fund the iaea. we need to make sure that adequate resources. my great friend from delaware has suggested a long-term strategy for funding. we need to make sure that they have the political support. not just in this body, but across the world, to do the right thing.

and one of the -- we've been talking about those reasons why we in fact agreed to allow this agreement to go forward. and the biggest agreement was the enforcement regime. and we believed that given the access, unprecedented access that the iaea would have in iran, that we would know more about this program, we would have access to more. we were reassured about that access when we went to vienna. we were reassured that, yes, they were not going to back down. but if they do back down, if they don't give access, we need enforcement. and we should all be joining together to talk about what that enforcement should look like, how we fund that enforcement and what a difference it can make. and so i share a level of optimism that we're moving in the right direction, but i also, being the, you know, someone who has negotiated deals, it's not

over when you sign on the agreement. it's never over when you sign on the agreement. it's going to take a level of absolute myopic focus on enforcement to make sure that we realize the promise of this international agreement. and that we work with our allies, we work with our colleagues. we can't do that if we don't have people in those positions to have dialogue to speak for the administration, and we certainly can't do it if we allow incremental. and so i'm joining with my colleagues to provide a unified voice today, a unified voice that says we stand ready to do what it takes to enforce this agreement and prevent breach and make sure that we realize the promise of the joint agreement. i would be glad to yield. mr. booker: i was there when you heard about the priorities

between our two nations and whether that's giving support for things like the iron dome and david slain. critical in that was also something we hooked at there was our cooperation to prevent these terror tunnels. but one of the other challenges we have before this deal was even executed, hezbollah had thousands of rockets already with the capacity to be fired towards israel. that's why some of the funding that we all support is important to try to protect against that, but those missiles are getting more sophisticated, and their range is getting longer. and so i don't think people put the connection together between the importance of us doing the banking work to stop the flow of money that can purchase those weapons that have israeli citizens scrambling for bomb shelters. and i just want to see if you can -- when you say a name like adam zubin, most folks in america have no idea who he is.

the work that he's doing, now that you have been to israel, could you just make that connection for me why he and the work he's doing is so important to stop the growing sophistication and source of those -- of those missiles? ms. heitkamp: i want to answer that question, my good friend from new jersey, but when you look at the surest way to prevent acts of terror is to make sure acts of terror are never funded. that takes an international banking sophistication. that takes an understanding of every potential loophole you have and every country. that's what adam zubin does, he spends all day getting briefings and reports about where those potential failures could be and how do you really do what is necessary to unfund terrorism, whether it's isil or isis, whether it is hezbollah, whether

it is hamas. we need to take away the money. that is the surest way toward success. and if it we do not confirm someone in this critical position, what is the message? and i would be here, would be the first person to say if he's not up to the job, then let's find somebody else, but i cannot imagine having met him, having watched his testimony, having watched the level of dialogue that he had not only with the democrats but also the republicans. this isn't about the caliber of this gentleman to serve our country. it is about a political fight over this deal. the deal is done. not done, but the deal has been -- it is on in its infancy. if we are going to realize the promise of this deal, we are going to realize the commitment that this country made, we

absolutely need people in place to make sure that this deal is enforced, and that is in fact adam zubin. my colleagues who were on the trip with me know that we received a number of briefings that really went to the heart of taking a look at the international banking system. where are the weakest links. how can we attack those weakest links in shutting down the terrorist network for financing this terrible behavior. mr. coons: i want to join my colleagues who came to the floor today to join in one voice in recognizing the very strong progress that's made so far in implementing the jcpos, in implementing the nuclear deal with iran. i would like to particularly thank my colleague from north dakota who has taken her experience on the banking committee to help us understand why it's so important to have confirmed senior administration figures who can enforce the sanctions that were on the books before this deal, were enforced

during this deal and should be enforced going forward. let me just briefly in closing make some reference to what that really means. the jcpoa was an agreement about constraining iran's nuclear program, but sanctions that the united states has on the books to stop iran's support for terrorism, to stop iran's ballistic missile program and to stop iran's human rights abuses or to hold them accountable for them and sanction them for them, they remain on the books. and i will just briefly mention, during the negotiation with the jcpoa, the treasury department where adam zubin is the nominee, to be the top sanction enforcement person, utilize multiple authorities and sanction more than 100 iranians and iran-linked entities, including more than 40 under its ongoing terrorism sanction authorities, just this past july, three senior hezbollah military officials were sanctioned in syria and lebanon and provided military support to the regime and then in november

companies in lebanon and china and hong kong, and just this last week on january 7, the treasury department targeted a key hezbollah support network by designating a hezbollah finance ier member and the spectrum investment group. as my colleague from new jersey has said, we are all optimistic that the administration will take the next step and soon impose sanctions in response to recent ballistic missile launches. i celebrated earlier, i recognized the success the administration had in interdicting a weapons shipment from iran to the hunty rebels, at their proxies in the region. but the fundamental point here is this -- that if we want to have the positive successes of the jcpoa, if we want to continue to have the opportunity to constrain iran's nuclear program and its bad behavior in the region, we have to be vigilantly engaged in oversight and in support for the enforcement of that agreement and for our exercise of the

prerogatives and the capabilities that the american government has to push back on iran. i think working together, working in a bipartisan and responsible way, we can get this done. there are folks in this chamber who oppose the deal and folks who supported it, but what we heard on our recent delegation trip to israel, to saudi arabia and to turkey was that our regional allies are looking for clarity, clarity that the united states stands together in fighting iran's regional ambitions to support terror and in constraining iran's nuclear program. we can do that best by confirming these nominees, by funding the iaea, by exercising the sanction authorities that this administration and this congress has put in place and by continuing to make progress under this agreement. with that, i'd like to thank my colleagues. mr. president, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. perdue: tonight, president obama will deliver his final state of the union address, a closing argument for his presidency. this president who promised change will attempt to point to his administration's accomplishments, as many presidents have done in the past. this will prove, however, to be difficult because georgians and americans have seen change, but in the wrong direction. when president obama took the white house, he promised fiscal responsibility, but right now he's on track to more than double the debt in his tenure. he promised to work together in

a bipartisan way, but he used the democratic supermajority in those first two years to force through obamacare and dodd-frank on the american people. he promised to bring us together, but he has served to divide us as a country. he promised to focus on defeating terrorism, but he created a power vacuum in the middle east for those who wish to do us harm. there is no denying under this president's failed leadership, the american people have had a tough several years. today more americans have fallen into poverty under this presidency. too many individuals and families have seen their health care premiums and their deductibles rise to points where they can no longer afford them. our national debt is almost $19 trillion, mr. president, which is well past any reasonable tipping point. and we have a global security crisis on our hands that makes the world possibly more dangerous than at any point in my lifetime.

these are all symptoms of the president's failed economic policies, as well as a lack of leadership in foreign policy. even by his own accord, the president has saddled our country with an irresponsible amount of debt which at one time he described in the past as unpatriotic. before he took office, then-senator barack obama reviewed president bush's tenure in office, saying, and i quote, "the way bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the bank of china in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents of america, bush 43 then added $4 trillion by his lonesome so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back. $30,000 for every man, woman and child. that's irresponsible. it's unpatriotic."

these are the words of this president, barack hussein obama. let's be clear. under this president, our national debt has ballooned to almost $19 trillion from $10 trillion. that means president obama has had added almost $9 trillion before he has doubled before he is through with this debt. before president obama leaves office, he will nearly have as much debt as all presidents before him. this is even more outrageous when you factor in how much revenue our tax dollars the federal government has collected. in 2015, mr. president, we collected over $24 trillion in taxes for our federal government. this is more than any year in our history. washington does not have a revenue problem, mr. president. it has a spending problem, and it's focused on the wrong priorities. equally concerning, this massive debt isn't interest free.

if interest rates were to rise to the 30-year average of only 5.5%, the interest on this debt would amount to over a trillion dollars each year. now, mr. president, that's more than twice what we spent on all nonmilitary discretionary spending. it's more than twice what we spend on our military defending our country. it's totally out of control, and this is unmanageable. in reality, this debt crisis will only get worse because this president and washington have not tackled the government's largest expense, mandatory spending programs like social security and medicare. this debt crisis does not only present a fiscal problem, it is inextricably linked to the global security concerns we're seeing today. in order to have a strong foreign policy, we have to have a strong military, but to have a strong military, we have to have a vibrant and growing strong economy. there is no secret. down through history, the

countries who have had the strongest militaries and therefore the most secure foreign policy are those that had the most vibrant economies of their day. but under this president's foreign policy decisions, he's created a power vacuum and has put the country in a much weaker position. today our enemies don't fear us and our allies don't trust us. just three decades ago, we brought down the soviet union with the power of our ideas and the strength of our economy, but look at the world today. over the past seven years, we've seen the rise of a global security crisis that's unrivaled in my lifetime. we've seen the rise of traditional rivals like china and russia grow more aggressive. we've seen north korea and iran actually collaborate on nuclear proliferation. we've seen syria cross red lines and terrorism fill power vacuums in the middle east and around the world. last week, north korea claims to

have successfully completed its fourth nuclear weapons test with a much more powerful weapon than they have possessed before. this is a sobering and stark reminder of the true consequences our country faces when our president shows weakness in the face of these radical regimes. and not only have we witnessed weaknesses, but we have also seen this president naively trust a country like iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism today. since president obama announced his dangerous iran deal in july, despite strong bipartisan opposition, iran has actively accelerated its ballistic missile program and continued financial support for terrorism in the region, in violation of the very sanction that we just heard on this floor, mr. president. iran has fired rockets near u.s. warships, fomented unrest in yemen, taken more americans hostages, refused to release an

american prisoner who's been held for three years, convicted an american journalist of spying, banned american products from being sold in iran, and renewed its support for hamas and hezbollah terrorists. from the beginning, president obama didn't listen to military advice and prematurely pulled our troops out of iraq, creating another power vacuum. isis, of course, we now know, grew into that power vacuum and sprouted influence not only in the middle east but in africa and asia today. last november, this president told the american people in a news interview -- and i quote -- "we have contained isis. they have not gained ground in iraq. and in syria, they'll come in, they'll leave. but you don't see this systematic march by isil across the terrain." well, we now know isis has not been contained, mr. president, in their ability to wage war against the west and will stop at nothing to deliver terrorism even to the shores of america.

