american enterprise institute in washington for remarks from house budget committee chair paul ryan. he's set to unveil this morning a new set of policies in pove y poverty. they are set to discuss the policy implication of chairman ryan's plan. we'll have a little more on the

proposal as the discussion is about to get under way. this is from msnbc this morning. paul ryan will introduce a plan that moves away from aus tear budget cuts and focuses on extending tax credits for low-income workers and other policies forms. it will provide a safety net of programs, including food vouchers, medical assistance and home mortgage help. the proposal expected to be unveiled this morning at the american enterprise institute. chairman ryan expected here in just a moment live on c-span3.

good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i was going to ask you to take your seats, but there's standing room only. i'm delighted to see that. i'm arthur brooks, president of the american enterprise institute. i'm honored to welcome you today and welcome the chairman of the house budget committee, congressman paul ryan here at aei. congressman ryan has spoken here many times. he's a friend of aei's, and we're delighted to see his continued willingness to tackle difficult and important issues that many others aren't willing to confront. today he's here to talk about an issue that's near and dear to my heart and those of my colleagues

here at aei, expanding opportunity in america. he's particularly focused on low-income and vulnerable populations of the united states. one of the things that those of you who follow congressman ryan's career and his pronouncements remember and notice consistently that he knows that great leaders, that patriots fight for everyone no matter how they vote. when we forget this, we don't represent all americans. when we remember this, we can truly reunite our country. we're excited about that. we have a moral vision at aei that congressman ryan shares, and we're looking forward to hearing about his new plans today. we're going to be hearing from a distinguished panel after congressman ryan's remarks, and after that, after that panel on which congressman ryan will participate, he'll be taking your questions from the audience for the balance of the hour. please join me in welcoming congressman paul ryan.

[applause] >> morning, everybody. how are you? first off, i want to start by thanking arthur for his hospitality, for all that he's done and just for the patience of his team and for opening up this great facility. i look guard to seeing the new place you've got. let's start with a principal we can all agree on. hard-working people deserve a break in this country. too many families are working harder and harder, yet they're falling further and further behind. that's just what's happening in america today. the cost of food, housing and energy and gas, they keep going up, but paychecks have not budged. so whether you are republican or democrat, let's all agree that

america deserves better. what do we want? we want a healthy economy, and a big part of that is having a safety net that is strong, both for those who cannot help themselves and for those who need just a helping hand to get up and going in life. that's our goal. the problem is, that's not what we're getting. though it's been not for lack of trying, we spend $800 billion each year on 92 programs at the federal level just to fight poverty. and yet we have the highest poverty rate in the generation. deep poverty is near record highs. when you take a step back and you look at all of this, you've got to think we can do better than this. now, i don't have all the answers. far from it. nobody does. but the way i see it, we have an obligation to expand opportunity in america, to deliver real

change, real solutions, real results. and to do that, we need to stop listening to the loudest voices in the room and start lirchi il to the smartest voices in the room. i have spent the last year traveling all over this country learning from people fighting poverty on the front lines. you know, i've been to a high school in milwaukee that's eliminated 14 games from their school grounds. i've been to a church in minneapolis that's helped hundreds of men get off drugs. i've been to a homeless shelter in denver, a rehab center in san antonio. the point is there is a lot of good that is going on in this country. it's amazing. and since washington can't fight poverty alone, it is time to bring in the reinforcements. so today i would like to start a conversation. i want to talk about how we can repair the safety net and help families get ahead. and the thing i want to talk about in addition to that is a

few ideas that some of my colleagues in the house and senate have proposed, they put forward to help issues like income support, education, criminal justice, cutting down on red tape. each idea touches on a very different topic, but they all reinforce the same principal. if more flexibility in exchange for more accountability. my thinking is listen to the boots on the ground, listen to the local leaders that are actually changing the status quo, who are actually succeeding. let them try unique and innovative ideas with a proven track record and then test the results. that's my guiding principle. and the first place to apply it is the safety net. today federal aid is fragmented and formulated. washington looks at each person's needs in isolation like food, housing or energy. it doesn't see how their needs interact. and what's worse, washington looks at each person in

isolation. it doesn't see how people need to interact. the secret to our country's success is collaboration. people working together, people learning together, people building together of our own free will. what government should do, then, is to encourage collaboration. bring people together, get them into the mix, empower them, don't oversee them. don't force them. what we need to do is to coordinate assistance to families in need. get the public and the private sector working together. that's how we can smooth the transition from assistance to success. the fact is, each person's needs fit into a coherent howhole, a career, and each person fits into a coherent whole, a community. so if the public and private work together, we can offer a

personalized, customized form of aid, one that recognizes both the need and the strength, both the problem and the potential. so i would start what i call a federal grant. the idea would be let different states try providing aid and then test the results. in short, more flexibility in exchange for accountability. my thinking basically is get rid of these bureaucratic formulas and put the emphasis on results. participation would be voluntary. no state would be forced to join. and we would not expand the program until all the evidence was in. the point is, you don't just pass a law and hope for the best. if you've got an idea, let's try it, let's test it. see what works. don't make promise after promise. let success build success. here's how it would work. each state that wanted to participate would submit a plan to the federal government. that plan would lay out in

detail the state's proposed alternative. if everything passed muster, the federal government would give the green light and the state would get more flexibility. it would get to combine into one funding stream up to 11 different programs. things like food stamps, housing assistance, child care, cash welfare. this new, simplified stream of funding would become the opportunity grant. and it would be budget neutral. the state would get the same amount of money as they would under current law, not a penny less. in effect, the state would say give us some space and we can figure this out. and the federal government would say go to it on four conditions. first, you have to spend this money on people in need. you can't take this money and put it on roads or bridges. no funny business. second, every person who can work should work. third, you got to give people basic choices. the state welfare agency can't be the only game in town. people must have at least one other option, whether it's a

nonprofit, a for-profit, on what have you. fourth, you got to test the results. the federal government and the state must agree on a neutral third party to keep track of progress. that's the deal. so if approved, a state could use that money to expand the state programs in part with local service providers. in other words, families in need would have a choice. there wouldn't just be a federal agency or state agency. instead, they could choose from a list of providers. we're talking about nonprofits like charities, for-profits, and groups that would provide one-on-one case management. right now you've got to go to a bunch of different ofrfices to enroll in a bunch of different programs. with this grant, you could go to

one person to work on all your needs. that person would help with federal assistance and act as a resource. maybe you need counseling. maybe you come from a broken family and you need a network of support. the point is, you would work together to get you from where you are to where you want to be. let's take one example. let's call her andrea. she's 24. she has two kids. they're two and four years old. her husband left the family six months ago. she doesn't know how to contact him. andrea graduated from high school, but her only work experience was a two-year stint in retail. she and her kids now live with her parents in a two-bedroom mobile home. her parents can't support her over the long haul. she's been trying to find work for the last five months. she doesn't have a car, she can't afford child care, and her dream is ultimately one day to become a teacher. here's how it would work under this plan.

andrea would go to a local service provider. she would sit down with her case manager and develop an opportunity plan. that plan would pinpoint her strengths, her opportunities for growth, her short, medium and long-term goals. the two of them would sign a contract. andrea would meet specific benchmarks for success. she would establish a timeline for meeting them. consequences for missing them and rewards for exceeding them. andrea's short-term goal is to find a job, but her long-term goal is to find the right job and become a teacher. she might find a job in retail to pay the bills. meanwhile, her case manager would help pay for transportation and child care so she could take classes at night. over time andrea could go to school, get her certification and find a teaching job. the point is, with someone involved and there to help coordinate her aid, andrea would not just find a job, she would

start a career. and all this time, a neutral third party would keep tabs on each provider and their success rate. it would look at the key metrics agreed to by the state and federal government. how many people are finding jobs? how many people are getting off of assistance? how many people are moving out of poverty, and so on. any provider who came up short, they wouldn't be able to participate any further. and at the end of the program, we would pool the results and we would go from there. in short, we are reconceiving the federal government's role here. no longer would the federal government try to supplant our local communities, but it would try to support them. in my view, the federal government is the rear guard. it protects the supply lines. it's the people on the ground who are the fan guard. they fight poverty on the front lines. they have to lead in this effort, and washington should follow their lead. in that spirit, i want to throw

my support behind a number of ideas that i think a lot of good college, both on the left and the right, have been supporting in the house and the senate. they all expand opportunity by taking decision making away from washington and bringing accountability to government on all levels. first, we should make sure in this country it always pays to work. i would do that by increasing the earned income tax credit for childless workers. you know, after reviewing the federal government's role in all of this, this is one of the programs that has really shown results. it encourages people to work by showing them rewards for work. and we all know that the more people we have in the work force, the more opportunity we have in this country. so i would double the maximum credit for childless workers to $1,000, and i would lower the minimum eligibility from 25 to 21 years old. this is similar to what the president has proposed, but with

one big difference. i wouldn't raise taxes. i would pay for it by eliminating ineffective programs and corporate welfare, like subsidies to energy companies. my thinking basically is stop the programs that don't work and support the programs that do. second, we need to expand access in education. we need to give students more options. in other words, we need accreditation reform. sounds dry, but it has a huge difference. this is similar to what my friend, senator lee of utah, and congressm congressman rand paul proposed. let other schools in on the action. and we need to keep retraining job programs. if employers can make their own curricul curriculum, their workers can know what skills they need. third, we need justice reform. we need to give people the opportunity to earn a second chance in this country.

