the role of federal regulations over the years and just what they've done to harm our economy? i do want to ask you, commissioner pai because you've made some comments earlier about the potential taxes and fees that can come with this title 2 classification. and when you look at section 202 of the law it clearly gives that ability to get involved, for the fcc to get involved in regulating costs for the internet. so if you could share with me just what kind of impact this can have on both fees being implemented, higher prices that consumers will ultimately pay from this new classification. >> thank you for the question, congressman. i think a multitude of fees and taxes are going to be levied on broadband in a way that is ultimately going to redound to the consumers' detriment. just to give one example now that broadband has been reclassified as a telecommunications service that order explicitly opens the doors to billions of taxes and fees being assessed through the universal service fund. so now in addition to the line item you see on your phone bill

which only applies to your voice, the universal service fee you'll be paying a fee on broadband and that will happen i imagine in the next several weeks or months. secondly and critically there are all sorts of other fees that are going to be assessed. for example, currently a lot of broadband providers that had not been classified as telecom providers paid a lower rate for the equipment that they attach to the utility poles known as pole attachments. they paid a rate under section 224-d. now because they're all telecom providers they will have to pie a much higher rate under section 224-e and smaller providers in particular will have to pay 150 to 200 million dollars a year just for those higher pole attachment rates. then you add on top of that the higher state and local property taxes that a lot of these companies will have to pay because they're now telecom providers. all of these costs have to come out of somewhere. and it's going to be the consumer's wallet. and that is one of the reasons why i'm concerned. >> we've seen this time and time again that these kind of regulations and ultimately these new fees in taxes that will be paid are also going to be paid by consumers by people that have been enjoying the benefits

of the investments that have been made by private companies. this isn't the federal government investing. this is private investment to the tune of balances of dollars. i'll read you this quote and maybe i'll let you answer it. "there's nothing worse for investment innovation, job creation. all things that flow from investment. than businesses not knowing what the rules are." do you want to comment on that? >> i think that is as i've pointed out many times, the bane of not just the private sector but the consumer to not know what is going to be allowed and what isn't. and it's exactly in that environment where the private sector is the least likely to take the risk, to raise the capital, to build the infrastructure. this is going to connect americans with digital opportunities. and i believe as you pointed out eloquently in your statement that part of the reason why we enswroi the enjoy the best internet experience in the world is because we've had this historic bipartisan commitment dating back to the clinton administration that the internet would be free from state and federal regulation. >> that quote by the way was chairman wheeler at his

confirmation hearing. i do want to ask you, commissioner o'rielly, because you've commented on this order that it will negatively impact edge providers. of course many of the edge providers have been proponents of these net neutrality regulations. but you've raised some concerns about how even they would be negatively impacted, people that asked for this. if you could comment on that. >> a snub of people have commented on this. the lines between an edge provider and a telecommunications provider in our new definition, they're blurring over time. today you may be an edge provider. tomorrow you might be something else. you might have multiple parts to your business. that is problematic as you try to figure out how best to comply with our rules. more importantly our commission is going to continue to push its regulations up the chain. and so today is about telecommunications providers. we talked about that under our new definition. and then we're going to -- we now are having a debate in terms of some kind of structure to

deal with interconnection or the inner mile, what use the to be known as peery. in my conversation. we're bleeding right into the backbone of the internet and i think that only leads us to edge providers over time. >> i appreciate your answers and hopefully this doesn't go forward. but i yield back the balance of my time. >> the gentleman yields back. now that i know the rules require only two members of either party to be here we could go five or six more rounds. >> let's go. i'm sure they would love to stay around longer. >> can we order in? >> i want to thank our witnesses. i know you have a tough job, and we may disagree but we're all trying to do the right thing for the country. so thanks for testifying. again, if you could promptly respond to our questions that would be appreciated. and we look forward to your return visit in the not too distant future, we hope. so with that, the committee stands adjourned. >> on the next "washington journal," republican texas congressman michael burgess will talk about his efforts to provide a permanent solution to the annual medicare doc fix.

then a look at congressional budget plans released last week in the house and senate with democratic congresswoman gwen moore of wisconsin, a member of the house budget committee. and oil and gas prices and the impact of opec supply decisions on u.s. drilling. jeff mauer with platt joins us. we'll take your calls and comments on facebook and twitter. starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span 2's book tv saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on "after words," author peter wallison says that government housing policies caused the 2008 financial crisis and that it could happen again. and sunday afternoon at 5:00, director of the earth inside toous at columbia university jeffrey sachs on a development plan to counter global issues like poverty, political corruption and environmental decray kay. and saturday morning at 10

position, eastern on 34er7b history tv on c-span 3 a discussion on the last major speeches of abraham lincoln and martin luther king jr. then sunday afternoon at 4:00 on "real america," the 1965 "meet the press" interview with martin luther king jr. find our complete television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us aught 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments@c-span.org or send us a tweet tweet @c-span #comments. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> members of congress including ohio senator ron portman. he talked about immigration, trade, and foreign policy among other topics. this is 20 minutes. >> i was going to start off this

morning by telling a couple lawyer jokes. and then i realize edd lawyers don't think they're very funny. and the non-lawyers in the room won't know that they're jokes. that was a lawyers joke. okay? so let me instead talk about what you asked me to talk about today which is the theme of this congress, which is the rise of the imperial presidency. and let me start by saying i've got a little different perspective than most of my colleagues on the hill because i have worked on both ends of pennsylvania avenue and dating myself, what j.c. didn't say is i started my career i guess in terms of administration work as associate counsel to the president in the first bush administration working for wood & gray some of you know well. so i've kind of seen it from different perspectives. and i know that when you look at the history of our country i think what you will see is that

particularly during the 20th century the power of the presidency has grown. i think there's no question about that. i think you look at sort of the oorko history. but i think what you've seen in the last six years is truly extraordinary. i can't think of any time certainly in modern times where there's been more of a power grab in terms of the power of the presidency. and it's not just that president obama has reached for some expanded authority for himself. i think he's done so in a way that really does threaten to undermine this careful balance that our founders intended. in the constitution. and when you look at the federalist papers it's interesting. federalist paper number 69, some of you are aware of, this is alexander hamilton who himself was a lawyer. wrote what he called the real character of the executive. and in that now famous paper among other things he discussed the take care clause of the

constitution. it's basically taking care that the laws are faithfully executed. he explained that as a cornerstone of the founders' vision of limited and divided government. and in many ways the chief executive of our nation as president plays the most fundamental role here, even more than the courts. because when you think about it the president is really the one charged with ensuring that our laws and our constitution is honored, respected, followed by those many thousands you of public servants, law enforcement personnel, executive officials who run the many arms of our government. so i think this is a critical topic. i'm glad you're taking it up. in my view president obama has too often failed to perform this crucial role laid out by alexander hamilton. he has not taken care that our laws are faithfully executed. in government much like in our daily lives it's often tempting to take the easy path. and all of us do that from time

to time. shortcuts. in the case of government, often short-sighted and ill-conceived. and it almost always leads to trouble. and i think that's what the administration has done. so during this presidency when president obama has seen his policies questioned. when the road to political common ground has been rough or uncertain, and it always is, that's the way, again, the founders intended it, particularly with divided government that we have now, the president typically chooses an easier path. and dwlaerz path in his case is executive action. using that famous pen. and the phone. the hard road of real leadership is often not taken. and i think that's what we've seen. immigration is a great example. i think it's fair to say that -- fair to say that immigration is a divisive issue. i agree with that. it's an emotional issue. it's not easy.

but i also think we have a lot of common ground. people get it on both sides of the aisle, that the immigration system is broken. i think the american people get it. you need to look no further than the recent chaos on our southern border to see what's going on in terms of the lack of a secure border. you need to look no longer -- no further than what's happening in terms of ow entry and exit system for visas. we can't track them. we don't know who's here. at a time of increased national security dangers to our country this is obviously an issue we want to address. we all acknowledge that the workplace, we don't have an effective verification program that people using false documents can get work and that continues to be a magnet. so i guess what i would say is that the immigration system, although, again fixing it is not easy is one where there's actually a lot of solid ground to start working on a bipartisan solution.

one that both secures the border and does improve and streamline both the legal and illegal system. and i think president obama could have built on that. he could have come to the table. he could have used that bully pulpit to create more consensus on immigration reform. but that would have been hard. it involves engagement. it involves finding compromise. it involves seeking consensus. it is the right thing to do because we do need to reform these laws. but instead the president with the stroke of a pen i think essentially torpedoed any realistic chance of us coming together certainly this year to provide the kind of reforms that everybody acknowledges are needed. so people can disagree with whether or not the president's immigration order was actually illegal or not. i think it is. it seems like more and more courts are agreeing with that, by the way. look what's happening with the federal district court in texas. we'll see what the 5th circuit says.

