chris van hollen and republican kathy shilega. at 10:00, a debate for the florida senate. between republican senator, marco rubio and democratic congressman, patrick murphy. live thursday night, republican senator, kelly ayotte and democratic governor, maggie hassan debate for the election seat. watch key races on the c-span network and listen on the c-span radio app. c-span where history unfolds daily. knew, now, a debate from washington state. this is courtesy of the washington state debate coalition and seattle city club.

good evening from washington and the columbia basen college, the final debate between the candidates for governor, republican bill bryant and democrat jay insly. i am cr douglas serving as comoderator. >> i am enrique cerna. our debate was organized by the washington sfat coalition. a group founded this year by seattle city club to increase access to nonpartisan issues. >> we invite both our live audience here and our viewing audience to be part of this debate by following us and commenting on twitter, our hashtag tonight is waelex. >> we are at nonpartisan debates. that's what we are all about. we would like to thank colombia basin college, hispanic chamber of commerce, the tri city

development council, herald, regional chamber of commerce and visit tri cities. >> our final thanks to our debate sponsors, lead support from the aarp of washington and and microsoft and the bill and melinda gates foundation and the henry m. jackson foundation and stock exchange lawrence. let's begin with our opening statements. we had a coin toss prior to the debate. that determined that bill bryant will go first. mr. bryant, let's start with you. >> thank you and thank you columbia basin college for hosting this debate. tonight, i want to tell you why i want this job. i want to share with you my vision of all that we can accomplish together. with 30 to 50% of our minority students not graduate can from high school, with the fourth worst traffic in america, with the eighth highest unemployment in america. with homelessness exploding on to our streets and with salmon

runs going extinct, is there anything that thinks we can't do better. we can and let's do it. let's start with education. through 7th grade, i attended a rules school on the scomosi rest ser lation. because of that, i want to ensure p every kid gets an education that gives them an equal chance to succeed. i am running for governor because of education. let's fix our traffic meso the commuters can get to work on time and get home to see their families at a reasonable hur and let's work with the private sector to generate good, solid, family wage jobs in communities that are still struggling with unemployment. as someone who used to volunteer at a homeless shelter, i want us to commit and dedicate ourselves to rebuilding our mental health system to get people out of tents and on to their feet. i want to restore habitat so that salmon come back thick every fall for generation toss

come. sgrooishlgs filling th fulfilling that will take an activist. that's the kind of governor i am going to be. i'm asking for your vote. tonight, i hope i earn it. >> governor insley. >> thanks for all involved. trudy and i are delighted to be here tonight. central washington is where we raised our three boys. i used to have the honor of representing the tri cities. i think this is a perfect place for this discussion about how and why we are a confident and optimistic state and why we need a confident and optimistic government. if you look at the tri cities and states, you will realize we

are making progress on jobs, education and transportation. start with jobs where lamb weston and autozone are growing jobs here. look at the the economic gardening plan we are going to take statewide. we have created 20,000 new jobs in the last month. we ought to be proud about that achievement. number one economy in the entire country. look at education. haskell bulldogs have increased their graduation by 25% in the last several years. delta high school is a model for the nation in stem education. what is happening here is happening statewide. we have had robust increases, early child education. every single child is going to have access to kindergarten. we are making big progress. look at transportation. what we are doing in tri cities, we are going to rebuild the red

mountain interchange and fix highway 12. that's happening all over the states because of bills that i helped lead and make sure it got passed. we are fixing 405 and finishing 167. we are finishing north/south flee way. we are engaged in the most massive infrastructure build can program in the history of the state of washington. i am looking tonight for this discussion. i'm a confident and optimistic governor. i believe we ought to keep the ball rolling. thank you. >> before we begin with our formal questioning, we want you to know there is a way you can participate with shaping our debate with the help of our microsoft post poll. go to whydebates.org, you can decide the subject matter we will focus on later this hour. you can pick from health care, homelessness, small business and womens issues. in a few minutes, we will check back on those results and determine some of the questions for later in our debate. >> let's begin with the questioning. as you know, police shootings

