you mentioned, mr. shumlin, about your small state. arkansas's a small state. to our credit we passed a half-cent sales tax to try to overcome the problems that you have. i wish coming across the 14th street bridge every day that we could different you some of our traffic. that would make my life sxm other commuters' a lot easier. but comment on the two versus the five-year bill. and then also the problems how do we ensure that as we try to do the very best that we can do to get money into the states that that's actually an improvement versus the state shrinking back? >> in terms of the two to five the more certainty you can give us the better. five's better than two. governor bentley served in an environment where we'd love to have two. we've both been governors for four years. needless to say the more certainty you can give us the longer period of time, the happier all governors will be. and particularly in a situation

you're dealing with garvey bonds, governor bentley said to wall street we've got an ongoing funding source from the feds so i can turn to the folks of alabama and say with certainty we're going to be all right. but we need it too because obviously we make similar decisions. i think all governors do. >> so the two versus the five actually drives the cost up? not only is it a certainty issue. >> you got it. it's a challenge for the states. >> driving up the cost of the construction projects also. >> absolutely, senator. the second piece is in terms of the partnership. my experience has been that we've had to increase our state contribution just to keep up with our federal match. and what i mean by that is unfortunately the gas tax is a dwindling tax. unso unfortunately. it's for good reasons. people are driving less miles and they're driving more efficient vehicles. but we all know that in the long

run we're going to have to figure out another way to drive revenue both nationally and in the states. we're going to have to go to miles traveled or? other ways to doing this because there's no reason an electric car shouldn't be paying for the roads too. having said that, in my state as an example we could not keep up with our federal match because of dwindling gas prices -- or i should say taxes without asking for more from vermont. or just to meet what we had already gotten in the past. in other words, i was about to give up $40 million of federal funding which for me an average transportation budget of $400 million, we're talking real money, having to cancel projects that are critically important as our xwrijz and roads crumble. i don't like raising taxes but we raise it to 26 cents. we triggered half of it toward volume and half toward sales so we'd be able to pay the price that's go up and down without obviously a period we're in

right now where if gas were cut in half we would have been demoralizeed if it hadn't been based volume. but monitors are making an effort to make a better match than in the past. i don't know if vermont's unique but i can tell you we are definitely not backing off on our residents' commitment to rebuild roads and bridges. we've been asking for more from them and i think a lot of governors have. >> mr. berquist? >> one of the challenges with the two-year to the five-year program and due to the length of time it takes to deliver any project of any size once we have the security of having a two-year program by the time we can deliver a program the program is over and we're back to a short-term situation. like we've been unfortunately accustomed to dealing with. i agree with the governor's comments too on some of the negative impact of the

short-term month to month type of business we're doing now in not necessarily being able to do the optimal treatment to our roads. we're just doing what we can in a short period of time. oftentimes it's a band-aid type fix that may not be the financially best thing to do but the only thing that can be done at the time. >> thank you mr. chair. >> thank you. senator whitehouse, we're trying to confine our questions right now to governor bentley if you could. >> thank you, chairman. these will certainly be governor-oriented questions. in rhode island let me say what we're seeing and if this sounds familiar with the governor, let me know. we are seeing the federal formula highway funds increasing increasingly subsubscribed over time. and we're seeing static revenue from that. we're not seeing big increases that are funding growth in the

highway program. we're also seeing maintenance costs for the existing infrastructure climbing. and that eats into the static federal revenues. and we are seeing debt service on our garvey bonds eat up a chunk of what would otherwise be going out into roads and to bridges. and we are seeing uncertainty in the out years about whether that federal funding is really going to be there. and what we get from all of that is a distinction between little projects that you know you can fund that can run for a year or two, you can get it done, and that you can fit into that shrinking remaining available portion of our highway budget. and the big projects that our transportation officials know are out there, know we've got to grapple with someday but there's

no slug of money big enough to take them on. and if you're going to spread them out over many, many, many years that raises the cost in many cases and it also takes you beyond your comfort level of whether the federal funding's really going to be there given the uncertainty that has been created by all the fiscal and budget high jinks that have gone on here in washington. so what that leaves us with is some big projects that we really have no way to get into our highway program responsibly. does any of that sound familiar to the governors? i see both heads nodding. let the record reflect. so what i want to make sure we do, and this echoes a little bit the ranking member's question, is that there be a pool of funding for projects that are big and significant and instead of giving them out because i know a lot of people don't like earmarks. it will be a competitive grant program. but it will at least provide a

vehicle for those big projects to be brought online before a big calamity happens. a very expensive bridge. a major highway overpass or intersection. things like that that particularly small state budgets. does that seem like a sensible notion to you, that for these big projects there be a specialized source of funds you could compete for to get them handled where they can't be reached through your ordinary funding? >> i personally believe that what you said is exactly what i said in my testimony. there has to be a different stream of funding for those type projects. and they should be competitive. >> absolutely. >> and we need to decide their national significance. we need to decide the safety of the area. for instance i mentioned the

bridge over the bay in mobile. we have all the highways come into one tunnel. we have hazardous material that's transported through that. and so you know there are so many things you have to look at. and competition is good. i think you shouldn't have a bridge to nowhere. i personally am against earmarking just for the sake of earparking for political reasons. i believe the earmarking should be done for what we're talking about and i believe i'm talking about, which is of national and regional significance. and you do have to compete in order to get those funds. >> mr. chairman if i could make one final remark one of the flaws in the stimulus program that we put together and passed in the depths of the recession was that our rush for

shovel-ready projects meant that the only ones we could get into the pipe were the ones that were already on the books of our transportation organizations. so those big ones that are waiting out there which would have been a great opportunity, we missed. so that's another reason we need to make sure we do projects of national and regional significance and i thank the chairman for his courtesy. >> at this time we will excuse you. thank you very much. governor shumlin, i didn't mean to be discourteous to you when you were first talking but you had four points you were going to end up with which i did not

hear since i did not give you time to express them. >> i think we covered them, actually. i would like to just respond to the question of competing for large projects and just add that i think senator whitehouse is on target. a program like that makes sense. i do want to point out the small rural states who have 80% of the highway roads and bridges to maintain often have a tough time competing with big state projects. so if you're going to do that some kind of set-aside to recognize the difference in scale is important because while we have more miles covered and more bridges on those miles we don't necessarily have the huge individual projects that a large -- that frankly a heavily populated state would have. >> and governor, that's something we're going to all be work on because it is very meaningful. let me just make one comment when they're talking about the earmarks. there's a great misunderstanding

here. this is my observation. one of the things that really does work well with the federal government is the way a highway trust fund is set up in response back to the needs of the state. i think not many people knew that when we did our last -- particularly the 2005 bill we made an effort to listen to the states recognizing that they know more of what's good for them, whether it's alaska or anywhere else, than in our infinite wisdom here in washington. so i think it's something that has worked well. the problem was they shouldn't -- if they'd used another word when they're messing around with this thing we wouldn't be having the problems we're having now. because there's a big difference between earmarks as most people think of earmarks and earmarks as they come from the states.

from the departments of transportation. and that's why it's a great -- and hopefully we can address this and take care of these problems we're talking about right now that will be kind of fine-tuning it. the big problem is we've got all those issues out there and we've got to do it. a lot of people forget. it always sounds good when we say let's just keep all our money in the state. that's fine if you're in a position to do that. but if you're from wyoming or south dakota or north dakota they've got lots of roads and no people. so we're going to address this and we're going to try to do this one right. you have covered your four points. okay. that's good. senator whitehouse. >> i'll just second the chairman's remarks. i'm actually not an opponent of earmarks. i'm a great fan of my senior senator jack reid, who's our rhode island appropriator. and i would think that his judgment about where federal money should be spent in rhode

island is probably a good deal better than the bureaucrats in all these various departments. i think my questions have been adequately answered. i'll just put in the record that we got a full answer from governor bentley under the chairman's request. governor shumlin was nodding vigorously throughout but didn't have a chance to say anything. so i'd just offer him a chance if he had any comments to make on this in addition. but otherwise i think the record is clear that the governors before us were in a kordaccord on this subject. >> the only point that hasn't been made about this conversation generally is when we talk about reinvigorating the trust fund which we all know was created in 1958, has served us

