blacks complaints then, the same that i'm hearing now which means there's something, there's some mistakes we have made that have carried over. the question is why in the face of 50 years, $20 trillion in poverty programs blacks are uning those same institutions in our cities and low income blacks are saying they are not benefitting from the civil rights gains the progress in race. they are not benefitting from blacks running those institutions. obviously, it means there's some unmet needs that fueling that poverty but by focusing on race what baltimore does is pulls the covers off of that. it makes us ask ourselves if race were the problem in the '60s and we now have black elected officials running the

schools, city hall, social well tear fair if blacks in baltimore and other cities if blacks are running those institutions and the promise of the civil rights movement is if we were running them we would be different and better than whites well why are blacks failing in systems run by their own people if the issue was race. >> you've listened to president obama's responses since baltimore, the public statements he's made. he's giving a speak today at georgetown university. it's 11:25 on c-span 3 for our viewers if you want to watch. what are you expecting to hear from the president on this topic of overcoming poverty? >> first of all, i'm glad he's speaking out. it's been six years since the president has said anything. he's probably spoken less about poverty than any previous president. he seems to be promoting the same strategies that have failed over the past 50 years. we look at the problem.

first of all you can't generalize about poverty. not everybody is poor for the same reason. therefore, you cannot apply a single remedy. there are people who are poor because they are just broke. they lost jobs industries have moved out. they use assistance the way it should as an ambulance service, not a transportation system and then you have people physically disabled. they need help and the third category of people who way the dis dis disincentives who saved $5,000 of her welfare benefits to send her daughter to college and she was accused of being a felon and fined. the fourth category of people who are poor because of the character deficiencies or the chances that they take their on drugs, not taking responsibility for themselves. people like that, you not just give them money or resources. there must be some intervention

that helps restore and transform. the latter category is where the centers concentrates its efforts on helping people at the category 4 to become transformed and redeemed and then opportunity can benefit them. >> i should note it's cneonline.org. robert woodson is with us for the next 35 minutes or so taking your questions and comments. we'll start with frank in baltimore maryland baltimore, maryland. good morning. >> good morning. >> i would like to know what is the function of this organization as far as helping the inner city out. >> we go into the inner city in low income communities and seek out leaders that are there.

in milwaukee wisconsin we have about 75 young adults from the community suffering the problem who work full-time in the public schools as moral mentors and character coaches and as a consequence of hiring local people in those schools we were able to reduce violence by 25% in the first three months. similar to your group of 300 in baltimore, maryland. they were ex-offenders. they go into communities like baltimore and works with groups like the group of 300. pastor billy stanfield is an example of a community leader from baltimore that the center has invested in for years working in douglas high school and other communities in baltimore.

we help low income leaders in the community to solve the problems that exist there as oppose to the millions we spend on outside professionals who parachute into those communities programs to aid the poor. >> austin, texas is up next. ross is waiting to chat with you. ross you're on. >> caller: thank you so much for accepting my call. it's a great topic you have on. earlier somebody one of your callers in first segment used the phrase the old, meaningless trade playing the race card. there is no race card. slavery was a moral wrong but also it proved to be a label wrong.

people are given damages in order to make them whole. we weren't made whole. damages were not provided to correct that legal wrong. it's good that sir, your organization is trying to do something with inner city but without resources and without the citizens having been made whole from this historic evil wrong, you're really just kind of making really small baby steps that are not going to prove fruition. >> people talk about the legacy of slavery. do you realize there were people born slaves who died millionaires. when black americans were faced with segregation in america and couldn't go to hotels we

established our own hotels. in atlanta, the st. teresa in new york. the st. charles in chicago. when 1,000 blacks were fired from the docks of maryland we borrowed money and established our own railroad that for 18 years operated from baltimore to maine. black america has a rich history of self-sufficiency and independence and response to racism we've had millionaires created. just to say that the legacy of slavery condemns us to a life of despair and failure is incorrect. that's the kind of self-destructive attitude we must stop. people have good memories but poor judgments. conditions are not the same as

they were years ago. we have the highest black median income of ever coexisting with the lowest poverty in the same cities. if racism were the single culprit then why are not all blacks suffering equally. >> in terms of government investment especially in urban areas and majority black areas johns hopkins university professor lester spence was on last week and talked about the need for new government in communities. i want to play that. >> there's been like a suite of government policies that's extorted wealth from black people and moved it. housing policies that consistently took black neighborhoods and labeled them as not worthy of investment whether you're talking about

about policies that routinely caused black people to get less bang for their buck as far as taxes and education. the only way to deal wlith that is policy that puts money behind innovative solutions. there isn't way around that. it's really interesting. think about baltimore and baltimore city baltimore county or detroit where i'm from and the surrounding suburbs those areas were created by the g.i. bill millions and millions and millions of dollars of spending. it was also created by the national highway defense act. millions and millions of dollars in spending. i don't see how we all of a sudden switch and say government doesn't work when it comes to dealing with liberal and radical needs. >> bob woodson. >> he's partially right. i think innovation is what we need but what he doesn't understand is 70% of the $20

trillion that we have spent on poverty in america goes not to the poor but those that serve poor people. they're a professional class of providers and we have created a commodity out of poor people so that the 70% of the people who are worked to serve poor people need poor people for their own existence. we have some perverse incentives for maintaining poverty in america. it's unfortunate. 2 out of 10 whites with college education work for government. 6 out of 10 blocks works for government. it's an unfortunate situation where a lot of professionally trained blacks are in a position of being caretakers of their low income black counterparts. that's structural disincentives to reduce poverty.

we must condition front this enemy within and do as the gentleman said but we must engage in innovation and we need a different structure. we need to look at the low income communities and invest in those communities, invest in entrepreneurs and people who are indigenous to those communities that are demonstrated that they can rebuild without gentrification. my friend and colleague at first baptist church in somerset new jersey is an example of how local redevelopment of a community can occur with low income and moderate income black people remaining there and not undergoing the kind of gentrification we're seeing in washington and other cities even when those cities have black officials. >> we've got a special line in this segment of the washington

journal for cities in urban residents. let's head down to largo, florida where nadine is waiting. >> caller: good morning. i wanted to congratulate your guest. what a breath of fresh air he is. do you feel like some of these trade agreements with like nafta and also although i think we need unions, they were asking for more, more more, more, i think the big companies took advantage of nafta and moved out for lower wages for their workers. i think it's hurt the urban center. what's your opinion. >> there's a prayer that god saved me from those. something i just don't know. i don't know enough about the subject to comment. i'll have to defer on that one. >> stay around for our last 45 minutes of the show. we'll be talking specifically

about that trade deal that's on the table. now the fast track trade authorities getting voting on the early measure for fast track trade authority getting voted on today and the senate will be talking about it in our last 45 minutes today. mother jones described you as paul ryan's anti-poverty guru. >> congressman paul ryan is really a breath of fresh air. the last month of campaign he approached me about assemblying some grass roots leaders in ohio and i did. he asked me could i take him on a listening tour. for two years we went without any press or media. we went every month for an entire day all over the country and i took him in to areas, some of the highest crime, drug infested neighborhoods where he saw grass roots leaders

literally transforming these communities from the inside out. we did a video and it's featured on opportunitylives.com. paul ryan as a consequence of this two-year experience has worked with us to design policies that would favor and support these indigenous organizations. that's why what we wants to do is really reformulate federal spending rather than having these categories of poverty expenditure and send them down into the states so that our grass roots leaders and other who is are trying to help people out of poverty can be assisted. you have one stop shopping. paul ryan has really been a champion. we're also now joined by dion

sanders. he was met to meet paul. he's in our video series. if you want to be inspired. we hope that we will begin to reach out to his colleagues which i think he's planning to do so that they can become acquainted with solutions from poverty from the perspective of self-help. >> garland texas is up next. lela is up next. you're on. >> caller: i want to thank you for taking my call. i'm also very happy to see that mr. woodson who is talking about poverty of black people is a black person. i think that the problem is we

need to be well educated. we need to try to put ourselves into decision making positions. we do need to start businesses and we need to make sure in our local community working with our organizations such as the naacp that jobs especially like police officer jobs and everything else is leaning toward the proportion of the ethnicity of that city. in the dallas morning news they show even though the police are the white population may be 40% that the police make up 80 to 90% holding the jobs. be white police officers are. you ask why it's important. it's taking money out of the families of african-american males and women who can hold those jobs to support their families. i think that's important.