but what we do know is that this has certainly created the kind of division in washington where it's going to be much tougher to come up with the solutions that are necessary. we know the presidency was designed to have some flexibility. still by taking advantage of that flexibility to do something with unprecedented scope and impact. the president has not only undermined immigration reform. i think he's undermined again this essential balance the founders intended. the president may have great powers through his executive orders, but by the way, that power also has an expiration date. this is something that sometimes is lost i think on the media as they follow this issue. the expiration date in this case is january 20th, 2017. the president may think he can circumvent the constitution, but he can't outrun it. and that's the essential problem here. it's going to catch up to him.

because he has been largely unwilling to work with republicans in congress many of these accomplishments are going to disappear as the new president uses his opinion or her opinion and phone to execute and exercise his or her own executive authority. i do think there's still some time to get things done this year. and i hope that the president will see that instead of taking the easy way we should try the hard way. on some important issues for our country. two that i'm involved with. and some of you as well. reforming our outdated and antiquated tax code before we lose more and more american companies and jobs and investment overseas. it's an problem. it faces us every day. we recently had a pharmaceutical company that was purchased by a foreign company. what's interesting about that is that this pharmaceutical company tried into vert, go overseas by buying a smaller company was blocked by doing so by the new regulations from the treasury department. so what happens instead is it's taken over by a foreign company.

what's even more interesting to me is that foreign company had recently inverted to canada to become a foreign company. what may be more interesting is that of a dozen suitors who attempted to buy this u.s. company 11 were foreign. one was american. and that one is now in the process of inverting to the netherlands. so it's before our eyes. we're losing not just headquarters but jobs and investment. and if we don't change our tax code over the next year or so under this presidency we could wait until 2017, 2018, but we will lose more. more american companies, more jobs, more investment, more opportunities. so this is one that is crying out for leadership from congress and from the president to take that hard road. it's one where there's actually a lot of consensus. the second one i will mention is trade. we're sitting on the sidelines

as a country while other countries continue to negotiate trade opening agreements to give them market share and our workers, our farmers, our service providers are left out. the congress majority has said we'd like to help the president to attain that not for him but for the country and the next president as well. this is an opportunity. it requires hard work. it requires engagement. it requires consensus building. it requires the kinds of things that requires the hard road rather than the easy road. i'm hoping the president will take that hard road. it's too bad that the debate over immigration reform i think is essentially more abundant over the next two years because of what i think was ultimately an overreach by this president

on the executive order. but i will tell you i have hope for other policies, as i said. but as bad as the immigration executive order is far worse are the consequences of president obama's unilateral actions on foreign policy. because those might have even more lasting and important effects. and i'm referring specifically to negotiations with iran. i think you're going to hear from some other colleagues of mine today on this topic. but let me just say this. the president seems to have decided to try to go it alone on iran to the point that the administration recently acknowledged that any agreement signed with iran would not be legally binding as they say. i think that's unfortunate. i don't think long-term peace and stability can be built on those kinds of shifting sands. i think instead the president ought to work with the united

states congress, ensure that this agreement is one that can be supported by the representatives of the people in the united states congress. if the president wants to ensure that the agreement he reached with iran is one that stands that test of time, i think he should do what i believe is required, and that's to present it to the united states 123459. once again i believe that's what the founders intended. let's go back to federalist paper 69. alexander hamilton wrote about the role of the senate in international treaties. he talked about the limitation on the treaty-making power of the president. and it was one that hamilton recognized specifically as a distinction from the english monarch. he wrote and i quote "the president is to have power with the advice and consent of the senate to make treaties provided 2/3 of the senators present concur." i can think of few negotiations where that kind of concurrence and unity of purpose is more

important. over the last 30 years iran has waged a shadow war against the united states and against our allies. they are the number one state sponsor of terrorism. through its client hezbollah it has launched terror strikes that have undermined the stability of its neighbors, murdered innocent civilians, in fact murdered as you know hundreds of american marines in lebanon. iranian-made guns and ieds have killed our soldiers in iraq and in afghanistan. and iranian revolutionary guard have trained shia militias on how to better launch attacks on our military assets. and now this yubnumber one sponsor of international terror the country that calls america the great satan and has pledged to push israel into the sea, is racing to obtain nuclear weapons. in its effort to stop that nightmare from coming to pass the president and this administration should welcome all the leverage it can get. this is the kind of threat where we should be together as a

country. i've been at the table, as was mentioned, on international negotiations. these were on trade. i was u.s. trade representative. i had the honor of traveling the world representing our great country and sometimes those negotiations were pretty tense. there were times when talks threatened to break down when voices grew heated, when tempers flared. that's what happens in international negotiations. and i know the value firsthand of being able to tell negotiators if you don't come up with a good agreement, one that is real one that is verifiable one that actually makes progress toward the goals that were set out at the outset, in this case with iran by the united nations, then i can't take it back and get it approved by the united states congress because you know, trade agreements have to be approved by the congress. that was leverage that i was happy to have sometimes to be able to get a better agreement.

we need the same approach today. interestingly, iranian negotiators have often cited their inability to be flexible at the bargaining table because of what they call hard-liners in iran. and you hear them say that. and our own administration has acknowledged that by saying they have to be sensitive to that concern at the bargaining table. how ironic that we are allowing the iranians to have that leverage if we don't use that same leverage ourselves. to get the kind of agreement that can withstand the test of time. i would expect our administration to use the united states congress in that same way. so look the president may have scuttled our chances at real immigration reform over the next couple years but i do think on iran there's time for him to change course. first he should recognize that sanctions can be used as both a carrot and a stick. it was lifting sanctions, after all, that got the iranians to

the table. by the way, these were sanctions that congress insisted on. and it's often congress, not the administration frankly, whether this one or other administrations, that insists on taking this harder line on sanctions and presidents often put those sanctions in place reluctantly. lifting those sanctions brought iranians to the table in the first place. the threat of reimposing them can help keep them at the table and negotiate a good agreement. this is why i've supported this bipartisan legislation in the united states senate. called the menendez kirk, or kirk enmend ez ledge laigs shah would re-enact sanctions if a deal is not reached or the iranians violate the terms of the agreement. iran must know we are both serious about our goals and that we're negotiating from a position of strength. this legislation in my view, kirk menendez would give the president more leverage, again, to be able to find a good agreement. second, the president should insist that any final agreement be fully binding on the iranians and on the united states of

america. that means submitting the agreement to the united states senate for approval. i sponsored bipartisan legislation called the iran nuclear agreement review act that would require the administration to follow this course. doing so would enable the president and his negotiators into sift that any final agreement to accomplish the primary goal of this entire process ensuring that iran never possesses a nuclear weapon. some have asked me when i go home whether i would prefer no agreement to a bad agreement. my answer to that is neither's acceptable. because both would lead the iranians toward a nuclear weapon. avoiding that outcome is the single most important international challenge perhaps that we face anywhere today. we must not allow our eagerness for any agreement to outweigh our willingness to hold out for the right agreement. i sincerely hope all of us can

eventually recognize the successful conclusion of a negotiation with iran as a seminal foreign policy accomplishment during president obama's term. we would all want that. but to get that the president must insist that any agreement be both serious in accomplishing its goals and binding. with real consequences if it's broken. i believe we can get there. it isn't going to be easy. it's the hard road. and we're going to have to work together to accomplish it. and i suppose that point that we should be working together is the final thought that i have on this issue of the imperial presidency you're talking about today. yes, the president and the presidency carries with it tremendous power. but it is as ephemeral as it is tempting to abuse. you think about it, the great presidents in the history of our country did not abuse that power. they didn't make their mark on america by engaging in pitched ideological battles with their

political adversaries. they didn't do it with pens and in recent times telephones. they did it working with the congress and built successful legacies doing that. there's a desk in the oval office called the resolute desk. that's where the pen is and that's where the phone is. it's a really impressive desk. but that's not where presidents forge their most lasting accomplishments. they do it at the bargaining table. working with the executive branch. good luck with your conference, and thank you for having me here today. [ applause ] more now on foreign policy with senate foreign relations chair bob corker. he was also a speaker at the

republican national lawyers association where he talked about the russia-ukraine conflict, nuclear negotiations with iran, and the u.s. strategy for combating isis. >> i'm thrilled to be with all of you today. i think most of you know i spent most of my life in business and even though y'all are republican attorneys i still get a little nervous with a room full of attorneys. but i thank you for what you're doing on behalf of around the country, and i know that making sure we have fair and free elections and the things that you carry out are very very important. i heard a little bit of the panel. but i step to the podium and enjoy that thank you. what i'd like to do this morning is just make a few opening comments, and then i'd much rather hear from you relative to your questions about foreign policy or whatever it is you want to talk about. and on that note john, how long am i supposed to be here? >> you've got -- >> as long as you want. >> no, no no. [ laughter ] how long -- okay. well, let me just start.