luckily, my colleagues have done a lot of good work on this front. senator mike lee, congressman raul labrador and bobby scott, they've introduced a good piece of reform for sentencing guidelines. it would give judges more restriction with non-violent offenders. they don't have to give the maximum sentence every time. there is no reason to lock everyone up unnecessarily. and we have to tackle recidivism. nearly half of our ex-cons are reincarcerated within three years of their release. think about that. but we know there are programs that work, that get people out of a life of crime. that's why congressman jason shavitz and bobby scott have introduced the low time act. they just need to complete a program with a proven track record.

here's the point. non-violent, low-risk offenders. don't lock them up and throw away the key. get them in counseling, get them in training, help them rejoin and contribute to our society. carl orf, great focus there. finally, you know what we need to do, we need to cut down on bureaucratic red tape. a lot of families are trying to get ahead, but washington is simply getting in the way. so i would propose a very simple rule for future regulations. if you are a federal agency and you want a regulation that would unduly burden low-income families, you have to go to congress. if they want it, they have to fight for it and do it on the record. it's your government and you deserve a voice and a vote. all of these are good ideas. they're just a start. what we're releasing today we're calling a discussion draft, because this is meant to start a

discussion. we want to hear from people. we want people to send us their ideas. we want constructive feedback. so please, e-mail us at expandingopportunity expandingopportunityatwhitehouse .gov. when i was running for office, nobody asked what party i was from. this really isn't a democratic or american issue, it's an american issue. as a matter of principle, we need to build a society where hard work is rewarded and every american has the opportunity to succeed regardless of birthplace or background. and to do that, everybody has to get involved. everybody has to pull in the same direction. if we all work together, we can build a healthy economy, we can fix this, we can get this done,

and that's what the good people of this nation are expecting of us. that's what they deserve. thank you very much and i look forward to this conversation. [applause] we're going to turn the podium over now virtually to robert doerr, poverty studies at aei, has joined us only in the past six months, is expanding aei's poverty focus greatly, and we're delighted to have him in this next panel. >> as congressman ryan said, let the discussion begin. we have a panel that is well known to many of the audience so i'm going to keep the introductions very short. starting on my immediate left is

ron haskins who is a director and co-director at the brookings institution. and from february to december of 2002, haskins was the senior adviser to the president for welfare policy at the white house. ron is well known, extremely well respected in this field and we're very honored to have you with us today. next to ron is stuart butler at the center of policy innovation charged with designing innovative solutions to some of the america's toughest challenges. before taking the helm as cpi in august of 2010, butler guided the heritage research for almost 30 years in economic policies. stuart, we're glad you're here as well. and finally, bob woodson on the far left next to congressman ryan. he's founder and president of the center for neighborhood

enterprise. bob's social activism dates back to the 1960s when he developed and coordinated national and community programs. and during the 1970s, he directed the national urban league's justices division. later he served as a resident fellow of the enterprise institute, so he's alumni of his father's institution. we're glad to have you. we're going to have ron go first, then stuart, then bob. then congressman ryan will respond, then i'll ask a question and we'll go to the audience. >> i want to make four points. first it's a sweeping proposal. this is worthy of a think tank. it's full of references to social science, things are justified or explained. it's a spectacular document. and i would emphasize sweeping. opportunity grants, eipc for childless workers, education at all levels, criminal sentencing and other prison reforms, regulatory reform and program evaluation. i have not seen anything like this from an individual member

in many years introduced in congress. second point, results driven research. if you need to sleep, now is the time because people don't pay much attention to this. but i'm telling you, it's the most important thing going on in our country right now. i'm telling you, our programs don't work. the bush administration was huge on this, obama is even bigger, so this creates a real possibility for bipartisanship and a focus on results, which we should do in all our programs. third, opportunity grants. by far the most controversial in this and the part i hope doesn't get all the attention, but i'm afraid it might because it's the part that's the most controversial. it gets flexible authority, and i hope bob will emphasize, what i like most about these grants, they're called opportunity

grants, but we know it's something administration has been very flighty about. this is the way to get money to the local level and the platoons of society, civil society, can benefit from some of the money funded to do things that government just can't do, like tell people, you've got to stop that. you have to stop that. i've heard many people who are associated say the same thing. so the opportunity grants are really crucial. if you were a republican and you believed opportunity grants and flexibility grants were the way to go, you could not improve on paul's proposal. why? because it's not natural. it's not changing food stamps and so forth, they remain in place. but foive states, seven states will conduct the experiments and wheel find out if these actually play out. that is exactly the way to go about it and it's a compromise right from the beginning. finally, the politics of the

situation we're in now. first, i hope all of you will excuse me from observing that almost everything in this proposal is possible for bipartisanship. it is really a bipartisan proposal from the very beginning. if the media focuses on the controversy, that's a huge mistake. they're missing the story. there are very few republicans who would have the courage, especially in this situation we now face, to introduce such a bipartisan, reasonable proposal. and this raises the second question, which is about republicans and politics, and that is if they'll have the sense to support this. in 1996, republicans reform proposed welfare reform in a way that's never been done before, and it's because they were united. a lot of fights behind the scenes, but publicly, everything was agreed upon and eventually the president agreed with us and a majority of democrats on the hill voted for it. if we take the senate and the senate takes something along

these lines and both the senate and the house pass it, we can put something on the president's desk that will become law. [ inaudible ] >> already partisanship, come on! >> i think our late and mutual friend jack kempert would call in a blatant proposal. it raises lots of questions that have to be discussed and considered, and tim is turning this into a major proposal. so i'm very supportive of this approach. i welcome the congressman for putting it forward. i think if you look at some of the elements, i want to raise some issues and some questions about the proposals while supporting very much certainly

the opportunity grant idea. it is absolutely critical if you're going to see innovative public policy in this country to give incentives to states and to localities and to non-government organizations to try out ideas, to be innovated, to learn from them, and that's the heart of the opportunity grant proposal. i think it's for someone who has been very devoted to this for many, many years not to be romantic about states. it recognizes that you have to push innovation as well as give incentives for innovation. so the conditions that paul ryan mentioned in his remarks are very, very important. it is critical that as part of the opportunity grant idea that work requirements are core elements of that approach. we have work requirements to some degree in the welfare system right now. they were never as widely placed into the law as they should have been in 1996, but they should be extended, will be extended by this proposal.

it's very important, too, to go beyond the state bureaucracies, as i'm sure, bob, you found when you went around the country. they're often local organizations that are held back by the frustrations of rules and regulations and bureaucrats. this proposal directs the states if they want to get the green light to show in very clear ways how they're going to reach past the bureaucracy and enable these organizations to play a much greater role. it's also critically important to have evaluations, as the congressman said. we've had so many policies in this country that sound good, sometimes look good, but actually do nothing or very little. so building in systematic evaluations is absolutely essential to see if innovations are true and to enable the key elements to be exported elsewhere. and it's very important to have states to have some financial skin in the game. i'm less sure that the pure opportunity grant has enough to

encourage states to have skin in the game and to see the kind of financial rewards they can reach. the 1996 legislation gave states very powerful financial incentives to get people out of welfare and into independent work. i don't see that in this, and i think that's an element that has to be looked at more carefully. in terms of the earned income tax credit, it is clearly better to get people to work and to be able to get higher take-home earnings than to increase the minimum wage which may often actually cut jobs for people who are very low skilled and just starting in school. it's very targeted. there are design issues to get this right, and this will need to be part of the conversation that follows this proposal. one of the issues is fraud. we we have a lot of fraud in the eitc currently, so expanding it, it's very important to look for

ways to lessen that fraud. it's very important to look at incentives that can occur. if a young man has a larger eitc and is working today under this proposal, then marries a woman who is also obtaining eitc, you can have a situation of a very strong marriage penalty if that tops out and if it goes about the total amount on the eitc rules, you can find financial penalties for getting married. if we undermine marriage, that would be a terrible thing as a result of this proposal, and if you look at the design stage, it's really important to look at those incentives as well as potentially perversive incentives. we see people not working the entire year, so it's important to propose design changes for

year-round work. thirdly, in the accreditation -- i echo what you said, congressman, that if you look at what is necessary to enable people to get the skills, to command real wages, good wages in the work force, then getting college or college equivalent to critical. today we have enormous financial barriers about doing that. i think the way we will see a solution to that problem is dramatic reductions in the cost of tuition. you now have college for america in southampton university offering certain degrees. all these opportunities of delivering low cost but higher education. accreditation protects the existing providers. it protects the large, expensive universities. and you're right, senator lee

and others have put forward partisans that would allow states and other systems to credential courses and credit institution. that is an absolutely essential feature of this proposal. and then finally i'll just echo what others have said, that looking at the issue of sentencing and alternative sentencing, dealing with the tremendous rules and regulations that get in the way of ex-cons trying to get a job, terrible rules and licensing obstacles need to be looked at as well as the alternative sentencing. you mention this in the proposal and i think that's going to be a very important part of it. so as i said with jack kemp, this is ah dasudacious. i hope it provides the conversation, and i think we should all be part of that conversation, and i congratulate you, congressman, for taking the step of a proposal like this.