>> i'm saying to black america we must stop victimization. we must stop complaining about what white folks have done to us in the past and sign in ink our own emancipation proclamation. a man in indiana has a group called boot camp. hundreds of black men are getting up at 5:00 in morning coming in and learning how to become a responsible father. curt moore spent 13 years in federal prison. changed his life around. he started washing cars this people's driverways. he now has 15 employees. he has contracts with car dealerships. he has a facility to do car detailing. when you bring people together where you are motivated by solutions and not whining and complaining about what others

have done it's amazing how much entrepreneurial energy exists within these high crime neighborhoods. young men who have been to prison and who like kurtis watkins in washington, d.c., he works with about 50 or 60 men who have been to prison and transformed their lives. it means they can drive taxicabs in high crime areas. once their character changes the characteristic has advantages. we should try to provote innovative approaches rather than whining and trying to find excuses. there's nothing more lethal than a good excuse for failure. institutional racism whatever that means. we need to stop it. we need to concentrate on what we can do to elevate and lift ourselves regardless of the

resist ens that other people may impose on us. >> caller: the problem in america is white supremacy and racism that mr. woodson does not want to talk about. the day before the young man's spine was broken he did -- there was no racism -- excuse me. i'm nervous. there was no riots going on in baltimore.

she will give you a history of this country and its racism. >> let me say. i was born in the depression. up until 1965, 85% of all black households had man and woman raising children. elderly people could walk in their own black neighborhoods without fear of being attacked by young people. that has all changed now. black on black crime we have a 9/11 in the black community every six months. over 3,000 blacks are killed by other blacks. the group in baltimore and counselling with young they put a number on the board. 14 versus 189. 14 was the number of blacks shot by the police. 189 of the blacks in baltimore killed by other blacks. when we talk about does black life matters, why does it only

matter when a white police officer shoots or kills a black. by concentrating exclusively on black, it means that we ignore evil if it wears a black face. geraldo rivera and fox did a two hour special on the sexual abuse of women in prison, for two hours. every one of the victims was a black women. every one of the perpetrators was a black guard. yet, it did not generate any discussion in the public nor were there any proposals made to correct this evil. why? because we continue to look at life through the prism of race which means if evil wears a black face it gets a pass. if evil wears a white face then we can mobilize and picket. i'm telling you this is what is

destroying this organization. >> john wants to know what work have you done in latino communities? >> out cry barrio is one of our largest programs. the 2,500 groups span black, hispanic asian. we did with appalachian whites. we don't look at them as a class of victims. >> it's cneonline.org. >> got got about 15 minutes left. rodney is waiting in florida. good morning.

>> caller: i really don't know where to start. what i'm about to say. what i'm saying is when slavery was in egypt, when god freed the people he put them into a land of their own so he could teach them the right ways. we had been it because we were in our own little community. you open the door and we do certain things. we had our doctors, lawyers and different businessmen. you cannot go back in the community with people that enslaved you and think you'll be treated fairly. it's not going to work because they think they're inferior over you. the government has been manipulating the system for years and years and years.

>> what are you advocating for? >> caller: just if we start speaking the truth about what really happens to a mind when you put them under this kind of pressure and situation for years and years and think you'll have a change. it won't be changing until we start -- you got this guy on here talking about we have to forget about institutional racism, that's the part of the problem. >> you always have to begin with a solution in mind. i tell people, what is your solution? if all whites tomorrow were to move to canada and europe, tell me how it would affect the black on black crime rate. how would it affect the out of wedlock birth and the spread of aids? how would it affect those issues? >> let's go do justine in merchandise. the last caller left the line.

good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm a 26-year-old white girl that moved into baltimore. i love the culture there. i think it's really interesting. i very much appreciate your words mr. woodson. it's given me a different take on things. i took part in some of the protests because i feel like it's more of a -- i think it's a better understand of things as a city if we try to understand the differences between blacks and whites minorities and the majority and embracing those differences and seeing that we could find way to bring more programs into schools that help people set up basic values of what makes a better life and not how you're supposed to act or look to impress certain people or necessarily how you build a resume but more what makes you a

good parent, what makes you a good social advocate, community leader. things like that. >> i think the whole point of the work that we do at the center for neighborhood enterprise is the crisis that we face is really cultural. it's not racial. what our grass roots groups who provide leadership in these communities really take young people who are disaffected the kind of young people that we're throwing bricks in the riots and really confront them with moral authority because many of the young adults who have overcome the problems of single parent hood or prison system they serve as moral mentors to those kids. we need to spend more of our money and our time investing directly into the community suffering the problem and the group of 300 that operates in baltimore, the programs that you're seeing on our website

around the country the real leadership is really indigenous to the community. they're in the same cultural and geographic zip code. the problem is the majority of the money that is employed to address poverty is invested in people that are outside of that zip code, professional service providers ask not which problems are solvable but they ask which problems are fundable. they're answerable not to their customers, the poor, they answer to those that provide the money. the conflict is really over who controls the means of providing moneys to the poor. i've seen endless examples where poor people have come together and designed effective solutions to drug addictions to the violence in crime only to have these innovations ignored. >> a couple of our viewers on

twitter want you to ask what you think of michelle obama's speech at tuskeegee university. what did you hear her say? >> i didn't hear the speech. i just heard portions of it in the green room. i was troubled a little bit because she sort of implied that racial discrimination and racism is still that invisible hand that cripples all of us and that. i think this whole notion of institutional racism is a back hand of white issuesupremacy and to

have that implied in a speech i find troubling. >> you're on with robert woodson. >> caller: i'm a 60-year-old white woman. i work with minority businesses. i can go in and get credit in ten minutes. thousands of dollars of credit. i was working with a 55-year-old electrician business who several years ago went in to buy a truck and the lender on the other side made 16 to 17 calls in a day, a period of a day trying to get him credit to buy his truck. what happened was all of those requests destroyed his credit. it took him two years to recover from that. the way when he goes out and think about getting credit to build his business, he's shy. he's credit shy and he won't stretch. he won't risk. it's because of that racist

response. >> let me say to you i'm glad you raised that. i'm not suggesting that racism is still not present in society. it is. it's here. we must confront it. it is not the most important problem that we face. i'll give you an example how in detroit a church a pastor said there are 50 vacant houses in my neighborhood. he invested in purchased of these houses, using men in the neighborhood to do the renovation but then he found out the insurance companies red lined. he couldn't get insurance for the replacement value. whether than filing a suit against the company i went to the president and said come down and see what the pastor is doing to prepare people to be trained as homeowners and see what he's doing. when the insurance company came down and saw how human capital

was being developed, they sent in their risk team and made four recommendations. once the risks were addressed the insurance company issued the policies which enabled us to go to the local bank and get the mortgage. my point is sometimes we've got to help people to make character judgments in these communities not by condemning them but in invitesing them in to see first hand the positive steps we're taking to mitigate whatever fears they may have. that's all. >> just a few minutes left with robert woodson of the center for neighborhood enterprise. scott is up there. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you c-span. i'm scott be human. i go by the name of the human because i believe we are the one