the president's plan has failed, plain and simple. and we sit here today with no strategy to defeat isis. the world needs to see decisive action from the united states, not empty rhetoric that can't be backed up. we need a new leader that takes every threat of any size seriously. moving forward, nothing can go unchecked and unmet by a relentless -- without relentless american resolve. no matter how you measure it, president obama's economic and foreign policies have, indeed, failed. time and again, he has refused to change course when his policies didn't work. when they didn't help the american people that he claims to champion. instead, this president has created the fourth arm of government, the regulators, and they're sucking the very life out of our free enterprise system today. now fewer people are working, wages are stagnant, incomes aren't growing. the debt is soaring and the world is much more dangerous than it was eight years ago.

but tonight we will also hear from this president about his optimism for the future. well, i get that. i share that optimism. but only because i believe we can do better, we can do a lot better. we can tackle our national debt crisis. we can save social security and medicare. we can defeat terrorism once and for all. we cannot do it without bold leadership, however. we cannot do it without a sense of urgency or responsibility. we cannot do it unless the political class in this town, washington, d.c., finally puts national interests in front of self-interest. we cannot do it without the will and support of the american people. i believe in america. georgians believe in america. americans believe in america. americans have always risen to the crisis of the day and i believe that we'll rise to this crisis. but washington needs to really listen to the american people,

focus on solutions they support and unite our nation to make sure our best days are, indeed, ahead of us. we owe it to our children and our children's children and the time to move is right now. the time for rhetoric has ended. we need to face up to the two crises we have today -- the global security crisis and our own debt crisis -- which are interwoven together. thank you, mr. president. i yield my time and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that proceedings under the quorum call being dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i withdraw the motion to proceed to s. 2232.

the presiding officer: the motion is withdrawn. mr. mcconnell: i move to 4038. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to the consideration of 4038, an act to require supplemental in background investigations be required for refugees and other purposes. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion stot desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 300, h.r. 4038, an act to require that supplemental certifications of background investigations be completed prior to the admission of certain aliens as refugees and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators as follows: mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that the names -- reading of the names be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask that the mandatory quorum call be waived with respect to the cloture motion. the presidin without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous

consent that no with the standing rule 22, the cloture vote occur and the time be count as if invoked on january 19. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i now ask unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that that at 5:00 p.m. tuesday, january 1-rbg9s the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, calendar number 305, that there be 30 minutes of debate on the nomination and that following the use or yielding back of 250eu78 time, the senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or gailt, following disposition of the nomination, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. that no further motions be in order to the nomination, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and that happen the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i now ask

unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 345 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 345, congratulating the north dakota state university football team for winning the 2015 national collegiate athletic division 1 football champion championship subdivision 1 title. the presiding officer: is there otion to proceeding to the measure? wowings. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i now ask unanimous consent that the senate recess until 8:25 p.m. tonight, and upon reconvening proceed as a body to the hall of the house of representatives for the joint session of congress provided under the provisions of h. con. res. 1023. that upon dissolution of the joint serks the senate adjourn until 11:00 a.m. friday, january

15, for a pro forma session only, with sno business conducted. further, when the senate adjourns on friday, january 15, it next convene on tuesday, january 19, at 2:00 p.m., following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserves for their use later in the day, further following leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, until 5:00 p.m. finally, at 5:00 p.m., the senate then proceed to executive session, as under the previous order. the presiding officer: is there an objection? without objection. the senate stands in recess the senate stands in recess today the senate blocked a bill from senator rand paul. the bill would allow the government accountability office

to review federal reserve members communications about setting interest rates. tonight at 8:20 eastern senators are back in the senate chamber together and then walk together across the capital to the house chamber or for president obama's final state of the union address. c-span's live coverage begins at 8:00 eastern tonight with your calls after the speech. we have republican response from south carolina governor nikki haley. >> members of the congress, i ask -- i have a great pleasure, the high privilege and a great

honor of presenting to you the president of the united states. [applause] >> i'm john richie and the senate historian. a historian. the state of the union message is mandated by the constitution so in the words from time to time the president of the united states should give a message to congress on the state of the union and recommendations of programs that he they think should be followed. george washington began that practice of giving the state of the union message to congress when the first congress met but washington went in person to the congress and went to the senate chamber and delivered the speech that had a series of recommendations, relatively short speech but in those days before they were standing committees of congress they actually used to cut the state of the union message up into

paragraphs and create ad hoc committees to address each one of the issues that the president suggested. washington and adams, john adams vice president who became president follow that practice, so they created this idea that from time to time there was an annual message and for years it was known as the animal message. it didn't become known as the state of the union message really until the 1940s. in fact in 1948 there was a hollywood movie and that is what cemented the idea that the annual message was the state of the union message. president washington and adams went to congress. thomas jefferson however thomas jefferson however didn't enjoy public speaking. he gave only to public speeches while he was president. his first and not religious and his second inaugural address. other than that jefferson thought the idea of the president going to congress personally to deliver a list of

things that he wanted to be done was too much like the british king and the monarchy going to parliament. he thought this was not appropriate for a republic so jefferson sent the message to congress and each year after that presidents would send their messages which would then be read either clerks of the senate and the house rather than by the president. most members of congress could read it in the congressional record or the newspapers. they didn't necessarily have to go and listen to the clerk read the message. that became a tradition and again the constitution is not that specific about what it is. from time to time this message needs to be given on the state of the union. in 1913 we had a new president who had been trained as a political scientist. in fact get a ph.d. in history and political science and it was woodrow wilson. he had written his doctoral dissertation about congress about congressional government and one of the things he felt

was the american president needed to be more like the british prime minister. couldn't be just completely separate from the legislative branch. he had to be the chief legislators was a chief executive so wilson decided he would go in person to deliver his message. the first one he did was in april of 1913 about the terror. it was not a state of the union message per se. this was a shock to congress. the idea that a person was going to come and speak to them. they finally decided they would invite the senators over and there was a lot of grumbling. congress would have left it alone but the president said he wanted to do it and his party said okay. so woodrow wilson then began the modern tradition of presidents each year going to get their state of the union message. he gave his first message in december of 1913 and he continued to do it in person until he was in paris

negotiating the end of the first world war. he actually telegraphed his state of the union message back to congress in 1919 and then spend presidents have followed through. the only president of united states who has not given his state of the union message in person with since then was herbert hoover who also was not a great public speaker and didn't think much of the occasion and just send his message up. almost every other president almost every year has felt that this is too good an opportunity to miss, not to be able to go in person and the drama of the session to give a state of the union message. >> the president of the united states. [applause] [applause] >> is the point when everybody

in congress is sitting there listening. the senate is in the supreme court is in. diplomats are there. the galleries packed with people. it's a major moment of coming together. the only m. that is the inauguration. >> i propose that we begin a massive attack on crippling and killing diseases. [applause] >> i propose to the congress at 10 billion-dollar nationwide clean water program to put modern municipal waste treatment plant in every place in america where they there are needed to make their waters clean again and do it now. [applause] >> it does influence the legislative agenda for the year. whether or not congress to just to follow the president suggestions or rewrites them at least the president can give them an outline of what he wants

to see. sometimes the president never got a chance to give their inaugural address. william henry harrison and james garfield died before their first opportunity. they came in march in congress wouldn't begin until december so the 19th century the state of the union message is given in december. when the constitution was changed at move the beginning of congress up to january and now they use it in january and burberry. there have been some miscues in the state of the union messages. president grover cleveland sent the controversial pose of dealing with the tariff and the income tax the chief source of revenue country with the tariff. it was one of those things that divided parties and created great passion and unfortunately for cleveland this party was not united on these issues and in fact they lost the next election probably because of that division and a lot of people blamed his state of the union

message. but in most cases most state of the union messages are really long laundry list of things that the president wants to see done. and not particularly controversial speeches nor are they inspiring speeches. they are really wish list for president. when anything is done in congress the galleries are open and as long as there are galleries and there have been galleries in the senate since 1795 and in the house since 1789, the public can come in but of course there aren't that many seats in the gallery. there is great demand. yet each member of congress gets a single ticket for a spouse or a member of their staff or a favorite constituent, the press gallery is absolutely packed. the diplomatic galleries packed. usually the first lady is there with guests of the president so there's not a lot of space for the public to come on this

occasion but over time the public has gotten to see and hear this through the media. newspapers covered it in general and in the 19th century you would have read the entire speech in both newspapers. in the 20th century beginning in 1923 calvin coolidge's state of the union message was broadcast on the radio. then in 1936 franklin roosevelt suggested moving the state of the union from the middle of the day when it was traditionally given to the evening because they would get a much larger audience on the radio. it and the 1940s it was back during the day the television came along. in 1947 harry truman's state began in the dress was covered by television. in 1965 lyndon johnson said let's put the tv show -- so more people can get to view it.

major net -- networks are covering it so it gets a considerable audience that way and since the late 90s it's been streaming on the internet around the world. in recent years the two parties have become cheerleading squads for their presidents. but there are moments when clearly something the president says inspire something more than just a reaction. there is a bipartisan reaction and you can tell by the mood of the congress. >> and all the world knows that no successful citizen builds a wall to keep his people in and freedom how did. [applause] >> of course immediately after each member of congress will rush out into statuary hall where there will be dozens of cameras set up for television

stations around the country. they will be getting personal reactions of the members, immediate reactions and nowadays in the house chamber you can twitter and to be and some of those people will be responding instantly. >> mr. speaker, president, distinguished members of the house and senate when we first met here seven years ago many of us for the first time it was with the hope of beginning something new for america. we meet here tonight in this historic chamber to continue that work. if anyone expects a proud recitation of the accomplishments of my demonstrations i will leave it to history. we are not finished yet. [applause] >> the one thing that you cannot do that is very different where heckling is considered a fair

sport. in the u.s. congress you have to be respectful of the president when he speaks and a few years ago one member of the house did interrupt the president in a shout-out and he was censured by the house of representatives for doing that. that is assumed to be unbecoming conduct. >> the reform, the reforms i am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. >> you liar. >> the office of the constitution believes in transparency and they did require even though they wrote the constitution in secret they did require certain things to be open. not everything. for instance they don't actually require the congress to meet in open session. just from time to time to publish a journal of their proceedings in the same thing is they don't ask the president to give an annual message that they ask him from time to time to deliver a message on the state

of the union. i think they would be pleased to see that the president comments pretty much every year to do this. i think they would be astonished to realize the congressional record is published every day after the proceedings and not only the state of the union message but every member of the house and senate on the floor on that particular day. that was something that they had certainly intended, that this is a republic, a democratic republic representative of the people and the people had a right to know what was going on. and so in that sense even though they were not allowed to be specific they certainly set goals that the government met. >> i can report to you, this union is good. >> as president obama prepared for his state of the union address the release this video

on twitter. >> i am working on my state of the union address. it's my last one and as i'm writing i keep thinking about the world would -- the road we have traveled together in his past seven years but that's what makes america great our capacity to change for the better our ability to come together as one american family and pull ourselves closer to the america we believe in. it's hard to see sometimes in the day-to-day noise of washington but it is who we are and it is what i want to focus on in this state of the union address. >> c-span's coverage starts tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern with senate historian betty co-ed and realclearpolitics congressional reporter james harkin looking back at the history and tradition of the present annual message and what to expect in this year's address.