well we were building infrastructure for the first time in america. and it's what made this country great. it's what made us the most powerful economy in the world. we couldn't have done it without the infrastructure investment without that trust fund. and i think governors are united on that. >> the first covered bridges you're talking about. >> the first covered bridges. you got it. and the challenge we face now from just, you know, big picture for a second because sometimes we get type the weeds on how we should allocate the money. and i suspect all 50 governors would agree on this one. we have two things facing us. the first is obviously the aging infrastructure. the fact that what we built so effectively in the early late '50s early '60s across the nation is now crumbling. but the other challenge i'm facing i can tell you and i bet other governors are facing too is the weather challenges have made the transportation infrastructure more vulnerable than i believe it was when we built the infrastructure. i can tell you as a governor

who's served for four years now i have managed three really devastating storms the toughest storms that vermont has ever seen in our history. we lost a teeny little state of vermont, we lost hundreds of miles of roads. we lost 34 bridges. we saw infrastructure destroyed not only in irene but two separate significant storms. and this was created by the kind of rain that we've never seen in vermont where we suddenly get these who i call costa rican style deluges. ten inches of rain dumped on our little state in a matter of hours. just didn't used to happen that way. we have to remember we've got a crumbling infrastructure, we've got a climate that is really putting additional pressure on all the assumptions we made about where we put roads, where we put bridges. suddenly we have flooding challenges in places we never had them before. >> governor, can i jump in on that?

>> sure. >> because there's an interesting statistic. i think it comes out of the national property casualty insurance industry. if we look at the number of billion-dollar storm and weather disasters that the country's had in recent decades in the 1980s every year those billion-dollar disasters numbered zero to five. that was the range in the 1980s. you got none or maybe you got as many as five. but that was the range. by the 1990s the range was three to nine billion-dollar disasters every year. minimum of three, maximum of nine. by the 2000s the range was 2 to 11 billion-dollar disasters each year. and in the 2010 decades so far it's been 6 to 16. so the point the governor's making about what he's seen in vermont is one we're seeing all across the country and we've seen it in rhode island with 100-year storms appearing right after another. certainly not 100 years apart. i yield back my time.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i agree with the senator from rhode island when it comes to the issue of who should be making the decisions and i like the idea of providing ample opportunity for local governments to make decisions about where the dollars should be spent. i think we should be very liberal when it comes to allowing the states, recognizing their ability to make good decisions for their citizens about infrastructure development. i was going to go to secretary bergquist just for a moment and talk about some of the common sense things that states do or would like to be able to do if provided the opportunity. i think when we go back to taxpayers when we talk about additional revenue sources and so forth one of the things we want them to do is deliver as efficiently as possible those needed infrastructures or bridges, roads, and everything that comes with it. part of that means making good decisions about how we spend the

dollars. sometimes i think good advice coming from the feds is just that. it's advice but it shouldn't necessarily be requirements. there should be ample opportunity for states departments of transportation to make good choices about what they want that infrastructure to look like. i'm just wondering if the secretary could share about some of the efficiencies that might be able to be found if some of the red tape was eliminated or at least some of the restrictions on the use of those funds could be examined. would you care to just comment on that a little bit? >> sure. two immediate things come to mind. one i found with interest your dialogue with with secretary foxx earlier on the need to further streamline the review process that goes into projects. and as secretary foxx indicated there were certainly improvements that were made as part of map 21. i would welcome the opportunity

to continue to work with federal highway administration on further refining that process. i think there are still additional enhancements that can be made to that to short thaen time period so we don't have the problem the project takes so long to deliver we can't start construction until it's a two-year or five-year bill that bill is over. i think that's punone of the areas of opportunity. another area i see as an opportunity and i touched on that earlier in my statement is the balance between the funds and resources you invest in collecting data and reporting and those type of things. versus what actually goes into asphalt and concrete and bridges. i mentioned the case and potential requirement together all the data on our gravel and dirt roads which you are very familiar with. i'm not sure that's the best use

of those funds when we have bridges -- you mentioned the bridge numbers in south dakota. we have over 1,000 that need to be replaced. that money may be better spent there. >> i think senator, your question on efficiency and how we can all work together to use our transportation dollars better is right on. and i know that i, for example, did a couple -- have been successful doing a couple things that really made a difference for how we spend our dollars in vermont, our limited dollars. one, when i became governor i found there was frankly a rivalry between -- or a lack of communication and often real annoyance between my agency of natural resources folks and my transportation folks. and my transportation folks would go out and get ready to build a bridge or build a road and they felt like the a & r folks would come in and go search for arrowheads or whatever and they were all fighting and carrying on and it would take years to do anything and they'd let the blueprints pile up in the offices and we've got to end this.

my state offices were flooded out, destroyed. i used it as an opportunity when i reorganized them to put them in the same office building. they have to each lunch together in the same cafeteria. and guess what? they found out they like each other. and they're working much more effectively together to get the job done. so now our a & r folks will go out with our engineers. they'll go on the ground together and make decisions on the ground that sometimes took three years that now take three days. it's a big difference. the other piece is technology. i just want to mention that. governors are embracing across the country smarter ways to do things, more efficient ways to do things, and residents are willing if they understand it saves them tax dollars to be more patient. i'll give you an example. we have cut the cost of our bridges, building bridges significantly by saying to citizens wherever we can instead of building a detour bridge you've got to go through permitting, it takes forever, huge cost. and i bet you anything that secretary bergquist is doing the same thing.

i've got my secretary minter here, and she can speak more eloquently about this. but we're literally saying to residents if you will let us close that bridge for 6 to 8, 12 weeks, we can rebuild that bridge in that period of time. and you come in with these prefab bridges or do it for literally half the price or a quarter of the price. we're finding more ways to be more efficient, to cut red tape. states can do it. the feds can do it. together we can use our dollars more effectively. >> senator boozman. >> very quickly, mr. chairman. following up on senator rounds, the committee worked really hard under senator boxer senator inhofe's leadership in trying to identify things to cut the red tape. the problem is that some of those things don't come under our jurisdiction. we can cut red tape here. what i'd really like for you all to do and your comrades is

really come up with the things you mentioned, the state problems that we have sometimes and then also other federal problems that aren't und jer the jurisdiction of the committee. so we can work with those committees in the next reauthorization, which hopefully will happen very soon. we talked about the challenges of getting more money into the system. i mean, this is a way to save tremendous amounts of money. it's just we've got examples. i've got to go visit the bridge that fell down in milwaukee. that thing was rebuilt in a year. that would be a 10 or 20-year project probably. but again, because of the necessity the agencies worked together. we didn't have the gotcha attitude. it was how can we help you get this thing done? so we have great models. but we really would appreciate

your input. and i really believe very strongly the input needs to come from you all. you all are on the ground fighting the battle. nobody can tell us better from your experiences. so i guess that's -- if you do some homework, giving you a little responsibility in that regard, that would be very very helpful to the committee. and i hope, in chairman again, we can work with other committees that have some jurisdiction in that area and with the states and try and figure out how we can move the projects forward. thank you. >> senator boozman the -- we had a similar situation right across your border into oklahoma. when the barge ran into the -- you might remember that. we actually rebuilt that thing in one half the time it normally would have taken. and we've been making a steady case out of that ever since. necessity is the father or virtue or something like that. hopefully that will work. i just want to make one further comment because i know there's

misunderstanding when we talk about the way this system works. but there's a reason we do it the way we do it. all states don't do it exactly the same. my state of oklahoma as those people behind you can tell you, we will list a number of projects. we'll have people going out with eight transportation districts in the state of oklahoma, make their own priorities so, really my job isn't to see how much what's been done in the state of oklahoma, it's where those priorities come from the state. and people just overlook that. so that's one of the systems that does seem to work well. and hopefully we're going to be able to do a really good job with this bill. so any further comments you want to make in the closing comments. >> mr. chair, i want to thank you and the committee members. you've got a tough job and it's an incredibly important job. and i just want to say the governors, all 50 of us on a bipartisan basis will partner with you in any way we can be useful to get predictability

get the trust fund reauthorized and give us certainty because i think it's in all of our interests. >> within your states. i think it's so important that we do that. >> absolutely. >> and i think there's another thing you can do too, and that's apply the pressure necessary to our own elected people. to let them know what the number one priority is. if you run out of things to say, i'll give you an idea. to use the constitutional argument. article 1, section 8. that's what we're supposed to be doing here. and so i think i've heard it said many times before when people were trying to make comments about how conservative they are or something like that. when it gets right down to transportation, i've heard them say oh i wasn't talking about transportation. it's something we're going to deal with and it's something -- what i wouldn't like to see is to have the system changed where you take the states out of the system because you're the ones who know where the priorities

are, what needs to be done, and you know where your members, your elected officials live. so that would be very helpful. >> senator rounds, do you have any further comment? >> mr. chairman, i just echo what you're suggesting, sir. thank you. >> thank you so much for being here. i appreciate it. and we're adjourned.

