new jersey taxpayers. in fact, the fiscal year budget provides a $1.3 billion payment in the state pension fund, which is t largest pension contribution in the history of our state unlike what you will hear from the selfish public union leadership by june we will have contributed $4.4 billion pension, more than the last five governors combined. so, here in new jersey we have achieved a historical reforms in our state is even better prepared to face the future. we proved new jersey can be governed and leaders to step up and take risks can make a difference for the people we represent and we still have more to do. and please, please let's not start taking steps backwards after all this hard work. in washington that's not true to what we are going to hear tonight about the big challenges

we face as a nation and a love of hot air not only from congress but from the white house as well the state of the union will not be a call to action tonight. it will be a wish list by the president but fieldbus in the world he wishes it was, not the world but the failed leadership to all americans. and for the last six years we have done it differently in new jersey. a lot of people in this room have shown the courage to set aside partisan differences and achieve real progress. for all those that have chosen to reach out across the aisle, thank you for everything you've done for our state. now, we face a truly dangerous moment at least from my perspective. we have elections for the government in the entire legislature less than two years away. so now we have a choice to be choose to move new jersey forward or are we going to have

a pattern of special interests to send new jersey back to the bad old days? we see signs of this already, the responsibility to pander to the leadership of a narrow constituency. we can't let this happen. we need to keep making progress as a state. we have to hold each other to a higher standard today. so will you support critical common sense ideas that the vast majority of our people be lead and needed to do or will you go for short sighted politically motivate, fiscally reckless, policies that will destroy the states in the process we will drive even more citizens out of new jersey. how will will we drive citizens of the state and the policies that we are talking about. >> you can see the rest of the state of the state address on our website, c-span.org. we believe this to go to the brookings institution where the

chair tom price is set to discuss the priority is for the upcoming budget cycle. this is live on c-span2. tom price is voting on the hill and we expect him to be here soon but we thought we played you would do -- what we would do is reverse the order and when the congressman arrives my colleagues will defend to the floor and we will go ahead with the program as we deviously planned. to introduce to his appeared, to my immediate left, molly reynolds was a fellow in governance studies here at brookings and has been working on understanding the congress shall process if there is one and how to make it better. stuart butler and bill gale of economic studies and michael o'hanlon in the foreign-policy development program that specializes in the defense and national security issues.

i thought i would ask each to do very briefly as to tell me first one thing that struck you positively or negatively about the state of the union last night and then we are going to move into a budget issue for chairman price. let me start with you. i hope you listened to the speech and if you did and we will see how good you can fake it. >> it's nice to be part of this conversation. we went through a lot of discussion on defense. president obama said two or three things by way of looking at the military specifically and then referred obviously the way we handle the crisis and conflict around the world as well. i will save that for later. the military itself he said we out stand beneath the -- outspend in the military resources and said we have by far the biggest military on the planet bar none. those comments are relatively

unremarkable. if i were going to nitpick i would say that he said we shouldn't be evaluating the military in terms of how many bayonets and horses it has more should we be comparing budgets because they don't really tell you that capability. by the way, we do things in multiple theaters, so we actually need more of that probably two or three or four countries if not a greater number than that and the chinese can cause a lot of mischief with a 10 million-dollar cruise missile against a 10 billion-dollar aircraft carrier or a taliban fighter can cause a lot of trouble for us with a 100-dollar ak-47 against forces that are a small unit that can be evaluated as costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of the budget comparisons are great but on the other hand they were accurate and if i were to nitpick these were the points i could make.

the more interesting comment is the way that governor haley set up what the defense will be in 2016 and i will just mention that in passing because she made one of the more sarcastic comments in which she said instead of thinking our men and women in uniform for their second race, we'd actually be giving them the means to win the war so that when we fight, we then the question as well when you are dealing with a televangelist with isis or what have you as it's just a question of wrapping up the budget by a little bit, probably not, that's not the right way to think about it solving these problems but i do think she was hinting at the conversations she will see in the debate on issues like can we keep cutting the size of the army how does the navy need to get bigger to deal with the rise because even if china is one of those countries have now taken

together can they defend together only spends the equivalent of spent the equivalent of the united states. china itself is pushing its budget and going up probably at a slower pace than before given its economy but they are still going up. we are still over 575 billion a year and coming down and we are still way ahead of that. but as i noted, we are bogged down in protecting their oil protecting their oil and other things in the middle east. they don't have to worry about the middle east. we also have allies in other parts of the world and we are lucky to have 60 some allies and we are burdened by the commitment to them so when you think about the numbers and the comparison i think governor haley was setting up the debate which was to be have a strong enough navy and army for the task before us and the bear i think you could have quite a conversation. >> the president and the last in the last part of his speech called for a better politics. what did you think of that, and

is there any chance that message makes a difference? >> that will be my answer to the question of what part of the speech struck me the most. there is an interesting point that he made at the end of the speech from i think what a lot of folks expected. he spent a lot of time talking about his legacy and what he has done in the past seven years really laying down the groundwork for what the democratic presidential candidates might run on and what that candidates might run on. but at the end he pickets to the conversation that sounds much more like 2008 in the convention speech. so i was struck by that contrast. one of the things i thought was particularly interesting about that one was the way in which he acknowledged one of the biggest

criticisms against him which is the idea that he had been fixing the way washington worked and he pleaded out that i can't do this alone. i am one person. i'm the president. the president doesn't have magical powers. maybe we need some progress. in terms of whether i am optimistic that anything will come with that in the next year or so, i'm not. i think that we will see relatively little policymaking at 230 into the competition will be very dominated by the campaign so -- >> the president mentioned the commitment to doing something about poverty in america. he actually turned to the speaker at one point. did you hear anything there that encourage you to think that there is common ground between speaker ryan and the president

obama? >> i think there's lots of opportunities for the common ground. speaking of the reaction you might not have drawn that conclusion because i -- they never plata speaker president obama so that i think in a lot of areas there is possibilities. i think in the end come as you know and maybe the audience knows that the enterprise institute like in the last speech they've reached an agreement on a lot of the areas of looking at improving opportunities from and play meant and income support and so on. that's also i think what you see in the possibility of taking that is taking place in the legislation across the aisle. i think that is a real possibility and the speaker as you know has been going around the country for some time really exploring those kinds of opportunities. so i think that israel.

i think there's also an enormous opportunity to bring on board to date in a very positive way to finesse some of the problems. the administration is very supportive of the state's taking the initiative in areas like education and welfare of course and healthcare to a significant extent and i think we can build on that in the future and that will allow the republicans do have something about i wouldn't call it necessarily an exit strategy but a way of dealing with the current situation that would allow a different kind of health care system to evolve in the future. much more decentralized and different around the country with a common goal. that is ultimately what we may see for the health care system in the future.

