court. so our -- one of our fundamental jobs is for the senate to engage in a advise and consent function with regard to these judicial nominees, and we are not doing that. i call upon my colleagues, my republican friends to enable all of us to begin doing our job and begin again the advice and consent process which we are under the constitution required to do. i see some other colleagues on the floor so i'd like to yield to my good friend from new york. mr. schumer: i thank my colleague. mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. i will have a unanimous consent request after i make a few brief remarks. i want to thank my friends, the senators from hawaii and maryland for joining me here today. we all know it's the job of the senate to keep up with the need to confirm judges, but our friends on the other side of the aisle aren't holding up their end of the bargain. the judicial confirmation process has been at a crawl for

years. now it has come to a functional standstill. as noncontroversial nominations some of which were approved out of the committee by overwhelming votes, the majority of republicans, majority of democrats, they languished on the executive calendar. now our colleagues on the other side of the aisle did their best to slow the pace of confirmations when the senate was under democratic leadership. and now they're sluggishly moving nominations under a senate they control. and, mr. president it's culminated in the irresponsible partisan blockade of president obama's supreme court pick. let's talk about some real numbers here. more than a year into this new congress -- more than a year into this new congress the republican leadership has allowed only 17 judges to be confirmed. okay? how many months do we have here? we have 12 in the last year of this congress. we now have, we're in the end of

april, so that's four. and so that's 16 months. it's one a month. now let me show you the contrast. and i'd say to my dear friend, our majority leader, this is the number that counts. because the analogy was the last two years of the bush administration, when there was a democratic majority. then-republican president democratic majority. now democratic president republican majority. they confirmed 17. we confirmed 68. and this has consequences, real consequences. the number of vacancies has risen from 43 to 79 since the republicans took over the majority. that didn't happen when president bush was president and made nominations. 28 judicial emergencies for people seeking justice they can't get it very speedily because of the obstruction of

judges. there are 20 noncontroversial judges on the executive calendar and so we are urging our colleagues to let these noncontroversy judges go through. very simply, we are urging our colleagues to do their job. i know the leader wants to have the senate move along and we've tried to go along whenever it was possible. but this is a glaring example where it's easy to do your job where it's easy to move things forward. and all we face is obstruction and for no voiced reason. i'd like to know why the judges that i will nominate -- it's a smaller list than my colleague from hawaii has asked for, that i will ask for unanimous consent to go forward with, i'd love to know a single reason why any of them shouldn't be sitting on the bench. and so i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider

the following nominations: calendars 307 357 359 358 and 363, the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations that if confirmed the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. mcconnell: reserving the right to object. i would say to my democratic friends, no effort to kind of redefine what this is about will be successful. the issue before the senate is has president obama been treated fairly with regard to the confirmation of judges during his tenure in office. we are to a point where we know that so far during the obama years he's gotten 23 more judges than president bush got to this point. now that's the fundamental

question. has president obama been treated in some way differently from president bush, and the answer of course is no. and, therefore i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president i'm going to continue to try here. i thank the majority leader for his patience. i think it's really not a matter about fairness to the president but fairness to the american people. i think this is a matter of, as my colleague senator hirono pointed out justice delayed is justice denied. we have judicial emergencies out there that have not been filled. as senator schumer pointed out this is about comparing what has been done on the workload of this congress to any previous congress on the confirmation of judges and we're dead last as far as the action that has been taken. and i think the real critical number is the number of vacancies.

when you compare the number of vacancies when the republicans took the majority, there were 43 vacancies in our courts. that number has almost doubled to 79 vacancies. and when you take a look at the pace of confirmation, because you say maybe there is a lot that had to be taken up. you mentioned hundreds over a president's term. but as senator schumer pointed out there's only been 17 judges confirmed to date. that's one of the lowest numbers in the history of our country modern history of our country. in the last year of president bush's administration, at the same period of time, in that two-year cycle 68 judges had been confirmed by a democratically controlled senate. what makes matters more difficult for the american people to understand is that there are 20 judicial nominations currently passed the senate judiciary committee, i believe every one has been passed by unanimous voice votes.

they're not controversial, a matter of getting them up for confirmation; 20 of them that have yet to be acted upon on the floor of the united states senate. so i'm going to make two unanimous requests. let me start with the first which will deal with four of these 20 that are currently pending. all passed the judiciary committee by unanimous voice votes. two are from states which have democratic senators. two are from states that have republican senators. so i make a unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: calendar number 3077, xinis of maryland. calendar number 357, calendar number 358 and calendar number 359, the senate proceed to vote without intervening or debate on the nomination in the order listed and the motion to reconsider be considered made

and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and that no further motions to be in order to the nomination. that any related statements be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president for the reasons previously expressed by the majority leader, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. cornyn: mr. president? a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i'm going to make one further request in the series and that is to deal with the next nominee that would be up considering the length of time that she has been on the calendar it's the nominee paul a xinis from maryland. her nomination was made in march 2015 over a year ago. it was recommended by senator mikulski and myself after an exhaustive vetting process we go

through before making recommendation to the president of the united states. she was then nominated over a year ago. she had a hearing in the judiciary committee on july of 2015. as i reported earlier, she was reported out by unanimous voice vote of the committee. in september of last year and she's pw-pbl waiting all this -- and she's been waiting all this time for action on the senate floor. we need this vacancy filled. we have now two vacancies in the maryland district, and the c related to us several times that this position is critical for the administration of justice to the people of maryland and our nation. so therefore, i would ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination: calendar number 307 xinis of maryland. that the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination. that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate that no further motions be in order to the nomination, that any related statements be printed in the record and that the president

be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president for reasons previously given i object. the presiding officer: the objection has been heard. a senator: mr. president? mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i want to inject a few comments in this discussion too. this isn't all just about republicans. it isn't all about democrats. i had a nominee from wyoming incidentally wasn't nominated by me. he was nominated by our democratic governor. it took me about nine months to get a hearing in committee. this was for a district judge. this wasn't for supreme court. this wasn't for circuit court. this was for district court. it took me about nine months to get a hearing for him. and you know, at the end of two years he had not gotten a vote in committee. his life was in suspense for two years. that's not right. neither party should do that.