keep track of the republican-led congress and follow its new members through its first session. new congress best access. on c-span, c-span 2, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> congressman charlie dent chairs the house appropriations subcommittee on veterans affairs. we talked to him about the role of moderate republicans in the 114th congress. this is a half hour. joining us now on the set is charles dent a republican of pennsylvania. here to talk about the role of moderates in the party let's just begin with some of the headlines we saw yesterday in the "washington times" about the troubles within the republican party. and then this headline on the front page of the "washington times" this morning. democrats hoping to capitalize on gop fumbles. fumbles in these first weeks out of the gate of controlling both

the house and the senate. >> let's face it. it's been a pretty rocky start for us. the first few weeks we had a speaker election that didn't go the way a lot of us wanted to. the second week bogged down on deporting children. the third week we're debating reportable rape and inseflt of minors. and here we are in week 4 and the border security bill has been pulled for the moment. so i guess what i would say to you is there are 218 votes for the speaker. it's hard to get 218 votes for other major policy initiatives. what that means really is going forward i think in both the house and probably the senate we're going to have to put forward proposal that's are going to enjoy some-some level of bipartisan support. specifically i could get down to issues of transportation, trade possibly tax reform. certainly cybersecurity or areas where there could be some fairly good collaboration. i think that's really where we're going to have to go forward. >> what about what the president talked about in his state of the

union address? anything there you think republicans should agree to? >> i think on cybersecurity there's some potential for agreement. the president also talked about the need for an authorization of military force. the president said few months ago he could use the existing authorizations. and now he says he wants a new authorization. it's incumbent on the president to tell the congress exactly what he wants. i think there are some areas of collaboration there potentially. i think one thing has to happen. we need to do a better job of managing expectations on all sides. the president's out there talking about free community college. we have folks on my side of the aisle, you know who don't quite understand yet just what the limits of the u.s. senate are. and the senate messaging bills that have no chance of passion the senate. i think we have to get back down to reality and figure out what problems we can actually solve in the & figure out the path to solve them. that's really a big challenge for the leadership here as well as the president.

manage expectations much better. >> let me get your reaction to the "60 minutes" interview that senator mitch mcconnell majority leader, and the speaker of the house john boehner did. where they asked about president obama's proposals. take a look. >> from the president's state of the union address let me ask you, dead or alive? raise taxes on the wealthy. >> why would i want to raise taxes on people? >> i'll take that as a dead. >> dead. real dead. >> make community college free of charge. dead or alive? >> we've added more debt during the obama years than all the presidents from george washington down to george bush. and giving away free tuition strikes me as something we can't afford. >> i'll put that on as dead as well. increasing the federal minimum wage. >> bad idea. >> bad. >> it's a bad idea. i've had every kind of rotten job you can imagine growing up and getting myself through school. and i wouldn't have had a chance at half those jobs if the

federal government had kempt i am posing higher minimum wage. you take the bottom rungs off the economic ladder. tripling the tax credit for working families. >> we're all for helping working-class families around america. i think we'll take a look at this when he sends his budget up. something that could be looked at in the overall context of simplified our tax code and bringing rates down for everyone. >> congressman charles dent, what do you think? >> i thought they did a pretty good job talking about the issues. now, specifically i think they mentioned three areas. community colleges, minimum wage, and maybe tax reform. the truth is the child tax credit -- i'm happy to work with the president on that but we should deal with it as part of the broader tax reform. that's the first thing. community colleges as we mentioned, i want to help people get access to college. but the president's proposal

just makes community college an entitlement. regardless of financial need the person could go to community college. i'm paying two tuitions right now. i don't think the governor should be paying the tuition of my kids at community college or bill gates's kids. i think we have to have a serious discussion. why don't we talk about expanding pell grants if that's really the path? let's make it need-based on simply aen titlement. i would say to you i think there's some opportunity on tax reform. a child tax credit if that's how he wants to proceed let's look at it. many of the republicans when george bush was president supported expanding the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000. let's have that conversation. >> it would require as you said some democratic support to get legislation that republicans want to get through and manage expectations. for the president to get some proposals through this republican-led congress he would

need some moderate republicans. how many are there? >> people use the term moderate. i use the term center right. practical, pragmatic people who want to solve problems. i think there are plenty of members in our congress who want to solve problems. i would say it's well over half the members who want to solve problems. ideologically they may vary. but i think if we're going to go forward, say the minimum wage, that was an issue that was just mentioned on "60 minutes." i've supported the last minimum wage increase. that said, i can support a periodic adjustment. but as republicans what i think we ought to do is maybe tie that to a specific job-creating -- creation proposal. repeal the medical device tax for example. or the keystone xl pipeline. if the president's not going to sign these bills on their own, maybe we sweeten it a little bit but do it on our terms. but that requires members of congress who have the capacity to get to yes. and that's really the bigger challenge. you have to be creative. our infrastructure, i think we

need to do something on transportation in a big way. a sustainable bill. there might be ways we can marry up things we want as part of that type of an infrastructure package. >> what do you make of the news monday that some of your colleagues have formed a freedom caucus? here's the hill newspaper. gop conservatives announced tuesday a new freedom caucus o'split from the republican study committee after complaints it had become too cozy with leadership. >> members of congress are free to join any group they want to create. it's clear that some members within the conservative side of our party are dissatisfied with the republican leadership. i think representative flores is a good man and he's trying to work to solve some problems. i think some who are more hard-edged ideologically don't like him trying to make certain accommodations apparently. that seems to be the issue. if nine or ten members want to

join and form a group, that's congress. it happens all the time, happens every day. and it's fine as far as i'm concerned. >> talking with congressman charlie dent. serves on the military construction and veterans affairs appropriations subcommittee. he's the chair of that subcommittee. republican in pennsylvania we'll go to barbara in hickory, north carolina. democratic caller. you're up first for the congressman. go ahead barbara. >> i have a question. it concerns the attorney general also. you're talking about that dome they flew into the white house yard, secret agent. >> mm-hmm. >> caller: and he was drinking. if i flew one in there, would they lock me up? >> okay. congressman, you want to take -- >> i'm aware that a drone somehow landed on the white house property. i'm not familiar with what she's talking about the drinking. >> well this is from "usa today." i'll share it with you. the headline. and i shared it with the viewers right before you came on. the man who says he accidentally flew the drone over the white

house works for the national geospace intelligence agency told the secret service he was drinking before the incident, he was off duty. they do say in here the man has not been suspended from his job and reported for work on tuesday. >> he was not doing this as part of his job? >> no. >> he was just recreational and he'd been drinking? well, look, i'm concerned that there was a breach of the white house grounds. that's the main issue i'm concerned with. it appears this was not a threat to the white house. but still, the white house grounds were breached. and it's raised a new area of concern for all of us a new threat these drones can -- i don't know what the secret service's defenses are for the white house with respect to drones. if this drone can get over the fence and close to the white house, i suspect others who had bad intent could do something similar. this just opens up a new can of

worms if you will for us to deal with in terms of security for the white house. >> do you think more regulations are neededed for these drones? >> i think it's an emerging area. from a national security perspective as well. from a commercial perspective. you hear all about amazon and other major companies wanting to use drone technology to help deliver packages or for any other number of uses. i do believe this is going to open up some areas of regulation. i know the faa is going to have to look at this very closely. with drones flying around how will that affect commercial and general aviation? does that create any potential safety problems? you hear about flocks of geese getting into engines. could the same thing happen with drones if they were all over the place? it's going to require some further review and study. >> on our line for independents mike, is it in boswell pennsylvania? >> caller: yes. i'm a republican. >> okay. >> caller: and my comment is

that now that the republicans have a handle on the last two days of the eastern storm that they got wrong totally wrong, people along the east coast everything was shut down. businesses lost money. people lost work over this. and we're sitting here in somerset county, pennsylvania. we have 14 inches on the ground. that's typical winter around here. the kids had a two-hour delay. that's all they did. they went to school today. and the north star school district is a ten-mile radius. back roads. mountainous, hilly roads. and they have all the roads plowed and everything but if they can't predict a storm how do they predict something five years, ten years, 50 years, 100 years out if they can't get it right? they shut the coal companies down here. nobody's working. everybody's unemployed now.