>> for some rhetorical training ground on the mobility along the left and the right -- second, the exit strategy for the affordable care act has lots of different states doing things slightly differently and that would give the republicans a way to say that they've gotten rid of it without getting rid of anything in the aca. >> on the other hand there is a major provision of the affordable care act and section 1332 which gives the significant opportunities for the state to reach the same goal in a different way. the administration gave guidance which really rings and the possibilities both technically

and politically but that could change in the future. >> is less about tax reform in the state of the union and we have heard in the last few years it may have something to do with the possibility of happening here. were you struck by anything? and >> i think that we have done a good job in the tax problems but there was just nothing left to talk about. but fiscal policy was definitely the dog that didn't bark in this speech area to keep the child for the workers and give that is the pk community college and stuff like that but that is old. he mentioned raising the minimum wage. but i thought what was interesting is that he approached potentially big changes several times and then

stopped short of saying it. so he gave a nice talk about climate change and building up to it but he stopped short of saying we should have a tax. he gave a description of the security people faced that he didn't propose anything about economic security. several times in the economics and the politics part of the talk, he eluded to the growing concentration of wealth and income at the top political power that of political power that that represents but he didn't propose anything to do about it and i don't know if that represents a pessimism about anything happening this year or if it's just not what you want to emphasize in this speech. it was basically about the tone and vision and things like that but definitely there was a lack of specific proposals. spinach i would suggest this going forward as i don't want to waste time but i would like to

ask each one short question and ask you to return to the floor and bring the congressman up here and when we turn to the q-and-a if you have more stuff you want to say or ask them we will do that. but if you were he were speaking to say one of the presidential candidates regardless of who he or she is and he you wanted them to focus on some one thing either the substance or the process what would be at the top of your list recognizing publicly ten things on the list and one thing you think that the president should deal with on the budget. >> i would say to lay out the process side convincing members of congress fixing the budget process does not necessarily mean certain policy outcomes. we could have a budget that

produces the preparations bill on time which the congress has been good. would doing of late and backed up that theoretically get a certain part of that. >> to focus on the retirement entitlement programs on medicare in particular that's the security to a lesser degree and that is a challenge of trying to balance the financial risk. the financial risk that the deals with themselves into financial risk of taxpayers today and the long-term financial risk with the risk of the economy as a whole. it's not an easy thing to do. they have important steps in that correction already. but that's the elephant in the room that has to be tackled in the budget and it's got to be done to gather where the one party cannot drive through in that area in the affordable care act it is continuing to be an

issue for various reasons but entitlement reform definitely has to be done in that way. >> i think that it is a conflict between the policymakers between dealing with long-term obligations and dealing with the short-term needs. the long-term obligations are long-term and they can be dealt with in the plans that may take a while to phase and that there's no reason to think about creating them in the beginning that process of phasing them in now and at the same time the great recession and 30 years of income stagnation and distribution has revealed and exposed all sorts of social issues whether it's education or infrastructure or so on and i don't think we should be ignoring those needs and especially not ignoring those needs and in the name of the

long-term debt issue. >> i would like to hear people talk about what i called budgeting for national power. and i think the general account within that subject needs some august increase. it's sort of the flip side of the point that we need to avoid seeing the title that keeps growing and squeezing to drive up the deficit. of course the national power includes the military and those are the modest increases in the real resources among the inflation rate. but i also think that the long-term economic power therefore is the military strength depending as well on the infrastructure science research and development and education and a few other categories that are within a broad discretion that we should redefine one of them as the long-term power of underpinning the long-term national power to try to see if we can't change the optics and the rhetoric about how we think of those accounts for more political

support for them. >> thank you very much. >> congressman price, why don't you come up here and sit next to me. we are pleased to have the congressman with us today. he pretends to be from georgia that he actually grew up in dearborn michigan, went to the university of michigan and was first elected in congress to represent the sixth district which is north of atlanta, relatively high income district in november, 2004. i was looking at what happens when you run for the reelection and i noticed a pattern. the congressman gets generally two thirds of the votes when it gets reelected except one year

in 2010 when he only got 99.9% of the vote because there was no opponent but when hundred 80 people wrote in somebody else. it's a great district to represent in northern suburban atlanta and all sorts of wonderful people who want the government to stay in their lives and not their pocketbooks. >> he was in private practice and later a professor at the medical school. as you know one of the reasons we are so pleased to have him here is he is the chairman of the house budget committee. he succeeded paul ryan, who knows if he will succeed him in another job and previous congress said he has been in the leadership serving as the chairman of the republican policy committee and of the republican study committee and

we've been impressed here at brookings he has come and spoken to small groups about the budget process and i want to get to that in a minute of the things i can't talk about anything but after the state of the union without talking about the state of the union so was there any time you said he gets it or he and i disagree fundamentally? the >> but we thank you for the opportunity for becoming, it is a privilege to be back with you. i guess the short answer is no. i find myself continually disappointed, no surprise. he pulls everybody in and then

before he finishes the paragraph he pulls out the fixed and hits you over the head. the manner in which he dismissd as and i was terribly disappointed. having worked in the administration in the area area of healthcare for now six years.

it's how you get things working. i buy your candor not just saying that it was wonderful but it sets you apart in some of your colleagues. i feel an obligation to ask you about the budget process even though i think it's something that makes some people's eyes glaze over so what is broken in the budget process. in the end you come together with her these last minute deals we come together in these last

minute deals. they've done good job on budgeting in the last five years of the produced budget every year from our perspective with the balance within a ten year period of time without raising taxes with trillions of dollars and lays out a plan to solve the challenges that we have and we are excited and proud of the fact that last year for the first time in 14 years the house and the senate came together to agree to a conference budget that does just that and move forward the opportunity for the reconciliation which we can talk about if you like. however the first time in 14 years we like to celebrate god.

we must explain them in the logical way the budget of the country and we are giving the together. >> how would you change it. >> i think when i sit back -- i am an orthopedic surgeon so i love this stuff because it is the minutiae of what you have to do to get the right product when i used to take care of patients i didn't get to the endpoint without doing things correct. we budget and the country under the act was written in 42 years

ago. not much has changed about the budget process. so the congressional budget office and the entity informs us it could be a lot more transparent and responsive to the members of congress and i think that we tie their hands in some ways in and the budgeting act and the manner in which they scored to determine how much something costs. from the baseline standpoint in the budget term that says what are you going to measure and what are you doing against and often times the system is gamed to result in the long answer to do the rewrite. it's a process that will then facilitate in the methodical way

and expeditious way and gets a lot of the work to get done. >> to be orchestrated for that you are suggesting something different it could be policy neutral. decreasing the scope and about reach that's what it ought to do the path to afford every single member and every single perspective of the same opportunity to engage and then force the members. the budget is a growing percentage that is on autopilot for the security, medicare, some of the other benefit programs

and then you spent about of time trying to figure out how to manage the remaining fraction. does the budget process need to be changed so you take a more holistic approach? >> absolutely. us folks know right now. the decayed and now medicaid and medicare social security and other mandatory programs that comprise of two thirds of the federal budget so what are the battles that you have other government spending because the slice of the pie. it's getting squeezed because we are not forced to reform the mandatory spending on the automatic side and i believe that the system off to force us

to look at on the repeated basis and make certain that it's doing what we want it to do. right now the mandatory program is going broke. >> do you have a plan to give the political strategy changing the budget process? >> we have been working at this point on the budget committee to try to gather ideas to try to get people who had worked on this inside and outside of congress for a long time to get their input three of my goal is after we get through the budget season is to begin to work through the budget committee in the house to fashion a piece of legislation. >> and do the democrats participate in that? >> i hope so. not that this point they may have a particular interest to look at the broad spectrum of the 74 budget act.

