.. now a look at the use of capital punishment and whether the practice will ever and here in the u.s.. this discussion includes a lawyer who has represented clients facing the death penalty in the former u.s. solicitor general. from the aspen ideas festival in colorado, this is just under an hour. >> thank you all for being here. maybe the bravest decision that society makes outside of going to war is whether to apply the

death penalty and my name is dale. i teach law at georgetown and to run a supreme court practice. we are here to talk about the death penalty, where it's going and i can't imagine a better group of panelists. over here is the president of the southern center for human rights. you know in my mind the leading death penalty litigants in the country. and has been for a number of years traveling throughout the country to bring these cases. he had a big one in the supreme court or couple weeks ago ago which may be i will tell you a little bit about that he's been teaching at yale law school since 1993 which yesterday was significant because that was my first class on the death penalty which he taught and was just a marvelous in its rationale figure and it's a delight to be here with him. roy adams is the director of the center for effective justice of the texas public policy center.

mark does interesting work in the cause of the criminal justice system and is making the case for a conservative case for women -- limits on things like mandatory minimums or the over criminalization not on a defendant centered perspective about individual rights as much a son the return on investment idea. "politico" named him one of the top 50 thinkers in 2014. he graduated from the university of texas with all sorts of honors, clerked for a very prominent judge, judge garman on the fifth circuit so it's a delight to have you. let me start off by asking you what's going on with the death penalty right now just in terms of numbers wax they are really strikingly different. if we talk about the numbers of sentences that are opposed, not carried out but just opposed in the 1990s covered in the 300

like 314 death sentences as opposed to the 50 states in 1994. if you look at last year he was 73 so it's a much lower group, fewer people are getting acceptance to the death penalty in the terms of those executions are carried out the numbers are more striking. last year there were 28 executions are carried out. that's three times less than what happens for example in 1999 when there were 98 and the one number from 1990s. these go back three years and five years said compared in the 90s or 80s. you will see a very similar drop , striking drop. this year i think there were 14 execution so far in 2016 and it's not just the number of executions carried out but the fact that it's only occurring in a few places, few counties of

doing sentencing in carrying out those in executions. 35 states have had no executions in the last five years at all. this year i think it's been five states that if carried out the executions texas florida missouri georgia and alabama and then of course most prominently some states including nebraska that have outlawed the death penalty. when you think about like kind of human rights focus, and nebraska that's not exactly where you think of the vanguard of criminal justice reform and it's super interesting. there's a lot there for you guys to talk about but steve white at you tell me what you think is going on and how these numbers can be explained. >> the death penalty questionably since 2000 has been the a very margin a stick. we lived from 310 until he got down to the 200 down to the 100 to me got down to the 70s and the numbers have dropped like a

rock every year going down significantly. what's interesting is today many people who would never get the death penalty for people who were sentenced back in the 70s and 80s. those are the people being executed today so we are executing an old generation of people who by today's standards, i mean georgia july 14 will execute a fellow who was one of two who won a fight and he hit the other fellow and it turned out he died. that would never be a death case today. the prosecutor would seek it and the jury wouldn't -- would oppose it. that is one of the ironies of the death penalty d-day. there are number of other states that have repealed the death penalty in illinois would be one of the largest states but also in new mexico and new jersey and new york by judicial decisions

of the numbers and the executions that end up taking place, 80% have been in the south. the one thing about the death penalty as you say one of the most interesting points is 2% of the counties in the country account for over half of the death sentences and executions so 62 counties account for half of the executions and death sentences imposed out of the 3000 whatever it is, 300 counties that we have been the united states. in some like paris county taxes have executed 121 people. those are people sentenced to death in harris county and executed by the state of texas. that's more than any other state except texas itself. texas has executed a bit lower that in only two other states virginia and oklahoma have executed over 100 people but neither of them have executed as many as harris county so the

death penalty is very much a matter of a handful of counties across the country, l.a. county in california, those people don't get executed that gets sentenced to death. harris county gets executed quite quickly in florida and their others let it all depends on pretty much who the prosecutors and the quality of lawyers appointed to defend the people. in harris county people say how can there be that many? you have very aggressive prosecutors which johnny holmes was who seek the death penalty virtually every case and you assign lawyers who are so incompetent that in three cases in paris county defense lawyers fell asleep while they were defending death penalty cases. you put those two together and you can sentence a lot of people to death and then you get the person and equally bad lawyer to represent them in the appellate process and you can execute

people just like that and that's what they have done. >> you were very generous in your deduction we didn't mention 13 of the 28 executions last year were in texas and of course my mom is here who lives in houston. you are absolute write about that in texas isn't a leader when it comes to the number of people on death row. california, 743 but the last execution was 2006 and clarence brown waited 23 years and that's one of the new lines of argument in these cruel and unusual palm palm -- punishment to the point is waiting all the time and that's of particular concern because these individuals are all waiting in solitary confinement area they are automatically placed there because they got a death sentence for behavior once you were incarcerated. we had texas prison guards association, and say we want to end this practice because it's endangering us. the reason for that is they have

to take that person for the one-hour day they can leave that 36 where feed which is smaller than the bathrooms we have in our room here by the way. bear minimum recreation, that one hours dangerous for them because the 23 hours at that person indefinitely it's the old janis joplin line freedom is -- nothing left to lose and what you hold over them? absolutely nothing. it's a nightmare not only for the individuals but also by the prison guards charged with protecting them. >> what do you think accounts for the striking drop? at steve it sounds like one thing you are isolating his representation. harris county's representation isn't so good but is the representation, is it getting better elsewhere in the country or our defense lawyers blocking

executions that would otherwise happen? what's going on? >> is one of the big factors, one of the biggest factors as exoneration. we have had 156 people who were sentenced to death who were found later to be innocent. that's a sobering number when you think about it. texas last week i think it was robert robertson was to be executed, he was literally on the verge of being executed for being convicted of shaking his baby to death and now he's completely innocent. of course we learned a lot more about that than we knew before so it appears he won't be executed. this is as close as it gets in there have been at least two people in texas that willingham and an arson case and there's a great book called the wrong carlos if you want to read it. they were certainly innocent but executed by the state of texas of the execution of the innocent is one and the improvement of

lawyers. two states, georgia and virginia 10 years ago that capital agenda offices of people facing the death penalty were not represented by anybody with a bar garden of polls which is pretty much a standard. it still is in texas i'm sorry to say and the result has been that there hasn't been a death sentence imposed in georgia since march of 2014. this is remarkable for state they used to execute 10 or 15 people to death row every year. virginia went from a five-year period which is to death sentences so it changed tremendously from having people being represented i near do well up aholic drug-addicted alzheimer's unfortunately lawyers who really were just doing it for the money to having

people, this is all they do so they actually know what they are doing. i will say in the legal profession the idea that any lawyer off the street can represent somebody in a death camp -- penalty cases like saying i go to the airport of the pilots not there so i just fly the 747 back to atlanta myself. i mean. >> is also an issue resources. in texas counties gave $2000 to do a homicide capital case. in some counties. and then if you want forensic tests you have to go to the judge. the defense lawyer has to get permission from a judge for forensics tests and one out of 10 have been exonerated. even if you like the death penalty we have signatories on both sides of the issues. richard viguerie is concerned

about that penalty but if any of you like the death penalty for we are kind of in this trap because you have all these people on death row who are most never executing anyone and on the other hand people who like you say speed it up so we have more -- innocent people. >> with that bunch of different things going on what is about representation one is about exoneration and the other has to do with costs. ineffective representation as i understand several states and counties to have limits on how much they will pay on a capital basis. >> mississippian musset has changed recently $1000. >> $1000 total. the supreme supreme court said anybody who's a member of the bar and this was all kinds of criminal cases not just death penalty cases but if you were a member of the bar this was to save money have easily one of your duties was to represent a

criminal case. you go back home to be a real estate lawyer and you are doing tidal surges and closings and oh by the way we have the case for you and it might be a burglary case or it might be a death penalty case. you would be surprised that many people told me that the very first trial was a death penalty case. >> somebody told me that just the other day. charlie tyler who represented georgia as a lawyer his first case was representing tyler in a death penalty case. the federal courts threw it out. when the case came back the judge appointed the same lawyer buddy said well 17 years later maybe he has learned something in the meantime. that's what kind of cavalier attitude you often have about the lawyers appointed to represent these penalty cases. >> stevie wrote an article called something the death penalty not for the worst crime that the worst lawyer.

you know the deals of litigation better than anybody. lift us m. of these death penalty cases in the last five years that they have excellent lawyers. again it's a hard thing but give us a sense of what you think, what percentage of death sentences would not have been imposed if he really had excellent representation. >> just look at georgia, zero were you have lawyers that know what they are doing. most of those cases were absolved by plea bargain because the prosecutors. one other factor in the decline is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. so draconian sense but when i started a jury in georgia would say if we don't give the guy the debt talty when will we get out and the judge would say can't tell you. to happen hour later they would impose the death penalty now death penalty now they're told you have three choices the death penalty, life without parole life imprisonment without parole

and life with parole. of course they have a tendency to go for that middle compromise. both in the plea-bargaining and jury so today a prosecutor calculating the political advantage of going for the death penalty takes into account that if you are up against a good lawyer you may not get the death penalty. they spent a huge amount of time, money and resources in the jury may not impose the death penalty but i think the capital capital offender has learned to do is to create the moment ahead of time and resolve these cases with plea bargains and not risk the client being sentenced to death. >> okay so we talked about effective representation. we then mention exoneration. 106 people have been exonerated. i know your centers then one of their leaders calling for better dna testing. as i understand it the dna testf these exonerations, something

like 20 of 156 have been through dna testing. is that right and if that's so how do -- what are the mechanisms we want as a society to try to make sure we are getting the right people not just for representation but for the cases that are in a system which we be doing? >> one of the i guess tissues as witness lineup identification. a lot of people's memories are not perfect by any means and please don't follow us practices. they do this line up in a suggestive way to get the answer would want. we have had a problem of crime labs predicting crime lab should be independent but we have had a number run by the police police department of the das office and there has been some i would say very improper activities in some of these labs and in some cases intentionally doctoring evidence. i think they issue and you can speak to this is matters and how they litigated these matters but

their procedural matter sometimes to getting these in front of appeals courts even with new evidence. texas parks and told we have michael morton case. he was convicted for murdering his wife and for 26 years he was in a texas prison and he had to jump through all these hopes -- troops. the district attorney obstructed the dna testing and finally they had actions taken against them by the state bar which is great. one of them had to leave the country to find work. the second guy the curse me out in the legislature but the bottom line is michael morton before senate committee chairman whitmire asked amartya bitter having been in prison and he said i've had a long time to get over it. he's become an activist and we passed the michael moore to which prosecutors have to turn over all the exculpatory evidence as soon as they happen to the defense and so it's even a broader issue beyond the death

penalty to many instances prosecutors withhold the evidence. there was a scandal orange county reporter and is withholding evidence from the defense and the grand jury process not giving the grand jury the full information including the exculpatory information. >> mark you had talked about cost as well and i hear all sorts of different things about how the death penalty is more expensive because of the appeals process and so on. what is the truth of these competing studies and claims? >> well i think it is more expensive. it cost maryland $3 million to do a death penalty and because they are part and solitary confinement you are getting an additional cost of 90,000 a year if they weren't in solitary confinement. also cost is probably the main reason most people come that were the they to the death penalty. for many people it's a moral issue. certainly you can look at specific examples.

