spending cuts in january. then a look at the causes behind the 2008 financial crisis. with former freddie mac economist kevin vilani. followed by anna marie chavez on the future of the organization which celebrates its centennial this year. on the other c-span networks, the atlantic council holds a discussion on europe's financial crisis and how to get out of it. the ceo of deutsche bank will discuss european action so far and his thoughts for the future economic outlook in europe, that's at 5:00 eastern time on c-span. president obama is getting a little help from former president bill clinton at fund-raisers in new york this evening. they speak at a high dollar fund-raiser at a private home, then headline at the waldorf astoria hotel. you can see live coverage of that event at 8:25 eastern on c-span and the two at barack on

broadway at the new amsterdam theater. wisconsin voters go to the polls tomorrow to decide whether to remove governor scott walker. he is facing a recall election two years into his term and is challenged by the democratic mayor of milwaukee, tom barrett. they debated last week and you can watch that tomorrow morning at 6:00 eastern on c-span. >> the ftc is primarily an enforcement agency and brought many good cases in the consumer privacy area, and has reached settlements with a lot of companies, google, facebook, about some of the privacy promises they made to consumers. >> i think self regulation is a tool that can be much more responsive to changes in the marketplace. in a quicker way than regulation or certainly than passing laws can be. >> tonight, a look at the federal trade commission's enforcement role in dealing with privacy on the internet with

republican commissioner maureen olhausen and julie brill. the communicators at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. >> the president has a hard time selling an argument, economic optimism when at the same time people aren't feeling it. >> the fact of the matter the way they approach this election is they understand that we didn't get into this crisis overnight. we're not going to get out overnight. >> the question is not what the gdp number is, it's what the people in ohio, florida, virginia, what they think, what they think about their lives, is it getting better, getting worse, who is responsible. and that's not quantifiable as saying the unemployment rate is down. >> this past week the "national journal" for kulsed on the 2012 presidential election, watch the discussions online at the c-span video library.

>> deputy defense secretary ashton carter now on the pentagon's budget priorities. and the impact of possible automatic budget caughts called sequestration next january. he spoke at the american enterprise institute and called the automatic cuts completely irrational from management point of view. thomas donnelly, co-director of aei's center for security studies starts the hour 10 minute discussion. >> welcome everybody. my name is tom donnelly. i'm the co-director of the maryland center for security studies here at the american enterprise institute and i'm going to get off the stage as fast as i can because you have come to hear dr. ashton carter, the deputy secretary of defense, whom we are pleased to host today. it was secretary carter's idea that he'd come and talk to sous i just agreed immediately.

knowing a good thing when i saw it and i look forward to his remarks. there was a squib in politico saying that dr. carter was going to vicariously defend the administration's defense plans. i don't know if that was our leak or his leak but i'm sure he is more than capable of doing that. when he's done, he's going to run his own meeting and we'll go directly to questions from the audience. maybe i'll stick my hand up but i won't insist on the moderator's prerogative. i'll get in when everyone else is in the scrum if i've got something i have to ask. it's true that dr. carter doesn't need much of an introduction. he is not only the number two official in the defense department but his career as a public servant and as a defense intellectual has really been quite distinguished and quite sustained. he served in the first clinton

administration as assistant secretary for international security policy, and really a lot of his most influential work has been done even when he's been out of government at the kennedy school and through things like the aspen strategy group and thing like that. he is the very epitome after defense intellectual and thus it's pleasing to see somebody of the egg-headed persuasion rise to the senior management position in the department. so please let's welcome dr. carter. [ applause ] >> thank you, tom, for that introduction. and i didn't see the thing in politico so i don't know -- but i do appreciate the introduction. i appreciate an opportunity to be here at aei.