by saying that i came to the united states senate having been a person who built shopping centers around the country over time acquired real estate and did some development, loved my community, was a civic -- very involved civically from a young age, and so ended up being mayor of our city. really as a civic endeavor. it wasn't something that had anything to do with politics at all. bill frist came down and recruited me to run for his seat as he was -- not his seat but the seat he was occupying at the time. when he was leaving. i had zero foreign policy experience. i had done some recruiting on behalf of our state and on behalf of our city, where i went to japan or someplace like that working on trying to lure jobs to our community. but very seriously, i had zero background in that regard. i was a business guy. spent almost no time in life on

history. since that time i came on the foreign relations committee really just to broaden myself, make myself a better senator. i've camped on the committee, very quickly realized how important it was to our nation and certainly to the world that the united states lead. and now i think i've been to 63 or 4 countries, many of them over and over and over. all of you understand that in life you spend 80% of your time on the problem 20% of your time on the other things. and so constantly i've been in the middle east and other places. i will tell you that u.s. leadership the world just isn't as good a place as it should be. it just isn't. and you know being -- u.s. leadership does not mean as some people -- they sort of create these straw men. it doesn't mean necessarily being the world's policeman but

being the leader of this world as we are and establishing -- playing that role and actually leading is very very important. i want to say -- i'll make a few comments about the last few years and my disappointment in that regard. to me one of the most disappointing moments in my service on the foreign relations committee and here in the senate for the last three years and eight months was during that time frame at the end of august and the beginning of september 2013 when the president's red line had been crossed -- and whether he should have said it or not he said it. and in my opinion, as a republican and him as a democratic president that was something that needed to be backed. side from the fact that what assad was doing in syria was totally wrong and needed to be pushed away. we had planned a ten-hour operation, roughly. ten-hour. ten-hour military operation.

and the senate foreign relations committee authorized it on a bipartisan basis. the president turned away from that effort. and i really do -- i just want to tell you, to me that was the worst moment in the eight years that i've been here relative to our u.s. credibility and our ability to demonstrate the leadership i was referring to was a moment in time when the free syrian opposition had some momentum and had we gone ahead and conducted that, quote, ten-hour operation we could have enhanced that momentum. we could have really pushed assad back. we could have shown that we were standing with them. and instead what we showed, we showed that very quickly we were willing to jump into putin's lap, which is what we did. i know that sounds very pejorative, but it's what we did. i mean putin gave us an out

relative to the chemical weapons, and i think putin learned a great deal from that. remember, our ambassador, ambassador ford, in syria was cheering on this opposition in the beginning, cheering them on. and in their time of need we were not there. later we were going to train and equip the free syrian rebels and whatever you want to call them, we were going to send them trucks. we didn't do any of those things. we left them hanging. i've gotten to the point now where seriously, i don't want to go back to the refugee camps in turkey or jordan because when i'm there i have to look people in the eye that i know we let down as a nation. again, i think putin learned from that, and when it came to ukraine, remember ukraine is a place that back in 1994 having been part of the soviet union had 1,240 nuclear warheads. let me go back and say that.

1,240 warheads they had. we entered into an agreement with them that we would respect their territorial sovereignty. so did russia. so did uk. with the budapest memorandum. they gave them up. and do you think russia would have invaded ukraine today had they had 1,240 warheads? i do not think so. but we also cheered ukraine on. we were the ones that urged them to come west. and here again in their time of need -- you know that today we still do not provide ukraine, with crimea being gone with russian soldiers clearly being on their territory russian artillery, russian equipment, we still today, today do not provide them with operational intelligence, real-time intelligence about where russians are in their own country. we still today have been unwilling, even though umtly the united states senate and the house we passed a bill to

provide defensive lethal support, we still today have been unwilling to do that. so you can understand why people in congress on both sides of the aisle are very concerned about this negotiation with iran. very concerned about where we might be going. and on a bipartisan basis i know there was some discussion about what congress can do prior to me coming to the podium. we've created a piece of legislation that basically says congress has the right to review the iranian deal prior to the congressionally mandated sanctions being lifted. so since you're attorneys in the room and since you understand things like this in great detail, there are three sets of sanctions right now that we have against iran. there are the u.n. security council sanctions. and i know we have a lot of article 2 people in this room. even though the title of this as i understand it is the imperial presidency. the fact is that look

republicans have always sort of deferred to the administration, to the executive branch for foreign policy issues. i agree with some of the speakers that on the other hand congress has its appropriate role. well administrations have negotiated the u.n. security council sanctions. and it's my belief that the administration does have the ability on their own accord to deal with those sanctions. the executive branch also has their own executive sanctions that they put in place against iran. and i believe obviously they have the right to deal with those as they choose. on the other hand, there are congressionally mandated sanctions that congress put in place. as a matter of fact, congress put them in place with the administration in essence kicking and screaming all along the way, saying that somehow or another this was going to be damaging to our relationship with iran. well, i think most of you would believe that it's those sanctions that actually brought

iran to the table. so i've crafted a piece of legislation, a significant bipartisan support which basically says if the administration comes to a final deal -- by the way, the final deal would not happen until the end of june. that's when you have all the details and all the annexes. we would just ask them to let that agreement lay before us for 60 days, let us read all the classified annexes, let vus the classified briefings that we would need to have and then let congress on the congressionally mandated sanctions the ones we put in place have the right to either approve disapprove, or take no action. now, if i was the white house, i would embrace that. i would say i want congress to be with me. i want this agreement to stand the test of time. as a matter of fact, i would say instead of all this back and

forth that you're seeing right now, if they'd said, look, we agree, we agree that since you brought them to the table and since, you know you provided us with a national security waveiver we thought they would use in a short period of time, i think you know we we planned to suspend those sanctions until way beyond the time they're in office. so we're saying no we'd just like to be able to weigh in. now, look, they're pushing back. some of my senator friends. i was in budget hearings yesterday. we passed one out of committee. and many of them are being lobbied heavily by the administration. but again, i look at this and say this is in fact exactly the kind of role that congress ought to play especially on the congressionally mandated sanctions we put in place. i believe in spite of some of the drama we've had over the last two weeks internally, i believe ultimately we will have a veto-proof majority to make that happen. and to the previous speakers i

believe that's exactly the kind of role that congress needs to play. i want to close with this. i really do believe that we have an opportunity in congress, especially the united states senate, to move ourselves more closely to the place that people originally thought congress was going to play in our gonks system. i really believe that. i have to say bob menendez who has been the democratic leader in foreign relations was chairman up until we won this last election, i have to say he's done an outstanding job in my opinion of elevating the foreign relations committee. i'm trying to build on that. i believe that the united states, the foreign relations committee in the senate has been the place if you will through decades where respect has been

given because of the sober thoughtful way we went about our business, and i just want to tell you it's a huge, huge privilege. i was at an event last weekends with a lot of my old friends from college. and you know how those things go. a lot of fun. i'm glad there were no tweets. but they kept coming up to me. they kept coming up to me and saying, thank you. thank you so much. for what you do. they heard all weekend the things that were going back and forth between the white house and other senators. and they just kept coming up and saying thank you. and i want to say to all of you and especially to john and linda and those from tennessee, thank you. i mean, what a privilege it is to serve in the united states senate. to find myself after eight years and three months as chairman of

the foreign relations committee. and all i can say to you will aof you who puts so much time and effort into making sure there's integrity in what we as the republican party do across our country. i wake up every day trying to make those kinds of decisions and trying to conduct myself in a manner that will cause the respect that should be shown to the foreign relations committee but also to the united states in general to be there and to cause our citizens, cause our citizens to have faith in the system that each of you wakes up every day and tries to defend. so thank you and i look forward to your questions. [ applause ] >> 15 minutes for questions. josiah's got the mike there. >> thank you jim-bob from

indiana. this president has been notorious in recent years in their willingness to enforce only those laws that they actually agree with and not enforce those that they disagree with. and it would be apparent that the legislation that you're pursuing as meritorious as it is may very well fall into that category. so even if it were passed and even if it were passed over the veto of the president he can be expected regretfully, to not enforce those that he simply doesn't agree with. what do you think congress's role is in making sure that the president actually obeys the law? >> yeah. so first of all, i don't want to get -- i don't want to be counting our chickens before they hatch. my first job is to have a successful markup and then to get 67 votes and then they get

the house to pass it. and you know, this is something that there's time to make happen. final deal, again, will not occur until at least the end of june. my guess is this week one of the reasons we moved our market back until the first part of april is that i'm pretty sure administration, they're already sending out signals is going to say that look we didn't really mean march 24th, we really meant the end of march. and i think that's -- so we got some work to do first. but look, i can't -- i cannot calculate, you know, our actions based on them not carrying out the laws that we create. i've just got to create the laws. as far as what we do i could just on a host of issues -- one of the things that our base if you will, to use a term that's thrown around here a lot, they expect us to somehow if the president doesn't do things that

we believe lawfully should be doing, they expect us to do things on the senate floor to affect that, and especially when we're in the minority that's quite a problem. if you raise an issue on the senate floor especially under being in the minority, that says we disapprove of this action and then you're voted down because there's more democrats than republicans, you basically have built a case for them doing -- the senate was on our side. so we have that problem now. of course we can vote again. but look, the real way of dealing with this is through the court system, right? i mean that's the way -- so you find an aggrieved party, someplace in the country. you figure out a way to support that aggrieved party. wherever they are in the country. you cause a case to come up through the system which is exactly what's happening right now in the health care bill. right? it's actually what's happening right now in the immigration

