tv Politics Public Policy Today CSPAN July 29, 2014 2:00pm-4:01pm EDT
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for a membership perspective, it was always my point and i'm fully confident that because of ongoing changes in the european union and the whole of the european continent, it's not, you know, the most pressing issue to fight for formal recognition of membership perspective, but it's key now to get european perspective. european perspective in the sense that ukraine could become a member of the european union if ukraine is ready and fully capable to deliver on relevant eu criteria. so to get across the idea that
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ukraine should start negotiations on eu membership let's say in a couple of years could be extremely -- so i have been fighting now for the european perspective. for the political recognition for ukraine, for the political right for ukraine to become a member, and membership perspective will definitely come in the course of implementation of the agreement. and it will come sooner rather than late r. after yanukovych refused to sign the agreement, i held a speech in berlin about that, and i was asked, you know, look, what is your take? when are you going to able to sign the agreement, and my point
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was it would be rather sooner than later and my german friends told me, look, it's probably 2016 or later. now we have the agreement signed. and my point, you probably don't believe me, but the membership perspective will come far sooner than many of you believe here. >> thank you, mr. minister. quite a statement. let me turn to steve. >> i'm steve sustanovich. >> i think it's on. >> columbia university. mr. minister, you have talked about your determination to build consensus in ukraine and expressed an interest in talking to people in donetsk and luhansk who are not russian operatives but you also expressed a determination to fight to
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restore ukraine's territorial integrity. can you talk to us a little bit about how you keep those goals from conflicting with each other? the impact of an all-out military campaign obviously can be negative for national reconciliation, and in "the new york times" this morning there's some suggestions that ukraine's military tactics may have gone beyond what the president has outlined. >> let me pick up one more, david, please, if we could just pass the mic back a few rows. thank you. >> thank you. david sedney, formerly with the u.s. department of defense. mr. minister, you spoke about your determination not to have another frozen conflict in eastern ukraine and said frozen conflicts should be eliminated. what steps is ukraine taking
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now, is prepared to take to address the frozen conflict that does exist on your borders? >> terrific. why don't we pick up those two, please. >> yeah, firstly, i believe these goals are fully compatible and sustainable because we're going to fight the russian, but not the people of dee nonetsk a luhansk. if you see the situation on the ground, it's about a limited number of terroristic leaders and it's about, you know, a couple of thousand people which are mercenaries who came from russia or were hired for money on the ground. so if we are able to counter this influence, if we are able
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to counter the terrorists, we would be fully able to talk in a very positive way not just round tables but in a way or for carrying out inclusive, effective dialogue with the people who stay in many cases under russian propaganda, the propaganda from the russian state channels, or probably still not confident in the ability of our ability or the ability of ukrainian government to provide for key conditions because the issues of using russian language, for example, is the issue which has been always played up in a way. it's a political issue. and because of that we believe that the framework of
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decentralization is indeed the framework firstly for the de-escalation and finding the way, finding the way how to take into account the interest of people. how to give them more freedom but also how to give them more responsibility at the level of community, at the level of district, at the level of freedom. and any issue which couldn't be addressed at this level should be taken through kiev as the level of regional government. i believe and this is also my personal conviction that these goals are fully compatible because they should address simply different kind of people. on the idea of avoiding the frozen conflict, firstly, how
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any sort of frozen conflict could evolve, and if you remember -- i would not draw any parallel because all stories are different, but what is critical is not to let splitting of ukraine, not to let donetsk and luhansk to establish russian control structures, and not to let them to have a veto over key decision of central government. and fourth and probably is the most important issue is to explain in extremely clear and understandable terms what our intentions are and that we are ready to provide wide range decentralization.
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we are ready to take on all possible concerns, but we are also ready and responsible for restoring not just law and order but normal life in donetsk, and the people are watching the ongoing developments and clearly understand what is at stake, and even before the events in donetsk and luhansk according to different opinion polls, there were 18 -- if i remember probably in donetsk area and 20% in luhansk area for, you know, for the idea of joining russia. now it's far less. it's about clear understanding who is for and who is against. >> mr. minister, we're quite tight on time. i want to try to squeeze in one last question. we'll turn to the gentleman on
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the far right. if you can be as brief as possible. i'm sorry, the man behind you i saw first. thank you. >> thank you. mr. minister, my name is david colten. i was wondering if i could tease out a little more thought about your concept of the status quo. for example, in this town many friends of ukraine have arcte articulated a future of ukraine that is not necessarily part of the customs union but not necessarily fully integrated into the western defense structure and they've used the word i think conveniently finlandization, but it's a broad sense of ukraine as sovereign and independent but not necessarily a member of either bloc. there's also a growing chorus in this town of people who have pointed out that during the period of finlandization, soviet role in fininish politics
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eventually destroyed finnish democracy. can i get your thoughts about what the status quo -- >> i was hoping to take a few more questions but i know you're headed to the white house. i will turn to you as this question for a final question for you to take and any concluding comment you'd like to make for the event today as well, please. >> you know, finlandization, we need to get a bit of intelligence probably on language to be concentrated on that. so i personally don't believe in just the option which is taken by finland. i believe it's a unique one. secondly, any sort of situation and existence in between is
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unsustainable, so we need a sustainable option for the future of ukraine and we need sustainable security architecture, not just for ukraine, but also in europe. and because existing security structures simply don't mesh with the challenge, we need new security arrangements. we discussed years and years within the osc how they can look like, totally failed. probably the present situation should push us not just in more discussions but in more effective solutions. we will come up and i have personally a couple ideas how to organi organize, how to structure, how to shape more confidence building measures.
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how to have control regimes for conventional arms. we should, unfortunately, know how to have more -- how to create more trust, but it's not about, you know, further security and the exist nens between. there was a lot of talking about ukraine as a kind of bridge, and i believe the bridge is not the best possible idea. so the bridge is always dangerous to, you know, as just an existence. >> mr. minister, thank you so much. thank you. i would like to just try to close today if i may first just by word of thanks to the terrific atlantic council staff that helped put this on on short notice. i want to thank our audience both online and here in presence
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and importantly our board and partners who have made all of our work on ukraine possible. mr. minister, as you know, today's event is not just a focus on the crisis that's unfolding in your country but it represents the atlantic council's long-term commitment to a democratic sovereign united ukraine that finds its place in europe. please join me in thanking the minister for his words today and his time. [ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. please clear the room for a press conference. members of the press, please move to the front of the ballroom for the conference. thank you very much.
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wrapping up with remarks from ukraine's foreign minister pavlo klimkin and if you missed any of what he had to say, you can always go to the c-span video library at cspan.org. in just a couple minutes they're going to hold a news conference which we will bring to you live here shortly on c-span3, but i want to tell you about some programming we have coming up later this afternoon. a senate hearing looking at trucks and public safety issues. members plan to examine the challenges and opportunities to improve truck safety on u.s. highways. that will get under way live at 3:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3.
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once again live at the atlantic council here in washington, d.c., awaiting the start of a news conference with ukraine's foreign minister pavlo klimkin and that's expected to start in just a moment. we will have it live for you here on c-span3. a quick reminder along with our live programming on trucks and public safety which gets under way at 3:00 eastern, this is the last week for congress before the august recess gets under way. both chambers are in session today. the house has been working on a number of bills, including one changing the reporting
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requirements for the endangered species act. live house coverage on c-span. also the senate is in session. senators just returned from their weekly party lunches. they will shortly be voting on the nomination of robert mcdonald to be the next veterans affairs secretary. final vote on that is scheduled for 2:45 eastern. senators also expected to work on final passage on highway and transportation programs. you can see the senate live on c-span2.
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from the associate the press this afternoon, russia facing some tough new economic sanctions from the european union. sanctions that were put together in coordination with the united states and an eu official say this include a ban on the sale of some technologies including equipment used in deep sea and arctic drills. u.s. sanctions could be announced later today. it's not yet offering any details.