for example the strongest argument would be you have someone serving a life sentence in prison and killed another inmate what other sanction could you deliver? you can talk about serial killers and things like that. most of the numbers we are at now if you further circumscribed a too narrow cases you would get even more expected of a death of the machinery. a minute number of people being executed so you know it is this kind of i think the debate is almost being forced into practical terms in november of 2016 that the ballot measure in california to get rid of it. it narrowly failed last time in california but certainly could go the other direction. >> mark and steve ellis hear from you but you don't really think the moral claims are up for debate because i don't think the morality in society is changed a lot from the 1990s to today. what seems strikingly different

is numbers of something beyond i think morality. mark why did you start, in the end it must be something about the way it's been carried out three of. >> that's a great question and i think probably there's a whole host of reasons. prosecutors which we have seen prosecutorial abuse. i'm sure there were probably some african-american people a decade or two ago who supported the death penalty but it struck because of the racial vocations they are seeing. my guess is the combination factors in the interesting thing is you don't have to get 50/50 to have a huge effect on juries. they ask you could you impose the death penalty but in relative not everybody's going to be perfectly candid so you are going to get people offering to juries to say candidate lee

but may or may not impose it. >> i think new jersey was the first day to repeal. that commission that everybody law enforcement victims rights groups everybody in the came out out -- report the came out unanimously was it takes too long. every victimizes the victims because you have to go through an appellate process oftentimes a retrial like a case ahead of the supreme court, 28 years old. now we are going to go back and retry a 28-year-old case which is not good for the victim's family but the cost was a factor and then the risk of executing innocent people. the latest cost figures i have hot off the press there reading eagle ever guarded newspaper in reading pennsylvania who does excellent work just looked at pennsylvania.

since 1978 they found they have only executed three people in pennsylvania and all this time. it costs $272 million for each execution so the three together cost $816 million. that's three people over time period of 1978 to today. a lot of people do matter how they feel about the death penalty look at that and they say that's really not the greatest expenditure of government money when we have schools that need funding and when we have so many other things that we could be spending that money on and quite frankly just the criminal justice system i see people in all kinds of cases getting the same kind of representation i described in a capital case. we could move a lot of that money. we have spent a huge amount of money at least in the state of pennsylvania is a lot of money around these cases that could be spent to make sure we are not convict innocent people in other

kinds of cases as opposed to really devoting a huge amount of money. there was a california study is set between 1978 and 2011 california spent $4 billion on the death penalty and it doesn't execute hardly anyone. >> that's why that the ballot -- or would pass last time. even if you are for the death penalty it's just hard to comprehend and defend that. >> and the cost benefit if you look at it we could be spending money on other things. >> steve do these figures offered a kind of false comparison to cassettes you said every state now that has the death penalty also has a life without parole statute so it's not as if we are talking about the death penalty are these people on the streets. we are talking about the death penalty versus a very extreme

sentence of being imprisoned or the rest of one's life did i suspect that some of those costs that we are currently incurring with the death penalty would be transferred over for a life without parole costs. >> at nowhere near the enormity of the capital cases because when you try life or death if you are doing it right you have a number of lawyers on the case and you are doing a complete life history the client. you are going to do some of those things. in georgia today the prosecutor does not have to seek the death penalty. they just seek life without parole and those cases are pretty much like other criminal cases. they mode -- may go to trial but there's no penalty phase which is a big part of capital cases. >> this might be counterintuitive but is there an argument because we spend a lot of resources of a death penalty cases and trying to get everywhere harris county except except -- except that if we got

rid of the death penalty we'd have less justice rather than more because society will allocate those resources currently to the tough cases and not really fight the likes of those cases as much? >> that's a tough question because one of the armies that i see in the states that have ponied up and. money to do the capital cases right if someone does a terrible crime and faces the death penalty and they get all these lawyers and social workers and investigators and then you have somebody charged with -- an 18-year-old kid may not be guilty of armed robbery that they may have a lawyer were one single public defenders carrying 150 cases and an investigator for 150 cases of there's no question people facing the death penalty in some places are getting much better were% asian. i believe we could take those resources and put them into the armed robbery case so that lawyer has spoken out as an

investigator mcado better job at the most fundamental responsibility the system has separating the guilty from the innocent. we are failing at that. spectacularly. >> neffenger' question when you have more prosecutors more state prosecutors are freed up in what would the impact of that be and of course you could argue on one hand it would be more people sentenced to prison but on the other i've heard prosecutors like when we pushed legislation to allow victim and offender mediation they said we don't have enough manpower to identify cases where this would be appropriate to do likewise would have enough manpower to identify cases where someone has substance abuse or mental illness should be devoted. we would play out to see whether they should be in the federal justice system or diverted entirely. the district attorney in milwaukee has established neighborhood prosecutor's offices that handle these cases in the neighborhood. he argues having more prosecutors can divert more

people on the criminal justice system. >> what about the pharmaceutical industry as we read a front-page nerc "times" article pfizer has announced it's going to block access for its drugs for the injection protocol following what other big pharma companies have been. as i understand five states right now have the death penalty and on hold for their lethal injection protocol. do we expect that to be a significant strain on the death penalty in the future? >> of course you talked about the solution and they brought back the firing squad which i think they had a 1977. maybe john lennon would be a good place to start but you know a person can choose which method they want but i think the other issue that's related to this is state attorney generals are issuing opinions and legislation saying coming come exempt in all

of this from open records for many public transparency so you cannot get a freedom of information request to find out the details of these drugs and how they are administered and everyone saw in oklahoma what happened where this man was withering on the vine from this so i don't blame the european drug companies. pfizer may be worried they can be sued for providing something that would kill someone in united states it would be used that way. it is creating a strain and now the reaction is to shield that from public view. >> that's a tactic which we see a lot of. there are all these problems, we have all these problems with people that carry it out and don't know what they are doing. all of this and so the answer, make it all secret so nobody knows what's going on so we can't bring a lawsuit to say wait a minute the drugs they are using are not reliable for

bringing about a person's death and the people that are doing this really shouldn't be doing it. it's all secret in the federal court in the state court have allowed it to remain secret so they are all in the dark now. .. killing human beings is like a medical procedure. and the doctors heal people and. but the notion that we are sanitizing the execution by lethal injection is doomed to failure.

we have people that our trained as sharpshooters they'll shoot at the same time it is quick and it is paid less a you don't have any of the problems but we have lots of problems. lots of problems. all sorts of things. but back to the drug companies. >> i think if we went to a firing squad for those firing squad executions know whether state does that even in utah people get upset but if you kill people then pony up to what you're doing we're telling people.

the back to the drugs no drug companies now to carry out a legal injunction but they will even shirley but it is the compound in pharmacy on the eight circuit said babied nothing more than a high street chemistry class. i have been in pharmacies where they mix it for you then they give it to you. and then they inject into the people. that is where we are going because you have that the

drugs were cloudy. its they appeared to be contaminated. they thought they had the right drug and they discovered they had the wrong drug is of having what they thought they had it was different drug which was a disaster so on the ground where this is happening we're not dealing with the best who medical people. so we end up using at&t. in, pounding pharmacies. that is too bad in my

opinion. >> in georgia we're about to kill someone that will be the 12th person in the last two years all executions. they have been able to pull off. just like in oklahoma when they told him he did not die he would just fall out a.m. flop all-around. >> what is going on with the secrecy? but to impose discipline and punishment. but whole book is out executions are in the town square.

where in the center of the cities and a warning to people now we do the executions at midnight local time wherever they are the access to what is happening is not classified wedding is accounting for that trend? >> that is the year that the attorney general's are worried with a drug company to be the target of a vigil launcelot -- vigilante is some and was one of the core principles in this thing gets worry some with this area alone so it is a broader issue being monocyte

out of mind by the way that presents are not eight air-conditioned someone is about 130 degrees so we need to focus on the 30 square feet no daylight with those horrendous conditions that these individuals are consigned to with prison and a life without parole you have the death penalty and what that person to be miserable. >> a couple of things space back to the death penalty as it was declared unconstitutional 1972 there were all these problems they

thought that that it would be fair and consistent talk about remarkable arrogance with racism or poverty that will not do any good at all as it was back in the olden days but if we have the death penalty she says for timothy mcveigh. that is like john wayne gacy or ted bundy but if you look first of all, he sees tremendous racial disparity well over 50 percent of the murders but so many of our kids.

to try and hold it up. these are not the worst of coerced. >> but now that these people so these are the people.

they don't understand -- to see how the letter warns or obviously she is smart enough to do that so he avoids that in so many of the people that have committed a into the courtroom and issue the judge or the court reporter this guy didn't get the death penalty. >> but that is the very

important issue because it is the getaway driver that agreed to go rob the store but he didn't sign up for murder by could be executed. of felonies carried out in the course of the felony someone dies even if you had nothing to do with it it is murder you can be charged. >> one of the things we are working on is that criminal intent element. but there is up push back relating to environmental crimes but as this comes up in the sentencing phase whether it is murder but still it should be you cannot get the death penalty for felony murder because she didn't have the intent

to kill somebody. >> to go one step further very often the person at the center of the action goes to the core housing gets a plea bargain to testify against the others that are not nearly as centrally involved with there's so much stronger evidence. >> this is a lovers' triangle it is not punishable by death there lot of people would not be around. [laughter] the boyfriend at checkout the husband and had blood they had a locked case against him but for her he had to plead deal he is out on parole he is eligible but she did not take the deal she was nowhere near she

certainly should go to prison but she was tied down and put down by the stated jerk -- the state of georgia so that is tricky 95 or 97% all resolved by a plea bargain most prosecutors never want that but they will take every opportunity they can get there is an overwhelming majority in these cases that they will not go to trial so phooey sentenced to death is very much a random matter of

dropped -- geography of some of poverty and not a very principled distinction that if anybody gets the death penalty this is the person that gets it. >> peas are systematic concerns but i am sure your own life you are involved in the case and may not be famous before the victims of the crime it is. they feel that way other than as 13 cases with intellectual disability i assume you are confronted and say what are you doing? >> asia get to know the families of victims that is important to many times they are willing and want to bury

their signing get the case over with there is no closure. if you think about it every christmas or every thanksgiving watching the execution will not help. and it is somewhat of a fraud to watch him be executed. >> even with texas. but it is quite understandably but

ultimately society has to make the decision so much from the human community. and it is directed as a family it isn't terribly objective when it comes to that decision but i am surprised at how many people said as part of my clientele. >> in this will keep going for many years. >> really have 10 minutes left for questions does it

go away with marriage she quality there is still a huge opposition? the by the conventional wisdom something even john mccain supports even places like illinois it looks like california may go this way it to strike down the death penalty.

>> i didn't mean to throw cold water but a lot of people are talking about marriage to quality but the difference is that everybody learned over time. everybody that they knew were gay. very few people have somebody on death row. the case is that we will study that would all be crimes but this is some of the most god awful you have never seen i cannot believe human beings could do things like this. that makes it very hard politically and i think the support is still 60 or 70% in the abstract and you actually sit down that is

why i think this incredible decline is so significant because it shows that talk radio will say that is ridiculous you wouldn't take into a child's crib and pull off the arms and legs of their animal in see what help that person and what they went through but when we measure that we all eliminate them from the human community they are responsible if we will not forgive them the we have all of these punishments for life with and without parole

but as the numbers go down is in the old confederacy because it is just the five states and the supreme court nobody knows that but once we find out a penalty used this rarely is q -- cruel and unusual. >> another way to work at la daschle debt is the groundswell to bring it back like this genie at of the of bottle they did not find that the marriage was less valuable i agree with what

he said it doesn't touch in all the ways that maybe there is a similarity they miss the despot -- death penalty so much obviously it is what you call cruel and unusual punishment but what is cruel and unusual is the time it was written at that time they were tarred and feathered so that might be cruel and unusual based on that approach that is the decency where the majority is they look to the state in tammany executions which is why a lot of original list will complain about the of

valuation. >> it does look at the marriage equality with death penalties to get rid of the prohibitions and the political route there is the bunch of recent success with no backsliding but it is harder to imagine so i do think the courts are were we will see action if you need the judges' vote to get rid of the death penalty. that is my view i think that justice kennedy has the very heartfelt you about decency in like marriage where they have no special expertise

and they do it in this area they do know how sentencing is implemented held in the wind up at the supreme court a few hours if the execution was last-minute? they see this day in and day out that is why many regard this tortillas of their lives come out against the death penalty or have more misgivings there are four justices for those democratic presidents and i think justice kennedy and one of the prosecutors and there were three federal executions but it is my view

the cases should be brought to the court with a strategy that was outlined. >> that was a very damaged brand in there is a general exceptions everybody thinks that will be gone in a few years. nobody really says he will expand the death penalty. but how do we get there? and they say let's abolish the death penalty there is had groundswell support but not like there would have been in the '90s.