.. >> how do you -- how do you reconcile the paul ryan, we need to do something for the poor people of america and the budget fewer and fewer resours at the

population. >> they aren't responsive to recipients. even the programs for the communities have been in place for such a period of time or we aren't allowed to touch them that the process would be wise to bring those into the loop of repeated -- >> do you think we aim too much of our budget to low-income people or we ought to spend the same amount of money and do the programs differently? >> defining what kind of resources before you define the mission and the goal. again, people don't do that in their lives. the folks that are responsible for states don't necessarily do that. what we need to do is ought to

define the mission and make certain that the mission is agreed to and establishes whatever it is that we as a nation believe ought to occur and provide resources to provide the anything. -- primary resources of the federal government. and that doesn't work in my, many ways. what that means is you have to prioritize what the federal government does. the federal government does a lot of things from our aisle not appropriate for the federal government. >> you can't answer the question that we don't spend enough on defense? >> no, i don't think we've looked at that. >> you're going to -- defense. so you can define the mission, but you're going to have to do a budget resolution in the next several weeks. we're not going to clarify the mission or how to -- >> it has been described the

level that we are spending in defense, the folks that know that are made in sure that we are protected we are at the edge of where we ought to be. remember why this came about. in 2011 we had this grand idea, this bipartisan idea, in fact, much of it coming from the white house that we needed to save $2.1 trillion overall in the next years and the way to do that is to identify $1.2 trillion immediately and $900 billion by the supercommittee, out of mandatory spending, remember that? if they didn't find it, we would take it out of discretionary spending. defense spending has decreased remarkably, remarkably over the ten-year period of time because the committee wasn't able to

come to an agreement. that's not a wise way -- >> i agree with that. i'm asking about the outcome. do you think we need to spend more on defense? >> we are on the lower edge. >> anything else we need to spend more on? >> the infrastructure has been lacking in terms of the investment that we have made in this country. we've got -- the city of atlanta is a classic example. the city of atlanta, and most large cities are like this, infrastructure, water, and sewer and the like is at the age 80 to 100 year's old. it wasn't meant to last that long. >> what's the problem? we don't need it. it's one of the few things we have consensus on we need to spend more on infrastructure but that doesn't seem something that gets much traction in congress? why not? >> in order to identify the

level of which that area ought to get spending, you to identify areas where we ought to decrease federal involvement. the less slant is by in large to say we need more money for infrastructure and don't worry about everything else. we will just keep spending at the same level, and that's not, again, the way real people budget. it's not the way businesses budget and states budget. we have to prioritize. duo a terrible job in the down prioritizing on how to spend. >> do you have a sense of where we should spend less? >> all sorts of areas, whether it's in the area of commerce, lack of flexibility on education, whether it's -- all sorts of areas that we could look at. >> you think we should spend less on education? >> the federal government should be less prescriptive and could

save money. i don't presume to have all of the answers or to know exactly what congress would do. that's why i'm so excited about paul ryan's leadership. he's not -- he's on the policy side, he's not one that wants to gain the system for a predetermined outcome. he's happy to let people's representatives work at it and figure -- and figure it out and if you follow the process the way it's supposed to be followed, then you get to an outcome that would be the consensus of the group. >> let me ask you before we turn to the audience before about the affordable care act. you see some way to achieve same level of insurance average with still meeting the criteria of not spending more federal money

on this before we did the aca. >> absolutely. i have no doubt about it. >> we still see no plan by the republicans. >> we've had a plan for six years. we had a plan before obamacare was introduced in legislative form. but look what we've done with obamacare. we've ensured 20 million people, supposedly. 12-14 million of those were eligible for medicaid before. 5 million of them just like me was on a different plan and i was forced into obamacare. i was forced into obamacare. 4-5 million new people in the program. new people being covered. that's a new thing. 4-5 million people being covered is a good thing. after the amount of money that we spent, that doesn't seem like a good deal for the american people in terms of what they've spent. hr2300 is the bill that we put

forward, probably gets every single american covered, everyone. you don't lack 30 million folks getting coverage because what we provide is everybody that they get coverage. >> this is going to cost the federal government less? >> without a doubt. >> what do you think of stewart's idea, you're never going to get rid of the affordable care act in total because there are parts that people like and by the time you get to it, a lot of it will get inreferenced and -- intrenched? >> the affordable care act will continue to fail. you have individuals now. you have -- i would subject you millions of people right now who have coverage but no care because of the level of premiums

and deductibles. if you're making 40-$50,000 and your deductible is $10,000 which is routine, you don't have any care. none. when i talked to my former medical colleagues, they tell me patients have come in unlike they have seen in their practice, they come in and recommend something to be done and mom or dad says, sorry, we can't do that, we can't afford the deductible. those people have been moved out of the system even though they are counted as folks having coverage. >> by how can you promise people that they're going to have -- less money from the government, lower deductibles and lower premiums. isn't that something that you're promising something that's nonachievable? >> i would suggest that the government is running a program that doesn't provide flexibility that patients across the land

need. that doesn't sound like something that the american people support, which is why you continue to have the majority of people that oppose the program. they know in their gut that there's something wrong with this. we can get everybody covered, you can save hundreds of billions of dollars if you do yl of that without putting washgton in charge of all things. >> good work, if you can get it. [laughter] >> sign me up. >> do you find -- i'm sure you can appreciate why people find the promises appeals and are skeptical about it's going to work the way you say. >> let's let a state take it on and show what the positive points are, prove me wrong. i would love to have that opportunity to have a pilot at a state level put in place these kinds of solutions and let's see what happens.

and i have all the confidence in the world that if you allow individuals to families and doctors to make decisions and not government, you will move it in a markedly better direction in all principles. >> and despite the fact that you seem to get reelected with very healthy margins, as you know the public holds congress in general very low esteem, and when you sit outside congress but inside the beltway, it sometimes looks like an awfully frustrating place to work. do you ever wake up in the morning and say, why the hell am i doing this? [laughter] >> that's not -- [laughter] >> look, i'm a type-a surgeon. when i was in my profession career what i did was identify a problem and lay out a path to solve that problem usually that same day and that afternoon or next morning solved it.

>> that doesn't sound like a personality suited to be in congress. >> this took a whole mind shift for me to -- to be able to not become so frustrate that had you want to pull your hair out, although i've done a pretty good job at that as well over the past 11-12 years. it is a frustrating place but it's incredibly important because the consequences of not getting these things right are massive to the american people. we believe that the greatest amount of opportunity and success for the greatest number of people so the greatest number of americans, dreams can be realized in a fair and compassionate system is the principle that we ought to be moving forward. right now it doesn't exist and i would suggest to you that one of the big reasons that doesn't exist is because of the rules, regulations and laws coming out of this town. so to be able to have the opportunity to fight for appropriate reforms that then free the opportunity for individuals to realize their

dreams is an exciting thing to do. >> how do you measure success on that? if you look at the 12 months, do you feel like you moved that ball at all? >> i think we moved it from an education standpoint for many folks. but it's glacial. >> let's say we wake up after the selections and president could be hillary clinton and speaker of the house paul ryan, let's find something that we have a chance of doing with hillary clinton recognizing that we are not going to be able to do it without the president, without democrats on the list, what would be on your list, social security, tax reform, healthcare? >> i wouldn't concede that that's where we are going to as a nation.

