announcement about a week ago about a military assistance at a number of categories, vehicles and so forth, that i think will be of assistance of ukrainian military. they are also under consideration, some additional categories of assistance, which are defensive lethal assistance and those are being considered. i think they should be considered. and i've said that before. but it's a complicated decision that involves other kinds of assistance that we're giving and the paramount fact, which is that we need to support the ukrainian's politically and economically. in particular, our partners in our european. to the end that's going to be the key in keeping what we all want, which is an independent way and isn't pushed around to the russians. >> well i don't disagree about

the importance of financial assistance, but what concerns me is while we zid to death and thus do not provide them the means which with to defend themselves and artillery a attacks, the positions in the eastern rebel held region and last point is countries around the world are watching how reliable a friend we are. and i'm concerned that this has tremendous detrimental effects encouraging putin's aggression and discouraging countries from being friends in the united states because we're sitting here providing a few blankets. i don't think that's a good way to go. i realize this is turned into a white house call, but it and last point is there is tremendous bipartisan support in both the house and the senate.

for providing this assistance and i really think the administration is isolated on this issue. and that's also something that's not good for the country. unless you have something you want to add, i don't want to cut you off. >> i'd simply say that, sort of personal observation. i was in budapest in 1994 when the agreement was signed. that the russians have violated, so i'm very alive to the, the possibility that we had then and i think still need to stick up for of independent ukraine able to find its own way, politically and economically is the only thing i'd say in the first

instance, it's terribly important that occurred and nobody ought to mistake that you know ukraine is a very important country to us. it is not a nato ally and i want to make the point as far as nato allies are concerned, that race raises a whole other set of issues. that i hope anyone who is considering encroaching upon a nato ally takes very seriously. >> well, i hope so, too. i'll be traveling to that region shortly and talking with some of those folks. >> thank you for doing that. >> thank you all for being here. mr. secretary, welcome back. general dempsey, you're going to miss us when you're gone. thank you all for being here. with that, the hearing stands adjourned.

this morning panelists are expected to discuss national security priorities in the role of congress. among the speakers tom cotton, who sits on the and the intelligence committee. this is live on capitol hill. we understand senator cotton running just a couple of minutes behind. we'll have live coverage as soon as it gets started here on cspan 3.

welcome. my name is chris griffin. i'm the xhektive director at the foreign policy initiative. it is my privilege to welcome you today to this event jointly hosted by the foreign policy initiative and american action forum. titled will congress provide for the common defense. this is the second in a series

of public briefings on how congress and the president can work together to provide our armed forces with the resources and authorities they require to keep our nation safe at a time of growing threats across the world. this morning we'll hear from senator tom cotton and following his keynotes, i will hand off to rachel hoff, with the american action forum, who will introduce and moderate a discussion by a panel of experts -- and aaf president, douglas holts deegan. senator tom cotton was raised on his family's farm in yellow county, arkansas. he attended harvard and harvard law school and after a court ship entered private practice. like all of us, his life was disrupted by the september 11th attacks. he left the law and joined as

infantry officer. he was deployed to iraq and also to a provinnal reinstruction team. after his military career senator cotton served briefly in the private sector and was then elected to the u.s. house of representatives in 2012. last year, he was elected to serve in the united states senate and know serves in committees of banks intelligence and armed services where he's chairman of the committee on air land. it has made in speech on the senate floor last week he warned we have quote system systemically underfunded our military. we look forward to the insights today and ask you to please join me in welcoming senator tom cotton.

>> thank you, good morning. thanks to fbi and the aaf for hosting me this morning for the important work you do. as the senate prepares to debate and vote on a budget resolution this week, i have a very simplye message this morning. the world is growing ever more dangerous and defense spending is inadequate to confront the danger. today, the united states is engaged again in something of a grand experiment, the kind you saw in the 1930s to allow hitler to rise to power in germany. as then, military strength is seen in many quarters as the cause of military adventureism. strength and confidence -- is not seen to deter aggression, but to provoke it rather than confront our adversarieses our president apologizes for our transgressions minimizes the

threats we confront and the face of terror territories seizes, weapons of mass destructions used and proliferated and innocents murdered. the concrete expression of this experiment is our collapsing defense budget. for year we have systemically underfunded our military. marrying this philosophy of retreat with a misplaced understanding of our larger burdens. we have strained our fighting forces today to the breaking point. even as we have eaten away at investments at our future forces. meanwhile, a long-term debt crisis hardly looks any better even as we ask truth to shoulder the deficit redestruction rather than shouldering the arms necessary to keep the peace. the result of this experiment should come as no surprise than the results of the same experiment in the 1930s. ladies and gentlemen, you're welcome.

>> as much as these fellow citizens support negotiates with iran, but negotiates from a piece of strength. where we where we are dictating the terms of the negotiations. not the circumstances where just two days ago, two days aerks let me remind you, atole la ripped up the crowd in iran to say death to america. two days ago, ayatollah in his annual speech whipped his crowd into a frenzy saying death to america. what was his response? yes, certainly, death to america. this is not the man or the regime to whom we should ever make nuclear concessions and in fact -- and in fact, the president's series of one sided nuclear confessions is of a

peace with his philosophy of retreat that apologizes for american conduct and actually undermines our efforts to stop iran from getting a nuclear weapon rather than secures it. not just with iran, but around the world, our enemies sensing opportunity have become steadily more aggressive. our allies uncertain of our commitment and cape bable theties have begun to conclude they must look out for themselves even if it's unhelpful. our military suffer uing from year of -- let's start with the enemy who attacked us on september 11. the president said al-qaeda is is on the run. the fashion, i suppose this was correct. al-qaeda is running wild around

the world. it controls now than before. this global network continues to plot attacks against america and the west. and maintain active in africa, the arabian peninsula and the greater middle east and south asia. further, al-qaeda in iraq -- withdrew from iraq in 2011. given the chance to re-group, al-qaeda and iraq morphed into the islamic state. it cuts the heads off of americans, burns live hostages from allied countries, executes christians and ensaves women and girls. they inspire to plot us here at home, whether by foreign plot or recruit ing recruiting a lone wolf in our midst. and the threat of islamic terrorism brings me to iran. the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism. my objections to these nuclear negotiations are well-known and

i don't have to rehearse them here. i will note though that the deal forshadowed by the president and accepting any expiration date on an agreement to quote netanyahu, doesn't block iran's path to -- paves iran's path to a bomb and if you think as i do that the islam lambic state is dangerous a republic is even more so. recall after all what iran does without the bomb. iran is an outlaw regime that has been killing americans for 35 years. from lebanon to saudi arabia to iraq. unsurprisingly, iraq iran is growing bolder and more aggressive as a america retreats from the middle east. ayatollah di in fact two days ago call for death to america just as in recent months, he tweeted the reasons why israel should be eliminated. militias now control much of

our -- a man of blood of hundreds of american soldiers on his hands. iran continues to prop up assad's outlaw regime in syria. iranian aligned and shiite financed militants, the capital of yemen and over the weekend, we had to withdraw further troops from yemen. he has remains our lebanon. put simply, iran dominates or controls five capitals in its drive for regional -- further, iran has rapidly increased the size and capability of its ballistic missile arsonal and three weeks ago iran blew up a mock u.s. aircraft carrier in naval exercises and publicized it with great fanfare. iran does all these things without the bomb. just imagine what iran would do with the bomb and aimagine -- largely defenseless against this, but you don't have to

imagine much. simply look to north korea because of a nieve and failed agreement, that state aeyrecquired nuclear weapons. now, america is largely handcuffed. regrettably, the result of this experiment can also be felt in other parts of the world. take for example the resurgence of russia with whom president obama conciliated and made one sided concessions from the outset of his presidency or china's military build up which is clear against the united states as china purr seuss an ariel deny l strategy to keep american forces outside the so-called first island chain and therefore to expand china's in east asia. now while america is retreated, not only have our enemies been on the march, our allies anxious for years about american revolve now worry about american

capabilities. with the enemy on our border, many have begun to conclude they have no choice but to take matters into their own hands. we should never take our allies for granted but we shouldn't take for granted the vast influence our security guarantees give us with their behavior. this kind of influence has been essential for american security throughout the post war period. yet it has begun to wane as our allies doubt our commitment and capabilities. and make no mistake, our military capabilities have declined. today, defense spending is only 16% of all spending. historic low rivalled only by a post cold war period. to dip some context, during a cold war, defense spending accounted for 60% of all federal spending, but if we don't end with a treat, this president will leave office with a mere