>> we will have that live reaction from members of congress right here on c-span2 after the speech about 10:00 eastern. we will interview members from the chamber as they walk through the halls. the senate today blocked a bill from senator rand paul known as audit the fed. that bill would review the federal reserve members communications about setting interest rates. we will see some of the action on the floor now.he tor fro >> mr. president direct thist. hit morning to speak about the legislation that we will be consid considering this afternoonerstas

specifically my understanding is we will be floating on atake common known procedural legislation commonly. known as auditing the fed and i wanted to address this. let me start with the context that i think is important to think about when we consider whether or not we ought tonge change the t relationship even e modestly that exists between a congress and the feds. starts for me with a simple observation that the financial crisis of 2008, though it actually ended a long time ago.m it's been a number of years now that our financial system and our economy has not been in the eminent crisis meltdown mode that it was in in the fall of

2008. in fact for several years now we have had meager but we have had some economicso growth. our banking system has been massively recapitalize. recap there is no current or imminentt wave of bankruptcies in anyankr segment of the economy really.it and yet, despite the fact that we have clearly not in a crie financial or economic crisis we have crisis monetary policy, policy from the feds that one would expect to occur only in a would expec crisis.xpec and the recent very modest funde change in the fed policy is the movement in the fed funds rates from a target of zero to 25 basis points to 25 to 50 basis point is arguably the most modest tightening in fed

history. you couldn't even begin toy. th is j suggest usthat this is a tightening of monetary policy. this is just a very slightly less easy money policy. that's what we have, so in my a view there are huge dangers ande problems that are associated with the fed pursuing this completely unpresident and iay d would sayic radical monetary policy and i want to talk about a few of those this morningnd mr. president. one of the first and clearest problems is because the fed has kept interest rates so low for so long, long, the fed has causa big misallocation of resources t that has undoubtedly caused asset bubbles that are existing today that would not have occurred had it not been for the abnormal monetary policy. take for instance a sovereign debt markets. in many countries especially ind

europe we have debt issued by rn governments and the return on dt those instruments is negative. in other words it doesn't cost the government money to borrow you have money which is normal. tovernmet you have to pay just to borrowrw money normally.ey, whic in fact the government gets paid to borrow money which is not at ridiculous and extremely abnormal and it's happened in the united states. not at the moment but in recent history as result of this fedcye policy. we have had the bizarre world of negative interest rates. that's just one category that clearly has been in a bubble. mt most observers believe the high-yield market and the junk bond market was in a bubble.rbud that is gone for through a very turbulent time in a big sell ofb arguably somebody is coming outo of that bubble but he who knows. there has been considerablen the speculation that there are real estate bubbles and other real wn estate bubbles.y p this is inevitable when the fed distorts monetary a policy andco it's a disturbing echo of the

distortion that occurred back iy the early part of the very beginning of this century when the feds extremely low monetaryo policy and very low interest rates contributed to a housing bubble which of course ended up collapsing in the financial crisis. that's just one category of the problem that causes these lowest registration in the second is the corollary that people have saved money and want to invest in the low risk investment or completely denied an opportunity to get a return.ion is, savers are forced as the out o e expression is to reach for a e yield which is to say take yourh money out of the bank and buy something else because you arert earning nothing but the bank. for a lot of peopl people a savs account at the bank is rk appropriate for their circumstances, for their risk but they are driven away from that because bank deposits yield pretty much zero.n

consider the case of an elderly couple in allentown worked the pennsylvania, worked their whole lives saved whenever they couldr sacrificed, chose not to they money and they lived modestly rather than lavishly. they didon it in the expectation that when they retired the nest egg that they had worked for decades to build a savings of account at the bank was going to yield a little bit ofelp income, help them make ends meet in a wn retirement comes to health supplement whatever social security and whatever pension they might have. what we havet done to those fol and they are all over-- america who has spent a lifetime living prudently, carefully,, mistake made a huge mistake because thet government is make sure that you are nothing on those savings.not a very respected economist his research has -- zero registered

and quantitative easing monetary policy has contributed significantly to expandingality. income and wealth inequality. it's really no surprise. the fed policy has been pretty e good for stocks. stock prices have gone up generally. th it's been terrible for people with a bank account. wealthy people have a lot of money in stocks.tocks. pe people of much more modest means tend to have more of their money sitting in a savings account which as i j described hernson zero so it's exacerbated the income inequality problem. doi in addition with the fed hasspo been doing has encouraged fiscal irresponsibility here in washington.ree, what the heck? borrowing ist free, which it basically has been for the federal government paid why not borr run big debts and borrow a lot

of money? that's the attitude a lot of people have in a frankly diminishes the pressure on congress to pursue sensible andp bsponsible monetary policy.t ad when the fed is willing to buy e up all the dead and tied it int extremely low interest rate, it encourages irresponsible behavior and now of course because the federal government has accumulated this mountain of debt, $18 trillion now if and when interest rates return to something like normal, which ont day they will weather the fed likes it or not, then that's it devastating problem for our ydget outlook. when so all of this is particularly disturbing to me when you consider thatas tcrhieas massive mey, creation of money, this floodind the world with dollars that theg fed is engageded in this not create wealth. weah. it's the difference between money and wealth. the

some people might feel wealthie when they see the stock prices that can be a very artificial pr's it's an inflation and asset our prices and not an improvement in productivity. it it's not an expansion in our economic output. it's not actual wealth. the fed it is numbers on a piece of in paper and of course with the fed is able to inflate in this artificial means by creating of lots of money, that can eventually deflate and whateverk good they think they were calm pushing on the way up why shoulv we think we couldn't see the reverse on the way back down? pm here is what i think is the fundamental problem mr. president. the fact is we have factors that are holding back our economy that are very real and very fed important. the fed's monetary policy can't correct that silly at the tax

scourages code this completely uncompetitive. it discourages work and discoura savings on theries aror discourages investment and makes us less competitive in countries around the world that a more sensible tax code than we have. we need to fix the tax code. map monetary policy can't make upe for badly flawed tax code. we have unsustainable dtitlement programs. they are the ultimate drivers of large and growing deficits and we will not be unsustainable fiscal path until we fix these d programs and monetary policyt mu can't make up for the cloud tha. they cast over our economy. paicipat we have a declining percentage of americans who are participating in the workforce. this is a huge problem for usyos and again monetary policy does regu completely we have been over regulating the economy on a completely over unprecedented scale. the massive wave of overregulation that this administration and some occasions congress has inflicted

on our economy clearly h contributes a great deal to thea subpar economic growth that we have been living through it mety again. it monetary policy does not reverse it, doesn't change that. seems to me that despite all their good intentions their intentions themselves were flawed and that the fed seems to be trying to compensate for the ar flawed policy in these other areas and mr. president given ds kind persistence and the dangers ofep pursuing this kind of monetarygs policy, i think it's time that congress to reassert itsits tht authority over monetary affairs. so the constitution clearly gives congress the responsibility to mint coins into print money. manage in 1914me congress delegated the management of that exercise management of our currency to the fed, and for a long time thr

there was a sense that we ought to just leave them to their own devices and not pay very muchays attention. pas i think those days aret. past.ed i think the fed -- the fed's. behavior obligates us to take a th legisla different approach. one good beginning step would be the legislation we are considering today. the legislation that would audit ongress the fed. all it really does would give -e congress and the american people the opportunity to examine and inking understand the mechanics, theetg thinng behind changes in monetary policy and something close to real time. need i think we absolutely need thatt and i will say i was a skeptic about this. no for a long time i thought i'm not so sure it such a good ideae to have congress looking closel. over the shoulders of the folks from making monetary policy. ii think that dangerous behavios

the fed has engaged in for years now means that they havewe squandered the right to be independent. we need to have more supervisioe i think the next step that woule be very important with the foren adopt a rule that would govern monetary policy. i preferred to let the fed decide what that role should bee and if circumstances require ito and ex have to be able to deviate from that role but they should come and explain to the american people and to congress when andf why they are deviating rather than have year after year of this bizarre unnatural policy that is very hard to explain and understand. it is one of many important steps we can take to restore the accountability that the fed ought to have. our it's important that they get ong

a different path with their monetary policy. this that's not going to occur overnight and not going to occus entirely as a result of this b legislation that this policy has been going on too long and it's time for congress to reassert its authority. i yield the floor. >> the senator from nevada nevada. and i thank you mr. president. i come to the floor today to offer my strong support for the legislation that we are debating today that would finally out of the federal reserve. since i have come to congress have supported auditing the fed and when i was first elected to the house of representatives i would take readings hosted by congressman ron paul. senator paul's father and it turned what accountability and

transparency was needed at the fed. i remember talking to congressman on the house floor about various issues that the fed and that's when i started to support this bill. just as i'm supporting his sons built today. i want to thank senator paul for continuing to take up the cause and for building the momentum to audit the fed that has led us to where we are today. mr. president since its founding the federal reserve operated in secrecy. even though it's a big influence our country's economy and the fed's actions affect every american family and their hard-earned income. i'm fortunate to be chairman of the economic policy subcommittee of the senate banking committee where i have direct oversight over the federal reserve's monetary policy and i can tell you the federal reserve's actions warrant passage of this legislation. for several years we have seen unprecedented monetary

