include gasoline taxes for highway and transit programs. there are 2 million civilian workers. federal employees by the way can take unscheduled work today or telework, and the e-mail went after 10:00 and this is at the same time that the national weather service winter advisory took effect in many counties in the washington, d.c. area. up to three inches of snow expected, and it was expected to affect the afternoon rush hour. and finally japan and the u.s. have agreed to proceed with plans to transfer thousands of u.s. troops out of the southern japanese island of okinawa. and the transfer has been delayed because it was linked to the importance of a base which has been opposed by okinawa resident residents. there are high level talks to rework an agreement for marines

in okinawa to move to the u.s. territory of guam by 2014 if a replacement for the base could be built, and now that agreement has been effectively scuttled, and no replacement yet announced but the marines are moving out. back in a minute with more washington today. on march 19th, the u.s. supreme court hears the oral argument about a case about whether a child conceived after the death of his biological father can get social security benefits as the father's surviving child. you will hear a case cited in the case saturday on c-span's radio historical argument. from 2003, the washington state department of social and health services petitioners versus the guardianship of kefler respondent respondents. >> if you look at the complaint in this particular case by the respondent, and if you look at the certification of the class that's present here, and if you look at the holding below, in

every instant the question presented is whether a resident payee duly appointed can use the benefits for cost of care of beneficiary. we think that the plain tax deferral 407-a says there is no violation whatsoever. >> social security disability benefits were intended to provide for the special needs of the disabled child to assist them in the transition to adulthood and to provide them some relief to burdens of the disability. in the state's concept as they would use the funds that are not in the best interest of the child, and no dollar of security security benefits by the disabled child before their 18th birthday would meet those needs, because the state of washington refuses to acknowledge an ob gags under the social security laws to determine what expenditure is or is not in the best interest of the child. >> washington department of social and health services regarding the guardianship of

kefler. that is saturday. welcome back to washington today. steve kroft talking about the piece that aired last month which is the genesis of the stock act that is quickly moving through the house and the senate. but tonight, politico puts it this way, a feel-good beill has suddenly turned nasty. eric cantor strips one provision that would require so-called political consultants to disclose their activities like lobbyists who are already required the do that and the provision would scrap one plan that empowers federal prosecutors go after corruption by public officials. all of this shaz stoked a backlash from the democrats and some republicans who according to politico are furious with eric cantor and accusing him of watering down the legislation that easily passed the legislation last week including criticism of a fellow republican

chuck grassley saying that it slashed his amendment which tracks action on capitol hill, and then sells the information to investors an instead the house bill requires a study of the industry's activities within 12 months. now, senator grassley calling this an astonishingly and deeply disappointing move by the house of representatives, and eric cantor's spokesperson saying that the provision was slashed because it was quote extremely broad and added to the unintended consequences of the provision would have on the first amendment rights. democrats critical and asking for more inpla nation of what the house republicans were doing, and louise slaughter is former chairman and now ranking democratic committee, and she says that the things that she feared greatly to come upon us are coming about because this bill, she says has been totally weakened. she spoke to the reporters on capitol hill about this, and also some of the provisions that she wants in this stock act. >> when writing their own

version of the stock act, eric cantor and the house leadership did not consult the bipartisan coalition that has championed this bill and over the week neither i nor mr. walls were asked to contribute to the final product and nor was our leader consulted in any way. and despite championing the bill for six years, i was left completely out. as a matter of fact, the way that the bill is structured, i won't have an opportunity to offer an amendment to put back the political intelligence piece which is the heart of the bill. the bill was changed from a bill to a suspension which means that it is through the minority, and they will have neither the right or the motion to recommit or an opportunity to amendment this bill in any way. that contrasts completely with what happened over the in the senate where members of the senate were allowed to present amendments to the bill and many of them did it successfully, but as what we got here is a flawed bill last night, and a need to

introduce and revise legislation earlier today and as a matter of fact the bill they put out last night has been superseded by one that was met 45 minutes ago which says that if you write it in the dark of the night, you may not know what you wrote. despite the many changes, the bill is weaker and not stronger than before. the simple truth is that the bill introduced by house republicans waters down government reform. particularly when it comes to regulating the political intelligence industry. political intelligence is the latest scheme to profit from the halls of congress. the industry profits to the tune of $400 million annually, and that is all we know that grew consider pli thably from the information that we had previously, but it is at least half a billion a year that gleens information and then they sell that information to the high-paying wall street clients. none of my constituents are able to do anything like that.