but as long as the other side is saying that we're holding things up, i've got to point out that it's not just a one-sided thing. so i hope that some of the criticism can end and some of the work can be done. i yield the floor. mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i want to share the frustration of my colleague from wyoming. this just should not be a partisan issue. i agree it's wrong to hold people's lives in abeyance. we're trying tpo get the very best people to serve on our courts, and if they have to put their lives on hold for a year or two will they come forward and seek to serve as a judge? we know that for the ones that we're trying to get on the bench, it's going to be a financial sacrifice. they can make more money in the private sector. we want the very best on our courts. but if someone is put on hold for two years or for one year, it compromises their ability if they're in the private practice of law and it's not the right thing to do whether it's a democrat or republican in the

white house. we've got to being the a on these appointments a lot faster. the point that i raise is that during this term of congress, during this year and a half, we've seen the number of judicial vacancies go from 43 to 79. at this particular moment there are 20 nominees on the executive calendar that have cleared the committee by voice votes, that are not controversial. and some have been waiting over a year since their nomination. and we can make -- we can do something about it right now and we should do something about it right now. i yield the floor. mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have been approved by the majority and minority leaders. i'd ask consent that these requests be agreed to and be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection.

ms. hirono: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: i'd like to say a few more things regarding our request for action on these judicial nominations. in the group of nominations that i requested action on, they include nominees from maryland, new jersey, nebraska, tennessee new york, california, rhode island pennsylvania, hawaii. they are all waiting. and just one comment about the supreme court vacancy the last time that the united states senate refused to deal with a supreme court vacancy was during the civil war and they so objected to dealing with the president's nomination that they actually, the congress actually changed the number of justices on the supreme court. now the number of justices is set by law and so the congress changed the law and set the number of justices from ten to seven so that they would not have to deal with the president's nominee to the supreme court vacancy.

the president vetoed that bill. the congress overrode that, that veto. and so they changed the makeup, the number of judicial, justices on the supreme court. certainly that is not what i'm suggesting that the republicans should do. and in fact, we have had a nine-member supreme court for almost 150 years. so what we are calling for and i agree with my friend, the senator from wyoming that this should not be a partisan issue and certainly i agree with my friend from maryland that we should get on with it. we should get on with these judicial nominations. we should do our advice and consent role and clearly with regard to the supreme court vacancy where we're going to, with this inaction, leave that court w-l eight members for -- with eight members for a year. that is not acceptable to the people of our country. we need to do our jobs, and i ask my senate colleagues, my republican friends to enable the senate to do our advice and

consent role and to do our jobs as set forth in the united states constitution. i yield back. the presiding officer: under the previous order the senate stands in recess

independent media is the option of it. holding those in power accountable. we are not there to serve some kind of corporate agenda . when we cover war and peace, we are not launching another

weapons manufacturer >> sunday night on q&a, journalist amy goodman, executive producer of the daily news program democracy now talks about the book she has co-authored, democracy now: 20 years covering the movements changing america which looks back at some of the stories and people the show has covered. >> the idea of democracy now starting 20 years ago, it really hasn't changed. bringing out the voices of people at the grassroots and the united states and around the world and they very much represent the things of the majority of people. the people who are concerned deeply about war and peace , about the growing inequality in this country , about climate change , the fate of the planet are not a fringe minority. not even a silent majority but the silence majority. silenced by the corporate media which is why we have to take it back . >> sunday night at eight eastern on c-span's q and a. >> white house council of

economic advisers chair jason furman defended the administration's decision to weigh-in on the fcc plan on creating a competitive market for set-top boxes. his comments came at a christian science monitor breakfast series in washington. this is just over an hour. >> okay, we are going to start and have some people join us in progress. thanks for coming. i'm dave cook from the monitor. our guest today is dave furman, council of economic advisers. last he was here was in february 2015. we appreciate his coming back. this first association with the council was in 1996 during the clinton administration when he was still a graduate student at

harvard and was hired as a staff economist for counsel. since then he served as your advisor to the chief economist at the world bank, special assistant to president clinton for economic policy at the national economic council and senior fellow in economic studies and director of the hamilton project at brookings. along the way here he earned three degrees including a doctorate from harvard and one from the london school of economics. he's been a visiting scholar at nyu's wagner graduate school of public service and a visiting lecturer at yale and columbia. in 2008 he was the economic policy the director for obama for americans. earlier the amount of about ministries in our guest was deputy director of the national economic council before being named to his current post in june 2013. with that, we will leave behind biography and move to this morning's mechanics. we are on the record. no live blogging or tweeting, no filing of any kind while breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to what our

guest says. there is no embargo when the session ends at 10 or 959 . to help you resist that relentless selfie urge, we will email pictures of the session to all reporters here as soon as the breakfast ends and as regular attendees know, if you'd like to ask a question, do the traditional thing and send me a nonthreatening signal and i will have on call on one and all. i offer our guests the opportunity to make opening comments if he wishes then we moved to questions from around the table. thanks again for doing this. >> guest: thanks for organizing it, thanks for everyone who is here. we just start out briefly by saying we've now seen 73 straight months of private sector job growth which is the longest streak of job growth we had in this country. over 12 million jobs added by american businesses. but we still need to do more to make sure that more americans are seeing the benefit of the economy , building on the wage gains we've already seen and

receive even larger wage gains. in the state of the union, the president began by talking about his economic strategy and he talked about the three parts of his economic strategy. the first focused on expanding education and training. the second talked about improving public programs to help people find jobs, help people move from job to job with things like wage insurance and reformed unemployment insurance. and the third part of the strategy he outlined in the state of the union was to make sure that the economy was operating on a set of rules of the road . rules of the road that worked for consumers , worked for small businesses and worked for workers rather than being set up for the large companies. this last week, we took an important step to flesh out that third part of the economic agenda as outlined in the state of the union when the president issued an

executive order instructing all the agencies to go and look at what they could do to inject more competition into the economy. together with that order, the president weighed in on the proceeding at the fcc and asked the fcc to open up set-top boxes , something we all have sitting in our living room 99 percent of us use the cable box we rent from our cable companies. people pay an average of $230 a year . after four years you paid $1000 and you still just rented it, you don't own it. the price of cable boxes has gone up even while the components have gotten cheaper . that's why we passed the fcc

to open up tabletop boxes so that you could buy your own, have greater diversity and choice which we think would lead to innovation. that's just an example. we've done many things like this before whether it's cell phone unlocking , requiring airlines to free up slots at airports for competitors or improving competition in defense procurement . agencies will have 60 days to report back with additional ideas along these lines and the reason we think this is important is because of a range of evidence that the council of economic advisers collected an issue brief last week that by a number of different measures, there is less competition in the economy today than there was several decades ago . there's fewer new firms entering the average firm size is larger, the average market share firm is larger, the rate of return on capital relative to the safe rate of return is rising for some firms , rates of return are persistently very high and all of those can both get in

the way of efficiency and innovation. for example, set-top boxes, kind of competition you like to see to make those boxes better and can also produce greater inequality by raising the prices for consumers or disadvantaging workers so happy to talk about this general set of policies and ideas around competition and what the status is, what we can do about it but obviously anything on the economy more broadly let me start by giving you a chance to respond to critics . of the cable decision. the cable industry, the national cable and telecommunications association. i'm not showing for c-span but it says the white house is injected quote, politics and inflammatory rhetoric into a regulatory proceeding by what is supposed to be an independent agency and the executive producer of the walking dead reading variety

