yours. perhaps from a north korean launch at some point that they want to at least put us under threat, and mr. chairman, some of the discussions about price, let me just say, a robust yet limited constellation would cost $26 billion over 20 years or $1.3 billion per year. and according to hudson study as well as the ida study there are a variety of ways to get the cost down further if we get serious and invest in it. and it should be noted this is a plan for research in a space test bed not to build the system at this time. and it is always wise for us to consider looking ahead. and finally, before i give a little clearer picture of this, mr. chairman, i don't think there is anything in this amendment that directly conflicted with admiral searing's perspective. we don't know what we can and can't do and this is a means of ascertaining it and trying to

find great erin sight into it. no one respected the admiral than i do. he is caught many times between the macinations of congress where we force him to take from critical systems to pay for other critical systems and i think he would like to avoid that conundrum. but our near peer adversaries are near to tackling our space assets. this is no longer academic and the question before this committee is what shall we do about it. these adversaries have taken note of the u.s. space dominance provides our military and observed the defenseless nature of our space assets. if we are to abandon the commanding heights of future battlefields without a fight, it will be our military who suffers the consequences as they find themselves cut off and fighting blind in an environment far from home. china has clearly demonstrated

anti-satellite missile capability and proven it could reach from orbit to low earth orbit. russia has also tested a direct assent a sat and north korea and iran have both launched satellites into orbit. iran just tested their space launch vehicle this week. the threat is outpacing our technology. a recent hudson institute reportco authored by over a dozen leaders in the u.s. missile defense and armed control and space policy and including two former directors of the ndaond nor come commanders said this, quote, a space base layer will dramatically augment u.s. terrestrially and sea based -- and reduce demands on current systems and provide the united states with optimal advantage point for destroying enemy missiles. most significantly a space base layer provides the ability to destroy many missiles during the

boost phase while the missile is still over enemy territory. mr. chairman, there are no trees prohibiting space base interceptors and concerns about debris are overstated and any missile destroyed in boost space cannot exist orb atal debris. russia and china are signaling their strategy and working to assault our space strategy and exploiting the gaps in our network. iran and north korea, though less advanced, are much less predictable and continue to work to enhance the ballistic missile capabilities. if we wait for the threat to mature and materialize the cost to rapidly develop and ability to counter it will grow exponentially. this amendment will lay the groundwork for future space base layer of our missile defense. in the face of growing threats, proposed by unstable actors, and increasingly belligerent great powers, mr. chairman, it is our

moral duty to oppose them on every front and now, sir, that includes space. and with that, i would yield back. >> mr. garamendi. >> first of all, i want to commend the chairman, the ranking member and the other members of the committee and staff for an extraordinary sub-committee that deals with of the most advanced technologies and most dangerous weapons systems ever created by human beings. the ranking member in his opening remarks spoke to the full and beyond funding for all elements under the authority of this committee. the issue at hand, i think, is a bit of a misrepresentation of two problems. one problem is the satellite defense systems or lack of

defense of our satellites. the other is the missile defense. they are quite different. although both might be in space. there is a -- two types of programs that are now underway and moving forward. one is at ground base missile defense system and another is another system that would use directed energy. neither of those are what is contemplated by the amendment that the sub-committee adopted, which deals with a space-based missile. not satellite, but missile defense system. we've been advised by those who are knowledgeable, who spend their entire working day and career on this matter suggesting to us, not suggesting but very clearly stating that it is not appropriate to spend money on a space-based system. the other two systems are in the budget, or in the national defense authorization act,

undoubtedly be in the appropriations should that ever happen and those should move forward. but this one is not ready now. there is a report that will be due soon, that may further enlighten us. in any case, we should be focusing on the other two systems that are underway, one in directed energy and the other is the ground base missile defense system. so with that, i would support mr. larsson's amendment and allow us to spend what is a vast amount of resources on things that are here and now. i yield back. >> there is no further -- gentleman from rhode island. >> mr. chairman, i yield my time to the gentleman from washington, mr. larsson. >> mr. chairman, thank you. and thank you very much. and i would just note that in this conversation we're having here, there was, in fact, a recognition that this amendment

has an additional cost beyond what we have otherwise -- what we are otherwise debating today for the overall budget. and yet, not accounted for and how to pay for that. i am not -- not certain under committee rules whether that is a violation of committee rules, but i would -- i would address that general question to the full committee and the staff and the chairman and ranking member as we move along. the second point, i just want to re-emphasize is that there is a study that exists that we approved last year to do a -- for the mda to report back to us within a year about space-based interceptors. not a tuddy i supported but it is, in fact, the law. and that year is not up. and so we are jumping ahead of ourselves. we are presuming an answer to the study by allowing the

existing version of the bill to move forward. i merely am suggesting that we remove what the sub-committee did a few weeks ago and let the study move forward. and finally, i would also note that there are actions mda and our entire department of defense could take otherwise to address the serious concerns that many of us share and have about space and about missile defense. issues perhaps we cannot get into here and we cannot get into -- into the sub-committee. but it is not as if this is the answer and the only answer to addressing the issues that we face with regards to missile defense. finally, mr. chairman, and mr. lanceman, i would note that --

that my amendment, despite perhaps the -- the unintended implication of some statements made, does not mean the united states -- this committee or this amendment is giving up any fight. any fight with regards to any presumed, current or featuet -- featuren yemi and -- enemy and i want to make that note because i'm tired of hearing that from folks on this commity when it is made at times. we are all in this together and believe we are sincerely doing the right thing and this amendment does not give up any fight being made against current presumed or future enemies. with that, i yield my time back to you. >> thank you. >> gentleman yields back. let me just say, with regard to the gentleman's question about

spending. there may well be instances where we adopt amendments that if carried out may have future spending implications but the request before the committee under the committee rules is does this direct specific spending and so i think certainly it is an argument one can use as far as the effect it has on the future but it does not violate committee rules at this point. gentleman from colorado. >> mr. chairman, you answered my question. i was just going to point out that the last time a study like this was done it was roughly $5 million. the total budget is $10 billion. so for that reason also i don't think there is any violation of the rule here. and the remainder of my time i'll give to the gentlemen from arizona if he wants to use it. >> i'll be brief here in closing. points of sbi argue that deploying a space-based missile defense layer will either provoke an arm's race or be

outrageously expensive or somehow is unnecessary. but it is important to keep in mind that our near peer enemies are investing heavily in systems which exploit our gaps in vulnerabilities. they don't challenge our strengths. they exploit our vulnerabilities. and we must close those gaps in our capabilities in order to deter future investment on their part. and for those who also argue that the technology is out of reach and remains cost-prohibitive, both a 2011 ida study and this forthcoming report by the hudson institute dispel those charges. mr. chairman, it is important given the additional dimension for battle space that the space frontier offers us to be competitive in that area for the sake of keeping the arsenal of freedom the strongest in the world and with that, i would yield back. >> the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from washington, mr. larsson.

those in favor of the amount say aye. those opposed say no. and the chair, the noes have it. the noes have it. and i would like a recorded vote. >> and the recorded vote which will be postponed. now we'll look to the gentleman from alabama for the purpose of offering an amendment. >> mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent to call up on block package consisting of the amendments worked with a minority. >> without objection, the staff will please distribute the enbank package. >> without objection, the amendments are considered read

an the gentleman from alabama is recognized for five minutes. >> the enbank package number one is comprised of amendment number 23, $10 million of dod support to the executive branch of the president until the president submitted an updated plan on nuclear proliferation. amendment number 113 r 1 by mr. mcarthur and step onic regarding development testing and evaluation between the u.s. and israel. amendment number 143 r 1 by mr. bridenstine regarding direction to the s.e.c. deaf to provide a briefing on hosted pay loads. amendment number 186 r 1 by mr. rogers which would provide the authority to mitigate unmanned threats to the d.o.d. nuclear missile defense and national security space assets. and amendment number 250 r 1 requiring a requirement for

semiannual notification of missile defense test results changes and costs. amendment number 302 regarding the modification to the strategic foiss mark to change the lead combat and command to conduct the briefing on [ inaudible ] from north com to strat com. amendment number 034 r 2 regarding additional radar improvement requirements an a tippy two radar assets in hawaii and amendment number 183 r regarding briefing on the use of excess icbm motors in computer space launch activities. >> is there further discussion on then blank package? if not, the question -- the question on the amendments offered by alabama. all in favor say aye. the ayes have it and the amendments are adopted. further amendments, gentleman

from rhode island. >> thank you mr. chairman. i have an amendment at the desk. >> if the staff would please distribute the amendment. >> the house armed services committee is considering the 2017 defense programs and policy bill today. members are going over sub-committee reports and debating and voting on amendments to the bill. they've been working for over eight hours so far today. and not including breaks and plan to meet well into the night. as this mark-up continues, live coverage moves now to our companion network c-span 2. c-span washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, florida congressman and republican david jolly, the

member of the appropriations committee about issues before the house, including his legislation, the stop act. to federally prohibit members for calling for the solicitation of contributions for elections. and then illinois congresswoman jan schickowski will discover the older americans act that provides a series of services to assist the elderly. be sure to watch c-span washington journal beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on thursday morning. obama administration officials journalists and business leaders discuss the economic consequences of the criminal justice system at a forum hosted by the white house this week. a panel discussed a report on mass incarceration. this is about an hour and 45 minutes.

good morning. thank you all so much for being here today and welcome to the white house. my name is stephanie young and i work in the office of public engagement and we're excited to have you here today for this very important discussion. a couple of housekeeping items. for those of you looking to use wi-fi, it is white house, capital w. and cap hall h. 2015 and two exclamation marks. that is capital w. white house, capital h., 2015 and two exclamation marks. and as you are participating on social media use our #criminal justice reform. with that i'll turn it over to the senior adviser to the president, valerie jarrett. [ applause ] >> thank you, stephanie and good morning, everyone. welcome to the white house. we are delighted to have you here for what we believe will be a historic week focusing on

re-entry around our country. i want to begin by recognizing our partners here today, the brennan center for justice as well as the american enterprise institute. good examples of how broad the political spectrum is focusing on this issue from the progressive to the conservative, all around the country people understand the need generally for criminal justice reform and specifically to make sure that the 600,000 people each year who return back to our communities can do so in a way that will allow them to become members of society, law-abiding members of society and eliminate the enormous recidivism rate we're seeing around the country. the president this week in his weekly address said it best, he said we know that simply locking people up doesn't make communities safer. it doesn't deal with the conditions that led people to go into criminal activity in the first place.

and obviously, we know that is the case. and to the private sector folks who were here today, you realize the impact that our current criminal justice system is having on our economy and we'll be able to drill down into those numbers a bit in the course of our conversation. throughout the week, the administration is sponsoring activities all across the country. the department of justice through the bureau of prisons and the u.s. attorneys is going to have 550 events all throughout the country focusing on what we could do to help people and to raise awareness on the ground from a whole range of stakeholders so that when they are released, they have the skills they need and they are able to get a job and again be law-abiding members of our society. you'll -- we have announcements that coming from the department of housing and urban development and the department of health and hume ab services, and the department of veteran affairs, the department of -- right here in the white house, for as you will hear from jason furman from

the council on economic advisers. all of the agencies are focusing on what we could do on this important issue of re-entry. recentry fits into the broader picture of criminal justice reform and last summer the president gave a speech where he focused on three buckets. the community, the courthouse and the cell block. so we have a collective responsibility and many of the advocates that are here together together with the private sector have been focusing on improving our communities and everything from early childhood education to breaking the school to prison pipeline to breaking the sexual assault to prison pipeline to ensuring that every child gets that fair shot. the president's my brother's keeper initiative is another way of helping other boys and men of color to get that shot and follow a life free from crime. so we have to improve our community. we also have to improve the courtroom. and you are seeing there is bipartisan support right now for federal legislation that would reduce the mandatory minimums

for nonviolent drug offenders that would reinvest back into the system so while people are incarcerated, they have everything from job training to counseling to substance abuse counseling, whatever they need to be able to return to society. we know that right now over half of the folks who are incarcerated have some sort of mental illness. so the best objective of course is to treat them early as soon as it is diagnosed but certainly while their incarcerated, part of our responsibility is to help them again so that they have whatever they need to be able to re-enter society. we're also focusing on what happens in the cell block. that is the reinvestment. that is ensuring that job opportunities are available. a couple of weeks ago here at the white house we announced our fair pledge business pledge that really generated enormous support from the business community. several months ago when we went around to business leaders and said we know that you're hiring people who have been

incarcerated, would you willing to come forward and talk about it and we were met with a deafening silence. and many companies did it -- they simply didn't want to talk about it. but over the course of the last few months we've made progress when we launched this fair pledge. we had nine companies. and big name companies who agreed to come forward and everyone from pepsi cola to coca-cola to koch industries to facebook, et cetera. and now we are up to 90 countries and we're asking people who are interested and people who employ folks across our country and recognizing that they are better off if they have a job as opposed to not having a job, that will make our community safer and it will certainly improve our economy to go on the white house website under fair chance hiring and sign up for this pledge. it sends a very important message about who we are as a people. part of what is also extraordinary is a broad base of support from faith leaders to the business community, to

advocates to think tanks from all political spectrums, recognizing that if we reform our criminal justice system, our communities will be safer and our economy will be stronger. we have -- we spent $80 billion a year -- $80 billion a year on criminal justice -- on mass incarceration. we have 5% of the world's population, yet 25% of the world's prisoners. which is a stark statistic for me was to know that since 1985, the number of women who are incarcerated has gone up by 400%. and as you hear from jason later, for children who have a father who is incarcerated, there is a 40% greater chance they are in pofrsy. and so the statistics are clear and what we need now is to continue to build on the momentumment and at the federal and the state level as well.

occupational licenses are regulated at state level and there are many states that just have blanket prohibitions against anyone incarcerated for a felony to get a license. 40% of our jobs require some sort of a license. and again, it is great work that jason did earlier in the year demonstrating the fact if we were to change those state requirements and tailer the occupational license actually appropriately by reviewing it, then we will be able to imply -- employ so many more people. so a good example is people who are incarcerated are often taught how to be barbers. you need a license to be a barber. so asking our states to take a hard look at how we are licensing is another important step. along the same lines today, the attorney general loretta lynch will be visiting a prison in philadelphia and sending a letter to our nation's governors asking them to provide state i.d. to people when they are released immediately. that is a first step toward being able to get a job. so there is so much we can do if

we work together and i guess i just want to close by saying that i do feel we are at a unique moment right now. the nation is focusing on this issue in a way that it hasn't really before. with the number of people who -- 2.2 million people who are incarcerated and the 70 million who have interacted with the criminal justice system, it touches every community in america. and it used to be a topic that we just try to brush under the carpet and ignore and from the data we've seen and from the human toll that we've observed, that is unsustainable. and so with your help, we actually believe we can make great change. so far that i thank you and would you like for you to welcome arthur brooks who are is the president of aei who will come up and give a few remarks. thank you very much, everybody. [ applause ] >> thank so much, valerie. what an honor it is for me and

my colleagues from aei to be here and participate in this event. thank you to the white house for hosting and the brennan center for being involve the with this as well. aei is a think tank in washington and my colleague are dedicated to human dignity and human potential. and there are relatively few subjects that scream out more than what is on hand here today. there are going to be a lot of facts you're hearing from the panel. i'll ask you to consider three. the first is that only a third of america's incarcerated have any access to vocational or educational programs while in prison. thus leaving them entirely ub prepared for life after prison. the fact is that about half of the incarcerated are functionally ill litter sat. the third follows from the first two facts is that 60% to 70% of all parolies end up back in prison within the first three years after being released. now as jason furman and doug

holtz-eakin spointed out and will talk about here today, our society pays an enormous material price for this. it creates an enormous amount of economic inefficiency. now as much as it pains me as an economist to admit it, however, this really isn't about the money. this is about the lives that we're throwing away. i want to take a few minutes here at the outset to remind myself and all of us that the economic case for reform is really just a proxy for something that is much deeper that we're talking about here today. my colleagues and i at aei are working with the best nonprofits in the country that have a visionary notion of how to use human lives, how to integrate our society better along all different strata of where people are, whether they are in cars rated or free or educated or not. and we've been working lately with a group in new york city called the dough fund. some of you may have heard it.