have captured headlines throughout the country over the past two years. here in pasco, antonio zambrano montez was shot and killed by police officers for throwing rocks at them. it was captured on video. the prosecutor declined to press charges against the officers citing current state law that requires proof that officers acted with malice and without faith. do you believe that standard should be changed? >> let's first talk about the environment in which we are living. i think too often right now in the united states, we are living in an environment that is sort of based on fear. that's not healthy for any of us. for our communities to really work, for us to exist together in a solid community, for us to have a good relationship with law enforcement, we need to have trust. regardless of what the law is, we need to make sure we have trust within our community between the members of that community and our law enforcement. that's beginning to fray.

necessary undermining our democracy. we need to ensure that we support those who run towards danger, not away from it, when there is a problem. at the same time, we need to make sure that those people are representing us and treating everyone fairly and equally. there is right now a task force to examine this. they are looking at all facets of what is a very difficult issue. they are supposed to come out with their findings involving law enforcement and advocates and i look forward to look can at those results and deciding whether or not washington state needs to change its legislation. until we have that recommendation, i think it would be premature. >> we have come a long ways in america dealing with our racial divide but we know we have more work to do to cure racial injustice. we feel the pain of any family who loses anyone of any race involved in violence. look, i'm proud. i'm endorsed by every single law enforcement group necessary done an endorsement in this race. i am honored to have their

endorsement. i feel very strongly, these are men and women that put on the badge every morning and go out into harm's way. they deserve our support. we do need to do a couple things. we need to examine our accountability statute, which is very unusual. it is an outlier in the united states. we have to do this to prevent these shootings in the first place. we need to make sure that officers have training so they can deescalate problems and be culturally competent. we have one of the best criminal justice centers in the whole country. they do this well. we have to make sure that in 2017, we make sure every officer has that training to prevent these tragedies. >> the final piece of the state supreme court's mccleary mandate on school funding is to end the overreliance on local levees. in many cases, these levees are paying for teacher salaries, which is a state obligation. do you agree with the concept of

a levee swap, whereby lower property tax levees would be lowered and the state property tax levee would be raised to solve this problem. a swap, in effect. governor insly? >> i believe in improving the education of our students. that's why we have put $5.5 billion in the smart things we are doing for kids. now, we have to take the last step. we put 5.5 billion in and we have to give the rest away to the summit. there is a way to have some swap involved in this solution set, to reduce local levees and make na that up in the state levee. we should not confuse this with the proposal that the republicans have put forth which would end up raising the p property taxes on the citizens. it would raise the property taxes for half the people in this state and put no money into their local schools. i don't believe that that's the

tenable version. he i'm committed to getting this done in 2017. maybe we can replace those local levee dollars. i think that can be done. i was shocked when had they said we can kick that can down the road past 2017. i can tell you why that was shocking to me. we actually have fashioned a bipartisan commitment, both democrats and republicans are work on a task force to get this job done. i am committed doing it and confident we can get that job done. >> bill bryant, where are you on the levee swap concept? >> well, it is what you didn't hear that i think is important. you heard no plan. governor insly four years ago said he would have a plan but he

didn't. rob mckenna had a plan. they had tv adds attacking his plan. he promised one after getting elected in 2013. in 2014, he had no plan. in 2015, he vowed action. in 2016, all he did was set up the committee to promise to work on it before 2017. that committee has met five times. the governor has made half of one of those meetings. he has no plan. he is not engaged. delivering a plan through this legislative session in 2017 is one of the primary reasons i am running for governor. i have already started working with legislators and education reformers around the state on a four-pronged plan. the first is equity. right now, we have a situation where rich school districts can provide their kids with programs that rural and disadvantaged neighborhoods are not able to provide. that is not only unconstitutional but morally wrong. we will ensure equity that every