which is of course something a guy from the monitor does every morning says that if the fcc goes along with the white house , it will make piracy as easily , as easy and as dangerous in the living room as it is on laptops and mobile devices. >> guest: the law makes it very clear that the administration can comment on fcc proceedings . there's a procedure for that which is filing a comment through and cia read that of the procedure that previous administrations have used on numerous occasions and this administration has used on numerous occasions. we had a very serious policy conversation about this issue , thought that it was an issue that mattered a lot to consumers and also to innovation and economic growth more broadly and wanted to share those views and did it in a fully

transparent way. we think this is important both because of this particular case . again, it is a fact that you know, the typical household over four years is going to spend about $1000 , not get the improvements in their cable set top box that we see in lots of other areas of our technological economy and won't even own the box at the end of that process. and it's a fact that incumbent industries want to defend the tying of that product to the tying of the delivery of the cable service when in reality those are two very different products so we wanted to weigh-in on that. also wanted to use it as an example of steps that we love to see other agencies coming up with that would similarly have tangible easy-to-understand benefits for consumers and the economy more broadly .

>> host: do you have a list or example or two that you could give us. as you say you'd like to see it as an example in the blog posted , you call the cable thing a mascot for other initiatives.are there examples you can cite of where you expect to see other competitive decisions taken before the end of the obama administration? >> guest: i don't have forward-looking examples because the agencies are working actively on this right now, it's something we would obviously talk to them about even before the president signed his executive order it in terms of some of the past ones, a good example is cell phone unlocking. rather than having your cell phone tied exclusively to a given carrier , letting you unlock it and use it with different carriers. it was a we the people petition where tens of thousands of americans asked us to do something about it. we study the issue, came out in favor of it . ultimately that required legislation which we

championed as well as actions by the sec and others and now it's easier for you to move your cell phone to a different carrier . that helps if you change, it helps you better get a better deal or even if you don't change just the threat that you might do it helps restrain rises. airline flight is another one. there were airlines sitting on the airports that they were using and they were using it just to foreclose on elder airlines being able to compete effectively. dot required them to give up those slots, let other airlines use it and that created more petition, lower prices, better actions in air travel so those are two of the type of examples, one of the commerce department and one at dot that we would like to see more of going forward . >> host: i'm going to do one more and then we will go to howard snyder of reuters to start around the table. you think tpb is dead sir? the most likely democratic candidate says i don't believe it's going to meet the high bar i've set , the

most likely republican candidate says it was a deal that was designed for china to come in as they always do through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone you . >> guest: i do not believe that at all. in fact i think that tpt is very important to our economy . in fact every year that we delay , ppp costs us nearly $100 billion in present value of forgone benefits that we would get from that agreement . the support for it is growing . trade association , business groups representing businesses from large to small have consistently come out for it every week . new groups come out for it . the authority to negotiate that agreement was passed on a bipartisan basis in congress last year and we hear from a number in congress that understand the importance of getting it done

this year so we will continue doing that if it continues to be economically important and continues to be something that we know the majority of members of congress are in principle open to doing . >> host: we are going to go to howard snyder from reuters and then report from usa today. >> two things, one labor market oriented and one real economy. the recent uptick in labor force participation sort of giving some confidence of janet yellen's vision of the labor market is fundamentally accurate. i'm wondering in your opinion how much farther you think that might go given the demographic drag on participation in general. it's been documented and secondly, i'm interested in your thoughts about the slow, tepid growth of the recovery and whether or not that is a potential upside there to the extent it's being caused by a stronger financial regulations that are being put in place and second, the

potential saving that seems to be going on among corporations and household mortgage rates that people are paying off their mortgages, pennies are saving and it seems that's got the potential to less reliance on external finance in the next session and perhaps make it shallower, give a bit of a buffer . >> guest: those are two quick questions and in answer to your first one, it's been really encouraging to see the increase in the labor force participation rate. in fact, it's increasing at the fastest rate that it has in over 30 years. but the underlying demographic as you noted in your question still mean that a larger and larger fraction of our population is going to be over the age of 65 . when you do the arithmetic around this, that is about 8.3 decline per year in the participation rate just from the aging of the population .

above and beyond, there have been a long standing many decades downward trend in the participation rate even conditional on age which would take it down a little bit more . i think there's a little bit more space for cyclical recovery in the labor force participation rate. i think it's been especially encouraging to see some of the broader healing in the economy in terms of long-term unemployed and labor force participation on discouraged workers but i think ultimately we are almost there in terms of the cyclical healing and then we will be left with the demographic trend in that regard. now in answer to your second question, i don't think that financial reform has played a big role in recent growth rate. it has helped put our economy in a stronger and more sustainable position with

$700 billion more in bank capital than we had in 2008 . when people go through all the different concerns about the global economy , i think it's encouraging that united states banking system is not on anyone's list and for good reason because we've undertaken reforms that put it in much better shape than it's been in for a long time but the productivity growth slowdown is something you've seen across a range of economies , some of which did reform the financial systems and some of which didn't so i think something else is going on then financial reform. i think the deleveraging you referred to of the high savings rates at the corporate level and individual level was a particularly good and important thing in the first couple of years of the recovery but we are now in a position where if you look at households, their interest payments and shared disposable income is the lowest it's been on record .

you look at corporations, they have extremely healthy balance sheet and that's all encouraging but it would also be encouraging to continue to see more consumer spending which we have seen over the last year or two but also more business investment which we haven't seen as much of over the last year or two. . i think on the business side, there's definitely room for expanded investment above and beyond what we've seen quite i have question on two different topics. the first is on criminal justice. you are participating in an event i guess next week on this , i've seen an op-ed yesterday i think with douglas waukegan and you made the case there are economic consequences to criminal justice reform. you laid out the this goal , sort of because of the taxpayer of this but can you make the case for how criminal justice reform would

actually affect the broader economy? >> guest: yes. so we've gotten involved in criminal justice precisely because it's a very important economic angle. i know there's many others that are important to two in terms of values and what type of society will want to be but we focus narrowly on the economics and the economics is something that i think there is broad bipartisan agreement on so don't fall season and i used to spend 2008 debating when he was doing economic policy for the mccain campaign and i was doing it for the obama campaign , i don't think there was a single line in the op-ed that we wrote together that the two of us had to argue about.and at the event next week, it is at the white house and it's cohosted by the american enterprise institute which is a right of center think tank and the brennan center in nyu which is a more progressive organization and the speakers will include again, doug klos egan but also people like