it specializes in men who have all of the strikes against them. they are homeless, they've been incarcerated mostly, they've been addicted to substances in the main and abandoned their families, they are not working. what does it do with these guys? it helps them put their lives back together by helping them to understand that our society needs them and needs their work. this is a subversive and radical concept. the first time i met men from this organization, i was in new york city and i met a man by the name of richard who had been in prison for 22 years since he was 18 years old. and he was working for the first time. about a year after being released, hes would working for a -- he was working for a low wage, a job that some people here in washington, d.c. might call a dead end job. he wouldn't have considered it such. he was working for an exterminator agency and i asked how his life was going and he demonstrated by showing me an

iphone on -- and the first one he ever owned an that is not the secret of happiness but it is pretty cool. and he said read this e-mail from my boss. it says, emergency bed bug job, east 65th street, i need you now. i said, so? he said, read it again. it says i need you now. nobody in my life has ever said those words to me before. when we hear today about the economic cost of mass incarceration, remember that that is a proxy for not needing people. what do we need to do? not throw away money? no, we need to not flthrow away people. that is what we're all about. what can we do to need the people who commit crimes and are from prison. that is the answer we're dedicated to in the next year as we work on inmate education and re-entry programs. that is a question that i hope

we'll begin to answer today. and by the way, one more thing. before i close. i think that we're looking -- i think many of us are looking for a way to bring ideological components together, there is a deep problem with polarization that is troubling every person in this room. what better way than to bring people together than to look at those at the periphery of our society and say what can we do together to need them. this today could be the beginning of needing every citizen in our society, including those who have been in principle and to bring ourselves together as a result of it, no matter where we sit on the political spectrum. thank you for the opportunity to change this debate in this country and for your hard work and interest in this topic and it is an honor to be part of this effort. [ applause ] thank you so much.

i'm michael waldman. i'm the president of the brennan center for justice at nyu school of law. we are thrilled to be part of this event, to be co-hosting with the american enterprise institute and to be here with all of you in the white house. to learn from and understand this significant new report and this significant new dialogue about the economic costs of this very human problem. first of all, i want to thank and acknowledge arthur brooks for his remarks and for the creativity that he brings to public policy. those of us who read his dialog dialogu dialogues in the new york times and elsewhere are glad to be doing this together. and want to thank valerie jarrett for her powerful voice and passion that she has brought to this issue and that the entire administration has brought to this vexing issue. something that, in a moment of

polarization and division and disfunction, has united communities from across the political spectrum and we're very grateful again to be part of this -- this discrete aspect of it. we want to thank and acknowledge jason furman and the council ever economic advisers who have done path-breaking work on this. and i want to thank my colleagues at the brennan center for justice, including several board members, tom jordy and emily spitzer and the members of our economic advisery board, some of whom you'll be hearing from shortly. as we all know and as you've heard, this is a singular moment in one of the most challenging issues facing our country and that has faced our country for years. this is a topic, of course, that has been at the center of american history, at the center of our concerns but in so many ways the magnitude of the

problem has been hiding in plain sight. this is one of those issues where the aggregate statistics in some ways can have a punch in the gut impact greater than anything else. the fact that we have 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prison population is not only wrong, it is shocking. we all know there are costs to that phenomenon -- social, moral, racial and economic. we know as well that we're having this conversation at a time when crime is down dramatically over where it had been. a fact that creates the opening for us to have a reason and creative assessment of what we ought to do. and we know that the level of incarceration and

over-criminalization is simply not necessary to keep our streets safe and keep our communities safe. one of the studies that the brennan center for justice did last year assessed the impact of mass incarceration on public safety and found that it had very little to no impact on keeping our streets safe at this moment in time. it's also a singular moment because of the remarkable coming together across communities, across ideological perspectives across partisan perspectives around this issue. we'll hear from business leaders, from some of the top economic thinkers and a conversation like this could be replicated in rooms across the country. i can't think of any other issue on which i've ever worked where there is this much of a genuine seeking of common ground. it is not merely that there are two sides and they each give up something and they find themselves perhaps to their own

astonishment in the same place. but people are coming to this with similar views and similar goals. each because of their own core aspirations. it is striking to me that aei, which is renowned as a pre-enterprise-oriented institution and think-tank, has placed at the center of its thinking about this, the very human -- the human stories and the human narratives. and i was struck also by the concept of human dignity. the bennan center for justice is 20 years old. it was started by the clerks and family of the late supreme court justice william brennan, we're affiliated with nyu school of law. and while we don't take our work from the specifics of his opinions, we take our values from his notion that at the heart of the law was, as he put it, the concept of human dignity. and we have found in working on

this issue of mass incarceration that the rigor and the impact of economic analysis is matchless. three years ago, we focused our criminal justice work under the leadership of my colleague machete, who you are hearing from on mass incarceration and understanding that bringing the tools of economics and of the economics profession was something we could help with. and we believe that there are measurable costs and benefits. we believe that there are tremendous and often unexamined social negative consequences from the current system and we believe that the very financial incentives built into budgeting and the entire governmental system that steered us off toward where we are now could help steer us with better foresight away toward a wiser policy. we have launched -- and this is actually the first public event to -- to utilize their generous

services. we've launched an economic advisory board of the country's top economists, including folks you're hearing from today. larry somers, professor joseph stig let, dean laura tyson and glenn lori and a whole bunch of others from a whole array of perspectives helping us to understand and kick the tires on our work to make sure that it meets the top rigorous standards as we meld economic analysis with core legal analysis. because of that focus, we're thrilled to be able to be part of this event. this report you're about to hear about is really a landmark. it is rock solid. it brings together the top minds at the cea around something that is as important as m 1 and m 2 or anything else they might be focusing on. and i am delighted to introduce to you, to talk about the new

report, dr. jason furman. as you know, he is the chair of the council of economic advisers, one of the leading public economists in the country. before this, i should know, he, among other things, headed the hamilton project, proving he was precious beyond words in understanding how cool alexander hamilton could be to a wide audience. so dr. jason furman. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you for that introduction, michael. president truman was reported to have been frustrated with his economic team because every time he asked them for advice on something, rather than telling him something clear and direct, they would tell him, well on the one hand, and then they would say on the other hand and he wanted to get himself a

one-handed economic adviser. the topic we're discussing today is one that really lends itself to a one-handed economic adviser. because as our team, led by cea member sandy black and engineera palma emily wiseberg and gabe scheffler put together this report, the research on this is real c really clear, it is really consistent. it goes across party lines as we heard a little bit in the opening and as we'll hear on the panel. and the changes that we've seen in policy over the last decades that led to the mass incarceration that led to the -- the increasing difficulty of reincorporating people in the workforce wasn't because of some set of studies or research or analysis done by economist or lawyers or criminologists, it was for other reasons. and using that evidence, that

research, can help us point in a better direction. now we don't have all of the answers on this topic, like many other topics. but we do have a lot of them. and the issue is to put them in place at the federal level and also encouraging a conversation at the state and local level. we put out a 79-page report. i'll take you through some of the highlights of it very quickly. and my goal in doing this is not only to summarize the report, but to take what was a really morally and uplifting set of comments by arthur brooks and prove that economists really are not for the most part morally uplifting and elevating. but can show you lots of numbers. so begin with the fact that we've heard many times before, the incarceration rate grew more than 220% between 1980 and 2014. it grew at the federal, state and local level.

total spending on incarceration is over $80 billion a year. and in fact, there are 11 states that spent more on corrections than on higher education. if you look at us in comparison to other countries, the united states is second -- if the next chart, the united states is second in the world in incarceration rate. second to the seychelles. so every country has a lower on average one fourth what the incarceration rate is in the united states. this big increase in the incarceration has happened, as you could see in the next slide, despite a substantial decline in the crime rates, with the violent crime rate falling 39% and the property crime rate falling 52%. one of the exercises we go through in the report is we say,

what if criminal justice policies had remained the same-sex. they hadn't changed. and you just saw this evolution in crime rates, what would have happened to the incarceration rate? the answer at the state level is the incarceration rate would have fallen by 7%. instead is rose by 125%. and at the federal level, the incarceration rate rose much faster given the decline in crime. so the question is what happened? just an immediate in accounting for the incarceration, not delving into the actual causes but the pure accounting exercise, it is not that there is more crimes, it's that there is greater severity of sentencing, and increased enforcement. between 1984 and 2004, nearly all crimes experienced a substantial increase in time

served. and time served for drug offenses in federal prisons more than doubled over the last two decades. at the same time, arrests have come down with the decline in crime. but very couldn't come down as much. the arrest rate has risen. and that has also contributed to this increase in incarceration. and once again, drugs has played a big role, with drug arrest rates increasing by over 90% over this period. the question then is what caused this decline in crime. and there is a lot of debate among economists exactly what it was. the one thing that pretty much all of the evidence agrees on is what it wasn't and that was the increase in incarceration. first of all, the evidence is that, like so much in economics, there is declining benefits to

additional incarceration. you're getting increasingly less violent, less dangerous people as you expand incarceration so that has less of an impact on crime and you are keeping people in prison for longer after the point -- the ages where they are more likely to commit further crimes. when you look at studies, they find that longer sentence lengths, which is a big cause of the increase in incarceration, play -- has little deterrent effect on offenders. one recent paper found that a 10% increase in sentence length corresponds to somewhere between a zero and 0.5% decrease in juvenile arrest rates. infact, incarceration can have the opposite effect, which is that longer spells of incarceration, and in this case the study finds each additional year of incarceration can lead to an average increase in future

offending of 4% to 7 percentage points. as i said, there isn't a single agreed upon cause in the reduction in crime but demographic changes and improving economic conditions an changes in policing tactics are three of the theories that people have. the impact of mass incarceration is not spread evenly across the population. although blacks and hispanics represent approximately 30% of the population, they comprise over 50% of the incarcerated population. the incarcerate for blacks dwarfed the rate of other groups, 3.5 times larger than that for whites. and a large body of researchers tried to look carefully at the causal role that race plays in this and finds that for similar offenses, blacks and hispanics are more likely to be stopped

and searched, arrested, convicted and sentenced to harsh erpenalities. for example, even controlling for arrest defendant characteristics, prosecutors are 75% por likely to charge black defendants with offenses that carry mandatory minimums. interactions with the criminal justice system are dallas disproportionately concentrated between poor individuals and those with high rates of mental illness and substance abuse. this all has substantial consequences that arthur and valerie both spoke to in their comments. one piece of evidence is just the interview call-back rate for people with criminal records is lower than without criminal records and it is much lower for blacks with criminal records

than it is for whites with criminal records. criminal sanctions can also have negative consequences for a range of factors like health, debt, transportation, housing and food security. and the statistic that valerie was so struck by, the probability of the family in poverty increases by nearly 40% while a father is incarcerated. the fact that tens of millions of americans have a record means this is applying to a larger and larger fraction of our population over time. and playing a role in a range of the economic challenges we face, including the long-term decline in the labor force participation rate. it is important to understand, it is not just the criminal justice system that has costs. crime also has a very substantial cost. it produces direct damages to

property and medical costs. pain, suffering, fear, reduced quality and loss of life and it affects some of our poorest communities disproportionately. economists trying to estimate the social cost of crime have a range of estimates, but a reasonable estimate of the mean or median is about $300 billion a year. this is something that is serious and important. the question, though, is what are we going to do to reduce this? what is the most cost-effective, the most absolutely effective way to do it. and a range of tuddies that we surveyed and we tried to look at high-quality studies, most of these peer reviewed in economics and other journals, find that a minority of studies have found that great erin -- great incarceration passed a cost

benefit test. and some of the studies, how much does it cost to put someone in jail, does that reduce the likelihood of crime or keeping them in principle and in some cases the studies go further and factor in the collateral damage, the increase in poverty for their family and the impact that has on society from crime. and contrast measures that strengthen our community like education have uniformly found to pass a cost-benefit test. an important part of the strategy to reduce crime is strengthening our economy and raising wages. and we may not -- everyone on the panel agree on the strategy to raise wages. but put one up that this administration supports and just uses it -- use it to contrast to incarceration. based on estimates in the literature if you increase

spending onn incarceration, by 10% to a $12 million that would reduce the crime rate by 1% to 4% and if you take into account the versus the benefits, the net societal benefit would be minus 8 billion and plus one billion. it doesn't factor in all the collateral circumstances of that incarceration. contrast that to raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour in 2020 that assumes no employment effects that would have an even larger impact on crime than that incarceration change. would have a net societal benefit just from the crime reduction. and that would be true even if you employ crime elasticities

from the range of the literature. i want to conclude by talking about the administration's approach to dealing with criminal justice reform it's a holistic approach that is focused on the community strengthening the economy, investing in early childhood communication. ban the box, licensing exclusions. they're right now 46,000 federal state and local laws regarding the ability of ex-offenders to work in certain businesses. work in certain jobs or be in certain of course bases. 46,000. many of those give no regard to those whatsoever to what the crime was committed. what the nature of the crime was or the relevance of it for the particular occupation. that's something we've been

working together with koch industries among others to encourage states to take a look at in this area and more broadly. the secondary is the courtroom. there's bipartisan support in both the house and the senate for sentencing reform building on steps we've already taken in some drug sentencing. an issue earlier this year, highlighted the regressive nature of fines, fees and bail which can be much larger for low income households can often be inefficient and not even collected and can have large economic impacts than for a high income person that wouldn't notice it as compared to the low income person. and that's something doj has

been encouraging states and localities to take a look at. finally, the cell block, including education, rehabilitation. job training, a set of measures that are being rolled out across the country this week, and steps that the president and the attorney general announced a few months ago to address solitary confinement, including the solitary confinement of minors. we're really happy, you're all having a chance to be here today to discuss what we think is an important issue. it's an issue that has a lot of important dimensions, moral, political, legal. we hope to convince you that the economic and business one is one of those important dimensions as well. thank you. [ applause ] . >> you'll hear from our panel next.

our panel led by david redny who will introduce everyone else. >> thank you very much for being here today. thank you for letting the economists moderate this panel. all panels in washington are always immensely distinguished, but this one really is. as a professional except tick, wondering whether anything can get done in this current

political climate. you look at who's behind an initiative. if you were serious on trying to get something done on a bipartisan basis. this is the kind of panel you get behind, this kind of initiative. even as a professional skeptic, it is an impressive panel. we have to my left, douglas holtz eken. also former chief economist for the president's counsel. and one of two directors of the congressional budget office. we have todd cox, director of criminal justice at the u.s. equal employment opportunity commission. we have the founder and chief executive officer for third point. and someone very much involved

in this, we have director of the justice program. before that she created the american civil liberty unions to end mass incarceration. last but not least, we have peter orsack. a former director of the white house office of management and budget. he's also a member of the brennen center economic advisory board. an extreme mix of people. i want to start by asking a question. then we'll have a free throwing discussion. the first question goes to douglas. this whole thing we stressed about the costs and benefits analysis of criminal justice system and does the topic -- why

should we be thinking about costs and benefits and politics instead of what's just and unjust. what's the benefit of that approach? >> let me first say thank you to the white house for this event and the council of economic advisers for a tremendous report. to the brennen center for sponsoring this event and putting up with me. i'm grateful for all of those. i'm especially thankful that the advisers put out a report in the cost benefit framework. for those of you who are not afraid. you think they were been born without souls or had them surgically removed. that's not a good way to think about it. there are things which are good and bad. we put the good ones on the benefit side, the bad ones on the cost side, we may or may not

be able to put dollars on them, the loss of a productive life for someone who is incarcerated too long is an incalculable loss. we can bring down things we know and don't know that's really useful in doing disciplined public policy. it tells you a couple things. number one, it tells you sometimes it's a slam dunk. you look at the benefits, the cost, everything's been identified by the literature. it's pretty simple. we have a problem here and we can fix it. when are you really out of line? and what are big costs to society. it's great to solve a bunch of little problems.

i have devoted my career to that. if you've identified a big problem and you have a way to go forward on it, that's important. the nice thing about the report, it does that so clearly. it doesn't stop there, it gives us solutions. you couldn't ask for more in a report. >> peter you've written -- this report talks about failed policy, i think it's powerful that it talks about policy that is not humanitarian or perceived by communities. it uses the word efficiently. you've written a lot about the inefficiency of this policy. tell me about the case that this is a bad way to fund policy. you have this phrase of success oriented funding. why do you support that kind of approach? >> first of all, let me note that this is one example in a broader phenomenon of needing

more evidence with regard to how we go about policy making. i agree with arthur brooks, we're not into saving dollars, we should be talking about not wasting lives. in order to get there, we need to make sure what the federal government does makes sense. the administration is making a significant amount of progress in bringing evidence to bear across a whole array of federal policies, it's still the case that what we do is backed by specific evidence it works. it definitely applies to criminal justice. it's very rare in academic literature to find not like an 80-20 but a 100 to zero type of situation. which goes about trying to deter crime. effectively what the evidence suggests is that the severity of

punishment matters much less than its certainty. we've put much too much emphasis on the severity. and much too little on providing certainty. there's a whole variety of reasons. behavioral economics suggests something that happens 15 to 20 years from now affects behavior much less than something that happens tomorrow. at the same time, the certainty part of this is really lacking, so it is stunning that under half of violent crimes in the united states are cleared. that is lead to an arrest. and for something like burglaries it's more like 15%. it means 85% of burglaries just kind of disappear in terms of some kind of resolution.

if you think about someone thinking about attempting to make a burglary, only one in seven cases is brought to justice, i think that encourages burke lars in the way that prison sentences don't do much to offset. you may think, it is what it is, there's not much we can do. the evidence is compelling, there's lots we can do, as an example, jason mentioned that m empirical evidence suggests -- part of the mechanism to deterring crime is that the evidence suggests that things like response times do matter, including in robberies and burglaries. interesting evidence suggesting exactly that, that response times matter.