mass race the human race. we need to get over all this different colors. god made us all different so we're supposed to accept each other here so we can go to heaven. two and a half years ago i was down doing a little stay at the new orleans mission right downtown new orleans. i've been well traveled to the appalachians. i've been to california. we need to get together and get this country back. you want know just one answer to some of these problems, we need to declare a truce on the war on drugs which is not color related and also there's very lot of white people that get killed by white police officers but it's just not a big deal because white on white is not the news. >> that's scott the human in new york. do you want to talk about the drug war? >> i don't but i would like to

speak to the issue of how we can coming together and that is in these concluding remarks, i think when i say the issue we face is cultural i think when kids riot in other areas there's absence of meaning this people's lives. if low income young people can find content and significance in meaning in their lives in the midst of these drug infested crime ridden neighborhoods and overcome these. maybe that would have something to export to the guilded ghettos of palo alto, california where over 90 kids in this affluent neighborhood are jumping in front of trains and committing suicide because they have a feeling of absence of significance in their lives. i think if young adults in the inner city can find content and

meaning in their lives then perhaps they have something to export to those trapped in guilded ghettos of america who are dying because their life doesn't have meaning or significance. i really think that's the kind of coalition i would like to see. we should see neighborhood as a source of exporting moral excellence. >> is that coalition being built on capitol hill? you talk about paul ryan who understands. who else understands on capitol hill? >> i'm not sure because i haven't seen much leadership beyond paul ryan and a few other people. i think paul ryan is the person who can inspire not just other republicans but democrats as well. my goal is for both republicans and democrats to compete with one another over which side can

add the greatest value to low income leaders that are indigenous to the community. i hope that our comeback series at the center will inspire a wholesome competition where each side will compete over how best their going to empower low income people as a poseopposed to how they can adjust to the kind of combat we've seen. >> have you got buy ins from democrats or this administration on this effort? >> paul ryan reached out to the president when he announced his brother's keepers when he offered to meet and even exchange, we have also reached eded out to this administration in our willingness to share the solutions we have. we haven't seen too much response. we have reached out as paul ryan has. we're waiting to see if they will are willing or has any interest in working with us. we want to work with anybody who

is promoting solutions. >> is there a presidential candidate right now that's promoting the right kind of solutions? >> no. i haven't seen the candidates on either side who are promoting these kinds of solutions. we hope to make them available so that anyone can embrace them. we're looking for supporters. we're looking for people advocate. >> before we let you know there's one or two more calls been waiting to chat with you. mike's waiting. good morning. >> caller: yeah, thank you so very much. sometimes we use it for our excuses. my son to be picked across --

you got to focus. planning for the future of my son. sdpr that's mikemike talking about his experiences. mark, you're with robert woodson. >> caller: i'm a black republican. i have a story much like dr. ben carson on the earlier part of my life as far as being from the inner city in florida where today you have the murder rate in the 100s. also to your comments earlier there's black fls thats in that area and lack of investment from the

community. my point today is i believe that similar to my own example i've been working since age 13, but earlier was one who got a bit of some trouble. through mentorship and being educated by others who were successful within my community it kind of encouraged me to find the level of innovation. >> i'll give you the last minute. >> i think you're right. at our conferences i encourage all listeners when you're getting together to talk about these issues we do not permit anyone in our meeting to introduce a problem for which they don't have a solution. i would recommend it. let me just end with a quote from samuel adams that summarize summarizes it. it says a general dissolution of principles and manners will overthrow america than a whole force of a common enemy.

while the people are virtuous they can thotnot but subdued but when they lose it they will be ready to surrender. if virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people then they will never be enslaved. we're trying to say to low income people your condition of how you were born does not define who you will be forever. if you were to instill in yourselves the desire to be self-sufficient and independent and pick yourself up then i think you will prosper. that's the message that we've got to send to people. >> the message you can check out more of on cneonline.org. robert woodson is the founder and president. thanks for your time. >> thank you. another view on poverty now with lester spence, political science professor from johns

hopkins university. >> we're back. our conversation continues today about the criminal justice system. we're joined by lester spence who is a political science associate professor talking about racial and socioeconomic factors. let's talk about the divide in this country. the factors that go into it. describe it. where is the divide? how big of a divide is it? >> if you think about all the resources that government allocates or various institutions allocate that kind of shape how well we're able to live, that shape our access to government and a range of things, black people and non-whites in general are usually at the bottom of all of them. if you think about health issues, black people are usually sicker. if you think about education issues, black people have less access to quality education than

whites do. if you think about wealth issues, housing issues, black people have less access to quality housing. this is particularly important in understanding what's going on in places like baltimore and detroit and the st. louis area of ferguson. >> you wrote recently in a piece that baltimore was a time bomb and that before freddie gray's death you wrote that lit the spark but the city with dangerously divided. how so? >> i'm a professor at johns hopkins university. i think tuition is around $40,000 a year. there are only three public high schools in baltimore that have kids that can routinely be strong enough to go to hopkins and baltimore has dozens of high schools. if you're talking about a set of policies that going back to the

19th century they have kind of put their foot on black people's neck. over time a couple of instances over the last 50 years that's generated significant push back. when martin luther king was assassinated we had disturbances and we had an uprising related to freddie gray's death. a lot of people when they study racial politics they focus on attitudes. black people thinking one thing and whites thinking another. it's also important to understand there's an array of resources that are routinely with held from black population and nonwhite populations in general. >> i want you to respond to the former governor of maryland. there was at panel discussion on the future of america's black communities and former maryland governor argued that more money is not the answer to fixing baltimore's problems.

take a look. >> i certainly would indulge to some extent the idea of healing. who's against healing? we have to heal. if it's healing on familiar terms, if it's the same old m.o., if it's the same old paradigm as you heard out of the president's mouth and others we need more money. $22 trillion since the great society. if that's the premise i'm not going to play. there's folks in those neighbors shouldn't play. policymakers shouldn't play. we should not indulge it because if it's just that nobody should be surprised if we see a repeat in flee monththree months, six months, nine years ten years.

as someone who has driven through the neighborhood my entire life, i wouldn't be surprised to see the same conditions if it's the same paradigm. maybe hopefully you pray that something good can some of this. >> your reaction to hearing the mayor. >> if you think about municipal spending there are ways in which throwing more money at the problem has made the problem worse. approximately 1991, baltimore city spent 36 $37 million in parks and rec. 2015 they spent about $30 million in parks and rec. 1991 they spent 170 million on police. 2015 they spent about $450 million on police. the vast majority of that money being kind of on zero tolerance,

on anti-black policing strategy. if that's what he's talking about then yes. throwing more money at the problem makes it worse. >> washington times editorial write the liberal mantre that the problem is inadequate funding must be refuted by cold facts. the stimulus law assigned over $1.8 billion to the city of baltimore. >> here's how i would respond. there's been like a suite of government policies that's basically extorted wealth from black people and moved it. whether you're talking about housing policies that consistently took black neighborhoods and labeled them as not worthy of investment. whether you're talking about

policies that routinely cause black people to get less bang for their buck as far as their taxes and education. the only way to deal with that is policy that puts money behind innovation solutions. there isn't a way around that. it's really interesting. think about baltimore and baltimore city, baltimore county or detroit, where i'm from, and the surrounding suburbs those areas were created by the g.i. bill millions and millions and millions dollars of spending and created by the national highway defense act. millions and millions and millions of dollars in spending. i don't see how we all of a sudden switch and say government doesn't work when it comes to dealing with liberal and radical needs. >> let's get our viewers involved in this conversation. we're talking with lester spence. he'll a political science

professor at johns hopkins university. muriel is in brooksville florida. you're on the air. >> caller: hi. what i would like to know is if they didn't destroy their own neighborhood, which is a shame now they are asking people help them rebuild their neighborhood when they destroyed. it could see a hurricane or something like that but not when you destroy your own neighborhood. if they didn't destroy, people would build stores there and people would have jobs. there could be walmart. there would be other places and people wouldn't mind building places there for people to work. >> lester, go ahead and respond.