>> all the way in the back. >> what are the thoughts about putting money into rehabilitation? in removing death sentences? >> i took the tour and it was striking even those that commit the most serious offense that would typically be 15 years and that is similar to what we do. it in reality they use it quite sparingly if we had it here would it be used? for those that determine after 15 years but it isn't the same.

but that preventative detention center you have tremendous freedoms like it was an apartment with that big restriction. but that is how they have chosen to approach that in europe. so i think that does provide an example of what we can do. >> one lost question. >> do you see a future?

>> limit to say this in many of them and then do say if you had it to get the death penalty we will not see life without parole. life without parole is no help whatsoever. and with no incentive to behave himself. this is not good correctional policy. it for yourself many it is so young. >> to say you have no chance you will die.

des is incredibly cool. >> but as long as we have the death penalty sad believe that that is true. a fabulous discussion. [applause] >> we had a rough of bringing it was involved in the street and they were selling drugs so it was the

thing to do. resold marijuana, cocaine, crack cocaine so was on the street from 13 and 18 years old. >> i criticized police a lot. that is a small percentage. >> you hear about them. and then you hear about the bad cops. it then if you look at their background then they complain the use of force if

it was is satiated he was a mass. . . to this important discussion of our nation's anti-poverty programs.

for some time now the leadership of aei shows greater attention needs to be paid to those helping the economic scale move us out of poverty. there is a deep frustration despite the fact we do a lot for the country to improve the material well-being for struggling americans we are not helping them achieve a station in life where they no longer are in need of ongoing government support. this frustration i know is felt in a lot of places. at the white house, in academia and other think tanks, neighborhoods and communities around the nation and in congress. to offer some ideas on how we can move forward, republican study committee of the house of representatives earlier this summer produced this report colonco strengthening the safety net which will be the topic of today's seminar. and we are pleased to have three members of the house today to talk about their report and here

reactions from notable experts on the programs. but first, and perhaps most importantly, we are going to start outside of washington. and hear from experts in the field of helping low-income americans moving up. they work in places far removed from the halls of congress about their work has informed some of the ideas contained in the steering committee's report. i have a special affinity for these outside of washington experts, as that is where i worked prior to coming to washington. i spent 19 years working in social service agencies in the state and city of new york and i have some idea of the dedication, hard and wisdom of people who work in peace programs, and i always love to be among them. so i'm very pleased to welcome and introduce to you the first panel which features three 3 mef community-based organizations.

first will be owed l. cleveland the administrative officer for the baptist church in greensboro north carolina. he was the president, ceo and cofounder of the welfare reform liaison project i project in gr, which began in 97 as the nation's first faith-based community action agency. he's developed a broad range of partnerships at national, state and local levels including the white house neighborhood partnership, the north carolina aarp and north carolina medical society foundation. we are glad to have you back don't start it because i'm going to introduce roberta and dean. roberta keller is afghan antipoverty agency headquartered in new york. as director, she worked to foster economic development opportunities for low-income individuals to help them gain economic independence. they've been awarded several distinctions and she's been

director including the department of housing and urban development home ownership of work in a best practice agency status by the state department and new york state community action association technology award. in 1999, she was awarded the visionary director award by the coordinating council, a council i was a member of sublime particularly happy to have you come and she received the women of distinction award in 2005. dean hammond has worked in while income and homeless housing more than 30 years including founding a company focused on hud housing software. he joined the part of the boarde foundation for affordable housing in 2004, served as the chair man and was contracted as the president before stepping down in 2012. he is now a consultant to the board. dean is a retired army major and was awarded the purple heart and distinguished cros cross in the vietnam war and the defense territory as metal as the chief of aviation of the military

training mission in saudi arabia. after these three presentations, people have the congressman, and present on sections of the report and then the professor coulter and doctor angela come and make comments on that report and during parts of this at different times, we hope to have a dialogue with the audience as well with questions. i have one other person to introduce, and she's here somewhere and that is nicole who isn't a timekeeper. she's over there and will be giving the signs so we can keep everybody on schedule. i'm sorry to say, but that's part of what happens when you try to run a well-run seminar. i want to say one last thing about seminars, because roberta is from the county. some of you may know the institute as one of the earliest sort of institute of good thinking and sharing of ideas in the united states and when

president johnson was president, he would get frustrated with things and say we are going to have one of these darn seminars. that didn't get a laugh i was hoping for but that's okay. [laughter] the point is, this is something like that. we want a free and open discussion, an and without i wil start with odel. >> i've want to say thank you for coming. when they talk about the time, everyone looks at the baptist preacher and says that's who you need to keep the time for. we got -- first, glad this discussion is on the table in a form that goes on both sides of the aisle. when i read the book the conservative heart and look at the other reports, it's interesting because 20 years ago when i got into this business life as a divinity school doing my masters thesis on the 96 welfare reform act and the thesis was the black church response to the 1996 welfare reform act.

in that piece of paper, we talk about how can we do this. and then ten, 15 years later we were able to move folks up to the point that they had about $11 million of earnings. while we didn't do a good job of is to document how much saved us if odell was on the system. if you look at that number line we start looking at how much savings did it come to the bottom line. but when you start looking at the human impact of folks lives, how all of a sudden people start feeling good about themselves because they were working, all of a sudden they were successful. all of a sudden you had the faith community and the black community that so many people believe in and out on the front lines of helping people give them a hand up and not a handout and being a cheerleader and helping them and going into the community, helping business owners say the same, you don't have to go halfway around the

world on a mission trip. i have a mission for you around the corner. exercise your faith and get involved. let's help create jobs an and helpful these kind of things and that's how we became so successful. but you have to understand one of the things we did is the fact that people who didn't want help, we left them alone. you cannot make somebody want to change. i think in part of the discussion in the papers a lot of it you want to make or encourage someone to get married or someone that's been married 31 years, i love my wife and all that good stuff, that's for the younger guys in the group, you have to want to be married. no former legislation is going to make someone gets married. but i was so disappointed when i read the current administration took the work requirements have. the work requirements must be put back in and stay in because that is a big driver that helps

make this work. if you are asking the social workers isocialworkers and assie department of social servic socs we refer to the north carolina, that's not going to work. so when you partner with us usually we give the hardest to serve because people understand the game. they usually give the hardest to serve, how you are going to gett this person and that's how we do our miracles. no hocus-pocus, just going and building relationships with building business owners getting them to the ie iaea in and makea success. then you go back to the individual and get him or her to buy into. a new. soapy leave the baptist preacher is going to push the time on because i look forward to the discussion and i'm excited to have this conversation because in spite of people's biases and

stereotypes about poor people especially poor black people who look like me a lot of the stereotypes are not asterisks and my purpose here today is to make you show success and show people want a hand up not be handed down. a lot of the problem is systemic and i will end with this some people have seen the safety net which is a metaphor and they've turned it into a hammock. some people see poverty as a pillow and just maybe it has some lumps but you can get used to a lumpy pillow. but you stay in the safety net or the hammock long enough and that will be there to protect you and end up in driving you and and tangling you for life issues and when you get ready to move you can't live.

we looked for the enemy and the enemy was us. some say i'm not going to do anything and then we bring us for what we created. i should go to the next person. thank you. >> thank you. my name is roberta heller. i'm the director of the community action agency, an anti-poverty agency and our mission is to assist people living in poverty people are vulnerable to falling into poverty and getting into poverty creating economic opportunities for the community to get out of poverty and to discover in our local community exactly what it is that is causing or assisting people to slide down

economically into economic situations. in our agency labor: stickley with the people that we serve meaning that when you come, when you have a problem that affects all parts of your life so we are not there yet to deal with your children or housing or just your health. we deal with all of it. when you come you will be risk assessed across the different life domains based on the risk we will find all of the services you are eligible for the people measure you against the continuum of care that tracks you from crisis to economic security. our goal of course is for everybody to be self-sufficient to reach the middle of that continuum. but our hope for everybody is that they move towards economic security.

it's a validation of the proce process. we are not as economically secure as we thought we were so we are teaching sound financial principles and training people to be responsible to take responsibility in their lives and we use our services and our and i'm probably agency that covers. we are a development corporation and financial institution, a licensed home care agency, child care research and referral agency as many titles that allow us to do a whole plethora of services for people and assist people to develop their own plan toward economic security. plus our continuum does is it shows people where they are. for most people living in poverty they are in generational

poverty and they don't realize where they are or where they can be. we don't take somebody that's homeless and talk about homeownership. we take people from where they are and look at the next rung along the continuum, and that's something they can relate to and understand the collateral cost of where they are today. so incrementally, they make that process. they make short and long-term plans, and we assist them across the continuum. we track and measure tho incomes. we've been doing this about 20 years. we are in evidence-base an evid, and it works. >> the current president of the foundation for affordable housing and i like to think aei and the congressman for having us here today discussed this topic and we are all part of the topic and we have to find solutions to the problems.

the affordable housing has been in the business for 22 years and i'm going to focus it right down to that and talk about a model we talk about and support and roberta brought up several areas of the concerned agencies that we use. but in any case we built in 1994 to 100 unit facility to house the homeless and we came to find out that many of them fall into a couple of categories especially those who are on some sort of a disability or welfare payments where they have an average of $815 to live and that isn't going to change. they paid $360 a month and that is more than a 30% of the income going away from that model considerably. they have an affordable place to

live and continue to live there safely and some of them it is the last place that they will ever lived. in 2005, we constructed the veterans weighing that is a 30 unit facility that was published by that grand and some tax credits and home funds. we used that with a support intensive transitional housing program supported by the veterans administration grand per diem program. we have men and women in the program and they can be in that program a maximum of 24 months, and that is part of the program. some of them labeled transitional housing advocates and the case at all. if you give an opportunity to provide the tools and incentives they can develop to a good citizen and move on and what the target is his own subsidized housing, permanent unsubsidized housing and certainly they can continue on up the ladder as roberta talked about.

the model is the one i'm going to talk about today. i will be referencing some statistic associated in the program over the last 43 months and whether we speak of a model like this for a way to try to turn a life an around before it goes completely bad we look at the checklist of the objective. stable housing, good environme environment, permanent work, work, training and education, two different things. when we look at the models what do we find in there all the time, structure it's always structure and that's the key fact there. they give uniform structure, special programs. the military same thing, prisons unfortunately. sometimes they go back to that. and family, structure again. so we have to create an

environment where they can create their own structure. now it's mostly about we are going to treat you as a good citizen until you are one. it isn't one-size-fits-all. we have to look for the person. we are looking for a specific client. he or she may never have been in jail or probably has an addiction and has no structure. now here is the decision. we can enroll the individual in the course offered by the university of incarceration where he or she can learn the skills, have access to drugs, meet influential people, have bad checks, still not pay their child support, graduated with a degree in recidivism, go back to the environment where they left and returned to prison in three years, 68% were in five years 77%. 84% of inmates, 24 or younger will be back in jail within five years and there will be no family reconciliation war we

could enroll this individual in the course of study by the addiction life recovery that's already to the addiction as we well. targeted job training or seeking, meet influential people, be drug and alcohol test often, complete dave ramsey's financial peace university, dress appropriately, have a resume and a key component, one of the components, participate in a mandatory savings program. we are going to help you get a job that you are going to do savings and that program is kind of a adjusted. 33% of the adjusted income into thincome intothe building to tht first it will do for savings. our veterans saved an average of $2,200 per veteran. 94 over the last 43 months have saved $206,885. these are homeless people that come to us.