>> thank you. i'd like to join my colleagues. it's critically important that we have a dialogue that goes beyond money. for the past 40 years, the anti-poverty expenditures of $15 trillion, 70 cents of every dollar that goes to poor people go not to the poor but those who serve poor people. these people ask which problems are not solvable but which are fundable, so we have created incentives for maintaining people in poverty and we wonder why it expands. so it's important for us to recognize that this control has to change. but in addressing poverty, it's important that -- we tend to make the mistake of generalizing about poor people. not everybody is poor for the same reason. i identify four categories of

four people. the first category, people are just broke. they lost their job or a breadwinner died or there's a temporary illness, but the person's character is in place, and to them they use welfare assistance the way it was intended, as an ambulance service, not as a transportation system. and then you got category 2, a person that con fronts perverse incentives for staying on welfare. for instance, the single mom in milwaukee many years ago who saved $5,000 on welfare to send her daughter to college only to be charged with a felony. so she concluded, well, i'll just save it. category 3 would be someone who is physically, mentally disabled. but category 4, who i think concerns most of us, are those who are poor because of the poor choices that they make, the character flaws that they have,

the drug addicts, they have serial out-of-wedlock births. just giving money to people like that injures the helping hand. so it's important to aggregate this population of the poor. people on the left tend to look at poor as if they're all category 1, and people on the right tend to look at the poor as if they're all category 4. so it's very difficult when we do that to have a meaningful dialogue because, as paul's proposal identifies, you need a strategy to address poverty to address the needs of each of these groups. and the center for enabled enterprise, we address people in category 4. these are the people that i have taken paul around the country to see. the point is, these are the new -- people on the left and the right have missed about the

poor. people on the left, when they look at poor people, they see a sea of victims. people on the right see a sea of aliens. there is an old african proverb that the bull elephant who fights on the grass always loses. so what we've tried to show paul is that the real solutions to poverty and people in category 4 are the people who are resident in the community experiencing the problem. they are the healing agents to antibodies. and so it's important to go into those communities. the qualities that make them effective also makes them invisible. you have to be like a geiger counter and go in and seek them out. what makes them effective is they provide character coaching and moral guidance to the people they serve. they witness to people by their example that they can be restored and reclaimed and

redeemed in the midst of poverty. so paul has gone to some of those crime-in fested, drug-ridden neighborhoods and he has witnessed the most fallen, the most broken people you can imagine. it's important that any anti-poverty approach takes into account these real anti-poverty experts that are resident in there, so what we intend to do is take this proposal to our whole network of 2,500 grassroots people in 39 states. so for the first time, grassroots groups who are suffering the problem will have a seat at the table so their str views, their opinions on what should be done to address poverty will be factored into whatever deliberations that we have. only when you allow people suffering the problem to provide their own input do we have

change. final point is that also we have to destroy this false dichotomy that somehow if we spend more, we care more. if we spend less, we care less. we have demonstrated this in our programs around the country that you visited in milwaukee, wisconsin where we have for the past eight years an anti-violence effort where we hire young adults from the same cultural and geographic zip code as the children experiencing the problems, and we put them full-time in the schools as character coaches and moral mentors, and as a consequence, the kids are redirected away from lives of pathology, and we're able to reduce crime and violence by 25% in just three months. we started with one school, now we've expanded to 12, and this is an initiative, paul, we want to take throughout the country. and also the running rebels organization has a very unique program where for the past eight

years, young men who are violent offenders, instead of being sent to 22 to 30 years in prison are giving community-based attention and supervised by other people -- every two hours they have to make a contact with their mentor, usuallily someone w who has been in prison themselves, but as a consequence we've had 81 young men come into that program with an 80% success rate and the program gave a mock check to the washington commissioners for $600 million. this is the money that the county saved as a consequence of keeping these young men out of prison. so that's another example that demonstrates the point that if we invest more wisely in creative community-based poverty wars, we can help more people at

lower cost and expand opportunity for everybody. thank you. >> congressman, you want to respond to those comments? >> thank you very much for that feedback. and as i mentioned in the beginning, the whole point of this is to start this conversation. i just touched on a few of the ideas that's contained in this proposal. as the gentleman here mentioned, there are a lot of others that are in here. i'll just go down, because i wrote all your comments down and i'll try to be as quick as i can to continue to open it up. both ron and stuart sort of confused block grant. this isn't really exactly a block grant. it's not your garden variety block grant where you cut a check to the states and call it a day. this is very different, because as stuart mentioned, there can be abuses with that. this opportunity grant is designed to streamline funding streams into one grant that is

there to have customized and personalized aid to each person. so to bob's point, each person has a different issue. there are different kinds of poverty. unfortunately, this washington one size fits all no invest first in washington approach treats them as if they're the same. so you have to bring this down to the local level and have a customized, personalized form of aid. and it's not as if this is a new idea, this is actually working out there in the country if it ever been applied or where it's been applied. i can point to wisconsin alone, lutheran social services where they, in spite of the federal government, offer very holistic services where they have a person who works with a recipient to come to a plan for their lives, to help them meet their benchmarks, accountability and rewards. this to me could be so much better delivered and accelerated

through the opportunity grant. the problem we have here, you can look at these things like the marginal income tax rates. right now we suhave such a disjointed system which makes it less likely that people will lose systems and go to work. we want to remove those disincentives to work, we want to remove those disincentives who are just rational people making rational decisions to get back to work. we think the work requirements -- that means work-related activities. working, looking for work, or in job skills training getting yourself prepared for work. so it's a little bit more than, i would say, a block grant. ron mentioned results-driven research. we spent the last year and a half in our committee, lots of committee hearings, lots of staff research, trying to find metrics. and there's just so little out there. we don't do a good job of

measuring success. so if i had to take a 30,000-foot-view of this proposal, it's basically this. our approach to fighting poverty has basically been, let's measure it by inputs. success is measured by how many programs we create and how much money we spent. not on outcomes, not on results. how many people are getting out of poverty and staying out of pover poverty? we need to do a better job of affecting policies and measuring them better. that's why we have a closing house of data and we have to get ahead of the privacy issues. then remove the barriers. accreditation reform, i think, is a key way of getting at tuition inflation, lowering the cost of college, making it easier and more accessible. licensing reform. i think this is really important. it's not a federal issue but

it's a state and local issue. there is a barrier making it harder for people to get into professions. whether it's a felon trying to get a license to drive a truck or somebody who wants to be a beautician or a barber. we need to do license reform at the local levels. you also talked about, stuart, crowding out civil society in local organizations. i think this is among the other big points we're trying to make here. the federal government inadvertently has basically come into our communities with strings and rules and do you happen -- duplicating programs and has crowded out what we call civic society. if you talk to rog chetti, these are people in our communities who want to make a difference. in many cases, the federal

government pushes them to the side. the government needs to respect its role. the federal government here can provide resources. the federal government can man the supply lines, but again, the people frount linthe front line people who are fighting poverty eye to eye, they're the ones who are actually really achieving something, and if you bring the federal resources behind them in this kind of innovative way, i think we can focus on a more results-oriented approach. i think that's really, really por important. there are so many other points that you mentioned, but i think the key is let's stop treating the symptoms of poverty, let's stop propping up a poverty management system, let's get to a results-oriented system and let's integrate. let's bring the private sector, the public sector and the chartable sector together honing in on the same projection, not competing with one another, so the focus is on results. are we getting people out of poverty? and we know to know there are

different kinds of poverty, there are different kinds of needs. let's respect those different kinds of poverty and bring aid that is customized and personalized, and that to me is how you deal way lot of the problems that we have, and this is the kind of conversation we have to evolve to so that at the end of the day, we start welfare reform with waifvers in the eary 1990s. then we brought those ideas to congress and we passed it in 1996, and since then we have not been reborn. we've got 92 other programs at 800 billion a year that are in dire need of reform so we don't measure success on inputs but based on outcomes. >> congressman, i was administrator when all these programs came before mayor bloomberg in the last five years, and there is no question that there is the question among administrators in the various federal streams and lack of conne

conne connectivity. so there is big opportunity there. but you're putting forth the food stamp program, and you're offering states, it looks to me, an option of not necessarily having that be a voucher and have the benefits go for other needs in the household. i wonder if you would address that issue and what is it that you saw in your investigation of this issue that led you to believe that this really longstanding program, this would be a big change s in need of that opportunity for experimentation. >> the critical part of this and the reason for that is to combine it all together so you can design an aid package that is necessary for this person's particular needs. maybe she needs more for transportation or maybe she needs more for child care. right now you have the structured programs that don't recognize her unique problems and unique needs so that your case manager can actually adjust the benefit. if a state wants to, they can make it a cash assistance program or they can have the ebt card, which is what most states have, designed within the opportunity grant.