kid is going to have the same amount of money spent on them. the second thing is, we need to fully fund education. under my plan, we will spend 50% of our general fund revenue budget on k-12 education. the third thing we need to do is innovation. we can't pour more gas into a broken engine and expect to get where we want to go. i want to reinvent the last two years of high school so it is relevant. we have preapprentice and industry certification programs for kids that don't want to go on to college. then, we have to deal with uniformity. this is what i said we might need to deal with through 2020. >> we are out of time. >> let me follow up with you, because i didn't get a clear answer. this will probably be the single biggest budget item you deal with. solving mccleary and the levee swap is out there. bill bryant, where are you on the concept of lowering local property tax and raising state property tax to solve this

overreliance? >> we have a situation right now where some very rural, poor districts are paying $5 per thousand and some wealthier districts are paying $1.20. those folks in the poor district are not able to generate enough money to provide enter kids with the same programs the kids in richer districts get for $1.20. would i like to look at a hybrid model where you have an equal property tax across all districts and that raises whatever it raises in that district and then the state backfills. so money doesn't go to olympia and get sent back. it stays in the district. the state ensures that every kid, regardless of where they grow up, is going to have the same amount of money spent on them. >> governor insly, you have said you are aminable for some kind of levee swap. please clarify how much and what it would like to. >> this is a complicated issue. i will attempt in 60 seconds.

we can reduce the local levees in high property tax areas and also reduce the levee in low property tax areas and thereby reduce the local levee burden on local taxpayers. we can only do it so much. if you do it too far, you end up increasing the property taxes in the wealthier areas. once we start doing that, i don't believe people will be acceptable to raise property taxes and end up not putting any additional dollars. we need to put dollars in so we can have apprenticeship programs. bill talks about a lack of plan. we have had action. we have had action. we are starting an apprenticeship program. the first this year. we have full day kindergarden. we have found a way to put $5.5

million into that. >> inback yakima, they had the t time election of three latinas. they ruled the city's large voting system was suppressing the latino population. they say the washington voters act would make this easier in other cities without court intervention. mr. bryant, what are your views on this bill. you can support it. >> we need to have a system where every vote counts and where everybody believes that their vote counts. dr. king, martin luther king said, when people feel estranged from their society and separated from it, they don't feel any obligation to that society. when that happens he, the content of democracy has ended. we need a vibrant democracy. we have to rearrange the lines

so everyone's vote counts. that's why i support legislation for the city of pasco, so na every possibly lation can be equally represented. our fastest growing demographic population are latinos. only 30% of latinos will not graduate from high school. if they don't graduate from high school, they are more likely to be incarcerated or live in poverty or have health problems. if that's the case, they are going to be more and more divorced from our community. we need to make sure everybody is an active member of community and focus on high school graduation rates. i'm not going to wait until p being sworn in, during the transition, i am going to pull together minority leaders and put together an initiative to increase high school graduation rates among our minority communities. >> i fully support the washington state voting rights act. i have been diligent pli

attempting to pass it over the objections of the republican party. i do believe this is healthy for democracy. i do believe that the experience in yakima has been very demonstrably shown that this can really help communities. we have three young latinas, two of whom represent districts that are not majority latino in the districts. in order to facilitate that and make it easier for local communities to embrace that far sighted effort, to give people fundamentally to have the ability to have their neighborhood decide who is going to represent them, we need the voting rights act to make sure that happens. we do need people, young latinos and latinas, to get early child education. i have put as much money or more in early childhood education. we have 7,000 new kids. i was delighted to go to mt. vernon elementary to see spanish