arthur brooks and diane loeb from one side of the spectrum and you will be hearing the business and economic case. the issues that a range of researchers found is that first of all, making sentences increasingly longer has rapidly diminishing returns in terms of deterring crime and also in terms of keeping someone off the street from committing crimes because older people are much less likely to commit those crimes. at the same time, it can have substantial collateral damage, reducing the skill someone has and us the ability to get a job when they come out which can actually lead to more recidivism and more crime . having a devastating impact on the family of the person , on their children and their economic mobility and economic future. and if you just do , without even counting those collateral benefits, the

council of economic advisers is surely going to be coming out with a report on that topic and the report finds that if you increase spending on incarceration by $10 billion a year , that would result in net benefits to society that range from -8 million to positive 1 billion. in contrast, increased spending on police , increased wages including through a higher minimum wage, increased education , all have positive net benefits in terms of just their impact on crime reduction. >> can you give me a percent of gdp of the criminal justice , can you measure what the benefits of this would be question? >> guest: i don't have a bottom line in terms of gdp but you can do very regular sleep and we do cost benefit all the time and we do

regulatory and other budget analysis and we worked out very carefully if you spend an extra $10 billion in this area , you end up most likely worse off, not better off in terms of cost. the other thing i would note is you look at the percentage of men between the age of 25 and 54 in our country who are in the labor force , they are not in a job and not looking for a job area in the 1960s it was three percent. of men 25 to 54 were in the labor force, now it's 12 percent of men. it's increased fourfold. increased more in the united states than almost any other advanced economy . you ask what makes us different from the other advanced economies , its mass incarceration in the united states of the type you don't see in any of the other ocd countries and that appears to have played a role in the fact that large fractions of people who could be contributing productively to our economy are not doing so today on competition, there's also a proposal for the fcc by broadcasters to open up a

spectrum for them to do 40 bev and interactions and those kind of things. it sounds a little bit like what you are trying to accomplish with this set-top box proposal. with the administration weigh in on that and the broader question to that is, in adopting these programs and policies do you risk picking winners and losers in picking one industry or technology over another? >> guest: that's not something we weighed in on though we have played a role in bactrim policy including championing the legislation that created two sides of the spectrum auction that is going to happen this year which is going to buy up spectrum from broadcasters who willingly relinquish it and sell it to people that place a higher value on it, mostly in mobile broadband . we did weigh in on the rules for the spectrum auctions to make sure they were consistent with promoting

competition and competition policy is precisely the opposite of picking winners and losers. it's about creating a set of rules such that there is competition and then the winners and set-top boxes will be picked by consumers. they will be the set-top boxes that consumers want to use that have made themselves cheaper or better in some way . as opposed to the current system where the rules essentially foreordained who those winners are. >>. >> host: we are going to go next to sheryl bloomberg from bna. >> there's competition, executive order. i had trouble with some of the business groups getting a read on that, whether that was going to be good for them or not.

it seems indicate some regulations might be eliminated but that also sounded like a lot of agencies were going to be doing some rulemaking so in terms of the regulatory outlook, for businesses, what , how should they read this executive order? >> guest: this executive order will be good for the economy and a lot of things that are good for the economy are good for existing businesses . in some cases, you are trying to do something that might take away from some of the market power of an incumbent business and create opportunities for new competitors and for small businesses so that will be good for the small businesses. it will be good for the new competitor. and i think ultimately, that competition leads to more innovation by all businesses as well. >> you anticipate a lot of new regulations this year ? >> guest: in some cases , yes. we anticipate a number of actions to come out of this and as i said, we have a lot of process that involves

talking to a lot of agencies before this executive order was issued so we have some idea as to what might be coming , the work had already begun and it's certainly intensified since the order but i wouldn't describe it as regulations. in some cases, in cell phone unlocking that was in a way getting rid of a barrier that you face to moving your phone, the airline blocks so i wouldn't put these under the heading of more regulation. i put these under the heading of whatever steps you can take to create more competition. in fact, sometimes if you look at , it's a state issue. one we had encourage states to take a hard look at but not federal legislative nexus to licensing where it used to be about five percent of occupation , you needed a license. a doctor or a lawyer. now it's up to 25 percent. that makes it harder to move across eight, are to move between jobs and

disadvantaged consumers. that would be an example of i think where you should be getting rid of some of those regulations to create more competition so sometimes incumbents can use their power to create a barrier to entry, another example would be local land-use restrictions. is a regulation would like to see less of and when you get less of that you have more mobility and competition. this is more regulation or less. this is more competition . >> host: we go next to alexis from real politics. >> jason, as you know both the speaker and his contents are going to put forward an issues agenda. which i hope to do before the fall. and part of it is going to be tax reform . there's interest on both sides of the aisle so i wanted to ask you, do you think that the effort the speaker is making is going to be helpful to the debate about tax reform which will be engaged next year and beyond the poor do you see it as mostly political , trying

to provide some specifics to the candidates smart how you look at the effort they've obtained? >> i think it's always good when people put out policy ideas and are specific about those policy ideas. in some cases those policy ideas help advance an issue and in some cases they clarify a choice and help sharpen a debate so so you can have that the base debate in the legislative process and decide. i do obviously not privy to any of the details of what is going to release but i think anything that continues conversation on a substantive policy level is important. on business tax reform, chairman without his proposal i guess about a year and a half ago and i thought that was very helpful and constructive for the debate. it has a number of good elements. it had a number of problematic elements and even

on a technical level, it helped address a number of issues . on tax reform in general and the big question is are we addressing a genuine economic problem we had in this country which is a tax rate for businesses that is too high combined with businesses able to take advantage of too many loopholes. or are we trying to cut taxes for high income individuals and raise their after-tax incomes and potentially do that at the expense of the deficit? if it's the former which is about our competitiveness and creating a level playing field that businesses can succeed on, i think that's something that is promising for the future. if it's yet another way to cut taxes for high income individuals and raise the deficit, i don't think that's going anywhere this year or beyond ? >> you know everyone in the clinton campaign on economic side, policy people. how often do you talk to them?