>> first it would be interesting to show pictures of baltimore. allow the viewers muriel, included probably saw pictures of what they thought was baltimore burning. the whole city, like oh, my god the whole city is on fire. >> that was the dateline on some of the networks. >> there's only a few hot spots. if you go to those neighborhoods where the hot spots were and take pictures of them just two weeks ago you would see they suffer from disinvestment for decades. this isn't a new thing first of all. second of all, i just -- it's important to understand the issue that people rebelled against. you're talking about an issue in which a kid, freddie gray, had his spine broken by police. the police are supposed to serve and protect people in that

neighborhood but the people in that neighborhood tend to view police as an occupying force. if we think about them destroying their own neighborhoods without taking that political dynamic into effect, we render them less than human. it ends up being really really difficult to understand their actions as being one of a long set of actions of people basically rebelling against oppressive government. >> leon in fayetteville. >> caller: good morning. i'm 58 years old. in 1965, '64, the great society programs was directed toward my generation and we had a lot of youth programs anti-crime prevention for about four years of funding from congressmen

rangel as well as professor clark who started what they call the how you act program. it lasted until 1968 -- yeah '65 all the way through '71. it was money that was in the pipeline to put 2,500 young black american men on the path of the straight and narrow. many have gone on to college. we've all talked about it. why is this program not being funded at the state, federal and local areas of crime prevention? just saw a segment here where the governor says he's not planning on giving any money to crime prevention programs, but we put more money into incarceration than we do education for children and students.

i'd estimate, by looking at it for whatever we put in for education, new york as an example, is the highest 15,000 per child to get educated. if that child goes to jail for a year, now the taxpayer has to pay 60,000 per year to have that person sit up in jail and do absolutely nothing. so we are all playing in the area of crime fighting as opposed to crime prevention. i also believe the 1968, when you were saying, professor, that some of the money has been spent wrongly, i agree. when they had the wealth fairlfare program in '68, it decimated the black community. >> i agree with what the caller is saying. i want to go back to the figure. $37 million. there's been no change in parks

and recs spending but police spending increased almost 300%. i think that we have a significant -- we have to really reshift our priorities. what happened in baltimore, ferguson to a certain extent in new york, i'm hoping it generates political will from the grassroots going up for spending programs that we know work. >> park and recs, why does it work? what does the money go for? >> for providinge inging array of programs that allow kids to spend more time in community centers. they go to the building of community centers themselves. baltimore used to have somewhere around 60, 70 community centers. that number has been cut in half. then it goes into a number of programs designed to make parks better. so you have green space where people can interact in. that creates better relationships between individuals and develops a capacity a different type of --

that develops trust in government. most of the people in places like winchester, where freddie gray was killed they -- the only time they see government is in the form of a fist. that expands their trust in government. that has all types of outcomes going forward. that education versus incarceration number, it doesn't make sense. in a nation that professes to be one of the best in the world one of the best on the planet that it spends more incarcerating people on average than it does educating them. >> we'll hear from craig next in maine. go ahead. >> caller: hi. i wanted to tell mr. spencer, i didn't want to ruin his morning, but i completely am shocked to where this country is going. i think we are on the path to finishing this country. he is complaining about money

going to the inner cities. billions upon billions of dollars go to these areas. hundreds of millions of dollars get funneled to these corrupt inept school unions. people are graduating that can't even read. people have to step over drug addicts addicts. these kids have no chance. there are 7 out of 10 children born out of wedlock with no parent or little parenting. mr. spencer you're complaining about what you don't get in the cities. well, let me tell you about the rural parts of america. we have to hold bake sales to get football uniforms. we have to have car washes to get cheerleading uniforms to be able to have baseball fields.

we get scraps. the bulk of america's money is poured into the cities. if you're willing to really take a hard look at where this money goes there isn't one american that would lock arms with you and wish your well. do you think people want to see these children with no hope and no future? you are pointing your weapons at the wrong people. it is the system, the political framework that you have in these areas. there isn't a republican in miles, there isn't a conservative anywhere near these areas and, yet, instead of going to the foot of government there and saying "you have let us down where is all this money going," you sit on tv and complain that it's somehow america's fault. >> craig, i want to give lester

a chance to respond. >> here's where craig has a really great point. a number of the problems that people face in really hard-hit urban neighborhoods are shared by their rural counterparts. but the challenge is that unlike our rural counterparts, people in cities in hard-hit urban neighborhoods tend to have a sense that government actually has a role to play in solving problems that they created. to a certain extent craig advances the idea that government itself is the problem. that's the first thing. the second thing is that it's really important to understand that i'm not just making a claim necessarily that resources are spent, that we don't -- that we're not getting enough money. what i'm really making an argument for is the type of --

it's the type of government we are getting. so that area where freddie gray was killed, they spend $47 million a year in incarcerating its residents. right? $47 million a year. that's government spending. that's government that nobody needs. yes, part of it is about kind of political representatives that don't represent, that don't represent their constituents. to that extent, it is about developing a political culture where individuals can say you know what, you're not doing what we wanted you to do. in fact i'd argue that's why marilyn mosby is in office now as opposed to the person she ran against. but that is a bipartisan dynamic. it's not like we're looking at millions upon millions upon millions of dollars spent progressively to deal with these

issues in these cities. what they're doing isgetting is policing. >> lester spence isr is a professor here for another 20 minutes with us. we'll go to maryland. hi jason. >> caller: a couple things here. i get it. i lived on both sides of the spectrum. i came up in a rough area. i came up in a pretty rough area. not as bad as baltimore some parts. but some of the points he's missing, and i think he's misconstruing is like some people are trifling. i'm pretty sure he understands that. you can be broke, but you don't have to be -- >> trifling. >> caller: yeah. it's a mind set. trifling is not black or white. it's just the person. you know what i mean? you have choices in life. everything comes out of choices. i'm going to wake up brush my

teeth. can i afford toothpaste? it's cheap. some stuff is basic, common sense. what choices am i going to make in my day to day life? some people are doing gadood and some aren't. there wasn't a father in the house, but i have three kids and i'm married. i make $90,000 a year now. you know what i mean? >> talking about how much loot you making on c-span? people will come get you. >> caller: that's fine. i went to a public school, graduated with a d average. once i left school i had choices. am i going to be the bum on the street like the rest of the dudes, getting arrested, do what everybody else is doing? no, because this guy got 30 years, 30 years this guy is dead. it's about choices. what do you want to do with your life? you can complain and say they don't give us enough money. on the street level, we don't see it. we see choices. when you make the wrong choices, you have the result.

