to prove that point we drove from beijing to lower mongolia and witnessed all the investment in infrastructure. i raise this point because dr. bernstein you pointed out the adequatesy of jobs. after all the discussion about the marginal tax rates and incentives versus disincentives. fundamentally people aren't going to be able to work if jobs aren't available to them. and so while there's been much bally who about how we're going to great jobs here, we sit in a congress where we have yet to take up after more than 100 days of transportation bill that as the season eclipses and fundamentally the president's request of last september to have his bill taken up in terms of jobs is not -- mr. bernstein i'll ask you and then i have a question for dr.sterly also.

what would the effect of passing the job's plan be for millions of americans that currently can't find a job. and then dr.sterly, the german system where they incentivize people staying in work where instead of paying unemployment they provide the company with direct subsidy to retain the person in that job instead of having them go outside to work. dr. bernstein? >> right. if i may poach on gene's question. we have a work sharing program here. it's exemplary and i commend the congress for passing it. >> some of my colleagues up here may well agree with what i'm about to say, even though i know they're more focused on the tax rate side of this. there is no better social welfare program, no stronger social welfare program for reducing poverty than an adequate availability of good jobs for low wage people than a tight labor market, a full

employment labor market where instead of an excess supply of lower wage workers there's an excess demand for them. i think we saw that most clearly in the second half of the 1990s, with a lot of moving parts. a higher main mum wage, lots going on. even in did manist of the disincentives ted, we saw the employment rates of less skilled, disadvantaged workers and poor workers of single moms go to the highest rates on record and poverty rates drop to some of their lowest rates on record. simply put no better program. >> i think you make a very good point. i think we could learn a lot from the german system. also it extends far beyond the part you mentioned. the german system is especially good at sponsoring apprenticeships and favoring education of people who don't go to college not just those who do

go to college. something i think we do a very good job of in this country. i mentioned earlier that i think you can change the incentives of unemployment disability and engage the employer in a sense that maybe you can experience rate it a little more so there's some consequence. the employer it's not so much that the employer has to pay the full burden, but it would be nice to have somebody that would help with this early intervention which sometimes is harder for the government to do. so i think there are ways in which we really could learn from the german system. >> george used to express frequently that government works best when it's a collective enterprise. by using the term collective, i think what he meant is, know what he meant is by embracing academic private sectors, labor sector and government pulling together. we do have this engine of growth and opportunity. what models would you suggest or do you have any that we should

follow to achieve those goals and address some of the concerns that our chair has raised about coming to the precipice of this cliff and making sure we're doing the right things? >> this actually fits in a little bit with what bernstein was just saying. the long-term engine for all of this is economic growth. and i keep mentioning that the economy we think is going to expand over time. i really encourage you to think about how we restrekture our social welfare system in a very brood sense as we move forward five, ten, 20 years ago from now. if you look at the government budget put forward by president obama. if there was a pure republican budget of the same thing. we're planning on spending $1 trillion more. now it turns out almost all of it is going for interest on the debt and social security and medicare and medicaid not for children. in ways for the most part that don't favor employment at all.

if we think about how government shifts its resources towards favoring employment we do go a long way. if we get it, then the relative wage for working starts growing and growing relative to just a sort of a subsidy from the government. so you can effect, here we started take talking about marginal tax rates. at what point does going to work and engaging in the market? >> do you agree that the war cost of some $3 trillion and having these -- >> two wars and. >> and tax cuts -- >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> dr. bernstein on page nine you say it would be a cig cabot policy mistake to require resip pent benefits to work without ensuring cad kuwait job availability this is exactly the same argument that some made against welfare reform in the '90s that it was wrong to

guarantee work. how do you define adequate job availability? >> i was there at the time thinking, writing about welfare reform. i didn't mean to emply that there should be a guaranteed job for everyone. which my statement in my testimony was meant to stress that absent stronger labor demand, right now if you look at the low wage labor market, for example, we'll find there are far more job seekers than job availability. of coursely that's partly a of a function of the recession. even in the economy when the business cycle is expanding the business market is qualified by excess supply and not enough jobs. reform was quite successful through this period of full employment, it's actually been quite unsuccessful ever since. even with relatively low

unemployment rates. welfare reform is largely regarded as a success, it really hasn't been over the last decade or so as the job market has weakened. my point is we have to have a very strong demand side functioning on the low wage labor market if you're going to require work and expect it to reduce poverty. >> it's understandable during a period of depressed economic conditions through stamp choir means and administration discretion the private charity system will also relax eligibility standards. extend unemployment benefits and so forth.