regulatory policy coming from the feds. one of the riskiest policies i have seen is the fed's program of quantitative easing. the federal reserve essentially turn on their computers fired up their electronic printing presses created new money out of thin air and started to buy assets. now you may be asking yourself how big is the stimulus program? it's an unbelievable number. as of today it is nearly $4.5 trillion. let me say that again, $4.5 trillion and that's what the t. that's more than four times the cost of president obama's own failed stimulus program and who is benefiting from this quantitative easing? i can tell you into words. it's wall street. wall street hit the jack pot because the feds easing policy through every one to get a

return on their investment would wall street one n. main st. loss. sabres lost and workers lost. the scary part is the fed won't rule out by more assets in the future and if you ask the fed today when or how they are going to begin to reduce this $4.5 trillion balance sheet there's nothing but silence. is it that being transparent? is that accountability? no, absolutely not. this is one of the reasons why we passed this book are the fed. i find it ironic the federal reserve is as opposed to being audited because they themselves are lending to institutions all the time. i'm sick of hearing from committee lenders in nevada who have -- the fdic the national credit union administration of the consumer financial protection bureau knocking on their door all the time. these committee lenders have not

caused a financial crisis yet they are the ones that are feeling the brunt of all of these audits. why should there be a double standard? the government agencies can examine every american bank account that the american public can't examine those same agencies back. again this is why we must pass this legislation to audit the fed. i want to remind my colleagues that even though most of the news about the fed resolve -- revolves around interest rate and monetary policy is the fed's responsibility for major regulation that touches almost every aspect of the financial system. i support regulation but only after thoughtful and careful valuation. i think it should be mandated that the fed's conduct a cost-benefit analysis of all of their proposed regulations and always allow public comment on these proposed regulations. i'm also very concerned that the fed is getting involved in financial sectors that they have not been in the past.

we have a long tradition in the united states of having a time tested and effective state-based insurance bigotry system. unfortunately dodd-frank is change all that another federal reserve has no authority over the insurance sector. right now as we speak the fed is attempting to regulate capital standard requirements for insurance companies in the united states. this will be the first time the federal government imposes domestic federal capital standards on the state regulated insurance industry. i have worked hard to make sure that banks standards are not in a properly applied to the insurance industry by the feds. not only does the fed want to add their own domestic rules on top of state-based insurance regulations, they even want another layer of one-size-fits-all international capital standards on top of that. mr. president i almost have to

laugh because it's only in washington d.c. where federal agency puts the trailer before the horse. unfortunately that's exactly what the fed is doing by working on international capital standards before they complete their own domestic standards. i have serious concerns about these international efforts and together with senator tester of montana we introduced a bipartisan international insurance capital standards accountability act which would compel the federal reserve and treasury department to complete a study on the impacts on consumers and markets in the u.s. before supporting any international proposal or international insurance capital standard. mr. president these are just a few of the examples of some of the fed's questionable actions. as i said earlier this legislation to audit the fed is critical to bring transparency and accountability to the set fed but even more fundamental changes need to be made to the fed. a few months ago chairman shelby

put together an impressive bill in the senate banking and housing committee passed with my support which would make it port reforms to the fed pay one provision would establish a commission to study the restructuring of the districts of the federal reserve system. chairman shelby hoffman to require the fed's open market committee to make more frequent and detailed reporting of crimes to congress and increase transparency by reducing the time lag for committee transcripts from five to two. these are reasonable changes that democrats and republicans are likely to support and i hope chairman shelby's bill will be brough to the senate floor soon. mr. president the federal reserve recently celebrated the seventh anniversary. ..

while it mostly centers on how much to cut the dividend, i was trying to figure out why the federal reserve requires banks to buy these so-called stocks to begin with. after all, it doesn't look like the fed is in desperate need of funds because over the past half dozen years, the feds have sent nearly a half a trillion dollars in profits to the u.s. treasury. a hundred years ago, these stock purchases and dividends were me >> >> because by law they never gave the authority for those that were eligible for the fdicnsurance. just because something was standard practice over 100 years ago to is amy that is still needed today and it is time for congress to review the membership requirements furthermore.

is essential congress exercise the constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight and scrutinize the federal reserve in the open and transparent way which is why i vote today. to encourage my colleagues to join me. i yield the floor. >> mr. president. i will speak again opposition the federal reserve transparency act.

of all the things tour:in terms of isis in transportation and other issues that this is the first bill considered on the beginning of the year. with that direction we should go into not national security or job creation or stated that immigration but over the past several weeks talking about a different issues it comes as no surprise to anybody watching and with monetary policy. to score political points.

that we should even do with this legislation. butted is about the federal reserve cannot transparency. with this legislation and this is what she said. this rest of the steady progress made on the economic recovery over recent years with no oh and stable inflation expectations. because the federal reserve is able to make independent decisions with the long-term. and to undermine the independence of the federal reserve with that diminished

status of the dollar to reduce economic and financial stability. babying it is exactly right. to be involved in federal monetary policy i cannot imagine so that it has become so political. so to put in the public interest. it is about all of that. and as they lose 800,000

jobs a month when he took office but february 2010 in then to see job growth of 69 or 71 straight months and to hear is people back to work. but we know that is not but this is about that senate banking chair and the republican chairman hit the nail on the head. of lots of people called och for an audit but we already on its deathbed. this is synergy -- senator shall be talking about 40 to

35 members of the house 100 members of the senate with day-to-day business of the monetary policy of the federal reserve recreated the fed to get politics as far as he could from the monetary policy i don't believe we need politics back in the federal reserve we don't. [applause] a to 35 members with the fomc. but some decision in making policy of the sponsor of this is we need to understand the extent of the fed's balance sheets they already require the federal reserve to be audited every year by the extra roll someone who is outside the independent of all matters related to the fed. it releases say quarterly report the information of the results of operations of

the federal reserve banks and that report will be leased to congress. anyone can go to the federal reserve and to get it. it publishes charts and since the crisis and there are legitimate criticisms criticisms, there always have been and always will be because of their reach and complexity, it has gotten better because of the last two shares of ben bernanke and then janet yellen. since the crisis the gao conducted over 100 audits of the federal reserve's activities. many relate to to the financial crisis. there is more and there should be more.

this isn't just out and out but should be open to criticism there is much to criticize but this legislation and solves nothing except to politicize the fact. the chairman of the federal reserve to testify before the senate beguine committee twice a year the monetary policy and practice will testify to other topics and then to testify every year the fed meets to describe the reasoning behind those decisions after the fomc meetings and are available

on the federal reserve website. used earlier them before or five years after each meeting this and that is much earlier than most other central banks release a transcript. and for the most likely path or released quarter of a pro with all of the fed board and the reserve bank these completed audits and assessments and reviews for a report with that detailed transaction level with the open markets recommendation it is relatively new and required by dodd/frank wall street reform for prose so clearly congress new congress is not as responsible as it should be in one of the things we did

with dodd/frank was to is reform. but that district regional federal reserve in the new york fed is the most important for a number reses and publishes it the account that has a detailed summary of operations and up balance sheets in the.com projections this is open to the public to be out and about as her predecessor was chairman banking -- chairman bernanke and janet yellen them last summer made a speech in after words went to a large manufacturer so

she could see the real economy to see how the important manufacturing is especially in the middle of the country with all things federal reserve. i wonder how many of those claiming the fed is not transparent has taken the time to read some of these reports whether the initial reports or the fomc and wonder if they listen in to very many of these testimony to janet yellen or from the governor or of a number of others on the federal reserve. i have been one of the major critics but i argue it should we is stronger regulator of the baker holding company cie appreciate that it is very

important for what the fed has done for stronger capital standards is the most important thing and then to break up the largest banks end then to bake the system safer and sounder. so what is this about? people are unhappy from the financial crisis they want to show their anger by taking away the independence the with that stronger monetary policy actions it

will be in a far worse situation. i was asked by a cs bid to interview chairman bernanke on one of the show's we sat for one hour were in the studio in washington to discuss the memoir he began to write their day he left office a couple years ago. it was clear then that it congress had pursued in terms of fiscal policies such austerity he solve the economic growth that started with the rescue and recovery not is immobilized. he knew because congress was starting to squeeze the economy at that point with the fiscal policy he had to make up for it with low interest rates and qualitative easing which is what he did. an understanding he would

offend some members of congress he understood because he was independent he could do the things that janet yellen could do. because the all rescue a large part because of quantitative using a republic he is -- republican appointee to do the right thing and inflation remains well. and mandate where they are responsible for inflation no more than 2% and the fed has balance as inflation is low despite there doomsday prediction. our economy has a way to go but it is clear that increase of interest rates lead have been premature. if congress were involved in

the way the sponsor of the of bill i don't see there is much question about that. also the back door piecemeal way is an attempt to impose a monetary policy but this is the off parts of the legislation would they look at the dual mandate facing play more about inflation which is what the bondholders of all street want them to do and less of fiscal policy or interest rates and employment. that is inflation a and employment if you put too much towards inflation then people on the streets are left out frankly that there is the story of the fed for far too many years that is why want chairman bernanke and german yellen has done

is so important if they have their way we will see some kind of rule at the federal reserve reform go -- a bill and of the audits and reports of there is any doubt this is where they're headed next i urge my colleagues to vote no and it is in the interest to understand the law and operations did activities we can do that better. this is not the way to do it also in the interests of the american economy to keep its political hands out of monetary policy decision making if we are serious to make the fed works better a republican community banker has a waiting for nominate a -- the nomination hearing for over year and a democratic than many - -

comedy has the ratings six months this is the big mistake to undermine this bill. most people that i know have any expertise in the federal reserve reject and i ask my colleagues to vote no. >> we have college age kids covered here in alabama but the elementary schools are suffering. with for education, horrible buildings, it is not separate and not equal.