>> it's also the case where you may all remember, batman and robin thought they could predict crimes. in millen the police use something called key crime it's been shown to be quite effective, those are the kinds of investments that can matter and we're not making sufficiently. the final point the recidivism rate is unacceptably high. especially for those that have substance abuse issues the evidence strongly suggests that providing farg etted health care to people can pay off. we need better evidence but it is strongly substantial.

one of the -- i'll put in a quick plug. one of the benefits of the expanded medicaid programs in many states is that those people are qualifying for the type of help they need. and in terms of making sure we don't waste lives, there's no better intervention than making sure someone whose going down the wrong path doesn't repeat the action in the future. >> business is clearly think about this a lot, it's been hard for them to speak out. what are the hidden impacts of the criminal justice system on the business world and why does a business leader like you feel the need to speak out. >> i'm going to entirely dodge that question, i don't feel like i'm -- i feel i'm here more as a

philanthropist than as a business person. i'll take a stab at it. as a business person, i'm in investment management business. and our business is largely centered around evaluating situations, analyzing things, using the best data and evidence and logic to get to a specific outcome. i think to build on what peter said, the thing that's missing from this entire complex is the use of evidence, data and logic in a stated goal we're trying to achieve. i don't think it can be overstated. this is really truly a landmark paper that jason and his team put together. to embody this issue with so much data and evidence that points in one direction. what he did was most valuable

was creating a framework from soup to nuts as to how we can improve the system. as a philanthropist, the way i got into this was actually at an aeei conference. it shouldn't surprise people that those folks are committed to community service and good. i was there at this confidence. i wandered into a room on criminal justice, there was cory booker sitting beside mike lee and john cornyn, you had democrats and republicans. i thought first, this is a bipartisan issue. the other thing that jumped out at me is some of the data that was introduced there. for someone who is engaged in

education reform. this is a sister issue. >> if we want to close down the highway from education to prison, we have to start with our education system. we need to apply the same sorts of data to education. and get kids particularly in black and hispanic communities that aren't graduating from high school. the large percentages of people primarily from the black community that if you didn't graduate from prison -- i'm sorry, if you didn't graduate from high school, your likelihood of being in prison right now is over 30% and if you didn't graduate from high school, your likelihood of being in prison at some point is over 60%. taking in total, looking at reforming the criminal justice system, we also need to look at

the education system and really think about how do we bring back the civility and honest discourse based on facts and compassion and real care for our citizens and for our communities and for our country. and as opposed to what we're seeing right now in -- sometimes in the extremes of the political discussion that's going on. >> thank you. >> i recommend reading -- of course you're going to read this report, but one of the more powerful things this report does is look at the collateral damage. this focuses not just on the effects for those people, not only how they got into prison, but housing, licensing. help us understand that the collateral costs on so much larger groups of people than just the prisoners themselves.

those incarcerated. >> we've been looking at this question from the aspect of opportunity. how those policies have exacerbated existing inequality. over criminalization have been major drivers. and there's a study that says that in -- 1980 and 2004, the poverty rate would have dropped 20% if not for incarceration. it really has ripple effects across our country. the impact is staggering. the report, they have demonstrated people of color make up more than 60% of prison population, despite making up 39 or 40% of the u.s. population. there's a isstatistic that the report is fantastic for putting out the scope of the problem but

there's a statistic or impact that's not often talked about, that's the impact on women african-american women are more likely to go to presideison. those who are in jails are four times more likely to report a disability than the again populati population. the effects really ripple across our community. one in three americans have a criminal record. even a minor offense can lead to a lifelong set of consequences. both employment opportunities, educational opportunities and housing. we know that 60% of folks within the first year are not fortunate enough to get immoment because of those barriers, those that are able to get employment get

jobs in low wage occupations and may be sat elled with fees and fines we also talked about in some ways criminalizing poverty. we found that this doesn't just impact folks with criminal records, it impacts their families, their children, with a new number. shockingly, that one in two american children have at least one parent with a criminal record. which is a staggering number, if you consider the impact that a criminal record has on the parent. the ripple effect it has on children is palpable. income is eliminated for the child in the household. snap is no longer available for those who have felony drug convictions. there by depriving families of nutritional abilities.

if you're not able to get a job upon release from prison, you're going to cut into your ability to save money. all of this is bolstered by a new report being issued today which focuses on the impact of all these policies on children who are incarcerated. there are a number of things that can happen that we can do to solve this, including making sure we adopt fair housing and fair employment practices so we don't blanketly expose folks to this situation. pennsylvania is taking the lead proposing we seal criminal records automatically, so that criminal records aren't at issue in the employment process or many other processes that become barriers for folks with criminal records. we've seen a lot of bipartisan

support for that. >> thank you very much. >> a question really to sort of focus on the policies trying to introduce some rigor. you look at the figure of 46,000 occupational rules and regulations, limited occupati s occupations, that tells you that politicians have frequently felt the need to keep people safe by doing things that are clearly going to limit employment. there's a desire to keep voters feeling safe. how do you use economics to tackle this clearly grotesquely inefficient population. while still making them feel safe. >> people respond to incentives. there is a whole school of legal thought trying to bring that concept into law and policy. that works in two ways.

if legislators and policy makers aren't thinking about the incentives their laws are creating, this leads to unintended consequences. to prevent that from happening, we need to clearly be thinking about what types of incentives we create. this concept plays itself out over and over and over again in our criminal justice system. there are incentives baked into the way federal and state laws work. that incentivize mass incarceration. one of the most common examples of this, police departments measure success through the number of arrests. prosecutors measure success through the amount of convictions and how many people they're sending away to prison and how long they're sending them. one of the examples in terms of the federal level is a 1994 crime bill.

one of the parts that we might not have heard as much about. is the part that gave states $12.5 billion to construct additional prisons if they passed law that increased prison terms. over 28 states actually changed their laws and applied for funding and then between 1994 and 2008 the prison population doubled. to truly end mass incarceration, these types of incentives have to change. here's where the federal government can play a large role. states and localities need to also change their laws. just like in the 1990s, the federal government can use its federal grants to reduce mass incarceration. there are $3.8 billion that go out to the federal government, most of these funds run on auto

pilot. all of that should be taken, given to states, to reward states that reduce crime and reduce incarceration. in this way you're giving states the incentive to getting to the goals we're trying to get to. we've run the numbers on this proposal, which is basically a reverse of the '94 crime bill. it would keep crime down. that's one example of how this could be applied. >> thank you very much for that opening round. it seems to me the over arching team is to say you're not asking the country to abandon its goals, the goals don't have to change it's to deter crime. the current system was not

chosen, it happened by accident, the more you do the research, the more you see there's these unintended consequences vastly inefficient systems creating a rats nest of bad policy. there's probably a bias of economics in this room. explain why it's useful in providing rigor and cutting through some of the partisan politics. we can have the same ago bigs. do it in a smarter way. it's not about smartness on crime or toughness on crime. it's about being tougher. >> i think for someone like me, i didn't set out to become a criminal justice expert. this shows up in in all the things people say they care about in the economy. the labor force participation rate is not what people think it should be. this feeds into the inability of

people who have records to get jobs and they drop out of the labor force. persistent poverty is an important issue for people to deal with you look inside it, what do you find? people who aren't working. families that don't stay together. you find single mothers trying to do this on their own. that's exactly the phenomena we see. they're stretched tremendously. you look inside of it, prison populations are a big chunk of that. you get the striking results, number one, you can make a lot of progress on the labor force participation. the anti-poverty programs without sacrificing the safety of the public that's a really rare public policy moment. i'd like to do these things but we may have to worry about it on the safety fund. that's why this is a unique

moment many i think it's part of what's gone on is, many republicans conservatives sort of got drawn into this for the fact that they're skeptical the government can do anything. why do we believe they imprison people well, and they don't seem, to and it costs a lot of money, we can save some money. why don't we do that? it really is a unique situation at the moment. >> as was earlier pointed out. at the heart of economics is incentives, a big part of the apparent benefit of longer prison sentences is it would deter crime it doesn't work. fundamentally, we need to change. imagine we had a tax policy that was designed to create more businesses. and you looked and found it did the opposite. i think the point you were

making is exactly right. to say that you are concerned about incarceration and the length of prison sentences does not mean you're soft on crime. if anything, the opposite. here's an example where being warm hearted can be hard headed. by investing in detecting and not the severity, but by making sure people who commit crimes are a consequence. being kinder to those who do go astray. helps to prevent them from becoming criminals again. this is not just let's be nice to people, this is hard headed impair imperically driven, it makes their lives better. >> you mentioned some things

about the fact that criminals are sometimes rational actors. economists look at the bad decisions they make. if you give them immediate punishment for having gone back on drugs, instead saying, we'll lock you up for 20 years or 10 years. >> it was a randomized experiment, which is the gold standard of evidence. and havi"vogue" the certainty ot only being tested regularly, but having a known penalty if you were found to be using drugs, even if the ben ailty is small or short has a significant effect. this is not surprising. we actually have direct evidence

on the discount rate. that is how people compare something today versus something tomorrow versus something far in the future. it suggests very high discount rates which is not that surprising, a lot of people behave that way. it suggests knowing for sure and for almost sure that something's going to happen to you affects your behavior a lot more than whether something is going to persist for 10 or 20 years. >> he might be arrested by a policeman who is there. this whole report is full of extraordinary facts and to explain the difference between british and american journalism. in england when you're reading it, you can get a draw dropping fact in there, it's known as a

marmalade dropper. one of the marmalade droppers in this report for me was that the united states in order to take care of this enormous prison population, employs peace officers at 2.5 times the amount of the global rate. they employ fewer police officers per capita than most countries. tell us about how policing, the role that policing can play in keeping communities safe, but perhaps if you could divert some of these resources away from police officers and toward the right kind of policing. >> fair warning, i'm not an economist by training. i'm a lawyer by training. i don't say that defensively. i think it all starts with

reorienting our perspectives. we've seen over the past few year years overt breakdowns of public trust. it goes to police officers and community members. majority/minority communities want effective, efficient safe and respectful policing. they don't want to be profiled. i think it -- you begin by looking at how do we restructure the relationship between law enforcement. quite frankly our democratic process so that folks in communities feel that they are customers -- are participants in a process and not just those that are being targeted. i think it starts there. it goes to law enforcement being willing to step up to training.

advised training and the lake. also, from a community's perspective. understanding that police officers are important stakeholders in this conversation as well. if i could just touch on the economy, we're part of the coalition for public safety. which is a right leaning, left leaning organization full of unusual bed fellows, i think what keeps us together is that there really isn't a juxtaposition between keeping our community safe and criminal justice system. they go lock step if you adopt some of the policies before. you will see reduction in recidivism. >> we heard that extraordinary statistic earlier. 85% of burglaries never come to justice. it's -- when there's a political partisan discussion of policing. it's often, these communities of

color are oppressively policed or being badly policed. one of the underreported things, a lot of these communitieses are underpoliced. the crime is not cleaned up at the right level. and that is also something you can work on getting right. >> i think as i said before, it goes back to respect. not to use d.c. as an example, there are communities in d.c. where the police are seen as people who are keeping them safe. seen as participants in the democratic process, i'm a voter, therefore, the police are here there are other communities where the police are seen as targeting. the citizens in both those communities feel the same way about their communities. they want to remain safe and want to make sure their property is kept safe. it goes back to restructuring policing and people in communities. everyone is entitled to some base level of respect. if you reorient that, we'll go a

long way and solve a problem. >> you spent a lot of time on capitol hill trying to see pieces of legislation. whether this bipartisan issue we talk about. taking a vote that someone is going to cut a tv ad saying they're soft on crime. when you're looking at things like policing and you can make arguments about smarter policing. is this one of the ways you can use these economic numbers and try to make the case for keeping communities safe? is that one of the things we're learning more about in terms of trying to sell this? >> yes, i think there's two parts to that answer. the first is, i think with policing it's the same as every other criminal justice policy. we should be funding and policing things that work.

>> it's proven that increasing the number of police officers and deploying things like come stat are proven to bring down crime, however, perhaps things like stop and frisk aren't. i would say in terms of policing, it's similar to how you would look at criminal justice policy overall. in terms of the bipartisan coming together, particularly on capitol hill. so there is -- there are several bills right now on capitol hill that are sponsored by republicans and democrats. the major one is a sentencing reform and corrections act which is pending in the senate. and this is a really really remarkable effort by republicans and democrats. to come together on this issue. that bill has a real chance of passing this session.

i think that is showing how people can come across lines to push something forward about that would reduce minimums for several low level crimes as well as allow judges more discretion to depart from those when needed. >> it's not just what happens on capitol hill. what's more important is what happens when they go home? >> what's true about this particular area, there have been states that sort of recognize these issues and can make some progress. one of the reasons republicans have had to grapple with what are the facts on the ground, versus the sort of rhetoric and myths. i think that's helped on this particular issue. peter's right about the importance of evidence based policy making.

one of the ways it's little appreciated. your legislators can go home and explain the piece of legislation to its constituents. it's a really useful thing. >> you spent a lot of time talking to big business people in your invest ment business, talking to ceo's, you can get very depressed about the sheer number of people that have had contact with the criminal justice system. is there an opportunity in there too, you're a business leader, i cannot wave good-bye to that proportion of the workforce. this is something we have to grapple with. businesses are more willing to step up and ban the boggs or be smart about hiring practices, because otherwise you're throwing away vast proportions of the workforce.

tell us about the mood in the business community. >> as the soul representative of the entire business community. it's hard for me to respond to that. 50i78 on a board. this is an idea that just occurred to me, as we think about diversity in our companies, it's not just about racial diversity and gender diversity, we need to introduce this as an identifier, that we strive to solve for and i think it actually is not something that comes up specifically about integrating people with criminal records. there is another aspect of this that does come up in the business community. why this is so important, aside from the data, the issue of human zeens, which is the crisis we have in this country right now, about the system itself

whether it's a sense of cronyism or lack of upward mobility or social mobility. it goes to the heart of this issue it's why we have kids on campus who think socialism is a system we should try out. i think from that standpoint the business community does care and believes in the classic, whether you're democrat or republican, i think we all agree that at the core, the free enterprise system is the best system for this nation. from that standpoint the business community is very much invested in this. >> can i ask you about one of the other potential opportunities out of something difficult. we exist in a time of constrained budgets. some of the states that look.

>> a book i did with jim russell. the administrator has done a bunch. ron haskins and greg margolis have put out a book showing what the obama administration has

done. criminal justice is a good example. it's always the case that in addition to not wasting lives you don't want to waste money, it's even more important when things are tight. and this is an area where we're doing a very poor job of spending our money wisely. it's as simple as that. >> i'm keen to take questions from the audience, i wanted to ask the panel given that we have this moment, we've been guessing at how to con construct a good criminal justice policy. we've been making some bad guesses. when you look at the range of research. give us just a few smart things that you would love to see people talking about more. whether it's exactly what you do with people when they leave prison or education. feel free to flag in one or two policies you want people to look

at in this report. >> i'll start briefly. i think we can make better use of police on the ground and on it to identify hotspots and other ways of making sure those resources work well. on recidivism, there's a lot more we could be doing to make reentry into a productive workforce better. i'll highlight, i think ideas like sealing criminal records is something worth pursuing. someone who commits a nonviolent crime in their early 20s should not have a scarlet letter on them for the rest of their working lives in the way it happens so often today. i think in a whole variety of dimensions, we have gone too far and this is one of them.