issue. and it's slow, and it's very unsatisfactory, to quote the base, but there's really no other way to deal with it, is there? if you've got a suggestion tell me. but it's that old slow rule of law way that you deal with things. and it's not especially satisfying to the american people, especially those who oppose what the president has done, like i do, but it's the way it works. if you've got some other suggestion, i'd love to hear it. apparently you don't. >> senator, tim housefield from delaware. i have a client and friend who recently toured kurdistan kurdish areas of iraq, and has come back to say that they are in desperate need of arms so they can defend themselves from isis. do you think that's going to move forward in the senate? >> so look, i was just in kurdistan, and i was with the president and the head of the

peshmerga. they're wonderful friends of the united states, have been from the very beginning. and they're -- let's face it. they're the people right now on the ground that we can most depend upon. i mean when kirkuk was taken the oil fields of kirkuk and the iraqi army fled it was the peshmerga that came in and took it back. which by the way interestingly, sort of puts a chit in their hands in future negotiations because they now control the oil, a big part of the oil that used to be iraqi. so we're going to be dealing with that issue believe me, down the road. that will make its way into the negotiations over time. i don't think it's quite as bad as this gentleman laid out, just for what it's worth. i was pretty -- they come see us often. and when they came to see me here in washington i was pretty upset about the delivery schedule of arms and equipment to them. as i've gotten there on the ground dealing with generals

that i know well. okay okay? and generals who i know have an affinity toward talking to guys like me and telling us the truth, i don't think it's quite as bad as people say it is. i think the deliveries are going into baghdad, there were stories it was taking a month or so for that equipment to actually get out to kurdistan. i think it's not that case at all. will we over time -- and there's a movement toward that end -- supply them directly? my guess is that will be the case. i will say i've got to be a little concerned about getting out of balance. let me step back and when i say getting out of balance i think we still want iraq to be one country. and a big part of our friends, the kurds lobbying for the things that they're lobbying for, is they potentially could be building a case for separation, as you well know. which is problematic on the turkish side, too.

and so i'm just saying we've got to be pretty judicious and thoughtful about the way we go about this. i say something a little more provocative, though. i stayed in our billion-dollar embassy there because it's the only place you can stay that's safe. and i met with abadi who certainly is a breath of fresh air from maliki, who was just so terrible as a prime minister. by the way maliki was a prime minister that we helped put in place. i think we need to be honest about that. he was a terrible prime minister. but every single thing that we are doing right now in iraq, everything is to iran's benefit. iran. and it's -- and i support obviously what we're doing to try to rout isis out. but every day we wake up in iraq

with our 3,100 folks that are there. we're making the country a better place. the parliament stoeltly infil lytotally infiltrated. solomoni the quds force, is truly a celebrity. he's out with the militia as they're doing the things they're doing to push back against isis. we know that's been stalled a little bit right now. but it's a pretty sad thing to know of all the limbs that were dismembered, the lives that were lost, the people that are dealing today with the psychological issues they are the huge amounts of treasury that were spent. it's sad to be there today. and to understand that we're again doing things that need to be done. but we're making the country every single day a better place for iran. yes. >> mr. chairman. how can foreign states in our

union turn red like tennessee? we need some good counsel here. >> i'm sorry. what did you say? >> tennessee is a wonderful, you know, red state. what can other states do to -- >> i don't -- that's more in your line of work. first of all i think us -- i'll get back to my line of work. i think for us to continue to be successful we have to show that we can legislate responsibly and conduct ourselves in an appropriate way. so to cause other states that may today be red -- i mean blue and to cause them to turn purple and then red, i think it's our responsibility as people who are elected to positions of

responsibility, great responsibility in some cases to carry ourselves in a manner that causes the nation to look to us in a manner to say that they'd like to have more people like us. as far as states turning in that direction, i'm going to leave it to all of you who are on a daily basis a lot more involved in that. yes, ma'am. >> ann gruner from virginia. i'm wondering if you could shed any insight into the administration's refusal to provide lethal defensive weapons to the ukrainians. >> yeah. i think -- and i'm going to say this one more time. do you realize that we passed a bill to do that unanimously out of the senate? unanimously. i think that first of all, i -- i wake up every day not with the

thought that i'm going to get a piece, a hide of this administration. i don't. that's not my thought. they act differently. they think differently. but policy. and what can i do to -- what can i do to move things in the a positive direction? i don't say this to throw out names but i talked yesterday with our vice president i talked yesterday with our secretary of state, who was in the midst of the negotiations that are taking place in europe. so my point is i try to work with them. i understand they're in charge today. i'm disappointed often. every now and then i have to send an e-mail to the chief of staff who i deal with a great deal and just say, you guys are so hard to help. you know? i mean they're just so hard to help. i mean that. they just are. but to your question.

i think this president has never, ever been comfortable being commander in chief. he's just not comfortable. and i know the decisions that you make as a commander in chief are heavy and they're more complicated than sometimes meets the eye, meets the surface. there are a lot of things going on in the background. but he has decision memo after decision memo after decision memo sitting on his desk. i know they are there. i know they are there. and he just cannot bring himself to do it. i mean in his mind, and a few people around him -- you've got to understand, his body of advisers it's very small. it's not the people that have the titles. you understand. very small group of people. and what they have been concerned about from day one is that if they take actions like that, then it will cause russia to move ahead more forcefully.

when it's just the opposite. i mean, the psychology -- by the way, there have been some stories about how they've been embarrassed that putin continues to do what they do because they keep talking nicely to him. but -- but it's just -- they have such difficulties, such difficulties, number one making a decision. and then when they make a decision, it's very difficult to carry it out. i know we were going to deliver trucks to general edruss, if you remember him from way back the general in syria that we had decided was going to be the leader of the free syrian army that we were going to support. i mean it took months and months and months just to get them trucks. so they have great difficulty in making decisions. and then after they make them and try to execute, it's just -- it's like, you know the gang that cannot shoot straight.

they just cannot make it happen. and it's very disappointing and it hurts our credibility tremendously. look i don't think any of us think that ukraine, if russia decides to take ukraine forcefully, they can take ukraine. but at least to raise the price, to at least show that there's a degree of support there to me is something that's very important. and again, we've been unwilling to do it. yesterday they finally shook loose a decision that they'd agreed to a long time ago. and that is to train the national guard on the ground. finally, finally. but so many times this administration makes decisions after the point in time when it would have been effective. you understand? and so that window's closed. i'll give you another one. this is the other day we had chairman of the joint chiefs, ash, carter, and secretary kerry in. they sent over an authorization

for the use of military force in syrian. we have a train and equip program where we're training some of the syrians outside of the country and we're going to bring them back to take on isis. now, you know, we're going to do 5,000 -- train 5,000 over time, which is a pittance. but one of the things they're not willing to do yet, now think about this assad is barrel bombing. 220,000 people are dead in syria. partially -- i'll use the word partially to be kind -- because of some of the things we didn't do when we could have made a difference. a lot of people, a lot of dead people. so many millions displaced. but you know what they haven't asked for, they haven't asked for the authorization, when those people come into syria after they've been trained they don't have the authorization to protect them against assad's barrel bombs. again, they're worried that that is provocative. and i'll go back to the issue of

russia. again, they don't want to be provocative. yes, ma'am. >> senator, we're down to one last question, i apologize. i'm going to steal the mike for one last question. can you address yemen and the impact of yemen? thoefs us who got the news alerts, there's another bombing. 120 dead in a mosque bombing. what's the impact of yemen and the iranian influence in yemen? >> so one of the things that -- so we have this agreement right now with iran that's called japoa, the interim short-term agreement. we've alleviated some of the sanctions on iran as we've been going through this interim agreement which allows them to get $770 million a month of their own money that's trapped overseas. in other words, they sell their oil. it stays in the countries they're selling it to. it's obviously hurt their economy. they can do some kinds of trades.