how often do they consult you or speak to information the cea has put together? >> guest: in my job i have nothing to do with campaign but certainly enjoyed going to a wedding this past weekend as my former chief of staff who is married to some of those economic policy members in the campaign but i don't remember at that wedding talking about a whole lot of economic policy issues . >> you don't really, they're not consulting you? >> guest: they are friends and i have ongoing conversations with friends . >> and you try to be helpful . >> guest: i really have spent a lot of time on campaigns in the past and i'm completely thrilled not to be on one now. >> host: were going to go to angela team from bloomberg next. angela? >> the bigger economic

picture, there's been obviously a lot of good news and labor market, you talked about some of those downsize wages and underemployment but overall, a lot of good numbers but at the same time, we see some very concerning trends in manufacturing and housing. what would you say if you were to write the story, turn the tables, you are the one writing the lead, how do you see things right now? >> the us has been the biggest success story of any of the economies in the world in rebounding from the financial crisis. and our growth continues to be considered by people around the world as one of the bright spots in the global economy. the unemployment rate is consistently come in below expectations, it's been accompanied by a broader healing labor market. wages are up at the fastest they've been since the financial crisis. i think the biggest concern that i face for our economy

is the fact the rest of the world will have on the rest of the economy. trade is subtracting , the slowdown in our exports to the rest of the world which is a function of slower growth than the rest of the world is taking about three quarters of a point off our growth rate right now so this isn't enough to have a massive change on the us economy is persistent throughout and the drag on the economy. specter like housing is one of the bright spots in the economy and an area where there's a lot of potential. you are right that in the last month you've seen housing stock markets fall but for the last year docs and permits are both up so it's a volatile series. i would look for month-to-month, i look . over a year and we are still building less in the number of houses i would expect us , that we need as a country demographically self housing i think is actually a bright spot in the economy. manufacturing is facing a challenge and that is very much a function of , it's an

industry that disproportionately relies on exports in west when the rest of the world is weaker, we have a harder time exporting and manufacturing again, big picture has rebounded to a sizable extent in the economy . sectors like auto has-beens particularly successful in part because of actions we've taken but until we see stronger growth around the world is going to be hard for american manufacturers . >> one other topic, social security. you mentioned you see it as having a relatively strong future. there was no labels suggested that people around these tables were at hunt men and lieberman spoke and one of their many targets for whatever, the next administration is is social security. they have a plan to address the crisis, they're looking at the same numbers you're looking at and see it differently. how do you address that? >> guest: i don't see what they did yesterday so i can't

comment on that but social security has sufficient resources to take full benefits for decades to come and thereafter to pay about three quarters of benefits . it has certainly been this administration view that it's better to act sooner rather than later to deal with it. we put out a set of bipartisan principles for dealing with social security years ago and it's something you know, the president would have been happy to have done. it's not the most urgent issue facing the country. there is getting the economy to recover, getting productivity growth up, getting the labor force participation rate up , getting inequality down. all of these are you know, much more urgent and pressing issues . also we'd say when you're dealing with social security , i don't think you want to frame it solely in terms of solvency and green eye shades. i think you want to look at what we're trying to

accomplish which is , we've been enormously successful at reducing poverty among the elderly but you still have higher poverty rates for the old , old and people over the age of 65 four single women . you have a lot of aspects of the program that were based around you know, patterns of work in families that have long since passed. i think when you think about social security, you really want to make sure you are also thinking about how to better serve its fundamental goals in dealing with issues like poverty, retirement, purity and fit into the modern framework of working families , not just monomaniacal he focus on a certain thing . >> host: mister lane from the hill. >> so i know in the seating, the president said he'd like to work on some sort of anti-poverty measure and that could be an area of bipartisan agreement between

him and speaker ryan and actively sought out and pointed him out and said this is something we can work on together. i want to know, has there been any work between them on this and have they been engaged at all and if there's any sort of groundwork being laid to move on something? before the president certainly highlighted that he and the speaker have the same proposal to expand the earned income tax credit for workers without qualifying children, either because they don't have children because they are noncustodial parents. this would help address the perversity in our system right now, you can be in poverty and we actually tax you deeper into poverty. instead, the tax code for people without qualifying children should do what it does for people with children which is if you are in poverty, help lift you out of poverty rather than push you deeper into it so i think the common sense idea for the

present proposal number of years ago, the speaker adopted that proposal. it's something we could work together on. i we certainly have a conversation at the speaker's office about a wide range of policy issues, we are always looking for ways to cooperate but i think you know, at some point you're going to need to decide, the legislation on tax issues gets initiated in the house of representatives so they are going to need to decide if this is something they want to initiate and if this is something they want to initiate in a manner that's not paid for by doing damage elsewhere two people working to get themselves out of poverty. >> host: ben fleming from the financial times. >> you were talking earlier about the us as a bright spot and a success story amongst other economies. clearly the story of this election campaign has not been that american voters yield it's been a bright spot

of recovery. is there a risk that the administration is a little out of touch with the public mood about the economy at the moment or are we overestimating just how negative people feel about the economy? >> . >> guest: i look at evidence from the measures that economists look at about how people feel about the economy are the consumer sentiments and the consumer confidence index from the conference board and the university of michigan. when you look at measures like that, you see that confidence has been consistently rising since the recession and last year reached levels we hadn't seen in over a decade. i see a number of ways in which people are positive both about their situation today and the outlook . we also certainly hear and understand the frustrations people have in terms of areas like wage growth and so the president's message that you saw in the state of the union you've seen consistently was told a really optimistic story about the american

economy , how it's done, it's successes and also talked about the big challenges and problems we face and what it is he wants to do about them . he's not walking around saying mission accomplished , there's nothing else to be done, everything's perfect. obviously that's not remotely the message. the message if anything is the opposite. here's all the things we still need to do. >> host: >> one measure of the conference would be consumer spending. it has picked up a little but this is has still been a sluggish consumer recovery. what's your analysis as to why consumers are still saving so significantly while the big oil price hasn't given this was everyone's been waiting for. in terms of spending it quite palpable . >> guest: consumer spending did add three percent , did

grow three percent in 2014 and 2015 and was one of the bright spots that was helping to raise overall gdp growth . so i think you have seen as consumers the leverage that savings rates have risen a little bit in last year but they stabilize more than a half before . and when we look at the oil shocks we look at having raised consumer spending, cut business estimates and the net of those two is still a small positive for the economy. i think when you look at consumers , part of it is having been through a very traumatic economic experience that is only eight years past us and you look at the great depression and the impact that has on the way people thought about seating or the way people thought about inflation in other places:

hyperinflation at the time, those can last for decades and a wet affect the way you think so there may be some of that . weight growth is only recently picked up and consumers want the confidence that that wage growth will continue and that oil prices will stay low as opposed to just being transitory that you don't want to fully adjust your consumption to so i think if you continue to see nominal wage growth rising , it becomes clear this is more durable than i think you would continue to see strong wage , strong consumption growth but it is three percent which is pretty good for consumer spending. >> host: alicia evans from time ? >> my question, i wanted to go back to previous issues and you mentioned set-top boxes which is interesting because i think i forgot exactly what the statistic is

but i think it's about 40 percent of people don't even have a choice of what cable company is their provider so if the idea is to adjust competition, how do you adjust the front end not only address , can i like comcast box a or box b mark and on that same level, there's been a lot of criticism about antitrust failure to pursue antitrust cases and criticism on the right from this business administration, the obama administration not certainly in that way so how do you read that needle and pursue antitrust, especially in a time when we are seeing these massive mergers with walgreens and right aid and craft and heinz and cigna , whatever.