>> i wholeheartedly agree, and i think that from our perspective, the report highlights the importance of what we call the front end. making sure we create opportunities in communities before there's criminal justice involvement in the first place. making sure we don't blanketly exclude people with criminal records from housing and education. pennsylvania has introduced legislation on saling criminal records to take that off the table. i think that's something we should be looking at. >> i would just add to that. i think things like skpungment are important. for many of these people, i don't understand why they're going to prison in the first

place if we know that's not what works to bring down crime. and that's causing all sorts of collateral consequences. we need to change our sentencing laws. so the default is an alternative to prison as opposed to people going to prison. >> did you want to -- >> yeah, i wanted to add -- on top of the report. in ways that we all can get involved in this, in addition to engaging with our political leaders. there are institutions that have been great on this there are others that are helping us get a gentleman named bernard noble out of prison. he's sentenced to 13 years in prison for two grams of marijuana. and riding a bike the wrong way on a one way street. he hadn't gotten in trouble with

the law for a dozen years. we're working legislation everyonely within the state of louisiana, who has the undistinguished record of having the highest incarceration rates. i'd be remiss also if i didn't mention we're involved with the marshall project, the innocence project and there's a gentleman named adam fass, the important role of prosecutors in this issue. he gave a talk -- i hope all of you have seen it, it's gone viral, his ted talk was really amazing he left the -- he left his job as prosecutor, a week ago or two weeks ago on friday to start a # 501c-3 to build on this, this is one of the critical areas where we can make progress on this issue.

>> it would be remission, we're sitting in washington -- we're sitting in a political town -- people think about elections. is this bipartisan push going to have to take a bit of a pause between now and november? is it the thing that can survive the bumpy road of a presidential campaign. do any of you want to speak to how you think -- you have this momentum. how do you navigate this electoral period in smart ways. if you want to jump in on that. >> if you narrowly define this as can legislation pass the house, pass the senate? i think the answer is yes. i would say that mechanically for a couple reasons. such legislation exists and there are bipartisan sponsors in

both houses of congress. one of the most important things is what happens when you go home. there's lots of evidence on the republican side that this is an issue in their states and localities they can benefit from. i don't think the republican presidential candidate's policy platforms are so rich that they're crowding out this debate. >> does anyone else want to -- >> yeah. >> i tend to agree. i think that there is a real chance for bipartisan action particularly in congress. i think i would add to that, it's truly remarkable how this has become a real live issue in the presidential debate. this is something i wouldn't have thought could happen. and you have the leading candidates talking about this. and that has increased a broad public awareness. i used to tell people i work on

criminal justice reform. they thought i was a fringe advocate. i think that has opened up a much more -- a larger public awareness that i think is helping push forward momentum as well. >> if you ask the question, in stead of the next few months it would be great if it happened. over the next two years, is there a high chance of legislation. don't forget it's rare that you have bipartisan agreement like is exemplified on this panel on any topic. it should be and will be high on the agenda for a new administration, it's doable and would produce real benefits. if you take a slightly longer perspective on the question. i think the odds rise markedly. >> you wanted to contradict yourself? >> yes, all good ideas in washington end up as hostages.

they'll go through it. they get attached to something that's less hospitable to both sides. that leads you to the situation where it doesn't happen this year. >> i think we're one of the ones pushing for criminal justice reform in congress. and i think it's definitely possible. i recall reading something that the rnc has adopted something close to a platform. it's being integrated into the political discussion. there's a lot of talk about what's happening in the federal government. we have acknowledged that the states have led the way in many ways. we're also seeing new things happening in states that are worth looking at. all that's happening in a bipartisan way and could provide more models for what could come down the pike at the federal level.

>> state where you're in and ask a brief question rather than make a speech. so everyone has a chance to. i think someone had their hand up. >> thank you for this extraordinary work, my name is jennifer mizrahi from perfect respectability. my question is about americans with disabilities and putting the disability lens on this important and vital work you're doing. in reading what we could read in the report so far, it seemed to me you were missing the lens of the disability beyond mental health or addiction issues. you can actually look at a third grade child and their disability status and learning status and see the likelihood of that child

being involved in the corrections system. i'm wondering if you're going to be putting a lens on doing early diagnosis and intervention. particularly for children of color who are underdiagnosed and don't get the supports they need. and also for people in the corrections system to get beyond the mental health or addictions issues. >> just because we have so many questions, i'm going to take batches of two or three. this gentleman here? >> girard robinson. there are 5 million children who have at least one parent whose incarcerated. we know that one of the few institutions of stability are schools. what tangibly can we do to support schools and teachers who have to work with this population. and in particular, what role can the faith based community play

in the process? >> thank you. i'll take one from over here p.m. this gentleman here. if you'll just wait for the mike. >> thank you very much, sir. >> i'm from the caribbean and african faith based leadership conference. my question is, as it relates to the incarceration of immigrants 37 look specifically at black and caribbean immigrants. have you looked at the impact it has on our population. one of the challenge we face especially as it relates to faith outreach to that population, is that sometimes after an arrest, before we can minister to them, they are already in the process for deportation. we have a recent case with a

young plan who on his 18th birthday, a young lady lied to him, and he got involved with her. he's now working on his ph.d. he's moving on with his life. he has great job as an engineer. great dreams to offer this country. and these are some of the challenges that our population faces. if you could look at that in your research and look at how something can happen to make life better for some of these immigrants living here. >> you've had important issues raised. >> let me just respond to the question about early life trajectories, i think it's important -- the ca report has compelling data about raising the share of people who graduate

from high school and what effect that would have on criminal activity as just one example. and we know that kids often go off track early in secondary and elementary school, the same phenomenon here where better data can help. it's a panacea, you still need good management and attention to detail is absolutely the case in education, i'm on the board of new visions for public schools in new york for example. where we are attempting to do exactly what you are describing which is better identify a kid in second or third or fourth grade who's going off track and measure what works to get them back on track. the consequence would be not only making their lives better off, but working on this problem about. >> quickly, i think that people don't generally think of it this way.

education is a crime control policy, i think it's a way to reduce incarceration. the young man who was sent to prison, i think we've started to use prison as a one size fits all response to crime. i think in trying to undo some of that. >> did you want to jump in? >> i'm also on the board of a charter school networks success academies in new york. our imagine proficiency levels for special ed kids is double the math proficiency of the general population. the importance of getting more data around particularly the relationship between children who are in need of special education and how we educate them, how we don't -- push them off to the side and really

deliver to them an effective education that can hopefully move them out of the special ed silo. going back to the issue of incentives. the district public schools get -- all schools get extra cash for educating special ed kids there's no real incentive to get them out of that. i'm not saying scientifically, but perhaps we could look at incentives to get those kids over, and graduate from special ed into the general education. i think it's a great plan. >> starting with the question on disabilities. it's a very important lens. it's a lens that's not been used very effectively. we're beginning to do some work in that area. i mentioned in my opening remarks, the number of folks that identify with a disability in prison. how much larger that

identification is in jails and prisons, it's partially mental health. but other forms of disability as well. we're looking at that in the pretrial context. context. i think we mentioned before the cj movement is very sil yoe. so when we say front end, we mean front end of the criminal justice system. i think we look at the front end which is all the predicate activity that leads someone down the path to maybe be in the criminal justice system. and i that i is something my organization is looking at separately. but we're also integrating our discussions with those groups early education folks to make sure we're properly intergrate sod we can make sure we take care of the predicate concerns. we're moving in the direction to overcriminalize or increase penalties on undocumented folks

in context where they should be just civil penalties. i think in response to your point, if we don't get that right, if we continue to go down that jails and prisons with folks undocument who had shouldn't be there in the same way we have low level drug offenders in our prisons now. i take your point. >> i think one of the themes that's come out of this discussion is the importance of education. the things that been added to so far as it's important to not only understand who is at risk and know what works in terms of policy, it's important to pay people for those outcomes. funding streams should be devoted to getting high quality outcomes. and if we do everything else but we do not demand high quality

outcomes, we'll not get the job done. >> i think we have time for two more questions. >> i'm on the board of the brendan center. two other important stake holesehole holders that haven't been mentioned and that is the police chiefs, sheriffs and prosecutors. i wonder if the panel could comment on their response to data and the kind of analysis that we now see in this report. >> madam? >> good morning. i'm president of an organization called hope for tomorrow. we focus on conflicts and violent prevention, supported the crime justice for alicia key and through senators. my comment was -- it's on

migration. i listed to attention in the united states where they're taken to jail and then taken to detention where they take longer time, five years to ten years. giving them stuff but why can they look at that system include in the report or in the future just as if they are check order if they are to be but could they let them go home. if they have to be checked, let them come back into the system instead of spending more money for five years and ten years. that does not help them. they're inside there. so that would be how do we make this an organization that is focused locally here and on those cases? thank you. >> those are two great questions. i want to address a gigantic subject. the report talks about mental health. so if you want to talk to that briefly -- let's go back to the panel.

>> just briefly. i'm not an expert on police chiefs and prosecutors, but one thung i think is useful about the report is, you know, you point out we have a lot of correction officers and few police officers, that's a system wide view. it then raises the question why? what incentives are we giving people? you have to look at the incentives? what does a prosecutor get and what does a police chief get? that's a value. i think this discussion is highlighted the inefficiencies of our criminal justice system. it's another report of this size that gets you through the inefficiencies of our integration justice system. >> sure. i should let brendan talk about law enforcement and the like. law enforcement community has been great partners with us on pushing for criminal justice reform here in d.c. and in the states. it's important to send a message what is being offered in d.c. ensures safety because of the

steps they're taking. i think that's a very good point. we're working hard to amplify the voices. i think there are many ways a krenl broken justice system. we need comprehensive immigration reform and other things. but i think that the same incentives, economic, perhaps, and the like could work in that context. they are, obviously, mirror images of each other. >> we support the brendan center in this very area. >> sure. so i'm going to question the police and prosecutors and so we launch aid group of 165 police chiefs and prosecutors called law enforcement leaders to reduce crime, incarceration in october. that is an incredibly powerful voice. i think that from decades of experience these law enforcement officials can make the case that

they have seen firsthand that sending people to prison is not what works to bring down crime. and instead a lot of the smart policing and other types of things like that have worked. and so this group has gotten very involved in the last couple months, particularly on the sentencing reform and corrections act to offer credibility to talk about the fact that it's not going to damage public safety to reform our sentencing laws. and on the point of mental health, so our prisons are the largest mental health institution in the country. so over 50% of prisoners have me mental health issues. one thing we advocated for is that manufacture the peopy of t treatment instead of prison. treatment has worked to reduce crime and be more cost effective than prison. >> i just want to emphasize that point. so the report also highlighted that almost 70% of the

population has like 20% have a history of physical or sexual abuse. often highly correlated with mental health issues. it is not surprised that we just say good luck. they wind up in trouble again. and so the program that's have been shown to work, in some sense shouldn't be surprising because relative to just the -- we'll see how things turn out, there is a lot of improvement that is possible. this isn't like sending a man to mars. people have been doing this in smart ways. incredibly grateful to the panel. it's unusual to have a kind of positive discussion about a this. thank you very much to the panel. [ applause ] >> great. i also want to lend my thanks to the panel.

thanks to all of you for being here today. thanks for everyone at the white house from ope who helped to organize it and jamie keen on our team, the people at the brennan center and a and i hope we can continue to have this discussion but through the lens we talked about today as well as the many other perspectives that have been brought to bear on this issue.

it's known as washington's premier events, bringing together hollywood stars and members of the press.

live coverage of the 2016 white house correspondent's din they are saturday starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern. our live coverage from the washington hilton hotel includes red carpet arrivals, background on the dinner and award presentations. 2700 people are expected to attend this year's sold out dinner. larry wilmore is the nightly show will headline and this year president obama will give his final speech as commander in chief. join us to watch the 2016 white house correspondent's dinner live on c-span. ashton carter will brief members of the senate arms service committee on counter ice isis strategy. we'll take through live at 9:30 a.m. eastern. >> from this morning on "washington journal," real clear

politics. >> and joining us now to continue our discussion of last night's primary results, we have the co-found eastern publisher of real clear politics as well as carl canyon, the executive editor and washington bureau chief from real clear politics. >> good morning, how are you? >> i'm doing well. thanks for joining us. so, tom, tell us a little bit about real clear politics for people who have not been there. how did it start? tell us a little bit about it. ed well, we started about 16 years ago. and it was really just this idea that the co-founder and i had, we were not involved in politics or journalism professionally. but we followed elections and politics and policy with a

passion. and so we had this idea to create this place for people like us who bring together all the best news and information about politics and elections. and that's what real clear politics is. that's what we do every single day. that's our mission is to be sort of a one stop shop for people so can you come and find all the latest polls, video clips, and we've also added an original reporting component which we receive. we have a seton white house press briefing room. we're publishing a lot of original content every day as well. >> you started in chicago. and why -- and how many employees do you now have in d.c.? it was partst factor that neither john nor i were involved in politics or journalism professionally. we weren't part of the pundit

class or live inside the beltway which is where the name came. from our idea was to provide sort of a different outside the beltway perspective take on the news and elections and so it just so happened we were based in the midwest and that's been part of our dna ever since even though we now have an office in d.c. and we now have, you know, anywhere from 35 to 50 people working not only at this office but also around the country. >> okay. and carl, as you -- as tom says, neither one of you were journalists in doing this. how do you see the mission of our cp change given the current media landscape? >> john and tom are journalists. i'm a veteran washington journalist when they came to me five years ago. what was going on was newspapers that had once been made huge profits and had circulation that's were essentially monopolies really in the field.

they had fallen prey to the new technology. and so i was thinking that you know, it was eventually going away. i love books. i love newspapers. this morning i walked out and picked up "the washington post," the old copy of it. i have it on my desk. but, you know, paper had a good run from, i don't know, the bible until now. that's pretty good. we didn't go for paper because we had some romantic attachment to it. it was better than popiras. now we have a new technology, not just cable television which we're on now but digital. people walk do you remember the street and read their news. sign wanted to go to a place where it tl was new technology but i could instill the old values. what was bestst old values of

journalism? you know, being fair and objective and trying to get facts right, original sources, civility, getting your quotes right. quoting both sides. quanlt ideas like that. >> let me ask you this, carl. what is the philosophy of rcp? how do you decide what gets aggregate order what gets focused on? are you -- do you lean to the left or the right? >> well, no. people come to our page and see right away what is going on. they aggregate. we have 17 top stories we put on our front page. and they are liberal, conservative, republican, democrat, i guess you have to add socialist now with bernie sanders running.

if you come to our page, hopefully you'll find your views there and hopefully you'll find opposing views or different views or views that aren't quite your view. that is the aggravated feature of real clear politics. we take stories from other news outlets and a lot is video, polls, tom and john macintire came up with the idea of poll averaging. and this was a new idea. a lot of people do it now. my first presidential campaign, i remember there was a poll that showed george w. bush, michael due kak as pulling close to george w. bush gallup poll and people were saying it's within

the margin of error. that wouldn't happen today. it wouldn't happen today because real clear politics would remind people what is going on. you get a picture of what is really happening. i think that's a nice metaphor for real clear. we want to give a clear picture, not just one side. viewers can call in on our democratic line. republicans, 202-748-8001. independent, 202-748-8002. while we wait for more calls to come in, tom, i want to ask you about your thoughts about the coverage of the presidential campaign so far. there is some criticism that

donald trump has been too much. what do you think? he is a one man media storm in the way he's able to generate news coverage. so i think, look, the media has some responsibility to that. he's been, i think, overcovered to a certain degree. on the other hand, he's making news all the time. he's driving the news conversation this n. this race and sucking up the media oxygen. that is a virtue by the way he is and how he does it. so, look, everybody's all of the immediate operations aare getting great ratings because of him. and he's also, i think, bringing a lot of people out. if you look at the turnout in the states, he's generating some interest and excitement.