124 participate124 participatede $259,000. a quarter of a million dollars. to b be up-to-date on the child support for the habit of paying rent starting in the second quarter of the program do not go back to the environment of the left. moving to permanent housing. permanent housing, e.g. 6.4% is the percentage right now. moving to the non- subsidized housing, 74%. and family reconciliation networks. remember they came to us homeless and penniless. penniless. let's do the comparison in the university. federal prison the average in 2014, $30,619. a state prison of new york, 60,000. the city of new york, jail, 167,731 a year. it is just more money. the university of life recovery,

$22,900 a year. so i asked you which on ask yous better, 30,000 or 23 or 167,023. these are the three news bulletins. 48-years-old a white female served a drug year sentence. in a program 15 months working part-time three jobs, saved and because she got a match for another program paid cash for her car and furniture and she says i will not be returning to prison and working to reuniting with her daughter. so, this is not a giveaway. you have to work to what you're doing in the program. 92% can really change their lives. 86% can be a stable life condition and 72% can be a permanent place for the job. this is the reality of rebuilding a life. thanks.

>> can i say one thing? all practitioners that have been successful if you have discovered that it take us comprehensive and we have the same approach with our customers the money of the funding for the antipoverty programs do not follow this approach and it takes an organization to step back. we have a model and we will find the money and use the money to follow our model. we won't be an agency that implements the contract. government contract, the anti-poverty program are not designed at all in any of the ways you heard the three of us talked about and they are not in

any way measuring success or breeding success. there's not one government contract that i operate but requires an outcome, and i operate $17 million worth of government contracts and none of them require one outcome. i've taken those contracts and put them on the side burner and used them as tools and bend them in order to make them work to help people change their lives and apply them when they are appropriate. for example, and eiffel use these to very brief examples if i can. the section eight subsidized housing is extremely useful if you don't tell somebody they can for the rest of their lives which they can. but you don't told them that. and you accuse it at the right time and the right way and the

way it was designed to be but has become a crutch that allows people to live in poverty forever as you said. the other is the energy assistance which we go to great length as an agency to help people develop sound financial practices and to establish good credit and many seniors who fallen into hard times since 2008 and/o2008 and are on a fixe and they are partying and in order to get to new york state, the full energy assistance which isn't going to carry you through the winter anyway, you have to default on your bill and you will ruin your credit and when they default, the energy company shuts them off into charges everybody if he and the companies don't lose money, they go to the commission to say we

lost money last year so we are going to raise the rate for the subsidy for the person on energy assistance is now defaulting to get the full benefit and that is costing the taxpayer more money because the rates will go up rap because the utility companies are paying more money. all you have to do is pay the company to give eligible customers a subsidized energy rate and cut out ten layers of bureaucracy and stop putting people into default. this is a small example of every antipoverty program that exists. every single one of them is flawed and needs to be reworked together but they are all operating in the government silos and it takes an organization who offered either many kinds of housing programs to be able to step back and take

that approach. >> i will make a few comments on what i heard. we heard about work requirements and coordination among programs serving the whole person as opposed to one aspect of the person and we heard about the federal role it seems to be clear that there is a federal role helping low-income americans. the people on the frontlines recognize that, providing resources, money and assistance and finally we heard about local control, the ability of localities and local leaders to structure the programs the way they want. i also think i heard the willingness to accept evidence and measurements to hold you accountable.

we have three distinguished congressman from the house of representatives and going in order we will start with the congressman who served in the house of representatives from kentucky's sixth congressional district since 2014. the members of the financial services is creating a better environment for job creation and economic growth and the priority is included promoting economic development for wages for families. he's serving his full third term in congress representing the 23rd district. he's engaged in the house of hof representatives antipoverty efforts and efforts of tax reform, energy security and manufacturing policies. before his time in congress, he was a small-business owner working in the wall and real estate and public service began

in 2008 was a successful run in his hometown. in the finger lakes one of the beautiful parts of america i wanted to that plug-in, that's where my mother grew up. congressman walker represents the sixth district in the house of representatives and is currently serving the first term in congress and the house committee on oversight government reform, homeland security administration. he's a member of several caucuses including the bipartisan historically black college and university caucus. he was elected and served as a pastor, music and worship pastor and lead a pastor. wpastor. we are pleased to have you here. congressman barr, you are first. >> thank you for hosting this important forum for my colleagues and to our constituents who have come to share their stories in combating poverty. i would like to thank dean

hammond and lexington kentucky who demonstrated through their model is successful model of combating poverty helping people recovery from addiction. the urban poverty and th in ther eastern part of my congressional district we have a number of counties that are designated severely economically distressed as a part of the reachable commission and there is poverty not just my congressional district throughout appalachia and through the country. after years on the war on poverty and taxpayer dollars spent i think it's fair to say that washington has failed many americans who are most in need. the inertia has crept into the government officials who refuse to give up o on failing policies that they almost treated as a dogma. for example housing and urban

development secretary julian castro, who appeared before the house financial services committee again this week pushed the housing first model that ignores all other factors while being. when he testified before the committee i asked him how he measured success and he responded to putting a roof over someone's head and he touted a number of people in public housing was increasing. but is that an appropriate measure of success, most such as alcohol and drug recovery programs focus on the number of people that they've actually helped achieve sobriety or recovery and not how many are currently in the program. we need to focus on outcomes. there will always be the need for safety net programs, and for those that have fallen on hard times to assist those that

cannot work for just the seniors and disabled. but it should be how many people are struggling in poverty. the measure shouldn't be how many people are struggling in poverty and bar propped up by taxpayer dollars. it should be how many people have we helped achieve state poverty and achieve upward mobility and the american dream. despite the $22 trillion spent on the poverty program since the announcement in th in the great society that rates have been essentially leveled. today there's about 46.7 million people including more than one in five children who are struggling in poverty. and worse measurements of the mobility appear to be in the wrong direction as the business formation and entrepreneurship are not a general low. so you are likely to remain in poverty today as you were in the

great society announced in 1965 and that's obviously the reverse of the american dream that we all share. so more of the same cannot be the solution. that's why my colleagues and i working empowerment initiative have produced a comprehensive review of the federal programs to inform the legislative proposals to create a new model and this is a better way to fight poverty. my focus has been on housing reform, an issue in the jurisdiction of the committee. they can no longer treat those as warehouse liabilities are publicly assisted housing. our fellow americans want to recognize the full potential contributing to the communities, to the body politic and the natural economy. and of course arthur brooks in the american enterprise institute so eloquently put it in his book the conservative heart when he talked about poor

people as not being liability for some distant remote government bureaucracy in washington, d.c. but they are dormant assets and the view that work is not a punishment. work is a blessing that gives people an opportunity to achieve their potential and to give back to their fellow human beings. the most effective program known to man is a good paying job. that's why we are advocating requirements for able-bodied individuals and housing to get people back in the workforce and reduce poverty and is the cost of tax payers. the more assistance, the more people we can reach with limited federal resources. this model has worked before. we are building on the success of the 1996 welfare reform model that led to the increasing 15%

and dramatically reduced child poverty. poverty. and in recent years they have been chipped away and the result speaks fo[inaudible] themselves for the low participation rate. the lowest participation since the late 1970s. our plan also improves flexibility for states and encourages the establishment of the pilot programs to test innovative assistance models like those demonstrated by the panel. the word of dean's hammond isn't compatible with the hud housing first model. we must break down such arbitrary barriers that would meaningfully improve lives. warehousing poor people is not a solution. identifying the underlying causes of homelessness and dealing with those issues is a better approach. we should also show the beneficiaries receive unemployment, food assistance and housing benefits on one place while getting their

questions answered quickly to avoid being caught in the red tape and the plan would also encourage competition so that scarce resources for the vouchers for housing would not be simply allocated to one public housing authority but instead, the housing authority is out there that are doing a good job helping people graduate into the non- subsidized situations they would be reworded for services that are actually working and they would take on a greater responsibility and i believe we should open up to the institutions of society, faith-based institutions, churches, synagogues and nonprofit organizations that have better results when it comes to graduating people from public assistance into self-sufficient situations. finally the plan results and accountability. no more useless matcher x. or

statements. programs administered by state and local governments are not moving to self-sufficiency than they shouldn't deserve to taxpayer support. one definition is doing the same thing expecting a different result. washington's approach to fighting poverty is insane and has been a failure. we must do better to ensure no american is limited by the conditions of his or her birth or unexpected hardship. if we worked together on the legislative solutions i do believe that we could restore the american dream. thank you. [applause] thank you to my colleagues for joining me here today to odell and roberta and dean for sharing this story and taking on poverty.

i will tell you i'm often asked why. why have you made this a priority and the fundamental answer to the question just as many of you, i care and i'm a republican member of congress and i told my mission in life in congress is to penalize people and judge people and not show any compassion for people and i can tell you we do care. they just offer a different way. i will share the story of my life with you and the story being the youngest of 12. they were given a curveball in life and given a choice you can either develop a chip on your shoulder, gets knocked down and never get it back up or you can take that curveball and make lemonade and get back up.

you can smile and count your blessings and treat each other with respect and that is the lesson she turned to me. when i got out of school on a represented the attorney is appointed foattorneysappointed s actions throughout the court system i've met with one of my clients has an 8-year-old young man in western new york as robert pointed out and it was essentially at appalachia. i asked him what do you want to be when you get older to develop a relationship in that proceeding and the response was eye-opening, essentially what do you mean? this is what we do. i thought he would say astronaut or police officer, cure cancer, something like that but then it dawned upon me.