this is ridiculous. it's totally ridiculous. >> all right, congressman? >> i can't defend the prognostication of the weather in the recent days. i can tell you that much. i can tell you my 14-year-old son was very disappointed yesterday. he only had a two-hour delay. he was expecting a full day off. he didn't get a full day off. you mentioned coal. you're from somerset county. clearly this administration has been really trying to shut down coal as a source of electric generation in this country and has made it very difficult. my congressional district is just south of the anthrosite coal region. and i can tell you with a great deal of certainty this assault on coal is not helpful because i think at some point it's going to affect the reliability of the electric grid. a lot of conversions have been made to natural gas. gas is cheap right now. but we still are going to need coal as a base load source of electricity. and to the extent that the administration is trying to shut this down i do not think is a

national interest and can create some liability problems going forward. >> cynthia in georgia, independent caller. what's the name of your town? >> caller: huxtable. >> go ahead. >> caller: my question i had is you talked about you want to help increase the dependent care credit. a lot of families who receive the credit, technically who can receive the credit have already zeroed out because if you file jointly, you have a couple of kids, and depending on a lot of your income you either won't receive the full credit because you are going out of the balance for your economic credit. but either you are below it and you still don't receive the credit. so you say you want to increase it for middle class, but a lot of the middle class don't even receive the credit because they have already technically zeroed

out. so either they're starting to become above it and they still don't receive it. are you going to expand as far as the dollar amount as far as how much a family makes when you say middle class? if a husband and wife both works, are you going to expand their economic standards to 75,000? >> okay, cynthia. i'm going to have the congressman weigh in. >> sure. a few things, cynthia. the president proposed that child tax credit. i think there's some concern too that it should apply to all families, not just those of parents who are both working, maybe if one parent is staying at home should they not be eligible for some kind of tax credit too? that's an issue. what you're referring to i think is a need in your case i guess you're referring for the need of a refundable tax credit because maybe the income is not high enough, that you would not be able to benefit from the credit directly unless there was a refundable credit where you would actually be paid. this issue is going to been up

in the context of a broader tax reform i would hope. i don't think we're going to deal with a child tax credit or independent tax credit in isolation of other tax issues. i hear your comments. i understand them. and believe me, i think they will be taken under advisement as we move forward on some level of tax reform. >> front page of the "washington times" this morning. boehner says only the courts can halt obama administration amnesties. the speaker of the house told us a judge could be the only thing that can stop president obamas deportation amnesty. in comments the sig nam of how little the republican leaders believe they have to push back against the white house's executive actions. >> well, the speaker's right. we have to pass a homeland security appropriations bill and i think many of us on the republican side went on the record expressing our displeasure with the president's november action executive action on immigration. we thought that exceeded his authority. the speaker's right that the

courts will have to ultimately deal with this. in the meantime we in congress are going to have to pass a homeland appropriations bill by the end of february. i helped put thath to home lantd security appropriations bill. it's a good bill. and i suspect the senate is not going to adapt w459 house passed two weeks ago. so ultimately we are going to vote to fund the homeland security department and we're going to come back to fight another day on the executive actions. that said i believe it's important for republican members not simply to talk about what we're against in terms of immigration reform but what we're for. and i think the speaker's laid out a pretty good process step by step. you do border security interior enforcement, agricultural workers, guest workers, visa reform clearly dealing with the children, the dreamers if you will and the balance of the 11 million people here unlawfully. i think we have to go through on a step by step basis but simply stating what we're against isn't going going to advance the discussion too much. >> should the republican party join some sort of legal action

against the president on immigration? >> many states are currently doing that right now. many governors have filed lawsuits. i think that's probably the more appropriate place for this litigation right now. many governors around the country -- i haven't checked the numbers lately. but it's a high number who have actually litigation against the president's recent executive action on immigration. >> is it best left with them? >> i think let the governors fight this battle right now, particularly border state governors who are most impacted by these executive actions. >> this border security bill was pulled from consideration. there's been some in your party who want it to be beefed up when it comes to interior enforcement. tell our viewers what's going on. what's the internal debate? >> it comes out of the homeland security committee which has jurisdiction over the border. interior enforcement is really the jurisdiction of the judiciary committee. my own view is we should deal with the border security on its own, that bill on it own, and

then deal with interior enforcement in the next bill. and that should be tied to visa reform. and so i know there are some members right now who said this border security bill doesn't go far enough. i think it's a pretty good bill. and i said if we can't pass the border security bill as is we can take the bill that chairman mike mccall has done a great job. he also passed a bill out of his committee last year on a bipartisan basis. we could always pass that bill too. but if we're going to do interior enforcement that has to be tied to visa reform. i would prefer we do a separate bill on interior enforcement and visa reform together and then you do the border security stand-alone as was planned for this week. >> we're talking with congressman charlie dent. he's the subcommittee chair of the military construction and veterans affairs appropriations committee. serves on that appropriations committee. also on ethics. chairman of the ethics committee. and co-chair of the tuesday group, which is a group of center right republicans dedicated to promoting fiscal

responsibility, personal independence and strong national defense. we're talking with him about several issues before this congress. we'll go to chuck next who's in freeport, pennsylvania. democratic caller. hi chuck. >> caller: hi. how are you morning, congressman. i watch the show quite frequently. last time you made the comment that when flackracking water was processed it would be cleaner than drinking water. i was wondering if you'd be willing to drink a gallon of what was cleaned up. they don't test for all the chemicals. >> it's my understanding that in pen anyway -- i can't speak to every state. but in pennsylvania much of that fracked water has been trournd a safe drinking water standard. that is what i have been told by many at the department of environmental protection in pennsylvania. i have no reason to disbelieve what they have told me. but thanks for the call. >> breezewood. john, a republican. >> caller: hi.

how are you doing today? >> good morning. >> caller: i was down at the march for life and i was at the pennsylvania reception. and i just wanted to comment that if the republican leadership continues in the path of moderation and if you don't hold tocchet our representatives -- it was keep pulling these conservative bills because they don't have enough republicans with enough backbone to support them. the paine bill. you all stood at that republican reception that i was at and said we passed 24 great bill where -- oh, i forget. where abortion won't be paid with government money. and that was a whitewash because you couldn't pass the tougher bill. it's about time people in the party, they decide what they're going to stand for and stand up and fight or those of us who are true conservatives aren't going to show up and vote. that's why we didn't vote for mitt romney.

if mitt romney would have gotten john mccain's votes, mitt romney would be in the white house. >> all right. congressman charlie dent, you were part of a group of republicans who pushed to stop that bill he's talking about from coming to the floor. >> let me be very clear. the issue of the bill the gentleman -- the caller just described was this that there was -- it was an abortion bill dealing with no abortions after 20 weeks. the exceptions said they were for rapes that were reported to law enforcement. and the incest exception only applied to minors. so the question became then, well if you're 18 or 19 years old and you're the victim of incest why should you not be allowed the exception? but if you're 16 or 17 you would be allowed. so incest is incest rape is rape. and who's going to tell a woman who's been raped and then she's -- the woman has been raped. she may have told her physician.