they have no prior information. they expect their congress to be much more decent and with much more integrity than doing that, but like the lobbyists before them, they use up proximity to power to serve high-paying clients. unlike the lobbyists, they are nameless. under the current law, they are not required to identify themselves as they go about their work, completely unregulated. >> the comments of house representative luis slaughter, democrat from upstate new york and her district includes rochester as she spoke on the house floor about the stock act, and the vote is scheduled for tomorrow, and peter shroeder of the hill newspaper writing that the white house also critical of the house republicans, and jay carney saying that the eric cantor is caving to the fres sure of white house lobbyists. peter hill is joining us from the newsroom. thanks for being with us. walk us through what happened today when eric cantor put forth in this stock act, and what we expect to see tomorrow. >> well, what we saw today

actually late last night, the a majority leader's office released the amendment of the stock act that they will be bringing to the house floor tomorrow, and notably the one provision that is getting a lot of attention -- it is similar to what lobbyists have to do now to disclose activity, and cantor's office reduceded that legislation, and so under the house bill there will be a government study of the political intelligence agency to figure out what might be done about it inkled a couple of member members. >> we should say it is a acronym for the stock traders act.

steve kroft was discussing it on the abc network and talking about the pelosi version which is not part of the senate version, but part of the house plan. >> that is right the "60 minutes" piece that you can point to is when this took off. the legislation existed before, but after the piece came out alleging that a number of hi high-ranking members have been using their position in congress to profit, there is a rush to get legislation out of the door, and it is moving quickly through congress. the provision in particular was added by cantor's office, and intended for members of congress to prevent them from getting stock. they are calling p ing it the p provision, because she was singled out because her husband was investing in a public offering of visa stock at the same time congress was considering credit card reform legislation, and so a question there whether there is some conflict there, and pelosi's office has defended the actions of her and her husband and said

nothing untorrid has been going on, but at the same time canter's office is putting forward this to make sure there is no conflict with political offerings going forward. >> and peter, in any recent member, has any member of congress benefited or profited from the insider trading? >> if we are going to be looking in terms of anybody who has been proven to personally profit to insider trading that has never happened. prosecutors have never charged a member of congress with engaging in insider trading, and that is why we are seeing this legislation pushed forward. it is not exactly clear whether there is an explicit ban on the insider trading and the regulators believe they can currently go after the members if they thought it was going on, but after the "60 minutes" piece, congress is eager to get an explicit piece on the books to say that no member can personally profit, and make sure that is the law of the land. >> as you pointed out on the story at the hill.com, the house is expected to easily pass this

measure. it passed the senate with 96 votes in favor of the legislation. what can we expect tomorrow on the house floor and any other amendments that could be added to the stock act? >> well, it is possible that we could see some changes to the stock act going forward, but we won't be seeing any tomorrow, because the bill is going to be brought up under suspension which means no amendments on the table, so it is basically up-or-down vote on the legislation that we currently have, and you can probably expect that legislation to be approved fairly easy. it is a popular bill and tough for any member to say they don't want to be in favor of in sort of legislation, but when it comes to possible changes what we hear from the democrats who are not happy with the way that majority leader canter has modified the bill is that they are pushing to get a conference committee together in the house to rectify the difference of the two bills and there you could see more push and pull over to the various provisions. >> peter hill who is following this story for the hill newspaper. thank you for being with us. this is washington today on

radio. house republicans critical of the president, but today, giving the president and the successors the line item veto. you remember in the reagan years, ronald reagan asking for that legislation and he had as a california governor. it is a constitutional power over the purse that has long been sought over many chief executives. today, the house and the senate voting 254 to 173 and allows the president to pick out specific items in a spending bill for elimination. currently the president must sign or veto bills in the entirely. back in 1980s, the congress did give bill clinton author i, and he used that authority on 82 occasions, but in 1983, the supreme court ruled that particular law was unconstitutionals, and supporters in the house saying that the bill has been written to meet the constitutional standards and here is how the debate unfolded on the house floor with the two key sponsors

congressman paul ryan, the republican from wisconsin, and the ranking democratic member chris van hollen. >> this is enhanced rescissions. this bill is constitutional, and i want to explain to members why. the 1996 line item veto was ruled unconstitutional, because it delegated power to the executive legislative branch, and that is not going to do this. it is the opposite. it says after an appropriations bill has been passed within a short period of time, the president can send up a new rescissions proposal to the house and the senate to consider rescinding spending from the bill, and we have to simply have the vote. we can't hide or duck from the vote. we have to have the vote. here is why we are doing this, mr. chairman. lots of bills from both parties over the years have had so many miscellaneous provisions stuffed into them without seeing the

light of day and whether they passed the house or the senate or not, and we have to sign the -- the president has to sign the whole bill or nothing at all. this gives us the ability to pull those miscellaneous provisions out, and send them back to congress and have them vote on them on their individual merits. we believe that what this will do is to make every member of congress think twice before trying to assert sometimes we call them earmarks or ear drops or pork, and we want members of congress the think twice that they might have to justify this provision, this spending bill on the merits by a stand alone vote of their own peers. we think that act of sunshine, that act of transparency and that act of accountability will help to improve the integrity of the spending process of congress. this bill is bipartisan, and this bill, i yield myself 38 additional seconds to say that this bill is pif partisan, it is constitution l a, and ate is yet one more tool in several that we are bringing to the floor to restore trust, accountability