but again, they've been relieved of a little bit of money. they've got a little bit of money coming in. there's $130 billion though that's still trapped $130 billion. and so the concerns that many people like me have is if we fail on these negotiations, in other words, we don't do something that really keeps iran from getting a nuclear weapon -- by the way equaly'all understand what the real premise is, right? we're going to do an agreement with iran that we hope holds them in abeyance. great concern about covert activities, right? great concern about research and development, quote, quote, quote. there's a lot of concerns. matter of fact our negotiators have told us their negotiators in iran could pass a lie detector test that there were no previous military dimensions to iran's nuclear activities which we all know is not true. we know they were involved and

moving towards a nuclear weapon up until 2003 when they became nervous about what we were doing in iraq and maybe we'd do the same thing to them. so think about that. the negotiators that we're negotiating with were totally unaware of those efforts because they were taking place through the rg, right? so -- again, this is what makes people nervous. so i get back to the yemen issue. not only are they continuing to develop missile delivery systems. they're some of the most sophisticated in the world which are not covered by this agreement. but they are the biggest exporter of terrorism in the region. and so what we're concerned about is we get a bad deal -- by the way, the deal's predicated on the fact that over a ten-year period they will change their ways. seriously. no i mean that's what is shared with us. we're hoping during that

ten-year period they will change the way they operate. it's my belief that they think over the next ten years they may catch annuals a weakened state where they can carry on their activities. that to me is the essence of what this negotiation is all about. but back to the point of yemen. they obviously supported the hoofies. they support hamas. they support hezbollah. they are destabilizing the region. so with a nuclear weapon or with being a screwdriver turn away from a nuclear weapon, obviously going to have proliferation by saudi arabia and other places that won't develop their own they'll just buy it off the shelf from another country that's willing to sell it to them. then you've created this situation of proliferation. let me get back to yemen. you've also released $130 billion. $130 billion. that is available to them for them to continue doing the

destabilizing terrorist activities that they're carrying out in the region. so that's why the stakes here are so high. and if i was president of the united states and i was negotiating an agreement with iran that had this type of geopolitical impact, far more important candidly than what's happening right now with isis. far more important. i would certainly want to make sure that i negotiated a deal that passed muster with congress which is what they said on the front end instead of stiff-arming congress and keeping them out the way that they are. thank you all very much. i appreciate it. tonight on c-span3 a look at national security threats and

defense spending. and then president obama speaking today at a business investment summit just outside washington, d.c. and later, a house budget committee markup on the 2016 republican budget plan that's set to be debated on the house floor tomorrow. arkansas senator tom cotton spoke today about national security priorities at an event hosted by the american action forum. the republican lawmaker recently authored a letter that was sent to iranian leaders warning that a potential agreement over iran's nuclear program could be short-lived should a republican become president in 2016. that letter was signed by the way by 47 republican senators and sent while secretary of state john kerry is currently in the process of negotiating a deal with iran. senator cotton's remarks were followed by a panel discussion on the defense budget. this is about 90 minutes.

good morning. welcome. my name is chris griffin. i'm the executive 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 the 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 featuring the kinsey american enterprise institute, david adesnic of the foreign policy initiative, and aaf president douglas holtz eken. it's my pleasure to welcome senator tom cotton raised on his family's farm in arkansas. he attended harvard and harvard law school. and after a clerkship entered private practice. like all of us his life was of course disrupted by the attacks of september 11th 2001. in response he left the law and joined the army to serve as an infantry officer. he was deployed to iraq where he served with the 101st airborne division and also to a provincial reconstruction team in afghanistan. between his combat tours senator cotton served with the old gartd at arlington national cemetery. 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 now serves in the senate committees on banking, intelligence, and the armed services where he's also the chairman of the armed services committee's subcommittee on air land. in his maiden speech on the senate floor delivered last week, senator cotton warned that we have "systematically underfunded our military." i look forward to the insights that he will offer on this most important of iryou'res today and ask you to please join me in welcoming senator tom cotton. >> thank you. thank you all. good morning. thank you. and chris, thanks very much for the kind introduction. thanks to fpi and aaf for hosting me this morning for the very important work you do. as the senate prepares to debate and vote on a budget resolution this week for next fiscal year, i have a very simple message this morning. the world is growing ever more

dangerous. and defense spending is wholly inadequate to confront the danger. today, the united states is engaged again in something of a grand experiment of the kind we saw in the 1930s that allowed hitler to rise to power in nazi germany. as then military strength is seen in many quarters the cause of military adventurism. strength and confidence in the defense of our interests our alliances, and liberty is not seen to deter aggression but to provoke it. rather than confront our adversaries, our president apologizes for our supposed transgressions. the president minimizes the threats we confront in the face of territory seized, weapons of mass destruction used, and proliferated, and innocents murdered. the concrete expression of this experiment is you're collapsing defense budget. for years we have systematically underfunded our military. marrying this philosophy of retreat with a misplaced understanding of our larger budgetary burdens.

we have strained our fighting forces to the breaking point. even as we have eaten away at investments in our future forces. meanwhile, the long-term debt crisis hardly looks any better even as we ask troops to shoulder the burden of deficit reduction. rather than shouldering the arms necessary to keep the peace. the result of this experiment should come as no surprise, are little different than the results of the same experiment in the 1930s. >> ladies and gentlemen, you're welcome to be here. >> you will be arrested, your one and only warning. >> as much as these fellow citizens support negotiations with iran, so do i support negotiations with iran. but negotiations from a place of strength. where we -- where we are dictating the terms of the negotiations. not -- not the circumstances -- just two days ago two days ago,

let me remind you, ayatollah hoe mainny whipped up the crowd in tehran to say, "death to america." two days ago, ayatollah hoe penny 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 -- [ applause ] and in fact -- in fact the president's series of one-sided nuclear concessions is of a piece 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. now, not just with iran but all around the world an alarm should be sounding in our ears.

our enemies sensing weakness and hence opportunity have become steadily more aggressive. our allies uncertain of our commitment and our capabilities have begun to conclude that they must look out for themselves. even if it's unhelpful to global stability and order. our military suffering from years of neglect has seen its relative strength decline to historic levels. let's start with the enemy who attacked us on september 11th. radical islamists. during his last campaign the president was fond of saying al qaeda is on the run. in a fashion, i suppose this was correct. al qaeda was and is running wild all around the world. it controls more territory now than before. this global network of islamic jihadists continues to plot attacks against america and the west. they sow the seeds of conflict in failed states and maintain active affiliates in africa the arabian peninsula, the greater middle east and south asia. al qaeda and iraq was off the

mat when the president disregarded his commanders' best military judgment and withdrew from iraq in 2011. given a chance to regroup, al qaeda and iraq morphed into the islamic state which now controls much of syria and iraq. the islamic states cuts the heads off of americans burns alive hostages from allied countries, executes christians and enslaves women and girls. the islamic state aspires and actively plots to attack us here at home whether by foreign plot or by 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 foreshadowed by the president allowing iran to have uranium enrichment capability and accepting any i guess operation date on an agreement to quote prime minister paves iran's path to a bomb. if you think as i do the islamic

state is dangerous a nuclear armed islamic republic is even more so. recall, after all, what iran already 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 iran is only growing bolder and more aggressive as america retreats from the middle east. ayatollah khomenei did in fact two days ago call for death to america. just as in recent months he tweeted the reasons why israel should be eliminated. iranian-back the shiite millitias control much of iraq. a man with the blood of hundreds of american soldiers on his handed. iran continues to prop up bashar al assad's outlawed regime in syria. recently seized sunna, a cap actively yemen just over the weekend we had to withdraw further troops from yemen.

hezbollah remains iran's catspaw in lebanon. put simply, iran dominates or controlled five capitals in its drive for regional hedge mown. further, iran has rapidly increased the size and capability of its ballistic missile arsenal recently launching a new satellite. 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 will do with the bomb. and imagine a united states further down the road of appeasement, largely defenseless against this tyranny. but you don't have to man gyp much. simply look to north korea. because of a naive and failed nuclear agreement, that outlaw state acquired nuclear weapons. now america's largely handcuffed, watching as this rogue regime builds more bombs and missiles capable of striking the u.s. homeland and endangering our allies. regrettably, the results of this experiment of retreat 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 buildup which is directed quite clearly against the united states as china pursues an anti-axis and aerial denial strategy to keep american forces outside of the so-called first island chain and therefore to expand china's sedge gemny in east asia. now while america's retreated not only of a our enemies been on the march our allies anxious for years about american resolve, now worrying increasingly about american capabilities. with the enemy on their borders, many have begun to conclude they have no choice but to take matters into their own hand often in ways unhelpful to our interests and broader stability. 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. it has begun to wane as our allies doubt our commitment and our capabilities. and make no mistake, our military capabilities have declined. today, defense spending is only 16% of all federal spending a historic low rivaled only by the post-cold war period. to give some context, during the cold war defense spending regularly accounted for 60% of all federal spending. but if we don't end the experiment with retreat this president will leave office with a mere 12% of all federal dollars spent on defense. the picture is no pretty where cast in light of the economy as a whole. in the early cold war, defense spending was approximately 9% of gross domestic product. today, it sits at a paltry 3.5%. our defense budget isn't just about numbers and arithmetic.

it's about our ability to accomplish the mission of defending you're country from all threats. the consequences of these cuts are real, concrete, and immediate. as former secretary of defense leon panetta explained, these cuts have put us on the path to the smallest army since world war ii, the smallest navy since world war ii, and the smallest air force ever. these impacts won't just be immediate, they will be felt long into the future. key programs once divested will be difficult to restart. manufacturing economy taebss will be lost. the skilled labor pool will shrink. the defense and manufacturing base with atrophy. today's beps systems and equipment will age and begin to break down. our troops won't be able to train and their weapons equipments 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 again recognize that our national security is the first priority

of the government and the military budget must reflect the threats we face, rather than the budget defining those threats. this week the senate budget resolution will reflect a base defense budget of $523 billion and emergency supplemental spending of $89 billion. while better than the defense spending may be dated by the budget control act, this is still insufficient given our readiness crisis, the shrinking size of our military, and the immediate need to modernize aircraft, ships, vehicles, and so forth. the national defense panel, a bipartisan group of eminent national security experts convened by congress, unanimously recommended a $600 billion flar for the defense budget. not a ceiling. i agree that $611 billion is necessary and i agree it's also 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 constrained and unstable budget environment under which the department has been working the quadrennial 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 be developed without undue emphasis on current budgetary 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, you're military does face a readiness crisis, from budget cuts and a decade of war. we must act immediately to get our forces back in fighting shape. from live fire ranges to flight time and so forth. second, and related our military is shrinking rapidly to historically small levels. this decline must be reversed.