>> i wouldn't ask you to. have you identified which one of the republicans meets that? >> no, i met with all the teams to talk about health and budget policy. >> okay. >> if i wake up on that wednesday after the first tuesday in november and it hasn't turned out the way the american people would desire, then -- then our responsibility given that i'm -- knock on wood, being able to get reelected. >> i'm willing to bet on that. >> that our responsibility so to define those things. tax policy, absolutely needs to be reformed. >> i know what the wish list. hillary clinton is on the white house, what is something that can actually get down, is it tax reform? >> i believe that. i think tax reform is part of it because the growth wait that we've seen and we've seen the average growth rate for the last

number of years and going in the wrong direction, cbo is going to come out next week. it will be hovering 2%. all those dreams can't be realized. so democrats read those same numbers but what we have to do is find where the sweet spot, the common ground is if that were the case to determine where we could do reform. social security reform is absolutely mandatory. healthcare, whether it's the aca, whether it's medicare or medicaid going broke both of them. aca isn't working. >> i'm asking -- i know what the list is. what would be the top of your list, tax reform? >> i think tax reform, you have to do regulatory reform and entitlement reform. healthcare reform. >> let me ask first my colleagues, bill, stewart, molly, mike, you want to -- and

bill. >> i will take a crack. thank you for coming here and speaking with us. i want to broaden the discussion from the budget committee itself to the budget as a whole. as you know there's two sides of the budget, taxes and spending. the president talked about the two sides working together. you said those comments ranged hollow after all these years. 80-90% republicans have sign a pledge not the raise taxes. the question is how do the two sides talk to each other one one major issue is taking off the table? is that a gulf that can be overcome, is that a pledge that could be, quote, waived, unquote. how do the parties work with that constraint? >> it depends on how define

raising taxes. if you look at the complications of the tax code, as you well know, it is -- it's too complex, too internally inconsistent and confounding for the american people and the american business. if we would simplified and make it flatter which is basically supported by the majority of congress, republicans and democrats, and have a constructive discussion and debate on that, then i think we can -- we can get to a point. >> even if it raises revenues in the joint tax cbo context? >> well, if you get to appropriate budget reform then you may have an opportunity to have it raise a lot of revenue but not count against you. so i think -- >> i want to make sure. you're saying that not raising taxes not raising tax rates but having a tax reform plan that's not revenue neutral by conventional scoring but raises

revenues is okay? >> confining one self- imprisons you so that you almost can't get to the right answer. >> alex, do you have -- you don't have to. >> well, i could. [laughter] >> could you expand a little bit on your thinking about entitlement reform? you said how important that is and i think everybody would agree with that and -- but could you expand on what you mean by entitlement reform and what might come out of a process if it went your way? >> the pillars of medicare and medicaid need to be addressed. social security is the relatively easy one. the age when social security started the age when you began to draw down was 65, the average life expectancy was 62.

that's a pretty good deal for the government. right now the life expectancy is 78, pushing 80. it's clear that the age of eligibility needs to increase. i think that some type of -- of voluntary opportunity for folks to utilize their own resources from an investment standpoint and things that make much more sense for them than -- than having the government have provide significant opportunity to save money and allow greater return for individuals. medicare, medicare is going broke too. what does that mean, it means that we as a society will no longer be able to provide the benefits and the services that have been promised, promised to the american people, and yet you have folks in this town that don't believe that you don't

need to do anything to medicare, that you can let that happen. i think that's reckless and irresponsible and so we've got to address it. how do you address it in a way that doesn't make it more prescriptive for folks and allows you to save money? our program that we proposed now for multiple years running of premium support, voluntarily allows individuals, would allow individuals to stay in medicare or move to a system that's much more responsive and appropriate for them, voluntarily. cbo told us that surprise for both the individual and the federal government. it's possible to do so and makes it so that you gain significant financial security for the program itself. medicaid is a relatively simple one as well. we have 1.8 million individuals in the medicaid system. 1.8 millions. two-thirds are healthy moms and kids for whom you could write a

check or give cash for every single incident of service that those folks wanted, anything that they wanted healthy moms and kids and you'd save hundreds of millions of dollars instead of the program that we currently have. you would be able to have more resources for those on the program who are disabled and higher medical needs. that's currently illegal. so we have a system that doesn't work for patients, it doesn't work for states. providing much greater flexibility to states to be able to respond to their patient population is the secret there. >> there's a woman in the black. >> good to see you. >> good to see you. >> you referred to the so-called retirement age of social security. it was raised by statute in 1983 with a very slow implementation

timetable, in fact, however, what is called the increase in the retirement age didn't change in anyway the age at which people can actually claim benefits. they can claim at age 62. what it did entirely was lower benefits. so in proposing a further increase in the retirement age, can i infer that you are proposing it across board cut in social security benefits for newly entitled people? >> no. >> that's exactly an impolitic occasion of raising the retirement age. >> what that presumes is that the system that's been in place now and results about 1.7% return on folks' investment in social security, 1.7% return over the lifetime of their involvement is what we need. i would suggest to you that's not what we need nor is it responsible to the american people or even honest with the

american people about what could happen if they were given a much greater opportunity to utilize their resources in a way that's much more responsive to them voluntarily, which is the important term. nobody ought to be shoved in anything that they don't -- >> keep assistance and make it financially viable. there are really only two ways to go. you can increase revenues or decrease benefits, raising the retirement age is a way to save money for the government. do you think there's some possibility that increased revenues could be part of that? >> potentially, you forgot a third way. that is to not be imprisoned by the current system. >> my question was within the current system. >> the current system is a massive, destined to go broke. >> right. >> 2033 is the date, 2033 or

2034. that's as far away from here as we were at the y2k. everybody remembers that. >> i've learned that's a dangerous thing to say. people in this room were in sixth grade then. >> it's not that far away. >> right. >> the key to all of this as hank and everybody knows, if we put in place the solutions now, the positive solutions now, you can actually do so in a way that allows those in the system not to seek fewer benefits. if you wait, if you get to 2032, bam, before you got -- >> stand up and tell us who you are. >> my name is sharon and i have a question about the mandate of affordable care act. i've gone and heard you speak. my income is about 60,000 a year

with affordable care act. when my divorce is final i would be spending 20-25,000 on healthcare. if i want to keep my doctors and with medications, since i'm 50 year's old alternative to have women that are divorced and can keep their spouse's insurance if they've been married 10 or 15 years or more. i've talked to members in the congress that we need band aids until a long-term solution happens. so i write about this but i'm curious, are there any band aids. i need about a month, so if you can hurry. >> this is an individual in the -- in obamacare system whose life is being destroyed financially, not because insurance company forgot about coverage but because of the rules of obama that we ought to be embarrassed as a nation that that's what's occurring here. there are some band aids.