>> first to put together these houses with the kit in the best thing that booker t. washington never did was to say no. i won the communities to build them so they were built and it was amazing and then 5,000 schools all over the south including maryland. >> i am working on my "state of the union" address. is my last one as the right did i keep thinking of the past seven years. what makes america great is our capacity to change for the better. the ability to come together as one american family to pull ourselves closely to the america we believe.

but it is who we are and what to want to focus on in this "state of the union." >> the coverage starts tonight 8:00 p.m. eastern

unfilled instead glad the morning prime minister. >> first the i want to establish you will continue? >> yes. the last time it worked quite well to have three sessions and then i think this idea but i am happy either way.

>> we would be grateful if you could make two more appearances this session but it will be two before summer >> that might be more difficult. let me take that away to think about it. >> and with those negotiations to bring that to the table so what is your assessment to put pressure

on their own kind like the civil war is still in place? >> the good thing there is the process that the secretary of state has done an amazing job to have the meeting on the 25th of jerry with the opposition and the regime. what pressure could everyone .1 dash point? i don't want to use that phrase but certainly the relationship we have with the opposition groups would be encouraging them to come forward inside saudi arabia where a large number of groups came together under the geneva of principles and we encourage them to carry

out a dialogue with the regime. to continue with saudi arabia to say these opposition groups with those receiving figures we have stayed what has happened in recent days so is very difficult but we will push as hard as we can. >> it in the eyes of a more constructive place? >> i don't think so. why they did and the way that they did. there is a great interest

how a government represents and they know it is in their interests at. >> but with saudi arabia with that disapproval of acting to disrupt in a critical time? >> it is based on the energy and gold strategy that is an important area for the country economically sandman terms to read engaged this

area touche disengage so is this up plan for engagement with the european issues but i have to make a of a comprehensive trip in the company -- and the upcoming months the democratic council has been excluded from these talks. >> but that issue have because of the turkish position the best i can say who said the syrian and the kurds play an important role mahua in terms of the of military campaign in syria

to talk about the 70,000 extremist forces that did not include the 20,000 kurds but the inclusion of the political process is more difficult to but let's be clear a future syria that day come along. >> this is extraordinary for syria and iraq to be watched most closely in the military terms surely we should be supporting them as part of the opposition? >> but we've tried to keep

it on track as far as we can. but the concern about turkey or the turkish government with of pkk ahead of the of remark to take on the enemy at all, what can you tell us of isil and turkish policy and in intentions and how much faith should replays soon turkey's commitment? >> the best that i could say is the british government will do everything we can

and to say to our allies this is where the focus should be of course, we don't agree with a jumble up everybody together to make one large terrorist group. but in terms of helping to bring about daesh but it is ongoing process working with the turks. it is important to understand. >> even with the european family of nations but that policy and intention is a rather good place to be? >> we would like them to be more focused than they are.

or daesh is improving i think if you look at the turkish border the introduction of oil supplies , the the work they're doing, they are stepping up and everything that we can. >> but i used to be the doubled game being played. >> i don't think that is a fair comparison. turkey has suffered at the hands directly of isil to lose its own citizens.

clearly if you talk to use turkish politicians, they do have concerns about issues of terrorism and potentially in the future that you have to understand but to say they are more firmly committed to reducing syria of isil i don't think that is fair. >> prime minister of a bite to start with the determination to see a side -- teeeighteen androecium voted for the invasion of iraq that i seek he is more brutal than and teeeighteen.

but now we know what had happened to you share my view that the actions of the vote was a wrong and terrible mistake even those saddam hussein was a terribly brutal dictator? i don't know if i would take that view but there are the sins to learn and what have been afterwards to dismantle the entire regime, armed forces, the identification of the entire country and that was the biggest problem of all. to draw conclusions between these two, read the extent

that he has rained down on his own people using honker as a weapon of war. you could certainly say. >> i entirely agree there is little to choose between them precisely because we have learned a lesson and i refer to it that sometimes you can remove a brutal dictator the you end up with a worse situation if arguably some they say the same thing happened in libya. day you accept in principle there isn't a choice between their brutal dictator or the

alternative that it can make sense to leave that a brutal dictator in place? >> where we disagree i think is is impossible in my view to visit your situation and where assad stays in power and syria is not a threat to our national interest. his in two very important ways with the immigration crisis says the threat to our interest in that of course, is assad in the second reason that as long as you have teeeighteen in how are you are in danger to the broken terrorist style

stage in western syria. i don't buy the idea there is the alternative view in which you say pick the one that is least bad to make an accommodation with them because they've you would still have the problems of the migration crisis in even daesh to look at pictures of people starving to death or bombed out of their house is by assad if there is any prospect they could be run by this man? is seen as having him leave power to say he would not be part of the future isn't political pressure but political fact so i don't go down your comparison.

>> but i do agree there are lessons to learn from previous conflicts to dismantle a state or having plans for reconstruction or thinking through the political process saving but it seems to me you have subscribed to the view there is a third alternative and some take the view to have the lesser of two evils. but to say there is a third option now we although an order to be a divisive we have to act with of incredible forces on the ground and you famously told those that the joint

intelligence committee with 17,000 moderate fighters. if they are fighters there can be little grounds for secrecy. so if you bring in the supposedly moderate groups that are in the field. >> so with the terminology that figure i invented that i asked for to give me the best estimate of 70,000 on extremist best opposition fighters those with the free syrian army to find out after the geneva of principles with the is

impeccable democrats who share the view of the democracy and some have that hard-line but for those that we have potential to work with. so with those huge amounts of granular detail is the group's in the people. >> but surely prime minister people are supportive of your position on this of the groups of various sizes including the three syrian army to have those small and disparate affiliate's the suspicion has to be the

supposedly moderate groups to make it possible if they are islamist and extreme. >> it is different for other people to publish a list in the debate people will say there is not enough opposition in bed totally agree. i could not agree more. into that liberal democrat body. with that daesh style state and we have to find that way

those our lights who have taken part who want to dismantle that. but to argue that that sunii majority in syria is to root extreme were too hopeless for the future his side of too good to be the principal is a large number of them

the other ploy to of the tudor 40,000 troops in there was a large number of troops fighting assad and with those said i asked who were the group saugh? this was up question to answer by the defense secretary. which moderate nine and islamist groups of 518 daesh

with syria? there are a number of -- the vast majority of these opposition groups are islamist. unless there is a mistake in many cases they are islamist. you want them to make an informed choice with the brutal dictator and dead islamist alternative of

those forces peltate airstrikes and i will not change that cancer. but some of those opposition forces are relatively hard-line that we would read described as more secular democrats. yes you do need to build them up. but that is the point with those moderate forces they are hit by assad.

there maybe this detail that you put it. but it is appropriate. but then to have that discussion they thought 70,000 was the best estimate.

>> you will never believe that. after the iraq war. >> is it fair to say that libyan intervention has deprived the region? >> it is true the web is particular in his later days the extremist groups like al qaeda famously to look back to the time of gadaffi.

said benitez that shortcoming. given to the i.r.a. to seek somehow that is a golden era but with the growing isil franchise in libya just as in many countries around the world but the to be extremist but those states that are fractured rorer broken in any way.

you see that in libya the good governance. in the same way to be strong inclusive governments. id to use the phrase we have to be careful with the plans of reconstruction and. and now we're in a terrible less. >> and the international coalition in came together to get driven of gadaffi isn't that what i say that

opportunity was not taken. scitex of libyan prime the disaster to the judge teeeight -- to death that possible was not possible to deliver. but the critics partly at request of the libyans themselves was not to go heavy-handed to construct that government. to be represented most possible.

so i am just saying that failure to engage of that breeding ground. >> but we were involved and we try to do that but clearly on this occasion it did not work. >> to that issue that you can do with to say yes to both of these propositions. [laughter] of lake these others. what i'd like to ask you about is a targeted killing by the drone said you told

the house you came to tell us about that in september. i have two questions about this. the first, the bill he will agree to the suggestion that you sit down in writing published of policy of killing by drones from the defense secretary we had a number of different statements. that there is a new departure we need to be clear of the legal basis and what this policy is.

that situation is different for the use of force but the same issues could be raised in relation to be killed in yemen or libya. third, a serious issue and you will acknowledge that but instead of us trying to piece that together ourselves and for example, that they were very helpful with an operational framework but that is not good enough i don't think i actually having a policy for

those who are targeted to be killed on the one hand but there are people who don't want to kill on the a variant but those who are not the target likely to other people who were killed at the time on the 21st of august. i seek we should know who visited the gray area including daesh if there was a young child there. is said is civilian? >> i am fascinated.

but this is the approach that i take with that legal basis for that reason that you are familiar with. this is of far more extensive program and the two situations are not advance but that is exactly what i did but the question i was asking is the question you're putting in your question with that principle

of full emu take this action and also everything that we followed so i have not inclined to write that policy statement but i kid sees seven vintages and what you are saying potential the sun king as let you talk about and to give intelligence that they know how to avoid to becoming a risk themselves. >> my is any suggestions

that it should be done in such a way but i is here where you say you will think about it but that is not good enough in terms of the information but the second question i would like to ask is about independent accountability action being taken to kill somebody in the line of their activity with the it cc which is a serious issue and somebody independently looks as that is it justified? don't you think there should be some independent oversight to ask if it was

the right person in this case? was there sufficient avoidance of collateral damage? instead of you coming to the house to say we have done it there is actually independent oversight. iran have to be security committee by can they do that to have that accountability? >> we are looking at the intelligence around a particular british orders straight - - strike there are others that are a lot stronger.

and it seems i should not tell them their investigations but what they cannot do is look at current operations sometimes it is part of potential operations is to hamper the work to keep country safe for future occasions i am sure we can find a way through this. it could be a current operation is to take action to keep the country safe. >> but they are still not looking at it.

but these types of operations made the one in the years but the point is the is to have security clearance that tried not to publish that policy to have independent oversight it seems easy for you to say yes. . .

and the legality of the actions that we take all the way through the process. it process. it is not just a bit of legal advice that is given. unthinkable to previous generations. these sorts of actions, but that is what takes place. >> it is amazingly effective. >> so kind of you. >> divined from the answer. you are not actually giving them what they need to do. i just want to go through.

this is a military operation. the secretaries and surrounding use of the military assets for military operations. look at the intelligence around it. >> we are totally engaged in operation that is intending to blow up kill and maim our citizens. that is what is going on comeau what those people are doing.

we are going to focus on that and think about how we keep this country safe. it is the current operation. there is a cell of people who are planning to try and do damage to this country. >> the military aspect of the operation inquiring. if you look at the memorandum of understanding which you asked me to refer to you will see clearly, it makes it the generally not too far general military operations. that is not part of their work. examine that specific if they are not able to look at the military. >> the question what did the

intelligence. >> it depends on the intelligence that we had. and that information will be given to the isc. >> the use of the force. they need to look at the specifics of the military operation. >> the intelligence. >> asked me. >> it was my decision. you can ask me. >> what you're saying is correct judgment. we should not rely. >> i didn't say that. you should rely.

i stood in front of the house of commons. i am here to explain. the detail that i thought was possible. in the heart to give away our capabilities. i am happy to give further answers to questions about whether it was necessary and proportionate. ultimately yes it was because if it wasn't it would not have been given the legal sanctions. the key test in terms of the legality. >> i think we agree you have asked the isc to look at this because we need to know whether we should rely on the judgment that you made. given the public reassurance. >> the reason is i cannot and should not reveal the intelligence we have about individual people. therefore because i can't do

that that is what we have in isc that looks at the intelligence. these people are trusted members of parliament. you are not going to reveal that information publicly. they can look at that intelligence and come to the decision. they did or did not make the right decision. if they can't look at the specific military aspects in order to judge the proportionality. >> someone who has listened.