>> very quickly. if we had taken more of the stimulus money and put it into the job subsidies particularfy for lower income people it would cost less and be a better stimulus because these people are likely to consume. it would be a better supply side incentive than some just across the board way we spent some of the other money. >> thank you. >> casey mull began a university of chicago economist who testified in front of the house budget committee pointed out if you look at what happened to the array of welfare programs in 2008 and 2009 we tramtcally increased spending on a wide variety of them. again, we did each one of those individually. i come back to the point that we have haphazard welfare system that creates terrible disdisincentives to work at all kinds of places.

not only relatively low incomes it has the same effect at higher incomes. it seems to me it's beyond time for us to redesign a system and think about it holistically rather than program by program. >> i would to thank all of our witnesses for coming today for your patience in the early changes in the schedule. it's been very helpful the insights that you provided how tax policy and welfare policy can create disincentives as well as incentives to work. hopefully we'll continue to work in the time ahead to address the broken promises between the various agencies to horm nice this and get to the point that mr. bran brandon talked about at the end in a bipartisan way. if members have additional questions they'll submit them to you in writing. thank you again. with that i conclude the

hearing. coming up next on c-span3, we'll show you a panel discussion on the effectiveness of foreign aid. that will be followed by remarks from tea party activist c.l. bryant. and then helen ocho ya director at nasa space flight center. and later a discussion on the history of executive power. this past week with congress on break, we've been featuring some american history tv's weekend programs in primetime here on c-span3. tonight we look at african-americans' resistance to slavery. starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern, the life and escape of former slave robert smalls who served south carolina in the u.s. house of representatives. and at 10:00 p.m. eastern, vanderbilt professor details how fugitive slaves planned and

executed escapes to canada, mexico and the caribbean. american history tv in primetime tonight here on c-span3. c-span2 we've been featuring some of book tv's weekend programs in primetime. tonight or confers with pu lits ser prize winner ana quinned len. it's all that week on c-span2. this weekend head to the state capital named in honor of thomas jefferson with book tv and american history tv in jefferson city, missouri. saturday at noon earn. literariry life on book tv. former senator of missouri first lady on family life inside the governorer's mansion. all a bill, a butcher's bill, a bro vision list ofrom ancient me sew powe tame ma.

and sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv -- >> at one time in 1967 this was called the bloodiest 47 acres in america. >> a former warden takes you through the historic missouri state penitentiary. also walk back through history in the halls of the missouri state capital and governor's mansion. once a man c-span's local contents vehicle explore cities across america. this weekend from jefferson city. saturday at noon and sunday at 5:00 eastern on c-span two and 3. up next a panel discussion on the need of effectiveness on foreign aid held in boulder in mid april. you'll hear from the peace corp.s director. this is about an hour and 20 minutes. >> my name is clint talbot.

i'm the moderator, which basically means i introduce the people, the smart people and let them talk. and i will do that now. we have to my left immediate left is carrie he isler. she is perhaps best known for being deputy director of the peace corp. a capacity in which she served since 2010. she's also worked in the field of public health for the past two decades specializing in hiv and aids and maternal and child health and a number of other philanthropic and altruistic endeavors. to her left the national direct oor of the national security network a nonprofit organization. she has also served as speech writer to form president clinton and former secretary of states madeleine albright and christopher warren. to her left is judith morrison

who is senior r senior advisor in the gender and diversity division at inter american development bank. she works on international development in latin america. she previously served as regional director for south america and the caribbean at the inter-american foundation. and she's worked at several think tanks including the inter-american dialogue. so what will happen now is each of the panelists will speak for about ten minutes starting with carrie and then heather then judith and then we will open it up to questions. c-span is here and so when you notice somebody with a big fish pole with a microphone attached to it trying to get your questions don't be alarmed. that's all part of the plan. so without further ado, we'll start. >> good morning, everyone. my apologies to people in the