one of the quick things that we can do, obamacare has destroyed and you are in the boat that you're in. if we were to allow anybody in the individual small groups, about 18 million in this country, pool together with anybody else in the market, all across the country, you get the purchasing power of million so you revive the individual small group market and then, in fact, are able to provide appropriate coverage for individuals at a rate that you're able to afford, costs come down rapidly and you're able to provide much more flexibility with the kind of program that you have. i'll be happy to look at that. is that a bill? good. >> the woman on the aisle here. okay. >> hi, my name is barbara, i'm a retired nurse. why should this care be one --

shouldn't this care be one of the most important priorities for our tax dollars and what percentage of federal and state dollars spent on this type of care goes directly to the patients and their care and the needy and what percent goes to implementation of programs and bureaucracy? >> i will tell you that this is another area where we are seeing huge tragedy out there in the real world. the area of durable medical equipment, providing services to -- to seniors across this land, seniors are being limited in what they're able to receive in durable medical equipment. it's not just crutches and braces, it's oxygen. it's things that keep people alive. the federal government is limiting access of individuals, seniors to live-saving needs that they have just because of

their rules. again, not because of the mom and pop store forgot how to provide the oxygen for the individual who is needing it, but now mom and pop is going out of business. unless you can comply with x, y, z, which is impossible. this is outrage -- outrageous. my generation as we enter the system, the secret, the secret is to allow individuals, the flexibility to be able to use those resources for something that may likely be much more responsive to them and respond to their needs in a much better way, and you've got to remember that the path that we are on right now is unworkable. it doesn't work. >> is it fair to suggest to people that we could change the

system and you can get everything you want and it's going to cost the federal government less money? >> everything you want is probably the phrase that has to be changed, but i think it is fair and i believe it's honest and sincere for those of us who believe we can save money for the federal government and individuals and have a more flexible, responsive quality system for folks to be able to access. >> one question here? wait for the mic. >> i'm just wondering during the budget resolution preparation and during the appropriatings bills whether the republican lawmakers talk about the fact that the president will veto something he doesn't like, i just wonder -- of course, they know he's capable that that might happen. >> the budget resolution doesn't go to the president's desk.

we don't have the president opine. that's an internal congressional document. in terms of the specific numbers, i think the numbers have been agreed to for fiscal years 2017. so i think we're at a point where now we have -- the appropriations committee's responsibility is to fill in where those resources go. >> let me look at the aca vote. everybody knew it was going to be vetoed, you did it to make a point. >> allow senators who had never had an opportunity to move that forward to have a vote and to put it on the president's desk. the american people now know without a doubt that if one individual in this town were changed, we could repeal the affordable act. we could repeal obamacare and with something much better. >> do you think the budget resolution should be signed by the president, should go to the president? >> no. i'm not one of those that ought to be law. i know there are some in this room who may believe that.

i'm of the belief that the budget resolution is extremely important and we need to strengthen it within the congressional, legislative branch and make it so that it has greater force fullness and ability to restrain spending. >> i look at this as a beginning of a conversation and not the end. understanding better how this healthcare miracle you're promising is going to work out. >> hr2300. >> i appreciate your time and candor. i know it's a busy time for you. >> thank you. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> west virginia governor will deliver the state of the state address from charleston today, that's at 7:00 p.m. eastern and we will have live coverage here on c-span2.

>> you know, we have college kids covered in alabama but it's really the kids in the elementary schools that are suffering. they're just not -- the african americans kids are getting poor education, horrible buildings, separate and not equal. >> sunday night on q&a, talks about latest film about julius rosenwald to build schools and elementary education to children in rural america. >> first, puts together kid houses, why don't we use the kid houses, and the best thing booker. washington said was no, i want the communities to build it. first the six schools were built. that's really amazing, from that

it morphed into 5,000 schools all over the south including maryland. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. [inaudible conversations] >> white house chief of staff dennis mcdonough answered questions about last night's state of address union. the syrian civil war, this is about an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> okay, here we go.

thanks for coming after we know it was a long time covering president obama's state of the union address. we welcome white house chiefs of staff range -- [laughter] >> we are happy to have our first record -- it's true, it's true. we are specially pleased to have our first breakfast of 2016 with denis mcdonough. our guest is a minnesota native, graduated from st. john's university with an honorees degree with history in spanish and coach gollardi's team. our guest working -- is working

on the hill. he went onto serve as senior foreign policy adviser in mr. obama's 2008 campaign. at the white house the days have spent as national adviser, chief of staff of the national security staff, deputy national security adviser and since february 2013 as white house chief of staff. he and his wife carrie are the parents of three children. now on to the details, as always we are on the record here, please no live blogging and tweeting, in short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to what our guest says. there's no embargo when the session ends at 9:00 a.m. sharp. we will e-mail several pictures to all reporters here as soon as

the session ends as regulars know if you would like to ask a question, send me a subtle not threatening signal and will happy to call at the time we have available. we will move to questions around the table. thanks for doing this. >> well, thank you all very much, david, in particular, i associate my opening remarks with what i thought was an excellent speech last night and i will go straight to your questions. >> okay. i'm going to do one or two myself and then to tony, evan, jordan fabián, caitlin, caleen nelson. so let me start with you on the navy service people being

released this morning. what if, fig, in your view does the capture and subsequent release of 10 personnel by iran tell us about u.s. relations with iran and how the u.s. should deal with iran going forward? does it tell us anything? >> obviously we are very pleased that our ten sailers are now back with us where they should have always been. we are -- you've seen statements from both secretaries kerry and carter and you've seen obviously some statements from the command, our regional command in the region, central command and navy component thereof. you know i'm hesitant to draw a big lesson, david, because we want to get the facts of the case. navy has said that they are

going to dig into that over the course of next several days and so we will continue to follow that closely. i do think as secretary carter said in his statement, secretary kerry's aggressive and early engagement in this and open channel that he had and he has with the foreign minister counterpart was important, and as somebody who has been working on this basket of policy questions now for several years, i do think that the open lines of communication which are relatively new are extraordinarily important particularly when we have so

many interests in such a crowded area in the persian gulf. so bottom line is, too early to draw big conclusions about this because the facts are still as yet unknown. all the facts are as yet unknown, but one thing that i can say with confidence is that this channel between secretary kerry and foreign -- and their foreign minister was very important in resolving this in a timely fashion. i'm sorry, one other thing here, which is particularly when you're working in such tight corridors, the tradition that the united states navy has for providing for sailers in distress has been pretty evident

over the course of the last decade but also in the last several years when we've provided support for iranian sailers in distressed. so i'm very proud of that tradition of the u.s. navy, i think there's been several instances of this over the course of the last of several years as i've indicated and i think it's in that spirit that i'm happy to see that in this case at least this was resolved relatively quickly. >> so my predecessor would often put a softball and, of course, i violated a question by asking you anus question first. here comes the softball, i would be interested in knowing what lessons you learned that you would pass onto a person of service, chief of staff, what --

what do you expect to pass onto a future chiefs of staff, what your experience being below chief of staff? >> i think the best advice i got was from secretary baker who said that as long as you focus on the up staff and less focus on the chief, i think that those chiefs, i think live by the maximum that secretary baker urged me to consider. that's point one and then point two, i want to underscore this process point, and this is

something that i really internalize not necessarily watching the chief of staff as much as watching my former colleague national security adviser tom donollen. he had two good things, one is process is your friend and two the government work for you and we have a huge government with a lot of very capable people. it's working 24/7 both because of dedication of the government personnel but also because we have people all around the world and you have to make that clock work for you so i think, for example, this iranian incident is a good example of that where we had people literally working around the clock even though when it happened it was pretty late in the day in the gulf and it got quickly into night in the gulf but we used our time advantage on our end to work that out.