>> the military operations has been described. >> they are not the intelligence and defense committee, not responsible for lithium military assets. that is what there going to do. >> there are provisions. but you have not yet acted on it. that's what i'm asking you to do. in order to give the public reassurance. >> i don't agree. by and large they understand the threat. i think thei think the public understands this is not going operation, threat we still face. support the actions we took.

dealing with people, of course they want to know the government does not do these things. that's what we have an attorney general and listen in the intelligence is examined unless the right way to go about it. >> the fact that under the legislation the somewhat passed by isc has to rely on what is authorized. all the information they get is authorized. they withhold information. will you now agree that all information relevant to this held by your sectors state will be released and that therefore the power to

withhold information under schedule oneone section 403 intelligence security act will not be exercised in this case. >> look at the detail question you asked, but i would not be inclined necessarily to say that is an easy thing to say yes to. >> that is why i am trying to be frank with you and say in detail, but my instinctive answer would be no. >> we have got this committee in order to be able. >> let me explain. >> they need to rely on their assurances. >> that is why you have instructed them to do this work. >> my instinct would be worried. intelligence.

but you have to be incredibly careful with highly sensitive information that if revealed could result in somebody's death. they could be at risk. so let me answer. you are asking me should the government have no blowback on the intelligence against of the isc, instinctively i would be worried. could endanger the source. in that case the government should keep that intelligence is tightly held as possible and there may be occasions where you can't share that. that is my instinctive answer. >> release the rest of the information. >> of giving you the reason. i think it's part of my job is skeptical. the easiest thing in the world.

we have this, that, set out this policy and all the rest. suddenly you can't take the action. i would rather give you a difficult answer now they give you an easier answer. layered ourselves and bureaucracy and processes in procedure. >> we have agreed to look at it again. >> say something nice. >> reaching your target. >> thank you. >> ask you how it jumps so rapidly between the 26th of november and actress prime minister. these things take time to wrap up. i think the minister has

done a very good job. but they came forward with all sorts of help. a huge amount of work in process these people. but there was quite a lot to try and demonstrate that we said 20,000 we really meant it. >> people like the archbishop of canterbury these remain on the table part of the solution. >> i am happy to do that. i think that to get this off to a good start asking local

authorities who could, you know, provide either public or private rented housing. >> am very happy to do that. we should try and take them on. >> what has happened recently. do you think she went too far? >> continental european powers, a very difficult situation. have a discussion about the european countries being as generous as britain has been a very popular destination.

i will leave the german politician to german. >> order. if you are ready prime minister. we are going to begin. >> the effects of people coming to this country, the number of terrorists who may have been masqueraded as refugees in the paris attackers crossed the greek border with a fake syrian passport. racially 10,000recently 10,000 fake syrian passports many folks should in bulgaria have been seized. what are we doing to help other countries to try and deal with this important subject? >> we are doing everything that we can to make sure the information is robust.

we stop -- we can stop anyone coming in our country. 93,000. good and robust border controls particularly at the external border. my sense is they are improving. vital information so that we can match up with our data and i think there is an impetus to do well. in the last month we have had a breakthrough passage. it just speaks volumes that the security argument about how the eu can work together

, there is more to be done. >> individual cases. there iscases. there is concern one of the paris attackers, the leader came into the country, went to birmingham turned over. what are we doing to try to make sure that when people enter the country -- and i you have checks on entry, but this just takes one person doing this because a lot of concern. >> we're trying to do everything that we can to marry up the data that we have about the people who are risk to work with european parliament to make sure they are doing the same thing, to share that information. and that is why, you know, one of the reasons why we never took down our borders. we think it is important we do that work ourselves. the best of both worlds.

they get better approaches across europe as well so we have that information as well. always stop people who look to do harm. it is difficult to give that guarantee because some of the people we have been talking about our foreign nationals, and i think there has been, you know, i have been have been to a number of european councils about this. the real impetus for europe to improve it system and practices, and it's worth spending a 2nd on because people think that is just exchanging passenger information. for years it was impossible. and it is not just information like passenger names but the data about where someone bought the ticket and what credit card can be used which can be helpful in finding out whether someone -- you have done good work on this, but this is an area of progress,

an area where we need to do more, the sec. is very much in charge and we could end up with the best of both worlds with europe during more. >> i can get on board with that. >> he had been on television supporting daesh. he was a member. he had been arrested on terrorism charges, taken to a police station, bailed before he gave up his passport. by the time he was written two on the 7th of november it was 36 days since he was asking about his passport. again, the individual case that taking the principle out of it to seize passports and give the police powers, to take passports, mark

rosen had just given evidence to the human affairs committee. making breach of bail a criminal offense and it is standard practice to notify other agents. would you support a change in the law that would allow the police to tease this passports when giving bill? >> i am very happy. make remarks like this at your committee because frankly i think in this individual case when he was arrested so the police could not.

the home address was searched. but all that is an explanation. the determining nationality, seizing passports is a very good idea. i've just come from meeting at the national security council and again the question comes up about why we cannot determine nationality and sometimes get all the papers. so in all these areas we need -- there is another thing, making sure that information about those on bail is automatically put on the warnings index and checklists and the rest of it. there is more that the police can do there. >> i know that you feel that more should be done to take down. do you support the work of

groups like anonymous who have taken down 2,255 websites and 19,000 twitter pages, encourage young people to go and fight in syria? do you think we should encourage the taking down? >> i don't know enough to comment. what i can say is we as the government do a lot of action. they are working a lot with the internet companies, major breakthroughs on child pornography and searching for a decent term if you remember. no comeau we can deal with it. and then they realized they could and they should and we need to have the same conversation on extremism to make sure these sorts of things. >> it won't be a vote.

>> what they have been through. going to be well received. came to our select committee back in september, the councils of taking refugees into the communities, the net cost would be supported by government and the chancellor in his opening statement said that actually they killed a hundred and 30 million to help with their additional cost. so when refugees come in council should be sharing additional cost of how the refugees. >> our policy is not quite that way. the budget, the rules and

then over four years thousand pounds per person in your two to 1,000 pounds per person in your five. i think that is as generous assessment as anywhere in the world. and very stark contrast to the entire eu relocation resettlement scheme as i said in the house the other day but i would encourage the council to encourage them to start to build a life for themselves here. they have the right to work, the status that enables them to work. and so the faster they can become a life in a job and all the rest the better. >> agree with that as well. in the community.

actually lead to something we don't want to see. yet, for health services specifically. you know from the education system to speak english. additional costs. >> what we are going to do, have this for future years, the idea of reimbursing for any and every cost that might arise i don't think would be the right approach. came forward and said we want to help. i think the idea that you would simply say we're going to find every single element

of what this family does i think would be very hard to arrange and the people might feel it is rather unfair. the tariff system is a fair approach. >> the longer rates and children being displaced from local schools. but local authorities on health service, many of them on the school system outside the control of local government. english classes for people not speaking english. how will those be funded? everybody is involved. >> a well-funded health service without rising budget, well funded schools which reflects what happens if numbers go up.

we have a system in the country that is capable which is one of the reasons why i thought 20,000 was a reasonable number. more than capable of delivering that sort of help. you think about how many people come to britain has refugees in that normal year >> receive those refugees. we look. can we have some reflection? i was just looking at their figure. the supporters, the latest figures available show the constituency.constituency. normal levels of authority to evaluate. 718. should be -- [inaudible conversations] >> they are not publicly supported.

>> in the case of the syrian refugees we are keen to encourage them to come forward. you've got a pretty good pattern of local authorities going forward. there is always the question about where housing is most available, where capacity is most available for the danger sometimes of alienation, rather isolation and some particularly rural communities, but i think you know we inherited the system from the government that you were a part of that we have been operating on. came to say this syrian refugees can come on board. >> how they are funded in terms of these demands. >> set up one of those generous systems anywhere. i think it sounds reasonable and fair. this is burden sharing which is what it should be. and ii think i am confident it will work well. >> i think there has been an issue. additional put into health

services, additional money, very complex, very real need find their services worse. i do not think that is the best way to encourage the welcoming. you have to mitigate. [inaudible conversations] >> i was out there as part of the development for the committee. the legislatures to put in the process with the outcome of the negotiation agreement , and i have to say congratulations to those. in the years running up to it that so much work to achieve and be welcomed. that it is actually a method

implemented year on year domestically comeau what do we feel about the outcome? >> well,well, i thought it was pretty good given that in the weeks running up to it it was looking like to degrees. itit was looking like there would be no review mechanism itit was looking like any reference to progressive increases in ambition would be struck out, and so, you know, it was also looking like the climate finance numbers would not come together. i thought it did not look that good. i was always confident there would be a deal because i think the fact that china and america decided to go on board this time, positive outcome. better than kyoto. but i was pleasantly surprised, people like the

climate change secretary, the key negotiator that we got that review mechanism to be kept in touch with and agreed that there was further ambition necessary. it was a good deal, but as you say, now it is about implementation. >> do it for me. i'm sure get up there with the european union, particularly with the high ambition predilection. the uk leadership, union leadership as well. ..