12% of all federal dollars spent on defense. the pictures is no prettier when cast in light of the economy as a whole and the early poll work, defense spending was 9% of gross domestic product. today, it sits at a pal tri 3.5%. our defense budget isn't just about numbers and arithmetic. it's about accomplishing the mission of defending our country from all threats. the consequences of these cuts are real concrete and immediate. as former secretary of defense panetta explained these cuts put us on the path to the smallest army since world war ii and the smallest air force ever. and these impacts won't be just immediate. they will be felt long into the future. the key programs will be difficult to restart. manufacturing -- will be lost. the skilled labor pool will shrink. today's weapon system ises and equipment will age and break

down. our troops won't be able to train and weapons equipment won't be ready for the fight. in short we will have a hollow force incapable of defending our national security. what is then to be done? our experiment with retreat must end. this congress must begin recognize that our national security is the first priority of the government and the military budget must reflect the budgets we face rather than the budget defining those threats. this week, the senate budget resolution will reflect $520 billion. while better than defense spending mandated by the budget control act, this is still insufficient. given our readness crisis and the immediate need to modernize aircraft ship, vehicles and so forth. the national defense panel, a bipartisan group of national security experts convened by congress unanimously recommended

a $600 billion floor to the fixed budget. not a ceiling. i agree that $611 billion is necessary and not sufficient. what then should our budget be next year? well, i will readily acknowledge that we can't be sure how much is needed above $611 billion. the national defense panel explained why. because of the highly constrain constrainedconstrain constrained department under which the department has been working, the defense review is not adequate as a comprehensive, long-term planning document. thus the panel recommends that congress should ask the department for such a plan which should been developed without current constraints. i endorse this recommendation. in the meantime though even if we can't specify a precise dollar amount, we can identify the critical needs on which to spend the additional money. first, our military does face a

readness crisis. from budget cuts in a decade of war. we must act immediately to get our forces back in fighting shape. from flight time and so forth. second, and related our military shrinking rapidly to historically small levels. this decline must be reversed. and in strength of the army and many marine core and the navy. third, we must increase research, development and procurement funds to ensure our military retains its advantage as our adversaries gain more access to advanced, low cost technologies. these critical priorities will no doubt be expensive. probably tens of billions of dollars more than the 61 billion baseline suggested. because the massive cuts to our defense budget resulted in record deficits though, the question arises can we afford

this? the answer is yes. without question and without doubt. yes. the facts are not disputable. the defense budget has been slashed by hundreds of billions of dollars over the last six years. the defense budget as i said is only 16% of all federal spending, a low and headinging lower if we don't act. and using the broadest measure of possibilities, defense spending is a spending of our economy. last year, we only spent 3.5 on defense. approaching historic lows and it makes you pass it by 2019. to provide context, when reagan took office, we spent 5% of our national income on defense. and president reagan and congressional democrats considered that to be a lange daing rousely low amount. that is the point from which they started. if we spent 5% of our national

income on defense today we would spend $885 billion on defense. further more trying to balance the budget through defense cuts is both counterproductive and impossible. first, the threats we face eventually are catch up with us and they did on 9/11, as they did in the late '70s. we'll have no choice but to increase our defense budget. we'll cost more o achieve the same instate of readness and modernization than it would have without the intermediate cuts. this is the lesson we learned in the 1980s and in the last decade. second we need a healthy growing economy to generate the government revenue necessary to fund our military and balance the budget and our globalized world, our prosperity depends heavily on the world economy, which requires global stability and order and who provides that?

the united states military. i would suggestion a better question to ask is can we afford to continue our experiment with retreat? and i would suggest the answer is we cannot. imagine a world in which we continue our current trajectory where america remains in retreat and our military loses even more edge. it's not a pretty picture. to stop this experiment and turn around american retreat, we must once again show that america is willing and prepared to fight a war in the first place. only then, only when we demonstrate military strength and confidence in america's national security will remake war less likely in the first place. our enemies and allies alike will and must know that aggress sors will pay an unspeakable price for challenging the united states. bring about this future by being prepared for war will no doubt take a lot.

but i will leave you all with two questions. what could be a higher priority than a safe and prosperous america leading to stable and orderly world and what better use of our precious taxpayer dollars. thank you, all, god bless you, god bless the united states. >> thank you, again for joining us this morning. for your insights. it's now a pleasure to welcome rachel hoff to moderate our panel. thank you, rachel. >> thank you very much. thank you very much, chris and to senator cotton for those very inciteful remarks. follow up on the senator's remarks and diving deeper into

these questions of current military capacity and capability in order to meet rising national security threats as well as the defense budget question within the context of the broader fiscal year 2016 budget. previously he served as drek tofr the congressal budget office next is the policy director at the foreign policy initiative. previously he was a visiting fellow at the american enterprise institute and served for two years as deputy director in the u.s. department of defense. david also served as a research staff member for defense analysis. and mckenzie who will start us off, is a resident fellow at the center. she's worked on defense issues

both here in the senate and in the house of representatives as well as in the pentagon. also secretary of defense and joint staff. mckenzie's served as a staff member on defense council, senator cotton endorsed today. >> thanks for having me. i guess we can pick up, where the senate's going to go this week and the resolutions as opposed. even the president's budget i think the kind of investments that are required that are very similar in line with the national defense panel. which we can speak more about in q and a. i think the biggest question on the table or put another way, the elephant in the room is okay, $39 billion extra in

overseas contingency operation spending to get the defense budgets in the neighborhood ballpark of where president obama has them. are a billion over depending on how you calculate it. how is that for defense? well, i'm here to say as somebody who helped the national defense panel think through some of these issues, it's completely inadequate. it's not just bad budgeting and governing, it's bad defense policy. $39 extra billion in oco or war spending isn't the same defense budget as plussing up the base budget. i know that's hard. i get it. hey, congress has done it twice already and we know they're going to do it again with the deal, some sort of follow on to the ryan murray, but they're not going to do it until they've gone through this long torturous path to get there. but there's the base budget that invests in america's military

and basically, the size and structure in the standing responsibilities the daily global responsibilities. the supplementing spending, called emergency -- there are two defense budgets and they buy two different things. in fact the defense budget one for war spending, has been constricted over time partly because of congress. congress has wanted to restrict the -- it's often in years past particularly when defense budgets were going up, it's the first history -- became everybody's favorite place to stop stocking stuffer you could imagine that had nothing to do with anything closely related to intelligence. so, to think that even one, that 39 billion ask okay and it's

going to buy you the same kind of defenses is inadequate and it's something policymakers really struggle with and don't want to hear. and then two, trying to get that discussion started and what's required for the long-term defense. what's required for changes in the budget control act and why a base budgeting increase is more important than a one-trm shot in the arm band-aid fix in the oco. is i think the conversation that we might want to get into up here later. but really quickly, why two defense budgets and why two different outcomes? well, the emergency spending money is mostly for sup mentals. for consumables. pitchable items, like the milk in our refrigerator or bread on your counter or where ever you put it. there are different type of

readness. individual and small unit and large scale maneuver full spectrum. for example, if you were just to take readyness and windle it down, this kind of spending doesn't buy you the same kind of investments and it doesn't buy you long-term modernization health of the force. so, with that, i'm going to turn that cheery note over to david and stop talking. >> thanks. >> it's on. >> great, thanks. yeah, i only probably have more depressing information to add. somehow, it seems when fpi discusses the state of the world these days, it's not your upper for the morn, but what i'd like to do is expand on what senator cotton said about a long-term trends in defense spending and why is it important to do that. so, of course we here at fbi and talk a lot about the national defense panel's for recommendations and you get a lot of pushback and it comes from a couple of directions.