i got pulled over for being black. when i talked to the officer he says, he's not one of the crazy ones. if you go into afghanistan right now as a u.s. personnel, you wouldn't know who is who. when a cop is inside an urban area, he doesn't know who is who because everybody looks the same. drug dealers look like regular people. they see white cops treating -- >> can i interrupt for a second? for real, here's the issue. so you take those choices right, and you've made a brilliant point. black people, white, brown are all randoming and trifling. our quotient is the same, right? >> caller: pretty much. >> if our randoming and trifling quotient are the same, if black people are less likely to use drugs and sell than whites, but

the arrests are so higher, where does choice play a role? we can say choice is there as an individual. you know what -- well, i was about to say a name. this is c-span. you know who i would be talking about. i love this single trifling folk and say, you know you got what you deserved. when you're talking about a neighborhood full of them, then go to another neighborhood when people make a little more loot, where people have a little more education, they do the same stuff but don't get arrested. they're still able to live their lives. that's politics. that's not individual choice. >> caller: i get what you're trying to say. >> i'm not trying to say it. >> caller: i hear exactly what you're saying. at the same time it's like okay, if i'm in this area where it's a high crime rate or code red area i'm most likely going to be arrested than the suburbs. they're not looking for the same

things. >> yeah. >> caller: that's common sense. >> that's political. >> caller: if i'm in an area not known for drugs but go to an area where 80% of the people are using drugs, you know where the crack head is at. if you get caught up in the situation, you do. it's a problem. if you don't you get let go. >> okay. >> i feel you. i grew up in a neighborhood like that. jason, i got five kids. three of them boys. what you're kind of saying is that it's okay for my kid in that neighborhood to have to be fearful of the police. not just fearful of the knuckle head gangs, but fearful of the police that we pay taxes to. no, no. you can't take that for -- we've been hearing that dch-- one of the narratives that has produced and reproduced over 150 years is

this narrative that for black people to get their citizenship rights, they actually have to act right. there's nothing in the constitution that says, for example, that you only got free speech if your -- we have to combine the responsibility narrative i can give to my kids with a larger political critique. if we have the gaps, if there are people for whom life is consistently hard and they're random and trifling quotient is average, we have to point to government because they're usually the culprit. we have to say this isn't the way things are supposed to be done and we can do it a different way. >> let's go on to ira in north carolina. former law enforcement? >> caller: yeah. you're right. good morning, professor. >> good morning brother.

>> caller: i'm former law enforcement, and i'm going to give you a little story. i was a former law enforcement down in a town called wilmington, north carolina. i went out with my field training officer one night, he asked me, you know the color of night stick? i say, what do you saw a night stick. we called them an n knocker. i won't say the "n" word. so at that point that kind of gave me an insight into the attitude that law enforcement had toward black people. now, how we have this conversation without -- outside of the historical context of black people's experiences in this country is beyond me. people get tired of hearing about slavery, but it is an injury that black people have suffered and it's never been

addressed. also wilmington during the reconstruction, which is another period of time that's not been discussed, where the majority was a black city. majority black city council. it's also the sight of the white citizens deciding they didn't like having black folks in charge and overthrew the local government. black people had to leave wilmington on the back of horse carts, bails of hay. they had to leave the city. black people in wilmington, north carolina, have never recovered. there may be less than five black businesses in the city until today. >> what's your response? >> i agree with a lot of what ira said. i think what we're talking about is a set of public policies going back from slavery and going forward, that consistently prevents blacks from getting access to wealth that prevents blacks from building the type of

institutions they need to get a full sweep of citizenship rights from government. that policing -- that night stick thing, that's real. that's real. i've been talking about black -- anti-black policing. it's important to understand that there is a significant difference. we're not talking about anti-black policing. we're really talking about anti-black working class policing. that is, policing that shows people the fist of government, consistently, in neighborhoods like where freddie gray was killed. that's something that we have to -- he's absolutely right. i don't see how we can talk about these incidents without talking about racism. not talking about race but without talking about racism and classism. >> oscar from washingtonvirginia.

>> caller: good morning, greta. >> good morning. >> caller: i would like to ask the gentleman that called from maine, craig to download yesterday's "washington journal." you had an excellent piece. i commend you. you should win an emmy. he broke it down specifically. i'm so excited. i'm hyperventilateing. he broke it down so perfectly yesterday morning. he explained how the inner cities have been subjected to red lining and even home purchasing. i encourage you guys to go and look at that wall street journal yesterday morning. i wanted to talk about that. i grew up in washington d.c. we had a great mayor. he became mayor around the '60s. when i was 17 we had a -- you may have heard of it.

i'm 57. it's a little long time ago. in the '60s and '73, '74, we would get jobs in the summer youth programs and we'd clean the streets. we had these blue jump suits. we enjoyed ourselves being pumped being like players. we got together and cleaned the streets. i would recommend that this mayor in baltimore she should listen and take a capture, little lease of marion berry's policies in washington, d.c. and learn and implement these policies. the city council, you can be black all over all 12 of you could be black in the city council, but if you don't have a leader in the officer, who is going to implement policy change for the inner city youth strategically putting down these boarded up houses putting in a starbucks in the corner lot, putting in a subway over here

and getting these kids jobs that's how it should be done. >> okay. >> so kind of a broader national context. there was a moment where the cities cities in general, got money directly from the federal government to deal with social service prevention. but after 1970s, support dwindled. with the election of reagan you see the money significantly cut. then cities are -- the city's ability to raise taxes itself is kind of curtailed. what cities end up doing as a result is engaging in array of kind of entrepreneurial activity activities that give tax abatements to downtown -- or tax cuts to spur downtown development, in the hope it would trickle down. in the baltimore context camdan yards, it costs millions to

build. the orioles only spent a portion and the rest was from texas. red wings stadium, it's all tax money. what you see is this use of city resources, of government resources, to reproduce this gap between the have and have nots. because blacks really, really tend to be part of the have nots, they end up significantly losing out. that's something that the mayor in this case, in the baltimore case, we have a strong mayor system where mayor stephanie rawlings-blake holds a lot of cards. what would be really positive would be if mayors like stephanie rawlings-blake actually spoke clearly about the need for more investment in these neighborhoods. then started pushing corporate investors like underarmor to give resources to be corporate citizens.

>> let's go to columbus, ohio. you're on the air. >> caller: hello. there's two things i would like to address. the fact that historically, we had destroyed the best leader we ever had, and that was in booker t. washington. i really would like for you to read "death in 60 days, who silenced booker t. washington," by horton. i'm going to read just briefly something out of the book that she had wrote. she had stated that the american white power structure opted for someone who shared the views of the social philosopher such as werksashington. the collegiate of the black group structure, which you'll find out later, professor spence, in the book, started

replacing the practical teachers of science and industry. president luther foster got rid of the trades, which was something booker t. washington felt strongly was the best way for blacks to secure their destiny. my other concern is what dr. julian malveaux said on the panel panel, with the panel of others whom i don't recall their names. i wanted to know how you feel about police being more trained than just two months at a police academy. but having a two-year associate's degree or a four-year college degree would make a difference. >> we'll have lester spence respond respond. >> i think police training is up for -- is a significant issue, contention. from the data i have, baltimore spends for example, 57 times more on swat team than on police

community relations. that's something that's really important. from what i understand police as far as training their training on how to deal with violence, they're trained consistently to be punitive as opposed to non-violent approaches. there are a whole sweep of policies that we can implement in order to make police act more humanely. as far as booker t. washington i'd push you a bit on the washington versus dubios piece. businesses owned by the workers was talked about. there's been a push in baltimore from a number of activists for worker cooperatives, as opposed to business development where a black capitalist might make money but black workers make less. cooperatives can provide needs in neighborhoods on the west and

east sides of the baltimore that are hard hit and provide a ranger need for those communities. and can also employ a number of them. one of the problems with incarceration, and this is something your two other guests didn't mention once you have a record, no one wants to hire you. in a neighborhood where a lot of the folks have records, even for minor things, they're basically unemployable. kind of developing worker cooperatives in those neighborhoods can help employ them and build civic capital and economic capital. >> we talked about the ban the box movement. >> that's right. >> a little earlier. if folks are interested, you can go back and watch today's "washington journal." we're not done yet. go ahead daniel from milwaukee. >> caller: thank you. good morning. in october of 2012 four milwaukee police were indicted for illegal strip searches and

cavity searches. cavity searches on the street and at the police station. one officer received 26 months for a felony. the next one received several hundred dollar fine and community service. the other two were returned to duty for having turned in state's evidence. how can a community have any trust in the police when this exists and has not been addressed? >> lester spence, let's talk about it. >> that's it. in fact an argument can be made that you need to build a healthy distrust of police. in fact we think about it we haven't had a lot of conservative callers, but one thing conserve tiffatives are known for is a distrust and speptkepticism of government. they rarely apply it to policing in black communities. i think in this case, a healthy conservative -- i can't believe