how could i expect that young man when he's 21, 22 to know anything different than the life that he was exposed to? that's the cycle of poverty that i have seen firsthand. when i come to this issue from the perspective we need to do better the status quo in the federal government that has been taking over the war on poverty for decades just doesn't work. i'm influenced by a lot of leaders in the country i and former leaders and i see jimmy his father comes from western new york. jack is someone i looked up to each and every day and what he taught us to be is a happy warrior to look at people in the eye and recognized the potential that is their. they just don't do that. the silos that have been talked

about recognizing under our proposal the better way we need to look at the realistic approach. i've represented her in the county and she's doing amazing work. when you deal with poverty it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. when you have solutions that not only cause you to be penalized when you work but we also have a life-changing impact you lose your daycare and heating assistance and boost your transportation assistance our policies need to be coordinated and have to look at the entire approach as well as the better way looking at work and

recognizing we can be there during that time to offer some type of assistance via cash assistance for the crisis situation that takes care of the individual for the moment. we need to stand with them to get the skill set and education that will empower them for a lifetime. it's the old adage you give a man a fish yo and teaching for a day, teach them to fish and you take care of him and the next generations to come. that's the policy you see here today we have to break the silos of bureaucracy and stand with work. the other reason we are standing with work as a member i get chastised old to want to do this penalize people and force them to work. work .-full-stop to me is work is good because it not only gets a paycheck that i've talked with people that have received the first check after going through life struggles and its reworded

their souls. it's touched them here. it's allowed them to take pride in ownership and what they achieved and that's what the policymakers and operators lose sight of each and every day is that by empowering people to earn their own way they not only earn a paycheck but they earned the confidence and pride and that ability to go on only for themselves but the children of the next generation. it's us as human beings to say this is a better way to the status quo and we need to move forward in a positive and proactive way. >> i love hearing the stories from mr. hammond and ms. keller on the success probably overnight but the years of hard

work and specifically my friend odell cleveland junior. when i begin the process not having any time for political background or experience that i felt compelled to do is find people in the community regardless of their affiliation of people who were making a area difference, a measured difference in the community and i found the gentleman that was respected by the democrat independence and republicans alike crafting relationships. one that worked with him for many years was a legislative correspondent liaison in the office who does a great job. i want to break this down in two ways. one the other aspect is the public. when it comes to the system i want to talk about the specific

piece of legislation that is conducive to building a base level foundation that can curb the potential poverty in the various family structures. all men are created equal and while it i it isn't the governms job to fulfill the dreams and goals as lawmakers we have an opportunity to empower people as opposed to enabling them to have the american dream. every man, woman, boy and child should have that opportunity to achieve the full potential as god has created that person to accomplish. one of the things we have seen the last couple of years in my tenure that 17 months in congress is the dc opportunity scholarship program and some of the greater choice but has provided $8,000 a year i believe the choice plays a huge impact not just in the scholarship

opportunity but if we could zoom out about 30,000 feet this legislation is part of a plus act which specifically allows both states and loca local areno opt out of the federal mandates that continue to keep the federal funding to invest and put it into the local arenas that have seen some success. that is a common sense approach and federalism at its finest when it comes to empowering the people that are there on the ground at the battle wine making that kind of difference. we need to take a hard look at the governments approach for the last five decades. it would be one thing if we had measured success and we can see the different testing and get different results if something hasn't worked since the creation of the department of education and aspects we have created tons of programs and many more different vehicles and creative avenues.

be a plus act allows the schools to be able to take the funds and invest it in the greatest impact. a great education shouldn't be a privilege with only available to the wealthy yet several are trapped in the schools with no education options. there's not a lot of flexibility. i'm sure everybody is familiar with common quarter and one of those is the one-size-fits-all strategy. we want to out while those teachers and i would dare say if i were to ask you a teacher that made the most impact in your life it was someone outside the box that was allowed to take their personality and creativity that would impact and make a difference in the future life. in the mind of a child is precious thing. there is no one-size-fits-all solution. parents know their children do

best. not a bureaucrat sitting behind the desk in washington. let me take a momen moment to vn talking about families. one of the things the act does is gives us a chance to continue to restore the family. a lot of them are issues we have seen the family dissipates since the 1960s when you're able to do anything that brings the family back in that empowers them and gives you the best chance by limiting itself the government can expand an opportunity to pave the road to students and teachers. that is the system part of it. we have the nitty-gritty but i do want to forfeit some of my time unless i talk about also the public side of this and to be this is maybe the most

important aspect we talk about the programs and policies and sometimes we neglect to fail the conduit if the programs are delivered and i think timmy any program succeeds or fails based on how it is delivered and you say what do i mean by that? my background is in the places of the inner cities of baltimore, new york and cleveland long before there were any political aspirations. specifically sunbeam elementary school in cleveland ohio took the team of 60 to 65 to try to do their best to refurbish the school. remember the playground had one piece of equipment left it with a plastic bench the lack of hope impacted me to come back and talk about transitioning from two decades of ministry to be

able to talk about what is it that we are missing in the government that we bypassed and skipped over that are fundamentalist impact to begin to make those investments i look at it from a faith perspective that god created every individual with unique skills, and i believe when the federal government gets to put itself in there i think some things we do a disservice because we limit those opportunities to achieve for fulfill those wonderful things. i have the opportunity to teach at the divinity school and it's interesting when you are teaching these younger pastors because they can't wait to get out there and change everything from the music and the carpet and we have t the plan of the thesis i'm ready to go with it. what happened is sometimes we fail to understand it's about putting the relationship first. when you're able to build trust

you are able to make a difference. i will conclude and hopefully have a chance to share more. thank you very much. [applause] angela is going to go over the there. when we started to decide to invite the congress to this report, they said they didn't just want it to be about them. they wanted people from the communities that taught them so much about these issues and they also wanted some pushback, some give and take discussion. so when we are looking at these issues i couldn't find to greater people and their

integrity and wisdom than the professor from georgetown and angela here at aei. i will introduce the two of them. then angela, you are second and i hope that we can have some response in the back and forth. i know i have a couple follow-ups. but we do the introductions first. harry is the professor georgetown university and institute at the institute for research in washington. he's the former chief economist for the department of labor and economics at michigan state university. he's a nonresident senior fellow at the brookings institution and affiliate at the institute for research on poverty and wisconsin madison among other affiliations. he edited enough in books and several dozen articles mostly on their disadvantaged workers and employers in education issues and labor market policy.

he holds a phd in economics from harvard. angela is a research fellow at aei where she studies the effects of existing support programs on low income families. a former deputy commissioner for policy research evaluation of the social services of new york city she oversaw the team of analysts on the studies used to help local officials make informed decisions on how to work in the public policy to reduce poverty and improve the situation of the four families. a phd in social welfare policy, she's written research papers for aei and putting on child care, the marriage penalties and the earned income tax credit and failed participation. we are grateful to have you here. >> thank you for having me here today. when my friend called me a few weeks ago and asked me to do this, i had a quick look at the report and i said i will have to say a lot of critical things. he said it's okay just to be polite. it's a little problematic because as some of you know

polite isn't always my strong suit. this is a very blunt report and anything else would be dishonest but at the response of the bluntness if i fail to get that balance i apologize to everybody in advance. and i will tell you a little about who i yam and the way that i look at the world i am an economist and i served in the clinton administration. but unlike many of myself though democrats, i think that it is really important. i think they did improve the incentives into some of that was good and created other problems i will mention in a minute. i think a stable too. families is the best way to raise children in america. i wish we had buttons we could push but i think the conservatives have been right about that.

i was one of the authors of the poverty report. i stand by every word of the report so i'm used to reaching across the aisle to work with my conservative friends and even reports that the poll brian rayford wasn't my favorite in the world but i found some positive things to talk about and think about. my reaction to the report was pretty negative. with all due respect to the congressman i found a bug report to be extremely partisan and extremely ideological. it's nasty in tone to people like me that th are democrats ad it is full of gratuitous slaps at president obama and president johnson any of which serve no purpose than to alienate people like me. it's polarizing in many ways it doesn't have the tone people place.

there's many statements in the e paper that i believe were demonstrably false. if you look carefully at the research i will talk abou i've t the research evidence using rigorous methods. some of them are grand general statements. by the way, the inherent programs have a lot of problems into the silo mentioned before are issues no doubt about it. all three of you said the current system of fatal yea fair and one of the statements, johnson's big government welfare state has been a failure. the stigma is demonstrably false and when you look at the evidence on the programs it is simply not what you can conclude by looking at that evidence. you can be critical and say that it's mixed and costly or that they don't get at the underlining issue but to say

that it's a complete failure it ignores the positive that you find in this literature, and in fact if you measure poverty correctly not using the official rate, it actually has declined over time and is easy to link to the programs that are in this report. obama has gutted the work by result that is a false statement. ron haskins has told me it is false and has looked and break in on a lot of the rules and regards those and i trust him. he pretty much wrote the welfare reform policies and i trust his judgment on that and i think that he disagrees completely. for example, we heard early in the report to 800 billion. that's fine. half of that is on health care. medicaid and a few other programs, which to me tells how

outrageous it is rather than the overspending on this. all the other stuff may sound massive but it's 2% of gdp in america. it's not a huge massive government when you compare to all other industrialized countries on the low-end of what we spend is a fraction of gdp and those countries all have more generous safety nets and lower poverty rates have been the dupe so again this notion that the program is so generous that it's trapping people and one more thing about this report that is upsetting to me, there were 42 footnotes and the census bureau. the majority of the articles are papers coming out of the right-wing think tanks and outlets or conservative political appointees. not one footnote further

rigorous article in the journal of which there's a large quantity, not one tells me the information that was driven. let me tell about that a few of the programs. it's not that they don't have negatives but the reality is more complex. first, welfare reform did a lot when the economy was strong. however, since then, the number of disconnected as well as from welfare has gone up dramatically and millions of those not on welfare and not working because they are hard to employ and i will get back to back, they no longer raise almost anyone out of the poverty is one half of the poverty line. as if nothing in the recession to combat the rising poverty that occurred when the jobs were disappearing. on the other hand, food stamps

that was demonized, food stamps does raise millions out of poverty. poverty. its successful at doing that. it did come back to the recession and it had a countercyclical role and the evidence showed food stamps have this quality for children that is a fact when you look at the evidence and they might do better than adults than those that don't have access to that. so the rise in food stamps is perusing that obama has been a failure and it's simply false in my view. the earned income tax credit. the report doesn't have a positive paragraph then it talks about all the fraud that we need to be more strict on combating fraud. we have one problem, the irs has been demonized the last six or eight years and the funding has

been cut so it is hard to get another mandate to do this work. the juxtaposition of the comment strikes me a little bit. there's a lot about the marginal tax rate. i might need a little more time. people face of these cliff clipd the office wrote the report last year on the marginal tax that is nowhere near as high as in the report. i think there's little to hide but it is expensive on the tax rate and thursdays changes in the effort. there is a literature on the evaluated ck programs and workforce programs none of which were cited in this report. you would think that doesn't exist anywhere. ..

>> at. >> to develop very early in life to compose more rules on their parents will solve that and then by the zero -- and then. but a lot of them a choice programs still some charter

schools are successful in than make softer statements. work is a great thing. however they have badly deteriorated that the federal minimum wage working full-time working fourteener $15,000 per year when it is still below the poverty line and the decline of real wages clearly drives them out of the labor force. you can debate that magnitude in this was a lot of the action. i'd like marriage.

we don't have policy but consider marriage has gone up in red states and blue states with the policy environment that is another false said we have fought -- strong evidence for those and then national campaign? it is true they will address those problems they are very hard to solve but the notion that they will solve the deep structural problems. i am open to the to consolidate and opening the marriage if you do them

carefully and thoughtfully the you have to meet me halfway. but some of these really to perform positive things. hit him if he'll have extra work requirements provide appropriate services but the gorgeously mondo work requirements not doing anything to help people that refers back to nobody should be kicked off with they have not been offered a work activity along with the services and support that principle. people networking large numbers sometimes have to be in job creation in private market doesn't always get that right. and it would still be money well spent so i will stop by

a willing to meet people half way but not in the context of a report like this. thank you. [laughter] >> i have a few things i would like to talk about. >> angela between five and seven and a. >> net know-how to follow that up but i will try. it is a pleasure to be here this afternoon in trying to reduce poverty and low income in america for a decade i were to the new york city department of social services for policy

research thinking of how they function at the ground level sell my comments are influenced by that experience by working more in the field and the ground level in the academic work as well as here at a.e.i. and i am very much a realist and it comes to a great extent from my midwestern roots also in the new york city welfare department so my comments do reflect some of those experiences. i had a very different reaction and many of his comments resonate but i didn't have the same reaction. i feel that the plan

articulates very broad themes that i think to resonate with a number of people. i didn't look at it so much as the reports coming out of a scholarly institutions but to recognize it is a political body and trying to articulate broad themes and they do resonate with based on my experience and research. is but if we dismiss the rhetoric we don't get into the real issues. so i want to focus on broad -- three broad themes one is a work level sides to agree for and how do we encourage

employment? we can be an effective way to do that if employment it appropriately and fairly which to be honest, and they are not always but and to hear from the members of congress earlier. and then also agree with the comments earlier and it should be an opportunity to have training for those that may not be connected to those types of services. then does have a component for those that are able-bodied without dependent children a dozen have robust programs to me that seems like a missed

opportunity rather than an effort of punitive measures and i agree work promotion activities san requirements can be a larger part of our programs as well as the disability assistance program. research primarily does tell us that if families and individuals are working and then as mentioned earlier natalie for fluent people in the census data shows 60% of core working age people do not work and all. those and are denied the opportunities that emplaning can provide.