so sfresinterestingly, this advocacy is often a plank in the center of the political spectrum. if you look at the more than 85 experts that signed the fbi's open letter to congress you saw a few notable republicans alongside notable democrats making the case and we hear from more people on both sides. i've discussed this even with veterans who consider themselves progress. they say no, how can you want to add more dollars for defense. isn't the real strength in economy. look at our debt, our deficit. how can you advocate more spending when these are at historically high levels. if you look at the context, you understand why those are not the case. so, for example, if you look at a choice between defense and education, in the constrained political environment where we have sequestration caps that apply to defense and nondefense spending, one dollar for one is

one less for the other but the fact is, we have it because there's never been either the political will be or right answer to helps people take on entitlements, so when you look at it, when you hear senator cotton say anywhere from 12 to 17% from this year out to the next five years is consumed by defense spending, that means 80% plus is on nondefense spending. overwhelmingly, that goes to increasing entitlements so it doesn't need to be a one for one trade off. it's that we have one part that's somewhat out of control and another that has been decreaseing sharply. if you look at the contingency budget, that peeked at almost $200 billion in real terms and now, we're talking about whether it should be $50 billion as the president proposed or more. so, 75% there, we're sort of reaping that benefit. and then the base budget has fallen by 15% in real dollars as well, so these are cuts across the board.

sorry. now, when it comes to drive inging the deficit. it's really the same story with entitlement. those are the areas where you're getting more and more spending. they're not under control by the bca. senator cotton mentioned we were at 5%. if you go back further, it was regularly in the 9 or 10% range in the 1950s. and it sort of gradually began to come down on a glide path. we probably got close with all the sup mental dahlollars, but now, we are headed down to a place that's less than 4% and may be going down to 3 if the current projections hold. if you think there are three ways to look at the size of the defense budget one is as a percentage of gdp, what that tell us is that given the size of our economy can we afford this much. at one point, we were spending

10% and now, under 4, that tells us the overall growth of our economy has outpaced the change in defense spending. which has followed an up and down shape over the years, where as our economy has grown tremendously. as the percentage of every dollar, how much is spent on defense? again, the norm in the early day of the cold war, it have half of the budget. like spending $1.7 trillion on defense. no one's even proposing that of course. what the panel wants is about a third of that in the base budget. you'd have more if you added in oco. you've seen that constant trend because entitlements has really moved and expanded to fill that gap tremendously. i think it's when i talk to people, i try to add these historical factors because sometimes, they understand it's really a different question. it's not how do we train one for the other. it's how do we get the out of control spending areas so we can afford to spend what we need to,

whether it's more scientific research or education and on security spending as well. i'll turn it over to dr. holts eakin. >> thank you and i want to thank -- i want to thank fpi for joining with aaf for this event and i appreciate the chance to be here. the larger dynamics have been in play for some time. it has been utterly foreseeable that the baby boom generation would age one year at a time every year and we would ultimately get to the point as we are now, where we get 10,000 new beneficiaries every day flowing into social security medicare, where we see rising spending on medicare medicaid social security, the other components of entitlements, which are driving two thipgs. number one, they are driving an enormous amount of projected debt in the united states.

if you roll the clock forward ten years, we find we're running a trillion dollar deficit. of that trillion dollar deficit $800 billion is interest on previous borrowing, so we as a nation are getting to the point where we're taking on a new card to pay off the interest on the old. it's an extraordinarily dangerous position for the u.s. it is driving out of the budget the kinds of things the founders would have recognized as the role of government. it's driving out investments in research on the nondefense side and driving out spending on national security and those dynamics have been predictable and in play for quite some time and are starting to show up right now. now, faced with budgetary crisis, congress did what it does, which says how did we solve this last time? last time was the mid to late '90 sz and thes and the quote solution was put caps on defense and nondefense spending. don't touch the entitlement programs and pray things break

your way. well, the is that unlike 20 years ago the baby boom is not 20 years from retirement. it's here. it's retiring now and those spending demands are going up and that's so we're not going to solve the problem. number two ultimately solved it with pretending that we had a piece with the fall of the soviet union and it turned out to be eliasive. we weren't as safe as we thought. we went on a procurement holiday for half a decade, which we had to make up in the early 2000s. and then third ultimately, balance the budget by having a dot com bubble. we need a new strategy. unfortunately, they've now caught the basic problem in the bca. it's attacking the wong part of the budget and has put these caps in play and the ultimate solution as david has pointed out is the trade. we need to spend more on defense

and nondefense, discretionary spending and take money out of mandatory spending to do it. needs to be undertaken every year. and increasingly large amounts. that solves the debt problem which admiral mullen identified as our number one threat. that solves the ability to develop the investments and readiness and weaponry and strategic capabilities on defense side. it is unusual for me as the budget guy to be the ray of optimism in an event, so let me try. this a different moment than a lot of the moments i've witnessed on this discussion. in the past, the only people who are ever in favor of entitlement reform are people like me budget geeks who drew lines and said that's going to be bad and everyone else said no, we want medicare and social security as we know it. now, this is changing. number one, we've done all this but we don't have good programs.

the social security program stays solvent by promising to cut benefits 25% across the benefit. disgraceful way to run a program. the medicare program runs a cash flow deficit of $300 billion every year. and doesn't deliver high quality care to our seniors, so there's a recognition these programs have to be better in their own right and there's now advocates for changes to the entitlement programs. i spoke to the nondefense discretionary coalition. it exists. the single worst named coalition in washington. need a better name. but these are now advocates for entitlement form because there's the recognition we need to get this done. and so, that's at the bottom pressure politically through the grass roots. from the top down, anyone who runs for president in 2016 and everyone's running, anyone here

running? any way, their advisers are going to tell them you want to be governing in 2024. if so, you're the president overseeing the debt crisis and defense readiness crisis. the 16 cycle is going to have to forshae do the need to get the budget in order. that's top down politics that have been missing recently. no leadership from the top. to make big changes. so i think there's a chance we can get this fixed. it's never simple or easy. just sort of complicated in the united states. but the recognition of these dynamics is here and it's time to change the bca and get the right policy in place. >> well, thanks very much. a bit of a ray of optimism, which is unusual. >> always go for -- when you need some fun. >> it's true. it's true. let me start off with just some questions for the panel of my own, then we'll turn to the audience for your questions.

here in a few minutes. let me start with david. you outlined several different ways to conceive of the defense budget. percentage of gdp, share of the federal budget, another way that the defense budget is often portrayed within the context of global defense spending. critics of increased domestic u.s. defense spendinging would point out we spend more than any country in the world on defense. can you help provide context by putting it within the context of global trends in defense spend something. >> absolutely glad to do so. so, you know, that number you hear is correct. we do spend more than the next seven, eight, nine countries combined, but there's important things to consider. that must be evidence to spending too much. what is the role that america has in the world. again, senator cotton has his head on. we are the guarantor of -- if you look at how the world was before 1945, when there was no

single dominant power, you could sort of have a major systemic war that left vast destruction in its way for every 30, 40, 70 years, they kept recuring from napoleon to the mid 17th century and world wars 1 and 2. since 1945, there's been another power causing a lot of trouble for the first 40 years but with the one dominant one in place, that could help secure the order as well as have an expansion of freedom because there have been dramatic increases in the number of democracies. if we continue to ours playing this role, so how much does china spend on defense? we don't exactly know. they're a relatively credible estimates or considered to be the best. there's a swedish think tank. the pentagon does some. people think it's around $180 billion, so around a third of u.s. defense spending, but china doesn't think about spending in order to achieve global stability.

it's more about this is how we can push the u.s. and its allies back in the east asia near our shores. we're going to design a strategy and therefore, we have the burden of going to meet that strategiened it's important to realize we're going to be play ing an wii way game. if it's march madness, the nfl, in war, it's better to play an away game because you won't like what's going to happen to your home land in the war takes place there. if we think about the air force and navy they cost a fair amount of money and what allow us to project power pretty much to any koorner of the globe and have us deal with a kris or threat there. of course, china's not the only region. whether it's iran orris is in the middle east. we are investing in the ability to project power there. the threats they present or if you look at what putin is doing, of course, he only spends a fraction of what we do. it's not like the soviet union. even know, it's difficult to know how much they were

spending. the fact is, we have to look at the obligations of nato, to ss really only the united states that has this global role and so even if you add up the value of everythe next seven or eight or nine however other many powers, it's not going to give you the right answer. that's not a way to arrive at what you need. you have to take a straenlgic approach, what are the threats we face in these different regions and what are the military forces we need to deal with them. and one last note, it is worth observing that certain countries, china and russia especially have increased their spending dramatically that in a decade, it's been almost double if not more. if you go back further, they were starting at a low base. follow the russians four fold. it's disturbing and they're increasing their capable thety. ultimately, the biggest question is how much power. and finally, ls the question how much bang are we getting for our buck and one of the pessimistic

note, we've been getting less in if defense department. some is just the fact we're a prosperous economy and you have to pay highly qualified personnel more, so the costs rise over time as the economy grows. we've had persistent rise in the cost of operations and maintenance and we've had some well-known troubles in acquisition. if someone wants to frame the debate and even senators, not senator cotton of course have done this, they say, oh, we're spending too much because we spent more than the next seven or eight powers combined. think about america's interests not just abl dollar figuring. >> you say this may be a different moment and we may have a chance to finally fix some of these problems. soovming in particularly on the fy 16 budget resolution, it includes a deficit both sides now include reserve funds for defense. can you provide some context for us in terms of these reserve funds, how have they been used historically --