i'm saying it out loud -- skepticism on the police is warranted. it's not just about individual officers, how we deal with individual officers, but that also deals with the police as an institution. that skepticism can cause us to say, you know what i don't think it's a good idea that we extend -- give police 300% more resources, when all they're doing is anti-black my ingpolicing. >> michael fletcher who writes for the baltimore post had a piece after the protests began in baltimore about how people in gray's neighborhood tell you it's the black officers who come down just as hard on them. >> there's an ice cube vote, black police showing inging off for the white cop. there are a number of african-american police officers who join the police to push back

against the blue line. race schismism is about the subject. i'm sorry. the object. it's about these black kids being policed. it's not adding more black police officers. we want black people to be employed, and that can be a good look. what we're talking about is systemic change. simply adding more black police officers isn't going to do a thing. >> kevin in maryland. law enforcement, kevin. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm a 22-year veteran of baltimore police department. lived there all of my life. i am a pastor now. i was on the front line when we were protesting and trying to quiet down the community in baltimore. what i would like to say is that the police officers that i've worked with and the neighborhoods that i worked for are good neighborhoods. good officers.

certainly, we do have some officers who are abusing their authority and abusing their power. but the citizens that i served in the predominantly african-american neighborhoods do not see policing or law enforcement as being occupying. it is the media that is portraying law enforcement with a black eye. because all across the country there are thousands of citizens who have been helped by law enforcement officers who love doing their job and love serving. there are a few, just as in c-span johns hopkins, politics education, there are a few people who just think that they can take advantage of the disenfranchised. so when we paint the picture of law enforcement, let's not paint it with a broad brush that says

all law enforcement is corrupt and evil. that's not the case. because i can give you thousands of people that i have dealt with in the inner city who love police. that's all i want to say. >> so some of my fraternity brothers are cops here in baltimore -- i'm sorry -- back home in baltimore, back home in detroit. i'm not -- a number of my radical colleagues are like, let's abolish the police. i'm not necessarily one of those. at the same time, i'm not one of the folk who just say that the police problem is a problem -- is a bad apple problem. i think that it's a combination of -- i think it's a public policy issue. so you take when government -- former governor o'malley was mayor of baltimore, and i think a four-year period he arrested more people than baltimore has. he made approximately 700,000 arrests, and baltimore has a

population of 640,000. those arrests were later found to be illegal. those arrests changed people's lives, people's orientation toward police in general. i mean yes there are some people who are interested in doing their job, interested in upholding the upholding and make it a good look. people like -- sorry, i'm on c-span c-span. ways that enhance our ability to live our lives. there's a whole set of public policies that basically incentivize police to perform poorly. then when you think about the law enforcement officers bill of rights that maryland has, when they are caught performing poorly, police, over 100 people died in police custody. it's very, very hard to indict them. you don't want a circumstance, even if everybody in -- even if

the vast majority of police officers are good folk. going back to the conservative sense of skepticism. the odds are, if you give an institution like that too much power, even good folk are going to go bad. >> lester spence is an associate professor of political science at johns ss hopkins university. you can follow him on twitter. thank you for your time this morning. coming up live here on c-span3 c-span3, a hearing on veterans health care and benefits, including the implementation and future of the veterans choice act. witnesses include deputy of veterans affairs sloan gibson and the acting president under secretary for health. as well as leaders from veteran service organizations. that'll be live starting at 2:45 this afternoon on c-span3. over in the u.s. senate today, work on trade promotion authority. it would subject agreements to congress for up or down votes.

the transatlantic trade agreement is being negotiated between the u.s. and other countries. senators will take a vote on that bill at 2:30 eastern today. you'll see that live on c-span2. up next x an event analyzing a new report issued by the congressional research service called the evolving congress. panel has highlighted how the legislative branch issues changed over the last century and the future of the u.s. congress. speakers including colleen, brookings scholar and bipartisan scholar. >> i can start? good morning. i think we're going to get going here. thank you all for coming. my name is john, the director of

the project. i'm here with a great collection of scholars on the u.s. congress. we're here with a number of hosts. we are a host. john sides who i will turn to soon, who is the president of the national capital area political science association, is also jointly hosting this event with us. we're here for a purpose, to celebrate and investigate the release of a series of essays on congress. that is entitled the evolving congress. now, many of you know the good work that crs does. for some of you, you may not see it as much because, of course, crs works very closely with the congress. it's there to help our senators and representatives, to advise them, give them background information. this is a document that is

publicly available. while -- i'll wave it up here -- it does not have the flashy cover, we will be talking about the movie rights, which you're negotiating soon. but could be found if you so chose, at the government printing office online. again, with a series of essays about the evolution of congress. how congress has changed in a number of ways. that's what we're going to be discussing today. i will do quick introductions of the panel. we certainly are going to talk amongst ourselves, but opening it up to you. in the audience we have an even greater wealth of knowledge about congress. let's begin. first, my co-moderator and co-host, john sides, who is if you read your bios not a professional staff member from the house foreign affairs committee. that's an rerror. is an associate professor of politics at george washington university. one of the founders and contributors of the monkey cage. political science blog with the

"washington post." and author of numerous pieces on campaigns and various attitudes towards institutions. i'm going to turn it to john shortly. to my left, colleen shogan is the deputy director of the congressional research service. she's an accomplished political science and score larholar and someone who worked on capitol hill. combining practical knowledge and also crs, as i say is the deputy director of the institution. one of the organizers of this collection. next to colleen is john the assistant director of government and finance convention. also a political scientist who has written, author of books like fundamentically icallyally flawed. defence of legislative politics. a textbook on congress congress in context.

to my left, my colleague at the bipartisan policy center, don, a resident scholar there as well as at the woodrow wilson institute. he's had a long history on capitol hill as the staff director of the house rules committee, and staffer on the house rules committee for many years. in the minority and a little in the majority. also ran the congress project at the wilson center for a number of years. and thinks and writes about congress as well including his book, congress and the people, deliberative democracy on trial. to sarah binder, who is both a scholar at the brookings institution, as well as professor at george washington university. expert on numerous things including the workings of the congress and confirmation process and other topics.

what we're going to do today i'm going to turn it to john. then we'll hear from our congressional research service representatives who will talk a little about the collection. we'll have reaction from don and sarah. we'll have discussion here and then turn it to you. john? >> thanks, very much john. pleasure to be here and we appreciate the support for this. it has been in washington d.c. over 30 years. it is one of many regional political science associations here in the united states. it represents not just washington but maryland and virginia, stretching even to west virginia and pennsylvania. one of the things that we're doing, and i think it's illustrated today, is to try to bring together the broader political science in this community, which includes not just those of us with phds, but people who have political science expertise and training and work in institutions like crs and other places.

this was a really neat opportunity for us to put together a group of people that i think brings a real wealth of expertise, scholarly and otherwise, to this subject. the second thing with this event was to draw attention to the important work that crs has done with this report. i think if you've followed congress even in the very casual sense it's not hard to find yourself looking at graphs that show lots of things changing. a rise in the use of filibuster. decline in the number of congressional staff. decline of the number of laws being passed. a rise in the amount of money being spent on congressional elections. there was a phrase in political science from roughly the mid 20th century that was the textbook congress that we used to have. basically, all the textbooks have been revised substantially since that point in time. now, what we have is a congress that is very different. a congress certainly the 50s, 60s, 70s, even of the 1990s. so we are very much in an era in which congress is evolving.