>> the commonwealth conference was essential because you would not get to the small arm states and the developing nations to sign up. >> just a question that insures what we do with that finance as well. and where else that will come from.

>> i think britain's membership has benefits where we work together and we have the legislation put in place supported by me on climate change. we have had a revolution on the changes in the renewable energy.

>> there is criticism on the issues and they say they are puzzled by this. it is suggested there is a comrad engagement and the uk. what is your response? >> you disagree?

you disagree with the statistical numbers that point to this which is you change the situation. the uk has tumbled down the ranking. >> first of all, the international group that looks at countries and their commitment to climate change says britain is the second best

in the world after denmark, right? that is the first thing. we want to look at what is happening with wind, bio mass, and solar and 98% of the solar panels were put in place by the prime minister. it is going to be doubled in this parliament what it was in the last parliament in terms of our investment. whether it is offshore wind market where we have the biggest market in the world, the green investment bank which is the first in the world, or whether the fact we are reinvesting in the nuclear program and we are the first to phase out coal fire

stations. you would say britain is holding up to the their commitment that is why the uk has has fallen with 8% reduction in greenhouse emissions in the last years. >> i am well prepared to defend this. >> there is no likelihood. >> we need to do more.

we have seen events that happened and i gave the biggest investments in terms of capital. we need to look at the way whole drainage systems work, we had a cabinet morning this meeting where we discussed this extensively. the money was disbursed rapidly and the flood prevention in place is something like 20,000 pounds. do we need to do more? yes, we absolutely do.

and we have seen the changes in the environment agencies that happened so far. i think we are trying to balance off the effects of nature on one hand and protecting property on the other hand. the time for that is over. this is about protecting human lives and our home. i want to see the continued shift. you saw that directly some have said. this is a manmade environment. it was ridiculous. i threatened to drive it myself. do we need an attitude change? yes, we actually do. >> what about a fundamental change?

>> we make difficult decisions and obviously a loss of departments that were established by the government. what we have done is increase flood defense spending so do we need to look at more that needs to be done? of course we do. these are serious events that are terrible for people who are affected by them. i have seen that for myself. it is not just about this but other things. that is what the review is all about.

>> it is worth reporting that the refuges coming to the uk -- and in particular, it was said this is to be known for the willingness to take people. i think we should note the administration helping communities and inspire to help up and down the country. one of the cases you made is that before the action wthere were fighters. >> the 70,000 people i am talk about was the best estimate of the one extremist opposition that we are fighting largely and some of us are fighting dense

daish. and in terms of this campaign against daish they could not provide a summary. >> when you spoke on the chamber you talked about were they existing fighters? >> they were existing fighters. >> thank you. it was a good description of what ground troops were available. >> in the middle east, it has been reported that two days ago, milita military planes were flying and there were airstrikes that resulted in the death of

civilians in iraq. >> at the time we held the debate, after all of that action, we didn't believe there were any casualities because we take a careful approach to minimize the deaths wherever we can. >> so the report that the independent models mentioned? >> of course. but as i say we are very careful.

>> the government ruled that the energy policy and going to continue with the 21 rules. >> they are making a massive contribution. britain has some of the most climate change regulation of any country anywhere in the world. and we made good on not only having those things but meeting the budget time after time. as i said, we reduced greenhouse gases by 15% since 2010. if you look at the carbon energy, and this government and parliament, we will be doubling our investment in low carbon energy to 11 million pounds. we have the largest

instillations for any country. we said we want to invest in the renewable options to get them going. you have to have renewable energy. you have to in my view nuclear because it is base load carbon-free electricity. and you also have to have? gas as well. why -- we are well on the way to delivering that outcome. the magic we make for climate finance. the legislation we actually take in the country and recognized by the international body that was affected by most countries in the world for taking action on climate change i think we have a good record to speak up. >> the concern about what is being done to transfer the two weeks of 2015? >> i think he is making

important point which is my role is to make sure that we are taking the cross government to meet the targets and deliver the low carbon of the lowest cost. i think the point she is making is the recent intervention in heating and transport since we have the approach we are taking with low emission vehicles. so the electric vehicles we have been subsidizing. i was in munich last week and bmw was taking the right approach to increase investment in the country. putting 1.2 billion pounds into this. the problem is that what you have got is the different sectors, transport, housing, heating, electricity generation, and we are overperforming in some sections. like generation we will meet the target and more. and some areas it is less easy. sometimes the markets are not

developing the way you would like them, too. frankly i wish renewable heat was faster but it is taking time. i wish the price of electric cars were coming down so that people could afford them and cut their bills. so you have to adjust for what is happening in the market. i think this is a question we have for how you make the carbon budgets work. what matters is the reduction in the carbon. i think we should be looking at this question of whether these work in the right way. i think that is what you have been talking about. >> the emission and confidence in helping the thcontinuing of promoting the confidence in the technologi technologies. [inaudible questions]

>> i would argue if you have solar and wind, the last government and this government, since 2010-2015, have poured money into these technologies. and we are facing big advances. but you have to think, every penny put in the technologies is a penny on someone's electric bill.

you can take the carbon out of gas and have a gas plant that is cheap. but the economics at the moment are not working. so carbon stores, billion pounds, even after you spend the billion pounds, that doesn't give you the storage that is competitive in the market. i looked at this because -- >> they don't know about the last eight months. >> the point is they haven't been improving. >> the cost would come down. >> i think this might help with respect to understand this. you spend money on the carbon

storage and it would cost you something like 170 pounds per mega watt hour. that compares with gas costing 65 pounds and onshore costing 70 pounds and nuclear costing 90 pounds. so as it is being said, you put the billion in you cannot spend on the flood defenses, and you have to pay 80 more pounds than nuclear, almost twice as much as gas, and that money would to help pay the bills. it seems to me that the right decision will not be taking the billions because we could spend that on other capital investments like energy projects.

the cost has come down. therefore in my view, it doesn't need the expense subsidy. but it will go from nine giga watts to 13 so there is going to be an increase. but all of these decisions are decisions that put money on bill payers. so the criticism and why don't you do more on this and that. you have to say what is the cost and what is the benefit.

we are more than meeting the target. that is the point. you get that with wind. we said a hundred and that is four and a half times what we need. >> if this is what it seems that you have to change it then it is all possible. you said that on the 10th of september. >> and we delivered on that. that is exactly what the process after the referendum had none of the amendments accepted.

a lot of land is being used especially if you take this into consideration. >> they did their fair share. are you very keen on title power? i think we have the best in the world and i think we could increase the amount of renewable without taking good quality land. >> we have not seen any ideas

come forward. but right now my enthusiasm is declined a little bit. >> you will find the cost of the power is naturally limited over the years and not inexpensive. >> well, obviously the thing is with this important economic benefits, i totally feel those arguments and see prospects. as i said, you have to come back

to what the action i take, what will that do to the security supply and to the cost of supply. and so when you argue about renewable you have to ask yourself what that will put -- you are considered not the way forward by the environmental agencies. you came down as prime minister and unblocked that. there is supportive action there and i commend you for it. but what we want to see is if you look at respected governments they start off with lower flood potential and then it goes back up and thank that happened between 2010-2010 -- i think -- and i think we need continued support. perhaps you would agree we look at exactly what you are doing

with flooding and the hundred year flood happening every six or seven years and wondering if we have gotten the mapping right. that is dividing the years by a hundred and that doesn't work. so i think what is your plan, what is your long-term vision for the economy? what is the plan on flooding? it seems to be happening more often and what is the plan? >> the long-term plan is if you take the last -- this parliament and the last two the spending is over $1.7 billion and now over $2 billion with a six-year spending period so we can plan the investment we will make. a big part of the plan is building those capitol schemes. another part of the plan is making sure it is not just government money but you are getting partnership and it made

a difference in american parts of the country -- many -- we protected the maintenance in real terms but i think there needs to be a big effort across government to look at everything you can do whether it is making sure that agriculture follows through consistently, planning policy consistently, and as i said, earlier and that was the question, that sort of change of where we visited the dutch and they had manmade environments. tell us how we can do better going on with drudging and the rest of it. and i think it is that attitude change. it is difficult because people say don't build more houses in the flood plain.

other areas are upstream and you need to hang on to that water longer. therefore the farming practice is necessary. i would like to see a more proactive policy where farmers are encouraged more to take on the water, manage it, and be part of the solution. >> i think that makes sense. having plans for the whole catching area. something that is effectively speeding up the water and taking away from other places. so everything from upstream accumulation to ponds and farming practices trying to hold over the water to better our

defenses in urban areas. all of these things need to work together. my experience over the last, you know, five to ten years, i think they have improved a lot. i think the early warning systems are better. i think they are on the ground and work around the clock and christmas day and boxing day is better. the attitude toward drudging has changed. we need to encourage that. >> i am convinced the attitude change is important. after a while it stops raining and the environmental agencies regroups because there are many of them are in britain and you have the main bridge and then the two pipes on the side of it that are completely filled up. therefore we have to act throughout britain.

>> we still borrow from the banks and we looked at this. my final question is to make

sure that duty is taken and the environmental agencies passes power to the local farmers, local landowners, so that we can make money and go further and be more practical. >> i don't want to go back over all of that. i think that is the right approach. >> thank you very much. >> things have slowed up at one time or another. before we finish i would like to

bring us back to foreign affairs. >> we find security resolution 2249 describing iraq and syria as a global obstacle to security. we have a number of questions about the military force that might take this on and also about the politics of trying to put together the international agreement. but the bottom line is isis has to be taken out of role of that part of syria as well as iraq. now, and if this the is case he

said i would expect to erode isis in a matter of weeks. they want to be ready in six month said time, if required. where are we on planning to make sure the international community in one form or another does actually defeat isis on merely taking its power away in syria? >> i don't agree with the person quoting this that this is the right approach. this defense we may might take longer but i think it is the right strategy. in iraq, you can see the growing confidence of the iraqi security forces. the fact they took ramadi and 40% of the power daesh had is now gone. i think it can be counter productive to deploy western troops, boots on the ground, in the way you put forward.

the action is at something like 25% of the oil revenue of daish and us taking 10% of their revenue overall. growing confidence we can push back and growing forces we can work on the ground and a political track in here.