balcony up here. it's hard to see you because of the bright lights. so i'm going to mostly look down here, but please know you're all included. my background -- i am the deputy director of the peace corp. but i spent two and a half decades in public health for john snow incorporated. it's an international politics health organization that implemented programs funded by your tax dollars as work as well as founding from foundations from the u.n. agencies. that is the perspective that i'm going to offer today. i am happy to answer questions about the peace corp. if people have that later on. my conversations today were really focused on the foreign assistance budget. so as the budget battle heats up in washington, which happens every single year, mind you, once again foreign assistance is on the chopping blocks. most americans are completely surprised by the amount of foreign aid that we have. most vastly overestimate the amount of aid we spend on

foreign assistance. those on the right typically want to cut foreign aid, although not entirely. those on the left typically want to increase or maintain foreign assistance. and then we have ron paul who just wants to eliminate it entirely. but at the center of the debate is really the whole issue of foreign aid effectiveness. in terms of the facts most of you probably know the facts about 1% of our federal budget goes to foreign assistance. this is humanitarian assistance not military aid. about 1/5 of our income goes to foreign assistance. now research shows in survey after survey that most americans think that we spend between 15% to 20% of our federal bug on foreign aid. and when asked how much we should spend on foreign aid about 5% -- i'm sorry, when people ask what we should spend most americans say we should spend about 5% of our federal budget on foreign assistance. so you can see most americans

think we should be spending much more and they vs.ly underestimate how much we spend. what's absolutely certain is that our budget, our foreign assistance budget is not a cure for our federal deficit at all. we spent a total of about $30 billion in foreign assistance out of a budget of $3.78 trillion. so it's a very tiny share of our foreign -- federal budget. in terms of aid effectiveness most research has shown our aid does help reduce poverty. does help increase equality in general. it has led to economic growth and has helped to achieve some human development success. it's not uniform there's huge variation within countries. in general the trend, the research shows the trends are

upward that foreign assistance has been largely effective. the most important question is if we're using it as effectively as we can. we have to look at the research to do that. we live in the greatest development history in the time of the world. the indicators have gone i think striking in terms of the reduction in global poverty rates. in terms of the percentage of people who live unders $1 a day since the beginning of history that number as a share of our total population remained relatively steady as a share of the population. it was relatively stable. after the industrial revolution, the share, the portion of people living in extreme poverty actually declined although with population growth the number of people living in extreme poverty actually increased until about 1980. and then 1980 that's when the

dramatic changes really happened. between 1980 and 1995, there was a huge reduction in poverty rates from $1.5 billion to $800 million. that was a decline of nearly half in 27 years. that's incredible. it's an incredible progress just think about that. a decline in the total number of people in extreme poverty from 1.5 billion to 800 million in a period of 27 years after an increase from the beginning of human history. that can't all be attributed to foreign assistance. but it does coincide with the period of time when developing countries received foreign assistance from donor countries like the united states. other health statistics such as infant mortality rates declined by 25%. as an example between 1960 and 1995 there were an average of about 30 countries that had

greater than 2.2% global economic growth rates. so 2.2% is the global economic average. it is also the economic growth rate for the united states, france, germany, so it's considered an indicator of economic between 1960 and 1995 were 30 low-income countries that achieved 2.2% economic growth rates between 1995 and now, the number has doubled to 73 countries and 2.2% growth rate and again, we've seen some very significant progress in economic development and in the last especially since 1995, 16 years. so the biggest question is is the assistance a portion most widely, are we using it to the greatest effect and are we investing in those countries where we should be investing? i think we've learned from

history that aid to corrupt states where there are dictators that are not leadership that care about tr people and invest with the people it has not been successful in general. we've also seen that investment in those countries that are committed to the people that do invest in their people that have strong and accountable leaders has been more successful. so, in my opinion, one of the greatest indicators of foreign aid effectiveness is, in fact, the places where we invest in the leadership and which we invest. there has been global change in context in terms of some of the factors at play in the world around us. there's been a dramatic increase in foreign investment and we're all familiar with the concept of globalization in developing countries over the last 15, 16 years. we've seen also a huge increase in the number of democracies with the governments that are accountable to the people. there have been some incredible

advancements in technologies especially in technology, i've done a lot of work in liberia in recent years and i get better coverage in liberia than i do in washington, d.c., so the whole issue of technology not only internet technology or cell phone technology, but other kinds of technology have really catapulted sub-developing countries into the modern world very quickly. in liberia they don't have any landlines, but almost everybody has a cell phone. there's a whole plethora of new donors including china and some of the brick country, brazil, rush a india, china, and it is investing all over the world especially in africa. we've seen dramatically increased funding in health and education and especially health around hiv and malaria and it has led to some very important health outcomes. there are new challenges, of