>> so, it is such a joy to see see -- i recommend that be everyone in this room. the budget resolution is not a law. it is passed as an agreement between the house and senate. it often includes as it does this year, both an allocation for spending on defense and adheres to the cap and the bca. and then other mechanisms, should you wish to raise that allocation. and the mechanism in play this year is a deficit neutral reserve fund. what that says in english is suppose they pass a bill that comes in above the allocation of $499 billion. then the budget chairman can stand up and say, i invoke the deficit neutral reserve fund.

you can spend $525 billion as long as we get some in off set somewhere, so it allows the congress to break its own budget an in the process, it avoids having a point of order against proceeding to the appropriations bill, so it's a procedural mechanism that gets taken out of the way. allows you to go forward with a defense bill. those that have been around a long tichl. when we passed the prescription drug bill in 2003 -- all of this is important to remember is very nice. but it doesn't chak the law. the fundamental problem is we have a budget control act that says no matter how much you proepuate, we are going to cut it back to 499 unless we change the budget control act and for that purpose the budget resolution sets the debate up, but doesn't solve the problem. we need to pass appropriations bills and pass changes the budget control act that give greater funding. >> thanks. and mckenzie picking up on this

question, provided no change, if there is no change in law, no change to bca, but congress does proepuate funding for the pentagon, what are the consequences for these kind of short-term fixes for our military and for feint gone in terms of plan something. >> the first is what's going to happen on the floor. not the budget debate this week or next week or however long it goes on. we've already seen in the recent paths and boy, if anything is predictable, it's these congresses in the past six years. i should actually, it's been outlined, they like to take ideas off the shelf from 20 years ago so this group is a highly predict bable one. we've seen in recent congresses are members banning together on the left and right to strip oco money back. heard this line before, good friends like collin and john in

the audience have written the story a thousand times but the pentagon didn't ask for it, so it becomes a edition about does that need more money and if not, then wooir going to take it out. chris van hollen, take it out. justin van hollen and many have banned together to do this. there was an amendment, a total account of $5 billion and they took $3.5 billion out and they agreed to it. so the $39 billion in the extra money is allowable. it is the ceiling. that is not what will be appropriated for defense. and there will be fair and legitimate arguments to take that money away. congress itself said no to f-22s and the emergency spending bill several years ago. the ppt -- the leadership is going to want to put hardware and equipment into oko and that is not supportable by most

members of congress and the question is what will happen on the floor. once the pentagon loses money that they think they might be able to get it will take it back to the last four years of the wild swing in defense planning and no fiscal certainty for the department and that is alone the most insufficient things you can do for pentagon. there is internal bureaucratic thinking that is unjustifiable for taxpayers. and if they are looking at this, program managers hoard their cash whether it is sequestration or caps or continuing resolution that starts the fiscal year, however it turns out it is not the number we are talking about this week for defense. it is a number lower. that is a fact. that is a guarantee. you can go to vegas and tell them mackenzie sent you.

when that number is finally appropriated and the president signs it into law and it could be 2016 when it happens and it could be lower than the total amount than this week. and that means contracts are held in obeyance and things are deferred and in anticipation of the uncertainty on capitol hill. and even when the money is approved, there is a debate about how much more readiness certain components or services are needed, particularly right now. for the readiness right now there are pockets of in credibly high readiness at the d.o.d. and that is good but you can only pour so much money into readiness without wasting it. some of the readiness are in large-scale maneuver and longer

term readiness and some of it is function of readiness. and some can't get through the national training center. we don't have another national training center and money isn't going to solve that problem. so the third consequence is what you can buy with that money and what is needed is modernization and what you can't spend this money on is modernization. >> let me sneak in one more question for doug before opening it up to the audience. you spoke about how defense spending might play a role in the -- or fixing these long-term problems might play a role in 2016 problem and one of the pieces of doug's bio i didn't mention is he served as domestic director for john mccain's

campaign. so how do you speculate not just fixing the long-term problems and the question of entitlement looking forward to 2024 but how might sequestration play out for the 2016 candidates on both sides of the aisle? >> my reasoning on this comes from really two pieces. number one it is always better to figure out what people have to do rather than what they want to do. and we have to fix this. i mean the numbers are overwhelming in terms of the accumulation of debt, the financial instability of the federal budget. if you just stay on auto pilot for another eight to ten years. politicians have correctly stay add way from the programs because everybody has seen granny thrown off the cliff but she's quite durable. and that has to change. and anybody who has done the

arithmetic knows that so you have to lay the groundwork. you won't see big details in '16. but from 16 to 18 to 20 you'll see medicare is not serving our seniors and we need to fix it and make it better and all of those things. and the second piece is if you look at the polling on the ground right now, people are scared about our security. period. the american public understands this is a dangerous world and if you sort of ask all of the questions about -- the fiscal hawks favor about controlling this and that and getting deficits down and they agree with that. and ask about projecting american values around the globe and securing national interests around the globe and if you pit them head to head, the defense hawks defeat the fiscal hawks on the ground. presidential candidates know this. and they poll all of the time so they acknowledge the fiscal problem but talk about the need

for a stronger defense budget and better national security. >> so turning to all of you. we have about 30 minutes to take some of your questions three wick advisory points, make sure for the microphone to reach you for the benefit of our cspan friends at home and be sure it is a question. so we have a couple right up front here. and we'll start out right here in the front. >> colin clark. breaking defense. so i don't think there is anybody around here who would disagree that something has to be done. so far nothing really has been. as you guys look over the next couple of months what are the

appropriators going to do? >> i'll start. they've been broadcasting it loud and clear and i'm sure you know. they will appropriate to caps period, for defense. it is 499-051. $499 million for the base. the authorizers are a different story. that is interesting. i believe both chairman are marking towards the president's budget request of $553 billion, 051 again. and what will they do with oco. it seems they will coalesce around the amount no reserve fund, which is troubling because this is all debt financed any way when you are talking emergency spending money and the half of it they were trying to

make offset allowable is going to be taken away. so will they mark up to -- well, it is 51 plus 39 -- $90 billion for the defense department. a couple of things regarding that. one, $51 billion is too low any way. we know the emergency supplemental for defense is too low. last time around mr. freeling asked, things have changed ebola, isis, crimea, what is the new number and pentagon came back with a new number. and the same thing that happened last year will happen again. and how much does the defense department come back and say is needed. it is higher than the $51 billion but we don't know the number. it is probably in the 60's range. i don't know if it is the low or high 60 assist. -- 60s.