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in a related story from the associated press, for another day, fighting in eastern ukraine has again kept international investigators from reaching the debris of that malaysian airlines jet that was shot down. as the fighting escalates, shelling in at least three cities has hit a home for the elderly, a school, adding to a rapidly growing civilian death toll. separatist rebels say the
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>> test. okay, thanks. our first question is from cnn. please identify yourself. >> hi, mr. foreign minister. right here back here on the platform. you spoke a lot about de-escalation in your remarks today. cnn has had three different u.s. intelligence sources tell us in the detected short range ballistic missiles fired toward the pro russian rebels. can you respond that? and have any members of the u.s. government raised the issue with you while you have been here? >> i said quite clearly also today in the press conference with the state secretary that we didn't use any sort of ballistic missiles, and we are not going to use ballistic missiles.
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also against terroristic forces because, firstly, it does not make sense in the military context and, secondly, it's, of course, about possible human losses of human lives, and our forces exercise extreme restraint and we actually lost a lot of human lives, a lot of lives of our military, you know, servicemen during the unilateral cease fire. so it's not about any sort of ballistic missiles which could be used, and it's an undeclared war against ukraine. ballistic missiles is not also in theoretical sense, it's not to address the existing challenges in donetsk and luhansk, not in any way. >> luke johnson from radio free
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europe radio liberty. you talk a lot about the european path. i wondered how your country is going to respond to some of the russian economic threats, you know, a dairy ban and so on and so forth along with, you know, coal being a big exporter to russia. how will you respond if those exports are blocked? thanks. >> well, firstly, russia start talking about problems, after that about challenges, now russia is talking about potential risks in the implementation of the eu agreement. it's already a bit of progress. and we had consultations with thee u trade commissioner, with russian economy minister how to address these issues, and for us
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it's not about political punishment for european tourists and this is exactly our impression at the moment. for us it's about identifying issues which could be important for the implementation of the agreement, but it's not about substance of the agreement itself in any way. it's not about making changes. it's not about changing the text. it's just about implementation, but we believe and we are fully confident of that, that we could have effective european integration, effective implementation of the agreement, and at the same time effective trade relations with russia. everyone who is talking about possible disruptions, who is talking about possible problems
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is in political domain and not in economic domain. >> executive intelligence review magazine. given that the imf and the bis are at odds with what needs to happen with the european financial system, whether it needs a bailout or a bail-in, but both agree that something urgent must be done and a new financial system is forming around these brics nations as we saw a couple weeks ago in brazil to the point where wall street can't get argentina to really get in line and we've got the latest warning from the london telegraph that perhaps the russian sanctions, sanctions on russia could collapse the transatlantic financial system. do you think that sanctions really are the best idea or joining the european financial system in general and perhaps maybe that's what's causing the collapse of the ukrainian
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government. >> firstly, as i understand, the present talk about sanctions is about just financial markets for the russian state-run companies, and there is an impact assessment for that, and it has nothing to do with world financial system in the sense, and secondly, we have effective communication with imf, with world bank, with central organizations and we have a clear vision with how to provide effective financial management for the near future. >> yes. the dutch national television. first of all, my condolences for the life of innocent life today in your country. i understand it's been a tough day. we are receiving messages that the front line is actually very
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close, if not on the side at this very moment. fight something going on in the area. many people in my country, the netherlands, are asking why the offensive now at a time where the final remains of the people who lost their lives have not been recovered yet as well as the investigative teams who have not arrived at the site yet. thank you. >> firstly, our commitment to unilateral cease fire for the area around the crash site is still the same. we said from the very beginning in the area of 20 kilometers radius around the crash site there could not be any sort of fighting, and we would exercise extreme restraint on that, but there were cases of provocation by the terrorists, but we've been tries also to exercise extreme restraint, not only in the area in the 20 kilometers
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radius area around the crash site but also the margins of this area, and it is critical for us to have access to the crash site to the international team but also to other experts to be able to reach the crash site, but it's also critical and it's a point not just politics but it's a point of human dignity. it's a kind of absolute priority now to recover all bodies and all body fragments and to find all belongings. of course, independent from the ongoing investigation, and it will be also the commitment for the future because i personally negotiated the agreement with australia and personally negotiated the agreement with the netherlands about civil
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police component which could be put for ensuring safety and security of the crash site, and i believe it's unfortunately -- it's quite unfortunately the possible option and still the right approach because we don't have time to waste on access in the crash site. >> thank you, minister. i'm sorry, but they're saying he has to go. so thank you. >> sorry again. it was a pleasure to talk to you. as the week winds down toward the five-week congressional recess, both bodies trying to wrap up work on a number of pieces of notable
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legislation today. house members are debating a bill that changes the reporting requirements for the endangered species act. right now debate on defense department emergency resources on the floor. the next set of votes at 4:15 in the house. you can see the house live on c-span. the senate has been debating the nomination of robert mcdonald to be the next veterans affairs secretary. final vote on that is scheduled for about 15 minutes from now, about 2:45 eastern. also today senators may turn to work on a final passage vote on highway and transportation programs. you can see all of that on c-span2. later this afternoon a senate subcommittee will hold a hearing examining the intersection of trucks and public safety. members expected to ask witnesses about the challenges of improve truck safety on u.s. highways. live coverage here on c-span3 will get under way at 3:00 p.m. eastern. earlier today secretary of state john kerry and ukraine's foreign minister pavlo klimkin spoke with reporters on the recent
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conflict between ukraine and russia. secretary kerry was asked about the ongoing violence between israelis and palestinians. here is more. >> a cease-fire under the egyptian formula of no preconditions, cessation of hostilities, negotiations to take place in cairo, that is exactly what we have been talking about, no variation, no deviation. we've been in touch with the egyptians. we've honored the egyptian concept. if there is a negotiation, it would be in cairo. it would be entirely without preconditions and it would not pledge disisraprejudice israel' ability to ge fend itself. there's a little energy being expended here unnecessarily. we will continue to work with our close friend and ally and i'm not going to worry about personal attacks. i think that president obama has it right, and the international
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community has it right when we say that it is more appropriate to try to resolve the underlying issues at a negotiating table than to continue a tit for tat of violence that will invite more violence and perhaps a greater downward spiral which would be much more difficult to recover from. >> do you think it's still possible to get a cease-fire after -- >> well, that depends entirely on the parties at this point. i mean, you know, we're trying to very carefully without, as i said, diminishing israel's legitimate right to defend itself against tunnels and rockets, but to find a way to see if we can spare the people of israel as well as palestinians, the pockssibiliti of at any moment something going terribly wrong when one of those
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rockets hits a major school in israel or a major population center, lots of people die. the effort here is to find whether or not -- i can't vouch for it and president obama can't vouch for it, but we know that we owe it to everybody to try to see if you can find that way. if after you get to a table it proves that there is absolute reluctance to honor basic defensive needs of israel to deal with the rockets, to deal with the tunnels, to deal with other things, then at least you know you've made that effort to try to spare lives and to find a legitimate way forward. that's our job, to try to do that, and we think we're doing it in a way that completely reinforces israel's rights. you know, i've spent 29 years in the united states senate and 100% voting record pro-israel,
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and i will not take a second seat to anybody in my friendship or my devotion to the protection of the state of israel, but i also believe as somebody who has been to war that it is better to try to find a way if you can to solve these problems before you get dragged into something that you can't stop, and it seems to me that this is a reasonable effort fully protecting israel's rights, fully protecting israel's interests, and prime minister netanyahu himself said to me, can you try to get a humanitarian cease fire for this period of time? and if it weren't for his commitment to it, obviously the president of the united states and i would not be trying to make this effort. now, either i take his commitment at face value or someone is playing a different game here, and i hope that's not the fact. >> a portion of secretary ker kerry's remarks from earlier today at the state department. you can see his entire comments later in the schedule or anytime
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online. go to cspan.org. we have just received word that president obama will come to the south lawn of the white house later this hour. he will be delivering a statement on the situation in ukraine. it's scheduled for 2:50 eastern. we are planning to take it live here on c-span3. coming up next, treasury secretary jack lew and members of the social security and medicare board of trustees released a report looking at the future of medicare. according to that report medicare is expected to remain solvent to 2030, four years longer than last year's report predicted. here is more about that. >> good afternoon and welcome. every year the social security and medicare boards of trustees provide a report to congress on the strength of our indispensable social insurance programs, and this morning the trustees met to complete their annual financial review and transmit the final reports. i'd like to thank my fellow trustees, the chief actuaries,
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stephan goss and paul and their staff for their hard work. social security and medicare are without a doubt the most successful social programs in our country's history, and millions of americans rely on them for health care and income security. together these programs have helped to drive vast improvements in the quality of american life with social security helping to cut elderly poverty by two-thirds over the last four decades and medicare improving mortality rates for the severely ill by over 20%. as today's reports make absolutely clear, social security and medicare are fundamentally secure and they will remain fundamentally secure in the years ahead. the reports also remind us of something we all understand, we must reform these programs if we want to keep them sound for future generations. the projections in this year's report for social security are essentially the same as last year and those for medicare have shown improvement. when considered on a combined basis, social security's retirement and disability programs have dedicated funds sufficient to cover benefits for
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the next 19 years. after that time as was true last year, it's projected that tax income will be sufficient to finance about three-quarters of scheduled benefits. however, social security's disability program alone has dedicated funds sufficient to cover all scheduled benefits for only two years. as was true last year, beginning in 2016 projected tax income will be sufficient to finance about 80% of scheduled benefits. legislation will be needed to avoid disruptive reductions to benefits payments to a vulnerable population. the outlook for medicare has consistently improved since the passage of the affordable care act and this year the trustees have reduced the projections for near term spending growth. the trustees le project this year the medicare hospital insurance trust fund will have resources sufficient to cover benefits until 2030, four additional years than projected in last year's report, and 13 more years than was projected in the last report released prior to the passage of the affordable care act.