>> let's go to our viewers. we have ron calling in. you were on with tom bevin and carl cannon. >> good morning, guys. i just want to give you some kudos for fine job you're doing and bringing out the issues that a lot of people don't want to cover. a couple things, though, that are not covered that we would hope that you guys are going to put some effort into. we vntd heard of hillary and bernie on one ticket. we haven't heard that yet. we haven't seen you guys put the feet to the fire for donald trump either. and, you know, all the candidates are dodging one major

issue. and that's on the firearms issue. if you want to do a poll that will drive everybody crazy, this will do. >> that's a lot town pack. let's give charl a chance to address those things. go aed had, carl. >> well, let me take them in order. hillary clinton isn't talking about a running mate yet. there is some speculation who she would choose. there is no obvious person. i guess bernie sand arz is going to go to the convention in philadelphia there with about half as many delegates as hillary clinton, i suspect. nobody else has any. he'll get a prime time speaking role. whether his showing so far stronger than people thought will earn him a spot on the ticket is one person's decision, hillary rodham clinton. if you remember in 2008, hillary clin chin cam a lot closer to barack obama han bernie sand serz coming. she was not chosen.

the president's tend -- he tends to pick somebody that they think will help them win or govern. i'm not sure that hillary clinton thinks bernie sanders fits into either of those categories. if she does, then that's her decision. that's not the media's. but what else was -- holding donald trump's feet to the fire, i've done that myself, tom. i've written columns. our caller is an early riser. he is calling from california. it is not even 5:00 in the morning. there so he's an early riser. he should go to our website and look at my columns. i think i have held his feet to the fire. trump just keeps winning anyway. >> i would add real quickly, the caller mentioned doing polls. and just to clarify, we don't do polls. we're not a polling operation. we are an aggregator of polls. we take polls that other people are doing. we have subjects to cover.

we just are collator and aggregator of polls. we're not a polling operation ourselves. >> okay. we'll talk to tom. let me ask you a question. a little bit more about how real clear politics operates. how it is funded? and are there other entities within the real clear media group? the website is free. everything we do is based on advertising. as far as real clear media group, so we have, in addition to real clear politics, we have i think 13 or 14 sister sites now. we've taken our model and moved

it to cover the topic areas. we have editors that get up every day and scour the internet to bring together the best of the best. if you follow financial markets, waunt to go to real clear markets and read all the latest commentary from all of the, you know, best commentators in that space. if you like science, can you go to real clear science and find the best science stories gathered, again, from vast array of sources. we have a number of sister sites that really do exactly what we do at real clear politics. >> okay. we're talking to tom bevin and carl cannon, the publisher and editor at real clear politics. we have paul calling in. >> caller: i was curious, you know, when after hillary clinton

retired as secretary of state, she had like 79% approval rating. and then news media like fox got ahold of that. she was going to run for president. and they start the benghazi stuff and this and that. and they drove her ratings down into the gutter. but, you know, to be -- it just seems like, you know, what did she ever do wrong? she had e-mails just like colin powell did and condoleezza rice and being examined every day of her life. it seems like as soon as they found out she was going to run for president, they want to make her look like -- i don't want to say what donald trump calls her. >> let's give carl a chance to address that. carl, what can explain the change in favorability numbers for secretary clinton? >> well, i didn't really hear a

question. there but i'll answer your question. we live in a polarized time now. bill clinton, hillary clinton, george w. bush, barack obama, they're all said to be polarizing people. i don't think that is necessarily true. they have strong personalities. true. but we're in a polarized environment. anybody who throws -- puts themselves in the areen yashgs i don't care if they start with 80% approval rating, that will be closer to 50%. that's the kind of country we're in now. so many voters if, a person has to d after their name, that's all they need to hear. they don't need to hear about benghazi or e-mails. that spern a democrat running for president, i'm not for them. vice versa on the other side. so it's made politics a little tougher to cover. but i think it's important to remember that these two political parties, each want to win. they see their job as driving up the negatives of the other side. you'll see now donald trump is

sort of -- he doesn't need people to drive up his negatives. he sort of revels in it. but whoever the nominee is, half the country will think they're bad. that's the environment we're in. it's one reason why i personally encourage civility of discourse. and our page, you know, we have columnist who's do things. but our reporters, they remember these are people that they cover. we try to cover both sides fairly. it's not that hard to do. if you just -- if you keep some context in mind while you're writing. >> tom, the polling average has called the calling card k you tell how that came to be? how you came to focus on that?

we started the poll average in 2002. it really sort of came to recognition in the 2004 cycle. and the idea was, as carl mentioned earlier, can you get a poll that says that one candidate up is by eight points and get a poll that come out next day saying the other candidate sbip two points. partisans grab on to the polls and run to the media and say my guy is ahead. a national poll showed tuz cruz ahead of donald trump by two points. ted cruz said guess what? there is a new national leader in this race and it's me. that wasn't true at all,

actually. in 20 of the -- i think 19 of the 20 polls that were taken in the 90 days prior, donald trump had led all of the polls and he led i think 15 of them by double digits or more. so that's an example where you have a poll, even from a great polling outfit which is an outliar which, again, people will take that and try to use that for their own purposes so sort of distort reality. and so the idea of the poll average is to provide a better overall, more broad look at where a race stands at any given point in time. stocks go up and down during the day. but tend of the day, it's where is the dow? what is the number on the dow? what is the number on the real clear politics average? we that i is accurate. >> real clear politics publisher tom bevin aefnd carl cannon.

we have susan calling in from goodyear, arizona. what's your question? zbh good morning. thank you so much. i've been waiting all morning to get on your show. >> i am just so proud of hillary and donald trump. i mean, hillary has all these calls. my kids are in the military. i have one that passed away from the military. there are three of them. and, you know what? benghazi is a big thing. they will not talk about it on the news. the only one that talks about it is one america news. that is the only channel i watch now. but with the politics you're talking about right now, my question is, i'm in arizona. i got my card in the mail the other day saying i'm a democrat. i'm a volunteer person that helps with voting births at at my church.

voighted for donald trump. i've been voting since 2006 as a democrat. i said no i haven't. this is my first time i ever voted. i'm 58 years old. this is the first time my husband voted. i went in with me when i was volunteering. and he had to sign the form to wait 29 days for his card. >> let me ask you this. let me interrupt you since we're talking to the publishers. okay. if you have a question for the real clear politics staff. >> where do we need to make sure we have a right card to vote for democrat or republican. my neighbors are voting for trump here. >> all right. i'm not sure they know the specific rules in arizona. i'll throw the we do carl to talk about voting access s that something that you have focused on in your coverage, issues that

who goes to the polls? >> well, yeah. i don't know the specific case. and sounds like she already voted and you get to vote for trump. somebody thinks she's a democrat, maybe a local democratic party. but let's talk about this instead. it's clear that donald trump is bringing people into the republican party or at least into the republican primaries who didn't used to vote republican primaries. and maybe haven't voted at all. now is it a net gain? i don't know. he's probably going to drive away some, you know, republican voters, too, if they voted for mork y marco rubio or john kasich. but this phenomenon of trump, yeah, partly he's a creation of it will vision.

he won five states last night. that gives him six in a row. there are 40 primaries or caucuses and donald trump won 27 of them. ted cruz won seven, rubio three, i think, john kasich has won one. so trump is this phenomenon. he keeps winning and winning and winning. that's so far the story of the 2016 primary season. >> okay. up next on our independent line, we have matty calling in from houston, texas. matty, you are on with tom bevin and carl cannon from real clear politics.

i found out the president can have as much power as i thought he had. since the senate and the house. and people are talking about jobs and not getting support in their states. but the main lesson to me is the senate and house who passed the law and the supreme court carries it out. they have the power to veto anything they don't like. so i want to know why we're not focused on those people because of the democracy. >> all right, let's give them a chance do respond. how you about, carl? look, she's right. there is more than one election. we have our staff, reporting staff covered with hillary clin and donald trump won these five. hillary clinton won four states. donald trump won five. but we also have a senate race

and we had our congressional reporter write about the senate primary. i think this is fair criticism of the news media is that we probably aren't focusing on the congressional races as much as we can. but i'll just say for real clear politics, if you go on the website this morning, it's free, easy to find, look for james arkins piece. look at our coverage of the and our white house correspond with david buy letter an he wrote about the overview of the sell a primary. congress is important. >> okay. up next on our independent line, we have tim calling in from new sweden, maine. tim, you're on with tom bevin

and mark cannon. >> the question about what donald trump is talking about and the only way that will happen is if the united states would have to have to do that. i want to know why there they're not questioning him on that. >> we'll give him a chance to respond to your question. >> well, i mean, this is one of the things about donald trump. you know, he has been questioned on. that we had a number of republican debates. trade has been a big issue in this campaign because he is arguing for position that's are traditionally not republican positions on trade. he wants to slap tariffs on china and a lot of republicans think that is a terrible idea and it would start a trade war with the second largest economy in the world. so it's not that the issue hasn't been raised.

what donald trump has been able to get away with is not answering with enough specificity. he just says, look, i'm going to take care of it. and, you know, reporters and hosts of programs will continue asking, what do you mean by that? can you explain it? you can't get him to say anything more than that. so that is probably why, you know, a lot of viewers and a lot of readers on trade and some of the other issues feel like they haven't gotten enough information from trump on these policy issues. that isn't necessarily because the media hasn't asked the questions or hasn't tried to get information from us. it's he hasn't been forth coming to this point. he'll give a big, you know, foreign policy speech in washington today where, you know, he's go to lay out more of his positions.

>> tom, do you think that media missed or miscalculated or dismissed donald trump back in the summer when he began to surge. do you think this is his popularity -- it is the chicken or the egg? is his popularity due in part to media coverage or did the media miss the fact that he was riding a wave early on? >> members of the republican establishment. everybody thought donald trump was going to be a side show and a joke and only doing this to get more publicity for thim self. he wasn't -- and everyone thought he would flame out, that he would say something that would cause his campaign to sort of unravel, that he would be undisciplined. he's been all those things. he said a dozen things that would have killed any other campaign or candidate. he has been undisciplined.

yet, he has had staying power. it's really, i think people did -- what people missed really was the anger and the anxiousness that is coursing through the elect rat. bernie sanders, again, is running a campaign. nobody thought he was going to perform as strongly as he has against hillary clinton. and he's getting 35, 40% of the vote. on the republican side, yeah, i think people underestimateded media and certainly the republican establishment underestimated the electorate, what the elect was feeling that, disconnect, you take a guy like trum wlop is a reality star. that created a perfect storm in which donald trump was able to flourish and now looks like he's going to probably be the

republican nominee. >> all right. we have a tweet that came in that's asking a little bit more about how you guys aggregate your polling. in calculating the polling average, do you weight the individual polls on number of people polled or other factors? how do you come up with this polling average, carl? >> tom, you have it. >> we do not weight polls. there are other operation that's do. you know, different weighting and what not. we just provide a simple straight average. from polled polls that have been in the field for a period of time. as you get closer to election, polls usually move from, you know, adults to registered voters to likely voters and we're always using the tightest

metrik we can. other than that, it's a straight average of the latest polls that have been in the field at any given point in time. all right. up next we have barbara calling in from texas. barbara, you're on with the editor and publisher of real clear politics. what's your question? >> my question, is we hear all these polls from all the news channels of where the unfavorability of trump and hillary clinton are so bad that they don't do their work, why are they still winning? >> carl, can you take on that question?

look, i used to go to charlestown and it's a cheap claiming race. all the horses are so bad and my dad would say, no horse can win this race. none of the horses can win. the joke, of course, is that someone is going -- one of them is going to win and one is going to run second, too. there are a lot of americans who feel that in a country of 300 million people that you can get a more knowledgeable and pleasing two candidates than hillary clinton and donald trump. that's what they think. but in the end, that's not what matters. what matters is these two, trump is a jugger not right now. and hillary clinton has pretty much already clinched the democratic nomination. the options will be in november. i think they can vote for one of the two of them. they can stay home. not voting is a protest. it is perfectly legitimate or they can write in a candidate. the two parties that seem to

have settled on this, the democratic thing, we're going to look back on that, i think, and see what it was was more of a coronation. i don't know what is the next chapter for the gop. this kaerl called on the independent line. look, a lot of people think that there should be a third party in american politics. they're going to point to this election as evidence for that. a lot of other people think that there needs to be a strong independent movement. greg gorman, a guy from kansas ran for the senate. he has written opeds for us. he believes that we need is not a third party for a strong independent movement where you have independent candidates. to give voters more choice. and i think this election is

going to bolster people who feel that way. >> up next on our republican line, we have tim calling from from arlington, va va tim, you're on with tom bevin and carl cannon for real clear politics. go ahead. >> my question is a simple one. i visit your site every day. eight or ten sites a visit. why do you have poor editorials? and how do you choose those four editorials? >> okay. tom, can you answer tim's question? >> sure. there is no magic reason that we have four editorials. it evolved to that number of what we felt and we, again, try and provide a nice balance of what's going on. we go and read all the editorial pages and try to select the best ones that we think sort of represent what is going on around the country. a lot of times they're about the

presidential race or about politics. but also about things like, you know, we'll go get an editorial from the detroit news or detroit free press about what's going on in flint or we'll get something from the chicago tribune about what's going on with gun violence there. or there are a lot of really, you know, interesting local issues that these papers are writing about, they're writing about them passionately. and so we try and, again, highlight some of those in that section. you're right, it is the smaller section of our site. i think it's an important one-and-one that we try to, i think, spend a decent amount of time and to really bring those stories to the fore. >> okay. carl, how long do you anticipate bernie sanders stay nsz this race? he vowed yesterday he was going to stick with it. do you think that he can hang on until the convention? >> we're in the homestretch now.

we vind ind next and then after that mostly western primaries. bernie sanders has raised a lot of money and small donations from young people. i don't know this. i haven't done any reporting on it. this is speculation. but, you know, returning that money would be a -- would be a headache. i think he may feel obligated to see it through, through california. june 7th. he's got this money and he's got the support. and i think he'd like to -- i any he'd like to finish on an up note. so i don't necessarily think he will quit. he hasn't been a rank and file member of the democratic party. he identified as an independent and a socialist until he decided to run for president. so he's not part of the democratic party establishment. he has a lot -- he's closer to republicans than democrats. he has a lot of friends. i'm sure he's getting people telling him, ease up on the throttle a little bit on the criticism of hillary clinton. she will be the nominee. you don't wish to damage her.