i also think that having the carrot stick approach, having the work requirements or training requirements with a time limit that applies to the person's particular needs is really not as a permanent condition, but as a helping hand for the able bodied to get them up and on with their lives. i think that's an important part of it. and states can design it however they choose to, make it ebt or more cash form of assistance that a person's case manager works on. >> okay. thank you. now, we want to open it up to questions from the audience and see what we've got, trying to see. right there, the first row there. wait for the microphone and we want questions, not statements. >> my name is caleb war. i'm an intern at the u.s. house of representatives. i know there are some policy scholars including jim petakukus who advocated for a subsidy. could you discuss the merits of

a monthly paycheck that comes with the wage substitute versus the lump sum, annual lump sum of the ait expansion. >> i agree with jim's point. stuart mentioned about aitc reform. this is what we need to get into. there are some fraud issues we need to police and do a better job. and i believe ultimately it is a good idea to get the eitc to become a monthly system so you see it in your paycheck every month, so that it -- i think by reforming and working within the eitc structure, that's a more successful outcome and more likely reform than subsidy is a good idea. i just think we can take the attributes of that idea and apply them to eitc. we have a program that has a good success rate that can need some reform, monthly, going after fraud. other thing is it works. this is one of my -- i think uncle miltie, we conservatives

call it uncle miltie, this was an idea that was inspired from some of his work. this is an idea that has great philosophical, principled origins that has been practiced in society, that actually shows that it really does pay to work and it is getting people. here's the other point. 20% of americans between the ages of 20 and 21 are not working or not even in school. and so we need to pull people into the workforce. when you look at our very low labor force participation rates, it is the worst in this category. a childless adult who is 21 to 25 years old. and these are people in the prime of their lives, that need to get into the workforce. and on the marriage point, i would say to stuart, i think -- i think it shows that if you have a job, you're more likely to get married. if you're able bodied and working, you're more likely to have a stable life, a stable marriage, and a stable family.

so i think as applying eitc to childless adults is actually going to help facilitate marriage. i think it is going to be good for the family. >> okay. next question. right there in the mustache in the back. sorry. >> in the mustache. that's great. did you put that on this morning? that's good. >> congressman, you and several of the panelists mentioned college and nothing about vocational education. is it your view that the colleges trump in terms of vocational needs or -- >> did you say trumped? >> yes. more important than vocational training? >> no. if you go to the report, i just -- i'm doing the cliff notes version here. if you go to the report, vo cad is very important. in many ways it is primary. it is not -- i think we have over emphasized in america -- you got to go to a four year

degree and get english or something like that, especially where i come from, vocational education is fantastic. look, if we can work on our resurgence of our manufacturing industry, whole other issue, we're going to need high skilled workers earning great paychecks, family supporting wages. and i think vocational education is a really important part of it. that's why we talk about job training reform. that's why we talk about flexible job training reform, individual based, that goes to the individual, so that they can take that aid, and go to the provider of their choice. be it an employer who is setting aside 50,000 square feet to teach people how to get a welding degree or a c and c machine tool and dye agree or vocational technical college or what not, that's why we put emphasis on job training reform. i just didn't mention it in my opening remarks. >> i think we should also look at enterprise. enterprise formation as one strategy too. for instance, paul met a man in indianapolis, curt moore, who

spent 13 years in federal prison. and came to himself and came to christ and came out and started washing cars in people's driveways. now he has 15 employees, and just established his business because we connected him to some business leaders in the community who partnered with him, so we have a conservative enterprise partnerships and there are about 12 other entrepreneurs in these communities with curt's profile that need the kind of help that we can provide. so that would be another strategy to provide incentives and remove the barriers for people like curt moore to start a business and so -- >> that brings up one important -- i'll make it a brief point is right now i would say we have a lot silos and divisions within our society that are isolating the poor from the rest of our communities. and we need to reintegrate that.

i think the inadvertent design of the federal government's approach has been to basically reinforce the idea that this is government's responsibility. you know, if there are poor people in your community, and you're worried about them, just pay your taxes and government will fix that. don't get involved. we need to break down that mythology. i think this approach, it attempts to basically do that. so that we integrate. one of the things we're trying to do, say in milwaukee, is hook up employers and manufacturers with people who are in need of skills and jobs together. we're getting suburban churches working with, you know, poor community churches, so that we can help bring all the tools and the things that they have to help make a bigger difference. i think this is, along with voluntary tevo tech is an important area. so get everybody pulling in the same direction, not just embracing the relationships happening today, i think you're going to make a big difference and you're going to see really a thousand flowers bloom. you're going to see -- i call

force enablers that will help make this outcome based approach really successful. >> we have time for one more question. and we'll take the lovely lady in the front row. >> so i'm joanne florino with the philanthropy round table. that will give you a clue as to the question i'm going to ask. >> next question, right? >> well, i wasn't going to do that, but since you said that -- >> that's what i get. >> it seems to me this program, which is amazing, i congratulate you on that, opens the door for a new and expanded role for private philanthropy. at the local level, at the state level and at possibility at the national level. so what about incentives for private philanthropy? we are looking at the tax code. we're looking at some of the possibilities, some of the provisions that were in the camp draft. i think you know how the reaction has been from the sector. what can we do to ensure that private philanthropy remains as healthy as possible and engaged with those boots on the ground? >> yeah, we will not solve these

problems and get people out of poverty in a lasting way without private philanthropy, without private charity, without good works. and so digressing for a moment on the ways and means tax side, if you notice that draft, the one thing it did preserve of all of the tax expenditures out there was the open ended nature of donating to charities, of private philanthropy. that is a very important distinction that i think needs to be noted. there are some other good ideas, like letting people file -- take their donations that occur up until april 15th to claim on their tax return. i think there are a lot of innovative ideas that help pull money into the charitable private sector and the philanthropy sector and tax policy is a big way of doing that. so i think the right kind of tax policy can help integrate and expand civil society by encouraging giving, but the other thing is, i think a lot of the problems we have is the federal government is displacing

and crowding out and competing with private charity in many ways. the purpose of this is to stop that competition, and respect the good works that are being done by people on the ground, the experimentation that is occurring, that's why we want good measurement but respect it. what the federal government can do better is provide resources. when private charities, public charities, nonprofit, for profit, what they can do is provide expertise, boots on the ground and customization. by respecting the various roles, we can integrate the roles so we're better at the end of the day, and that, to me, is what we ought to do if we want to truly get everybody working in the same direction, focus on an outcome based, results based policy. i think tax incentives like we have in the code are something that ought to be preserved, so that we keep this part of civil society or social capital going. >> thank you, congressman ryan. thank all of you here. i wish you all stay seated until

the congressman leaves. >> we have come to the end of the session. grateful to congressman ryan, to our panel, and especially to all of you for giving us some of your time, for joining us in the war for america's poor.

if you missed any remarks by congressman paul ryan, you can see them again or in their entirety and the c-span video library. go to c-span.org. and we'll head live now to capitol hill for a senate hearing looking at recent violence in iraq. yesterday, the state department's brett mcgurk told house lawmakers the situation in iraq is extremely serious and that the militant group isis that is causing the violence is no longer just a terrorist organization, but a full blown army. mr. mcgurk is back on capitol hill today, he's appearing before the senate foreign relations committee. he'll be joined by former cia analyst and army lieutenant general who served three tours of duty in iraq.

and, again, that hearing should get under way here in just a moment. this is live coverage on c-span3.

good morning. this hearing will come to order. today we folk ous on iraq and u.s. policy options, but to fully examine the crisis in iraq we must acknowledge the broader context of developments across the region. earlier this year i heard a hearing on the spillover of the syria conflict to examine the

impli implications of continued violence in syria and how it would impact the stability and security of neighboring countries. now we are seeing the very dangerous results of that spillover. with the advancement of isis, the increase in sectarian violence, underscored by the discuss solution of any real border between iraq and syria and the designation of isis of a caliphate across syria and iraq that is threatening to create a security vacuum in the heart of the middle east. while the today's hearing will not focus specifically on the regional threat posed by isis or on u.s. syria policy, i want to take this opportunity to restate my long held position that we must enhance our support to the moderate syrian opposition. the only ones willing to challenge isis and other al qaeda affiliates in syria. it seems to me that at the end of the day supporting moderate forces must be one pillar of a broader u.s. policy in the region. no one should be surprised that iraq is the victim of this

spillover. but we should be extremely concerned by the rapid expansion of isis and alarmed by iran's clear involvement in iraq. and we should be dismayed by the convenient alignment of interests in response to recent developments. especially in iraq. at its core, this alignment is about self-preservation of rogue actors that seek to maintain power by destabilizing others and keeping weak governments susceptible to malign influence. in my view, iraq does not have to proceed down this path and it is up to iraq's leaders to chart a different course for their country. i'm deeply disappointed that after years of u.s. investment and time and resources, the loss of thousands of american lives, and the commitment of billions of dollars to support iraq's political development and the creation of a responsible, capable iraqi security deserted

communities they were responsible for protecting, abandoned u.s. military equipment and fled from isis fighters. at the same time, isis' expansion across iraq and its reception by iraq sunni communities and tribes would not have been possible except for the accumulation of years of destructive sectarian, corrupt policies by the central government in baghdad. iraq has the potential to be an economically prosperous, diverse and politically representative model for others in the region. but iraqi leaders have focused on their own sectarian and ethnic interests for too long at the expense of building an iraq for all iraqis. the time is now for iraq's elected leaders to form a national unity government, that is truly representative. i applaud the recent progress in nominating a speaker and two deputy speakers for iraq's parliament, and today's promising news that a president has been named. i encourage iraq's leaders to continue this critical work and finalize the government with leaders committed to leading an iraq for all iraqis.