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the trustees' report underscore the importance of making reforms to social security and medicare. as the largest generation in american history enters retire am, the pressure on our social insurance programs is growing and we must make manageable changes now so we do not have to mike drastic changes later. the president is committed to putting social security and medicare on a stronger footing and he's put forward achievable plans to fix their finances. as he's consistently demonstrated, the president is ready to work with congress to usher in responsible reforms and he's prepared to make tough choices. but the president will not support any proposal that would hurt americans who depend on these programs today and he will not support any programs that slash benefits for future retirees. in closing, i'd like to remind everyone that this week marks the 49th anniversary of president lyndon johnson signing medicare into law. at that time johnson declared that this new program would shine a, quote, a light of hope and realization on those fearing the terrible darkness of despair
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and poverty. for decades now medicare and social security have provided dignity and security to millions of hard-working americans and keeping these programs rock solid is one of our greatest responsibilities. none of this will come through easy fixes. but i'm certain that if policymakers of good will on both sides of the political divide focus on creating serious solutions, we'll get the job done. thank you. >> our work in the health care space is focused on access, quality, and affordability, and the last one of those is our focus for today as we think about the trustees' report. as we prepare to mark that 49th anniversary that secretary lew just mentioned, we know that medicare is considerably stronger than it was just four years ago. the life of the medicare trust fund has been extended, cost growth is down, the quality of
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the care our parents and grandparents is receiving is improving, and it's easier for them to afford their prescriptions and obtain important services like flu shots and diabetes tests. the report we're releasing today adds to the evidence on affordability. first, the life of the medicare trust fund has been extended by four years through 2030. last year's report estimated it would be funded only through 2026 and in 2009 that estimate was for 2017. second, the report finds that medicare spending per beneficiary is growing slower than the overall economy. per capita spending grew at an annual rate of 0.8% over the last four years, significantly lower than the growth per capita gdp of 3.1%. finally, i want to highlight the report's finding that the part b premium growth has slowed dramatically. our preliminary projections
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suggest that part b premiums will be the same in 2015 at $104.90 that they were in 2014 and 2013. that's a growth rate of 0%. while we need to continue to focus on the long-term health of these trusts, as the secretary mentioned, all of these factors do add up to a stronger medicare, one that means we're better positioned to support our parents and grandparents as they age with security and dignity. thank you very much and with that i'll introduce secretary perez. >> thank you, secretary burwell. good afternoon. this year roughly 1 in 5 americans will receive social security benefits and for nearly two-thirds of the beneficiaries 65 and older, their benefits will account for more than half of their income. older women because they live longer and earn less on average
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during their working lives are particularly reliant on social security, and it is important to acknowledge a year ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the equal pay act. these gender wage gaps persist. as women continue to earn less over their lifetime than their male counterparts, it also means they have less to save for retirement and receive social -- smaller social security benefits once they've stopped working altogether. putting more people to work is crucial to the health of our social security and medicare trust funds, and we've made huge strides in this area. over the last 52 months we've seen 52 consecutive months of private sector job growth, which is the longest streak on record, and we've been keeping records since roughly 1940 or so. the first six months of job growth in 2014 were the strongest six months since 1999. we've added roughly 10 million new private sector jobs since
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early 2010 and this friday we will have the next snapshot of the job growth. the unemployment rate has dropped to 6.1%. these are all critical issues that affect the financial health of the trust funds because the financial health of the trust funds is inseparable from the health of the labor market, and the health of the di trust fund is something that is noted in the report and one thing that we're doing at the department of labor is to ensure that people with disabilities have access to the workplace. we are in the middle of implementing a very important regulation relating to section 503 which is designed to increase the number of people with disabilities in the workplace. we're working closely with employers and with other key stakeholders, and we continue to work closely with my friend and colleague carolyn colvin on strategies to increase the number of workers with disabilities who can punch their
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ticket again to the workplace and to the middle class because people would disabilities want nothing more than the dignity of work, to live in the economic mainstream, and the feeling of contributing to their communities. they want to pay taxes, and that is why we're working so hard to ensure that we help them do so. so our skims and training agenda, the agenda of job creation, these are critically helpful in strengthening the social security and medicare trust fund because a strong economy means a strong social security and medicare system. with that let me turn to my colleague and friend, carolyn colvin, social security administration. >> thank you, secretary perez. the social security and medicare programs are crucially important for the millions of americans who receive benefits. roughly 95% of americans are receiving or can expect to receive benefits from the program in the future. as trustees, we are responsible for overseeing and annually
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reporting on the status of the two programs. the combined social security trust fund reserves are projected to become depleted in 2033 if no legislative changes are made between now and then. at that time continuing income would be sufficient to support 77% of scheduled benefits. this year, the year of combined trust fund reserve depletion is unchanged from last year's report. lawmakers should act soon to address this imbalance in order to gradually phase in necessary changes. this will give workers, employers, and beneficiaries time to adjust to whatever changes are made. the long-range actuarial status shown in this year's report is slightly less favorable than that shown in the 2013 report. based on the intermediate assumptions, the estimated 75-year long range actuarial deficit for the combined social security trust funds increased
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from 2.72% of payroll and last year's report to 2.88% of taxable payroll in this year's report. this change in the deficit can be attributed to the change in the starting year from 2013 to 2014 and changes in methods assumption and starting data values. considered alone, the disability insurance or di trust fund reserves, are projected to become depleted much sooner than the combined social security funds. this year's report again projects that di reserve depletion will occur in 2016 in the absence of legislative changes. at that point continuing income to the di trust fund would be sufficient to support 81% of scheduled benefits. the disability program is a vital part of this country's safety net. di is not only of immediate important for the 11 million americans currently receiving benefits and who depend on them
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to meet everyday needs, it protects all insured working americans who will need to rely on this program to replace their income if they become disabled in the future. we owe these individuals a securely financed program that provides timely payments. at this time let me introduce -- >> i'd like to begin my remarks by thanking secretary lew, secretary burwell, secretary perez, acting commissioner colvin, all of their staffs as well as the many dedicated staff of the offices of the chief actuary of the social security administration and the cms medicare actuaries office. since i am the sole republican among the six trustees i sometimes feel i bear a special personal responsibility to vouch for the objectivity and the integrity of the process by which these estimates are produced, and i do so today without reservation. in particular i would like to