she may have told her clergyman. but she didn't report it to the police. because we know over half the rapes in this country go unreported. but who's going to tell the woman she's not telling who is going to tell the woman she isn't telling the truth. the exceptions are problematic. many women in the republican conference had very serious concerns about that language. i had concerns about it too. there were men who were concerned about it. with respect to the bill to pass no federal funding for abortion is currently the law. that is the high language i supported. and that is something that the house republicans pledge when they ran for congress in 2010. that was what we said we would do. i think there were problems with that legislation and that is why it was pulled from consideration. >> here is a quote from the president of the pro life group list about this delay on this

bill saying i believe in political retribution otherwise you might as well close up shop. are you concerned? >> well you know what? i'm a big boy. i have been in congress now ten years. i'm used to people making threats. it's just the reality that we deal with. i mean, i don't lose sleep over it. if i lost sleep over every time somebody wanted to threaten me over a position i had taken i would never get sleep. you just can't worry about this stuff. i said from my perspective i think it is better when the republican party tries to avoid these hotly contested social issues because that distracts us from broader economic messages. i want to deal with the economy jobs growth energy security self-sufficiency, national security. i believe the public largely agrees with many of the republican policies on those issues. and to the extent that we get

caught up on very divisive social issues that are not going to go anywhere in the senate i think only distracts from the broader action. >> will an independent, you are next. >> caller: i would just like to ask if you think that increasing the international aid budget can help improve national security and can it get bipartisan support in the long run? >> thank you for the question. let me say one thing on development. we have a national security policy that is largely reheaded. diplomacy, defense and development. all three play a critical role. we are dealing with sequestration right now. defense is taking big cuts. so is the state department as well as the development programs. so i have been supportive of our global development initiatives.

that's been very important. we try to prioritize and get better results. i will tell you that our budgets have been cut. so our job right now is to try to make sure that we can get funding to those areas in greatest need. we are dealing with this in an era of sequestration. i can't guarantee that budget will increase. but i will tell you that that is a critical piece to our national security effort particularly in places like subsaharan africa to the extent that we provide greater political stability in countries like that and organizations like the gates foundation. they are doing a lot of great work down there. we put a fair amount of effort in. to the extent we are providing health and agricultural security and helps lead to political security and more political stability we often see economies can grow less violence and less breeding grounds for places like boko haram and other radical

groups, extremist groups that are wreaking havoc. >> i want to get your view point on this headline in the "wall street journal" this morning. changes to military pensions are proposed coming from a special commission looking for ways to revamp u.s. military benefits expected to call for the creation of a 401 k type retirement system an idea certain to face resistance in washington. >> i will take a look at it. i suspect that proposal would only apply to new folks entering the military. but, again i think that is going to be a pretty high hurdle to be very candid. the pension program is pretty well established and i think it will be hard to make changes to that. what they are talking about i think would only apply to new service members. >> they say this new retirement plan is one of 15 sweeping recommendations of the independent panel set to unveil

thursday when it releases a 300-page report meant to serve as a road map for president, congress and pentagon as they try -- >> we do know that salary personnel benefit costs have exploded so significantly for the defense department that it seems that in all honesty it is effecting our overall readiness and ability to modernize our forces. and so this is an issue that congress is going to have to address at some point. in fact, we talked about making an adjustment for some younger military retires who are uninjured and healthy when they exited. that created quite a bit of controversy. that recommendation came from the pentagon that the pentagon is asking us to make changes.

that conversation is going to have to happen sooner or later about how to adjust salary adjustments and pensions so we maintain a more ready force. >> health care. >> i want to throw health care under those personnel costs. we are spending a heck of a lot of money. we have to figure out a way to make this work so we can have the kind of force that can respond the way we policy makers want it to. >> james democratic caller. good morning to you. you're on the air with the congressman. go ahead. james, one last call for you to ask your question or comment for congressman charlie dent. dennis west palm beach, florida, republican. >> caller: i want to say to the congressman i am not very happy listening to comments here today. he made a comment just before you picked me up that we want to more or less table the social values issues to get to the more

important economic issues. i'm going to ask a couple of things and hang up quick. what does it mean to be a moderate in the republican party? does that mean to throw aside all of the social value issues? number two, what were the three legs that president reagan said the republican party stood on? i believe one was traditional family values. i'm wondering if the congressman thinks republican party can win another presidential election if he gets rid of what is referred to as the religious right? and you gentlemen like to say you have a big demographic problem in the republican party because of lack of latins and that sort of thing. that may be true. the biggest demographic is people who claim to be christians. instead of getting smart and trying to go after the christians you're going to throw them all overboard because you are simply chasing the money. i don't understand how you ever

think you will win in 2016 if you do that. people are fed up with you guys claiming to be traditional family values and doing nothing about it. >> let's have the congressman respond. >> dennis, let me say this. i believe our party should embrace people of faith and all faiths, christian, jewish, any faith. we welcome them into the party. i think that is very, very important. and i don't think anybody is talking about -- i certainly am not talking about asking people of faith to take a back seat by no means. what i'm simply suggesting is that some of these divisive cultural issues and life has changed a lot since 1980 when ronald reagan ran. the country has shifted a little bit on social issues. it has shifted. you talk about the three legged stool. here we are in 2015. i often felt there is no point in taking up some of the very

divisive social issues if they really have no chance of becoming law. if they are not going to go anywhere in the senate just to make a statement i don't think really helps us in terms of moving forward on issues that many americans want us to advance. right now people are very concerned about the economy. they are very concerned about the fragility of the economy. wages are stagnant. that is what they are worried about. we have international threats that are enormous that we must confront. energy self-sufficiency. i'm not trying to say we should never deal with the issues. i'm saying let's try to solve the problems that we can and that's where i think we need to focus as a congress given that we live in a divided government. >> let me throw this into the mix because the caller is talking about 2016 republicans running. can they run on faith and traditional family values. today in the washington post you have this headline that the mormon church has shifted its stance and is backing lgbt legal

protections. this headline appears in the paper the same day that the washington post reports that mitt romney if he runs will put his mormon faith at the forefront if he runs. talk about it. >> i was not aware of what the mormon church has just announced. in america i think we all are -- we should all oppose discrimination and we have legislation to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. i support that. i think most americans do. i am pleased to see that the mormon church has said they are opposed to it, as well. it is a great institution. i'm not surprised they take that situation. many other people of faith across the country. i guess the previous caller talked about people of faith as if they are some kind of monolith. you have churches with different views on these contentious social issues.

it is hard for one person to speak on behalf of all people of faith. i'm a regular church attender, too, in my family. we have our church and i respect people who go to different churches and their churches may have different philosophies than mine on some of these issues and that is okay. >> republican from pennsylvania, chair of the military construction and veterans affairs appropriations and chairs the ethics committee and we appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. great to be with you again. tonight on c-span 3 a discussion about the u.s. criminal justice system the senate commerce committee holds a hearing on the freight rail system and a look at federal initiatives at this year's internet policy conference. a bipartisan group of congressmen, senators rob

portman and al franken along with jim sensenbrenner took part in a panel about the criminal justice system. we will hear from piper curman, author of "orange is the new black" about her experiences in a federal prison. this event was hosted by the constitution project in washington, d.c. thank you. it's really a pleasure to be here with you for the constitution project to be sponsoring this program and to welcome so many of you this morning particularly those from house and senate staffs who will be engaged in many of these very same issues over the course of the next few months. it is interesting because this is a city in which the common wisdom is everybody fights with everybody all the time that democrats and republicans, conservatives and liberals can't

get along, don't get along, don't want to get along and more interested in making partisan points than in solving any of the country's problems. interestingly, that has not been the case in recent years in the area of criminal justice reform. conservatives and liberals democrats and republicans alike have come to the conclusion that the system that has developed over the course of the last few decades in this country isn't working, we are spending a lot of money and some states second only to education is the prison budget to incarcrate americans for all manner of crimes some of which didn't exist a few decades ago. as a consequence we have looked at these things and come to the conclusion that we have to work together. in this space, if you will, there are a lot of groups now that didn't exist some years ago. there are groups on the left and groups on the right. i was a founder with pat noland. we were meeting years before

that group was found. we were meeting with liberals as well as with conservatives to try to find some way out of the impasse that resulted from partisan bickering and grand standing over the years. one of the problems with dealing with the public on these issues was that it devolved into a fight among straw men. and forgotten in the middle was the society and the victims and the citizens. and as we looked at that we realized that that had to be broken. what we had to do was look at criminal justice questions first from the basis of the reason that we have it. you know some years ago when ken cuccinelli stepped down to argue and was given an apard as a result he said the problem

with the criminal justice system is that too many people forget the middle word in that phrase. and it was our decision and our conclusion that we as people cannot afford to forget that middle word. there needs to be justice for victims. there needs to be justice for society. and there needs to be a just way that people can pay their debts to society and reintegrate into the civil society once they paid those debts. and that's what the whole move, the bipartisan move for criminal justice reform has been about, to get away from old rhetoric to look at evidence to see what works and what doesn't work not to lobby for prosecutors and criminals, but to lobby for a system that serves the civil society in which we all exist and for which it was set up and to serve the ends of justice rather than the ends of idea