there's humana and something else so we are seeing these massive mergers and how do you deal with that? >> guest: so on your first, you are precisely right there is an intersection between these two issues. if you have a choice of 100 different cable companies, probably you wouldn't need a rule about set-top boxes because one of those cable companies would compete for your business by letting you have any set-top box you want or having a better one. when you don't have competition in terms of cable wire going into your house , that makes it much more important to make sure you can't leverage the market power you have in the wire to the house into what is an unrelated product which is the set-top box so there's an intersection between , we tried to take up steps to free up spectrum for mobile broadband which would create more competition in that area , make sure the rules of the auctions are consistent with, you can't just have the biggest player by all the spectrums or foreclose on the

opportunity of others to enter the market. we weighed in on municipal broadband as another way to create competition but there's only so many tools that we have . in terms of your second question , we have nothing whatsoever to do with enforcement in the white house. that's a matter of the enforcement agencies doj and antitrust and scc. in this case, enforcing the law, don't get involved in particular cases and don't get involved in the broader policy issues. i would note that antitrust enforcement under this administration is up. the number of criminal prosecutions is up . criminal penalties , present time and in noncriminal cases there's been a number of quite important enforcement actions they take in to preserve competition areas. it is the case that it is not

illegal to have a monopoly but to take your monopoly and build on it by merging and set-top boxes is similar, similar economic principle to market power in one area to make sure you can extend that into market power in another area. >> new york times. >> get to the end or from the beginning, could you address what many see as a missed opportunity not for lack of some trying but not trying hard enough and get infrastructure spending all these years when it was next to 0 interest rate, one of the hardest at labor sectors was construction, what could you have done? you have the 2011 american jobs act which didn't go anywhere,

the transportation number going to construction, what more could you have done? do you see any opening between now and january 20th to cut a deal to get more done? >> we got things done. the recovery act, we got a substantial upfront investment in infrastructure and last december we got a five year highway bill, roughly 5% inflation adjusted increase in infrastructure spending as well as more certainty associated with it. but it certainly has been disappointing that we haven't done even more than that and not for lack of effort on the president's part. he proposed year after year substantial ambitious plans for infrastructure. he had one way to pay for it

related to international tax, which was something you saw the chairman adopted his plan and the past year we proposed another way, an idea you hear from economists and other experts of both political parties. in some sense your question is better addressed to congress than to us because we agree economically, to help expand productive capacity in the future given the low rates of interest, the economic argument is completely clear and would like to see congress doing more. >> the republicans beat you? >> i don't have any great insight into it. a number of republicans tell you how much they wanted to do it.

they did come through, and that was good but it took way too long, seven years toget to that point and it wasn't big enough. he created a buildup. when you have an idea like infrastructure that the chamber of commerce and the afl-cio are behind, it stands to reason it is quite a good idea and disappointing you haven't seen congress take it up and do it. >> before january 20th. >> i haven't seen congress moving further on it. >> anybody who hasn't had one who wants one, let me ask briefly about wall street pay regulations that were in the news yesterday.

i want to see if you support them and how you respond to critics, some will say it will drive people out of the industry or another perverse effect might be banks and other affected institutions have to pay people more because of their fear that money will be clogged back, what is your take? >> the goal of dodd-frank was to strengthen the financial system and deal with a range of different problems that led to the last crisis. one problem was the perverse incentive that can be created by pay packages that undertake risky action knowing you get your bonus and tales, you walk away and on average you coming out ahead. that type of option is an extremely valuable option and people on wall street if they understand anything, it is option value so the legislation rightly asks regulators to do something about that.

we have been encouraging independent regulators to come out with those regulations, and the regulators in march, we were pleased to see they have come out and encourage them to move as quickly as possible to complete the rulemaking process so this could be put into effect. i haven't studied the details of what they have come out with. independent regulators who are going to design the details independently are going to accept input in terms of improving those rules and i am sure the ways one can handle the different issues that have been raised, but ultimately the goal they are trying to accomplish is an important one which is to reduce overly risky behavior that comes at the expense of taxpayers and the economy.

>> the single biggest economic story of the week will affect pocketbooks. and if you have any thoughts, microeconomic monitoring, we are changing the way we spend money, what are the consequences of that in the economy and the policy matter in terms of other issues, and broaden our scope on this. >> the first question i was completely thrilled with what secretary will decided. he didn't consult me or my children. if he had one of them i strongly supported harriet tubman the other was in favor of rosa parks, there was a big debate

between them but i cast the tie-breaking vote for the secretary of the treasury. that was exciting to see. the shift from cash to credit cards has had some impact on the conduct of monetary policy. it is one reason the velocity of money has become less stable which is one reason the monetary authorities don't target the money supply but instead target interest rates and that shift has happened over the course of many decades. once you do that it doesn't complicate your monetary policy at all and it doesn't have major changes in the way the economy functions. the fed sets interest rates, the money supply velocity sort themselves out and interest rates that have an impact on the

economy, there are other questions, easier access to borrowing, some evidence that has been some smoothing of shocks, you get a shock and borrow your way through it doesn't propagate as large and some evidence, less notably the financial crisis, it can amplify shocks leading to overborrowing and the larger consumption going without getting benefits of credit fueled cycles and what the policy is in an important part. >> are there more ways to pay for cuts? for example the coin, should we be encouraging that are discouraging that? >> we will leave that to the agency, 60 days to report back to us.

>> teddy davis from cnn. >> of secretary clinton is nominated to outline what you thought were the most effective economic policies and the most disappointing economic policies, what would you tell them? >> the recovery act, not going to do something like that. the affordable care act, a lot less to do to implement that encouraging states to take up medicaid for using an extraordinary number of tools for the delivery system reforms, and the excise tax and third would be cutting taxes for low income households which was done over the course of a number of pieces of legislation, in december and reducing poverty

for 16 million people a year lifting them out of poverty. in terms of the other three, disappointment we didn't get more done on infrastructure, the disappointment the comprehensive immigration reform, the single largest thing you can do for the economy and probably disappointment that we didn't do this. one of the more obvious steps we can take as a country given every other country in the world is done it. >> two minutes and if we could get to it. be change from abroad, they had regularly frustrated recovery, what head winss are you looking at that were you most between now and the end of the administration? >> growth has picked up a little bit, but it is still too slow.

the unemployment rate in the euro zone is above 10%. china has seen its growth slow, japan has seen its growth slow, growth in a number of emerging markets like brazil and russia is negative. so we are not in the year 2009, this is not a global financial crisis, but most anywhere you look in the world outside the united states growth is coming in a decent amount below what people were expecting and by any measure this is disappointing, pretty much below income economies, that have seen their growth rates take off in recent years but everyone else has not. >> last question.