kids p learning english. i love that latinos and latinas are going to get full day education so they don't fall behind. we are going to have smaller classes so in the early grades, the courage of these kids that come in here not speaking english is pretty amazing. we see their eyes light up because they have a good teacher and a smaller classroom. good things can happen. >> joining us to assist in the questioning, are four local journalists. we begin with lynn casy from kndu tv. >> diane in from tacoma submitted this question john plin. last month, five people were killed in a mass shooting in burlington at the cascade mall. if the suspected shooter is found guilty and sentenced to death, would you lift your moratorium and allow that centers to proceed. >> well, this and every other tragedy touches all of our hearts. the pain that these families

feel is beyond imagination. i know that because i have spoken to them. in my deliberation about the death penalty, i have met with victims, some of who agree and some that disagree strongly with my position. the position i take is one that follows the fundamental precept we should have equal justice under law. i did a lot of research about the death penalty in our state. i found some disturbing things. the fact is the death penalty is not anywhere close to be used in an equitable measure. one person gets life. the other person gets death. it depends on which side of the county line you are. there are racial aspects of this that enter into this. i don't believe no matter what you believe on the philosophical aspect, whether a new testament or an old testament person and both are sincere, we have got to have a system that is equal. what i have found is that our death penalty machine, if you will, is grossly inequitiable.

there is essentially no death penalty in about 28 of our counties today because it costs too much. it is a lot cheaper. these counties have found, to put someone in jail for the rest of their life with no possibility of probation or parole than to go through 20 years of appeals paying lawyers. so what i have found is we need an equitable system. i will maintain my position we will have a moratorium on the death penalty while i am governor of the state of washington. >> thank you, governor. mr. bryant, are you for the death penalty and is it appropriate in this case? >> i am very confused about what the governor did. it seems as if he just sort of woke up one morning and without talking to any of the victims or any prosecutors around this state decided he was going to impose a moratorium on the death penalty. it is not really clear what would happen if a death warrant came up. are you suggesting you would pardon the person or you would set aside the conviction? i'm unclear on what you would actually do. but, let me tell you my

position. what i will do with governor. i am very uncomfortable with the state being able to take life but i do not think that a governor gets to pick and choose which laws to enforce and which to ignore. as long as it is the law in washington state, i will enforce it. >> we go now to lorie williams from the tri-city herald. >> speaking of the court system, the state of washington has currently two lawsuits filed against the department of energy related to the ham ford nuclear reservation. one is about missing deadlines, emptying tanks and treating waste and the other is about seeking worker protection from chemical vapors. mr. bryant, is the litigation the best way to achieve hanford cleanup. do you support both lawsuits. >> thank you. i appreciate you asking that. i was spending part of today talking to different people about that. i have more to learn. i have spent two, three days

here meeting with people from all sides of the issue. i have talked to employees. i have talked to previous employees. i have talked to contractors and members of the federal department of energy. i am trying to understand from all perspectives what's going on and why we are falling so far behind. all of these people have different perspectives on what we need to be doing. there are three elements that kind of ring true through all of them. the first is that governor insly really isn't engaged or certainly not as engaged as governor gregwar was. they say we need gubernatorial leadership. they say he is focused so much on the tank he is ignoring the fact that we have a much bigger threat with some of the properties 120 yards from the river. finally, third, this goes to your point. they are saying because he has largely relegated this issue to the attorney general, we are mired in litigation. that's what the attorney general does. what they are telling me is that because we have so much litigation going on right now, parties really can't talk to each other about how we move forward. we are so focused on getting a

lawsuit and a win in court and being able to issue a press release saying we won, we are really not talking to people about how we can move up our time frame and clean up this mess. as governor, i want to provide that leadership. we need leadership, not lawsuits. >> governor, the tax payers are paying both to prosecute and to defend these suits. so what do you say to people who believe that their money would be better spent cleaning up hamford rather than in the court system? >> i totally agree. what would be better is if the federal government fulfills its responsibility to washington citizens. i don't need a lot of education on this in a sense, because i have been working on this off and on for about two decades, formally representing hanford. when i was in congress, i was a member of the hanford caucus, worked with doc casings to make sure we were on top of these issues, went to countless briefings. i met with secretary ernie