logical and partisan making. there are groups on the right. there are groups that van jones is involved with that are somewhere else. and then in the middle there is the constitution project which tries to bring these groups together. this panel today really represents a cross spectrum view of this problem. i'll introduce the panel members as we go on but i have to say that from the beginning our representative here represents a group that has been interested in criminal justice reform from the beginning. family is against mandatory minimums really was started with the assistance and support of the foundation and we appreciate that and all else that you have done. i can say the same if we had

some of our very liberal benefactors here because this is something that has attracted support from way different parts of the spectrum. we have a number of folks dropping in so we are going to handle this sort of casually. congressman danny davis is here. i would like him to say a couple of words. congressman davis is from illinois. he has served in the congress since the '90s. he has taken an interest in these issues before others paid much attention to them. congressman. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you very much. let me just say first of all how delighted i am to see so many of us here and how delighted i am to see the diversity of this panel of experts and interested individuals and organizations

that are involved. all of us are practically aware of the fact that mass incarceration is one of the big issues that face our nation, that we are the most incarcerated nation on the face of the earth. whether you are talking about proportion of the population or whether you are talking about actual numbers. even countries whose populations are minor compared to ours and, of course populations that are major compared i got interested in the re-entry question because i think it is one of the most challenging issues that we face today. fortunately, we were able to put together a group who passed something called the second chance act and it involved

democrats, republicans members of the house members of the senate, grass roots groups research groups, university groups every kind of individual and group that we could coalesce. after several years of discussion we managed to pass legislation based upon knowing two or three things concretely. one, that about 700,000 people come home from jail and prison every year. those who get no help are likely, that is two-thirds of them, are likely to do what we call real fen, something to get them back to where they came from. the level and quality of the help that they get will reduce

their re-incarceration tremendously. the higher the quality, the greater the reduction. the more opportunities that they get, the more help. moneys have been appropriated, never enough but we have actually had appropriations each year. there are about 600 agencies, groups organizations who right now are and have received appropriation from the federal government to work on the issues. that's pretty significant because they have also generated thousands of other entities who didn't necessarily receive money. some of the stall warts are on this panel who have been pushing it. i always like to mention senator rob portman who was one of the

original, original promoters of the concept and the idea. there are others who joined in. there are other whose have become a part. i am just excited that so many of you view this as an issue that we need to keep working on. i always say that we have only scratched the surface. we can never believe once we get to the basement that we are in the penthouse. so we have much further to go. it's a pleasure to know that this forum is taking place today and we expect great things to happen. again, i can't help but mention the diversity of the interest gives me real heart that thijs are going to happen and i thank all of you for being here. thank you very much.

[ applause ] >> thank you congressman. as a midwesterner i have to note that congressman davis from illinois mentioned now senator portman from ohio and congressman sensenbrenner is here, as well. congressman sensenbrenner is from wisconsin as am i. and i think i have known him since he was in high school. and in the years that he served in congress in the judiciary committee and elsewhere he has been both tough on crime and sensitive to the need to improve and reform the criminal justice reform. he is very sensitive and working in the area of mental health and crime. a few months ago someone observed that in every single state in this country there are more people who have been determined to be potentially dangerously mentally ill in our jails and prisons than in all

private and public mental health facilities in those states. it's a real problem on the inside and outside and congressman sensenbrenner is working on that. and throw in a side issue i noted today that he has legislation on civil asset forfeiture which is a problem that one of my old heroes henry hyde also a midwesterner fought to correct for many years when he was in congress. so jim. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you very much for that very kind and generous introduction. yes, you have known me since i was in high school. at that time my hair was black. there was years that have gone by sense less here and more there. i guess that's the way it will be with all of us.

you are younger than i am. you never did disclose to this group where you were when we first met. i will leave it at that. don't want that tmi here. i am the former chairman of the house judiciary committee. during my chairmanship the first second chance act was passed. we will have to re-authorize it. we tried in the last congress and it didn't make it across the goal line. in the last congress judiciary chairman created a task force on overcriminalization and made me the chairman of it. overcriminalization is an affront to personal liberty and expensive and inefficient way to deal with a lot of problems. there are an estimated 4,500 federal crimes on the books. congress is adding about 500 new crimes in each of the past three

decades. and still many more regulations and rules state that if not abided by can result in criminal penalties including incarceration. the united states now houses about 25% of the world's prisoners despite representing about 5% of the world's total population. overcrowded prisons are a costly burden to taxpayers. federal prisons cost taxpayers $7 billion a year and states now spend more than $50 billion a year up from about 9 billion in 1985 which was only 30 years ago. it's the second fastest growing area in state budgets trailing only medicaid. there are smarter and more effective ways to deal with criminals. and i am about ready to introduce a series of bills that

will address overcriminalization. i don't expect any of my colleagues to vote for all of them. i also don't expect any of my colleagues to vote against all of them. but i think the best way we can get some legislation and hopefully a lot of legislation passed is to split it up and then have different coalitions coalesce around different proposals. first, congress should begin by going through the entire body of federal criminal law starting with all statutes that carry jail time operating under the presumption that every statute should be eliminated unless it can be justified as essential. we need to focus on reducing resitivism among federal offenders reserving prison space for violent and career criminals and insuring transparency and

accountability. we should look at establishing earned credits for supervised offenders and incentivising inmate participation in programming or drug treatment by allowing them to earn additional time off of their sentence. and we need to use inexpensive evidence-based programs that defers low-risk offenders from prison and limit what prior drug felonyies can trigger the double sentencing enhancements. federal prisoners should receive programming that helps improve their re-entry chances and likelihood of success once they leave the prison. i will soon be re-introducing the second chance reauthorization act which does just this as congressman davis mentioned in his remarks a few minutes ago. and finally many states have led the way on passing reasonable legislation that protects public safety while reducing resitivism. it is time for washington to

look to the states to explore how it can be smart on crime. now, in conclusion let me say that one of the things that the overcriminalization task force came up with is we were asking specifically how many regulations -- those are bureaucrat passed rather than congress-passed laws carry prison time. and congressman bobby scott of virginia who is my ranking member and i sent a letter to the congressional research service that asks them to tell us how many of these regulations carry prison time and which agencies promulgated these regulations. we got a letter back from crs saying they didn't have the staff to do this. there were so many of them and it was so complex.

there in lieathizes the problem. this is something that the judiciary committee and hopefully both houses of congress can address so that an 11 year old who found a humming bird who is injured and put it in a cage in her house for a few days to allow the bird to recover in order to survive in the wilderness does not have her mother get fined and threatened with prison for caging up a migratatory bird. that shows how ridiculous some of the laws are and that is why this congress is going to address it. i look forward to your support in helping us lead a way to put sense into sentencing and put sense into incarceration and make sure that the public is protected from people who want to do really bad things and helping a humming bird regain

the bird's strength so that the bird is not killed when it goes back out into the wild is something that makes no sense. we ought to get rid of it. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. overcriminalization is one of the things that adds to the prison population as well as prison time and jail time for crimes that might better be handled in other ways. it is one of the things that not only the judiciary committee. i want to recognize senator cory booker who i believe is here. he hasn't been in the senate long enough to know that he should filibuster. i recognize his presence rather than ask him to come up and talk because he indicated he wants to learn rather than lecture. so on to lectures. van jones who you know was in

the obama administration and at cnn and has worked in and is interested in these problems, as interested as anyone. i would like to ask him because one of the things he has been doing is studying how we got to where we are. how did we end up with 25% of the world's prisoners in our prison system? and then move on to what can be done about it. if you don't know how you got there it is pretty hard to figure out how to get out. van? [ applause ] >> you can do it there. [ applause ] >> first of all, i am sitting at the table, van jones, with my new good friend from koch institute. that should be a headline by itself just the fact that --

just met you. anyway, this is an historic moment. it's funny but it really shouldn't be. i think we have been talking past each other for a long time. i think we have missed opportunity after opportunity for a long time and that's why you have 595% growth in the federal budget incarceration when probably both sides know there are better and smarter ways to get where we are going. i come before you because i had a show on tv with a guy named newt gingrich. a show called cross fire. we fought every day and didn't agree on one thing except this issue. talking with newt gingrich i realized i made a terrible mistake in my judgment and my

assessment of where libertarians were on this issue where conservatives were on this issue. and when you make assumptions about where people are coming from you miss the opportunity to do good stuff for the country. it turns out that our liberal

side side -- people on the right were only concerned about being tough on crime and not being smart on crime and that there was not a sense that the christian values, religious values and every soul matters could be a part of this conversation, that we shouldn't be wasting money.

