bill through the house and also, cspan is covering this hearing now and we're also taping it so it will be available on my website. www.bobbyscott.house.gov, so we'll be there. >> thank you all for your contributions today. i feel like the energy in this room is tremendous and every single one of you contributed so much to this conversation. >> can you identify yourself? >> my name is aaron voldman, i work with the student peace alliance, one of the grass roots groups that's been working on this bill for quite some time. my question is to mr. prendergast in reference to your profession to compliment the work you do mentoring, which is a movement builder and someone who has been able to build public will in support of

your policies throughout your career. my question to you is what are your thoughts on how we can build the public will to make this an issue that does go on cnn and focuses on the solutions and not just the problems. >> i think that the good news is in every community, there are so many people who are doing really interesting and innovative things. that's what i think the youth promise act is going to build on, all that innovation that occurs at the local level. just like what we do in terms of movement building for the human rights issues in africa, which is what your question's implying, we go to local areas around the united states where people already care about what's going on in their places. student groups and churches and synagogues and other places where people are already concerned and care and do believe that we are in some way, shape or form, brothers, sisters keepers, brother's and sister's

keeper. so i think the same thing would apply here. that you would want to invest a lot of time in building those local coalitions that as has been the case with what congressman scott has tried to do with this bill, build that slowly, steadily and build those local coalitions to a national coalition and thus a movement and going to those segments of the community, the constituencies of voters that are concerned about these kinds of things and it usually is for these kinds of issues, the religious communities and students, and finding like minded folks who are willing to help put some of those building blocks together for a movement building. there already is the outlines of that and you're a part of it and i think that getting people like hill who has face and name recognition and is able to

articulate the answers to some of these issues in such a profound way, in such a personal way and there are lots of other guys and people out there who have various constituents. whether they're ministers, like the judge there. other people, politicians, who have already built in followings and just welcoming them into a broader coalition, figuring out events that are going to get attention to your cause and build from there. and use the youth promise act as the centerpiece. that's what i think everyone wants to see pass sometime this legislative calendar so we can actually see real change occur on the ground. >> thank you. aaron, you want to mention your website? >> our website is the youthpromiseaction.org, the peace alliance. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> any other questions? yes, sir? are there any other questions after this?

okay. last two questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. honored committee. >> can you speak into the mic? >> yes, sir, my name is edward. i am an army wounded warrior and i guess my question has to come back to coming back from iraq, i have done a lot of work with wounded warriors and kind of dissemination with lessons learned. obviously, some of the best mentors out there, some of the best experts, you know, the information a lot of times has problems getting to those youths and i guess my real question would be with the passing of this act, how will we envision more or less oversights in a way to make sure that if we have somebody go through the program and has been a really great

success, has been where some of these panelists have been, how the background education, how do we identify those people? how do we look at those lessons learned and disseminate that information to empower them so that if they come out from these kind of conditions, they're able to do back and help prevent just like we were talking about, the gang members not wanting their children to go through the same situations. you know, myself when i got back from iraq a lot of different issues that i never foresaw that i had to kind of overcome on my own. and now i'm kind of trying to give back. i guess, what would the real vehicle or the oversight, i guess, how would you envision getting that kind of information back in the hands of those that can do the most good with it? >> the youth, the format of the

youth promise act is first a locality or neighborhood with designated jurisdiction and you would get together everyone in that area that has anything to do with young people getting in trouble. form a council that would have law enforcement, school system, after school programs, faith-based community, business community, mental health, court services, anything that has anything to do with young people getting in trouble. and first of all, find out what the problem is. and one of the things we need to find out is how much money you're spending today on people in this neighborhood going to prison. how much are you spending on teen pregnancy. how much are you -- to get an idea of what the problem is, and then fashion a locally tailored program, evidence based, comprehensive that covers from teen pregnancy, prenatal care up to the time they either get into college or the workforce.