i suspect that will happen. that you'll see from now on a friendlier contest on the democratic side. you know, these are people, they're human beings. i always stress that. and they get mad at each other just the way ordinary people do. and so maybe they won't be able to stick to. that but i think sanders is certainly within his right to continue. i don't think he needs to quit. i don't think he'll -- i think he'll probably not be contesting so directly with hillary clinton from now on. my guess is he'll talk more about the issues he cares about. >> okay. and our independent line next we have thomas who is calling in from indianapolis. you're on much what's your question? >> yeah. good morning. you have looked at why people are so dissatisfied, i think 50% of it is can you go back to when

that congressman lost in virginia. just the attitude, k street, madison avenue. it's also intertwined. people can see through that. and then you can get the media and look at donald trump where it's just an extension of the apprentice. and they just follow him around like flies on you know what at the early part of the campaign just every time his face and he was feeding in the dissatisfaction. >> all right, thomas. i want to give tom a chance to respond to you before we run out of time. go ahead, tom. >> well, look, it's interesting. thomas is right to a certain degree. this pop lift anger and angst that is running through the country. it's represented on both sides. through the progressive perspective, bernie sanders supporters, right, they see a

system that is rigged against the little guy, right? it's the sort of evil 1%ers on wall street that crash the economy, didn't pay a price for it. and have been sticking it to the little guy ever since. on the republican side, it's more through the angle of crony cap dalism. it's the collusion of big business and big government that have been sticking it to the little guy. so it's two sides of the same coin. and, you know, tom sass lucky enough to be nind nap list which is going to be ground zero now next week for on the republican side at least to whether folks can stop donald trump from the nomination or not. >> okay. up next on our republican line, we have another call from indiana, bob from martinsville. good morning. you're on. bob, are you there? okay, we're going november on then to john. john is calling in on the democratic line from lebanon, missouri. john, what's your question for

tom and carl? >> we just read an article recently on your website and it says that the corporate taxes, lowering corporate taxes and sweetening the international trade deals would improved the job rate. but that's exactly what destroyed all the american jobs. and i mean the past 20 years. i'm curious why you think that would improve the job market? >> carl, i'll throw that question to you. >> well, yeah. i didn't write that article. it's not something our staff would have written. we aggregate a lot of different columns and that's obviously someone's opinion. so i don't know what he is talking b i'll make one comment and that is this sort of economic populism express fwhid

caller is very strong in both parties right now. and there is a thought bernie sanders talks about it. sanders and trump say a lot of the same things on trade. and there's -- and hillary clinton, she doesn't talk like bill clinton talks when ran for president in 1992 about benefits of free trade. and that's a challenge for the next president whoever he or she is. convince americans that global trade in the end is in their interest. people see their jobs going overseas, going to other countries. being eliminated through ought mags. and they're not happy about it. washington has gone a poor job of globalization. to that extent, i agree with the caller. >> tom bevin, co-founder and publisher at real clear politics and carl cannon, the executive editor and washington bureau

chief, thank you both for joining us this morning. >> thank you. >> thanks for coming here to our new headquarters. we appreciate it. >> coming up thursday more than, david jolly, preb of the appropriation as committee about issues before the house including his legislation, the stop act to federally prohibit members from calling for the solicitation of contributions for elections. then illinois congresswoman democrat jan chakowski will discuss the re-authorizationst older american's act which provides a series of services to assist the elderly. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern thursday morning. >> defense secretary ashton carter and joint cheefdz of staff chair joseph dunford will

brief members of the senate arms services committee on u.s. counter isis strategy. we'll take you there live at 9:30 a.m. eastern. earlier this week in florida, senate candidates faced off at a debate hosted by the open debate coalition featuring questions submitted from voters. the candidates are running for the seat vacated by marco rubio after he decided to run for president in 2016 rather than re-election in florida. both candidates currently serve in the u.s. house. this is beabout an hour and 15 minutes. >> hello, world. i'm lillian campbell, director for the open debate coalition. welcome to the first ever open debate for u.s. senate. we're in orlando. more than 900 questions were submitted by regular people

across florida and across the nation. over 400,000 votes were cast on live and tonight all of the questions for republican congressmen david jolly and allen grayson are going to come from the 30 questions that receive the most votes from people like you. tonight we have two cutting edge moderateors. we have a member from the young turks which has over three billion views on youtube and earnie johnson. we're also having maria padilla on hand to deliver a voter's question. she is founderst blog, orlando latino. and we'll have a hollywood celebrity. we'll have two fiery debaters who are each leading in num raus polls because of their political smarts. this will be an unprecedented matchup. something people will be talking about tomorrow that you don't want to miss. so that's coming up. but first, let me give you background on the open debate coalition which is hosting this event tonight. so the coalition is compromise of top progressive and political

leaders. and top tech readers from sill con valley. this includes our co-host tonight, the progressive change institute. and we also have americans for tax reform. so the coalition includes former strategist for george w. bush, the republican national committee, senate republicans and mitt romney. it also includes naral, move on, labor unions, women's organizations, civil rights advocates and even the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. we've got media voices and leaders to support this nature of open debates. we have the wikipedia founder and we also have craig from craigslist. the members of the open debate coalition don't agree on every issue. we do agree on one core principle, the political debates must better represent the will of the people. and what that means is asking

candidates tough questions voted on by the people instead of silly gotcha questions. it also means liberating debate footage so you don't need cable tv or can you watch it on open feed that is available to any website, blog, social media platform or any individual that wants to broadcast it. we hope that tonight's debate serves as a model for presidential events later this year and soon becomes the norm for political debates all across america for every office up and down the ballot. to night we invite to spread the word on social media during the debate, letting folks know they can watch this at floridaopendebate.com and tweeting it at #opendebate. so with that, let's begin the first ever open debate for u.s. senate. i'm proud to announce our not raidors from young turks and ernie johnson from the independent review. >> we appreciate it. boy do we have a unique debate for you to night. you actually asked the questions. so our job as moderateors will

be to ask follow up questions to make sure you get the answers to the questions that you asked. and, boy, there were a the love questions out. there 900 questions submitted, 400,000 votes which is amazing. so i want to thank our open debate coalition co-host and progressive change institute and meshgz for tax reform. and this debate will last 75 minutes. there are not any questions about boxers or briefs or iphoneors black berries. why? because nobody asked for those questions. instead, we focus on a lot of substance that you'll see throughout the debate. i want to make sure everybody understand that's we'll have one minute for the initial answers for the candidates and then 45 seconds for follow ups. anything beyond that is moderator's discretion. so with that, take it away. >> for me, by the way, it's briefs. so i have the distinguished honor of announcing the real stars ofhe show. the two congressmen joining us to night. fist congressman that i'm

introducing is congressman david jolly. he is a native floridian. he is a lawyer by trade and practice. thank you so much for joining us, congressman. the second congressman that i'm introducing is allen grayson. this gentleman is known for his fantastic cowboy boots and exceptional taste in american flag ties which he tells me he even got a brand new tie on amazon just for this debate. all right. so let's get started. we did a coin flip right before the debate. and congressman grayson won. he lekted to do his opening statement.

>> as a floridian, every american can be all that he or she can be. unchanld by poverty, by poor health, by a lack of education or discrimination. that's my job. now more and more what we find is people are struggling in order to be able to accomplish that. inequality is rising dramatically in america. fewer and fewer people have a job, have a home. fewer and fewer people have a car or any sort of savings for their requirement or even health coverage. that has to end. i want to see an america, i want to help make an america where kevin see a doctor and has the care to stay healthy and alive. i want to see an america where compensation for work is actually a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. that means health coverage for you and your family. that means a much higher minimum wage that, means paid sick leave and vacations. but above all, i want to see a new new deal for seniors.

seniors, it's been 40 years since there was any increase in social security benefits. i'm working hard right now in the house of represent ipz ativ change that to make sure that seniors get the raise they deserve this year and they deserve in the future as well as extending medicare to cover your eyes, ears, and teeth. a lot of this may sound like common sense, the political system created to frustrate and to stop and halt progress and i have been named the most effective member of congress because all the good things i've gotten done for people time and time again. i want to do more of that in the senate. thank you. >> thank you. thank you to the open debate coalition. thank you to each one of you who submitted questions. i thank you, too, my colleague for this format. i've been in congress for only two years now. and i have made it a point every day to fight for the people of florida, to put it all on the line every single day. for our veterans who face the health care crisis, i introduced legislation to empower them to

choose where they receive their health care. for our seniors, i've introduced legislation to create a new index for how you calculate cost of living that reflects senior, calculating healthst kos, for the young people i've championed early childhood education, study readiness, for the homeowners and businesses, i've championed flood insurance relief and reform. yes where i believe the president has overstepped or is wrong in issues from foreign policy to economic security, i have challenged the president on behalf of the people of florida. at the end of the day the most important reform we can make is to reform congress. many of you have seen in the last 24 my fight to change washington forever by enacting the s.t.o.p. act.

regardless of your priority, the reasons the advances are not being made is because we have a congress spending too much time asking few your money and not doing their job. it's why i've introduced the s.t.o.p. act and i'm going to fight every day to get it done, leave it all on the table. >> let's get started with the questions. as promised the first one is from a young american, you're going to see this is unlike a lot of other debates. he asks that in new york -- his name is logan and it got voted up almost to the very top. it's on campaign finance reform. remember, every single one of these questions is in the top 30 based on florida votes. logan, take it away. >> caller: -- reform the campaign finance system. 90 frs of americans believe that money needs to get out of politics. how are you going to work with the president to create a viable campaign finance system that people can trust? >> so, congressman jolly, you

brought this up. first question, so it goes to you. >> i appreciate the question from logan. one of the things we can do for now is get congress back to work and off the phone asking for money. i'm an republican who can tell you there is too much money many politics. it's talk about transparency and accountability. let's make sure we know any political message we know who it comes from. we have to balance this with reasonable regulations. let's start by passing the s.t.o.p. act. get members of congress off the phone shaking down the american people for money. and then let's begin to address how do we get to a better campaign finance system that we how now. almost $14 million in a little over weeks in one county. imagine what that $14 million could have done for the county of pinellas county florida instead of being spent on tv.

we can do better. i'll work with any republican or democrat to get to a better place than where we are now. >> we're going to do follow-ups after each person gets a chance to respond for a moment. congressman grayson >> we're creating a new pair dime for campaign finance. imat the only member of congress out of 435 of us who financed his 2014 successful campaign with small donors. i'm the only member of congress who did that in 2012 as well. i'm the only member of congress running for the senate right now who's financed most of his campaign through small donors. we've had over 125,000 people come to the modestly named website senatorwithguts.com. this is the revolution. you can go to the billionaires and the multinational corporations, go to the lobbyists and the pacts and the special interests and beg them

for cash in return for favors. we know what those favors are. they're bailouts, no bid contracts. they're deregulation as they call it. they're tax breaks. it's quid pro quo. well, the people who come to my website, senatorwithguts.com and contributed, they want nothing in return for their money except good government. that tes way forward. that's how you do it. i was in the cram when the citizens united decision was determined you and i have discussed this on the air. and i said at the time on msnbc in we do nothing, you can kiss this country good-bye. i'm doing something. >> all right. so first follow-up goes to congressman jolly. the s.t.o.p. act from what i understand involves representatives not calling the donors anymore. but does someone still call them, does someone on your staff call them and if so do we still

have the same private financing issue at hand? >> we know about the amount of money in politics. this is about the amount of time it takes to raise money. it does not apply to challeng s challengers. it only apply to sitting members of the house and senate. it says you're cheating the taxpayers if you spend 20 to 30 hours a week raising money instead of doing the job you were hired to do. hopefully there will give breathing room to fight about what they believe in. get back to work, get off the phone. now i'll tell you one of the reason i why. we can get the s.t.o.p. act done. we could get it done this year. campaign finance, i'm afraid with all of the complexities is a multi-year effort to get it done. i don't want that to distract from something we can accomplish today which is the s.t.o.p. act. >> i want to show you guy as graph and get your response real quick. . this is something based on the

princeton and knot western study for two decades they looked at it. >> i'm mark ruffalo. >> not yet, mark. hold. >> you cannot stop the hulk. >> what they found out is public policy is not at all related to public opinion. in an ideal democracy you would have a diagonal line that said if 100% of american people wanted 100% chance of getting passed, that would be a democracy. the flat line is what it is for 90% of americans. and then the yellow line is for the economic elite and special interest. they're much closer to the ideal. they have a democracy but we don't. it's because they have the money. congressman grayson, how do you solve this and specifically bennie bas kin asked, are you in favor of a 28th amendment to the united states constitution to make sure you put an end to money in politics.

>> we live in an al gark ki. but the fact is if you're a member of congress on most committees you'll have something who comes to our office for a bundle of checks for lobbyists voting in favor of the bill. you vote for the bill and you get another bundle op checks afterward. it's not just two or three or four members of congress. i'm talking about 434 of them. that's how it's done. and frankly nobody can conceive any other possibility until now. now there's an alternative called power to the people. it would be a great thing but is it really necessary? what if every american woke up tomorrow and said i'm going to choose the candidates, i'm not going to let the party bosses choose the candidates, i'm going to choose the candidates.

i'm going to put my money where their mouth is. it would be overwhelming. it has been overwhelming. i raised more money in my 2012 campaign than any other member of congress and i.d. dit with the small donors. >> would you be in favor of the amendment? >> yes. >> congressman vjolly? >> let's fix what alan just talked about by if you're lobbyist, you can't contribute to anybody sitting on the banking committee. we can do that by an act of congress today. >> a real quick follow-up. congressman grayson would you support the s.t.o.p. act? >> yes. i've done more than that. i introduced eight bills, four introduced before the citizens united decision and four afterward. we posted it at save democracy.net. three dwrason bills were

incorporated in the kis close act and actually passed the house. they were filibustered in the senator but they passed the house. i'm already getting good things done in this regard. >> all right. so our next question, our next question comes from david in new york city. and it has been voted up thousands and thousands of times, nearly has 5,000 votes. people really want to hear the answer to this question. and it follows along a unique line for this 2016 cycle concerns the finance system. the question that david has is what would you do to finally put an end to the big too big to fail banking system? congressman jolly. >> so, i take a little different apreach to this. too big to fail can be solved by transparen transparency, capital

requirements on the large banks and routine stress tests. but you know who has created too big to fail? it's president barack obama. he's created a regulatory structure that has translated to too small to survive. too small to be competitive. dodd frank 12,000 pages of regulations and 400 new rules reduced access to community banks. risk based lending for small businesses and communities all throughout florida has evapor e evaporaevaporat evaporated because of the regulations on the local banks. a new regulation to address financial advising is actually going to reduce services to low-income investors and low dollar investors and new investors in communities throughout florida. the overregulation has so crushed the small and medium institutions that yes we're left with too big to fail. >> congressman?

>> i must respect respectfully disagree with my esteemed colleague. i don't think barack obama was responsible for the economic crisis of 2008 and the economic crisis was a function of too bill to fail if not for the fact that we had a small number of huge institutions, it would have been no worse than a sniffle and instead it was like a heart attack and almost killed america and the world economy. the answer has to be more dramatic than that. if you has an institution if you're too big to fail you're too biggs to economist. you need to be broken up in a way that the trust busters broke up the steel mills, the telephone company, they broke up any conglomeration of capital that was a threat to the rest of us. that's the way it's got to be with the banks. anything short of that is not sufficient. right now the big banks because they're known not to be at risk to fail end up borrowing much cheaper than the small banks do, not because of regulation but essentially uncle sam will pick

up the tab if there's a risk. that's something that's never going to change unless we break it up. we make it into five institutions, they will survive. i swear to you, nothing bad will happen to them. but what will happen to us is we'll no longer be at risk of an economy that can collapse any day because of some child eyed trader probably sniffing cocaine ends up making a trade that can bring down an entire institution and maybe the world economy at the same time. >> is that based on "wolf of wall street? >> let me tell you, there are one quad ril onoutstanding shares of derivatives right now. you know what that? that's a thousand trillion. that's how much is on the bank's balance sheets explicitly. we produce in the country $16 trillion of goods and services every year. if somebody make as mistake,

that's 60 years worth of our production, 20 years worth of the whole world's production. we can't afford to be playing what would you call it, russian roulette with our economy ever single trading day. >> it seems like both of you, if i'm hearing you correctly, are certainly against the proposition that something is too big to fail and that is a net negative on the system. how dow you define that? where do you draw the line when something needs to be trust busted and something needs to be broken up? how big is too big? congressman jolly >> i would ask the question how does government break up a financial institution arbitrarily and what does that mean for the current customers. there are ways we can protect investors. take variations of the vul ka rule that is currently in place to prohibit proprietary trading. if we exempt some institutions from the small requirements but apply the rule to the banks, we

can protect the vulnerability of what we saw ten years ago. at the end of the day if we insist -- we can do this through regulation. if we insist on sufficient capital requirements to back investments, insist on transparency of the large banks and routine stress testing to ensure that those banks can meet their commitments, we can prevent things. listen, with respect to alan, why are community banks failing at a rate of one a day. why are there less community based lending services to communities throughout florida. wie are there fewer services in investment advising from small firms throughout north dakota, the man or woman who you go to church with and they've been your financial advise are for years and you got a letter next week saying sorry because of the rules of the administration i can no longer service your account, that's evaporating in our local kmaens and only empowering too big to fail.