and transparency to the way we spend hardworking taxpayer dollars. with that i reserve the balance of of time. >> reserved. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me begin by thank the chairman of the committee paul ryan and our staffs for working together in a cooperative and bipartisan manner in what is a very important piece of legislation to bring before the house. while we have deep disagreements in the house over many policy issues, i know that we all agree that we should be responsible and careful stewards of the taxpayer dollar, and that is what this bill before us is all about. it creates new mechanisms for the greater transparency, and greater accountability in spending taxpayer dollars. i believe that it will over time result in a better use of those taxpayer dollars and savings identified through the process will go to deficit reduction.

for those of us who believe that government can play a positive role in people's lives by creating opportunities like investing in education for our kids, like strengthening the economy through investments and inf infrastructures and the roads and the bridges and the broadband and making key investments in key scientific research and for those of us who believe it is especially important that the taxpayers have confidence that their tax dollars are being used wisely. to the extent they don't belief that, it makes it more difficult to invest in the common good. so we should take every opportunity, every opportunity in the body the make sure that the taxpayer dollars are being well spent. now, let's be clear about what this bill does, and what it does not do. as the chairman indicated, it does not, does not give the executive, does not give the president unilateral line item authority. the supreme court ruled in 1996

that the line item veto law that was passed by the earlier congress was unconstitutional, because it handed over that unilateral awe oauthority to the united states. i think that was the right court decision and it was also the right policy decision. this approach is entirely different. it is entirely different. it is different, because it expressly requires congressional action before any savings, and sometimes called rescissions, proposed by the president can take place. it simply requires congress to consider and vote on the president's proposed savings. congress by a majority vote in each house can support the president's recommended savings or reject those savings. in the end, the congress has the final say. >> the comments of representative chris van hollen a democrat from suburban maryland here in the d.c. area,

and chairman paul ryan. he will be delivering cpac conference remarks with his remarks to get under way at 7:30 eastern time, and you can check out the scheduling information on our website cspan.org. today, we are looking at corporate tax policy and hearing from a number of executives including fedex and time warner and executives saying they would be in favor of all tax benefits in exchange to lowering the corporate tax rate to 25%. they testifieded on on the panel before the house ways and means committee today which is the chief tax writing committee in the house of representatives all of the witnesses who testified today described the u.s. tax code as something that imposes challenges to businesses, because of the complexity and uncertainty, and michael frit is with fedex and also mark shicktell with time warner school, and also an associate

professor joining us from m.i.t., and also, an investor from ernst & young. and diane black is a member of the republican committee from tennessee. >> i do want to add or tag on to what mr. burg has said about the stability. i want to go to one of the statements that you made, mr. fyte that you said was interesting that you want to compete on the merits of business and not the tax code. let me take that further and ask you with the temporary tax incentives how you see those as affecting competitiveness, because i will say as a sidebar between the hearings that we have had in this committee, this year which have been very, very helpful, and then those business round tables that we have had, we have had a number of businesses say that because of the complexity of the tax code that not always are they aware of maybe system of those opportunities that they could possibly have, and therefore,

they're not as competitive with someone else, because either there is not that competition competition naturally in there for them or they don't know about it. could you talk about, especially since you've made that statement, mr. frikt about how the temporary tax incentives after text tax incentives? >> you've had a hot competition button in our company. i can't tell you how much executive decision management makers have lamented what my ceo likes to call an arcane tax code with all the temporary extenders that come in and out and special provisions here that apply to us or maybe don't apply to us and apply to others. overall there's no question in my mind they would like to be unburdened from all of that, do their business, conduct their

business, take all of those if we can, reduce the tax rate as far as we can so that they don't have to pay attention to any of that, pay the revenue that is appropriate, whatever is decided and move on. that's our feeling. >> thank you. mr. shek tell? >> i agree my title really could be changed to chief tax translator. that's a big part of what all tax directors development i think the complexity becomes even more of a challenge for medium-sized companies that may not have all the resource that is we have clearly from a financial perspective the compliance burden, the difficulty in dealing with all of it are a huge drag. i just went through another budget season. it's always painful and everyone is frustrated that we have to spend so much just to comply with the law. not even optimizing.