while iraq's leaders continue negotiations to form the next government, the department of defense has completed the assessment of iraqi security forces. i look forward to hearing from our administration witness on the findings and recommendations provided by u.s. advisers and plans going forward to counter the threat from isis and congress' role in this effort. let me take a moment to highlight the particularly dangerous situation of minority communities in iraq and particularly iraqi christians. i recently joined senator stabenow in a meeting with archbishop bashar water from the diocese of erbil. his description of the terror that isis inflicted in iraqi christian communities is truly horrifying and i hope our witnesses today will share with us steps the administration is taking to address the urgent and unique situation of iraqi christians. senator stabenow has asked i submit several letters for the record, which i will do without objection, regarding the plot of

iraqi christians and i look forward to working with her further on this critical issue. i also want to acknowledge that the iraqi ambassador to the united states, ambassador felipe, is in attendance today and we welcome him here. i received a letter from the ambassador following our meeting a few weeks ago, asking that congress and the administration make the u.s. commitment to iraq clear by providing support and assistance to turn the tide against isis, if the iraqi government takes steps to broaden its political base and accelerate the formation of the government. without objection, i'll submit this letter to the congressional record. and i hope to hear from our administration witnesses today, whether or not they believe iraqi leaders are capable or able, i should say, to form a more representative government. what is required to turn the tide against isis and if there is a new national unity government in baghdad, what should we do to demonstrate support.

with that, senator corker. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank our witnesses for being here. and iraq seems to be disintegrating as terrorist organization isis now controls mosul, iraq's second largest city, fallujah and much of ramadi, parts of baja, tikrit. though significantly outnumbered, isis managed to overwhelm entire divisions of the iraqi army, many of whom removed their uniforms and ran. isis also has claimed credit for a recent string of bombings in baghdad, as responsible for systemic persecution of christians. thousands of whom are being forced to flee their homes under penalty of death. they don't convert and pay a

tax. the report that last month was the deadliest in iraq since 2008, with 2400 iraqis killed, two-thirds of which were civilians. for those of us who were here during the debate over the hard won gains of the surge this is hardly an outcome that would have been imagined back then. and though our intelligence picture in iraq is woefully inadequate, the situation should not surprise us for two reasons. the crisis is connected to the disaster in syria, which our country has largely ignored. isis militants have long enjoyed freedom of movement across the porous border in anbar providence and had been in control of fallujah and key parts of ramadi for months prior to the takeover of mosul. since 2009, malachi has systematically shredded an

politicized the entire structure of the iraqi security forces, replacing competent commanders with incompetent yet loyal commanders and creating a more sectarian institution that scares the average iraqi as much as isis. despite the connection to syria, it is important to note that this is not just an invasion from foreign fighters. isis simply cannot hold this much territory in iraq while maintaining operations in syria without help on the ground. whether we can look -- rather we can look at this as a civil and sectarian war being exacerbated and exploited by a growing terrorist threat. this is yet another signal of how badly prime minister malachi has alienated the sunni population. even if malachi leaves, without political reconciliation among iraq's key communities, no amount of military support can make a difference.

but on the other hand, if we do not help iraqi government survive and hold territory now, there is a possibility we will not be discussing political reconciliation in a few months because the country could break apart. today in this hearing i hope we can confront this dilemma head on. i hope we can start to identify the right mix of security assistance and political steps that will help get the country back on the right track. i'm open to working with administration to determine what we can do as a nation to help shore up the defenses of the iraqis and encourage political reconciliation among its iraqi leaders. i want to thank you for being here today. i look forward to this hearing and i look forward to us weighing in on what we believe is a most appropriate steps forward. thank you very much. >> thank you, senator corker. let me introduce our first panel, with us today is deputy assistant secretary of state for iraq and iran, brett mcgurk, who has just returned from a six-week trip to iraq where he

was assisting the embassy team. and miss elissa slotkin, performing the duties of the principle deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, whose experience in iraq ranges from the intelligence community to the national security council to the state department and now to the defense department. let me remind both of you that your full statements will be included in the record without objection. i ask you to summarize them in about five minutes or so that the members of the committee can engage with you in a dialogue. and with that, we'll start with you, mr. secretary. >> thank you. good morning. chairman menendez, ranking member corkers, members of the committee, i thank you for inviting us to discuss the situation in iraq with the focus on the u.s. response since the islamic state of iraq attacked mosul nearly seven weeks ago. let me first review the bidding on why this matters. isl is al qaeda. it may have changed names, may have broken with senior al qaeda leadership like zawahiri but it is al qaeda and doctrine and ambition and its threat to u.s.

interests. should there be any question about the intentions of this group, simply read what its leader says, and it is important to pay attention to what he says because we cannot risk, underestimating the goals, capacity and reach of this organization. baghdadi on may 2011 eulogized the death of osama bin laden and promised a violent response. training camps in syria are named after osama bin laden. in his audio statements, he issues veiled threats against the united states promising a direct confrontation and in his feud with al zawahiri, he is clearly seeking to lead the global jihad. additionally, isl is no longer simply a terrorist organization. it is now a full blown army, seeking to establish a self-governing state through the tigris and euphrates valleys in syria and iraq. it now controls much of eastern syria, and in january in iraq moved into anbar province taking control of fallujah, and on june 10th, it moved on mosul.

i arrived in erbil on june 7th and i'll begin there. in meetings with local officials from mosul and kurdish officials on june 7th, we received early indications that isl was moving in force from syria into iraq and staging forces in western mosul. we immediately asked and received permission from kurdish leaders to deploy peshmerga forces on the eastern side of the city, but the government of baghdad did not share the same sense of urgency and refused the deployments. iraqi military commanders promised to send nine brigades of force to mosul in response to our warnings, we stressed however that the forces might not arrive in time. on june 9th, the situation remained extremely tense, and we continued to urge the immediate deployment of additional security forces to protect against an isl attack from west to east. in the early hours of june 10th, isl launched a complex suicide bomb attack against a strategic bridge and poured forces into the eastern part of the city. iraqi resistance collapsed, which led to a panic and snowballing effect southward

through the tigris valley and the cities of tikrit, samara and balad. the result was catastrophic. five divisions were dissolved. i flew to baghdad first thing that morning with the focus on ensuring our people were safe, working with ambassador croft and our country team and working with the iraqis to make sure the northern approaches of baghdad were bolstered. my written testimony sets forth the crisis response. we first made certain that our people would be safe, including contractors working in bases outside of baghdad, who are evacuated with the help of the iraqi air force. at the embassy, in the airport where we rebalanced staff to manage the crisis and brought in additional department of defense resources to ensure the security of our facilities. at the president's direction, we worked eed improve our intelli direction. these intelligence and security initiatives were undertaken in

parallel with regional diplomacy led by secretary kerry to better focus attention on the serious threat. we finally sought to stabilize the iraqi political process, recognizing that this attack took place at most vulnerable moment following national elections that were held in april 30th in which 14 million iraqis voted built prior to the formation of a new government. this process remains extremely challenging but now has some traction. a new speaker of parliament was chosen last week. he is a moderate sunni arab elected with the overwhelming support from all major components in the new iraqi parliament. today, just about two hours ago, the new iraqi parliament elected a distinguished kurdish statesman to serve as the next president of iraq. he too was elected overwhelmingly with support from all major components in the newly elected parliament. iraqis are now proceeding along their constitutional timeline to choose a prime minister. which must happen within 15 days. as a president has said, it is not the place of the united states to choose iraq's leaders. it is clear, though, that only leaders that can govern with an

inclusive agenda are going to be able to pull the country together and guide the iraqi people through this crisis. the current situation today in iraq remains extremely, extremely serious. isl remains in control of mosul and it is targeting all iraqis, sunni, shia, kurds, who disagree with its twisted version of a caliphate. it joined in an unholy alliance with the baath party and some former insurgent groups like the islamic army of iraq. going forward, the iraqis with our support must seek to split the latter groups from isl and isolate isl from the hard core militant groups from the population. the platforms we have established through the immediate crisis response are providing additional information to inform the president and national security team as we develop openings to protect our interests in iraq. any further decisions in this regard will be made in full consultation with this committee and the congress. any efforts we take moreover must be in conjunction with