it was almost exactly a year ago today that my former boss, secretary gates, spoke to you on the eve of his departure as secretary of defense. in looking back on his tenure as secretary he chose to highlight two major themes. the first was his effort to turn the tide in iraq and afghanistan. he spoke to you about his laser like focus on delivering urgent battlefield needs to the war fighter in iraq and afghanistan. when secretary gates first hired me in 2009 he told me the countries at war, ash, but the pentagon is not. my job, he explained, was to help him get the pentagon onto a war footing, especially in the part acquisition, technology and logistics part i was about to take over. and that has been my focus. as well as his.

first as a t and l and now as deputy of secretary of defense. under his leadership we set up a fast lane to get urgent requirements onto the battlefield unhindered by the bureaucracy. we needed better persistent isr, he said, as did general petra s petraeus, general mcchrystal, general allen, so we worked hard to deliver capabilities like arrow stats with wide area lenses and more uavs including small uavs that could be operated by a patrol along their line of march. we needed to protect our troops against improvised explosive devices so we rapidly fielded mine resistant armored protected vehicles, the m raps and ballistic underwear and better defectors of ieds and the explosives and so on. we needed to get fuel, food and

all of these capabilities on the battlefield quickly and this logistics surge was a huge part of secretary gates' and my focus. since then, thanks to the incredible efforts of the men and women of our armed forces, superb commanders and leadership of the president and congress we were able to end the iraq war responsibly, al qaeda is on the ropes and its leadership is decimated and we made significant progress in afghanistan. i've again going to afghanistan for well over three years now since secretary gates and i first had that conversation. and i was there a cupful weeks ago. and i have to tell you, our troops, our allies, our afghan partners, they are performing exceptionally well and doing heroic things to bring security to that country. i was in the hellman valley where last year we took such terrible losses. this time i walked around the

market, no body armor. i went up to the dam up the hellman river which was just a distant dream to me six, eight months ago. over the last ten years congress and the department worked together to get our troops what they needed to operate effectively and it's led to results. i know that pep here at aei provide cutting edge analysis on the subject of afghanistan and other pressing national defense issues for which we thank you. and we appreciate your work and continued support of national defense. the second theme secretary gates raised last year was his strong view we had to take a strategy driven approach to reforming as he put it, the defense budget. much has changed since that time. congress passed the budget control act, which significantly affects our fiscal reality.

but our commitment to a strategy driven approach to our budget has remained steadfast. that commitment began under secretary gates and continues today under secretary panetta under the leadership and guidance of president obama. we focused on the force we need to build for the future. that remains our singular priority. i want to tell you about our strategy and our budget for the future which we've taylored to meet our strategic objectives. if we're going into specifics, i know congress has gone through its mark. and on that i want to say that every dollar the united states spends on old and unnecessary programs, is a dollar we lose from new necessary strategic investments. as secretary panetta said if we had an open bank account we'd keep all of it but we don't have an open bank account. so when something is added to

our budget that is not needed we are forced to take out something that matters. from readiness, from structure, modernization or from the health of the all-volunteer force. when we're forced to hold onto older, less capable systems we cannot buy newer and more capable systems. so others can pick one item or another but we have to balance them all. and, we have a responsibility to avoid sequester. i want to say one word about that awful prospect up front. people asked are we planning for sequestration. secretary of defense has said no, we're not. maybe later in the summer o and b will have to request we take a look at it but i don't want to mislead you here. planning has a certain rational tone to it. but congress in writing the

budget control act, did not design sequester to be rational. sequester was supposed to be the trigger, a trigger so irrational that the prospect of it would drive and force the leadership to do what was needed which was to put together an overall budget package for the nation's finances. sequester was designed to be irrational. and indeed, aspects of sequester defy reason and any reasonable management of the nation's affairs including its defense. as secretary panetta made clear, a sequester would have devastating effects on our readiness and our works for and disrupt thousands of contracts and programs. under the law, d.o.d. would have limited flex built how the cuts would be applied so. the size and nature would