but i will say that as a -- originally as a white house staffer i was candidly -- i don't know if i was as, shall we say, straightforwardly committed to the processes that were in place, and i think that ultimately did not serve the president very well. and so both because of how i saw tom run a very good process and also having witnessed what can happen when somebody like myself when i first got to the white house who sometimes when an outside process and kind of confusion, i continued to believe that the most important thing a good chief can do is share the president that the process on which that president

relies is straight forward and transparent and honest and presents him or her with very clear choices fairly presented. >> thank you. [inaudible] >> because it's a project -- just a follow up on your answer, can you talk about the president's introductions or directions to you about transition, transition to government and preparations that the white house is making now and how that will be organized and what your ambition is for that? >> yeah. so in candor right now we are just doing a lot of paper development. i have not talked to kevin about this and what we are doing is getting a lot of paper and process in place to begin transition efforts, and then we

will begin transition planning in earnest fairly spring but right now is really preparation. i don't have anything particular to report on it, other than i don't anticipate it be ruling out aggressively by spring. [inaudible] >> we have not. the president hasn't put a finger exactly on who will be in charge but we will present him with a couple of options. >> just two-part question for you. first the white house was in silicon valley last week. there were amen ewe of ideas that floated in the meeting. i'm curious where we go from here. are you hoping congress for some help? what's the next step for fight against extremism? >> good question, i appreciate

it. also ruled on friday when we went on a trip where two institutions speaking of process which are going to be important, one is the global engagement center at the state department and the other is cve task force, countering violence task force which drives on justice and dhs and so the next immediate next step, tony, those institutions, has been up and running now for several weeks and the global engagement center will roll out with initial efforts consistent with what they charter. those are up and running that will draw on the relationship that we've developed silicon valley but they have charters now and efforts that they need to take and run with and we at the white house will are

relatively little role and maybe share those efforts are allowed. those institutions have to go. basket two is making sure that we are driving on what silicon valley has to offer in this regard. one thing that we can do from the white house hopefully serve as a bridge, particularly when we are aggressively recruiting, and this is something the president has been clear about since october 2013, i remember that period, i remember it quite clearly that we get much more aggressive about recruiting tech talent into the government. we feel pretty good about it. the numbers that we have are pretty solid. we are hope to go get 500 engineers in the government, you know, to provide that cutting edge, technical expertise, across the board, by the way,

not simply combating extremism during the course of next several months. basket two to maintain efforts on recruitment and basket three is we will continue to draw on lessons from silicon valley both as they relate to what leads people to radicalize online, what are the markers on that, what are the indications of that and how do we counter it, you know, what's the message that we can offer or if not we, others can offer to make sure that there's not just this gloomy pathway or siren song from isil that's out there but more realistic alternatives.

>> john bennett from cq. >> i will take one last question. >> there are other technical questions that we are going to frankly debate inside the government and with silicon valley around things like tech -- where the technology is going. >> i don't want to hold anybody up. encryption was apple ceo asked about. are you guys going to do that? >> we -- what we have said on this is exactly what director commy said in testimony and others have said which is that we are not seeking legislative changes at this time, so we will continue to work this issue. i want to be careful, tony, i'm not characterizing what happened in the room because i thought it was a fruitful discussion, but mr. cook and apple have been

public about opposition on this. >> sorry for cutting you off. john bennett from gq. >> he said it failed to lay out a path forward for the country. i want today get your response to that and what does rhetoric like that from the speaker say about his working relationship with the president? >> you know, i think the speech -- i think the speech response, i don't need to respond. i think the speech is fully responsive to the statement. you know, i don't want to engage a specific treat from his office. he seemed to be quite engaged

from the speech last night. hopefully after having heard the whole speech there's enough in there to continue to work on. i think the president had a couple of references to the speak never the speech. i think those are positive. my own view which i think is obviously not in consistent with what the president said in the speech or what the president believes on which i will elaborate a bit, last year was an opportunity important for us to get muscle memory starting with things like permanent doc fix, with tpa, with imf reform. something that has lingered since 2010, reauthorization, esea, cyber something which had lingered since the president called for in the state of the union in 2013, on top of the tax

extenders and the budget, i think that kind of reestablishment of muscle memory is really important for a lot of different reasons. i think, you know, the speaker is to be commanded, i think, for part of that. i think leader pelosi is pivotal for that. senators reid and mcconell also contributed to that, and i think if you go to the speech and -- and really what the president talked a lot about last night is that over the course of this institutions of this government and this democracy are the best protections against the individual citizens getting the

short end of the stick, and so the muscle memory that came back last year is, i think, both reaensuring but also a great opportunity to try to make sure that the hard-earned cynicism of the american public, which i think the president also acknowledged last night, can be -- we can regain some trust back from the american citizens, and so that's what we will focus on, less on kind of the back and forth and more on making sure these institutions work. >> karen of yahoo. [inaudible] >> 68%, which is pretty high

specially considering the formal improvement of economic indicators, why is that so many people this this country is on the wrong track right now? >> well, i think the president talked a little bit about that last night so i will associate myself with his, i think, very candid assessment of that. the economy is changing. people, you know, even people who are working are having a hard time keeping pace with that change. he also said that the institutions as i've just indicated to a response of the previous question are not living up to their traditional role and so i think there's a lot of

reasons add on top of that the depth of the recession from 2007 and the recession of 2008 and the impact on people from housing values to retirement and education savings and people are right and -- right to be and understandably are uneasy. so i guess from the president's point of view that means three things, one is as he indicated last night, he is going to double efforts to try to buy back some trust in these institutions and then in our leadership in the role in the world, two is that we have very concrete ideas to try to do that

and i think you'll hear more about that over the next several days including today on the road, and three, we also want to make sure that we don't fall victim to the same kind of short-termism that the president talked about in the economy section of the speech. we have to make sure that we keep our eyes on the long-term prize here and not to respond to a specific poll or something of the day but rather to respond to the national interest that we need to address over the long haul to make sure that we maintain, you know, the strength of the union that the president layed out last night. >> kevin. >> yeah, hi. big goal of the president in the next term -- i mean, next big -- >> i have no announcement on the next term. >> yeah.

he could probably still get in now. [laughter] >> criminal justice reform requires working with conservative, conservative groups, republicans, we are in the middle of the election, how much time do you have to actually get something done on the issue before the election kicks off and how is the process going in groups but support you when it comes to criminal justice? >> yeah, well just on the last point, kevin, the president said last night, we don't have to agree on everything but we surely can get to work on some things that we can and should work on. that's point one. point two is -- we don't -- we don't spend a lot of time keeping score on who is being nice to us and who is being mean to us. we are mostly focused on how we are going to get stuff done. i will say and i call your attention to a particular the

fact that the president very early in the speech talked about his hope that we can work together on the opioid and heroin addiction challenges in the country. that can and should feed the justice reform effort. third point is -- and by the way, that's kind of happening all across the country in every corner of the country. i was just telling alan i was just home and the huge issue in minnesota, suburban twin cities. point three is, you know, how much time we have. we don't have much, and i think part of the argument we are going to be making and the president referred to it last night and i think in each of the efforts we've gone through is

the president trying to make personal that we not only don't have a lot of time to get this done but as it relates to time there's fundamental injustice that we should correct in terms of the time that any of these individuals is now serving. the case where republicans and democrats agree is too much and we ought to correct that. so you're right, it's going to be hard. ..