>> well, again, i have to disagree. the reason why you have smaller institutions who have having trouble competing is simply because the bigger institutions have what amount to a government guarantee. and their borrowing costs are there for that very reason much less than the smaller institutions. it's not an economy of scale. it's basically a ford bailout. if we had done every single thing that congressman jolly just recommended in 2008 or before that we would have still had a crash. it's going to happen sooner or later. it's going to happen unless we take control of the big banks, break them up and make them safe for us. >> it sounded like all of the prescriptions that you mentioned twb stress test et cetera are what dodd frank does. are you happy with dodd frank in that regard and do you think it's sufficient to maintain the banks' order so they won't cause the kind of collapse that --

>> dodd frank went way too far with the regulations and rules. 12,000 pages. alan joined with me on providing relief or auto loans. we've tried to do the same some of us on mortgage loans, on exempting or raising the asset level of small banks to have relief under dodd frank. dodd frank has hurt service to the people who need it the very most. so what we see through stress testing is the vulnerability of a system that kwle we can precisely address. it is this administration that's driven out the small lenders. >> okay. so from what i gather you like some of dodd frank and you want to do all of the things that you described dodd frank does do you think it does a little too much. you're for less regulation of the banks. am i getting it wrong? >> less regulation under dodd frank yes. no question. how do you break up? how does government inject

itself into a private institution and break it up? >> how did we break up the telephone companies. that's within my reckoning within my lifetime. i'm sure people remember there used to be just ma bell and now there's dozens of providers, including your cable company. you can get telephone service from your internet company right now. it's not that difficult. we've done it over and over again stretching back to the sherman act. i'm pretty sure if there's one thing government mastered it's how to do this and do it right. we had a rule until recently that said you had to separate investment banking from other banking. that rule is out the window. all we have to do is restore that rule and that's a big step of eliminating the problem of too big to fail. >> let's move on to the next question now. social security. gloria hartness from tampa, florida asked this question.

it was number three nationally. what will you do in your position to keep social security and medicare strong? so let's start with congressman jolly. >> sure. i'm one of the republicans who has regularly voted against the budget presented by my side of the aisle because i believe some of the changes it makes for people under 55 are too aggressive. i'm 43 years old. i'm not too young for the government to honor the promise of social security and medicare that's been made to me. the way approach reforms is this. if you have been in the system for 40 quarters with, that's how you vest for social security and medicare, 40 quarters, i think we should treat that as though you're vested and the rules that apply will apply. no changes. let's recognize the outyear debt of that obligation. congress has been to bad at the math. let's put it on the balance sheet and own it as debt. if you're new to the workforce,

you are still going to have the best social security and medicare system in the world. but it might look different than what today's looks like. but if you're currently vested in social security or medicare, let's secure that promise. it has been made. let's honor it. no changes in benefits but recognize the outyear debt. we have $19 trillion in debt. that number goes up threefold if you count the outyear debt. >> congressman grayson as you're answering the same question, especially if you can tell us the difference between your two positions that would be helpful. >> it's like the difference in night and day. what congressman jolly just talked about, i am fleetly 0 pesed to that. i wrote the no cuts petition that 100 members of congress and 3 million american citizens signed against any and every cut in social security and medicare

and medicaid benefits. we haven't had a raise for seniors in 40 years. seniors deserve a raise. we shouldn't looking at how to cut social security, cut medicare either for current beneficiaries or future beneficiaries. we should be looking at the fact that it's time for a raise. in those 40 years we've had three generations of seniors pass through the system and in those 40 years the per capita income of the united states increased by 97%. while during those 40 years the purchasing power of social security benefits has decreased by 3%. that's why i have proposed the seniors deserve a raise act giving them the 3.9% increase they were cheated out of. i've proposed that the seniors have eyes, ears and teeth act, has 147 cosponsors as we sit here today. that's why i've introduced the scrap the cap act which the social security administration

has scored and says it will eliminate any problems with financing in social security from now until the end of time. these are the things that need to be done. we need to move forward, not backward. we don't need cuts. cuts are hurting seniors who desperately need the benefits. >> if i may. >> congressman jolly, address whether it's a night and day difference and whether you're willing to expand social security or not. >> the greatest of all is a collapse of the social security system because there wasn't the leadership in congress to realize it was failing. it is neglect by members of congress who refuse to recognize that the greatest drive of our national debt isn't in programs that have been promised and earned. just because washington is bad at math doesn't mean we get to look the other way and seniors pay the penlts. i've introduced legislation myself as well that would address how cost of living increases are considered for

seniors. to recognize that seniors have unique needs when it comes to health care and other issues where the costs are higher than others in the population. we can honor every promise that has been made to our seniors. nobody is trying to cut it. but i promise you if we fail to address the long term impact of the oebl gagss on social security and medicare, the greatest cut of all will happen and it will happen at the hands of frankly my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who refuse to touch the issue. >> i've got to follow up there. in 2010, social security had a $2.8 trillion surplus. are you concerned that the surplus is not enough or are you saying we already spent that surplus, that's why we're going to run out of money? >> the time line, we know that theest bes that will be due in the outyears, there will be insufficient resources in the trust fund to fapay for it. what i've said is let's secure the benefits for everybody that's earned them. let's say we're going to honor

the earned benefits and put it on the balance sheet as an obligation of the nation. but the actuarial system of the current social security and medicare systems will ensure failure by the time the youngest generations get there. that's when we need to look at the appropriate reforms. i voted against my own party's budget because they want to make changes for anybody under 55. let's do it under a longer cost curve that that protects people in the middle of their careers >> social security and medicare, these are covenants between one generation and another. this is important to me. my masters thesis at harvard was on this. i was an officer of that organization for more than 20 years. the longest sustainedest of my entire life. longer than any political career. and i will tell you that it gals me to hear this ideas that we have to cheat seniors in order to make the budget budget out. that's just wrong to me. there's only one small change you have to make.

you have to make sure that you treat every dollar like every other dollar and it's solvent forever. let's talk about lebron james. he stops paying social security taxes the beginning ofg the second quarter of the first game of the season. the rest of the game pays nothing. rest of the 81 games of the season pays nothing. the off season, still pays nothing. that's ridiculous. if we simply made every pay the same percentage of their income, the system is solvent forever an ever and ever. >> now are you saying that about lebron james because he left the heat in that seems very personal, congressman. very important question here for both of you. do you like and have you ever watched "the avengers". >> yes but it's not as good as dc comics. i spent my mondays and thursdays running out of the school at 3 o'clock going over to the candy

store buying the new editions. i still love "the avengers." >> first ever question by an avenger. >> scientists say that a rapid transition to a clean renewable power in florida will create $140,000, eliminate 3,000 premature air pollution deaths and over 50,000 illnesses in florida per year, increase energy independence, reduce terrorism risk and reduce trekt and social costs of energy. with that in mind, here's a question from jen in rhode island that got thousands of votes. >> do you accept that climb change is the single greatest threat our world faces?

and if yes, will you support or put forth legislation that keeps more fossil fuels in the ground and greenhouse gases out of our atmosphere? >> congressman, climate change. is it the biggest crisis that man kind faces right now? >> who would you like to start? >> let's start with you congressman grayson. >> the answer is yes. i can't think of anything else that will destroy the planet other than climate change. we run the risk of a runaway greenhouse effect. no one knows if that would happen or not. we're playing dice with planet earth. that's disturbing to me. we have names for things like killing a person. killing a nation, we don't have a name for what it would mean to kill a whole planet. and that shows you how serious this is. i've worked hard to avoid this. i'll give you some examples. this means reduced greenhouse

gases. each year i've had the government hand out credits of $1.3 billion in a 20% tax credit and i've done that for two years in a row. a total of $2.6 billion green energy tax credits have been handed out to people all across the nation and they've resulted in $13 billion of invest 789 in clean energy. in addition to that i passed an amendment a few months ago that help to keep our rivers clean with a 9% increase in funding for that. i've been there. i've been fighting this battle and making sure that my children and my grandchildren inhurnt a good green earth. >> congressman jolly? >> the challenges from climate change are real. but is climate change the greatest threat to our nation as alan just said? no. the greatest threat to our nation are agents of terror like the guy we saw in san bernardino who killed 14 people in the name

of jihad. the greatest threats we face is a nuclear armed iran who have said they wish to destroy the united states. the greatest threat we face as a nation are people who wish to destroy us tomorrow. that's the threat we have to address right now. that's the immediate address. when the president of the united states stood before a state of the union address and said the greatest threat we face is climate change, he's wrong. greatest threat we face are the people who want to destroy the united states of america tomorrow and that's what we need to address. let's get to the science. what do we do about climate change. let's have a contest of ideas over solutions. we need to continue to invest in tax incentives for clean energy, renewables, for fuels were wind and solar, you name it. let's continue to advance research in these areas which we've done in congress, continued to add more money to a program that invests in research in these areas. but what will not work is

policies of this president like the clean power plan that risks putting 300 people in putnam county out of business and increases utility costs for 1.6 million people across the state. what won't work is the president's waters of the united states nation which is going to cost pinellas county $400 million and $2.5 billion. it will cost $31 billion to fix a single ditch. what won't work is a blended fuel standard that the industry can't meet. a renewable fuel standard that continues increase cost to industry. the largest beer distributor in the state of florida just went to an all solar roof. you know why they did it? the urn of investment finally in a five-year window. they're able to grow their business, and jobs while contributing to a cleaner environment. that's the transition we need. 10 years ago if there was a regulation that said great bay you have to go to an all solar roof, they would have had to lay

off their workforce because the cost was out of reach. we can solve climate challenges through incentives and research. >> i think as americans we're all certainly for cheaper beer. however, and while i agree with that entirely, i myself am not a climate scientist. i'm a journalist. and a very reputable journalistic magazine has a graph, a chart. i think we can put it over here on the screen. this is what they have published as a future outline of the state of florida in year 2100. this is if the water line of the ocean rises by 5 feet. this is what is projected. my question to both of you is, is that is realistic view of what could potentially happen to

the state, that you want to be one of the two senators for? >> so i'm not one in my party that's going to argue with the science. i would rather argue about where the solutions are because i think the president is wrong. the miami of miami beach what are our municipal governments doing to underground utilities to eventually protect, life, safety and property. there are a lot of things to need to be done to deal with what the scientists are saying. i'll accept the science. let's alan and i have a debate over the solutions. we have a disagreement on the solutions. >> i want to point out. this is completely fortuitous. the method you just showed is something that was at my website when i declared for congress in 2006. i wanted people to see what this glorious state would look like once the ice caps melt and the

sea level rises and once miami is under 50 feet of water. you're going to have a lot of trouble putting it up on stilts if you're talking about 50 feet of water. rush limbaugh's house is on the coast so his house goes first. but all that aside, it's tragedy. avoidable tragedy. in the last eight years the president who has been the person who has done anything about pipt the president's clean water plan attempting took tied up in the court by the other side, it's a means to cut our car ban emission substantially. and with regard to the autoemissions, who was it who actually increased the corporate average fuel economy standards in this country. it wasn't the house of representatives. it wasn't the senate. it wasn't the republican ors the democrats. it was the president of the united states. and now with the president's paris climate agreement which i support and i've told the president i support it, i think we actually see a way forward.

look, i voted in favor of the cap and trade bill in any first term. i was punished for it. the koch broerts spent $4 million to defeat me the following year. i can live with that. the planet is a lot more important than that. >> keep the answers a little shorter on both sides. i want to go to a video on this same topic. it's from edward in miami florida. >> how will you work to make renewable energy more affordable in florida. we receive sunlight that could support a solar project. our coastal tidal power could also be harnessed. >> tax incentives that continue to create an industry that employs more people in the state of florida and gives greater energy options throughout the state that is cleaner and

cheeper. we can also consider to invest federal dollars in research. the clean power plant that alan and i were talking about was stayed by the supreme court because of its irreparable financial harm to states. okay. this has been stayed by a court because the has imposed irreparable harm on states. my point is simp. let's reach consensus on this. let's solve this as a country and get out of the mandate world that's destroying communities. >> look, unfortunately in public life there are people who are anti-pollution and people who are pro-pollution. that's a fact. i'm suggesting to you that the reason we have the policies that we have today is because in the same way that wall street determines or economic policies, it's a fact that big oil determines our energy policy. and that has to change. it must change. what are we doing about it? what have i done about it?

i've passed more amendments than any member of congress in the past three years. there will 26 grayson bills that are now the law of the land passed by the house, passed by the senate, signed into law by the president. fourp of those i discussed earlier. the fact that we have $2.6 billion in energy credits for conservation in people's homes to make homes green that wouldn't have existed if these bills had lapsed. that's what i'm doing, that's what i've done. people can count on mep. i think we have to take it a step further. right now it's technically illegal for you to pubt solar panels on your roof and sell that electricity to the utility companies. we have to eliminate that law here in florida and throughout the country. >> next question is from someone who is live in the studio. go ahead. >> politicians all over the country are getting between a woman and her doctor and taking

away her constitutional right to choose. how will you protect a whom's right to choose? >> who would you like to go first? >> congressman jolly. >> i believe life begins at conception. that life deserves to be protected. for me it's about create agriculture that values life from the unborn to the child facing significant economic or hunger issues to the elderly person who perhaps is a shut-in. pi understand it's personal issue, a very human sissue. i will tell you the supreme court in its landmark case 40 years ago recognized the viability of the unborn as a test when they put certain restrictions on it. i believe life begins at conception. for others it might be later. but i will tell you the supreme court and congress eventually possibly will have to deal with the fact that 40 years after the viability standard was created,

viability has changed as a result of medical science. >> i believe quite simply that the most important right you have as a human being is to right to control your own body and that means terminating a pregnancy if that's what you desire. there shouldn't be any shame in that. there should be a shame in the concept that you force a woman to have a child that that woman does not want to have. to me that itself is criminal. and therefore among other a things i've adamantly opposed every effort to try to restrict a woman's right to choose. i've proudly opened a planned parenthood clinic in my district and faced down protesters. and i have with some degree of pride actually attended planned parenthood fundraisers and contributed to them. i think it's very important that women be treated the same rights as men. believe me if men would have abortions you could probably get

them at slot machines. >> ann marie is the person who asked that question. next we have the founder of orlando.com going to ask a question on behalf of one of the people who got voted up. >> good evening. vi a question from samantha warren from pembroke, massachusetts. and she asked, she says, planned parenthood is under fire for doctored videos that prove no crime or wrongdoing. do you support defending or defunding planned important hood? >> defending. there's a short answer for you. >> bingo. congressman jolly? >> i'll say two things and i'll keep it brief. when the videos came out they were shocking. my side of the aisle quickly rushed to author a legislation to defund parenthood but in the process reduced medical care to individuals throughout the country. it's actually the jolly language, i introduced a bill that said we're going to

disqualify planned parenthood as a vendor but we're going to continue to fund women's health care services at the top level funding it has been at. when my side of the aisle asked for an investigation of planned parenthood, i voted no. should the issue be looked at? yes. there were already three committees looking at the she. we didn't need a forth. so i did vote no against the planned parenthood investigation. >> so congressman jolly i'm confused by your position on that. you voted no in that case but we've had 12 investigations at the state level within they've all said that the video wu doctored and there was nothing illegal whatsoever but yet you voted to defund planned parenthood. why vote that way? >> i voted against the investigation because i think the investigation had run its course and frankly i don't think my party should spend three months in the summer revisiting

this issue. we can continue to assess whether or not there was violation. that can be done without a special congressional committee. what my legislation would have done is pending the investigation disqualified planned parenthood as a vendor but continued to provide the maximum level of resources for other providers of the same services. >> what defund planned parenthood if -- >> did you see the skroo in that's why. >> but 12 investigators saw it and said it was doctored. that's why i'm asking. you don't agree with the investigations? >> don't agree with which investigations? >> that there was nothing wrong, that planned parenthood had done, they had not sold any body parts? >> i don't know the outcome of 12 different investigations. it could have been settled with a single investigation which is why i voted against the special committee. >> go ahead. >> i think it's fair to say that americans by the millions found the practice of selling baby

parts quite horrific. >> let me address that. >> let's jump -- tweet me afterwards. >> give me a minute hear. that's what jewish people like me refer to as a blood liable. that's a lie that's utterly horrific that it takes away people's judgment. all it can do is stir up hatred and demonize people. respectfully that's what you just did. that eats not the appropriate way to discuss. it's inciting people to hatred. god bless barack obama, whatever you say about him he never indulges in that. let's not say someone is selling baby parts or the mexicans are all rain is. or any other lie like that that is meant to make people hate other people. >> respectfully i was merely the proposition of the video and what they were based upon.

that was the context. and that is not something that i am making a ruling on as did or did not happen. the context of the videos caused outrage because that's how they were sold. >> it would be a violation to cry yat a revenue line for the organization based on transacting in fetal parts. that was the point of the initial investigation rn. >> i do not claim to be an expert in the videos or the investigations. >> yeah. let me just end on this note. just for the record, of the 12 investigations at the state levels, a lot of them were conducted by republicans and one in harris county texas did indict two people, but not the people at planned parenthood but the ones who made the videos. that's the only indictments that ever came out of that. according to those 12 states, no selling of body parts whatsoever and the only people dieted were the people who made the videos.