>> the transition planning, describe what the economic team is doing collectively, how far along you are thinking about transition planning, coordination, information gathering. >> the council of economic advisers, we had a long-standing tradition of hiring staff and they work from summer to summer so i am hiring staff that works for me for six month and work for the next president whoever he or she is for the first six months of their term. in my experience president bush as a whole had an extremely effective transition one that we would like to emulate. the council of economic advisers, it has always worked well and this will not be an exception. >> one person for the economic team coordinated the designated -- >> i don't have anything for you

on that process. i can tell you what we are doing, we are hiring people to work in our administration and the next administration. >> thanks for doing this, appreciate it. >> thank you. >> great policy. [inaudible conversations] >> what about that? >> how is your baby? >> 9 months. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the u.s. senate is in session today, senators have been working on the energy water spending bill for 2017. earlier lawmakers voted on several amendments. when they return live coverage on c-span2 starting at 2:15 easton. 5 states on the mid-atlantic are holding primaries today, you can see a lecture result on c-span.

follow the tallies from connecticut, delaware, maryland, pennsylvania and rhode island, hear from candidates. road to the white house coverage tonight gets underway at 8:30 eastern on our companion network c-span. >> madam secretary, we proudly give 72 of our delegate votes to the nextpresident of the united states. ♪ >> now today's pentagon

briefing, operation resolved, peter gersten reported by video from baghdad on the latest us planned actions in iraq against isis forces. we show you as much as we can until the senate comes back at 2:15 eastern on c-span2. >> good morning, everybody. we want to make sure you can hear us and we can hear you. >> i can hear you loud and clear. >> welcome, good morning. joining us live from baghdad major general peter gersten, the operation inherent resolve deputy commander for operations in intelligence. we turn it over to you for opening comments and call questions and send for you. >> i appreciate you giving me

the opportunity to come in today. it is early morning there, we are trying to get through some computer issues. i apologize up front if we drop ourselves out. we are working through the issues at this time. i am deputy commander for oir. in that capacity to work for lieutenant general mcfarland and coordinating and synchronizing operations across iraq and syria. we continue to engage daesch geographically and functionally. we are enabling partners in the reason to build stability for the future. this is a tough fight. that not only affects us out here but affect many of you at home. the enemy is a persistent cancer that has to be stopped. if left unchecked it will metastasize and infect the

world. please know members of the coalition are fighting to destroy this cancer. we must also understand the fight requires patience and time. allow me to highlight significant current issues going on. there has been much discussion about the approval process for strike operations in a combat zone. as general officer responsible for operations in this theater i can assure you that we do everything possible to mitigate the loss of civilian life and minimize collateral damage as we engage this enemy. additionally in the last week the president and secretary of defense of announced increase of 450 troops to support operations in the theater. these men and women from the us-led anti-isis coalition will advise and assist counter daesch enforcement to degrade the enemy. you may also be aware the recent addition of the b-52 to the overall coalition campaign. i would like everyone in this form to know my father once flew

b-52s in the 1970s. i would like everyone to understand to clear up any misconceptions of what it is capable of this is not my father's b-52. it is an upgraded the 52, extraordinary platform that strikes the same accuracy and precision every other coalition asset has struck in the recent past. finally in the high end of the spectrum of combat operations you might be aware we have begun to use our exquisite fabric capabilities in this fight against daesch. just another precision arsenal aimed at the heart of the daesch enemy in an effort to eradicate this vile cancer. i know inside the pentagon, the ap gets the first question so i appreciate you giving me the opportunity to coming and talk

to you all. first question. >> go ahead. >> good morning, thanks for doing this. a couple questions on the recent troop announcement. can you tell us whether or not some of these details have been worked out including how big an aircraft footprint will accompany special operations forces when they go into syria. i assume with medical teams and logistics, we are talking about some aircraft. can you give us some type of idea who that is and how many there are and one quick thing on iraq. the high marks going in, will that be used at the brigade and battalion level and will it move forward as iraqi forces move forward towards mosul or will it

move also? [tones]

>> the other party a voicemail, press 2. to return to the main menu press 3. to repeat this menu press zero. >> just not good. >> it is john griffin, how do you read? i can see you now. >> you are good. >> okay. okay. can you hear me? >> i can hear ou. >> but you can't hear us.

>> jeff, i cannot hear you if you can hear me. i can hear you but you can't hear me. sorry, folks. >> for folks in atlanta check your mute buttons. jeff, can you hear us? hello, 123, 321? >> i can hear you. can you hear me? >> we hear you fine. you can't hear us, sorry. >> i can hear you now. i am guessing we are buying ourselves out of a 5 second delay. >> that is probably right, we

can hear you fine, if you can hear us we were talking to lida. >> i don't know if you heard my question at all. oh no. >> i heard this question loud and clear so appreciate that. got to do with the increasing aircraft to support the presidential bump up of troops on the ground. he ran daily runs 1000 sorties a day, required to support to enable this team are going to be a hassle of those sorties. we will do everything we can to support them. i don't think it will be a major problem. the brigade level goes into turkey, we tell you that is the recent developments we have been

working on and we are looking at how it will be installed and we are working with strong partners in turkey to find out how it is going to operate. hi mark is a fantastic system that will range where we need it to range and work in combination with air assets. >> you are talking about in addition to the one that is in or plans to be in iraq or the one in iraq is moving toward mosul as iraqi troops move. >> that is a great question, two separate systems, one will be used in turkey in support of our operations in syria. the second one will be used in

support of our operations in iraq. >> will it move forward with the brigades or battalions with the iraqi brigades to mosul? >> absolutely. i will tell you more of an upset vain, it will be where we need it to be at any given time. it is a mobile system, very agile and we will put it where it needs to be, watching the briefing to stay with that. >> barbara starr from cnn. >> thank you for dealing with this, can we deal with civilian casualties and we understand the military's point, the concern about civilian casualties, can i ask you to be more specific on a couple things.

as you constantly move additional operations in and around mosul and rocca where you have civilian populations, what concerns does this raise for trying to execute an air campaign and keep civilian casualties to a minimum, how do you deal with that problem? does it change your calculations in any way? can you describe some of that? >> i will tell you we have to measure every weapon and every effect we bring to the battle space. it doesn't change the way we operate, we always have a precise system that is highly vetted and highly precise as it engages the enemy anywhere it presents itself. the enemy is easier to engage you bring up a good point.

as we get to the highly congested environment of an urban operation like we had urban operations in ramani and urban operations in falluja it is a great concern to us. we make every effort, i will give you an example, we were engaging with the bulk storage facilities to finance and the facility had a southern section of mosul, major distributor of funds to daesch fighters we want supplies and security and involvement and occasionally a female and her children in and out of court. we actually saturated that with intelligence surveillance to get a patented life study and

formulated a plan to ensure that women and children and noncombatants were cleared of that bjective. we went as far as putting a hellfire on top of the building and airburst it so it wouldn't destroy the building, simply knock on the roof to ensure she and the children are out of the building and we proceeded with the operation. that is an example how we do this but we have to understand daesch is into the fabric of the people, they are using civilian force as human shields and we will fight and do everything possible we can to keep those civilian casualties to a minimum. >> follow up on two points. when you described this airburst over the buildings, did you see the women and children, did you observe them run out of the building? this is a technique is release of used in the past.