iraqi efforts to isolate isl from the population. this is because while we have a serious counterterrorism challenge in iraq, iraq has a serious counterinsurgency challenge and the two are linked. based on my last seven weeks on the ground in iraq, there is a clear recognition by iraqis from all communities that substantial reforms must be undertaken. this will require the formation of a new government, together with restructuring of the security services. emerging consensus in iraq which we can fully support is a functioning federalism, consistent with iraq's constitution, based on the new realities on the ground, and focused on the following five principles. first, local citizens must be in the lead in securing local areas. second, the citizens defending their communities must be provided state benefits and state resources, perhaps modeled on the lines of the national guard force type for structure. third, the iraqi army must be restructured. commanders have failed in mosul and have since been fired and replaced with new commanders who work very closely with. the federal army should also focus on federal functions such

as protecting borders and rarely deploy inside cities while providing overwatched support when necessary. fourth principle, there must be close cooperation between local, regional and national security services to gradually reduce operational space for isl, particularly in the province. the government through the new parliament and cabinet must work on package of reforms that can address legitimate grievances from all communities and ensure adequate resources. these five principles can begin to address many of the core grievances in the sunni majority areas of iraq and also importantly denying space for isl to operate and there by protect the shia majority and other groups from isl attacks. iraqi leaders from all communities have asked for assistance in implementing this program, and general austin our commander is on the ground today

to further assess the situation and discuss concrete ways in which our assistance might be effective. this model of a functioning federalism is achievable, and it is essential if we hope to deny space for isl within the borders of iraq. i look forward once again to discussing more details in the answers to your questions and thank you again for the opportunity to testify this morning. >> miss slotkin. >> thank you chairman menendez, ranking member corker, and distinguished members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the administration's response to the current security situation, my remarks will focus on what the department of defense is particularly doing. i just want to foot stamp some of the things that brett just said, the u.s. does have a vital national security interest in ensuring that iraq or any other country does not become a safe haven for terrorists who could threaten the u.s. homeland, u.s. citizens or interests abroad. as the president has said, isl's advance across iraqi territory in recent weeks and particularly

its ability to establish safe haven in the region poses a threat to u.s. interests and the middle east. and i don't restrict my views and comments today just to iraq. the geographic borderses of iraq. i believe we have a real regional problem on our hands. as brett has said, the situation on the ground is complex and fluid. we are therefore taking a responsible, deliberate and flexible approach to the crisis. but i do want to be clear there is no exclusively military solution to the threat posed by isl. the iraqis must do the heavy lifting. in the meantime, the department of defense remains postured should the president decide to use military force as part of a broader strategy. our immediate goals as announced on june 19th are to, one, protect the people and property -- people and property in iraq. two, to gain a better understanding of how we might train, advise and support the iraqi security forces should we decide to do that.

and number three, to expand our understanding, particularly via intelligence of isil. all three are critical to any future u.s. strategy vis-a-vis iraq. and to that end we have done four things through the department of defense. we have added forces to protect our people. the safety of our citizens obviously is our highest priority. the department has met the request for the department of state as described in the war powers notifications. we transmitted the department of defense has sent what is called a fleet anti-terrorism security team, what we call a fast team, a crisis response element, and additional military assets and personnel to reinforce security both at our diplomatic facilities in baghdad and at the baghdad international airport. the secretary of defense has also ordered the am fib with us transport ship uss mesa verdi into the arabian gulf. the presence in the gulf is added to other naval ships including the uss george h.w. bush and provides the president additional options to protect american citizens and interests

in iraq should he choose to use them. number two, we have vastly increased our intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance isr assets. at the request of the government of iraq, we surged isr over iraq since the fall of mosul and increased our information sharing activities. these isr sorties which are up to 50 plus per day give us a much better understanding of isil operations and disposition and allow us to help -- help the isf counter isil. we're now capable of around the clock coverage of iraq and have been focusing our efforts on isil controlled territory and baghdad. we also sent in u.s. assessment teams and stood up joint operation centers. on june 19th, the president announced these additional measures including the deployment of just about 300 additional u.s. military advisers to evaluate how we must -- might best train, advise and support the isf. the small teams of special

forces are working to evaluate the isf in and around baghdad in particular. the teams are armed for self-defense, but they do not have an offensive mission. and then the two joint operation centers, one in baghdad, one in erbil in northern iraq, they have both been established to help support the efforts on the ground. secretary hagel and chairman dempsey received the draft assessment of the isf last week from central command. department leaders are undertaking a deliberate and rigorous review of the assessment which will inform recommendations to the president. meanwhile, additional assessment work continues as you heard general austin is on the ground today with respect to the developing situation on the ground. in closing, i want to reiterate that we have a vital security interest in ensuring that iraq or any other country not become a safe haven for terrorists. we do need a regional approach and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you. yesterday -- during yesterday's hearing with the house foreign affairs committee, you both

argued that the policy of the united states should be for a unified iraq with a strong baghdad base federal government. but many look and say that what is happening on the ground is accelerating towards a breakup of iraq because too many of iraq's communities no longer trust the malachi government. and the question is whether there is anything we can do to prevent it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think we testified clearly in my written statement as well the model is a functioning federalism under the iraqi constitution. so nobody is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. it simply won't work. there is a model within the constitution for this functioning federalism in which you recognize a very substantial devolution of authorities, the principles of local security control, and that is something that i found in my last seven weeks there is an emerging consensus around. and through the process of forming a government, i think

the details will be flushed out. i know general austin is discussing some of the concepts as we speak, special restructuring the security forces. don't think anyone is trying to create a strong central government that will retain control all over the country. in fact, i think everybody recognizes now that from the center out you're not going to be able to retain control in all parts of the country, but also most importantly, locals and tribes on their own also will not be able to deny space for isil because of isil's very significant military capability. you need a principle of local security control, but with a national resource base. and that is all within the federalist model of the constitution. >> the question is, though, okay -- so federalist model. the question is can you even get to a federalist model the way things are evolving in iraq? >> i think we can -- i think you can because of -- >> what needs to happen? >> well, first we have to get a new government formed. and that's very important. because the new government will obviously be the body that

directs where -- >> what do we envision the time frame of that being? it is past due, right? >> under the constitutional framework and the timelines, as soon as there is a new president, which just happened, there is now a 15-daytimeline to charge a prime minister to form a government. and so we will know within 15 days the prime minister nominee, whoever that is he then has 30 days to name a cabinet and present the cabinet to parliament for a vote. those timelines, however, can be substantially accelerated. for example, under the constitution once there was a speaker, there are 30 days to name a president. they did that in i think eight days. and we are working very hard to accelerate those timelines. >> now, if it ends up being prime minister maliki, how do you think you keep the government together? this nation together? >> as i mentioned in my statement, as the president said, it is not our job to pick the leaders, but the leaders do have to have a very inclusive agenda and pull the country together. >> i'm not asking you to pick, nor i do suggest we should.

the question is that if that is the result, by their own choice, it seems to me that it is very difficult, based upon what has happened so far, based upon sunni responses to isis, at least in the context of their grievances with president national government, that what is -- isn't the likely outcome of that to be more possible to see a divided iraq? >> the prime minister will be chosen from the shia political blocks. and grand ayatollah sistani interestingly over the last month has been very active and laid down some guide posts for how to form the next government. first, it has to correct the mistakes of the past, meaning it can't look anything like the current government. second, you need new leaders that reflect a national consensus. we had that now with the speaker and the president. and so the prime minister will also have to reflect that emerging national consensus. it remains to be seen whether the existing prime minister could build such a consensus.

but that remains very much in question. >> you commented in the house hearing yesterday that options being developed for the president are more concrete and specific as a result of the u.s. military advisers in the ground and increase intelligence collection. what guidance have you received in terms of timing for these decisions and how will the political and security conditions on the ground influence the president's decisions? >> well, as i said, the assessments came in last week. they're dense. they're significant. and so we're still working through those. after we have done that, the president -- i'm sorry, the secretary and the chairman will make informed recommendations to the president. >> are you going to be able tell us anything more than what i read in "the new york times," more than i knew before you came here? >> i understand. i would caution against using elite half report in "the new york times" as your basis for understanding it.