for better for worse. this is a really useful opportunity for us to reflect on how it's changed and to draw on the expertise crs has to bear. i'll turn to colleen to introduce the report. >> thank you. i want to thank the bipartisan policy center, the national capital area political science association and certainly the national press club today for hosting us to talk about the evolving congress. what i'm going to do is to talk about why we decided to write this committee print at this moment in time. as john said, crs has one mission, which is to serve congress. we assist members in all aspects of their policymaking and representational functions. because of this mission, we find ourselves on a daily basis often as you can imagine in the weeds and facing a lot of deadlines. that work is entirely

appropriate for crs because our unique mission to serve congress in its research functions, and for the research needs. the talented analysts and experts at crs also have the ability to look at the big picture. more specifically we ask this question, how has the institution of congress changed over time? the evolving congress committee print is our attempt to answer this difficult question. then the question becomes why would congress want us to gap grapple with that particular question? the main reason i think is because if you want to examine a political institution, it makes sense to understand why development, why change has taken place. there's a lot of pundits and some scholars out there who label congress who label the legislative branch right now, as dysfunctional or as broken. i think that comparing the

contemporary congress today and the law making function of what's going on right now on capitol hill to the congress 30 years ago, 40 years ago or 50 years ago without understanding fully how those representational and policymaking functions have changed does not provide a full answer to that question. in fact, it's problematic. so it comes to this. if the incentives and decision making structures have changed, as political scientists we know the institution and those who inhabit the institution will respond accordingly. the start dichotomy of a congress that functioned well in the good old days versus the contemporary congress that is supposedly failing i think, misses the larger picture. further more, it's helpful for members of congress to look at the institution with this perspective. it's also very helpful for them

if they want to understand the institution in a larger historical and political environment, to have easy to read accessible essays, to help them understand about the evolution of congress. i think some cynics would say that members of congress aren't interested in those types of inquirying today and learning about the development of the institution. both myself and john who will join me at the podium soon, we both know that's simply not correct. it's not a correct supposition to make. lastly, i think the evolving congress was also written because it helps fill the void present today in academic political science. i recently attended the midwest political science association conference in chicago. i was looking at the panels that were presented over the three days in chicago. you flip through the program and decide what you're going to attend. it seemed to me that there were very few panels addressing the

development and the history of institutions over time. i wasn't sure if it was just me looking at the program or not. i talked to my colleagues and friends at the conference. yes, everybody conquercurred that that was the case. i think the study of american politics has moved away from a focus on answering very difficult, complex, messy questions, such as, how and why does congress evolve. there are certainly notable exceptions to my very generalized statement, for sure. but american politics seems to be today much more interested in finding very neat answers using very sophisticated methodologies, to very small questions. i understand fully why this trend occurred in political science. however, it is shifted the focus of talented graduate students away from answering the most relevant and difficult questions

that can be answered by our discipline. let me be clear. everybody in this room and everybody who works in politics knows that difficult political questions are not answered by tightly defined models. in real politics causal arrows point in both directions. causal relationships are over determined. these can't be completely discarded by political scientists. you can't do whatever you want in research. it's not giving you a license to discard social science methodology. they have to be accounted for and death with by political scientists. it doesn't mean that analysis should not be attempted. legislators look to scholars for answers to the big questions such as identifying the pressures affecting the development and the institution in which they serve. crs, with smart analysts

trained largely in academia but steeped in the day to day workings of congress is uniquely positioned to answer these challenging inquiries about the future of representational democracy in the united states. so thank you and now i would like to be joined by john haskell, who was the person responsible for bringing this print to fruition. >> of course, i second what colleen said, and we appreciate the opportunity to discuss the committee print. not just with the distinguished group of panelists we have, but also we're eager to hear your questions. i do request that any criticisms of the print be directed to john and i'll defer to the organizers of the panel. our objective with the evolving congress was to provide

perspective optn the debates of the functioning of the institution. in other words, we wanted people to get the context right. in my view the authors of the print, there were 29 people involved in writing the print, all analysts at crs did an excellent job at that, getting the context right. a kickoff to speaking intelligently, discussing intelligently. potential reforms. i'm going to do a brief summary of what i think they achieved. i'm leaving out a lot. i think they made at least three key contributions. first of all, we reminded people in the print that high levels of partisanship in congress are more norm in history than the world war ii period of compromise and consensus that folks harken back to. as an aside i think it's amusing and interesting to note that much of the informed thinking in the '50s and '60s, the heart of the post war period criticizes the

dysfunctional system that people look back at now that shallnostalgically. as many of you know, the apsa in the 1950s, i think it's safe to say, advocated for something that might resemble parliamentary style or responsible party model. in any case, we can't wish away the way the party system has evolved and the way it is now. second, crs pointed out how members lives and work have changed not just to the evolution of the parties but also campaign financing pressures, technology, social changes and the housing market. these changes particularly relate to the representational side of members jobs, although they also have an impact on the members' legislative work. by the way those changes we

can't wish away either. last but not least, the evolving congress committee print makes throughout what might be an obvious by sometimes forgotten point that has already been said a couple of times already this morning. no political institution operates in a vacuum. congress is not a static institution. as much as any other institution, congress reflects and responds to historical, society and political dynamics. change and uncertainty are the only constants in congress. although i guess one could say that there's -- we could safely project out that congress's unpopularity is likely to continue. we don't take a position on that at crs, but i'm just suggesting that. even with respect to the hyperpartisan state of affairs that animates the bpc and other organizations and interests a lot of people, there will be changes even in that. whether hyperpartisanship

intensifies or lessens that's up for -- we'll find out. without taking a position though, i'd like to hypothesize on a plausible direction. that that change might take. i see that francis lee is here. i'm putting words in her mouth but she said, party leaders believe that compromising with the other party undercut efforts to maintain or retain congressional majorities. the majorities hang on a razor's edge in each electoral cycle. essential essentially, the incentive structure militates against exactly what it takes to legislate consistently and productively. another way to look at it is that the political balance sheet for members of congress weighs heavily in favor of scoring partisan political points over against compromise and legislating. the calculus will change in one direction or another. i think it's actually -- >> we're going to break away

from the last hour or so of this program. you can watch it on our website, c-span.org. takaoe you live to capitol hill for a hearing on veterans health care and benefits including the em implementation. witnesses include sloan gibson and the acting principle va deputy under secretary of health, as well as leaders from veteran service organizations. we're live now on capitol hill. here on c-span3.

again we're waiting for this hearing to get underway on

shrill about the capitol hill about the veterans benefit benefits. over in the senate, work on the trade authority, granting the president fast track authority to submit unamendable agreements to congress for up or down votes, that's the transpacific partnership tp and investment partnership, ttip. those trade agreements being associated between the u.s. and other countries. a procedural vote on the floor of the senate is going on right now. you can see it live on c-span2. the state senate to order. we have a vote on the floor, which should be over in the next

ten minutes. ranking member, i passed him going in as i was leaving. he was supposedly on the way. i'll tell you what i want you to know about the opening statement. i'll start with the testimony from sloan gibson if he's not here. if he is here, we'll hear from the ranking member. okay? make the note his staff said it was okay. i hate to get people in trouble. i want to take a little extra time on this anyway because this is an important hearing for the va. it's an important hearing for us. last year, culminating with august's passage of the veterans choice bill in the united states house and senate, the v.a., every morning i got up it was bad news. veterans buydying in phoenix, problems in raleigh problems in denver and orlando. answers that were incomplete at best. for understandable reasons because the personnel at the v.a., a lot were knew. the first person to recognize that robert mcdonald had just gotten there.