nullify the strategy for the war of the future that we so carefully put together a few short months ago. managerially from my perspective, the chair i sit in now, our military and civilian program managers would face absurdities that result from the arbitrariness with which sequestration would take effect. and managers throughout the government, not just in defense but at nassau and everywhere would find it impossible to cope with this irrationality. this applies to managers in the defense industry as well. our partners, in providing weapon systems to the force. we remind you that the quality of the weapons system produced by our defense industry is second only to the quality of

our people in uniform what makes our military the greatest in the world. irrationality and uncertainty are subjects of concern to the defense industry and i certainly share industry's concerns about sequestration. this is not the way to do defense planning and budgeting. we need to take a rational strategic approach to our budget. that's what we're doing. so let me explain our defense strategy and budget and why we built the budget we did. i have to back up. this is a time of great consequence for american defense because two forces are coming together at the same time. the first, is obviously the budget control act. but the deeper, more fundamental is the force of strategic hit. for a decade our department has been riveted of necessity on two

wars of a certain kind in iraq and afghanistan. one has ended, the other has not but will. thanks to the hard work of our men and women in uniform and our international allies and partners. through these wars over the last ten years, we developed cutting edge capabilities and counterinsurgency and terrorism. those were the skills we needed. we learned to do them exceptionally well and will retain those skills going forward. but as the wars wind down we must look up and look beyond to what the nation and this world need next. we have the opportunity and really the obligation, to pivot our defense to the new challenges and opportunities that will define our future. while we've been fighting the world has not stood still. our friends and enemies have not

stood still. technology has not stood still. now, we must meet these changes. really in some places catch up with them. to do that we must let go of the old and familiar, and grab hold of the new to build what chairman dempsey calls the joint force of 2020. agile and technologically advanced force of tomorrow. the point i'm making we would need to make this transition even if we had all of the money we wanted. but of course we don't have all of the money that we want. and thereby springs a second great force impinging upon us which is the budget control act. i want to remind you of the magnitude of the budget control

act's effect, and the need we have to make this adjustment in conscience of the force of strategic history. just to remind you of the facts, the base defense budget is not decreasing. over coming years. but neither is it continuing to rise in real terms as it has over the past few years. and as we planned for it to do as recently as a year ago. the difference between our plans before the budget control act, and the plans imposed upon us under the budget control act is the famous $487 billion over ten years. about 262 billion. adjustment of about 9% of the total that we planned, which is a substantial adjustment by any measure. and to that you must add the

magnitude of the reductions and overseas contingency operations or supplemental spending. that correspond to the winddown of the war in iraq and eventually afghanistan. so, those are the numbers with which we are dealing and the moment in which we find ourselves, to deal with those two forces we know, we knew we needed to do several things. the first and most important one is to put strategy first and then budget. president, secretary of defense t chief, service secretaries, all of the department of leadership and so forth spent much of the fall meeting. we met again and again, building off the work that secretary gates had begun the summer before. and culminating in decisions made by the opportunity try to

scope out what the defense strategy of the united states should be in this new strategic era. and you saw the strategy we put out first in early january, then a little bit later the budget. and the reason for that was the strategy was our guide as we made this large budget adjustment. and a sequence was critical. second thing. second rule we observed, i'll put it secretary panetta's terms, everything on the table. everything on the table, no sacred cows, including many things that we had not looked at managerially for a long time in the department for the simple reason that we had not had to. so, everything on the table. the third principle we applied was -- and this is important -- that we did not proceed by

subtraction alone, by taking things away, but by building towards that force that we needed in the future. the image i have in my mind shared with some of you before is of an ice sculptor, you see someone chipping away at a block of ice and you can either watch the chips fly away or you can watch the shape emerge. we tried to make sure we were always watching the shape emerge which was the joint force of 2020 that we're trying to build towards. so that's what we did and the result was a strategic package, it was a balanced package in three parts. first part was a continued discipline in how taxpayer dollars are spent. i won't say too much about that. many of you heard me speak about this in my previous job. but we need to continue the relentless pursuit of better buying power for the taxpayer

and the war fighter. this is necessary for two reasons. first of all to the extent we can we would like to absorb any reductions in the budget, in the budget control act, without diminishing military capability. so one would like to find efficiencies and i would like to tell you we can find it all in efficiencies but we can find quite a bit. so it's necessary on the merits. it's necessary if we are going to retain the confidence of the taxpayer that their money is being put to good use in defense. that's essential for tuesday continue to enjoy the funding from the taxpayer that we need to defend the nation so. for both of those reasons we need to keep at it. we proposed another round of base realignment.