>> the absence of having information leads me to only publicly report it and resources. so when do you intend to come to us in whatever setting to advise the congress? this committee has jurisdiction over arms sales. and my reticence to arms sales to iraq has in some respects been proven true when in fact we have had much of our equipment abandoned and now in the hands of isis. so unless you're going to give us a sense of where the security forces are at, moving forward, this chair is not going to be willing to approve more arm sales so they can be abandoned to go to the hands of those who we are seriously concerned about, in terms of our own national security interests. >> sir, i understand. and our intent is to come and brief congress at the time when we have piled through it ourselves. we have kept the congress very informed. i know i've been up at least twice a week for our committees. we are committed to remaining in close contact with you and there

is no attempt to hide it from you. >> i would just add, mr. chairman, i think we're in a race against time. there is no question. >> that's my point. >> and one thing we have found, first of all, by surging special forces teams, by surging intelligence assets as you mentioned, we do know more than we knew even six weeks ago. security forces around baghdad and particularly north of baghdad, i described this in my written testimony, are trying to do some things to fight back. they have taken a thousand casualties in the last month. these units, we have relationships with, are fighting, they're capable. and those are the types of units that we're looking at ways to further assist. but, again, this is all being discussed by the national security team as we -- >> you have influences here. my understanding is assad has been part of bombing isis in iraq. of course, you have iran here. how is that going to complicate or instruct what you might be willing to do?

>> it is part of the overall assessment and i can just speak for my own firsthand experience in the initial days of this crisis as isil it looked like was moving down the tigris valley and our information was very sketchy and there was a bit of a panic throughout the iraqi security forces and we had to bolster them and try to create a circuit breaker so that that advance halted. there was a security vacuum it that there is no question that our strategic competitors sought to step in and fill. and iraq lacks any capacity to do deep strikes in their border regions. countries show up at their door and say, hey, we can help you with that. the iraqis have pushed back in some regards, but in some respects they have accepted support. >> they have accepted assad bombing, have they not? >> no. we have no indication there is any coordination with the assad regime when it comes to security cooperation. but they're very concerned about the collapse of their border, particularly the collapse of a strategic border town which fell about three weeks ago. >> they have accepted iranian

support? >> they have accepted low level iranian support. there is no question, yes. >> senator corker. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just along those lines, how do you assess u.s. influence right now? i know there are a number of other regional interests that are playing a role. i know that those of who visited recently know that, you know, before this all occurred, u.s. influence was at an all time low and really almost not present. i know that's changed some. but where -- where would you assess our influence to be in iraq right now? >> senator, i would -- since this crisis particularly in mosul, we have been embraced particularly, our military personnel, who have come in. i was at the joint operations center, which we have set up now. i was there on thursday, speaking with all of our military personnel there, all of whom have years of experience in

relationships in iraq. we have been embraced by their military, particularly special forces assessment team, the iraqis have given us full access to air space for intelligence flights, they have given us the legal requirements we need to be there. we have been embraced and i think there is an opportunity because they certainly want our assistance. they want our equipment, they want our training, our fms case is about a -- our package is $15 billion total. they paid about $11 billion of that. they put $193 million in the federal reserve into that account just last week. so the iraqis are very eager under our strategic framework agreement for u.s. assistance to be the backbone of their response. but, of course, there are things they need to do as well. that's the conversation we're having with them. >> and are there competing interests? as you all are deepening the relationship again and helping in the way that -- in the way that we are, are there conflicts or competing interests that you're dealing with there on the ground? >> yes. and in fact some of the tactics

that the iraqis pursue, we totally don't agree with. and in fact i think by moving in aggressively as we have over the last six weeks we'll increasingly increase our influence over some of the tactics. we have advised the iraqis, for example, not to go into urban areas. lessons we learned. the iraqis made a decision to go into tikrit, we didn't really support that decision. we have advised the iraqis since january not to go into fallujah. they have not gone into fallujah. there is a military conversation which is a little bit outside of my expertise and that's why general austin is on the ground talking to their new military commanders, and just a point on our influence, we -- i had a number of conversations with the prime minister on down, since january, and said your generals, mr. prime minister, are not telling you the truth about the situation. that clearly was true. particularly in mosul. those commanders are now gone. and they have appointed a series of new commanders who we happen to work very closely with and we hope that type of relationship

can continue. >> i think that kind of involvement that we had and we lost, you know, where we were able to have the shuttle diplomacy and have the kind of activity that is now taking place has helped create the situation on the ground. no doubt, on the other hand, prime minister maliki has not been the kind of prime minister to create any kind of sense that a central government can resolve the ethnic and civil issues that exist there. do you really believe, bottom of your heart, there is somebody in iraq, the shia sect, that can do that as prime minister if we move through this process? >> senator, we had extreme frustrations with the iraqi government, particularly over the last year. and this one reason we focused most decisively on making sure elections happen, they happen on time, they were credible, and they did happen. they happened on april 30th. they have created a new parliament and through that parliament new leaders will emerge. there are a handful of very capable leaders who may emerge

as the next prime minister of iraq, but we'll have to see this one unfold fairly rapidly over the coming days. >> miss slotkin, i know there was a little discussion between you and the chairman relative to the assessment that is taking place. can you just broadly tell us of anything that you all have learned over the last three weeks that you did not know prior to the assessment? >> sure. i think the thing when we put the assessors on the ground that was the biggest open question given the march isil had across and into mosul and down is what is the status of baghdad, would the isf be able to defend baghdad. that was our critical first question, especially given the size of our mission there. and i think one of the early things that we saw as we got on the ground was that there was a stiffening of the iraqi security forces in and around baghdad to protect the capital, which we thought was critically important. we certainly weren't aware until we got on the ground. i do think some of the early indications are frankly mixed. that there are some very capable

units that have high morale and that are willing and capable of fighting and there are other units where morale is lower, where there may not be as much capability and willingness to actually fight. and it is sorting out the details of that that we're working on right now. >> and if you were to surmise after you do this assessment, what do you think the range of options will be that will be presented to the president relative to our activities, militarily, in iraq? >> yeah. i think without crowding any decision space, all of the military options we could possibly consider have to fit into a much wider regional strategy. that's not a lead by the -- >> tell me what that means. you said that in your opening comments. >> sure. >> i think most people on this committee have been concerned. we have very, very strong support for efforts in syria. are you referring to syria and

iraq? is that basically -- >> syria in iraq given isil's march, but in particular making sure the -- we don't see a further spread. i mean, i know everyone -- >> okay. >> and jordan has been very particularly a focus for us given the border area there with iraq. but this is part of the administration's attempt to try and create this counterterrorism partnership fund to shore up particularly the neighbors of iraq and syria, to make sure that they have a flexible way to respond to the threats, to make sure we don't see that spread. and then to ask for funding for training the vetted syrian moderate opposition so we have some sort of attempt to -- from the inside of syria, to secure up the areas as well. so the -- it is impossible to just look at the isil threat at iraq only because it is, as i said yesterday, it is kind of like air in a balloon. you squeeze on one end, it just goes somewhere else. we need a comprehensive approach outside in and inside out. >> so it is interesting you say

that. i think people on this committee have been saying for like a year and a half that when the time was right, when we could have taken steps and in syria, could have prevented this, they weren't taken. and so now it is interesting that the administration's looking at a regional approach. is that solely because now there is a counterterrorism issue that the situation has gotten so bad, it didn't have to, but it has, it has gotten so bad now that it is a threat to the homeland and that's the reason you're looking at a regional approach. what do you think it is that has taken so long, with so many people crying out on both sides of the aisle, to, please, do something relative to the moderate opposition in syria, knowing that there is no border there, knowing that it was destabilizing iraq. is it this counterterrorism issue solely that is now caused the administration to look at it regionally? >> so i think the administration

has been looking at this regionally for a while. i don't think -- >> has been looking at it. >> well, i don't think that's fair. i think that we have invested heavily in serious border security work with jordan. we have done programs with lebanon. we have done programs with turkey. this is not beginning from anew here. but i do think that the thing that surprised us, frankly, was the collapse of the iraqi security forces in and around mosul and four divisions essentially melting away. i think that the spread of isil and given the number of foreign passport holders that we know have traveled back and forth to syria, western passport holders, it does focus the mind. >> yeah. if i could just ask one last question. or make a statement. we had a really, really strong vote here and a great debate on supporting the moderate opposition.

and i was glad to get the call that, you know, the white house is now looking at, i guess, $500 million in actual defense department support for these. i have to say and first time i said it out loud, i've now gotten to the point where i question -- i hate to say it, how effective that's going to be at this point. i think there was a point in time when it could have been really effective. and i now question whether now at this point, with all that has happened, knowing that, you know, isis has taken such a large part of the territory in syria and now question the effectiveness and yet the administration feels like that small amount at this late date still has the possibility to do real good in syria. >> sir, i think you can't fight something with nothing. so i think that it is important to start. >> well, we have been doing that for a long time.