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thank secretary lew's capable staff for managing this process fairly and for skillfully identifying the common ground between the various trustees' perspectives. most of all i want to thank my fellow public trustee, bob reischauer, the opportunity to work with and learn from bob the past four years has been the single best aspect of my experience as a public trustee. what seems to have become a tradition is i will speak about the social security report and bob will take on the medicare report. my best short summary of the social security report is that as has been said earlier, the long-term picture this year looks very similar to last year's report but the short-term picture has grown more urgent. under our current projections we are but two years from the depletion of the reserves of social security's disability insurance trust fund in the fourth quarter of 2016. upon the depletion of these reserves there would only be sufficient revenues to finance 81% of benefit obligations. now, it is certainly true that social security's disability program faces distinct policy challenges, but it's important
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to understand that the financing challenge facing the old age and survivors trust fund is just as severe. in fact, of the two sides of social security, the old age and survivors insurance trust fund actually faces the larger shortfall in absolute and relative term. the long rage shortfall is equal to 2.55% of the program's tax base in worker taxable wages. whereas on the disability side it's 0.33%. together the combined shortfall or the shortfall in the hypothetical combined trust funds is 2.88% of taxable payroll. so this impending depletion of the di trust fund reserves is primarily a symptom of financial strain that is affect the trust funds alike. the primary reason we are hitting the di depletion point first is that the baby boomers moved through their years of peak disability incidents before they move to the retirement rolls. many are in the process of converting from disability to
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retirement benefits and shifting the financial pressures to theo asi fund. by any objective measure it's getting late in the game to forge a bipartisan compromise to sustain social security's finances. the projectedshortfall in the combined trust funds is now substantially larger even relative to the larger economy and tax base today than the one closed in 1983. those 1983 amendments were intensely controversial and came far close to not happening but sobering to consider more severe measures are needed today. the longer the action is deferred, the less certain that lawmakers will be able to successfully close the short fall to preserve the program's historical financing structure and each year we delay we reduce those to contribute to the solution and we increase the sacrifices required of each one. a couple of examples. by 2033, the required payroll tax rate to fund scheduled social security benefits would
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be 16.6%, that would be an increase of over one third in worker's social security tax burdens. on the other hand, if we reduced benefits across the board in attempt to avoid a tax increase, the reductions have to be 23%. but those would have to apply to people already on the benefit rolls, not just people newly coming on to them and no longer possible to balance finances solely through reductions to people coming on newly to the rolls even eliminated 100% of the benefits. the moral is that a solution much further delayed is a solution that's less likely to occur. at least from the perspective of one that preserves the historical financing structure. social security's financing method may not be perfect but it's been accepted by americans on a bipartisan basis for several dea kads and as we have seen in many other instances it is not a trivial exercise for a politically sustainable means of support on the scale of social security so we are imperilling much value if we delay necessary
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corrections. before closing, let's say a brief word of the technical changes in the projections for those among you especially wonky. we slightly lowered the price inflation assumptions to reflect change in policies, made a slight downward reduction in the ratio of estimated taxable earnings relative to total wages and rev news are taxable earnings and benefits grow in the total average wage index but these affects are very small. together they added 0.12 percentage point to the deficit and this with the percentage point of increase caused by the passing of another year together account for the increase from last year's estimate of 2.72% of taxable payroll to a deficit of 2.88% of payroll this year. to summarize the long-term outlook for social security has not changed. when's changing is that we're rapidly running out of time for corrections before the disability trust fund reserves
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run out. because disability and old-age and survivor's insurance are closely linked, because they're strained by similar factors, lawmakers would do well to act promptly to shore up the finances of social security as a whole. with that, i'll turn it over to my fellow trustee bob reischauer. >> good afternoon. and thank you, chuck, for your remarks. i have found it a tremendous pleasure to work with chuck over the last four years and i also want to extend my appreciation to secretary lew and the other trustees for their contributions to this process. and also, to the staffs that have represented them in the deliberations throughout the course of the year. the staffs have shown incredible
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dedication, commitment, expertise and colee jalality as we have put this together and to the actuaries and their staffs who have been incredibly constructive. a primary responsibility of the trustees to assure the public that the financial and actuarial estimates in the reports are objective, that they use the best data and information available and that they employ the most appropriate assumptions and methodologies. as chuck indicated, both he and i agree that we can provide such assurance to the public without hesitation or caveat. once again, we feel that we participated in an open, robust, vibrant discussion of numerous issues that have to be dealt with each year as these reports are put together. let me just say a few words about the content of these reports whose bottom line
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message has been said before, differs little from those of recent reports. i add my voice to the chorus that as emphasized that under current law both of these vitally important programs are fiscally unsustainable. over the long run. and will require legislative intervention to correct. the sooner the policymakers address the challenges, the less disruptive the adjustments will be for the economy as a whole. similarly, the sooner lawmakers act, the broader will be the array of policy options that they can consider and the greater the opportunity will be to craft solutions that are both balanced and equitable. since chuck has focused on social security, i'll just say a few words about the medicare report. one of them being quite wonky. the first is that unlike
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previous reports, medicare part b cost projections in this year's report are not current law projections. in that they do not assume that there will be a sharp decline in physician fee schedule rates as called for as the sustainable growth rate mechanism and lawmakers waved every year since 2003. instead, the projected baseline which is the moniker that we have given to the prevalent projections shown in the report assumes that lawmakers will increase physician patients .6% a year when the current sgr fix runs out in march 2015 and that adjustment will continue through 2023. the .6% increase is the average increase the lawmakers have provided over the decade that proceeds march 2015 when they have waved the sgr rules. this baseline change should make
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the part b cost projections a bit more useful than they have been in the past when they reflected the effects of sharp reductions in physician fee schedule payments. current law projections with estimates of the illustrious ainstructions and the world is more pessimistic are still presented in the report. they're contrasted with the projected baseline of various places and then explained in more detail in appendix c of the report. the second dimension of the medicare report that i'd like to comment on is what reaction lawmakers and the public should have to the improvement in medicare's financial situation. which a number of my fellow trustees have explained and it's very real. nominal per beneficiary costs essentially unchanged for two years and have grown very slowly over past four years. as has been explained, the part
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b premium in 2015 is expected to be same as it is this year and was in the previous year. the estimates for the 75-year hospital insurance actuarial definite have declined from 1.35% of taxable payroll in the 2012 report to 1.11% of payroll in the 2013 report and now down to .87% of payroll in this year's report. this report as you have heard projects that the h.i. trust fund depleted in 2030, four years later than reported last year and last year's report moved the date from 2024 to 2026. some might be tempted to conclude from these good news trends that medicare may be healing its financial maladies all by itself.