>> that is exactly where we took the technique and procedure from. it is called a knock operation. we absolutely did see the woman and child leave. interestingly enough, the men in that building, multiple men literally tripled over her to get out of the building and observed her leaving the building and she cleared the building and we began to process the strike. it is a difficult situation i will tell you. this particular event, because it ended up in a civilian casualty. as much as we tried to do exactly what we wanted to do and minimize civilian casualties those weapons release she actually ran back into the building, we watched, very difficult for us to watch and in the final seconds of the actual

impact, the good news of all that is we actually brought forth an event for review, we reviewed it with a thorough process, looked at everything we could do to mitigate that fact and it was unfortunate, but a congested environment we fight in. >> can you describe any cyber operations that proven to be successful against isis. >> as we yield the cybereffect on the battle space, the highest of secrecy as we proceed forward. i appreciate the question but appreciate the use of cyber,

very extensive capability, protect for future operations, i can tell you it is highly coordinated and very effective, and daesch will be in the crosshairs as we bring that capability to bear. >> in turkey -- >> two questions. one of the high marks of turkey and another in syria. how many of them would be provided. who would operate them as americans or tourists? >> we will be bringing a system into turkey with coordination of turkish government, our great partners will keep operational

them to a classified level so rest assured our strong earners in turkey, this fight against daesch are involved as the operation goes forward. >> discussion in turkey given rockets firing into turkish cities security zones in northern parts of syria may prevent these incidents but based on your experience do you think security zones in the northern syria can prevent rockets firing into a major borders? >> i believe as we go after daesch to take any innocent life shooting rockets,

artillery, we will take them down and take care of this. >> the troops that will be deployed to syria to what extent special operations help forces fighting daesch over there? >> these troops advise and assist and train very effective force to encounter daesch. >> next to joe. >> to follow up on the question, in addition to what the high marks will do to counter the rockets from isil could you explain to us if this system will play a role in securing or

encountering isil, could you tell us if this system will play a role in future operation in rocca? >> let me clear up high marks situation. that is simply one of many systems the coalition is bringing to fight this enemy. we have fighters remotely piloted aircraft, cyber and high marks. we will bring everything to bear against this enemy wherever it presents itself. >> next, voice of america. >> i want to follow up on the announcement made last week by ash carter in baghdad.

he mentioned an additional 217 troops but i haven't seen a change in the number of troops on the ground and he ran. when do you plan -- when do you guys plan on taking advantage of that additional number? >> i will take advantage of that number as soon as they show up. >> any idea when that is going to be. >> we are working on the process, we will get the right people at the right time working on capabilities to ensure it is a seamless operation, we have a highly paste operation going on, put them at the right place at the right time with the right tools, being briefed as that plan develops and we are ready to take and apply them to the

fight as soon as they arrive. >> expecting this in coming days or coming weeks? >> we all want an answer, i am going to hold up and tell you how and when and where they will get here. appreciate the question. >> next, thomas watkins. >> thanks for doing this. one point of clarification. what was the date of the operation you described? the number of civilian casualties had effectively doubled to 41. the increase came or coincided with the decision to delegate authority down so just looking at it it would appear that lowering of the threshold has

coincided with the increase in civilian casualties. the us -- for keeping tallies in investigating allegations others say they have been killed. the coalition ordinance, only 41 who died is unbelievable. how do you respond to that? >> i am the commanding general of all combat operations and i investigate the investigation reports, allegations, reports, that it allegations and allegations that do not come to fruition. as deputy commander of operations i will tell you that i am very acute to the

allegations going on internally and externally. it is a transparent process that i have a high level of confidence in. i assure you we investigate everyone that comes to us, your question about doubling of numbers, what we have done in the past it was changed recently, to go through the investigation process we are releasing that in a series of packages. you will see that change and we will begin to release them as they are investigated and brought forward for everyone to see, the investigations that are seen as investigated as validated and those who are not. the comment that it has changed due to the fact that there has been a lowering of authority does not have a direct correlation. what we are seeing, i have been

in this fight approaching one year, constantly changing environment, we are adjusting the way we engage the enemy as we get better and better at taking the fight to the enemy and we are seeing capabilities to have the responsibility at the lowest combat level has more fidelity to keeping civilians safe. having the eyes of the commander watching the fight directly have the responsibility is a safer operation and we are learning that and i'm in charge of the validating of both officers. and i have great trust in their ability to find and engage targets with great precision. if there are allegations the tied 12,000 i don't expect people put such propaganda out there on the net.

i ask them to bring bare fact that we have access to our facts. >> 12,000, the number 1200 could increase and can you give us the date on that? >> tom, i believe it was probably four weeks ago. we can pool the exact date for you a little later. we have done a lot of bank strikes and cash facilities have been completely destroyed, the ability to finance their war through oil refineries has been destroyed, their ability to keep tax of their taxes and a oppressor people have been destroyed. we have functionally taken down there counter information across their counter finance and that is what you are seeing on the battle space, significant

strategic damage against the enemy. >> can you give us an indication how many of these operations you describe get carried out, where you have it on top of the building first. >> we have tested the operation and executed the operation one time whether we are looking at other operations and opportunities, when we found out we have not had to execute that in the recent past, but one of our operational procedures when it presents itself. >> david martin with cbs. >> still on this knock operation is this the same operation that was listed in a press release by

last week as having produced one civilian casualty, is this the operation for which video of an airstrike against a cash storage site in mosul has been released the money being stored in the house of this a mere of finance and what happened to the emir of finance, was he killed by the strike? >> david, we have run -- >> we are going to leave this briefing to return to live coverage of the senate. bill setting 2017 spending on federal energy and water projects. justice sandra day o'connor in 1981. in fact, 75% of all supreme court