the time we do have, because i think that kind of underlying current of the question is there's not much time, if i understand or remember correctly the timeline for congress this year i think anticipating being in session until sometime around the middle of july and then in effect being done. that feeds our sense of urgency to get this done. >> i don't know if you can't governor haley's response last night osha act the part part of what the president said in

rejecting the politics of fear a lot of with republican for such a front runner donald trump has talked about. i thought it was remarkable that the official republican response would be in effect the rebuke of the parties presidential front runner. do you see it that way and a fake that could be a temporal moment for this presidential campaign? >> i didn't see a response but i read it last night and then the read a lot about the coverage of the today. i sat in a meeting i was in with a couple of you all yesterday that i have a lot of admiration for the governor. i think some of things she's done over t course of the last year are remarkable. i thought that the reaction and her leaership role in the fallout from the charleston shootings and are very brave and admirable role on the flag were

powerful. and so on one level i wasn't surprised to see some of the things in the speech given that. i don't consider myself particularly qualified to comment on what's going to move into consequential in the republican primaries or even frankly the vice presidential campaign generally. i can just say that i thought it was, i've been impressed by the governor's work. a lot of stuff that she's proposed and worked for that i disagree with, we disagree with, and there's some things we wish she would do that she hasn't, medicaid expansion being the top of lisof the list because i thik there's a huge opportunity for south carolinians to get some protections from medicaid, families there.

so by no means do i, am i trying to endorse everything that she's doing what i do think a lot of this including parts of the speech last night were admirab admirable. >> the end of lash at the beginning of this year we saw a lot of rhetoric about syrian refugees in small pushes in state and culture members to put greater scrutiny on refugees to him when it gets big about how the administration plans to address those issues and those concerned? >> we continue to think that then pursue policies that maintain the united states leadership role on refugees generally, and in syria and by the way, -- by the way central america in particular.

i am quite proud of the work of this government over the course of the last several years to fulfill the quota established each year of 70-75,000, it's been all that different number each year, but over the course of the last two years we filled iof those quarters for the first time in a long time. really for the first time since 9/11. and it's our intention to continue to grow that topline quota. and we believe that the budget agreement gives us the resources to continue to grow that number and so we'll continue to work that. that's .1, which is this is a priority for us and we'll continue to be we think the budget that we got at the end of last year gives us the resources to continue to do that. point number two is that my

hunch is they will continue to be controversial for the reasons that depression pointed out in the speech last night. we will also continue to defend the idea of the united states as refuge. but also the idea that refugees in the united states had -- at immeasurably to united states interests. and that is going to be something that we recognize we are going to have to get out and defend but we are prepared to do that. and the examples are meaningful. i can tell you that my own personal experience as a young kid in minnesota when my family sponsored a vietnamese refugee family. my wife and me and our family sponsored refugee families here in d.c. over the course of the last couple decades. partially motivates my own view

of this, but that the united states, the impact of ripped jeans upon the national interest is undeniable and we're going to get out there and aggressively defend that. that will be tough to beat as it was lester and we will see how that goes. but we will not shy from it. >> just to follow up any question asked earlier come in the last gallup poll -- the way things are going, measured 79%. it's been in a 60, '70s, 80s for 10 years. when you step back and look at that is kind of a decades long condition. do you read those numbers as primarily about economic anxiety and insecurity or frustration, political frustration with either divided government or with the political leadership?

>> fair question i think. i start with a confession that i normally hear about these polls when they get together with you guys so to be honest with you, when i read those what do i think when every those? i don't because i don't region. but let me say what i think based on my interactions with both our people who do read them and with my interaction, you know, just came back from holidays, spent a lot of time with my own family. as david said at the beginning, quite large. i think a reasonable sample size. i think it's both, right? i think that, you know, what's interesting is we are seeing some bounce back on productivity in the course of the last year or so, but there is this strange

lull in productivity. and by the way, the global economy right now, we just got a good briefing from jason the other day that productivity, jason and sandy, productivity globally is down which is weird. because they can put in the economy right now would be something that we all think that productivity, mainly technology. productivity is down, but that also is part of a stagnation of wages that far he dates the last 10 years. so wage stagnation has got to be part of it. but that's not new in the last 10 years. that's like a 30 years. but i think the combination of people feeling like they are working as hard as they can, the vehicles by which they determine how the kids are going to get to the next level from what they got, or from what we got, is

also super expensive. the education inflation numbers are now far outpacing health care inflation numbers here and are something i believe that we believe as an administration that the universities and higher education have to account for. that's why we went through the whole exercise last year on college score credits. so, to shorten this entry i think it's both. i think it has to do with this historic trend on wage stagnation the fact that as people fill their wage stagnating, other things that are monitored for or indicators of success are not stagnating, inflation is out of control, and ultimately they feel that policymakers are not responding to either of those questions. and so that's a generational

point we have to make sure we are responding to. so hope that response to you. >> thank you, dave. question, recently i interviewed -- who wet places been at a monitor breakfast and while he applauded the president's statement on the persecution of christians in the middle east that was issued before christmas, he did express a hope that the president would follow the example of pope francis and other world leaders, and called it genocide. is this something the cardinal felt stronger about, that other secular as well as church leaders feel strong about. will be administration call what's happening to christians in the middle east genocide? >> thanks. i read that transcript. i thought that was very

interesting. when you think about the question about refugees for this question of economic stagnation or opportunity, i think both his and as well as his holy father have been catalysts in our public debate. so i think, i think we owe them a debt of gratitude for the work on that. on this question, i got this question also from cardinal dolan. and as i understand it, and i guess understanding of the record. i put like a little faster scared to make sure that maybe i don't understand it. but as i understand it the holocaust museum is going to a policy review as to whether it should characterize what's happening in the middle east as

genocide. >> towards christians? >> towards krishan, but also otherwise. again, this is not administration policy. this is holocaust museum policy. so i think what's happened, so i'm not aware of us making a determination in any case about determining whether there's genocide in the middle east. i can take the question on and see if we can check it. yeah, sure. to see if we are taking a review of that. but at the time of when i talked to cardinal dolan which was sometime late last year we were not. so i want to be careful here because i don't want to leave the impression that we are expressly choosing not to call it genocide, but as far as i'm concerned, or as far as i'm aware we have not taken on this

question of characterizing the ongoing violence one way or the other as it relates to genocide. >> i wanted to ask you about the question the president laid out in his speech last night about how to ensure that politics brings out the best in us enough the worst that the president mentioned his regret about politics still being so divisive. i'm wondering what lessons he's learned about that are what he might do differently to try to accomplish bringing out the best in politics. also i was case about the thinking about including language that clearly was a direct response to donald trump and ted cruz in the speech, and if you're kind of canterbury at the best in politics, why wait in the republican primary and kind of the worst of what comes out of the republican primary. >> so, on the second question, i just think that it's, i think

the president believed it was important that there be an alternative argumentation, the prevailing wisdom in some of the public debate right now. i don't think, i think that's fully consistent with a kind of general tone of the speech last night and the content of his speech. but also with, you know, what he said, i found his characterization of the founders and the vigor with which they debated forcefully, issues that in many ways are both strongly held but also diametrically opposed was a good example. tom daschle who i worked for for a long time is to cultivate the music of democracy. sometimes not very melodious,