and that will flow to the department. and you still have an extra -- you still have 25, $30 billion that you can play with allowable under the budget resolution for the contingency account. and the question is what does pentagon leadership do. and that is something being discussed by the civilian leadership at the defense department right now. how do we react to what congress is possibly going to let us do. it is possible that pentagon leadership says we don't want the extra money and that will change everything up here because they will hand the department money they don't want because it is not the kind of money we need. that will change the dynamic and keep the number a lot lower. closer to $70 billion total in oko. i don't think we'll get near $90 billion, there just isn't enough to spend it on the things needed. >> and to just add a quick note. one of the atrktive things about adding money at a budget

resolution stage is you don't have to do a political trade of one plus one. you have the advantage, it is not restricted by the caps, there are complex ways in which it is. you can sort of put money there and the cap will rise along with it and you act as if you have that more money and you don't have the tradeoff. and even though oco is not considered to be long-term modernization money and if you say black is white and white is black and then white can be black in the case of oako and it can be used for anything and for people that need to put together a budget resolution for a tally you'll have problems. mackenzie explained how there is a potential for a democrat-republican coalition that does not like unjustified oako and if the pentagon doesn't need it it is a problem. and the omb can say we don't want it and we don't consider it

oako and i think the doctor can speak about the precise rules but if omb doesn't agree it is oversees contingency operations, for those acronyms we throw around, because without having to bargain with democrats for additional discretionary spending. so while they can't get in the way of republican majorities passing budget resolutions like this we will come to points in the road where democrats have their say just as minorities have their say and they also control the administration. >> rachel i left that point out. one last thing on david's point, i believe the president when he said he'll veto the defense caps regardless of the oako, i think he'll do that. so that is why i know we'll start this year with a continuing resolution, unfortunately. >> so the outlines of the deal

are clear and the tools are there to get it done. so you'll spend more in the base budget on defense and you'll exceed the caps. the price will be more nondefense spending and the president and the democrats will demand it. that is no big deal in the senate. all that you have if you exceed the allocations is a 60 vote, and you need 60 in the senate to pass it regardless. so you get the money if the deal is struck. and the deficits are dealt with by reducing pandtory spending and in both budget resolutions have included reconciliation instructions and you can exceed it with reconciliation instructions and they have offset on simple majorities and reconciliation is only useful if the president wants to sign. so otherwise there is just a long and time consuming way to

get a veto. but that means that you have to get a deal. you have to get presidential leadership that says i want this you want that and i will sign the offset to make sure that we maintain our deal with the american public on deficits. we haven't seen this white house successfully pull that off in any setting so far. but it is on the table if they want to get there. and that is the right policy argument. presidential leadership would make it a better political argument. >> yes, sir. >> peter humphrey a former diplomat and current analyst. my concern is the pentagon isn't getting it on squarmed warfare. i'm imagining hundreds of f-22 and hundreds of drones instead of f-22, imagine if we lose an aircraft carrier, what can the congressional budgeters do to

compel the pentagon to look at buying a thousand millenem falcons instead of a death star? >> it is part of the budget debate in the policy making community of base warfare of the future. and where numbers just matter. again it is not just the extraordinary capability numbers can bring to bear but how much capacity do we have. and normally when people use the word capacity they are talking about army but it can apply across the fleets and capability sets. there is the appreciation that is the thinking that is requiresd required. these budgets don't support it even though there is a lower cost item. back in 2013, this is not just the budget control acts one but

the sequestration and then sequestration level spending that have hit the pentagon modified since. the hardest hit spending is not just in modernization but in all of the minor procurement programs. we think about the major defense acquisition programs and they have certainly taking reductions but really it is the 60% of those -- that spending on all of the little things that the defense department wants to buy is taken the hardest hit. the death by a thousand cuts story. so as this debate continues and we see this play out for the fiscal year 16, pentagon lead erdship has already -- leadership has said the plurality of reductions when we don't get the president's request for defense will come out of the same account and will probably happen in a similar way budget airily as in recent

years. so right now it is important to have discussion but i don't think there will be much action on that kind of recommendation until there is more fiscal certainty for the department. it is definitely in the conversation leading up to 2016 however. >> i think that is a great look at the political dynamics. i would add that part of the question is built around the idea is it possible for congress to exercise that leadership in dealing with the tactile questions. i think it is part of the system that the pentagon is larger and with centers in every service dealing with new doctrines. i don't think congress in that inclined to challenge fundamentally that kind of strategy and technology weapons systems so the most effective channel for reform may be within the schoolhouse or the different services or the defense ibt elect you'll community. congress says we don't like

things but it is we don't want this plane or that plan too early to cut the a-10, we have to keep the a-10. i'm not sure we see too many cases. there is room for something striking. what is an aircraft carrier was sunk but that might have to be a war with china for that to happen. and also again that might act through the defense and the military before congress stepped up to the plate. >> i'm not a defense expert but my experience in agencies across the government is congress is much more likely to cement adherence to the past than to change things for the future. and you know all of those members have districts and they have stuff in it from the past and they don't want to change it. and that is a more common dynamic than really forcing an agency to change the way it does business. >> other questions? yes, sir.

>> i have a question about foreign propaganda. isis have videos where they are executing assad regime members and videos executing russian intelligence agencies and i believe that is for the western media, not for those particular countries and so my question is given russia's case in syria, and they sponsor assad's regime, they became a super power because russia with ukraine is a super power and they have better ways of going through the turkish straits and we can only have a token experience in the sea and they can expand their nation with that and we have this isil and the iran iraq and the shooting down of the malaysian air could be an article five offense, that is the only time the article five

come into offense and the afghanistan war was due to shooting down september 11th aircraft and the shooting down of the malaysian air would be just as much as an article five, so how do you maintain a balance and plan your defense budget when there is propaganda that is designed to provoke rage and passion which you have to put aside. >> do you want to go first? >> no. you go first. >> no i'm glad to. a lot of the propaganda is targeting the west. i'm not sure how much of an impact it has on planning and spending. many people might say that the decision to sort of brutally execute a number of american brutalists has led to us taking more action and on the other hand i think there is a strong case we are ignoring the threat and did us the favor of alerting the american public to just how grave it was this is a group

that really sees no limits on the brutality and the ambition down the road for theological and ideological reasons is to attack the american homeland. so in some ways it provides a complement for dealing with the threat n. terms of -- in terms of balancing between regions, the administration proposed a few years ago as part of the current strategy the pivot to asia it. wants to believe that europe was a place spreading security to other regions and we could do less in the middle east without it being a quote unquote priority and put more into asia. and part of the challenge is we can't trade off one region less and one region more. they each have the threat for one thing to emerge and whether only panels are considering this you have to have a force around a -- a force structure to deal with the threats in all of

them. and that does mean the defense budget will go higher but we tried to make the point before, not higher by the historic levels or even approaching the cold war or reagan's level 27% of the budget was for defense and if we went back up to the low 20s or around the same percentage of gdp, we could handle all three of these theaters so i'm less concerned about having our balance distorted by propaganda except for the chinese. the chinese are trying to have the opposite kind of propaganda. they realize the opposite is lulling us to realize there isn't a threat and the other kind only provoked a response. >> and i appreciate your point about emotional reactions and congressional -- and e -- emotional actions and congressional reactions. this town is too good at

managing crises and there is a growing recognition and that has been identified already. senator cotton in his key note mentioned this. there will come a moment when we spend more. and i guess what i would say is not just this congress but this administration, there is no spigot turning back on for defense reportless of the threat, that is one. and also it is a challenge, too. and let's pretend thicks -- things would change and it did. but one there is an increasing conventional wisdom in town that pentagon can deal with anything and everything and it will have to deal with what it's got and what it's got is continuing to get smaller and older an less capability so that is not -- and as that happens, we're dialing down the strategy and we're dialing down our objectives globally which is its own challenge but i don't see any threat to cause a windfall in

defense spending for the next two years. it is not coming. this is a discussion for beyond 2016. but then the discussion is when it is time to rebuild, if that is what is agreed upon by the left and the right in washington, then where do we put those investments and where do we spend any extra money. and again here washington is just not -- doesn't have a good proven track record particularly in response to crisis. if 9/11 happened again knowing what we know now i don't want a dni and security intelligence apparatus and department of homeland security. there are so many things wrong with the dollars we poured into department of homeland security and security and we weren't prepared for the crisis that turned it back on but we won't. >> next question here from jordan. >> thank you. jordan slopy, nato special operations headquarters. my question is a little bit larger and broader.