end strengths of the army and marine corps the number of platforms in the air force and the navy. third, we must also increase research, development, and procurement funds to ensure our military retains its historic technological advantage, particularly 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 $611 billion baseline suggested by the national defense panel. because the massive cuts to our defense budget resulted in part from record deficits the question arises can we afford all this? the answer is yes. without question and without doubt, yes. the facts here as we have seen 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 historic low and

heading much lower if we don't act. and using the broadest measure of affordability and national priorities, defense spending is a percentable of our economy. last year we only spent 3.5% of our national income on defense. approaching historic lows. and it makes to pass it by 2019. when ronald reagan took office, we spent 5% of our national income on defense. and president reagan and congressional democrats considered that to be a dangerously low amount. that is the point from which they started the defense buildup. if we spent 5% of our national income on defense today we would spend $885 billion on defense. furthermore, trying to ball license the budget through defense cuts is both counterproductive and impossible. first, the threats we face eventually will catch up with us. as they did on 9/11. as they did in the late '70s.

and we'll have no choice but to increase our defense budget. when we do, it will cost more to achieve the same end state of readiness and modernization than it would have without the intervening cuts. this was the lesson we learned in the 1980s after the severe cuts to defense in the 1970s and in the last decade. second, we need a healthy growing economy to generate the government revenue necessarily to fund our military and balance the budget. in our gleblized world our domestic prosperity depends heavily on the world economy, which of course requires global stability and order. and who provides that stability and order? the united states military. i would suggest 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

of its 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 moral confidence in the defense of america's national security will we make war less likely in the first place. our enemies and our allies alike will and must know that aggressors will pay an unspeakable price for challenging the united states. bringing about this future by being prepared for war will no doubt take a lot of money. but i will leave you all with two questions. what could be a higher priority than a safe and prosperous america? leading a 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 senator cotton, for joining us this morning, for your insights. it's a pleasure to welcome rachel hoff from american action forum to moderate our panel. thank you, rachel. >> thank you very much, chris. and -- sorry. thank you very much chris, and to senator cotton for those very impassioned and insightful remarks. i'd like to welcome our panel. very pleased to be joined by this distinguished panel to follow up on the senator's remarks. and dive a little deeper into these questions of current military capacity and capabilities 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. we are joined by three experts who are eminently qualified to

comment on these questions. douglas holtz aiken, president of the american action forum. previously served as director of the congressional budget office as well as senior economist to the president's council of economic advisers. next is david adeznik 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 for joint data support in the u.s. department of defense. david also served as a research star member at the institute for defense analysis. and mckenzie ekeland who will start off is a resident fellow at the maryland center for american studies. she's worked on defense issues in the senate and house of representatives as well as in the pentagon, secretary of defense and joint staff. mckenzie's served as a staff member on the national defense panel whose recommendations senator cotton endorsed today. mckenzie, if you could start off the discussion thank you so much. >> great, thank for having me. welcome, everyone. i see some familiar faces out

there. i'm not really sure where to start, although i guess we can pick up where senator cotton left off and talk about where the senate's going to go this week in the house with their budget resolutions as opposed to what's required and what's needed. it's a long way from even the president's budget to i think the kinds of investments that senator cotton has outlined that are required that are very similar and in line with the national defense panel. which we can speak more about in q&a. i think the biggest question on the table or put another way, the elephant in the room is, okay. so $39 billion extra in overseas contingency operations spending or war spending to get the defense budgets in the neighborhood ballpark of where president obama has them. or a billion over, depending how you calculate it. how's that for defense? well, i'm here to say that 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 bad governing. it's bad defense policy. 39 dla billion dollars in war spending isn't the same defense budget as plussing up the base budget. i know that's hard, i get it you've got to rewrite the bca. but congress has done it twice already and we know they're going to do it again, follow-on. but they're not going to do it until they've exhausted every other available option and they've gone through this long, tore truss path to get there. there are two defense budgets. the base budget that invests in america's military and basically the size and structure and standing responsibilities the daily global responsibilities in reach of that military. the supplemental spending is intended for emergencies. that's why it's called emergency sup problemal money. there are two defense budgets and they buy presumably two different things. in fact the defense budget the

second budget, one for war spending or emergency spending has been constricted over time in part because of congress. congress has wanted to restrict the use of those funds which i think is a good thing as a taxpayer. it's often in years past, particularly when defense budgets were going up, it was the christmas tree. the emergency war spending account became everybody's favorite place to stock every stuffing -- every stocking stuffing you could imagine that had nothing to do with iraq or afghanistan or anything closely related to intelligence and military operations in either place. so to think that even, one $39 billion is only and that it's going to buy you the same kind of defense, is completely flawed and inadequate. and i know that it's something that policymakers really struggle with and they don't want to hear. but there are two defense budgets and they buy two different thins. and then two, trying to get that discussion started on what's required for the long-term defense, what's

required for changes in the budget control act, why a base budget increase is more important than a one-term shot in the armband aid fix in the oco. is i think the conversation we might want to get into a little more later. really quickly why two defense budgets, why do they buy two different outcomes? well, the emergency spending money is mostly for supplementals. it's for consumables. it's for perishable items, like milk in your refrigerator or bread on your counter. this is for short-term investments and even things like readiness. there are different types of readiness. short, medium, and long-term readiness. there's individual and small-unit readiness and there's large-scale, maneuver full-spectrum readiness. for example if you were just to take readiness and whittle it down this kind of spending in the emergency bill doesn't buy you the same kind of investments and it certainly doesn't buy you long-term modernization and health of the force. so with that i'm going to turn

that cheery note over to david and stop talking. >> thanks. i'm on? okay, great, thanks. yeah, i only probably have more depressing information to add. somehow it seems when fpi discusses the state of the world it's not your upper for the morning. but what i'd like to do is expand on some of what senator cotton said about long-term trends in defense spending and why is it important to company that? of course, we here at fpi and af, we talk about the national defense panel's recommendations for increasing defense spending. and you get a lot of the push-back when you talk about those things and it comes from a couple of directions. so interestingly, this advocacy for greater defense spending is often a plank in the center of the political spectrumif you look at the more than 85 experts who signed fpi's open letter to the leaders of congress, you saw notable democrats alongside notable republicans making the case. and then we hear more from people on both sides. on one end i've discussed this even with veterans who consider

themselves progressive and they say, no, how could you want to add more dollars to defense when there's not enough for education? isn't this country's real strength in our economy and education? we need educated people for tomorrow. then on the other side it tends to be but look at our debt, look at our deficit how can you advocate more spending when these are at historically high levels? it's really, if you look at the context that senator cotton began to talk about you understand why those are not actually the case. so, for example, if you look at a choice between defense and education spending, in the very constrained political environment where we have sequestration capps that equally apply to defense and nondefense spending, one dollar for one is one dollar less for the other. the fact is we have sequestration because there's never been either the political will or the right answer that helps people take on entitlements which are almost entirely domestic spending. so when you really look at it, when you hear senator cotton say that anywhere from 12% to 17% of -- from this year to the next five years is consumed by defense spending, that means 80% plus is on nondefense spending.

overwhelmingly on the increasing share that goes to entitlements. so it really doesn't need to be a one for one trade-off. it's really that we have one part that's somewhat out of control and another that has been decreasing sharply. that if you look at the overseas contingency operation budget which mckenzie just described quite well that peaked at almost $200 billion in re terms. now we're talking about whether it should be $50 billion as the president proposed and some other people proposed or slightly more. so 75% there, sort of reaping that dividend of not having troops on the ground in iraq and afghanistan. and then the base budget has fallen by 15% in real dollars as well. so these are cuts across the board. now, when it comes to driving the deficit it's really the same story a lot of the time with entitlements. those are the areas where you're getting more and more spending year after year. they're not brought under control by the bca. so senator cotton mentioned we were at 5% of gdp in the reagan a area.