as hill mentioned, you want to convert the cradle to prison pipeline to cradle to the work force, cradle to college. we found that once they get into college or once they get on the job, the crime rate plummets. so the goal is to get a comprehensive evidence-based trajectory from all the way up until they get to college. you format that plan. comprehensive. then you find out who's going to save some money. you want to fund the plan, but you don't want to have to come back to the government next year and the year after that to get it funded again or have it collapse. you'll find out who's saving money. as we mentioned, the medical college of virginia may be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncompensated medical care. the prison system will be saving lots of money from fewer people going to prison. medicaid and social service will be saving money because fewer

girls will be getting pregnant. on and on, figure out who's saving money and we have found that you don't have to get all of it. in pennsylvania, they had funded about 100 programs. $60 million and then they went back a couple of years later and found out they'd saved $300 million. if you can get a portion of what people are saving kicked back in to keep the program running, you can keep it running. it is locally tailored. it's not one size fits all. one community may find they have plenty of girls and boys clubs, but no big brothers big sisters, others may have plenty of big brothers big sisters but no boys and girls clubs. so you have to look and see what your situation is, where your problems are, what your resources are and put together a comprehensive package. in the funding mechanism is actually the first award would

be a funding, a planning grant. because getting all this information and getting an evidence plan together, evidence based plan together and we put evidence based in the legislation. you wonder as opposed to what? as opposed to the slogans and sound bites people would have in a plan if you didn't put evidence based in there. so you have a comprehensive evidence-based plan of action and putting that together is a significant job and you have funding to get the plan put together and then if it's successful, you'll have an award to get the plan implemented. after it's implemented, as people are saving money, it will kick back in to keep the program running, so what you would do in your locality help put together the plan, help figure out what the problems are. what your resources are to deal with it and what additional

funding could do. >> thank you. last question. >> i'd like to say thank you, representative scott, for putting together this committee and all the esteemed members for doing your work in helping to uplift humanity in general. i'd like to ask a question. how much effort has been put into researching how a loss of national identity, especially in the people of african-american descent community, the loss of national identity has contributed to the high incarceration rate and what remedies are being taken to help rectify that? because in our organization, and i'm a member of the morris science of america, which was established in 1913 to help teach our people of african descent their true national identity. we found that since 1865 at the end of the institution of slavery when our people were

emancipated, until 1925 in the period of up from slavery and during the reconstruction period, that the judicial system and the justice system as we know it, the correctional system, was put into place based on the actions of our people. based on the actions of our people going for uplifting for themselves and it seemed every took we step to uplift ourselves, a law was made to hinder that. so what and how much energy and effort is being put into correcting that and helping to uplift our people in the communities around the nation? thank you. >> one of the things we're doing research on is the building of new identities in former gang members, which include young black men and young black women who have never known national identity. because of this, we have done an exhaustive literature search on the building of national

identity within prison systems and jails. and i'm here to tell you that there's no, absolutely no literature on any program to do so. there are isolated programs that have been studied ad hoc and i'm happy to give you my card afterwards, but i can tell you that the lack of identity, including a national identity for young women and young men of color, is one of the principle pieces of why youth, for example, join gangs and neighborhoods. and i have had the honor of working with several individuals from your organization or affiliated with your organization in los angeles who have worked on this process because what we all work on, and to bring it to the youth promise act and what your organization is doing is, every young person

needs an identity. and they need the right identity. so i'm sorry to say the research is not there, but the effort, in fact, is. >> thank you. give our panelists another round of applause for their tremendous information that we have had. and as representative conyers has suggested that you do, everyone should contact their members of congress to see that they can show support for the youth promise act. anything more? if not, the briefing is adjourned.