course, there's a growing population and growing migration and big concerns about resource use and of course, climate change is very important and a new consideration to us now. in terms of what we learned, what are the lessons that we've learned. first and foremost, the terms of likely success and i think the most important factors is leadership in the countries where we worked. those leaders and other citizens are committed to their own future and their own development. i want to say something about the paris declaration of 2005. this is a big international up groo of nations that met together to really look seriously at the factors associated with the defectiveness. they mentioned five principles that are, i think, fairly well regarded and adhered to by most major donors that maybe the panelists will have something else to say about the paris declaration, but it is important in this debate. the first one is improving country ownership which is having the countries themselves

define their own development goals and objectives creating their own strategies and taking leadership in their own development agenda. associated with that is increasing donor alignment with those donor -- with the country plans. so the degree to which donors agree and allow the countries to take leadership in their own development. then zee harmonization which is better coordination between donors and the simplification of the donor processes. they can be incredibly onerous especially some of the multilateral institutions, although perhaps you will have something to say about that, but simplifying the processes and harmonizing donor assistance among the different donor agencies in a particular country, making sure that there are not gaps that are not duplication or overlaps. >> another is the real focus on results. there are some common indicators now that virtually all donors

and analyst countries adhere to which enables us to better measure and monitor the effectiveness of foreign aid. the last is mutual accountability which is the commitment of both donors and developing countries alike to be accountable to the people and to the world at large for development. i want to throw out a few rather provocative ideas that have been raised particularly and related to the u.s. government in our own federal budget. these were most recently articulated by the center for american progress. they are not new ideas that many people have mentioned them over the years, but they just wrote an article that i thought was particularly interesting, and i just want to mention a few of them today. they estimate they could save $2 billion a year from our assistance and resources if we did the following things which are related to eliminating the

regulations and changing laws that don't support our foreign assistance program. the first would be ending cargo preferences for u.s. foreign aid or food aid in particular. so demanding that u.s.-flagged vessels or ships registered in the united states were used for the shipping of foreign -- for food bound for foreign countries. the second is eliminating monetized food aid which is a program that the united states gives rice or american agricultural products to private voluntary organizations who then sell it on the local market and two nearby countries and then take the money that they earned from the sale of those commodities and use it to fund development programs or to offset the cost of distributing food aid. the third is cutting u.s. agriculture subsidies which largely favor large producers

such as monsanto. the fourth is removing limitations on local and regional procurement of food aid, so food aid is american products produced here and shipped overseas. so instead of being able to buy locally in the region, we also have to send our own commodities overseas and it is eliminating earmarks on foreign aid that makes it very difficult for our foreign aid decisionmakers to be flexible and make decisions that are important to make in the time of crisis or as changing conditions evolve. so those are some issues that could dramatically help the effectiveness of our aid if we only had the political will and i would be curious to hear what our other panelists think about these. i just want to end with a story. i like to tell stories at the

end because especially when we're talking about foreign aid it's easy to forget that there are human faces attached to this. i want to tell you the story of elizabeth who with is a woman i met in 1999 in zambia where there was assistance for hiv in africa, and certainly treatment was very limited in africa and only available to those who were most wealthy. it was readily available here in the united states just as a point of comparison. my brother-in-law is hiv positive and has been hiv-positive since 1986 and since 1989 has been on retrovirals and is very healthy today. he would be dead if he was in africa and was infected at that time. elizabeth was a young mother, a monogamous wife and a wife to a man whom she knew was unfaithful to her. she was not able to leave him because she was completely dependent on him and divorce was

frowned upon in her community. she did know about hiv and she was fearful that she was exposed to the virus and she became pregnant and wanted to find out if she was hiv-positive and wanted to find out -- she heard of prevention of mother to child transmission and it was relatively new in those days in the late 1990s, but she'd heard about it so she boarded a bus, two busses, actually, to get from her home in the slums just outside of musaka to the clinic in the center of town. when she got there she found out there were stocked out of the rapid tests and no tests were available so she was told to return. she took her two busses back to the community and each though it was very expensive and it took a lot of her own income, and when she got there all of the health workers were gone that day because they were off testing the military. so again, she wasted her time, the whole day and her scarce resources to