the reasons they give for not working is not the ability to have a jobless and 10 percent say that but it is primarily all this and disability with home and family responsibilities. but it can be though whole story that we need other efforts as well with reasonable work exhortations can be a part of this it has to be coupled with support child care assistance is a critical component which cannot expect parents to work in exchange for benefits if we're not providing assistance in the forms of child care and also those policies as we should continue to support those as the earned income tax credit that is it mentioned it does have problems with improper

payment i wouldn't be too quick to dismiss some of those but that is one area that needs to be addressed locally there is a report coming out that there is legitimate incredible ways to address these issues and i hope for people that are interested you achaean take a look. to this the hard thing to talk about as they have their own personal beliefs thinking about marriage from the public policy perspective but looking at that from purely empirical the data is clear they experience lower poverty in children do better than in single-parent families there is a good deal of research to support that.

to show that the government is a very good job to promote marriage but as it correctly outlines government should not be in the business to make low income parents you do decide making it a disadvantage to them. my own research found for that e itc with the actual unmarried parent that penalty can be in the range between 1500 and $3,000 of the married couple decides to marry instead of staying unmarried or raising a child together. the marriage penalties are real and need to be fixed if it will cost money so that is another piece often not talked about him and it will cost money in these to be addressed in that context.

the next point is around experimentation one of the points from all these funding streams these are the anti-poverty programs that are not set up that way. advocating for more flexibility i do think that is the direction we need to go with a pilot basis those that are streamlining to pay for the success models and other efforts as well states need the ability to experiment. when they were experimenting with welfare programs and in that same sense of

exploration -- experimentation today baidu understand it is a risk for poor families, but the federal government needs to take no role to hold states accountable with rigorous evaluation to make them accountable because of there is no results then it goes away. what last points the final statement about the federal government fiscal house to get in order to shrink government. while that is true it doesn't have to mean cutting safety net programs or no new spending in my opinion it should be -- mean better targeting to spend money on things that will achieve the goals we want to achieve.

we have heard that those are working and family and experimentation in that if you can have less spending nab paid leave for these low income families that will support work and family al looked at the report i see a lot of possibilities in the apartment planned. we all won't agree are everything that is in the plan but i do believe there is a lot of agreement on all sides of experimentation and i hope that people will take up plan a little more as i

did ben tried to work towards that. thank you. >> going to give the of numbers and opportunity to comment and then we might lead to engage the audience. >> i'll place to start by complimenting the professor for his passion. [laughter] i was perfectly polite. >> felony complement him in all seriousness because everyone of us should be outraged this up by witnessing people struggling in poverty. we may have vigorous disagreements to be passionate about this issue it is unconscionable that people in this country built on the concept of the

american dream that denies the american pain -- experience i absolute try to share in that fashion when amy to a young woman named sally with tears streaming down her face and says it is august we're going back to school and 82 children have grown out of their shoes and i cannot afford to buy them shares so i went to wal-mart to buy them flip-flops' just so they wouldn't be embarrassed to go barefoot. that deserves our passion and our outrage she said the reason why i cannot afford shoes for my children is because my husband was laid off because the coal company does not have a permit so i would say first and

foremost, let's not promote government policies that reduce poverty. first was not doing things that put people into a poverty. now let me come halfway to where the professor is. i think he deserves us to come halfway. some of these anti-poverty programs have been around 50 years with material deprivation to research an extent. the problem is the spiritual deprivation persist and is exacerbated. when we look at programs like the st. james place not just on their margins but to provide cash assistance or housing the put people with a roof over their head we

want something better we want to alleviate spiritual deprivation with the adl that people cannot achieve self-sufficiency to put a roof over their own head. it is not we deny that these programs on the margins has helped people like sally an eastern kentucky get through a rough patch because of environmental regulations but we want her husband to go back to work to have an opportunity for her to not only by issues but provide them with the life of greater opportunity we don't deny we should come halfway of course, we should and we should all share in the passion to do better with the war on poverty our

report does credits -- credit president johnson when he declared war on poverty to tackle the root causes not just mask the symptoms so in conclusion that is what we are trying to do. and not just a mask over a transfer payment the symptoms of poverty. >> and i also want to echo some of those comments and i will say i am the most senior member appear and the good professor articulated something that i have experienced especially in my district and often i hear rhetoric such jazz does yourself that immediately

answer in a partisan political arena and that we are attacking and i can respect that i respect that opinion that the end of the day what we cannot do and i can promise you, professor is that i'm not leaving i have done this numerous times i have been yelled at for an hour and a half called every name in the book that have actually been dammed to hell. [laughter] >> i will be in the confessional for many hours. [laughter] but after two hours i said i'm not leaving because i care about this you will find an area we can agree upon. after you get through the rhetoric and a scene that washington, it is amazing what we can agree upon if we can get through the rhetoric to get through the substance

so be believed in work that is where we spend our time where can we find the common ground? so the issues from our district has demonstrated from a lifetime of commitment so that the left and right hands of government know what is going on in the individual's life where can we promote those training skills to arm people for a lifetime? and i think the professor is committed to that so it gives me a lot of optimism back home. this is what it operates for the first 20 or 30 minutes but when the camera is off fanlights are down there are

colleagues who are here today given of themselves given up time to get the people's business done that will continue to do the work because it is the right thing to do. and we can find solutions because our fellow citizens deserve that. that is why we are here and i am inspired by jack kemp and the work that he did with his career in washington d.c. >>. >> once again it is the privilege to be here today i do believe that the professor's comments in some places were exaggerated specifically with all the three panel members said of the blame all of this on these programs all of this is based on programs if you

were listening to my comments talk about the family that was part of the issues as well. the other thing i heard you say was kids on food stamps are better off as adults. i would love to know what report that is based on and finally he said when it comes to school choice some of it is good and son is bad and that is of broad sweeping statement that doesn't give you an idea one where the other but in conclusion who is better to make those choices? bureaucrats or parents? even if it is not measured tit-for-tat i would guess there is no concrete

evidence, the times as parents we get to make the choice person is washington bureaucrat? >> but washington and whatever program you call it has failed with this particular genres of mindset when we measure success by how many people we put on as to how many we transition off until we take dash off of success than we have some problems. >> one of the things that we hear, thank you congressman and all of you but i want to focus on one issue of the work requirement to issue. i think i heard you say that for the able to buy the individual sometimes this is where it comes to bear with an offered job that is declined or inactivity that

fails to show up. line engendered in response from the agency in order to take them to take advantage to comply had to deal with the work requirement that isn't getting a job in the richer benefits but take the activity that is here and that is available tomorrow then if you fail it could be consequences. >> i am open to certain versions we have spent many hours over this issue some of the people that are called the able-bodied to suffer from severe depression or ptsd that could cause them not to show up whenever we talk about work requirements the service pieces week the support is strong baby not the first time that a repeated pattern and if there are efforts made to be

supportive then i am more open to considering a version. >> i would say in that experience in new york city we really pushed food stamps to supplement when wages were not be enough that was good but then it turned out many adults that are not disabled and recipients of food stamps to we thought we were giving work support weren't working and we don't know what they're doing and failing to address that is an issue. >> dave open for that. >> and then for you, what grants or state experimentation? how do you feel about testing that kind of flexibility first?

>> that is what we have written in some other proposals that are out there if you give them the waiver authority that it is unjust of blanket block grant like that is the solution to be all solutions but accountability to have that flexibility to make sure that we watch and look for the unintended consequences because this is complex and not as easy as black-and-white each case is unique i have learned seeing this first team in each family situation is very unique in one size fits all will not work. >> i want to follow-up with the question is the microphone going in that direction? you have talked about federal programs they were not sure how they were working near where the money was going or why they were

coordinated the people who work in the poverty programs in kentucky or north carolina or new york you know, the food stamp program. if washington decided in your state to use that funding source as the way to give states greater flexibility instead of rallying the government to provide that benefit through the lgbt card by gave it to the states and your program to use that money to service the clients you serve, would that alarm you? >> you mean to eliminate. >> take it away and then take that money and instead give it to your state? you can give them your version but also a work program aural warning

supplement or substance abuse program. >> it is like if you stop beating your wife you cannot get that cancer. but i think tech one thing to cut off i would not agree because i agree with the flexibility, i do but that is a super important program so as to just pick one i think we have a lot more complex problems than just taking one i could pick any one program anybody could say this is stupid and that is fine but this has to be a lot bigger than that holistic clique we have to do a least a two-pronged attack to do with i don't have a job i cannot buy shoes but the of their party is like the future we have to fix education to make sure these kids are getting educated the matter what it takes.

>> i really am scared of block grants in in new york is one of the our largest bureaucracies in this country probably and when your kid gets a block grant the first thing it does this bill in the? of the bureaucracy to keep the bureaucracy in tact and then the up program goes down i don't believe that europe is different than other states or other blocks your'' keep the bureaucracy first but other states may not philosophically believe been feeding children or believe in supporting education. so for different reasons block grants going to different states they have terrible consequences. food and housing and these issues when i talk caustically, and the

flexibility for more integration between the services, but i am not dead against them but i do think they need unbelievable oversight and accountability and the cftc is a perfect example there is a lot of questions during the bush administration. today think in the last eight years there has been no lot of oversight in the same thing with headstart the specially during the bush administration i think that is one of the most phenomenal programs in the country and people have no idea what these children are coming to school with zero or what they would be if you can take the children who live in five generations of poverty to tell me in fourth grade they are equal to

other fourth graders, you have performed a miracle. >> even though the trends are alarming idle think we keep that up by would say no to block grants to the state but i would say when you look at the department of labor in the internships a lot of times the employers or the job creators will love you we're doing but we all want to take the risk as it relates to somebody coming into our company now with the rules and regulations applying to them so when it comes to the academy we'll understand how to relax those rules so we can go a change a the legislation so the employers who creates jobs will be

able to minimize the risk so if they don't have anything against the internship bela kadar from the perspective of those to say we can help. >> ♪ to follow-up and i want to ask a question about the disconnected moms they're all on snap that is where they are they're not really disconnected. >> they are disconnected from cash assistance. so that avenue may not be to change the cash program to alter the food stamp program for i know where they are. there right there. >> i don't know how blame sure it is a significant number but let's get the experience that is the ultimate block grant program i do think it did do some

good especially in the first for five years with the market to be strong it assumes a strong labor market in then it didn't do wonders but there is another thing is the one thing we have learned that i recommend that hamilton projects at brookings they had a program about a month ago it was a very good paper talking about the pluses and minuses and they found in some ways the flexibility was abused by states just like roberta said they spend a lot of the money things and not even remotely related so one of the recommendations that came out nobody wants to get rid of it but still belden this safeguards with the

appropriate oversight maybe there should be your rule that says a some of that money should be on course support which is cast as this -- cash assistance or child care but that is why we ought to talk about the look at the failures as well as excess of flexibility and tried to come to a middle place that has the benefits. >> of the partial defense there is a letter of the law in spirit of the law and there is a sense of people who worked in the social services program and that comes through with of tanf administration and other social services programs but

i had another question. >> into ted shawn and though work requirement perhaps that doesn't accommodate additional jobs but there is a paradox rehab high and employment is historically high. but yet when you go and talk to plant managers and h.r. directors committee anecdotal evans is very strong there is a huge a man for unskilled workers there is any plant managers tell me this is elevated unemployment in the east and they say but even need a skilled worker i need an