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and that no further action will be needed. that would not be a prudent conclusion to reach. projections of health expenditures both in the public and private sectors are highly uncertain. the projected trust fund depletion date can bounce around a good deal from year to year while the depletion rate date has moved six years fourth sbeer the future over the course of the last three reports, it's worth remembering that tweem 2010 and 2011 report, it moved five years in the other direction and a decade ago the projected date of depletion came 11 years closer between the 2002 and 2004 reports. this volatility arises because base year data off of which the projections are made are subject to revision and going forward the h.i. trust fund's balances and part b spending are affected by the strength of the economy, new legislation and
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administrative policies, technological developments, shifts in beneficiary tastes and behavior and changes in the efficiency with which health care providers deliver services both to beneficiaries and the nonelderly, nondisabled population. because of the limited ability to prodikt the future courses with any precision it's urn certainty any estimates and grows and although i count myself who's cautiously optimistic at recent slow down in the growth of spending will continue, our latest projections still indicate that medicare spending will grow faster than worker's earnings, retiree's incomes or gdp. i concur with the admonition of the report as well as in the old trustee's message that notwithstanding the very encouraging experience of the past few years, further
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legislation will be needed to address the substantial financial short falls based by part a and the growing burden that rising part b costs will impose on taxpayers and beneficiaries and the sooner lawmakers face reality the better. thank you. >> thank you. i want to again thank all of my colleagues on the trustees for the work to put this together and for our staffs for supporting the effort and with that i think we'll take a few questions from all of you. >> we'll take a few questions if you could please wait for the microphone to get to you and state your name and media affiliati affiliation. can we get the first question from you? >> damien plight at "wall street journal." secretary lew, we had a couple democrats propose changes to the payroll tax aloe case to send more money to the disability trust fund so you don't have to
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do -- a way to fix it, solvency. do you support that? >> let me say in the past when we have had a situation like this, the measure taken in the short term at least was a realoe case to support the disability fund. the you look from now until 2016, there is probably no other alternative which could produce the desired results between now and then. so i think that it's going to be important for there to be legislation that does reallocate to support the disability fund and then going through the process of looking more broadly at the reforms needed in oasdi to keel with the longer term questions. i just want to underscore that we do have in our budget a
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number of provisions that would improve program integrity in the disability program. we're going to continue to push that forward. but those are not going to have the consequence of the next two years sufficient to deal with the projected shortfall. >> okay. other questions? >> thank you. i'm amy goldstein with "the washington post." for secretary burwell, the report essentially attributes the improvement in the h.i. trust fund's longevity to two factors. one, a variety of features of the aca and two slowdown in particularly in-patient hospital expenditures. i'm wondering if you can talk about the relative proportions of each in explaining the improvement and the trust fund, and what specifically in the aca at this point is making a
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difference. thank you. >> i think that the -- i think what we see and talked about today is what is happening on the medicare side and as the report reflects, it is a number of things coming together. in terms of the direct attribution and percentage terms as we have seen recently, gdp numbers and that kind of thing, the ability to get it to the question you're asking about, attribution at percentage levels i think is something very difficult to do and we have not done. i think what we do know and the report reflects is a number of thing that is are contributing to that and try to reflect the range of those things. one of those things we believe is the changes occurred in terms of affordable care act, in terms of changes that were made in terms of the way that cms would implement and do pricing types of things and implementing the law and whether that's the medicare advantage changes or other change that is occurred and i think what it emphasizes, though, is that what everyone
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has said is we need to focus on longer term fixes. we're focused today on social security because it's right in front of us. i think we can't ignore we need to do a couple of things which is about how to do the long-term resolution and at the same time continue the implementation of changes that have been put in place and consider other changes. i think many of you all probably know that in the current budget, that is before the congress, there are additional changes that would produce additional savings. >> okay. other questions? >> yeah. hi. ricardo alonso saldavor with ap. when what's behind the ongoing slowdown in health care costs and how long do they think that's going to continue?
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>> lots of things are behind the slowdown, and there's as you know better than most, there's an active debate going on among experts in this area. how much of it is due to the weak economy, how much of it is due to legislative changes like the affordable care act? how much of it is due to pressures that are being exerted both in the private sector and the public sector that have lowered utilization and dampened the growth of intensity? i think we're probably many years away from being able to allocate these various factors with any kind of precision. the question also involves how long will this go on? if you look at the report with
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respect to medicare, we have quite slow growth going out for the next couple of years. and i think that's probably a safe assumption with respect to the private sector, as well. the increase in the burden is being placed on consumers outside of medicare through high deductible plans, through increased restrictions on their choice of providers is certainly dampening spending, as well. so, i have no definitive answer for you but maybe chuck will. >> i think there are four points i'd make in reply to your question. first is just the same as bob's. no one knows and there's an active debate going on how much is the affect of the recession,
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how much is changes in the health care sector irrespective of legislation and attributable to recent legislation and that debate is certainly not one that the trustees will settle. second point i would make is that you have to remember that we're dealing with projections of the future and so there's a great sensitivity to what we project in terms of trend lines going forward. so the amount -- there's -- we're projecting a more favorable trend based on data received to date but overall, very little of that is in the past and most of it is a change projection for the future. some of it is in the books. but the amount that the picture has improved to date is relatively slight. if i'm recalling correctly, i think we were looking at a trust fund ratio in the trust fund of 72 beginning of this year and then said it's 76. that's a little bit better but not qualitatively better.
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most of it is in the future and not the books to date so we have to be cautious of inferring of a change of projection that is the reality is that much better already. what we're doing is looking at a more favorable trend to date and projecting that going forward. third point i'd make is don't get too hung up on the date of h.i. trust fund insolvency. one reason shouldn't is because it's a piece of medicare and less than half of medicare. secondly, the trust fund balance dynamics on the hospital insurance side is very different from the social security side. on the social security side, we have a relatively large build-up in the combined trust funds and then a rather precipitous period of drawdown projected in the late 2020s and early 2030s and the hospital insurance trust fund is different. we start out with a shallow balance to begin with. less than one year's worth of reserves in the trust fund and having a shallow balance for
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many years and you can have a very slight nudge favorably or unfavorably in the projections and can cause that date to move by several years. so, again, that's just the nature of the beast with hospital insurance trust fund balances as bob mentioned. we have had a year recently five years closer and then a year four years further out. the last point i would make is one just has to remember that all along the methodologies is assuming substantial slowdown in the rate of national health expenditure growth over next 75 years. we have been assuming that has to occur. it is nice it's starting to occur and doesn't mean that reality is going to be that much better than our projection methodologies suggests and rather means it's perhaps being validated as being somewhat r l realistic and anticipated for a long time at least over the long term a slowdown in national health expenditure growth and then on top of that assuming
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substantial save frgs the affordable care act going forward and latter years of projection period we are assuming vastly decelerated rate of growth in medicare costs so again while the more favorable trend is welcome and hope it continues we also have to remember that we have been assuming for a long time that this was going to play out in a more favorable direction going forward. >> that concludes the press conference. we'll take a 15-minute break an reconvene for the technical briefing and that will be attributable to senior administration officials. this is a live picture from the south lawn of the white house. this afternoon where shortly we are expecting president obama to come make a statement on the situation in ukraine. it's expected that he'll announce further sanctions on the russian government for its involvement in the unrest in eastern ukraine and the shoot down of this jetliner. this just after the announcement
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of the european union to increase sanctions on russia, also. we'll have the president's remarks when he appears here on c-span3. the senate is in session today and the final week before the five-week summer recess. today senators overwhelmingly approving robert mcdonald to be the new head of the veterans administration department. you can see the vote on our companion network c-span2.