>> supplied by the article? >> yes, that is the one. this is a letter quoting -- i will tell you what they are prime minister and i can assure you there are not any rules.

nobody said what you feel is -- in this case, this man write in a personal capacity and we are being told they are not giving evidence in a personal capacity and we would like -- >> the problem with this is the government hopes to reach an agreed and recommended position. i very much hope it will be that britain stays in the reformed european union and the civil service will work in that position. this is a different position of course. the civil service will have to work for that position. >> there is a personal capacity for ministers to be able to campaign to the agreed government position. there is one civil status and

that is we will be working -- >> and that is a documented prize. what we would like to do is take this from him in a personal capacity. you are saying that is reasonable? i think that is the principle i will base this particular request on. >> we would be grateful if you would take the action. it is kind to agree you will reflect on the different

guidelines documenting the drone attacks. you agreed you would investigate the individual and churches willing to take refuges and you will look at passing up the bail rules to ensure that passports get seized quickly and you agreed to look at claims from independent monitoring budgets with stats made between 1780 civilian deaths in syria. we are grateful you are agreeing to this. thank you very much.

we very much appreciate you. >> as president obama prepared for his state of the union he released this: >> i am working on my state of the union. it is the last one. as i am writing it i think about the road we traveled and that is what makes america great. the aability to change and come together as family and pull ourselves closer to the america we believe in. it is hard to see in the day to day washington affairs but it is

who we are and what i want to focus on in his state of the union address. >> betty coed and james harkin look back at the history and tradition of the president's annual message and what to expect in this address. at nine, live coverage of the speech followed by the republican response by south carolina governor nicky haley.

in his final state of the union address, obama seeks to stay relevant. some members of congress weighing in on what they would like to here. on twitter, fred upton said he hopes to hear the president talk about national security and medical innovation like 21st century cures. the democrat from new york says obama should address fair and equal treatment for women and lgbt. and you can read his op-ed about that in the hill newspaper. we will hear from senators on their thoughts about tonight's state of the union. i welcome the president for the state of the union address. it is the final address and gives cause for reflection. many recall a moment in boston when a state senator became a national star. this gift was undeniable.

it promised a new and inclusive beginning. it inspired many and propelled barack obama it the highest office in the land. americans assumed that campaigning would come to a close. and the serious work of gov r governing would commence. it is now many years later, and the obama for president campaign never ended. speeches still substitute for substance, straw men standing in for serious debate, and slogans still surrogate for governing. we have been promised more campaigning tonight. it leads americans to wonder when is the serious work of governing ever going to begin.

governing isn't easy. governing often requires serious engagement with the congress, the one the american people elected, not the one the president wishes they had elected. you don't make change through slogans. that is something president obama once said. i wish he had taken his own advi advise. -- advice. he provided over a sluggish economic recover that is failing too many of our citizens. premiums and deductibles have continued to shoot ever higher. wages have flatlined for too many. inequality has grown, manufacturing has shrunk. poverty seems to infringe. the middle class is collapsing

to the point where it no longer constitutes the majority of the population. we are seeing a negative impact that obamacare has had on so many middle class families. we have seen the administration declare a war on coal families who just want to get ahead. tonight i invited a kentucky minor as my state of the union guest. he has watched as the obamacare administration heartless approached help contribute to devastation in his community and to the loss of thousands of jobs in kentucky. one of which was his own job. here is what his message has been to president obama. we are hurt and need help they said. but we don't want to be bailed

out. we want to work. many kentucky residents feel the same way. many americans feel similarly, too. 20% of our citizens think things are headed in the right direction. three quarters want the next president to take a totally different approach from the current one. he can try to convince americans are wrong, or he can take responsibility and chart a new course. they watch as challenges continue to mount around the world like those from isis, iran, russia, al-qaeda, and an

ever aggressive china, north korea, and of course the taliban while this administration has no plan to deal with any of it. this hurt should be disheartening to all of us. perhaps the worst part is it didn't have to be like this. it really didn't have to be like this. i believe they are not telling us to do nothing. they are telling us to work together in the areas we can agree to make progress for the country. this congress wrapped up a growing list over the past year. some thought the reforms in education, medicare, tax relief, were all impossible in the current political climate. we proved those pundants wrong

and showed how bipartisan goals can be achieved when good policy is the go. perhaps we inspired the president to finally try his hand at bipartisan achievement. we will see tonight when he delivers his last state of the union address. we want president obama to join us in recognizing the challenges of today while working for the solutions of tomorrow.

that is the message i expect governor haley to deliver tonight. i expect her to contrast a failing presidency that is stuck in the past with a republican party that is oriented to the future. nicky haley knows the american dream and lived it. she believes in the continuing promise of our country and understands the importance of opportunity and upper mobility for our middle class. when governor haley talked about hope and change she means it because she worked to deliver it. now there is nothing wrong with inspirational speeches. we all need to be inspired especially in trying times like these. soaring rhetoric matched with the right policies and hard work to actually achieve them.

we will see tonight if president obama is ready to do so and move beyond the failed policies of the past. i guess what i could do is trump. >> let's talk about this person

named barack obama. what has happened under his time in office, his seven years, in spite of the unheard of, unrecognizable the senate created, >> during the obama years the economy has grown. the private sector created jobs for 70 months. the longest stretch in the mystery of the country. unemployment is at 5%.

barack obama with 17 million uninsured americans gaining access to health care and the number is climbing. production has increased significantly. you drive across america today and you see the wind farms in the middle of the country. farmers are making money on farms harvesting corn and soybeans because of what the president suggested in the st stimulus package. solar, wind, geo thermal has increased significantly and will continue to grow more because they have tax incentives for seven additional years. you know what else we have done?

not enough. the wealthiest americans who don't mind paying more than their fair share. the only people that believe these rich people shouldn't pay more is republicans in congress. not republicans around the country. we secured tax relief that will lift 16 million low income families out of poverty. auto industry, which was on the brink of destruction, general motors, this icon of american industry, was begging for help. last month was the largest number of -- i am sorry, last

year more american cars and trucks were sold than in any time in our history. why? because of barack obama's leadership. osama bin laden has been killed and we destroyed organization that threaten our nation. we have more to do. of course we do. historical agreements on climate change and to stop iran from gaining weapons have been achieved. within the last few days, iran shipped out of iran 12 tons of urr uranium. 12 tons because of barack obama. now we have a lot more to do for america on behalf of the american people. we can't ignore the progress that has been made. my friend talks about the new senate. and there is a new senate because you have a constructive minority. democrats are willing to work with them.

the issues we have been able to pass with exception have been issues we should have passed years ago. we could not because the republicans filibustered every we tried to do. we have a lot more to do for the american people. it is a wonderful country and i am pleased with the progress we made during the seven years of barack obama. >> this raises the question of what it takes of the union. the strength and spirit of the american people remain a beacon of hope for the future, our country is facing a number of serious charges. global unrest is growing over the course of the president's administration with the rise of isis most noticeable. we experienced the worst economic recover with stagnant

wages and millions dropping out of the labor force is a lasting trademark of the obamacare. the american families are seeing their dreams of the future erode as they struggle under burden and the lack of economic activity. any serious discussion of the state of the union needs to address the challenges and solutions. that is the kind of speech, mr. president, i wish we were going to hear tonight. but unfortunately, all indicators suggest that is not the speech the president plans to give. instead, the president apparently intends to take a victory lap despite the fact that the american people clearly don't think that there is much to celebrate. a recent new york times cbs news poll found that 68% of the american people think our country is on the wrong track. and most americans believe that the next generation.

i quote, we have made extraordinary progress on the path to a stronger country and a brighter future end quote. mr. president, that is not how the american people are feeling. the president plans to talk about his susuppopposed economi success tonight. but the economy has never fully rebounded. wage growth continues to lag. december marked the 77th straight month in which year over year wage growth was at or below 2.5%. under employment continues to be a problem. millions of americans working two jobs because they cannot find full-time work. the percentage of americans working full-time has still not

returned to prerecession levels. the most commonly mentioned unemployment rate is 5%. the u 6-unemployment rate that measures the number of both unemployed workers and underemployed workers is 9.9%. of the unemployed those who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more make up 26%. in labor force participation records remain low. stagnation has become the new normal for the obama administration. in addition to the lack of economic opportunity, families have had to show renewed burdens thanks to the obamacare administration. chief among these is obamacare, the president's health care law that failed to reduce the cost and ripped away millions of americans preferred plans and

forced families on to insurance plans they don't want and can't afford, gives patients access to doctors and hospitals, increased taxes, and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. then there are the burdensome regulations the obama administration imposed that made it more challenges for businesses large and small to grow and create jobs. the environmental agency p-- environmental protection agencies has implemented one damaging rule after another. from backdoor energy tax that hurts poor and working families the most to a new rule that would subject puddles in american's backyards to a complex array of burdensome and regulatory requirements. again and again, i have heard

from south dakota ranch owners about the difficulties they are facing thanks to the obama's epa new regulations. you will redefine leadership. the white house says we can show the world what is possible when america truly leads. republicans couldn't agree more that america should truly lead. the problem is that the president's first seven years in office have been distinguished by a lack of leadership. fellow president and formal democrat, jimmy carter, described obama's success on the

world's stage as i quote minimal and going on to quote he said i cannot think of many nations in the world where we have a better relationship now than we did when he took over. that again from former democratic president jimmy carter. mr. president, neither can i. the white house claims the president has ended two wars but neglects to mention since the u.s. withdraw from iraq large sections of the country have descended into chaos. he didn't do anything with assad used chemical weapons on his own people. assad is in power and isis continues to try. the attacks in november, isis

expanded their work in the middle east. as long as isis continues to exist, its ideology will encoura encourage minds to create terror. ... foreign policy front, the president has repeatedly touted his nuclear deal with iran as one of the major foreign policy achievements of his presidency. yet, the agreement he signed actually improves -- improves iran's long-term prospects for developing a bomb. and in a clear violation of u.n. restrictions, iran recently tested a ballistic missile, demonstrating once again that it has in no way curbed its aggressive behavior. elsewhere russian aggression has increased on the president's watch. in north korea