conservatives shouldn't be for that. so i say that to say that we have gotten into an insane posture but there is wisdom available. where is the wisdom coming from? three places. number one, the juvenile justice system quietly thanks to the casey foundation has achieved a 50% reduction in the number of young people who are locked up in our country with no increase in youth crime. nobody knows positive steps forward. since the main source of the problem has been a lack of communication, a lack of trust a lack of honest discourse and dialogue about how we can have safer streets, better communities, more successful young people, the most important thing that can happen is what is happening right now. i want to thank the constitution project for their leadership on this when it wasn't in the headlines. give a round of applause to this organization and what they have been doing laying the groundwork. quietly laying the groundwork

getting leaders together to discuss this. big rhetoric very minuscule results. that is now the big danger because we now can see that we had a hearing and if you want to go on youtube and hear probably the best speech i have ever heard on criminal justice senator booker gave it thursday. he is one of the great leaders

the crime is down. the system is clearly broken and not just conservatives and liberals but libertarians libertarians, all three have come together to say we can do better. now, in a moment like this where you already have multiple bills i want to make sure to name check the bills out there. you have multiple bills out there in motion on the senate side and now more on the house side. those of you who are here, you have the ears of your bosses.

you have the ears of your chiefs of staff your political directors, the members. they are going to get flooded with all kinds of stuff that we are going to disagree about. this is your opportunity to go back to your office and say boss, we can actually get something done. we can actually get a real result. there are going to be people in our communities who are going to actually have a safer better community, better neighborhood better outcomes because we can actually get something done. i want to praise before i sit down those leaders who have come forward. senator booker and rand paul have legislation they put forward. that needs to be taken seriously and supported. durbin lee here in the senate supported in the house. they have the smarter sentencing act. the resitivism reduction act is brilliant and needs to be

supported. and the public safety act federal reform act needs to be supported. and lastly the record expungement designed to enhance employment, these need to be supported. the last thing i want to say is this. i love debating. i love ideas. i love theory. i love being right more than you know. this is the time to put data above demagoguery and evidence above ideology. if there is ever an issue where we have to be data driven and evidence based when you are talking about spending public dollars to both take someone's individual liberty in the name of making communities safer

both of which are precious, liberty is precious, community safety is precious. all of that i want to say to you as a partner and to you as partners and to the great leader on this whole thing you have this whole ball rolling a long time ago. you are not going to hear it from us. there is a racial dimension to this and we are going to talk about it respectfully. there is a gender dimension to this we will talk about respectively. we will lay down all of the demagoguery tools that we have at our disposal in the name of getting something done and to arrive at a country that

actually has liberty and justice for all. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> actually van said what needs to be said. that's that pat was in the space before virtually anybody else. last year the conservative political action conference we had a panel on criminal justice reform and one of the panelists jenny said all you have to do is take one of these guys and lock them up for a few months so they get a look at things on the other side and come out changed. i thought there are a lot of people that ought to be locked up for that reason. people get locked up for all kinds of reasons and get abused and mistreated by the criminal justice system. pat was republican leader in california in the assembly years

ago and did get roped in by the criminal justice system, learned what it was all about. when he had an opportunity he came out here to work with chuck holson and to do something about a system that he saw that didn't work and dehumanize those in it. one of the problems we face is that the public hasn't cared much about this because once you are locked up you are sort of no longer part of the human community. they don't care or pay attention to how you are treated or worry about what happens when you get out or worry very much how you got in. pat has actually been there from the beginning putting together coalitions, the second chance act that congressman davis and congressman sensenbrenner talked about is in many ways a tribute to the work that pat nole nd has done over the years. van, you are absolutely right. if there is a real champion

other than jenny of course it's pat noland. >> well, that's an introduction. my father would have enjoyed and my mother would have believed. but really i attribute it to chuck holson. he had the vision. he could have gone out and practiced law and instead dedicated the rest of his life to calling to attention to the fact of the injustice of our system and the dehumanization of inmates. and he offered hope to inmates and established prison fellowship for that. i was blessed to work with him

and prison fellowship for 15 years. through that my political contacts among conservatives helped build on usual support for issues. and it's interesting because most people assume that conservatives are motivated for reform by economics. my experience is not that. it's the moral issues that motivate us. and van hit on that. the first issue after i got out of prison we were involved in was harry reid was trying to strip prisoners of their religious liberty protection. it was ted kennedy and john ashcroft and dan coats that said no and beat back that effort. and then passed the religious

act this past week the supreme court used to protect a muslim's right to have a beard inside prison. that was this unusual left/right coalition. following that open society institute said what will we work on next. we thought second chance act that rob portman went to work on. john conniers has been involved in it for years. danny davis. it was, again, a left/right coalition. the essential message of the second chance act is that prisoners are people we should care about. their future after they leave prison is something that matters to us. and human dignity is an important part of it whether you are religious or not. those of us who are religious know each of us is a child of

god created in his image. it's that divine spark that gives us dignity. government should never strip anybody of that no matter what they have done. and yet piper has done such a good job humanizing prisoners. prisoners are continually debased. i was in prison a little over 29 months probably 1,000 times i was told you ain't got nothing coming. and said with disgust. it says you are nothing. you come from nothing. you will be nothing. now, i came from a good background. i had a great education. i have had leadership positions. even though those words hurt i was able to take it. think of the young kid from an abusive household and got into drugs at 13 and ran away and lived on the street never completed their education, how are they going to take something like that being told essentially that they are worthless and they

have no future? one of the things the second chance act did was say we are going to invest in your future. we are going to put together programs to help you prepare to live a productive contributing life in your community. you can have a valuable life. this is not the end of your life. we worked on the prison rape elimination act, the dirty little secret nobody wanted to talk about. and yet thousands literally tens of thousands of prisoners are raped each year. you think about it. one of the reasons conservatives are caring more about prisons is there is no form of government domination greater than imprisonment. the government takes you from your home from your family from your community, from your job, strips you of your ability to choose where you sleep, who

you associate with, what you eat, what you do with your time. the normal decisions we take to protect ourselves whether it is going with a buddy or going in lighted areas or arming ourselves to protect us from being beaten or raped we are not allowed to do inside prison. the government strips us of the ability to defend ourselves and leaves us helpless. so we are preyed upon by other inmates. one of the things that brought conservatives to the table teddy kennedy had been fighting this fight for years but also brought frank wolf to the table and a whole array of conservatives was the idea that the government has a moral responsibility to take care. if we are going to strip somebody of the ability to defend themselves the government has a moral responsibility to make sure they aren't preyed

upon. jeff sessions said it well standing in the senate swamp, ted kennedy unlikely characters co sponsors said i sent thousands to people to prison for terrible crimes but not one of the sentences involved being raped. it was that moral statement that was so powerful in helping us pass it. so i just want to establish there is amorally moral basis for this. the economics of it the diversion of money that can go for schools, for roads, for hospitals that instead go into prisons, all of that is important. the hole that it puts inside our state budgets eating up so much is important. it really is -- that's the thing that allows conservative legislators to explain why they are doing these moral things. why the impact on the budget is there. and i have to take my hat off to

pugh. the data that pugh has provided not only the figures but putting it in context, their publication 1 in 100 showing 1 in 100 americans was in prison or jail. 1 in 41, those under government supervision, that's really something that opened the eyes of conservatives 1 in 41 americans is under government supervision. it comes from overcriminalization. it comes from the government being in charge of so many aspects of our lives. i will leave you with this. an irs agent going through the capitol intimidating legislators in california said to one of my colleagues senator, we can carve our paddle to fit anybody's -- that is frightening

if the government can say we will fit you to the crime. that's what barilla told stalin. he said you bring me the man, i will find the crime. conservatives and liberals need to care that the government has so much power they can create a crime from all of these available. i am so glad that mr. sensenbrenner, mr. davis, that mr. portman are dedicated to helping us stem the tide of this powerful government, making sure that our policies make sense and bringing together people left and right they care about liberty and freedom and public safety. thank you. [ applause ] you know the problem that we face consists of putting too many people in prison, treating

them badly when they are in prison and then not doing much to prepare them for their release and their going back into a civil society when they leave prison. those are big big problems that have a lot of complications. and as i said earlier it really is in terms of the public that once someone is sentenced and goes away they are forgotten about. and in the institution they are as pat said ordinarily treated as if they are less than human, as if that is part of what it is all about when it isn't because what that does is prepare them not for the re-entry into civil society as self-sustaining citizens and free citizens but turns them into something that will ultimately end up right back where they started. chuck holson and pat brought faith to the problem.