our partners and allies watch our budget debates and actively watch our debates and see the dysfunction we portray on the flip side we have our national leaders criticizing nato members and criticize that they don't spend enough or accurately and what advice can you give the partners and allies to not only spend more and granted i do think they need to spend more but how do they spend better. and that is the big he question. not just pouring more dollars but what should the dollars go towards? >> sure. that is a fair point. and something we've had -- we've had defense secretaries preaching to our allies for years now. and it is a good question. and i don't think the message was sinking in until now until our friends are charging the hill and turning around and

realizing we're not there. and we can talk until we are blue in the face and it wasn't until we realize that our smaller military can't do everything that it has promised in the past and in some cases overly promised. that is a whole worrisome problem as an american for other reasons but it is truly what it is. we have declining capacity and capability and technology superiority, so it is really a function of naked self-interest and we have to have those adult conversations with friends and alleys and we -- allies and we need those adult conversations about entitlements. and david and i are never going to see a dollar of social security and if you are under 40, you're not going to see it. >> i'm willing to think i'll see

half. >> maybe a quarter. >> and a question right here. >> good morning. my name is joann chase. i want to thank senator cotton and every member of this panel. i have a question. you mentioned something to the effect that no matter the interest we have in increasing this budget the will is not there within our congress, is that correct? >> the will? >> to raise the budget and vote on increasing it. >> oh, right now. i don't think the will is there in washington. as we've seen recent threats emerge, like islamic state, like russia and china's aggression in the south chinese sea and there hasn't been a increase in the rise of the threats. they are treading water but no

significant increases. >> is there anything we can do, the members of the electorate, congressional districts and senatal districts and can we make any difference or are we having the conversation to educate the people for the next congress? is there something we can do now? >> that is the question for right now. that is truly the right question. i'm going to let you guys take the first stab at that. >> i was going to say, a little part of political party analysis, what is blocking greater defense spending. so now we have the democrats control the white house and republicans have majority but not a veto-proof, not a filibuster proof in the senate. and if you listen to the armed services hearings in the senate you hear them denounce sequestration again and again and if the armed services committee entire senate they

would be fired up to do something about it but they would still hit a road block because when democratic members speak, what they can't say explicitly is they need to have the one for one. for every single dollar of defense spending you need another dollar of nondefense spending. and then when you look at how republicans react to that those on the armed services committee can tolerate some degree of tradeoff that the security threat is so acute if the political price to pay is nondefense spending they will have it but yet party as a whole isn't in a place to be comfortable with that tradeoff. that with sequestration and all of its problems a fair enough of people on the republican side say this is the exceptionally rare case where we controlled -- brought down federal spending by about $100 billion a year and we don't want to give it up and first of all, even if we do come to a deal, it is inefficient. and if the democrats said it is a price one for one.

and so even if there is a willing block on either side for more defense spending the related conditions about needing more spending or demanding less spending don't want to go along with it so you can imagine a major tilt in either direction. if the democrats came out of the next election with both houses of congress, including 60 in the senate and the white house, they could pursue the plus-up strategy of lift sequestration and have another $100 billion for defense and $100 billion for nondefense discretionary. and if the republicans controlled the 60 in the senate and the house, they could pursue something which would be more defense at the expense of other accounts or push through entitlement unacceptable to the democrats to generate money for other concerns but without one side having a dominant hand, this prevents them from doing that much even though they all say this is a terrible situation. >> thank you, i'm a little more optimistic than these two. i really am.

>> because you're getting social security, sir. >> that is true. i am. i'm getting 75 cents on the dollar. so post 2016 there is the chance to fundamentally make some changes. that won't happen until then. but in terms of incremental funding of the defense department i think there is more willing than these folks believe. because the president came in above the caps. and so he's laid down a marker and, yes there will be a price the nondefense discretionary spending, absolutely. yes, there are people who hate that. but that is the nature of deals. deals are not clean victories, they are coalitions of the disgruntled getting half of what they want. and i think again, the key is going to be what are the offsets? it has to be offset. it should be offset over the mandatory accounts and the president has to give republicans on the offsets.

if he hangs them out to dry prior to the 2016 election nothing gets done. but if the president does what presidents should do to get the right policy then there is a chance to get a little deal in '16 and it will look like ryan murray some discretion for mandatory and there will be gimmicks here again and you'll do it again for the fy-17 budget and it will be money and political pain and they'll decide the year after that to stop the nonsense and do something bigger. but i think there is a chance for it to prevail. >> let me round that out and it is -- incredibly true. >> nothing is incredibley true. >> it's so much pain and fake money any ways. but that is how it will ultimately happen. because i think there will be a deal prior to the primary m and i never talk about the shoe

leather politics and from the foreign chair policy chair said when a republican it becomes their thing, if they don't hear it this is a priority and they will deal with whatever is the next crisis at the front door. they are not going to fix the leaking roof if the car has a flat tire. and we're talking about the leaking roof, the long-term systemic problems and the squeaky wheel metaphor and that will get the grease. and if they don't think that is a priority of those who spend time with elected officials in both branches or appointed in some cases then it won't get attention that it deserves or the long-term attention. and i keep reading the headlines that -- in a shock and a little bit of awe to borrow a defense term that speaker boehner and nancy pelosi are working together to come up with a

permanent fix to come up with a permanent doc fix and they made a budget deal and every time the bill comes due for medicare or something or other, you can speak to what it is i live in a defense world they continue to pass ways to pay for it so this cut to doctors payments to medicare never becomes a reality reality. it is over $200 billion and we can only dream of a way to fix this for defense. and there seems to come to be a way when they come to find a way. and they've shown they can be bipartisan and if they don't show it is a priority, it won't be a priority. >> and they went through the doc fix 17 times in order to fix that so there is a slow learning

curve on that. >> jeff steel with the american legion. chairman thornberry spoke at csis on post acquisition form. and they quoted gordon adams skepticism and i'm concerned about what you think about thornberry's reforms and their possibilities? >> i was so busy preparing for this panel, i honestly didn't read the article i didn't see his speech. he gave his maiden speech on house committee chairman and he previewed what he will do on acquisition and talked about the fact it will be a bite-sized look and not a sweeping levin mccain bill like two congresses ago which i think is finally a good thing. usually when you add more people bodies, regulation and dollars it must be for more acquisition dollars in the future.

i don't know the specifics of the proposal but i think his fresh approach and in some cases unwinding but i'm more interested in what you are going to add to the defense system but what you take away so i'll give the ratio of adding to taking away and if he gives more adding than taking away then you gets an a. >> i would like to put the issue in a bit of a larger context for the audience. on one point another thing that you often hear from both sides whenever you talk about the need for more defense is how can you ask for a single more dollar when so much is being wasted. the holy trinity of waste fraud and abuse and until you exhaust those, how can you ask for me. and there are scandals at pentagon when you heard about waste, fraud and abuse and that is what people are targeting. and we can't reform our way out of this budget crisis. because the impulse is well if there is this waste to get rid

of and it is the acquisition of procurement that has the greatest trouble of any of the major areas, let's deal with it that way. so obviously, in some ways the jury is still out on the wasara or the mccain reforms and they tend not to have big-ticket savings in the near term but it might take a long time before you knew you have those savings. and acquisition reform in general in the defense community is an area where so much intellectual effort has been invested over so many decades and people don't seem to have engineered the problem more effectively. it is about a cultural problem or the leaders who can force someone to be accountable. and senator mccain what he throws at witnesses was how much was the ford class carrier over budget and the answer is $2 billion and how many people lost

their job over that and the answer is none. and it is hard to find a point of responsibility and that is the point he's making and there is no point that somebody should lose their job even when something is $2 billion over budget. and even with all of these reforms, we won't generate what is necessary to make up the difference between sequestration level budgets and national defense panel level budgets or what might be necessary if threats continue to grow as they have in the past year. >> i'll just say i never wanted to learn about acquisition reform so i hired rachel to learn it. so that is her problem. but the thing i would stress is the pentagon budget has the same problem the u.s. budget has on a smaller scale. it has a retirement problem and health care problem and there isn't enough acquisition for those things crowding out as what we think of real military capabilities so there has recently been a panel to impose

compensation reforms and that is important and that is the reform we need to see move forward to clear out reform in the pentagon budget. >> and my apology for double dipping. but for waste, when we think of money going to troops, there no way to think of waste of their lives on active duty or the risks they take on the field and there is no right answer but we need to cover this cost growth and mackenzie said it quite well we have these two obligating bindy troops, to compensate them appropriately because they've given up other fields and to make sure they have the equipment when they are out there in the field. but we are increasingly at the point where proper compensation is muscling out the other parts of the budget. at an event, michelle florring, who was under president obama a member of the national defense panel she talks about it through her own personal experience, through a navy wife, the

benefits are important in terms of pension and a navy mom with a son going in i believe to annapolis and that concerns me much more, i'm worried about my son having the right equipment they need to accomplish the mission and the things they need than the benefits. but that is not what a congressman is going to hear because there is a huge amount of pressure from tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands who don't want benefits cut. and the line which you hear in which one can have sympathy is why are we balancing the budget on backs of veterans before we take on entitlements for people who haven't served their country. >> we'll leave it on that provocative note. thank you to the panel for a wonderful discussion and to senator cotton for getting the conversation started today and to my panel on aif and thank you to all of you for joining us. [ applause ]