back further, it was in the 9% or 10% range in the 1950s the early cold war norm. it gradually began to come down on a glide path. we probably got close with supplemental dollars for the wars in iraq and afghanistan to 5% again. but now we are headed down to a place where it's less than 4% and maybe even going down to less than 3% if the current projections hold. so that's really a remarkable decrease historically. and if you think there are three basic ways to look at the size of the defense budget, one is as a percentage of gdp of our national income. given the size of our economy can we afford this much? so when you see that at one point spending 10% now spending under 4%, that tells us the overall growth of our economy has far outpaced the change in defense spending which actually sort of followed a up and down shape over the years and there haven't been dramatic gains whereas our economy has grown tremendously. the sec way of looking at things is a percentage of every federal dollar, how many cents spent on defense. so again the sort of norm in the early days of the cold war was almost half the entire

federal budget, something utterly unthinkable today. that would be like spending $1.7 trillion every year on defense. no one's proposing that. what the panel wants is a third of that. you'd have a little more in you added in oco. you've seen that constant downward trend because domestic spending entitlements, has moved and expanded to fill that gap tremendously. so i think it's really, when i taught to people, i try to add these historical context factors. because sometimes they understand it's really a different question we should be looking at. it's not how do we trade one for the other? it's how do we get the really out-of-control spending areas under control so we can control to spend what we need on certain areas of domestic spending we value, whether it's more scientific research or education, and of course on security spending as well. i think i'll leave it there and turn it over to dr. holtseke who can tell us a lot about the broader economic context. >> thank you. i want to thank fpi for joining with aaf for this prevent and i

appreciate the chance to be here. the larger budgetary 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 that ultimately we would get to the point as we are now where we get 10,000 new beneficiaries every day flowing into social security flowing into medicare where we see rising spending on medicare medicaid, the affordable care act, social security, the other components of entitlements, so-called mandatory spending which are driving two things. number one they are driving an enormous amount of projected debt in the united states. if you roll the clock forward ten years on auto pilot as the cbo projections do, we find we're running a trillion-dollar deficit. of that, $800 billion is interest on previous borrowing. we as a nation are getting to the point where we're taking on a new credit card to pay off the interest on the old credit card. an extraordinarily dangerous financial position for the u.s. the second thing it's doing 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 infrastructure and research on the nondefense side. it's driving out spending on national security. and those budgetary dynamics have been predictable and they have been in play for quite some time and they're really starting to show up right now. now, faced with budgetary crisis, congress did what it often does which says how do we solve this last time? last time was the mid to late '90s. and the quote solution was, put caps on defense and nondefense spending. don't touch the entitlement programs. and pray that things break your way. well, the problem 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 on the mandatory side are going up. we're not going to solve the problem. number two ultimately we solved it with pretending that we had a peace dividend with the fall of the soviet union that turned out

to be ilroosry. 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. the budgetary gains were at significant defense losses. and then third, ultimately we balanced the budget by having a dotcom bubble. we've had enough bubbles, we don't need to try this again, we need a new tragedy. unfortunately they've codified the basic problem in the bca. it's attacking the wrong part of budget and it's put these caps in play, sequesters in play. 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. that's the fundamental budgetary trade. needs to be undertaken every year. and in increasingly large amounts. that solves the debt problem which former admiral mullen identified as our number one national security threat. that solves the ability to develop the investments and

readiness and repry and strategic capabilities that we need on the defense side. so it is unusual for me as the budget guy to be the ray of optimism in an event. so let me try. it -- this is 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 geek hotds drew lines and said, that's going to be bad. everyone else said, no we don't want to touch -- we wanted me care as we know it we want social security as we know it. and now this is changing. it is increasingly recognized that, number one, we've done all this but we don't have good programs. the social security program stays solvent, in quotes by promising to cut benefits 25% across the board in 20 years. disgraceful way to run a pension program. the medicare program runs a cash flow deficit $300 billion every year and doesn't deliver high-quality care to our seniors. there's a recognition these programs have to be better in their own right.

it's not just the financial issue. and there's now advocates for changes to the entitlement programs. they are in the defense community and the nondefense community. i spoke recently to the nondefense discretionary coalition. it exists. it is the single-worst-named coalition in washington. they need a better name. but these are now advocates for entitlement reform. because there's the recognition we need to get this done. and so that's at the bottom up pressure politically from the grassroots. from the top down, anyone who runs for president in 2016, near as i can tell everyone's running. anyone here running? anyway. lots of people running. their advisers are going to tell them, look you want to be governing in 2024. if so if we don't change something, you're the president overseeing the debt crisis and the defense readiness crisis. and it's highly unwise for a president to surprise people with pig changes. so the '16 cycle is going to have to foreshadow the need to improve these programs and 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. it's always sort of complicated in the united states. but the recognition of these budgetary dynamics is here. and it's time to change the bca so we haven't codified the wrong policy and get the right policy in place. >> thanks very much. a bit of a ray of optimism at the end which is unusual. >> always go for an economist when you need some fun, right? >> it's true, it's true. hem let me start off with questions of my own and 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 the defense budget is often portrayed is within the context of global defense spending. critics of increased domestic u.s. defense spending would

often point out that we spend more than any country in the world on defense. can you help provide context for u.s. defense spending by putting it within the context of global trends in defense spending? >> 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 thing consider. usually people say, that must be evidence that we're spending too much. but you ask what is the role america has in the world? senator cotton hit this head on. we are the guarantor of stability when in the expansion of freedom to more people. if you look at the world before 1945 when there was no single dominant power you could have a major systemic war that left vast destruction in its wake every 30 40 70 years they kept occurring from napoleon, go back further to the mid 17th century, world wars i and ii. it hasn't been a sure thing but since 1945 there's been one more dominant power with a second

super power beside it causing a lot of trouble for the firsttry years or so. but with one dominant one in place that could help secure the order as well as have an expansion of freedom because there had been a dramatic increase in the number of democracies. if we continue to see ourselves playing this role it has implications for defense. so how much does china spend on defense? we don't exactly know. relatively credible estimates, there's a swedish think tank the pentagon does some. people think the neighborhood of $180 billion. so around one-third of u.s. defense spending. but china doesn't think about spending in order to achieve global capability. it's more about this is how we can push the u.s. and its allies back in east asia near our shores, we're going to design an asymmetric strategy. therefore we have the burden of going to meet that strategy. we're going to be playing an away game. if it's march madness, the nfl, you want to play a home game. in war it's better to play an away game you don't like what's going to happen in your homeland

when >> the war takes place there. the air force and navy cost money and they are what allow us to project power pretty much to any corner of the globe and have us deal with the crisis or a threat there. and of course, china's not the only region. whether it's iran and isis in the middle east we are investing in the ability to project power there so we can deal with their issues. we are in the threats they present. if you look at what vladimir putin is doing, of course he only spends a fraction of what we do. it's not like the soviet union, which may have outspent us. the fact is, we have to look at the obligations of nato. so it's really only the united states that has this global role. and so even if you add up the value of the next seven or eight or nine, however many other powers, it's not going to give you the right answer. that's not a way to arrive at what we need. you have to take a strategic approach which says what are the threats we're facing to

stability and freedom, what are the military force wet need to deal with those? one last note, it is worth observing that certain countries, china and russia especially, have increased their spending dramatically. in a decade it's been almost double, if not more. they were starting from a low base. the chinese have increased something like five or six-fold the russians four-fold. it's disturbing and they're increasing their capability and it may mean that we need to spend more. ultimately the bigger question is how much power do they generate with that spending? it's about spending efficienty. finally there's the question how much bang are we getting for our buck? one of the pessimistic notes sorry to break up the optimism train, wife been getting less bang for our buck in the defense department. some of it is the fact that we're a prosperous economy and you have to pay highly qualified personnel more to be part of an all-volunteer force so personnel costs ride over time. we have persistent rise in the cost of operations and maintain nance. we've had well-known troubles in acquisition. so it's more of a complex

strategic question. if someone wants to frame the debate and even senators, not senator cotton have done this said we're spending too much because we spend more than the next seven or eight powers combined. think about america's interests, not just about global dollar figures. >> you say this may be a different moment and we may have a chance to finally fix some of these problems. zooming in particularly on the fy16 budget resolution, it includes deficit-neutral reserve funds for defense. can you provide context in terms of these reserve funds? how have they been used historically historically? often they're included and not funded. is there any reason to believe that this year may be different? >> so it is such a joy to see people pay attention to the budget resolution. it never happens. so for those who don't follow this, and i recommend that that be everyone in this room the budget resolution is not a law. it is passed as an agreement between the house and senate on

how it will conduct budgetary operations for the year. it often includes, as it does this year, both an allocation for spending on defense. this adheres to the cap in 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 defense appropriations 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 $26 billion in offsets somewhere so it's deficit-neutral. so it allows the congress to break its own budget and 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 the defense bill. those have been around a long

time. when we passed the prescription dug bill in 2003, there was a reserve fund for $400 billion budget chairman invoked it. all of this, it's important to remember, is very nice. but it doesn't change the law. the fundamental problem is we have a budget control act that says, no matter how much you appropriate, we are going to cut it back to 499 unless we change the budget control act. for that purpose the budget resolution sets the debate up but it doesn't solve the problem. we need to pass appropriations bills and pass changes to the budget control act that give greater funding. >> thanks. mckenzie picking up on this question provided no change -- if there is no change in law, no change to bca, but congress does appropriate funding for the pentagon through either oco funding or deficit-neutral reserve fund what are the consequences for these kind of short-term fixes for our military and for pentagon, particularly in terms of