so it is interesting -- i agree with you. i think everybody here does. i guess the question is can you fight something with almost nothing? at this point, when it festered into this type of situation. >> we'll have to move to senator boxer. >> so i do think it is important. we have put together a program that is scapable. you can start small and move up significantly in the numbers and scale of the program. and we think it is critical that we start. >> senator boxer. >> thank you. i look at things just a little bit differently than a lot of folks here. i think the iraqis had a chance of a lifetime. and america's blood and treasure gave them that chance of a lifetime. a chance at unity, a chance at peace, and with their natural resources a chance at a growing

economy. and clearly those of us, minority of 23, who predicted this, if we went to war, we did not prevail and that's life, you don't prevail, so you move on. and then later when then senator biden, who was the chairman of this committee, proposed more autonomy for the sunnis and for the kurds, oh, and, by the way, more than 70 senators voted for that, the then bush administration laughed at it, kind of like people laugh right now, that's a lot of laughing. and that was turned away. so the situation in iraq, i think, is dire now. and i'm not about to reinvest more lives and treasure. the united states sacrificed too

much. the war cost is $2 trillion. people predicted it would be over in weeks, months. more than 4400 americans were killed. their families never the same. 32,000 wounded during the course of the war. and we all know, and i praise senator sanders and mccain for battling to get help for those who are suffering from physical and mental injuries. so i'm pleased at president obama said unequivocally american forces will not be returning to combat in iraq. and i want the record to show that i will never vote to send more combat forces in. you know, you get so many chances in a lifetime. i want to ask you about the kurds. both of you, i don't know which one, either of you can answer. the kurds in northern iraq have long been a strong ally of the united states.

and they have played an porn role in countering the rapid advance of isis. when i went to iraq a long time ago, the bullets were flying, the kurds, i found them to get what this was all about. and it is so much prejudice against the kurds. the kurdish militia offered to support iraqi security forces when isis began its offensive in mosul. kurdish forces have kept much of northern iraq out of terrorist hands. kurdistan has become a destination for hundreds of thousands of iraqis fleeing from isis controlled territory. and, you know, i have to say, as i watched mr. maliki, i don't think he appreciates it. as the iraqis continued to work to determine their future, i'm asking you, what role can the kurds continue to play? and should the united states acknowledge that the kurds should have a significant amount of autonomy?

i think they earned it, i wondered what the administration position is, vis-a-vis the kurds and more autonomy for the kurds. >> thank you, senator. we're in a very active conversation with the -- all the kurdish leaders about their future. there is some realities that they're grappling with, the geostrategy iic realities and economic realities. they need about $14 billion to sustain themselves operationally. their share of the budget this year, which is pending in baghdad, is about $17 billion. we think there is a deal there within the constitutional framework that is in the best interests of the kurds and also our interests both in northern iraq and iraq as a whole. however, since this crisis began, and we recognize we are dealing with new realities on the ground that we have to recognize and deal with, we have established a joint operations center in erbil to work with the kurdish forces and with the perg merg w me peshmerga and they're going to need some help.

that will work most effectively if it is done in cooperation and coordination with baghdad with us providing a mediating role where necessary. we're in an active conversation with them. they have a good deal of autonomy now. i'm sure they'll ask for more and that will be done under the constitution. vice president berzoni has been on the phone a number of times with our vice president biden. he wants to act through the constitutional framework. short answer to your question, we are in a very active conversations with the kurds about this. i am happy to follow up with you as it unfolds over the coming months. >> and the united states will support more autonomy for the kurds than i assume? >> well, through the government information process there will be an active debate. i will just say we very much support the kurds on a particular critical issues. baghdad four, five months ago

cut funding and we made it clear that is unacceptable and has to be reversed. the kurds have done some things which we said that might exacerbate tensions that wouldn't be particularly constructive. that's why we are in a very active conversation. we support autonomy within the constitutional framework, certainly. >> okay. i'm just saying, i don't know what the future is of that constitutional framework, but we all hope it works. last question is, are you confident we have adequate personnel on the ground to truly protect our embassy and the americans in baghdad? >> senator, yes. we have moved in substantial assets both to the airport and also into the embassy. i was just there as late as thursday. we are confident that our defensive perimeters and everything our people will be safe. our assistant secretary for diplomatic security just visited baghdad last week to do his own assessment. we have teams on the ground.

this is an ongoing assessment. our intelligence assets have the entire, everything all around the perimeter of the city of baghdad, the airport and our embassy very well covered. >> can you tell us how many people we have at the embassy or is that something you don't want to discuss? >> total in baghdad about 2,500 now. >> thank you. >> senator johnson. >> mr. chairman, mr. mcgurk, let's quick go back to the kurds. i've been made aware of the fact the baghdad government is basically in arrears on current budget by about $6 billion. is that accurate? >> there are a lot of ways to do the accounting and the math. baghdad claims the kurds owe them money. kurds claim that baghdad owes them money. in that space is where a deal lies. i think that's going to be part of the conversation in forming a new government. >> if it is true baghdad owes them as much as $6 billion, with

u.s. support kurds ability to export oil and obtain that revenue so they can keep themselves going? >> we want to get as much oil on to international markets as possible from all parks of iraq. that is something we very strongly support we worked very hard over the last six months to get a deal on the table by which the kurds would have exported as much oil as they possibly could through some of the existing arrangements with the revenue-sharing allocations that exist. that deal almost succeeded, but it ran up against the election time frame. once with the election it was difficult to close the deal. i think we'll be able to get that back on the table we want as much oil on iraq as soon as possible. >> i appreciate the fact we are going through assessments and studying the problem. i want -- you have to recognize reality before you develop strategy. i want to compare where we are now versus where we were prior

to the 2007 surge. mr. mcgurk, what was the level of the iraqi forces back in 2007? i really want relatively quick answers here because i want to get data points. >> how do you measure a level? >> how many people were in the iraqi security forces in 2007? >> i don't have the figure. it was not a highly effective force in early 2007. >> neamerica we had 132,000 and surged about 168,000, correct? >> that's right. >> what we were up against enemy fighters in 2007? >> the main enemy then was al qaeda and iraq which is isil. these figures are difficult. we get assessments of 6,000 to 8,000, but probably more. >> what do we think current isil forces are? >> current assessments we've seen, 15,000 or so in iraq far

less. >> basically double that we had in terms of 2007. >> isil today is far more capable in man power, resources, fighting effectively than the aqi we thought. >> u.s. troop levels in iraq are how many? >> total now about -- >> we've inserted 775 and 100 associated with our office. less than 1,000. >> less than a thousand now. back in 2007, prior to a pretty difficult battle in terms of the surge we had 168,000 at the height of that. isil now has doubled the size it was back in 2007. and they had some of our weapons, their capabilities are much higher. >> that's right. >> what was the size of the iraqi military force in p june of 2014? prior to isil's moving to iraq? what was our estimate there? >> i don't have that figure. i can get it for you.

judge, talking hundreds of thousands? >> hundreds of thousands. we try to look at capable and effective forces. one of the purposes was to determine which units are effective and which are infective. there are some units totally infective and some highly capable and effective. >> do you have that information? >> i think it's just shy of 200,000. >> 200,000 prior to the intrusion. >> i believe so. >> how many now do you think there are? how many melded into the background? >> again, i don't have the exact number but probably closer to 1i6 160-ish. >> do you have any percentagewise what effect that force would have in terms of fighting? >> about 30,000. iraqis recalled about 10,000. according to our osci assessm t assessments, there are about 10,000 that have come back. >> the effectiveness of the

iraqi security forces versus u.s. fighting forces? not even comparable, right? >> can't compare them. >> we've got a real problem on our hands. can you -- we talked a little about the threat to our homeland that isil in syria and iraq represent. can you describe what the threat to the homeland is because of the situation? can you make the american people aware of why this matters? >> what really concerns are counterterrorism experts and also concerns us is that this rise in very dedicated global jihadist fighters coming from all over the world, many with western passports. in baghdad there was a suicide bomber, a german and an australian. isil is able to funnel about 30 to 50 suicide bombers a month into iraq. these are -- we assess almost all foreign fighters. it would be very easy for isil to decide to funnel that cadre

of dedicated suicide bombers, global jihadis into other capitals around the region or europe or worse, here. that is a very significant, significant concern. they have training basis in syria and are recruiting on social media and the internet, something we've never seen before. >> a year ago the president declared the war on terror was over. do you believe the war on terror is over? >> i think we have very significant fight on our hands with isil which we have to manage. >> i have no further questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me thank both of you for your appearance here today and for your service to our country. i certainly agree that the united states has vital interests in contains isis' growth and its threat to our homeland and to our allies.

i also agree that we have direct interest in dealing with a government in iraq that represents all the ethnic communities fairly, an effective government that gives confidence to moderates that their voices can be heard within the iraqi government. it was interesting. i was listening to senator johnson go through some of the comparisons on the strength of the terrorist networks whether it's isil, isis or al qaeda or whatever. he was drawing a comparison over the last seven years. if you go back to before the u.s. troop invasion in 2001, at least my understanding was there was virtually no al qaeda and no terrorist network that was a direct threat to our homeland in iraq. so it does raise a lot of the questions that senator boxer raised initially that our use of

military force back in 2001 was ill-advised. we don't want to repeat mistakes we made in the past. that's the reason i bring it up. i started with the fact we have vital interests dealing with this current circumstances on the ground in iraq. i know this hearing is focused on iraq, but i want to move a little bit to syria and what impact the isis is having on the opposition effectiveness in syria, and whether we are finding any of the support for the opposition strengthening isis capacity within iraq. and the network between the moderate gulf arab muslim states supporting the opposition in syria, are we confident that is not finding