brac. i realize i wasn't exactly a crowd pleaser. how can you do that? my answer is how can i not do that? how can i not propose only the cutting of tail and not of tooth. how can i justify not protecting bases. makes no sense. i couldn't justify that position. that's my answer. how could you not do it. i realize it's not popular but that's one of those things that we felt when we said everything was on the table. so our first part was to better use of the taxpayer dollar. the second point i won't go into here but it's essential importance to take steps to slow the growth in the department. so we made proposals, they are

measured and we think they are necessary. in the view of all of us and the joint defenses was that this approach was the right one. and again, i'd be happy to say more about that. the third part of the budget package is the one i think will be most -- of most interest to this audience. that is the part that was tuned to the new strategy. i always say to people insult to any of us in the government but if you look at the new strategic guidance that we issued in early van. i always say this is what any one of you would have written down too. it's not rocket science. pretty straight forward. answer to the question. well, after iraq and afghanistan what should we focus on now?

but it was important that we write that down and say it and that we guide our budget move accordingly. i'll fick a few of the pieces of strategic guidance, two out of the five or six in there. i'm sure, we called the rebalancing toward the asia pacific region. the logic is very simple. it is this. the pacific region has enjoyed peace and stability for over 60 years and in that climate, first japan, then korea, even yes, now showed china have had an environment in which they could develop economically and politically without war or conflict.

that's not a birthright. that is something that was guaranteed, reinforced by the pivotal military power of the united states in that region. we are going to continue to play a pivotal military role in the east asia region. we can keep on keeping on with that good thing. it's good for us and it's good for everyone in the region. that's what we're going to do. and so, if you look at what we did managerially in dealing with the consequences of the budget control act, the pacific posture increased relative to that elsewhere. in the navy, our navy is going to remain about the sametize and

grow somewhat but we're doing a big change out, more about this newer ships for older ships. not only were we protecting our investments but this is the important point, we're shifting the naval presence to the pacific. you'll see that go on over the next several years, that's carrier, it's destroyiers of a couple of times, it's the new com pat stip all going into the pacific theater. go to the air force. the air force we did decide to make some reductions in air force tactical error squawrons removing some of the aircraft, that to make room for newer

aircraft, but we made no changes in the tack air posture in the asia pacific region. not at all. in addition to that we are continuing on despite the budget control act and with a host of isr. platforms in the air force. all going forward despite the budget environment. tell you something about the marines. how about the marines in the asia pacific region. reduction in marine corps strength reflecting the wind downs in iraq and afghanistan. no reduction in marine corps presence. none. in fact, they will be seeing more of the marines out in east asia. why is that? because the marines are going to be in afghanistan. they are going to be at their

stations. we have a new presence in australia that we're building. marine presence in guam, going to make that move now so green corps increasing also. finally, we sustained or launched new capabilities specifically for the region. i mentioned the new bomber. the girt pay load. prompt strike and a host of upgrades in radars, electronic warfare. new munitions of various kinds and on and ond. all not only protected but enhance it going toward. i wanted to give you some of

those particulars. i'll take one more. then that's it. the other one derived from the president who had a very good instinct in this regard. he kept saying to us make sure that you don't follow the last in first out rule. that you don't pull up the things that are most shallowly rooted, namely your new things. i want to see that we are enhancing the capabilities that are going to be part of our future. and what are they? well, cyber, for example. we'll spend more on in the future. we have lots of opportunities there and we will. certain aspects of our sigh yens and technology base, we continue to invest in the future. special operat