starting shortly, live on our companion network, cspan, war correspondents from the associated press, cbs, and the "new york times" talk about what it's like to cover war. they're participating in the american society of news editors conference here in washington. live coverage of the discussion begins at 3:45 eastern. canadian prime minister harper is in washington today for meetings with president obama and the president of mexico and mr. harper will also address the wilson international center for scholars this afternoon to talk about issues between the u.s. and canada, and you can watch that live, his remarks, at 4:00 eastern on c-span 2. and each night this week, watch american history tv primetime

here on c-span 3. tonight, the 34th president, dwight david eisenhower. at 8:00 eastern, the architect who designed the proposed eisenhower monument followed by eisenhower's granddaughter on her opposition to the design and an archival film produced by the u.s. army. tonight on american history tv primetime. house budget committee chairman paul ryan apologized for comments he made last week on defense spending. he said he does not believe the pentagon is on board with the cuts proposed in the president's budget. on the sunday morning news shows, he then said he misspoke and called the head of the joint chiefs to apologize. here's the entire national journal interview with chairman ryan, where he made the comments. this is about half an hour. happy budget day, everybody. good morning. i want to be very brief so we can just get to the questions

and the interview. i'll simply start off by going through basically the lay of the land with respect to the process. we have a budget act. the budget law says the president must propose a budget, then congress must dispose of its budget by april 15th. the president true to law has followed that by proposing a budget. we take issue with his budget. it doesn't address the drivers of our debt. it doesn't propose to ever, ever balance the budget let alone get debt under control. there was a vote on his budgets last night and it got 414-0 and the vote was simply taking the cbo score of the president's budget, putting it into resolution text and having a vote on it. it was an attempt to try and show that there's not a lot of support for putting a budget that doesn't attempt to fix the problem. we had a few different budget substitutes yesterday. we had the black caucus, the progressive caucus, the simpson-bowles budget. this morning we're going to have the study committee budget and the democratic substitute. then the final passage of our

budget. i want to simply say chris van holland should get credit for proposing a budget. it's always tempting in the minority not to propose a budget and just to criticize. i think it's important to recognize leaders for stepping up and actually making proposals. we did this when we were in the minority on the budget committee. i think that's a good process. that leads me to the final conclusion which is the senate has announced for the third year in a row for over 1,000 days they're not going to bother doing a budget. budgeting is one of the core fundamental rudimentary aspects of governing. if you are going to govern, going to lead, you must budget. we have one of the most predictable economic crises in this country coming. it's a debt driven crisis. so we have an obligation not just a legal obligation but a moral obligation to do something about it, to preempt this debt crisis. our budget, the path to prosperity, is our attempt to take these core principles and preempt a debt crisis. we think the key components are

to get spending under control, reform our entitlement programs so that the promises can be kept to current seniors and in order to do that you have to reform it for future generations and the other key is economic growth. we need policies that grow the economy to get people back to work. that helps with revenues, helps with growth, and that helps reduce spending. so with that, i would appreciate it. why don't we just get on with it. >> thanks for joining us. >> good morning. >> chairman doesn't have a lot of time with us so we will get right into questions and we will get to audience q & a. i want to leave enough time for you folks to ask questions as well. let's start broad and we will go a little bit deep. how close is the united states to fiscal crisis? >> we bring a lot of people to the budget committee to ask that question. we bring economists, international fixed income experts, they tell us it's about two to three years. nobody knows the answer to this question. if europe gets its act together, i think the credit markets are going to really focus on us very quickly. you also have the question about what's at federal reserve and all the qe, what's going to end

up with that. at the end of the day, because we're the world's reserve currency, it gets us time and space. it's buying us time which is precious and few which we think we ought to utilize to fix this problem. but i personally am banking on we've got about two years before this thing gets really ugly. ugly means the credit markets turn on us, our interest rates spike, and we could have a real economic problem. >> since the debt crisis over the summer, the debt limit debate, the united states has not seen a decrease in demand -- >> right. >> it's not had a reaction to the loss of the aaa rating. why do you think the markets are simply holding off on this? what do you know that the markets don't know right now? >> what i get from people who i ask who are probably the markets, there are a lot of different people who are the quote unquote, bond vigilantes. what i get is the common story is this. you americans are not a parliamentary system so you have divided government. the way your system works. so they realize we're at an impasse politically.