the secretary had just left a year earlier. another secretary was gone as well. there was a transition. in my way of thinking, there is no excuse for the plethora of problems the v.a. was having and the transition should have been much better but it wasn't. the v.a. demonstrated to me in the last hearing we had on veterans choice is they were finally listening. all i was hearing on the 40 mile rule in terms of how far the car drives was nothing but stone walls until sloan walked into the hearing, reached in and pulled out a new rule in the 40 mile rule to make the number of miles driven be the governing factor. everybody on this committee appreciated with and agreed with and was happy. i believe we were satisfactorily working toward the definition being defined statutoryilystatutorily. i want to commend sloan and the others on the work for that. the vsos in the room i know

some don't like the veterans choice bill because they fear it will be a replacement for the veterans administration. you're not going to replace the veterans administration. it will always be there. but you can empower the veterans administration. you can empower the veteran by seeing to it they've accessed the world class care in close proximity to where they live, affordable and management amount, whether from the private sector or the government. if anything, this is going to sound harsh but it should, the v.a. has demonstrated it can't build a hospital by running over 100% 200%, 300% or 400%. we can have private sector help be given to veterans without building a hospital, saving the v.a. money the united states money and giving the veterans better services. what we need is a partnership between the private sector and the veterans administration to deliver the ultimate goal which is to see to it that the veterans get world class health care and get it in a timely way.

that is my only goal. however we do it the most important way is to get it done. veterans choice is the way to do it. we had bumps since november 1st, when veterans choice was rolled out. i met with contractors, and i appreciate those meetings and the confidence and the job they can do. i appreciate the fact that the v.a. is cooperating now in ways it may not have been cooperating before. to see to it that the two are working seamlessly. if they can't work seamlessly, it won't work. the private contractors have to understand their contractors are not just subject to their performance for the veterans but their willingness to work with the v.a. the v.a. needs to understand that the veterans health care drives the decision and nothing else. there are some in v.a. health care who don't like the non-v.a. health care provisions anyway. i understand but they're going to have to get used to it. we're not going to put a square peg in a round hole. we're going to match it and make this work for the veterans. today's hearing is important to

hear from the contractors and v.a. understanding as we talk today the first person we're here to serve is the veteran. they risked their lives for us to be here today and we can expect than to see to it they get the world class health care. with that said i'll turn to the ranking member senator blumenthal. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for having this hearing. thank you to each of you for being here today. we went through a terrible tragedy and debacle not long ago that prompted the veterans access choice and accountability act. which sought to relieve some of the problems and underlying issues. including deceit and fraud. that caused delays and misreporting within the v.a. system. the discussion today is centered on the remaining flaws and

failings in the v.a. health care program, particularly the veterans choice program. and as much as this program was established to deal with the immediate crisis of access to care in the short-term with an investment of $10 billion and $5 billion to provide the choice program, there is still a lot to be done. the program was just a down payment, just a first step. and i believe that it has to be improved even further. there remains for example, underutilization of the choice program. the reasons for it have yet to be determined or discovered. the underutilization may well be the result of a failure to

sufficiently publicize or make aware veterans. it may be the result of other more fundamental issues within the program. and i share the chairman's view that changing the 40-mile rule was certainly a welcome step. the most important fact that brings us here today, and we can't lose sight of it is that we still have not solved the crisis that led to this program. veterans still wait too long for appointments. health care delayed in effect is health care denied for veterans who suffer from health care conditions that require immediate treatment. the v.a.'s most recent data release of may 1st indicates that waitlist numbers have increased significantly since the same time last month.

in its april 2nd release 377,300 veterans had appointments scheduled in more than 30 days from the preferred date. as of the may 1st release, that number had jumped by approximately 56,000 to nearly 434,000. anybody who believes that this crisis has been solved is living in an alternate universe. it's not the universe that our veterans inhabit. these delays have real life consequences they cannot be tolerated. too many veterans are waiting too long for appointments. and i'm glad that the v.a. is still -- is finally going out to the facilities with long wait times trying to determine why exactly they are not utilizing -v.a. care options. and i noticed a lot of the

testimony today talks about further changes to the geographic criteria. every time there's an additional change of the 40-mile criteria, more of the 10 billion allocated for the choice program will be devoted to paying for access. but this money is due to our veterans because better health care is due to them. i'll close on this note. we still do not have accountability. for the delays. the inspector general still has not completed his work. we still have no reports on action. and i mean effective disciplinary action for the delays that were intolerable and still unacceptable. accountability is absolutely necessary. and i believe that the inspector general needs more resources to effectively implement accountability.

i will continue to press for the reports and for action by the inspector general that will send a message to the health care apparatus. and professionals in the v.a. that we really mean what we say when accountability is our watch work. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you senator blumenthal. our first panel made up of the following individuals. first of all, the honorable sloan gibson we've become good friends the last four or five months. i want to thank him publicly for his willingness to take on some tough situations. he inherited some tough situations. and i appreciate the fact that he's approaching in a very positive way. and we've got a few more tough ones coming up. i hope you'll maintain that attitude all the way through. but i'm very appreciative of the cooperation. and just to reiterate for those present, including the press

secretary mcdonnell and undersecretary gibson invited the ranking member and myself, and the house chairman to the v.a. for what they call a stand-up, for which we did in february. we've been invited to come back in june. i believe the room is for the entire committee if they want to come. i think i heard that this morning. and as many members i want to make sure they're invited to see the way in which the v.a. is benchmarking itself against itself, so to speak. to try and find ways to find better ways to do things and flush out the problems in advance and get them solved earlier. and we're looking forward to doing that. and we've got big problems to solve in the next three months. our willingness to work together. we appreciate you being here to assist sloan in any way he needs it. i'm sure if he gets a tough question, he'll defer it to you, and we appreciate you being here very much. our providers, mr. mcintyre. i enjoyed our meeting earlier this week the insights you gave me. and i appreciate your being here today. and we look forward to hearing

first from sloan gibson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. chairman isaacson, and blumenthal, members of the committee. we're committed to making the choice program work and to providing veterans timely and geographically accessible quality care using care in the community whenever necessary. i'll talk shortly about what we're doing and the help that we need from congress to make all that happen. first, i want to talk very briefly about access to care. most mornings at 9:00 a.m. for the last year, senior leaders from across the department gathered to focus on improving veterans' access to care. we've concentrated on key drivers of access, including increasing medical center staffing by 11,000. adding space boosting care during extended hours and weekends by 10% and increasing staff productivity. the result 2.5 million more completed appointments inside v.a. this year than last.

relative value units measure of care delivered across the used to measure care deliver across the industry are also up 9%. another focus area for us in improving access has been increasing the use of care in the community. in 2014 v.a. issued 2.1 million authorizations for care in the community, which resulted in more than 16 million appointments completed. year-to-date in 2015, authorizations are up 44%. which will result in millions of additional appointments for community care. veterans are responding to this improved access. more are enrolling for care at v.a. among those who are enrolled, more are actually using v.a. for care. and those using v.a. are increasing their reliance on v.a. care. this is especially the case where we've been investing most

heavily due to long wait times. in phoenix for example where we've added hundreds of additional staff, we've increased completed appointments 20% this year. i should also note that we have increased care in the community 127% in phoenix over the last year largely due to the extraordinary effort of triwest in that particular community. but wait times aren't down. wait times aren't down in phoenix because of the surge in additional veterans coming to v.a. for care and the veterans that are there. asking for more care from v.a. since we opened the center less than two years ago. in denver, opened outpatient clinics and added more than 500 additional staff. veterans are using v.a. for care there are up 9%. in fayetteville, north carolina where wait times continue to be a problem, we've increased appointments 13% relative value

units up 19%. and veterans using v.a. for care are up 10%. and in all of these lowecations, dramatic increases of care in the community. as mcdonnell has testified during budget hearings the primary reason for increasing demand for an aging veteran population increases in the number of medical conditions veterans claim and arise in the degree of disability. and as we can see here improving access to care. at the outset, community care is critical for improving access. we use it and have for years. in programs other than choice. in fiscal year '13, we spent approximately $7.9 billion on community care other than choice. in 2014, that rose to $8.5 billion. and we estimate that at the current rate of growth, v.a. will spend $9.9 billion, including choice a 25% increase in c