. . a look at the first person to get into the race for president, ted cruz. and this is a picture tweeted from his appearance there. >> i believe in you. i believe in the power of millions of courageous

conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of america. and that is why today i am announcing that i'm running for president of the united states. [ applause ] >> and while senator cruz was announcing his candidacy, another possible republican contender marco rubio released his plan to replace the affordable care act if the supreme court strikes down the law. his plan would provide tax credits to help people buy health insurance and the value of the credits would increase every year and equal the tax preference given to employer-based plans. today is the fifth anniversary of the passage of the federal health care law. and on capitol hill this week, congress is working on the 2016 federal budget the senate

debating the version on c-span 2 with amendment votes at 5:30 and the house turning to its budget tomorrow. you can watch that today on c-span. and today we'll be live with supreme court justices as they testify on the budget on the supreme court before a house appropriations sub-committee on everything from salaries and expenses to how much it cost to maintain the building an the grounds. join us live here at 3:00. and on thursday, energy secretary goes before the congress talking about energy resources. tonight on the communicators we met up with wired magazine reporter tim moynahan at the consumer electronics show in las vegas. >> and what did oled standeford. >> organic light emitted die

oat. that referred to the l.e.d. back lights to color liquid crystal display and this one is usually using the individual oled particles as a source of light. so they can be turned on and turned off independently. with an l.e.d. set, you'll see some sort of light seeping through there. to my eyes this is pretty amazing, right? this is 4 k and oled which is sort of the two big buzzwords at this year's show and have been for a few years and this is the holy grail of tvs. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span 2. the u.s. commission on civil rights held a hearing recently on workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees. the agency is looking into how

bias impacts hiring, compensation and termination. this is about two hours. >> commissioner, we're going to go back to the panel. we'll now proceed. i want to first of all introduce the panelists in the second panel. our first panelist is mr. roger clay, president and counsel for the equal opportunity. our second panelity is kate kendall from the center for lesbian rights and sarah warbelow. and then stacy long simons director of policy and government affairs at the lbgt task force and our fifth and final panelists for the second panel is winnie stachelberg from the center for american progress. i'll ask you all to raise your

right hand and to swear and affirm that the information that you're about to provide to us is true and accurate to the best of your knowledge and belief is that correct? thank you. mr. cleg. good to see you again. you have the floor. seven minutes. >> thank you very much. i appreciate the opportunity to testify today. my name is roger clegg and i'm president and general counsel of the center for equal opportunity which is a nonprofit research and educational organization that is based in falls church virginia. our chairman is linda chavez. and our principal focus is on public policy issues that involve race and ethnicity, such as civil rights, bilingual immigration and i should add that miss chavez was the civil staff director and i was once the deputy attorney general in the civil rights department. and the testimony you have about

the employment nondiscrimination act are six. and i'm going to list them. number one, congress lacks the constitutional authority to pass this bill. number two, there is no call for a federal role in this area any way. number three the bill is inconsistent with free market federalism and principals and we shouldn't forget there is a strong presumption in letting businesses make their own personnel decisions. number four, it is not necessarily immoral or irrational to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. number five, the legislation would create many practical problems for employers. and number six, the main purpose of this bill is to try to marginalize the views of americans who believe that gay sex is a sin. and this is a bad aim. there are some overlap among these points by the way but

they are distinct. so that is my written testimony. in my oral testimony today, i'd like to talk a little more about when -- when discrimination on sexual orientation might be rational. in my written testimony are principally when the employer, his other employees or his customers might have objections to working with someone whom they view as engaging in immoral activity. and when you think about it there are at least two other groups of situations where discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation might make sense. number one when the person's sexual orientation might give them insights useful with other of that sexual orientation and number two when the fact that the employee might be sexually attracted to another individual is relevant. either positively or negatively

to the job. on the first class of cases i, myself, am not a great fan of the notion that it is important to be a member of a particular group in order to know how members of that group might think. for example, diversity proupon ebts will frequently argue that to market a product to this or that group, a company needs to be sure that they have employees that belong to this or that group. as i said, i generally don't buy this but some companies don't or some say they don't, and it is ironic to pass this bill under which those companies would be forbidden to hiring say gay employees if they wanted insights on how best to target gay customers for this or that product. here is another example which i like better. marriage counsels for straight

couples might be better if they are straight and married and marriage counselors for gay couples might be more credible if they are gay and married. as i said, there is a second category which would include situations where it might be relevant whether an employee will be sexually attracted or might be perceived to be sexually attracted to some other individual. for example, suppose your company provides care givers to disabled or elderly individuals. those individuals might not want someone in that position whom they perceive as someone who might become attracted to them sexually. thus, a woman might be more comfortable with a care giver who is a straight woman, or even a gay man than with a care giver who is a straight man or a lesbian. similarly, if a job requires close contact without

adolescents, parents might prefer state men to working with adolescent men and adolescent females. now if you think i'm wrong and that no rational employer would ever discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, it does not follow that enda should be passed. there are other objections to it that i discuss in my written testimony, plus another one. if discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is always irrational, then employers that engage in such discrimination will be at an economic disadvantage and the market will punish them. they are not hiring the best qualified people. that is bad for business. indulgeing their taste for discrimination will make it more likely they will be driven out of business by the national competitors in the market place.

this was a point made by besser who won the nobel peace prize in economics. so if it is true that no employer engaged on the basis of discrimination, the market will take care of the problem. thank you very much, mr. chairman. i'm happy to try to answer any questions that the commission may have. >> i'm sure we'll have them. miss kendall. >> good morning. mr. commissioner, miss vice commissioner, it is a pleasure for me to be here. my name is kate kendall and i'm executive director for lesbian rights. we're a 38-year organization based in san francisco that does national legal and policy work all over the country. now in that 38 years it is fair to say that we have seen enormous changes in the place of lbgt people in this society and as commissioner castro pointed out, this year alone we expect

and hope, knock on wood, we'll have ruling from the u.s. supreme court in june that will once and for all give this country finality with regard to the recognition and full dignity and respect for our relationships through the recognition of marriage nationwide. we applaud the gains that we have seen. but one of the most intractable deficits remains in the place of employment. almost every day we hear from lgbt individuals who suffer either some sort of negative employment action or are terminated from their jobs or harassed on the job based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. even here today you will hear from a former nclr client lisa howe separated from employment at her private christian college

when she came out to her players, soccer players, very successful college coach celebrating the pregnancy of her wife. to be free of job action and to be free to be able to be employed and judged based on one's ability to provide for one's self and family is at the heart of one's quality of life and being able to live fully in civil society. both method logical and anecdotal information reinforces that lgbt, particularly transgender employees, even in this moment of great acceleration for lgbt rights suffer in the employment realm. we've heard from the eoc and the department of labor, we know from the department of justice and office of personnel management and the obama administration all support an

interpretation that title seven cover certainly gender identity but also sexual orientation and yet we also know that the case law is decidedly mixed, with a number of cases, particularly on sexual orientation, holding that sexual orientation discrimination is not sex discrimination under section title seven and therefore making it available owe openly discrimination on sexual orientation and in many cases on the basis of gender identity as well. we need federal protections. and we ask that those federal protections be furthered in whatever ways possible by this commission. we also want to assure though, that federal protections do not include overly broad religious exemptions or a license to discrimination which is why nclr

and other colleagues no longer support the current version -- the previous version, there is a new version -- the previous version of the employment nondiscrimination act which contained overly broad exemptions that went beyond the exemptions in title seven. extensions, which i want to be -- exemptions, i want to be lear, that we support. an awake of a positive ruling on marriage and in the wake of a wave of victories at the district and circuit court levels, we have seen a number of states enact laws to encroach on the recognition of those relationships by claiming that religious liberty is infringed by acknowledging and honoring and respecting these relationships as legally binding and as legally recognized. this is nonsense. and it is offensive to people of faith and it is offensive to