we're not a parliamentary system like european governments where they have a coalition government or one party ruling so they can change things quickly and we're the world's reserve quickly. right now, we're the world's safe haven. they know we have extra tools other countries don't have. so my guess is they're waiting through the election. and from my perspective, i want to show that at least one half of our political system, the republican half in our two-party system is getting serious about this. is actually putting specific ideas on the table on how to get debt under control, how to cut spending, not punting some commission, not doing some back-room deal negotiation, which never gets at the structure of the program. but real ideas, taking votes, introducing legislation. and what we're hoping to do is buy us time. and what i get from all these experts who say we're going to wait for this election, and then after the election, if america doesn't start buckling down and really fix this problem in 2013, the going starts getting rough. and that's the theory often given to me and i'll just leave it at that. >> we could spend a lot of time talking about what the better bet than america would be right

now for an investor. >> i think it's a better bet, because i think we'll fix this problem. i think we're the safe haven. i think we have a better labor market, better economy, better resources. we have everything wired to get back to prosperity, back to limited government, economic freedom. i think we're primed for that. i think most people are willing to bet on that. and i think because of our reserve currency status, and because they think we will get our act together, winston churchill once said the americans can be counted upon to do the right thing, only after they have exhausted all other possibilities. and i think we're getting to that moment. so i think we're the safe bet. and i think we're going to fix this thing. but i believe we have to get through an election to do it. >> let's talk about some of the specifics. your plan relies on closing loopholes, eliminating tax expenditures. you've been unwilling to talk about which ones. you're leaving that to ways and means. break that mold here. there's 200 of them. give us one or two. >> so what we want to do is have open hearings about which ones are worth keeping, which ones aren't. breaking the mold, what i would

say is, in addition to talking about what tax expenditures are there, we should also talk about who gets them. and that's where i think we should focus on. who gets them. if we want to talk about the top 1%, the top 1% of tax ratepayers, of taxpayers, they get about $300,000 on average of tax shelters, of write-offs. take away the tax shelters, subject more of their income to taxation, you can lower everybody's tax rates. so to me, the what is important. various tax expenditures, but the who is probably most important. and who should be getting these kinds of benefits or not. there is fiscal space left in the tax code with the kind of construct we're talking about to have things in the tax code that we want to keep that we have con census on. that's what ways and means wants to do, is get into the consensus. they have a series of listening sessions they're going conduct throughout the summer. that's a process dave camp is about to engage in. it would it would be premature to say what it would be at this time. >> but i'm sure you have something in mind.

tochblths me are it's the to. a person in the higher tax bracket, they can shelter a lot of money from taxation through loopholes. if -- so for every dollar parked in that tax shelter it's taxed at zero. take away the tax shelter and then they will be taxed at 25%. so you get more of their income subject to taxation, but you lower rates. why do we think lowering tax rates is important? where i come from in wisconsin, 9 out of 10 businesses file their taxes as individuals. throughout the country, 8 out of 10 businesses file as individuals, sub chapter ss, partnerships, llcs. and their rate -- the top effective tax rate is going to go to 44.8% in january. that's what the president's budget proposes. that's economic suicide. i mean, where i come from, overseas, which we mean lake superior -- [ laughter ] >> canadians in january lowered their tax rate on businesses to 15%. and so we're going to raise the top taxerate on our successful small businesses, people who have 200 to 300 employees to 45? and we're manufacturers.

and manufacturing, you compete globally. so we have to keep a mind on when you have more complexity in the code, more loopholes, more winners and losers picking, which both parties have done this. been on the ways and means committee 12 years, i've watched it happen. it is economically inefficient, and it means higher tax rates. so to me, let's clear the stuff out, lower the tax rates, it's fair, it's simpler and it's a whole lot more competitive. >> okay. you don't want to talk about specific items within the code. but let's look at it this way. the 200 loopholes there are generated, $1.1 trillion loss to the federal government. your budget requires a heck of a lot more money than that to pay for the reduction in tax increases. >> no. so i'm not sure what numbers you're getting into. but we raise around -- i'm just going to round the numbers. we trays $1 trillion in income taxes and quote, unquote spend -- i don't think the philosophical -- we don't spend through the tax code because it's people's money in the first place. but the tax expenditures are