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workforce training programs and last week's signing of the workforce and opportunity act. >> the director of georgetown university's center on education and the workforce and joins us to talk about several recent training efforts and one of those with the signing into law last week of the workforce innovation and opportunity act. this is one of the few bipartisan bill that is moved through congress this year. what did that include? >> it included much of what was in the previous legislation, most of the celebration around the passage of this law is about the fact that we are able to pass a law. and pass a bill and get it signed in the white house. that's really the major accomplishment here. there's not much change truthfully between this bill and the previous ones. this was supposed to have been reauthorized ten years ago. it's been living on the authority to spend has been living on when's called continuing resolutions ever since so it got done ten years
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later than it was supposed to be done and that's the major achievement here. >> money for workforce training or the authorization to the tune of how many dollars? >> we're talking in this bill about -- in this law about $3 billion. if you toss in some of the other pieces at the federal level, it takes it $5 billion or $6 billion which in truth is not a lot of money, $6 billion job training, we spending national $300 billion for college education. we spend $60 billion on the pats. $20 billion on pet food and $40 billion on weddings. so in the nation where a job is so crucial to life, in a work-based society that this bill is not really a national training effort. it is a placeholder for a national training effort. >> and the signing into law of this bill last week came at the same time that president obama announced a few new executive actions on workforce training. what were those? >> essentially, what's happened
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is that there's more and more attention being paid to the relationship between training or education that you get in the united states and whether or not you can get a job with it, and so, the executive actions and to a certain extent this bill are moving us towards that goal. that is, we want the foe if you're trained or educated in the united states that there will be a job at the end of the experience. and that's more and more important because more and more jobs about 60%, 65% of our jobs now require some formal training that you need to get after you get out of high school. >> how many federal training programs are there out there? there was a gao report that talked about 47 separate programs that overlapped with others. can you give us some sense of the scope of the federal job training effort? >> the federal job training effort probably comes to about
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$15 billion or $20 billion if you include everything from job training for veterans as they're leaving, job training for vocational rehabilitation, job training run by the department of transportation in washington. it is -- the programs are separated largely by the people who receive the training so we have training for veterans which is run by the veterans administration. attempts to consolidate these programs have always been difficult because, truthfully, if you're a veteran and going to get job training, it's much easier for you to deal with other veterans, from the veterans administration. so, what's happening slowly is we're beginning to say that whatever training program you have, whether it's d.o.d. department of defense, department of transportation, department of education, department of labor, health and human services for welfare mothers, they ought to meet the same standard and should get you
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a job and it should be worth enough money so that the training really had value. >> and if you've participated in one of these federal job training programs, we would like to talk to you in this last segment here of "the washington journal." phone lines are open. democrats can call. republicans -- and independents -- how have the results of all of these investments, these possibly $20 billion of investments in federal job training programs, how have they been measured in the past? >> they haven't been. that's the simple answer. we tend to allow the people who provide the training to make their best guess as to whether or not the training will get you a job. as a result, historically we have had a constant problem to train people for jobs that don't exist. >> what are some examples of that? >> you find in the green jobs
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initiative, which was huge in washington, came straight out of the white house, where there was a huge emphasis in the stimulus package, billions and billions of dollars to train people in green jobs and in the end what we found out is there weren't many green jobs. only about 3% of all jobs in america. in truth, what we ended up doing is training a technician for every blade on every windmill in america. we way overtrained for a set of jobs that weren't there so that kind of problem is persistent in american government. that is, we tend to train for jobs that aren't there. >> the latest bureau of labor statistics report has about 9.5 million unemployed americans. there are estimates of about 4 million to 4.5 million unfilled jobs around the united states. how do you match the people up to those unfilled jobs? >> the way we do it now is essentially people go to an employment service, public
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employment service. they talk to a counselor. counselor attempts to find them a job. in the end, we really haven't built what's called a labor exchange in most other nations and careful matches of people to jobs so as you point out at this very moment there's between 4.5 million and 5 million job openings and in the depth of the recession, that's 3 million at any given moment in time. we have never developed a system to match the people to the jobs and even more so we have never developed a system to match training for people to the available job openings. >> a recent "wall street journal" story on this topic, skills shortage means many jobs go unfilled. one of the points brought up in that piece is that small businesses don't have the hr, the hiring departments to find the people with the right skills for the jobs and one of the reasons that these unfilled jobs
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are out there. >> if you look at there are about 10 million people unemployed in the united states right now. there are about 4 million people now who are long term unemployed over a six-month period. that is they have been unemployed more than six months if you take all of the job training money in the workforce investment act, the one the president just signed and divy it up among the 10 million people, you have about $300 per person for training. that is, if you simply -- if you don't institute the program, just take the money appropriated and give it to the people, about 300 bucks. truth is you in order for a training program, you have to have a building with heat and lights and staff and almost nothing per employed person. 3 million to 4 million long-term unemployed it jacks it up a bit. it is a pretty skinny system. we know that in the american economy one of the ironies now is that while there are almost
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10 million people unemployed and maybe 2 million of the jobs, 2 million of those people are not enployible. they don't have skills that match to the labor market and why more and more are long-term unemployed and having a difficulty getting them back in the labor market and training them to existing job open sgs a priority and none of the legislation or efforts we're talking about does that very aggressively, quite frankly. >> if you participated in a federal job training programs, we'd especially like to talk to you in the last half hour here. phone lines are open as we talk to anthony, the director of georgetown university's center on education and the workforce. let's start with mitchell calling in from portland, oregon, on the line for independents. mitchell, good morning. >> caller: good morning, gentlemen. and thank you for taking my
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call. i think it was rahm emanuel who said never let a crisis go to waste and we are on the border and inside our own borders here in dire straits, and i would wonder why there hasn't been a program like a federal apprenticeship program for the young people to recruit them and to going down to the border and apprenticing and all the different trades and building livable structures for those who are flooding the border to stay in and be educated in and they could learn a trade in and then true that training come back and we could rebuild our whole nation. never let a crisis go to waste i think is where we find ourselves in this solution is to put everyone to work trying to better our situation rather than to sit chewing our nails and
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pointing fingers and really getting nothing accomplished. >> sir, any thoughts on mitchell's proposal? >> in the end there are lots of things that we need to do as a people. all of which or most of which require trained workers from rehabilitating derelict buildings in large cities like detroit but also trenton, new jersey, and huge share of america's larger mid western cities and that sort of work largely goes undone. in the end, public resources are required to do that kind of work. and public job training or private job training programs that would prepare workers to do the work in various kinds of functions, the largest one, really, is infrastructure. rebuilding our bridges, roads,
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electronic infrastructure, wiring for broadband and so on. we have never really made those kinds of programs, jobs programs. and provided the attendant training required. in the american system, it's very hard to do apprenticeship in the european sense in that the employer puts in half the money and the government puts in the other half. in the american case, i think by and large, the government or individuals themselves would have to put the money down. we really don't have a system in which employers pay for training people for qualifying level jobs. >> for folks aren't familiar with your familiar at georgetown university, do you want to explain a little of what you do there? >> we are research institution and a developmental institution, that is, we work with states, we work with education and training providers and we work with people in economic development to do what we're talking about
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here, that is match economic opportunity to education and training which is a relatively new idea in the united states. it's new because it's only really been in the last 20 to 25 years that formal kinds of preparation are required for a majority of jobs in america and 1970s just to give you a benchmark, 70% of american workers had high school or less. 30% of american workers had less than high school. the majority of them were in the middle class. they learned how to do their job on the job. but what's happened since then is the requirement to get the first job has risen so much you require formal training to get it and we haven't really built that system yet. >> let's go to william waiting in new york, new york on the lines for republicans. good morning. >> caller: good morning. how are you? my whole date 1999 i participated in a computer
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training, become network engineer, certified microsoft professional and all sounded like above board and the government paid for all of it but coming out the other end, there just weren't any jobs to be done doing that sort of work. all these schools are just producing all of these people and not only that, you could get, like, student loans. that didn't affect me to produce the people and just no jobs. microsoft, certified systems engineer and the like, those sort of certifications. that's just all i got to say. >> peter van buren of reuters and opinion piece put your opinions, this way, he says 18 billion in job training equals lots of trained unemployed people. >> well, there really isn't. as i was saying, truthfully, when you drop $18 billion on an economy with -- that has 145 million workers, 10 million or
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so that are unemployed at the moment, it was much higher than that before, 5 million or so unemployed 6 months long and take the 10 million and the 5 and figure how much you have to spend for each, it is a small piece of money. and the training needs go well beyond the unemployed. there are lots of young people in america out of the labor force and not looking for work so they're not unemployed but they're just people who don't have the skills to get in the labor market. so, and same with middle aged and older americans. we have never built a training system in america. we have an education system. for the most part, we use our education system as our workforce development system and it works in kind of a rough and ready way but the education system pays very little -- the college education system, for instance, pays very little attention to aligning its programs with existing jobs. >> let's go up to pontiac, michigan.
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kenneth is waiting on the line for independents. good morning. >> caller: good morning. >> go ahead. >> good morning. >> caller: my problem is that as a vietnam vet, when i got out of the service i went into schooling that was paid by -- for the federal government, trade school. and i went to the american truck driving school. and i passed all my classes. you know? as far as getting as, as, as. but when it came time to get the truck, you know, and go on the road, my test, they cut it. and when i went back to the government to see what had happened, they said they mailed all the money to them first. so when they went bankrupt, that money was not used for the purpose that it was submitted.