but without the music it just doesn't work. so i guess what i would say back, i don't see what, i don't see him offering a different narrative or a different argument as being inconsistent with the politics that rises above kind of, the kind of otherwise the unproductive nature of some of this, unproductive content so far. in terms of what specifically he will do, i don't want to front running on that and i think we will see a lot, you know, this is one of those things i think you kind of want to have recorded after the fact rather

than lead up to conduct thereof. but i guess i want to underscore what he said, which is this can't be, this is not just a question of who controls the next congress over the next president is, and it can't be just the work of the president or anyone else. he really put the callout to american citizens to engage. and i think you'll see them engage with american citizens directly. on a full range of policy questions including the ones we just talked about, but also, you know, currently engaging with them in small groups in living rooms and towns across the country and those are going to be in red and blue states. and so ultimately as he said we need hard work is democracy and we want to make sure that the

american people that are driving that change. >> before we go to julie davis of what to do a time check. we've got about 10 minutes left and went 11 questions i'm not going to be able to get to anybody. >> we can just ask the questions. >> no, no, no. it's nice to substantive answers. i just want to explain why don't be some frustration -- >> you share a lot of wisdom in your spirit along with the cholesterol. julie. go ahead. >> i wanted to ask you about what was said about -- [inaudible] i want to ask you because you've been around both the white house and congress for all these years and have i assume talk to the president about his view about this is all unfolded. who is responsible for the rancor? apart from the question you just took on of who was responsible for healing it. what can we do going forward.

yet when he looks at the situation, when you look at how this is played out, over seven years, who is responsible? >> so, you know, i think, i think he talked a little bit about that last night. i mean, i think what strikes me is republicans and democrats say this to me. i assume they say to you guys to come off the record, is that republicans and democrats are struck by the noise, the signal ratio or the kind of the politics come to substance ratio of their job. and, obviously, they wished ratio were much more substantive than they find it when they did

here. and i know probably the reason you're asking the question is the reason i don't really want to answer it. but, you know, as i think the are a lot of us to blame. i think it's the structure of our campaigns, the structure of our districts, kind of what's happening in terms of news media. that is to say you can select your news media the same way to select your neighborhood or your church. so it ends up being, you can end up in an echo chamber. and less -- lsu aggressively worked to get out of that too seek different chambers of

information and friendships and ideas, you end up in an echo chamber. and i think that ultimately is the thing that we rely on you all and wonder jobs are so important. that's why we will rely on your corporate i think also as individuals, look, i'm struck by the fact that republicans and democrats on the hill don't kind of confident spent a lot of time together. that's one thing. i tried to do and i'll continue to try to do here over the course of the next year if the president gives the on the job. we will see if we get anywhere. but i'm filibustering the edge of because i don't, you know, i don't know precisely.

and we'll keep trying different things to see if we got the antidote. >> i was curious about the malaria mentioned in the speech last night. although that off of the things i expected to. can you give us a little information from the genesis of that and how much lythgoe capital speak with the president has been doing a lot of reading on this and he also has had a bunch of conversations with susan and gail as well as others, kind of in this, you know, at the world bank and other places. he came back, i forget, i think was over the summer, having read some on malaria, and he said, do you know how close we are to really breaking through on malaria?

and i confessed that i didn't. and so susan and gail and then did a lot of work on this over the course of the fall. and i'll tell you i think this is something that come along with pepfar, something that, you know, president bush and ambassador secretary rice and mike geers and and those guys should feel really good about. i think that got us up the impact curve on hiv and on malaria, and on tv in such a with a we maybe give it a little extra push -- tb -- maybe we can close this out. we are going to push on this and

we will see, it was in there deliberately. the president put in to deliver a slum clad you noticed. >> want to talk about sort of unilateralism -- >> can i say one other thing? on people, i think this was, i think it's today or yesterday was in -- on ebola. liberia comes clean again which will then be, you know, at each of the three countries at the epicenter of the ebola epidemic having come out of the depths of that epidemic. and i think, you know, i think the capability inside usaid, nih, cdc, the uniform health service, and the u.s. military is a gem for the united states cover but at the united states

people. this is a capability that, from the response, the haiti earthquake to ongoing efforts in sudan to treat infectious disease, hiv to malaria. these guys are unbelievably good. and we should be proud of their work. look, i'll say it again. i think the bush administration should be proud of the work and getting this up the impact curve accelerate. >> last one. >> there were no executive orders or executive actions announced last night in contrast -- >> i think the speech itself was an executive action. >> but previous years been sort of the of action, congress won't act, i will. were sorting, am i wrong are we starting to see a somewhat more constrained view of utility of executive action as it gets later in his presidency?

we saw with the gun actions he was sort of coloring within the lines, not going as far as rewriting be engaged in the business rule but to offer guidance. is ther there's sort of an understanding that anything done by executive action can be undone by executive action? has there been an evolution of the president's sort of feeling about the utility of executive power? >> i went to a couple of things. one is we will do audacious executive action to the course of the rest of the year. i'm confident of that. there is, you know, just go back to the first question. process is your friend but process also dictates what you can do. we do want to make sure that we get the executive actions that we undertake are not left hanging out there subject to congress than doing them.

and so we are very mindful of time frames by which we have to meet our targets. so process is your friend but process also has a lot of requirements. so i think maybe what you're seeing is our efforts to make sure that the steps we take the ones that we can lock down and leave hanging subjected to undoing through congressional review act or otherwise. that's point number one. number two is, we have no, you know, we could try to administer appetite suppressant inside the white house and administration, i think what a lot of people, the president said to is the other day, i'm going to ask

myself, he said i'm going to me and you guys have been ask myself one question on everything we do. what i'm going to demand a view is that everything we do is confused with the sense of possibility, that has both undergirded this administration but also this country for time immemorial. and he said i'm going to be asking myself why not? and so i think that's the spirit with which we will approach this last year. and three is, frankly, that's part of the way we approached last year. and as i said at the beginning, we feel good about last year. but last year is last year. if you want to start feeling good about this year so we're going to link pretty heart into it. >> thanks. a polished -- apologies to those we didn't get to. thanks for spending time. >> i appreciate it very much.

[inaudible conversations] >> secretary of state john kerry talked about the tenuous sailors detained by iran yesterday. after they strayed into iranian territory in the persian gulf. the sailors were released within 24 hours and would've been described as a side of increased cooperation between u.s. and iran. secretary kerry spoke about the incident in his speech this morning in washington. >> i want to underscore how pleased i am that our sailors were safely returned into the united states hands this morning. [applause] >> as a former sailor myself, as a general mentioned, i know as well as anybody how unborn our naval presence is around the world, and certainly in the gulf

region. and i could not be under the president could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform. also want to thank the iranian authorities for their cooperation and quick response. these are always situations which, as everybody knows, has an ability if not properly guided to get out of control. and i'm appreciative for the quick and appropriate response of the iranian authorities. all indications suggest or tell us that our sailors are well taken care of, provided with blankets and food and assisted with their return to the fleet earlier today. and i think we can all imagine how a similar situation might have played out three or four years ago. in fact, it is clear