about $1 trillion, as well. that's really inefficient. so what we release through the tax code through expenditures, we raise about the same amount of money. that's extremely inefficient. and the thing we've got to remember is, most other countries, industrial nations, have a different type of tax system than we do. not -- i'm not just talking about corporations, but businesses are typically taxed the same, and we have a system where businesses are more taxed under the individual side of the code than a business side of the code, unlike most other foreign countries. we've got to get -- we've got to get -- we have to get our minds around that. we have to understand that this kind of a tax system is really uncompetitive, and so that's why i'm saying, you've got to lower the rates and broaden the base. and there's a whole lot of room for base broadening in order to lower rates. let's shift. let's talk about defense. your budget -- actually increases money for defense. it eliminates the sequester, or at least discussion of delay going on. this is actually contrary to the guidance from the pentagon. why did you choose -- why did the committee choose to go

against the advice of the generals? >> we don't think the generals are giving us their true advice. we don't think they believe their budget is really the right budget. i believe that the president's budget, by virtue of the fact that when he released his budget number, $500 billion, was the number that was announced at the same time they announced the beginning of their strategy review of the pentagon's budget. so what we get from the pentagon is more of a budget-driven strategy, not a strategy-driven budget. we take $300 billion out of the defense base. so if we're using apples to apples, leon says he's cutting $487 billion out of defense. we're cutting $300 billion out of defense, their baseline. so we do believe money can be taken from the pentagon. any agency that gets $700 billion a year when you add it up is going to have waste and inefficiencies, procurement and the rest. we want to get savings there too. but let's not forget we're at war. let's not forget we're stretching our garden reserves who have multiple call-ups.

we have in-strength issues, equipment issues. and we have a dangerous planet. we have a dangerous world. and so we don't want to have a budget-driven strategy that hollows out defense which we think the president's budget does. so we keep defense spending level which is $400 billion above where the president's budget is. .25% growth after that. so the increase is .25%, so it's really sort of flat-funded. and we believe that puts enough pressure on the pentagon to get rid of the waste and the inefficiencies, while also giving the troops what they need and equipment they need to be safe and successful. >> i want to go back to the first thing you said. you don't believe the generals? i mean, this is not an obama defense budget. we saw all of the -- we saw all of the combatant commanders, all of the service chiefs stand up and say, this is actually what we need. and this would not be the first time. this would not be odd for a defense budget to decline after conflicts. >> i agree.

so what i believe is that this budget does hollow out defense. i believe this budget goes beyond where we ought to go to have a strong national defense to keep people safe. i think they're using budget gaimmick gimmicks, as well. pushing the joint strike fighter out to another five-year window. keeping the number of planes they want to buy, costs more per copy. they're plowing base-spending into the supplemental. they're putting their drawdown funds into the supplemental bill. so i think there's a lot of budget smoke and mirrors in the pentagon's budget. which is not really a true, honest and accurate budget. and so when you confront military experts, retired or active, they concede these things to us. and so what i think we ought to do is have an honest pentagon budget, put the screws to the pentagon, because there is waste. but let's not forget, this is the first responsibility of the federal government. and we have a more dangerous world. if we had this new specific strategy, that means you have to have aa navy and an air force that can extend its reach into

these areas, and this budget doesn't do that. so i think the strategy doesn't match the budget. because i think what is going on here is this is a budget-driven strategy, not a strategy-driven budget. >> why do you say the strategy doesn't match the budget? the strategy came out before the budget did. the strategy was written by the defense department. what kind of knowledge do you have about the defense department's needs to counter the future threats that the defense department doesn't have. >> 313 ship/navy. they're not coming close to that with this budget. the air wings, they believe they need aren't anywhere near being funded in this. the equipment that is -- that is atrophying, that the replacement -- they're pushing out another five years. so what is -- what was said before this budget was released and what is said after the budget release are two different things. >> let's talk about growth. gdp growth. your plan assumes some economic growth as a result of changes to tax law. >> no, the cbo baseline.