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and i think it's a shame that they can turn around two years later and get another contract with the government but use a different name. >> the american -- the experience you had is hopefully not the experience of most people have but it is the experience a lot of people have and that's primarily because we don't really and i'll use an ugly word here. we don't really regulate the relationship between the money we spend on training and the outcomes for the individuals who get it. so, in a lot of ways it is luck of the draw. that is, it's really up to the individual to pick the right training program, with the right provider in a labor market where jobs are available. we don't give people much help. >> do these programs have more regulation and more oversight under the executive actions that
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were announced last week? >> the reason the end won very clear pathway here, we know what it is. the data's available. we do have data in all 50 states. the obama administration dropped $500 million in building these data systems that will tell you precisely if you take a class in a particular course structure, a class in heating ventilation/air conditioning, will tell you what happened to you and the people that took it before you, none of that is mandated in any of these laws because there is, one, a reluctance to make the postsecondary education system, first of all, our four-year and two-year colleges directly accountable for labor market outcomes of their education and training, and much the same is true even with the for-profit school where is the administration is leaning very hard, that is, they have tried to build so-called gainful
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employment requirements so if you're a for-profit school in america, at least the intention of the administration, they were losing this in court, but the intention of the administration is making a program and doesn't get you a job and a wage and justifies the cost of the program, the federal government will refuse to pay for the program. question is, why aren't we doing that with all the other programs, as well? >> pat's calling in from california on our line for independents. good morning. >> caller: good morning, sir. i was a boilermaker for 13 years and a truck driver for 30. as an owner/operator. because of health conditions, i was prevented from staying as a truck driver. i passed my medical card. but because of the department of transportation's new restrictions on weight, i could not get a job in private industry. i went in for retraining. when i did, when i went through i found out to my shock they
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didn't pay any living expenses. so the only thing they would provide me for was books and some -- and some transportation money. 15 cents a mile. and that was it. and i needed to be retrained in computers because i had to -- i wanted to go back in the trucking industry as a dispatcher because of my experience and dovetail in. but it just didn't work out. you know, i didn't get enough help that i needed. for my medical conditions. it's one of those things where it just -- the government just doesn't have a national industrial policy. it doesn't have a national education policy. they don't match up people. when i was in europe, the -- i saw the germans have a worker's bill of rights.
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which means that you could go and get retrained. if you work ten years at a company, get retrained for something else. they actually put you from one position like, for instance, i can't drive anymore. they would find me a position and educate me for that position. >> pat's experience? >> the big missing piece in all of this in the american case which the europeans do much more aggressively is we're missing a counseling system, that is, this gentleman worked through all the problems pretty much on his own. he should have been able to go somewhere and build a pathway for himself to get to that dispatcher job which sounds like it makes pretty good sense to me. the europeans, for instance, almost european nation, they spend about 2% of gdp on
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retraining and workforce advising programs for workers. in the united states, including our unemployment insurance, we spend .3%. so we are a system that operates on the basis of you go to k-12 education, you then go on to college education and then you walk into a void which is you're then on your own to try to match yourself to a job. we spend $440 billion a year on college education in america but we make no connection between it and the labor market. it is our big investment, so it's very much a front loaded system in the united states. every politician has a speech of lifelong learning and in lines in anybody's budget for that. it is just a -- in these times when the economy's so skill based and so skill biassed and we're trained in technology, reading so many jobs so fast, and changing the structure of jobs so fast, we need to build
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the commence yate infrastructure to move people freely in the economy job to job, not easily but pathways. otherwise we'll have huge resistance to economic change in the united states. >> posho in virginia is waiting on the line. >> caller: good morning to both of you. i have a question of the student dewayning programs, especially programs called student pathways programs. what are -- what percent do they make of the overall current federal spending on those programs, and will we see a steady increase in these student programs as more and more students are graduating and looking for these steppingstone jobs to the federal sector? thank you. >> can you explain the student pathways program as you answer that? >> there's a -- one of the ideas that is widely accepted now is
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that people need to think in terms of their education training and careers as pathways over a working life, and that is exactly right. that is, you've got to figure out where you're headed five, ten years out in order to make the right decisions right now. and in the case of the federal government and many industries are trying to work with educators to build the partways in part because the industries including the federal government are not getting the workers they need and having to reach back into the school system and the training system and say, okay, here's what we need entry level. here's the longer term skills we require. so, these are where you find this pathways idea is it's in the language of the legislation. so, in the bill that -- the law that the president just signed and virtually every other law that has to do with education
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and training, there's a lot of talk of pathways but there's very little in the laws that says how do you actually build one? truth is we don't know. we don't have information systems that follow people from school through their careers so we actually know what a pathway looks like. that is, if you start out as a boilermaker which this gentleman we talked to a minute ago probably did years ago, learned that on the job, i think. had to get certified and probably licensed to do the job because boilers are dangerous things if you don't know how to work them so in the end that was an old -- back when that happened, that was assumed that was your job for life. it's not true anymore and so we really don't know if you were a boilermaker, what might you do next? which has some relationship to the skills you learned becoming a boilermaker.
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good afternoon, everybody. in the netherlands, malaysia, australia and countries around the world, families are still in shock over the sudden and tragic loss of nearly 300 loved ones. senselessly killed when their civilian airliner was shot down over territory controlled by russian-backed separatists in ukraine. these grieving families and their nations are our friends. and our allies. and amid our prayers and our outrage, the united states continues to do everything in our power to help bring home their loved ones, support the
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international investigation, and make sure justice is done. since the shootdown, however, russia and its proxies in ukraine have failed to cooperate with the investigation and to take the opportunity to pursue a diplomatic solution to the conflict in ukraine. these russian-backed separatists continued to interfere if the crash investigation. and to tamper with the evidence. they have continued to shoot down ukrainian aircraft in the region. and because of their actions, scores of ukrainian civilians continue to die needlessly every day. meanwhile, russia continues to support the separatists and encourage them and train them and arm them. satellite images along with information we have declassified in recent days show that forces inside russia have launched artillery strikes into ukraine. another major violation of
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ukraine's sovereignty. and we have information that russia continues to build up its own forces near the ukrainian border and that more russian military commitment, including artillery, armored vehicles and air defense equipment, has been transferred across the border to separatists. since the beginning of the crisis in ukraine, the united states has worked to build a strong, international coalition to support ukraine, its sovereignty, its territorial integrity, its right to determine its own destiny. and to increase the pressure on russia for actions that have undermined ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity and ability to make its own decisions. the core of that coalition is the united states and our european allies. in recent days i have continued to coordinate closely with allies and partners for a
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unified response to the shoot down of malaysian airlines flight 17 and russia's continued arming of the separatists and spoken with prime minister of the netherlands and prime minister abbott of australia. yesterday, i had a chance with speak with prime minister cameron of the united kingdom, president hollande of france, chons lor merkel of germany and prime minister renzio italy. we are aware that the situation should be resolved diplomatically. we have also made it clear as i have many times that if russia continues on its current path, the cost on russia will continue to grow. and today is a reminder that the united states means what it says. and we'll rally the international community in standing up for the rights and freedom of people around the
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world. today, and building on the measures we announced two weeks ago, the united states is imposing new sanctions in key sectors of the russian economy. energy, arms and finance. we are blocking the exports of specific goods and technologies to the russian energy sector. we're expanding our sanctions to more russian banks and defense companies. and we're formally suspending credit that encourages exports to russia and financing for projects in russia. at the same time, the european union is joining us in imposing major sanctions on russia. most significant and wide ranging sanctions to date. and the financial sector, the eu cutting off certain financing to state-owned banks in russia. in the energy sector, the eu will stop exporting specific goods and technologies to russia. which will make it more difficult for russia to develop its oil resources over the long term. and the defense sector, the eu
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is prohibiting new arms imports and exports and is halting the export of sensitive technology to russia's military users. and because we're closely coordinating our actions with europe, the sanctions we're announcing today will have an even bigger bite. now, russia's actions in ukraine and the sanctions that we have already imposed have made a weak russian economy even weaker. foreign investors already increasingly staying away, even before our sanctions today, nearly $100 billion in capital was expected to flee russia. russia's energy, financial and defense sectors are feeling the pain. projections for russian economic growth are down to near zero. major sanctions we're announcing today we'll continue to ratchet up the pressure on russia, including the cronies and companies supporting rush why's illegal actions in ukraine.