i'm talking basic compliance. every time we have a transaction, the level of risk and uncertainty and complexity in the law, it's just enormous and really should tax be a high-risk area just because of the complexity and difficulty in applying laws. >> good point. >> it certainly makes doing transactions more difficult. i can't imagine what it's like for companies that don't have the kind of resources that we have. >> ms. hand len? >> i would agree with all these statements. i think the complexity takes a lot of time. as tom was saying earlier, they're very high. i also agree with small business. i think small businesses have a very hard time with the complexity. they don't have the internal tax departments. what they really should be doing is focusing on their business. instead they spend a lot of time worrying about how should they compensate themselves? how should they structure their business, where should they

structure their business because of the tax code. i think making a more simple, more fair system would help the u.s. >> thank you. mr. beubig, do you have a comment. >> i think this is an area where economists don't give companies the full tax rate if there was a broader base and lower corporate tax rate. uncertainty, complexity and how lower corporate tax rates affect so many different business decisions really is very powerful. when people talk about the bang for the buck in terms of a lower corporate tax rate, sometimes they worry about lower corporate tax rate applying to old capital. i think they really are missing so much of the power of a lower corporate tax rate that would also be simpler and more predictable. >> thank you, mr. chairman. if i may make one final comment since there are very few of us,

what i continue to think about as we look at the complexity and cost of the business, i think how the service or the product -- the cost of the service or product is raised because of this complexity and how ultimately it's the end user that has the cost born. so thank you, mr. chairman. >> from today's hows ways an means hearing with representative diane black, republican from tennessee as she heard from representatives from fedex, time warner cable, m.i.t. and ernst & young. the message is the u.s. tafx code is too cumbersome and too complicated hurting u.s. businesses. this is "washington today." let's turn our attention to afghanistan. number two commander in afghanistan announcing today the u.s. military advisory team will start deploying to afghanistan later this year with a goal, to help the afghan combat forces as they take a more prom meant role in fighting the taliban. the plan was outlined by

lieutenant general louis skap rotity as they begin to step back. we heard from earlier in the month from leon panetta. the lieutenant general saying the responsibility for the war will be fully in afghan hands by the end of 2014. general skap rotity is in charge of day today military operations as the commander of the joint command pushing to get more afghan forces into the lead before the u.s.-led coalition shrinks. there have been a number of stories as to whether or not the situation in afghanistan is being painted too rosie, including a report by the armed forces journal, just one of a number of issues that came up at the pentagon briefing earlier in the day. >> general, i'd like to ask you to respond to the article that was published in arm forces journal by lieutenant dan davis in which he said isaf leaders, presumably yourself, have been misleading the public about the

degree progress made there. he said whereas compared to the rosie scenario that he hears, that he says there's been a lack of success. i think he said a lack of success at virtually every level in afghanistan. >> i read the arlt curveball. what i would say is this, it's one person's view of this from my personal point of view i do a lot of battlefield circulation, i talk to commanders and soldiers. i have assessments from others like my sergeant major i put on the battlefield virtually every week to walk with both afghan and coalition parts. so i take in a lot of data from any different places to determine my assessment to include a very objective detailed assessment we do every quarter. i'm confident that in my personal view that our outlook is accurate. i did read the article and i

think that, as you read that article, i don't doubt what he describes in a sense -- for instance, his occasion of watching a policeman watching an insurgent depart the area. i think those happen. we have in asaf that has doubled in 18 months and we're presently building. what i would say to you is that we have to be -- try to be very accurate about what we see. and what we understand the battlefield to be and not treated as we want it to be. so i work very hard personally at that. and i also take -- i pay attention to folks who perhaps disagree, and i look for people to be around my conference room table that argue with me. >> one specific followup on one particular think that he said, that isaf and u.s. troops don't actually respect the afghan forces, their ability.

>> well, i disagree with that. i think i've seen enough of them to know. when i talk to soldiers. let's take an american soldier or a private -- at times a private will tell me they're not that good. but a private is looking at it from the perspective of how he's trained, how a marine is trained. the standards are very different. i can tell you personally from experience and from feedback from others, these soldiers will fight, particularly at the company level. there's no question about that. and they're going to be good enough, as we build them, to secure their country. they do have their response forces, the commandos being trained to a very high level. i think that's one thing. it's a bright picture for them, their response forces are really coming along very well, and that

will be quite an asset for the country here in the future. >> lu ten meant general curtis skap rotity, number two in charge of u.s. operations in afghanistan meeting with the pentagon earlier today in responding to the question about the armed forces journal, an article that was critical of the way the department. of defense is describing the situation in afghanistan and the comments of colonel davis who, by the way, met with three members of congress, three members who have called for an end to u.s. involvement in afghanistan immediately. one of those members is democrat jim mcgovern of massachusetts who went to the house floor expressing his own skepticism about the war in afghanistan. >> mr. speaker, congress of the american people need to hear the truth about afghanistan. it is impossible for us to make thoughtful, rational decisions on policy if we do not receive straight, accurate information about the