unskilled worker who was on time and drug-free. so little bit of that is overblown there are jobs available remember our report refocus on able-bodied non senior citizen engaged for incentives and frankly i believe in the brotherhood that the disabled can complete -- contribute meaning field -- meaningful in the professor is right there are simply some systemic problems with work requirements that we have to deal with for example, the child-care issue for a single mom we have to deal with this asking her to work can also transportation issues the report addresses that we talk about portability of the vouchers so people can escape those

low income neighborhoods taken to a place where they can work. >> just quickly i mentioned this earlier but to emphasize the vast majority of poor working age people are not even working - - looking for work they list disability and hold and family responsibilities maybe they have given up because they are frustrated but when i hear we have a mismatch of jobs there are not enough jobs available you're missing the point there is a lack of even looking for work and we need to address those issues. >> you agree i think all three would agree that a lot of the people who don't show up in the surveys are men with criminal records who have huge barriers because the employer doesn't want to hire them and if they have

child-support we haven't talked about that so if the mom has a substance problem over ptsd or depression there is evidence. >> it is an absence of opportunity that people taking a vantage. >> there are low wage jobs available because they found them an attractive faking get married day drop out of the labor force it is complex but it is not either/or we just have to kick them in the but to get them back. >> to any one of the three of you that we all agree that there is the inappropriate for improper payment ratio with the

earned income tax credit which is the largest anti-poverty program food stamps his also depending on the year $70 billion per year 20% 18% improper payment rates to does listen device works so many people like it but if the irs came to you and said we can fix this view need to fund us to do what we need to do so rigo said the payments out to the wrong people how do you respond? >> if there is direct oversight i think there is an appetite for that conversation but it would not just be we will give you more money overall it could be a conversation a simple as we need to prioritize. when can we reallocated real resources to be deployed

into a higher priority i thank you could find that halfway ground and that is a conversation that is happening and will continue to happen because we recognize as the irs gets bigger the resources is a serious question but not the end all be all more money will not solve this problem i have seen that in the six years on ways and means and other agencies across the spectrum. >> congressman and i am curious we all recognize the long term to fiscal health of the country is at risk but we also recognize of bulk of the hundred billion dollars that we spend on low-income americans is medicaid so health care world takes that with payments to providers in managed-care. highroad you react to that

desire to find ways to spend more on some things are less on others that is less efficient with the programs for the core remains the same? how to react to the disproportionate spending? are you in this to find fiscal relief for the government long term or is there something else that is more important. >> it has to be a long-term goal it could use celebrated in certain circles but one of the reasons we said'' get this long term with our health care options we felt that would give us a long term burst of reform in government that we talked about a think it is very crucial to let this from a long-term perspective health care or medicaid are on

those issues we talk about. the easy trap is to take a quick solution and there are times but the reason my fellow congressmen are here with us today is to talk about these tough issues these are not a sexy issues or that is an easy fix and i commend my fellow members here who have been here longer than i have willing to tackle something that is a very big issue is easy to make the other issues famous but i think long term these have to be resolved and i will say the people that will be the ones resolving this are the people who genuinely love the people we have a chance to represent.

not to be cliche with those comments but if there is not a tournament -- genuine heart in tone and our spirit we accomplish nothing long term not to be blunt but to challenge the tone and spirit of the panel is inappropriate is not one that i don't believe we could but the reporters or decide that this has been overly partisan i think it is split right down the middle with comments made with this decision or that decision that nobody is appear bashing the left eye and not even sure the word democrat was used so i want to make sure i addressed those that we come at this with the right tone and spirit looking for solutions we are back into the place

to see the poverty of urban area. >> it is worth noting that the data shows of three of your districts have portions of a really struggling and not getting better so that motivates our member of congress to address those issues their constituents are facing. now i will open for questions to the audience for to we have 15 minutes we like questions we'd all like statements. of brief comment then a question and any of us can address that. get some hands up. >> thanks for being here today and having this discussion is in powering i am from south carolina it is

good to see this conversation going on from both sides. briefly and wanted to give an example then posed the question early in my career i worked in transitional housing through that experience i worked with a lot of individuals with job training and give them the skills that they needed one example was a woman had come into a transitional housing doing well winter job training we found an apartment for her she got to the point she was offered a raise in the promotion but if she took it and got the promotion she was there is every benefit that she had so instead of moving forward which would have actually been a loss she got fired and lost her job and went back to square number one.

in good almost ventura to say that if they don't move forward may find themselves in the same situation soho dealer policies address that gap between those of the reality especially in south carolina of minimum-wage jobs so hardly build support for them than bridge that gap is we don't incentivize people to go back to square number one in how to help the states use the earned income tax credit to do so? >> it is the major issue of the proper calibrating of benefits see you are better off to take the higher paying job for additional hours per girl on the members to go first and i

might make a comment myself. >> rabil not speak for maya other members but our thought process is it has to be a shared typo's solution between the taxpayer in the individual so when you have this effect we did a lot of work in our office the last couple years working with the disability community and your message is exactly what they hear they going to the office for the program services and if you do well you will be penalized we have to tools and my mind market pressure and government mandates so by having for every $3 earned you keep in one goes back to the taxpayer or whatever the ratio could be some sharing

that incentive makes sense not the cliff effected you go over the cliff yet you lose dollar for dollar it does make sense that the top-level but when you lived it and see it sharing the results of the positive step forward since the right message to those on the benefit you should be able to keep some of that but the taxpayer also shares in the savings and to come up with the solution to take that approach. >> i can say this quickly no transitional program should create a cliff environment for the recipient any program is a teen -- just tooting there should be no penalty for the upward mobility process. if there is it is a huge she turns and then doesn't have much success. >> the other thing that happens the left in the right-hand don't know what

is going on nobody knows where the cliff is of the individuals so scarry scared because they were told difference from one office stages know they want help they are trying to get assistance so there are different clefs at different levels or programs it is so complex from the feedback i have heard we need to put across the board were the cliffs are. >> in the cliff effect is not observe just like people like you with service providers with transitional housing but in the labor market and so were the h.r. manager or the plant manager is interviewing someone they interviewed the job as a condition to continue public assistance but then declined the offer because it doesn't put them in a better position this is for data from multiple employers we are paying people to not

work. sova to smooth out and end up -- to end the clef is critical. >> there are stories about cliffs and there are realities the evidence would get the cbo report the average marginal tax rates are not as high yes you can get to a place but do not exaggerate angelo was right we have solved the problem takes more money for the not have a clef but making a gradual it will take more money to provide transitional benefits even with that atc the second income earner that cost more money so they do this.

>> it is very important to note that our report is not about cutting budgets it does nothing about cutting budgets it is about lifting lives so we're saying is smooth it out yes it may take on the front and but the return on investment will be significant because issue will have people into stable long-term employment. >> just because that is the cluster data on how to keep it at that level of share at a lower amount you may not have to have as much additional money if you're at the starting point of today in now with the policy message we're in this with you. >> this comes from my experience and as an administrator from a wonderful economist like harry we balance literally the hundreds of times you hear people out there tell you this exist they have

talked to people who'd made a choice with regard to their future based on benefits in the economic evidence i have to say it is a close call i am not persuaded that this isn't what is really happening because i hear about it everywhere i go in a sea that in new york city and it isn't necessarily that they are worse off but they're not better enough off. they might be better but it is only marginal i only had they are accompanied with a requirement because if you just smooth off the don't have the hassle we made this possible and you still declined the opportunity as entry-level but a job than

that violates the of the ideas of the american people that want people to be helped but they also want them to be expected to make an effort to help themselves. what else do we have? >> this is the last question >> my dad was a pastor in the '80s, even back then the unification and treaty be where the government hand coming into your church what do we deal with with these issues how we incentivize the faith community to do these things? >> that is a great question. we are similar minded from pastor preacher for a fifth decade to me and i believe there is evidence to support

this look at faith based they are the first airline holding the hands of people getting it done so as much as we can keep government out of the way we do appreciate that we don't want to penalize them i think immediately when you said that to oklahoma with the newscast on cbs or nbc brian williams said if you're waiting on the federal government you may wait a while but the baptista already here gives you an idea how quickly the nonprofits can get together with the red tape that the same time there was of a discussion just because the faith based organization and is connected we don't want to put to the many stipulations on them that restricts their ability to do the work they have done in the past. >> anything anybody wants to

say they didn't get to say. [laughter] >> i am likely newly democratic political appointee in the room. [laughter] >> data when anybody to think i misrepresented myself. and congressman walker said it is and how may people guenon but how many people get off measure's success i don't think it is how many get on with those who get off there is a lot of working people in very low wage jobs that need the support its but food stamps to supplement them. that is not a failure if we help working people i want them working in one working people to rise above poverty in the are disincentives but that is the right way more people on food stamps is not

a proof of failure but people not working is but talk about getting them working and supporting them to read that the record showed here we gave a the last word. [laughter] >> congress and i hope you don't object. >> because we agree. exactly that will set the tone for the cycle for that child and the children in that household 115917 year-old male lead to 2 percent of what i tell them and 94 8% day watch. we're trying to change the culture. >> thank you. [applause]

. .

thank you very much. right. >> you can watch prim prime minr camera and take questions for the last time this wednesday live at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span2.

i had a rough upbringing and i got involved with runs selling drugs and i started selling drugs and marijuana, cocaine, crack cocaine came out and we started selling that so i was on the street 13 to eight teen years. >> 21 year veteran of the nypd discusses his book once i caught the street, the law, one man. he talks about his former life as a drug dealer and a police officer. >> i criticized the police want but i'm talking about the bad police and that's a small percentage. overwhelming majority are doing their jobs but you don't hear about them. you hear about the cases, the bad cops.

one small enforcement starts weeding them out because every time you see one of these cases you look at the person's background and the complaints of use of force. we don't find out until they kill somebody. pro-life advocates share their views on abortion and the upcoming 2016 election from the national right to life convention this is just over an hour. welcome to the national right to life session the battle before us. it has been an amazing year for

surprises and we've learned not to take anything for granted. the presidency, the house and the senate are all in play, and we need the help of every one of you this year. we have a panel of people who work every day in these areas here, and i will introduce them briefly. i think you probably know them all already. doctor david o'steen, our executive director, our president, carol tobias, and the action director, karen cross. [applause] national right to life makes a

recommendation on a candid date. when they do that, they take their time to collect all the facts and pick the best possible decision on the life issue. don't let the media tell you how to vote. don't let your favorite commentator tel told you how to vote. all these people have lots of issues, and these issues, a whole range of them, are influencing their opinions. you need to look at the candidate record on life, the candidate statements on life, and whether or not they have a chance of winning, because you shouldn't throw your vote away. and then what they've learned from their research on the

candidate, we are a group totally dedicated to the life issue. we want to help you compare candidates and make the best decision for life. this session is designed to help you do that. and so, we have been sent by congressman peter roskam a video, which is very appropria appropriate, because he is the successor to congressman henry hyde. this is the 40th anniversary of henry hyde's momentous amendment. [applause] so we would like to hear from his successor, congressman peter roskam.

he hoped to be here, but he sent us a video because he was unable to be here. >> i am peter roskam from suburban chicago and i want to say hello to everybody at the national right to life committee convention. but i want to tell you a quick story. a couple years ago i'm in chicago and i've been invited to be one of the speakers for the march for life. downtown chicago it's a cold day and i got there a little bit early, and i was waiting for people to show up. off to one side, there were some abortion protesters. these were pro- abortion protesters and this was a small group. they looked miserable and their times said -- signs set terribly ugly thing things and his team t lost to me. i began to hear some music and over the course of the next couple minutes, the music got louder and louder and louder and more and more joyful and buoyant

and then all of a sudden around the cornercame thousands of pro-life advocates. they had flags and they were dancing and had balloons coming into the contrast between the two groups literally took my breath away. here you have on the one hand this pathetic group that really is articulating a lie, and then you have a group that is articulating the truth and i tell you, the witness that the pro-lifers were bearing, that is the witness that is one of the most powerful images i come across in my political life. on the side of the angels on this issue we have a lot of work to do. but there's a lot of people that have been persuaded to see things as we see them. so i just want to let you know how deeply appreciative i am of the witness that you are bearing that life is a gift from god and life is worth and defending.