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in other words, today russia is once again isolating itself from the international community, setting back decades of genuine progress. and it doesn't have to come to this. it didn't have to come to this. it does not have to be this way. this is a choice that russia and president putin in particular, has made. there continues to be a better choice, a choice of de-escalation, joining the world in a diplomatic solution to this situation, a choice in which russia recognizes that it can be a good neighbor and trading partner with ukraine, even as ukraine is developing ties with europe and other parts of the world. i'm going to continue to engage president putin as well as president poroshenko and european partners in pursuit of such a diplomatic solution but it is important for russia to understand that meanwhile we will continue to support the
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people of ukraine who have elected a new president, who have deepened their ties with europe and the united states, and that the path for a peaceful resolution to this crisis involves recognizing the sovereignty, the territorial integrity and the independence of the ukrainian people. today, the people of ukraine i hope are seeing once again that the united states keeps its word. we're going to continue to lead the international community in our support for the ukrainian people and for the peace, the security and the freedom that they very richly deserve. thanks very much. >> is this a new cold war, sir? >> no. it's not a new cold war. what it is is a very specific issue related to rush why's unwillingness to recognize that ukraine can chart its own path. and i think that if you listen to president poroshenko, if you listen to the ukrainian people they said they seek good
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relations with russia and can't accept russia arming separatists who are carrying out terribly destructive activities inside of ukraine, thereby undermining the ability of ukraine to govern itself peacefully. that's something that no country should have to accept. and the sooner that russians recognize that the best chance for them to have influence inside of ukraine is by being good neighbors, and maintaining trade and commerce, rather than trying to dictate what the ukrainian people can aspire to, rendering ukraine a vacile state to russia, the sooner they recognize that, the sooner to resolve the crisis in ways that result in the tragic loss of life that we have seen in eastern ukraine. >> mr. president? >> go ahead. >> stopping vladimir putin, are sanctions going to be enough and
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are you considering lethal aid for ukraine? >> keep in mind the issue at this point is not the ukrainian capacity to outfight separatists. they are better armed than the separatists. the issue is, how do we prevent bloodshed in eastern ukraine? we're trying to avoid that. and the main tool that we have to influence russian behavior at this point is the impact that it's having on its economy. the fact that we have seen europeans who have real legitimate economic concerns in severing certain ties with russia stepping up the way they have today, i think is an indication of both the waning patience that europe has with nice words from president putin that are not matched by actions,
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but also, a recognition as a consequence of what happened with the malaysian airlines flight that it is hard to avoid the spillover of what's happening in ukraine impacting europeans across the board. and so, we think that the combination of stronger u.s. and european sanctions is going to have a greater impact on the russian economy than we have seen so far. obviously, we can't in the end make, you know, president putin see more clearly, you know, ultimately we have something that president putin has to do on his own. but what we can do is make sure we have increased the costs for actions that i think are not only destructive to crew yan, but ultimately, destructive to russia, as well. all right? thank you? >> what do you think about the
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attempts to discredit secretary kerry? president obama announcing further sanctions this afternoon on russia, in response to that country's actions in ukraine earlier today the president acknowledging that the european union increased sanctions. also a ban on the sale of certain financial equities. as you can see the president boarding marine one. he's heading for warder reed medical center in bethesda, maryland. he'll be visiting troops there.
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later today the president will attend a campaign event in kansas city. live knolls a senate subcommittee hearing. this began a short time ago. >> whether it's 10% or 90%, every one of those crashes, every one of those deaths and injuries is too many. >> absolutely. in that spirit, i hope that you will agree that these hours of service regulation that were adopted in 2013, or became effective on that date will continue to be in effect, even as we gather data on how effective they have been. >> i'd be happy to respond. >> please. >> we support five of the six
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component. we support a third of the sixth component, the restart in terms of the legitimate goal of the government to try to produce the related crashes at night during the hours we are talking about, versus the offsetting potential crashes during the daylight hours, because truck traffic is being pushed, not being forced, but the result of these rules is pushing truck traffic into the daylight hours. there's an offset there. the question is -- what is that offset? are there actually more crashes during the day than the fatigue crashes potential being prevented? that's our concern. >> we've heard just now from a number of our other experts here as to the importance of that component of the hours of service rule in preventing crashes. the testimony from mr. dawson about their need and effectiveness and from ms.
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farrow. in issues these rules, my understanding from your testimony is there was a great deal of fact gathering, scientific analysis, and other research and data driven consideration that in fact let the courts to uphold these pruls as being rational and factity based. is that correct? >> mr. chairman, that's correct. it was a very robust rulemaking with regard to over 80 scientific studies we reviewed. at least 250 we cited in our regulatory evaluation. lab studies specific to the 1:00 to 5:00 a.m. and the benefits of two nights rest over one, and extensive public listening sessions, as well as analysis of over 20,000 comments. it was an extremely robust process, and as you say research based, scientifically approached.
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>> is there a public about the in continuing -- >> very much public interest. from the perspective of ensuring that the focus on minimizing the risk of fatigue-related crashes is upheld while additional analysis is completed. i've said that the purpose of these regulations is to take tired truckers off the road, not take trucks off the road, and to protect truckers as well as the public in general. mr. dawson, let me ask you what these regulations mean to you and your fellow drivers who really are on the front lines, so to speak, in preventing accidents or crashes that are indeed avoidable.
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>> mr. chairman, i would say in my experience any time you have more rest or opportunity to be at home and get your rest, especially in the critical 1:00 to 5:00 a.m. periods is essential to getting proper rest and not being fatigued when you're on duty trying to do your job form. >> white house thinks rules, is there pressury your employers? >> absolutely. when your 34 hours is up, they could just run you right back out on the road on another run, put you back on duty. you wouldn't have the hours of service to protect you. they could discharge you in some in a snazz if you doesn't follow through, so you i think the
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protection is very important. >> is that consistent with your experience. >> yes, it is, and i would like to correct something that was said by the association of the the purpose of this rule is not to reduce nighttime crashes. the purpose of this rule is for drivers -- and it's not all drivers, but it's the driver who reach the maximum of 70 hours of driving, when 24th take their 34-hour restart, that they have two nights where they can get restful sleep, so they can get the kind of sleep that you get which is better than when you sleep during the daytime. first it affects a small number or modest number of drivers. second of all, the purpose is so that you get sleep at night, not to prevent crashes at night. another issue that's been raised by the trucking association is trucks will -- all these trucks will come back on the road at 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. when kids are going to school, yet this is the
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first time i've ever heard the trucking association ever being concerned about children being killed in truck crashes. there are over 200 children killed every year and 7,000 some children injured so i thinks firsti a false assertion and second of all, i would love to work with the association reducing truck crashes, but this is not an example of where children are likely to be sharm. >> mr. oshe couldosheki, i will you have time to respond. my time has expired, and i'm grateful to all my colleagues. i'm a ko sponsor with senator booker. >> yes, and thank you so much. >> and grateful to senator nelson, senator fisher, senator eye outand senator blunt for being here. if senator blunt is still here, and then go to senator nelson.
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>> that i am you, chairman. ms. clayburgh, i heard you say you would like to work with the trucking association for safety with children. i thought i heard you say that two sentences after you said this is the first time i've ever heard the trucking association say they cared about whether children were hurt by trucks or not. i would think those two things probably don't work out well together. i'm sure nobody here wants children to be hurt by trucks. i'm also sure that if you put more people on the road at 5:00 in the morning, more people will be on the road when kids go to school. i just don't think there's any way you can argue against that. i'm sensitive to mr. dawson's point that people who are working different shifts all the time get into a rest pattern that's significant. you know, a lot of people work the night shift all the time, so somehow they have figured out
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how to sleep during the day, and have done that for a long time. mr. osheki, your safety efforts, what are the best safety things that you think could be done that aren't being done now or need more focus? >> well, thank sudden, senator blunt. there's not a person in this room, there's not anyone in the association who want to harm someone when they operate. drivers are professionals. they attempt to do their jobs as safely and as efficiently as possible, and with the folks i represent, i know that. in terms of responding to your question, as i indicated in my oral remarks, we really need to not minimize the smaller types of problems with our industry, but we have to maximize our resources and our efforts. maximizing our resources and efforts really leads us to the technology solutions that i
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mentioned earlier, safety technologies that address unintentional mistakes. sometimes intentional misbehaviors, and sometimes they are misbehaviors that truck drivers and car drivers undertake willfully, but technologies, the ability to have enforcement focus on those misbehaviors, and to the extend they can the mistakes, but that's tougher, and rules that really will make a difference. the electronic stable rulemake that they've been working on will save at least three times as many lives as the hours of service rules n terms of priority, that rule should be out there, we should be living under that rule for new trucks. i'll left it at that for the time being. >> major palmer, in your opinion, what's the most effective tool of law enforcement for preventing truck-related crashes? i'm going to let you answer that,
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