planning? >> the first consequence is what's going to happen on the floor when there's a defense appropriations bill. not the budget debate this week or next week or however long it goes on. we've already seen in the recent past, boy, if anything is predictable it's these congresses. the last six years. and, well, i should actually -- it's already been outlined. they like to take ideas off the shelf from 20 years ago. so this group is a highly predictable one. what we've already seen in recent congresss are members banding together on the left and the right to strip oco money that wasn't requested by the pentagon. you've heard this line before. my good friends colin and john have written this story a thousand times. the pentagon didn't ask for it, and therefore, it becomes a justifiably -- discussion about, does that need more money? if not we're going to vote did take it out. chris van hollen, congressman from maryland, rick mulvaney, are two that have banded together many types repeatedly to do this. there was an amendment it was a

total account of $5 billion, they took $3.5 billion out, congress agreed to it. that's exactly what's going to happen this time. $39 billion in extra oco money is an allowable amount. it's the ceiling. that's not what's going to get appropriated for defense. and there will be fair and legitimate arguments to take a lot of that money away. congress itself said no to f-22s in the emergency spending bill several years ago. the pentagon is going -- the leadership in the services is going to want to put a lot of hardware and equipment and modernization programs into the oco and that's not going to be a voting majority, supportable proposition by most members of congress. and so first problem is what's going to happen on the floor? the pentagon's going to lose a lot of this money. once it starts losing a lot of money it thinks it might be able to get it's going to take us back to the last four years of all of this wield swing in defense planning that there's no fiscal certainty for the department, and that alone is one of the most inefficient things you can do for pentagon program managers.

what happens there's a whole source of internal bureaucratic decision-making that again is justifiable but incredibly expensive and wasteful for taxpayers. if they're watching this a debate and don't know what's going to happen, program managers hoard their cash. they understand that there's the likelihood they're going to have to cough up some of it at the end of the year, whether sea questions trition or a bill coming in at caps or continuing resolution that starts the fiscal year. whatever it is however it turns out, it's definitely not going to be the number we're talking about this week for defense. it will be a number lower. that's a fact. that's a guarantee. if you're a betting person, go to vegas, you can tell them mckenzie sent you. it will be a number lower than what's being debated this week. when that number is finally appropriated and the president signs it into law, whenever that is it could be 2016 when that happens, it will be a number lower than the total amount we're talking about this week. so that creates all these wild inefficiencies in program managing. contracts are held in abeyance, awards are delayed or deferred or simply not granted altogether in anticipation of the chaos and

uncertainty on capitol hill that's a second consequence. then the third is what the money can buy. even when the money is approved you can buy readiness but there's a debate how much more readiness certain components and certain services need at certain times, particularly right now. for the readiness crisis broadly speaking in the department there are pockets of incredibly high readiness at d.o.g. and that's good, great, i don't think anybody has a problem with that. you can only pour so much money into readiness over that overspending money and wasting it. some -- most of the readiness challenges right now are in large-scale maneuver, they're in longer-term readiness. some of it is a function of time, not dollars. so certain army brigade level training can't get through the national training center. we don't have another national training center, you're not going to build one, more money isn't going to solve that problem. so this -- the third consequence is what you can buy with that money and what is needed is modernization. and some readiness.

and what you can't spend a lot of this money on is modernization. >> let me sneak in one more question for doug before opening it up to the audience. you spoke about the context -- how defense spending might play a role in the 2016 presidential -- fixing these long-term problems might play a role in the 2016 presidential conversation. one of the pieces of doug's bio i neglected to mention is he served as economic and domestic policy director for john mccain's 2008 presidential campaign. so asking more of a political question to close out my questions here. how do you speculate not just fixing these long-term problems and the question of entitlement looking forward to 2024, but how might the conversation around sequestration and defense spending issues play out among the 2016 candidates? on both sides of the aisle. >> so my reasoning on this comes

from really two pieces. number one it's always better to figure out what people have to do than what they want to do. and we have to fix this. the nulks are overwhelming in terms of the accumulation of debt the financial instability of the federal budget, if you stay on auto pilot another eight to ten years. so politicians have correctly stayed away from these programs because everyone's seen the ads about granny getting thrown off the cliff and she's quite durable, she comes back every election. but, you know, that's got to change. and anyone who does the arithmetic knows that and knows it's a very bad idea to surprise people with big changes. so they're going to have to start laying the groundwork. i don't think you're going to see big detailed proposals in '16. as you move '16 to '18 to '20 you're going to see the acknowledgement that medicare as we know it is not serving our seniors, we need to fix it and make it more sustainable, social security, all those thins. the second piece is if you look at the polling on the ground

right now, people are scared about our security. period. i mean the american public understands this is a dangerous world and if you sort of ask all the questions about -- that the fiscal fiscal talk saver, about controlling spending, getting deficits down, they 100% agree with that. ing is them questions with securing national interests around the globe, they support all of that. if you pit them head-to-head, the defense hawks beat the fiscal hawks on the ground, in the polling. presidential candidates are going to know this. they're going to poll all of the time. they're going to acknowledge the fiscal problem and talk about the need for stronger defense budget and better national security. >> we've got about 30 minutes to take some of your questions. three quick advisory points, please do. be sure to wait for the microphone to reach you.

identify yourself before acting question and be sure that that is, in fact, a question. a couple write ups from you here. >> we'll start out just in the front row here. >> so i don't think there's 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. >> they've been broadcasting it loud and clear.

the authorizers are a different story. that would be interesting. i believe both chairmen are leaning towards marking towards the president's budget squ of 535 billion$535 billion. now, the question is so what will they do with occo. it seems as if both chambers are going to go over new fund required, which is troubling for other reasons because this is pretty mump basically all debt finance anyway, when you're talking emergency spending money. half of it they were trying to make offset available. so emergency supplemental, a couple of things regarding that. one, $51 billion that the president requested for occo was too low anyway.

we know it's too low. just last time around, it was summertime saying hey, things have changed. ebola, isis, et cetera. the first part is how about we come back and say it's higher than the $51 billion we've asked. i think that money will all be easily the question is what is pending leadership. that's something that's being

discussed at the defense department right now. it's possible that leadership says we're not going to want that extra money. and then that's going to change everything up here. if congress is going to want to hand the department money, it's going to say we actually don't want because it's not the kind of money that we need. that will change the dynamic and that will keep the number a lot lower. i don't think we're going to get anywhere near $90 billion. >> i guess just to add a quick note, one of the attractive things in theory about adding occo money is on a budget resolution stage. you don't have to do a political traj trade for one for one. occo is, in effect u not restricted. in e feblgt u you can sort of put money there and basically the cap will rise along with it and you act as if you have that money and you don't have to have any sort of stradoff.

there are ways in which everyone could agree to go on. if they're sort of -- it's sort of if you say black is white and white is black the aproep raters and the administration and then white can be black and be used for anything. i think once you get away from just the people who need to put together a budget resolution that tallies in the right way, you'll have problems. mcken zealzie already explained quite well. if the pentagon says they don't need it, it's especially problematic. we don't really consider this occo. if omb doesn't agree that something is occ orr or over seas contingency operation, for those who get all thrown around by all the acronyms, that may be a bargaining tactic. obviously, the administration doesn want oco to plus up the

defense budget with democrats for discretionary spending. so while they can't get in the way of budget tear passing resolutions, we will come to points in the road procedurally where the democrats will have their say, just as minorities have had their say in other situations. >> i believe the president, he's going to do that. so that's why i know we're going to start this fiscal year with a continuing resolution. that's no big deal in the senate because you -- all that you have is you exceed the allocations is

a 16 vote point of order against the bill. and minimal amounts that you can always exceed the reck sill yagsz constructions. they've just littered it with the capableties to get mandatory on simple majorities. reconciliation is always useful if the president wants to sign. 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 or 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's on the table if they want to get there. that's the right policy argument. presidential leadership would make it a better political argument. >> yesz. >> my concern is that the pentagon doesn't seem to be getting it on the future of warfare. imagine dozens and hundreds of drones instead of an f-22. >> what can they do to sort of compel the pentagon to take a really good look instead of another desk start. >> in the future, numbers just

matter, again. it's not just about the extraordinary capability that the u.s. can bring to bear. but, frankly, how many of what -- how much capacity. it can apply across the fleet and sfrss and unison capableties. >> there is appreciate that that's the kind of budget that's required. even if it's a lower cost item. starting back in 2013, this is not just the budget control act. the hardest hit spending has been not just in modernization specifically in procurement, but all have been minor procurement program. we typically tend to think of the major high profile programs.

60% of those and that spending on all of the little things that their defense department wants to take. it's really a thousand cut story. as we see this play out the plurality of reduction that will happen when we dentd goat the 39's request for defense, are going to come out of the same account. it will happen in a similar way budgetarily. right now, it's important to have a discussion, but i don't think there's going to be much action you believe till there's more fiscal certainty for the department. it's definitely in the conversation leading up to 2016. >> it's a great look at the political dynamics. i guess i would add that part of it