thank you. [applause] >> and now, you will hear from our president, carol tobias. [applause] >> good morning. thank you all for being here. i have my remarks prepared and then yesterday we found out that there is going to be a vote in the u.s. house of representatives next week, so i need to spend a few minutes telling you about that vote and encouraging you to get your grassroots people back home supporting this bill as well and getting contacts, calls, e-mails, whatever into your representative's office. as the obama administration has approached the end of its eight years president obama and his appointees have become increasing number of rule of law where they have an ideological goal that congress has not enacted into law the manufacture

of your own walls in the form of the executive orders and directives from various federal agencies. where there is a law that defined ideologically distasteful, they refuse to enforce it or they got it by radical reinterpretation, and that is what is happening now. two years ago, the california department of managed care issued a decree mandating that nearly all health plans in the state must cover all abortion. while, we simply can't do that because since 2004, we have had a federal law, the weldon amendment sponsored by congressman david weldon of florida at that time, this is no state government that receives any federal health and human services money -- and of course california gets all kinds of that money -- but no agency may discriminate against any healthcare provider for refusing to participate in providing

abortion. the law explicitly excludes insurance coverage and health plans. there is churches and religiously affiliated schools that filed complaints with the administration department of hhs asking that the administration and force the federal law and thereby compel california to withdraw the state mandate that was forcing the churches and schools to pay for the killing of unborn children. for two years, the administration did nothing. despite many urgings from members of congress. congress. and finally, just a couple weeks ago on june 21, hhs took action, but it didn't compel california to withdraw its abortion mandate. instead, the administration sent letters to the people of california who have complained announcing that no violation of federal law had occurred. the letters were written by a

lawyer whose previous job was vice president of the pro- abortion legal organization. she announced that hhs decided d that the amendment only applied to those file objections to abortion on religious or moral grounds. the company said florida didn't have such religious-based objections. the churches and religiously affiliated employers that filed the complaints that have religious objections but they were not healthcare providers and therefore they were not covered by the law. there is no language whatsoever in the law that imposes the religious test into the amendment explicitly includes health plans in its scope. so on its face the decrease is a blatant violation of federal law as could be imagined to avoid this conclusion the

administration had to engage in its own fabrication in order to achieve its dictated and. they discussed to the two decided that the law but does no more than protect against government and held participation, compelled participation in the killing of unborn children might be unconstitutional. that is unsupported by any federal court decision. in the face of this outrage, paul ryan speaker of the u.s. house of representatives announced probably wednesday the house will vote on legislation that will prevent the states from requiring healthcare providers to participate in abortion. this legislation the conscience protection act, and that's what you need to remember the conscience protection act would prohibit any level of government from mandating a healthcare providers such as doctors and nurses and also entities such as

hospitals and health plans and their clients would be covered and provides for people affected by a abortion mandates to file private lawsuits in federal courts of th with the cooperatif ideologically hostile activists drawing paychecks at the department of hhs would no longer be necessary. the solution is urgently needed and an agency in new york has already adopted an abortion mandates similar to the california one requiring small-group employers to cover all kinds of abortion. they gothey gutted the amendmend the court in washington state ruled that the hospitals must provide abortions if they offer maternity care. i urge you to visit the sites on our website, nrlc.org. from there it is easy to send a letter to your representative. representative. you can put in your zip code and

it will tell you who your representative is. it will be voted on in the house next week. make sure you have t your people contacting their representatives to support this bill. nobody should be forced to participate in the act of abortion. governments should never require doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurance plans or employers who pay for insurance plans to participate in abortion. if you can do it tomorrow whenever you get home just make sure you let your representatives know people have the right to object to killing unborn children, health plans, tax dollars shouldn't be involved. all right. that was the legislative update right from yesterday. so my remarks. did you know that there is an election this year? on the ballot there's a lot of attention placed on the presidential race. there will be the chance to vote

for president but in the 34 states, you will also have the chance to vote for united states senator and also in many states will be the chance to vote for governor, attorney general, secretary of state. everyone will have the chance to vote for the u.s. representatives member and most of you will be voting on the state legislative races as well. i want to take a couple of minutes to look at the presidential candidates. donald trump for many years said she is pro-choice and he's been out there publicly saying that. but he wrote in a news column earlier this year and i want to quote let me be clear i am pro-life. i support that position with exceptions allowed for rape, incest or the life of the mother at risk. i do not always hold this position but i have a personal experience about the precious gift of life into perspective for me.

and the protection act he has expressed his opposition to taxpayer funding for abortion and abortion providers. and he would support the pro-life judges. hillary clinton having been in office and just having been around for a very long time has a much longer record as a senator hillary clinton voted against the babies. there was no limit on abortion if she would accept. we had a 12 year ban on the particular abortion method procedure. in this procedure the abortionist grabs the legs with forceps and pulls the baby into the birth canal. the abortionist delivers the body all but ahead. he jams the scissors into the back of the baby's head, opens

the scissors to create a whole, inserts a suction tube, pulls out the brain, the head collapses and then he removes the head from the body of the mother. horrifying, absolutely. hillary clinton voted repeatedly to keep that procedure legal. the court banned the procedure and it is now no longer allowed. more than half of the states have an effect walls that require parents to be notified if their daughter is pregnant and considering an abortion. but something parents shouldn't have to be involved to take them into other states to avoid or circumvent the law of the states state's parents had to be notified or give their consent before the docto their daughterl their grandchild. congress tried to protect the

rights of the parents and saying you cannot take a girl across state lines to the senate democrats including hillary clinton blocked those bills. she didn't care about the right as a parent and she apparently has no problem with someone taking your daughter into another state to get an abortion whewith you and not even knowing she's pregnant. now let's look more at a record this state children's health insurance program is a federal program that provides funds to the states primarily so that they may help provide health services to children in low-income families. the bush administration issued a regulation giving states the option of covering unborn children under this program, a policy known as the unborn child will rule. since this was a rule that could be changed at a future administration, the senate held a vote to codify the unborn child will and they would have written explicit language in to

the program to guarantee it is included at the option of the state of the unborn child. hillary clinton voted no. this woman who wants us to think she cares so much about health care but remember she didn't think unborn children should get health care or be allowed to be provided under this program. last year the house of representatives voted to pass the child protection act. they said if the child is developed to that point he or she can feel pain that abortion shouldn't be allowed. hillary clinton issued a statement saying that she opposed the protection act. she apparently thinks it's okay to kill babies developed far enough along in the pregnancy that they can feel pain. in the course of hillary clinton's favorite candidate of the largest abortion provider announced they will spend around $20 million to elect hillary

clinton and senators. when bill clinton was president he said abortion should be safe, legal and rare. hillary doesn't use that anymore. she just wants its legal. in fact she hasn't met a restriction or limit that she would approve of. she says the unborn child has no constitutional rights right up until the date of birth. day of birth. in april on meet the press they asked secretary quinten wang or if does an unborn child have constitutional rights. she answered under the law currently that is in some of that exists. the unborn person doesn't have constitutional rights. two days later on the view they said i want to ask about comments he made over the weekend on meet the press. you said they don't have

constitutional rights. my question is at what point does someone have the rights and are you saying that a child on its due date just hours before delivery still has no constitutional rights? clinton responded under our law that is the case. i support roe v. wade. when you think hillary clinton, think abortion for all nine months for any reason. no limits or restrictions allowed. it's not just the presidential candidates will be on the ballot. last week the supreme court overturned the court of appeals ruling on the case out of texas. it was a win for the abortion industry. all excited about the victory planned parenthood announced a nationwide campaign they will work to repeal the law and passed a pro- abortion law, and

act and pursue what they consider to be unjust. i will admit i was a bit amused by that. and thinking you haven't been able to pass the wall in most of the states and how many years and yet all of a sudden you are going to do that? we've been passing the law state after state for year after year after year and they think that they are going to just repeal them? they don't have the people or the popular support. they haven't been electing legislators. you have been electing legislators into passing the pro-life law to challenge this group when you go home and work with your people and elect the legislators that isn't going to happen. good luck to them but it isn't gointhat isn'tgoing to happen.

[applause] i will say there are a handful of states that have been able to get their legislation through that they have been able to dominate. the way the industry has been able to publish what they've been able to accomplish this through the courts because they are not electing legislators are passing bills. very i talked about the protection act in the state of california telling insurance companies that they have to recover all abortions. the resource centers when a woman comes into your facilities you have to give them information telling them that the state can provide low-cost prenatal care.

at the state will probably pay for it. can you imagine a state government telling taco bell they have to tell customers coming in the doorway so pepsi products and if you want coke you have to go down to mcdonald's on the corner. pregnancy resource centers have a moral objection to telling when and where they can go to kill their unborn child. i would encourage you all to pray that it would be overturned. pregnancy centers are outnumbering them by three or 4-1 in this country. giving women choices and optio

options. they can't stand competition and i'd say to them when you only allow one option you cannot call your self pro-choice. [applause] and that's my year of winston churchill, he was the right man in the right place at the right time to quite frankly save the world. if it hadn't been for his determination and indomitable spirit, we can't know which of the world we would have been able to conquer. to express the country's appreciation john f. kennedy made churchill an honorary american citizen and i think well deserved. but in the buck the last lion defender of the realm churchill says hitler -- nonsense the 13th

century and the methodical monstrous scale and he concluded a crime without the name. merciless butchery on such a monstrous scale we are in the presence of a crime without a name. i know that you are thinking the same thing i was thinking, that is what we are in right now, methodical, merciless butchering. 1 million unborn children every year killed by abortion, having their arms torn off as they are dismembered, bleeding to death as limbs are torn off and being scraped out of the uterus with a metal, being vacuumed or suctioned out of the uterus.

this is merciless and topical, except this does have a name and it is abortion. we must do everything we can to stop it. the battle before us is to elect pro-life candidates that will pass pro-life laws so that we might once again in the country protect our children. thank you. [applause] thank you, carol. once again she's given us great things to think about. karen will begin to talk with us about the battle ahead and what we have to do politically.

[applause] scenic morning. every year brings new challenges. and it's not an exaggeration to say that this election has been the most predictable of our lifetime. pro-life leaders take their training from the national right to life convention and used it to rally the grassroots, troops in preparation for the battle ahead. every election we encounter those that were so discouraged with how some races are shaping up and they hide behind their anger and sacrificed their right to vote. and every election we make decisions that will have consequences for good or ill for

generations to come. yes. in politics we always have to be looking forward, being watchful and vigilant. vigilant. in th a field that is constantly change thing that we can't just look to the future we must also learn from our past, and being ever mindful to not repeat history's mistakes. it's no wonder then that i've always been fascinated by history. over the founding of the country especially those willing to fight unnecessary battles, giving up their lives and their happiness for the opportunity to give us the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of our own. i often find this hopelessness reflected in the pro-life movement. we dedicate our lives fighting for the rights of people, we will never meet. baking soda -- making

sacrifices. we are on the battle lines in the battle for the hearts and minds of americans. we are on the front lines in the spiritual battle as well. and we find ourselves battling to keep the pro-life leadership in the united states house of representatives and senate so that we can pass protective pro-life legislation that saves lives. we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equally and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. how many times have we heard these words? too many of us have become numb to the profound history behind them. we forget these words represented a truly radical idea