lbgt people of faith in addition to the broader lgbt community people in quality and fairness. nothing has changed in regard to the first amendment protections for religious faith and belief which we support 100% and unreservedly. and in fact, in the wake of the hobby lobby ruling, it can be argued there can be greater and to some degree greater protections for religious beliefs. no church will ever be forced to recognize or perform a marriage they disagree with and we would be first front line defending a minister or pastor if he or she were compelled to perform a marriage that he or she disagreed with. what we're talking about are incursions on the ability to participate in all realms of civic life. that is the permission that some of the amendments and bills are

seeking. our commitment to nondiscrimination trumps private prejudice. that is the history that is the balance we have engaged in in this country. for the participation in civic life is free to all individuals and we are concerned that incursions on nondiscrimination protections with religious entitlements will carve out now just lgbt protection but to individuals that sl suffered -- that have suffered based on who they are or how they identify. the utah example is one important to note. utah is my home state. i was raised mormon in utah. some would say good girl gone bad. but utah is as near to a theocracy as any state we have in this country. utah was founded by run

religion, the church of jack of latter-day saints and dominated by the latter day faith and utah already contained broad religious exemptions. there was no compromise made in gaining the protections for lbgt people in utah. and sexual orientation and gender were imports into existing discrimination laws because it is utah. it is not a federal model. we have a federal model, it is title seven and that is the law we want to see equally protect individuals based on sexual orientation and gender identity. thank you. >> mr. chairman and members of the commission thank you for having me today. my name is sarah warbelow i'm the human director for the human rights campaign. the largest lesbian, gay,

bisexual and transgender campaign. on behalf of our millions of members nationwide i'm honored to be here today. following the recent economic section, families across the country have faced unemployment every day. lbgt families are facing these reality as long side the rest of america but for many of the families daily discrimination on the job sevens as one more -- serves as one more barrier from keeping them from getting back on their feet. although the services for lbgt over the last decade have not -- cannot be denied but it is hard for hard working americans. currently many states offer no protection and 32 states offer no protections on the basis of gender identity. according to a 2011 survey nearly 40% of lesbian gay and

by sexual employees open about their sexual orientation had experienced exploitation in the workplace five years prior to the survey. transgender people face an even starker reality, with transgender people reporting discrimination in the employment context. the impact of this discrimination is clear and harsh. discrimination on the job and during the hiring process results in lower earning for lgbt people across the life span. in recent years the eeoc and some federal courts have interpreted the sex provisions of title vii of the civil rights act of 1964 to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. specifically in 2012 the eeoc held that an employee complaint could be covered under title vii prohibition of sex discrimination. most recently in january of this year, the eeoc determined that walmart's denial of spousal

health benefits to a same-sex spouse, an employee, was unlawful discrimination under title vii. federal courts have cited and relied upon the precedent set by the landmark case price waterhouse versus hopkins. both the 6th circuit and 11th circuit applied this decision of sex stereotyping to apply to transgender employees who allegedly were fired because of their gender identity. although these court decisions and eeoc policy sent a powerful message to employers regarding the reach of title vii, lgbt people are still not explicitly protected as a covered class of employees under the act. in the absence of clear protections lgbt people may be forced to file a lawsuit in order to enforce these protections. a luxury that most in our community cannot afford. the obama administration has taken meaningful steps to

protecting workers against discrimination. in particular i would like to highlight the executive order signed by the president in july of 2014 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in government actions, contractors and subcontractors. this is one of many examples that underscores the administration's recognition of government's clear and compelling interest in ending this harmful discrimination. while the government has a clear compelling interest in eradicating discrimination in employment, we also recognize the interest has historically been balanced with religious rights of employers. given history religious employers already benefit from ample exemptions from federal nondiscrimination provisions. specifically title vii provides strong protections for religious organizations including exemptions for religious employers in the context of hiring and firing. for example, the ministerial exemption examined by supreme court exempts religious

employers from discrimination prohibitions when making employment decisions involving ministerial staff. this exemption has since been extended by the court to include many other nonministerial employees whose jobs serve a religious function including professors lay teachers and even cemetery personnel. additional exemptions are not only unnecessary but could lead to adverse consequences for discrimination protections. nondiscrimination provisions protecting lgbt workers from discrimination on the job will not infringe upon the religious beliefs of employers. employers have these ample protection both under the first amendment and through explicit statutory exemptions. the courts have not been shy in applying these exemptions and the rights liberally. supreme court noted u.s. constitution gives special solitude to the rights of religious organization. the supreme court has already recognized that government has a unique compelling interest in protecting against employment

discrimination. writing for the majority in burwell versus hobby lobby justice alito said hiring might be cloaked to escape legal sanction. he wrote our decision today provides no such shield. the government has a compelling interest in providing equal opportunity to participate in the workforce. america's top corporations and small businesses support comprehensive nondiscrimination workplace protections. because they know that in order to remain competitive, they must recruit and retain the best possible talent including members of the lgbt community. the civil rights community also stands behind comprehensive nondiscrimination workplace protections including a coalition of more than 200 civil rights, religious, labor and women's rights organizations. hrc and our coalition partners support the introduction of comprehensive nondiscrimination legislation that will protect

lgbt americans from discrimination not just in employment but also in housing, education, public accommodations, jury service and credit. thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today. >> thank you. miss simmons? >> good morning, mr. chairman, members of the commission. i would like to thank you for inviting the national lgbt task force to participate in this briefing to examine workplace discrimination that is faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender americans. i'm the director of public policy in government affairs for the national lgbt task force, the nation's oldest lgbt advocacy organization. today's testimony will examine the scope of federal regulations against lgbt employees. lgbt americans face high levels of employment discrimination. there's an estimated 5.4 million lgbt workers in the united

states. discrimination against lgbt people in the workplace persist, despite the increasing visibility of these communities, improved local and statewide protection against anti-lgbt prejudice and violence. data indicates that employment discrimination can lead to a significant impact on the economic, social and physical well being of lgbt people. over 50 studies of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual people have been conducted. and limited data shows lgtb people face significant inequality. even fewer studies have been conducted about discrimination against transgender people and to address this gap in 2011 in a joint effort with national center for transgender equality the task force was published at every turn a report of the national transgender discrimination survey. this documented the

discrimination transgender people experience in employment education, health care and many other areas. our key finding is this. the state of the workplace for transgender workers in this country is abysmal. discrimination and employment against transgender people is a nearly universal experience with 90% of the survey sample recording mistreatment or discrimination on the job or taking actions like hiding who they are to avoid it. nearly half lost their job or were denied a job or pro mowings as a direct result of being transgender. survey respondents experience ad series of negative outcomes many of which stem from the discrimination they face in employment. later on the transgender panel on this issue you'll hear more about this important survey and the findings from that landmark research that we conducted. a point about data collection was made earlier which i would like to reiterate.

additional data collection is essential because lgbt people face staggering levels of discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodation and other areas. and as these policies change we expect discrimination to decline. however, in order to measure the change in discrimination, and to create interventions that more accurately respond to the needs of the lgbt community, we need to collect more data on lgbt people. in the coming years, as the lgtb receives complaints, as the second national study of transgender people is administered and data on employment discrimination will be collected there may reflect the changes in levels of discrimination but put simply these measures are not enough. more comprehensive data collection is need. every federal agency should be charged with collecting information on sexual orientation and gender identity in all of their surveys. this effort can be spearhead by a presidential executive order calling for agencies to determine the best methods for

integrating these demographic questions into their instruments and for example workplace discrimination data can be collected through the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity questions and population-based surveys of the workforce like the american community survey and bureau of labor statistics. with respect to cases of discrimination, incidents of discrimination occur in all sectors, various fields and positions. stories that highlight discrimination in hiring, firing and workplace harassment were included in our written testimony to this body. lgbt workplace protection exist as we heard from earlier testimony but explicit protections are needed. in recent years lgbt workplace protection have gained momentum and received broad public support such that we currently have 19 states in the washington, d.c. area that have employment nondiscrimination laws that protect employees from

discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. an additional three states that cover only sexual orientation. the eeoc recognized title vii prohibition on sex discrimination. lgtb and gender nonconforming people. in 2014 the president issued an executive order protect federal employee, federal contractors from discrimination. however, to ensure that workplace discrimination against lgbt employees is eradicated we need inclusion in federal legislation prohibiting employment discrimination. without establishing sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes employers are likely to be unaware of their potential liability under federal law. lgtb and gender nonconforming employees are also likely unaware of their right to be free from discrimination on the job or tak