i remember at chuck's funeral i told this story before i was sitting at the reception and a fellow came up to me and we introduced each other. he said i first met him when i was in prison. he came to me and he said god has a plan for you. and he said i looked at him and i said i have no doubt about that but it is a really terrible plan. but by having faith and respect for the dignity of individuals whether they are prisoners or not allows people to re-enter into society. no system is perfect. not everybody who gets out is ever going to go straight as they put it. there are going to be problems. but we owe it to those who have their freedom taken away by the state to see to it that they are treated well, as pat said, and that they have a real opportunity. shining a light on the way people are treated once they go away is incredibly important to

this. and our next speaker, piper kerman has done that through her memoir of the time she spent incarcerated and the television show orange is the new black which came from that. she has shown just what it is like and why we need to do something about it. it's your turn. [ applause ] >> pat your words really remind me that for every person who traverses our criminal justice system it is a cruseble that you have to survive and that changes you in ways that are indelible. thank you very much for your work and for your words. i also want to thank the members

who made this day happen, all of them from both sides of the aisle. very grateful and all of you who came out today spent a good chunk of your valuable time here fantastic. there are many members of congress who also have prioritized these issues in their own work and i am grateful to them again on both sides of the aisle. we know that so much of the prognosis made particularly over the last decade would not have happened without republican contribution and leadership. i want to tell you all i made my notes in one of my prison diaries to keep it real here. so in 2004 i was sent to federal prison. i was sent for a first-time, nonviolent one-time drug offense that i had committed in 1993.

and about 50% of the people in the bureau of prisons are doing time for drug offenses. 25% of the people are folks like me, low level, nonviolent offenders. but unlike me many of those men and women are doing serious time shockingly long sentences cht those are prison terms that i think are a waste of taxpayer dollars. they are a waste of time, quite bluntly, having lived inside b.o.p. that is not time well spent on the staff side or prisoner side. and those prison sentences are a tremendous waste of human potential because there is so very little rehabilitation going on within the bureau of prisons and within many other prison systems. i was so very, very fortunate to

do only 13 months of fed time. and when i say fortunate i don't mean lucky, i mean fortunate. i mean that i was able to hire a former u.s. attorney to represent me in court. i mean that i had many many privileges that most defendants do not have. 80% of people who are accused of a crime are too poor to afford to hire a lawyer to represent them in court. and our criminal justice system the data shows very clearly that our criminal justice system disproportionately pursues and punishes people of color. so i went to bed on that first night in prison and what i was saying over and over again in my head in that top bunk was i am so lucky. i am so lucky. i am so lucky. and prison is by design a harsh and horrible place.

so it might surprise you to hear that i was saying that. i was also saying i have no idea how i am going to survive this year. i was saying i'm so lucky. here is why. in prison the only acceptable ice breaker is to say how much time do you have? you don't want to ask a lot of personal questions right off the bat. during those first 12, 18 hours in prison dozens and dozens of women had approached me and said how are you doing? rough day. do you need anything? how much time do you have? and i would quaver out 15 months. and they would immediately start doing math problems. they were calculating the good time that the bop gives, 87.2% of your sentence that you serve. they say keep your nose clean and you will be out of here in 13 months. and it seemed only polite to sort of squeak back to them how

much time are you doing? and some of them were doing short time like me but a lot of them were not. a lot of them were doing much, much longer sentences than i was. five years seven years ten years. i went >> really, really well. because the bureau of prisons is very overcrowded. so you will get to know people really, really well. and, as i came to know those women well, i came to know their families well, those were lucky enough to have visits. i saw them in the visiting room with their kids their6 d8 families, their own parents and i,and i came to know those women day-to-day so very, very well in a way that only prison can really do. it became impossible for me to believe that those women had committed crimes that were so much worse than my own offense. and the only conclusion that i could draw was that they had been treated very, very

differently by the criminal justice system than i had. because of socioeconomics and because -- in some case -- because of the color of their skin. and so for me, this inequity is the most fundamental reason to reform the criminal justice system. that's for me, personally. so that some day, all americansm

most have enjoyed the biggest refourms in crime. we know that reform is what the pub lick wants. research shows us that americans want common sense criminal justice policies to be put in place to fix the current system that we have: i can tell you, i travel all over this country. and i am amazed i have like, thousands and thousands of people have come out all over this country mid wesz southwest, you name it, i've been there. and e and they come out and they want to learn more and they want too discuss these issue. it is really, really exciting. what i hear sfr e fwr them is getting low-level offenders out

of confinement in prisons and jails so that we stop misusing brizs and jails on those folks. incarceration doesn't fix public health problems. and, in fact, it often makes them worse. finally, what i hear sfr them is a huge amount of agreement about focusing substantive and, to your point, this is already happening. but more substantive rehabilitation resources for children in the system and for young people, you know, not 18 and up but still young so that we can get those folks out of the system. everyone understands that those investments in young people will yield dividends for all of us. we know that those things can be done because they're already being done. they're being done out in the states.

we've seen so much innovation. we've seen state governments move legislation successfully. so we know it can be done in congress. we've seen them reap the rewards rewards. we've seen them enjoy better more mindful spending of taxpayer dollars. and so it is time for federal government to catch up. here's the thing about the criminal justice system. it's a system. if you go in there and start noodling around with one part of it, you're not going to get really good results. there's no "fixing prisons" if you don't fix sentencing. you have to do multiple fixes to

make the system work better for all americans. so thank you very much for coming out. [ applause ] >> thank you. indeed preparing people for the outside is supposed to do it but it doesn't do it very well. i remember attending a graduation for. g.e.d. a junior college level in a federal prison and standing next to a couple who had driven 12 hours to be there when their son was receiving a gchlt emt d. he was prouder than anybody i've ever seen on the outside. they drove 12 hours, they stood there, they got back in their car and headed west back to their home and their job.

>> at least that boy was going to have a chance because he took the opportunity to do what he could to prepare hems. i'm not sure the system itself made it that easy. but that's incredibly important and something that we need to be looking at. the senator from minnesota was coming by, just another fixing the system. so if he's here, we'd like to welcome in. and then i'd like to introduce mark holden. back when conservatives were first stalking about doing something about these problems and, first recognizing the seriousness of it, polk

industries was already involved. and that's what they'd be working on. so it's really with a great deal of pleasure that we welcome you to the microphone. and i see that you and dan have survived over there? [ applause ] >> thank you, everyone. i have the coveted speaking spot right before lunch. so i appreciate that. very glad to be here.

it's achb honor to be here on behalf of coke industry. this is a great cause. this is a great issue. it is so important to all of us. many of you have had the same experiences. this is a big issue. and this is one that's exciting. we can all work together on and put our differences aside and just focus on something that's really going to help a lot of people. let me just focus on the u.s. justice system, is probably the best justice system in the world. we have a lot of dedicated public servants defense lawyers, public defenders, you

name it, they do a good job. but our system still needs a lot of work, obviously, as we're here today. we think it needs to be improved. it fulfills the bill of rights. that's what this is all about at the end of the day as americans. it needs to better protect americans. all and especially the most disadvantaged and help improve society. and as we've heard here and as you all know, who gets hurt the most in the criminal justice system are those who can least afford to endure it. and that's wrong. and we need to fix that. over the past six months we've had a lot of people come up to

us and say why is coke involved on this? why are you involved in criminal justice? i thought i would answer that question here today for those of you who might have the same questions. and let me just start by saying as i say, it goes back over ten years. and, first, we're drawn to these issues because of our belief and the rule of law and particularly, the true gene yusz of life. we believe those rights must be a reality and have fulfilled a providence in all americans. it provides a blue print.