let's move forward to the next question. >> the next question comes from james in arkansas. this question is asked concerns a very hot topic right now, the supreme court. do you believe that president obama's supreme court pick should have a hearing before the president leaves office? >> who would like to answer that first? >> congressman grayson. >> the answer is yes. there's a house resolution to that effect. it's a sad situation that we're in. under the original constitution african americans were considered to be three-fifths of a human being. now our first african american president gets 7/8ths of a term. he should be able to appoint someone until his last day in office. >> the president has the article 2 authority to appoint the senate has the article 1 authority to accept or reject it. i end up in the same place as leader mcconnell here.

i think the united states senate should have a hearing and consider a vote and understand this, rejecting the nominee because he is wrong on the second amendment and he is wrong on labor yuan yours is not obstructionism. it's tes proper exercise of the senate's article 1 authority. if they bring it up for a vote, vote him down. ask the president to nominate a second person, one that could actually meet approval of republicans in the united states senate. what the president has to accept is that republicans currently control the united states senate and they have the constitutional prerogative to vote the nominee up or down. i do think he should have a hearing and i would like to see a vote because i think he would be voted down. >> if you were serving in this position currently as a senator for the state of florida, would you meet with mere rick garland. >> sure, of course. >> yes. >> let me follow up with congressman grayson. merrick garland has voted in favor of citizens quis united.

he did further citizens united. so on those issues not progressive. would you -- if a democrat won the election would you ask -- and you won your seat, would you ask president obama to end his nomination and let the next democratic president pick a different supreme court nominee? >> if the unfortunate event that garland's nomination is pending, i would say yes. it's unfair to say in most cases where were you on this issue, where were you on this other issue as long as they're following precedent. and you yourself pointed out that once the supreme court decided citizens united the awful day i was in the courtroom, mitch mcconnell two seats to my left, that was the law of the land until they decide otherwise. i'm pleased that four members of the court supreme court have said they will overturn citizens quited with a fifth vote.

i asked the president to make a recess appointment to make that happen. president decided not to. he went through a normal nomination process. i want to have the bad laws, the bad precedents changed as quickly as possible. but you can't curse the man for simply following precedent. that's unfair to him and the system of justice. >> let's move on to the next questionant minimum wage. it comes from delore is from kissimmee, florida. are you for a minimum wage increase on the federal level? would you bring it up to the poufrty level of $15 an hour? if instead you believe it should be incremental, how long until you would make it $15 an hour. >> look, i'm for getting people off of minimum wage. the state of florida has an

$8. $8.05 that is higher than the state level. i would be willing to have the consideration to allow for stability of financial planning for employers. here's the important thing. if you went to the 1010 level of a few years back, the cpo says we would have 500,000 viewer jobs. if you went to hillary clinton's proposal of 12, you would have 3.8 million fewer jobs. and if you went to bernie sanders proposal, you would have over 6 million fewer jobs. how do we get people off of minimum wage and in a growing economy. we do that through conservative proposals. i would consider and index at the federal level but an arbitrary lift that would kill jobs for the bottom fours of the workforce. it would be felt by the people who need to jobs the most. i was a small business owner. i went through eight months one time where i didn't pay myself because i wanted to keep my

employees employed. if the government had told me arbitrarily you have to raise your employees' salaries by 30%, i already wasn't paying myself. my only option would have been to laypeople off in the name of a minimum wage act. >> let tl are parts of the country that have higher minimum wages than the federal minimum wage and they have in metro a a areas where the economy can support it. >> we live in a metro area. >> explain to the person in iowa why $15 is a wage that employers should have to be able to sustain. >> let me continue here. let me tell you why. if you calculate it out you'll see that living on minimum wage right now trying to survive on 1400 dollars a month. nobody is survive on that. i went through the minimum wage challenge, tried to do it a few

days, i ended up dropping it because i had to take my son to the dentist and so much for the minimum wage challenge. it's impossible when you is a health bill, a car repair bill, nil that might throw you off the track of eating nothing but ramen noodles every day for the rest of your life. this is america. in australia they have $16 an hour minimum wage. in australia and they've had a booming economy for years and their unemployment has been less than ours for most of the last ten years that they've had. minimum wage. if they can do it, then we can do it. in germany by law, every worker gets four weeks plus of paid vacation. you haven't seen the german economy collapse because of that. there's only three countries in the world where there's no paid vacation by law. we happen to be one of them. we're treating our workers like dirt. out of the 50 largest

metropolitan areas in the entire country, orlando is dead last in wages. in the seniors that seniors deserve a raise, workers deserve a raise and we need to properly compensate the people who are doing the work that makes everything possible. couldn't be in the studio today, couldn't be standing behind the leg turn until somebody made the studio, made the lectern. >> is there a number that we can go back to the person who asked this question and say here's the minimum wage you think is ideal, that you would like to get to? >> just like on climate change, this's few economists in congress. why do lawmakers arbitrarily choose a number why was it 1212, 1010, 15, let's index it. get the brightest minds in the world in the room, figure out what the number should be, index it and get the politicians out of this. it works in states across the

country including florida. so employers can plan for the increased wages of the next year. >> here's a funny thing. i was an economist for four years. i can go through the economic data and tell you that the aurkts against the minimum wage are false. misleading. the fact is if you gave people a $15 wage, there would be more customers. that's what the businesses want. they don't want to force their employees to rely on food stamps or medicare. what they want most is customer. they'll spend it. the whole economy gets elevated. >> how does somebody in my situation call an employee in d say i'm sorry i have to let you go because the government has just said i have to give you a 30% raise and i'm already not paying myself and there aren't funds to keep you employed. you can study the economics all you want but the impact on job

losses is real and it hits the small businesses the hardest >> before i took up the cause of the $15 minimum wage i met with people in tampa making the minimum wage for florida, about two dozen of them. i asked every one of them the question that congressman jolly asked, are you willing to run the risk that you might lose your job so people can have a $15 wage. every single one answered yes even the they knew they might be the one. and frankly, with a properly managed economy like germany has, you would never have to worry about that. >> what's keeping you from raising it to $87 an houren. >> it has to have some correspondence to the value of people's labor. but the fact is there is a value to people's labor and it's $15 an hour or more. we artificially subsidize it to make it seem less than that. the only way people survive when they're making $8, $9 or $10 an hour is because the government

subsidizes it. you look at the amount of money walmart gets for their employees benefit for the earned income tax credit, the medicaid coverage, the food stamps, every other form of benefits that they get, this is subsidizing the pay. if they're making $15 an hour, the taxpayers would be better off. >> eddy from california has a question that was vote nd on very enthusiastically. what are you plans to deal with out of control college tuition and student death. just a few numbers here, gentlemen because with we're in florida. over half of floridian students carry student debt when they graduate. the total amount of sturnt debt in florida exceeds a billion dollars. florida doubled the national average of student debt loans in default. and the average floridian owes

north of $26,000 in student debt, ranking the fifth highest in the country. how do you combat this problem? congressman jolly. >> so 41 million americans have student loan debt. next the mortgages, it's the greatest debt on families. we can make them eligible for reorganization and bankruptcy cases. those are two nishives i've supported, creating accessible for accelerating pell grant need based aid. but you want to know the real way to do this? let's tie the performance of long term student loans to what the universities receive. because understand, you can rack up $100,000 in debt and the day of your graduation the university has been paid but you might struggle with that debt for decades. right now the only trigger 0 an university that invokes any kind of penalty is if a default rate of their graduated students

reaches 18%. i think we should go back to the system where the university is renumb rated based on the performance of the long term loan. >> congressman grayson. >> i've introduced the sanders college for all act. that include everything congressman jolly described. it also makes public college free. there are seven other countries around the world where public colleges is a, free, and b, trauth in english. how can sla vein ya afford to provide public college in english where florida and ie highway and new hampshire sn somehow can't. the entire college system for the state of florida is a tiny fraction of the state's overall budget. we already have the federal government providing a substantial part of the k through 12 cost of education. why do we stop there? you know, it's not a new idea.

free public college dates back in the united states to the 1840s. my father went to the city college of new york, a free college. there's no reason we can't make the promise to everyone else. we want people to reach their potential in life. every single one of us is a unique bundle of talents, skills, interests, limitations and i want to see the truck drivers who are willing and able to become doctors, become doctors. i want to make sure that everybody reaches their full potential and in our 21st century economy that often requires a college education. i say let's open up the public colleges to everyone. >> congressman jolly do you support debt free college? >> that's a state decision. if the state and taxpayers decide to provide that for students, that's left for the states to decide. i don't think the federal government should be telling the state of florida you have to give free college. if the voters want it, the

administrators can decide how to pay for it and the taxpayers would have to accept that. i disagree with alan and i disagree with bernie sanders on this. >> next question is about for-profit prisons. black persons are being persecuted and mistreated in the prison system. private prisons are at the root. if elected will either of you support abolishes private prisons. >> the answer is yes. what is government? one way to look at what government is the government holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, whether they're talking about killing foreign soldier, the police arresting anyone or we're talking about a judgment in court, a minute judgment being enforced or for that matter we're talking about imprisoning somebody. the core function of government is that. so it makes so sense whatsoever to contract it out.

it's fundamentally ir responsible to say to someone we'll let you make a buck off incarcerating somebody else. and it delegitimizes the entire system. the reason why prison guards do what they do, it's a difficult dirty job, a horrible job to have. the reason they can do what they do is because they stand there in the place of you and me. they stand there in the place of the entire u.s. all citizens all together making these decisions through the justice system collect tyly. once you start to say to people we'll give you an extra dollar if you cut back on the rations or you put three or four prisoners in a cell instead of only two, you've corrupted the system in a fundamental way. we cannot allow that. >> listen, i think privatization is an issue for elected leadership to decide if these the appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. the question is the administration of prisons regardless of whether it's

public or private. if somebody is violating the law in the way they're ad ministering a prison, they should be held responsible for that. i had a dear friend who made mistakes and he actually ended up spending time in a state prison here in florida. he faced significant health care challenges that i don't believe were being responded to adequately. i don't know if it was a private or a public prison. to me it didn't matter. the issue was that the administration was failing. and so should we wholesale prohibit privatization? i don't know. perhaps there are areas where that is worksing for the taxpayers. but if somebody is violating the law in the way they ad minister a prison, they should be held accountable for it. >> it doesn't stop there. 23% of the african american adults in the state of flort can't vote because their rights have not been restored. it's the highest proportion in the entire country.

we have to treat prisoners as if they are human beings and not profit centers but we also have to understand that when they've served their time, it's time the let it go and have them rejoin the family of american citizens with full rights. >> congressman jolly there are some studies out showing that private prison are not really cost savers. in arizona they cost $1600 more per inmate mer year. but to me the larger question, not just the effects that it has and the costs that it has, but the fact that we insent rise some companies to take away the freedoms of some americans. is there something inherently problematic with that? >> that's wrong and lij lay tors should be held accountable for that. there may be a model that saves taxpayers dollars lied a lly ad

prison. >> joe from hialeah, florida. it goes like this. what will you do to improve voting not yourself in florida but nationwide. what will you do to improve -- there it is again. i personally would like to see open primaries everywhere, a federal voting holiday and auto voter reg ration at 18 years of age. we have the video. i think joel is here to join us. >> well then you'll hear it again. >> -- not just in florida but nationwide. we continue to see the effects of voter suppression wreak havoc. i would like to see open primaries in all 50 states. >> so let's start with congressman jolly on this one. and if you can be specific on his ideas open primaries with federal voting. >> i think it's a great solution. open primaries. we should have them in the state

of florida. you've got a third of the electorate that's disenfranchis disenfranchises. we can grow the party by embracing conservative solutions that appeal to independents. i would say yes to open primari primaries. and whatever makes us have greater participation, i'm willing to consider that. >> i've introduced legislation for this purpose. i've introduced more bills than any other member and i introduced a bill for democracy day making our federal elections a holiday. we have a lot of people in my district twho work one job, maybe two jobs, sometimes three jobs and they work on tuesdays. another thing i'm in favor of is the same spm they have in colorado where they mail every single voter a ballot. you can use it or go vote on

election day. that has elevated turnout enormously. jond that i think we have to accept the fundamental idea that it is fundamentally wrong for the government to do anything to frustrate the right to vote. so i favor a constitutional amendment that declares the right to vote. i also have introduced legislation that would ensure that when you serve your time apart from cases of murder or manslaughter or sex crimes, when you've served your time you get back your rights. in flort we have first class citizens and second class citizens and that's just wrong. when you've served your time and paid your debt to society you should be able to vote and protect yourself through the political system and have the same rights as everybody else. >> do you find any problems with the voter id laws if they disenfranchise a significant percentage of some folks of the country, for example, 25% of african americans don't have voter ids? >> let's do better.

make it accessible for anybody who legally and responsibly want to do so. >> i think that we don't have time for another question so we're going to go to closing statements. congressman grayson is going to go first. >> i'm delighted to have had this opportunity to address the issue of the day. you'll notice that the choice of paper versus plastic never came up. the choice of diet coke versus coke zero never came up. it's a big debate in my household. and i'm happy that finally the american people get to see what it's like two serious members of congress my friend struggling with the great issues of the day. this is what it's all about. this is the way politics ought to be. we shouldn't be talking about how much we're sweating or how big our fingers right be. this is not what this is about. >> on that issue we have not done you justice. >> it is awfully hot in here. >> it is florida. >> but look, it comes back to what i said earlier.

we're both struggling with this issue. the issue is rising inequality in the country. we want people to be able to be all they can be at the beginning. but we have economic equality, social inequality. people are falling out of the middle class. so the question is whether you're talking about student loans or social security or whatever it may be, what are you going to do about it? what are you actually going to coto fix it? what have you done to fix it? my organization i mentioned for the alliance of aging research, they have an award they give out every year. it us called the claude pepperer award. i want to win that award one day. i want to be the same champion as claude pepper was for the state of florida for an entire generation or more. that's what florida needs today, a champ'n for seniors, a champion for workers, a champion for you. >> thank you to the open debate coalition. it is warm in here i think because of the lights. and yes some of us are sweating.

but i tell you what. every single day i try to lay it on the line. i said i've been fighting for florida for two years. i'm asking for the opportunity to continue to do it again. when the veterans need better health care, let's give them the choice of where they receive it. when the seniors don't have an increase, let's fight to get it. when we have children that's not ready for school, let's invest in study readiness, making geds more affordable and accessible for people who want it. and yes when the president is wrong on issues of national security and on overregulation that is reducing services and cripples an economy in parts of florida that need it the most, let's stand up and say there's a better way that do it. you know i started by talking about the s.t.o.p. act. there's probably no better we form that we can do right now, get congress back to work. this contest of ideas alan and i have had tonight is what we

should be doing as candidates and mention. it's why i introduced the s.t.o.p. act. it's why we have the s.t.o.p. act.com to ask people to join nus a movement, more than a campaign. i thank you for tuning in. i thank each one of you for participating tonight. this has been a great night. alan, thank you. >> okay. hey, thank you guys. thank you gentlemen, congressmen so much. we had so much that we didn't have a chance to get to. that proved the strength of the d debate. i wanted to thank the congressmen for being here, our partners and progressive change institute and for everybody who submitted questions and for the nearly half a million votes we got to decide which questions were answered. so thank you so much and for the public who followed along. >> if you like this style of debate and you would like to ask the questions going forward, can can do at the congressional

levels but you ooft go to impress to the representatives that this is the right way to this. if you're on facebook, share it, like it, go to florida open debate.com and make sure everybody gets the word on this. so congressmen thank you so much and for all of you at home watching, thank you as well. ♪ ♪ our c-span campaign 2016 bus continue to travel across the country to honor winners from this year's student cam competition. recently our bus traveled to wyoming. to recognize winners. they were recognized by

classmates and families and local elected officials for that video access to affordable higher education is the investment of the future. then our bus traveled to south dakota and visited with winners in rapid city and sioux falls and the final stop of the week included a visit to minnesota where third prize winners were honored for their video on water pollution. a special thanks to our cable partners, comcast, charter and mid cofor helping to coordinate the visits. every week be sure to watch one of the entries. the nightly shows larry will more will be the head lynner at this week's white house correspondent's dinner. we caught up with him earlier. here's a look. >> larry, will more you get to meet the president saturd night.

>> i'm excited about that. i had to give them all of my identification and now i can't vote, you know. they got everything. it's going to be a lot of fun. i'm looking forward to it. >> did you think about saying no when the call came? >> absolutely not. when the president calls you have to do it, you know.