moniz, who i consider a friend, about five weeks in seattle to talk about these and other issues. we are very engaged in talking to our federal partners. the fed government has let down the people of tri cities. the people of tri cities are the most skilled workers world. they have done some good work. they have removeded about 500 square miles of radioactive material and consolidated it up on the plateau. they have a great plan. we have to give them more safety. she should not be exposed to fumes. they are providing some mechanism to hold uncle sam's feet to the fire. it is a battle for appropriations in the u.s. congress. that battle has to be won if we are going to make sure we finance the projects in haanfnf. there is a tendency to let things get kicked down the road. i think we are making the right

decision working with our federal partners but being insistent that uncle sam does their part for the people of the state of washington and the people of the tri cities. >> we would like to go to our first microsoft poll question. we asked all of you which two of these four topics you want most addressed. health care, 23%, homelessness, 45%, small business, 18%. women's issues, 13%. homelessness tops the concerns. i go to this question. governor insly, cities across washington are experiencing a surge in homelessness. now that it has reached a level, do you believe we should appoint a homeless czar? >> we have increased our coordination. one of the first things i did was to direct our department of commerce to focus priorities on youth homelessness. we now, in part, because of my wife, trudy's leadership, we have passed a youth homelessness

will that will coordinate activities to deal with youth homelessness. i think it is more important to put meat on the bones. these folks are citizens, neighbors, family members. if they can get a little help, they can get back on their feet. we have been increasing low income housing stock since i have been governor. we have saved about 4,000 others that were on the verge to go into high rent. second, we have led the country in a thing called rapid rehousing. instead of getting people into transitioning, we get into permanent housing much more rapidly. kent county is starting to follow our lead. i think this is going to be very helpful. we have focused on veteran's housing. when i came in, there were 1400 veterans.

i found that totally unexcusable in the state of washington. we have housed thousand 1400 veterans. guess what, there are more veterans that have come in and become homeless. why? we know there are addiction problems and we are going to integrate our mental and physical health systems to have better addiction treatment. here is the other thing. rent is going up and wages are not. every time rent goes up $100, homelessness goes up 15%. one thing we can do is increase the minimum wage. 30% of the homeless people in this state are working full time. any don't have an addictive problem. they don't have a mental health problem. what they have is a wage problem. so i'm supporting the minimum wage increase. it is on the ballot this year. i am looking forward to help as many ways as i can. >> bill bryant, is it time for a homelessness czar in washington? >> no. we don't need a homelessness czar. we need a governor. this is a very important issue. >> audience, we ask you not to

aplowed applaud or make any comments. >> this is a personal issue. long before i ran for office, i i was in seattle. i understand the multifaceted reason people are homeless. i'll tell you what, we do not have a coordinated approach regardless what governor inslee said. there's no coordination between cities and state and that's got to happen. we are spending twice as much on homelessness than we were four years ago before jay inslee, yet homelessness exploded. if someone came to me and said we have a problem and i'm spending twice as much but the problem has gotten bigger, i'm saying you're not doing your job. you're not doing your job here. if i'm governor, we'll do six things. first we'll have a zero tolerance for camping on state lands. s.e.c., we'll give local law enforcement the authority to go in and deal with criminal elements in some of these camps and allow them to clean them up when necessary.

third, the state needs to look how the cities are spending state money on homelessness. in seattle we're spending between 10 and $14,000 per homeless person. that's more than we spend for the care of some foster kids. we need to make sure this money is being spent well. we can spend it well by investing in more permanent housing and job counseling. that's going to require looking at some building codes so we can build more tiny houses for people looking to get back on their feet. we also need to provide more mental health care. under governor inslee, our mental health system is ranked 50th. let that sink in. and then we need to coordinate between department of services and commerce. they are spread out under governor inslee and under governor bryant they will be consolidated. >> thank you very much. let's move to the next issue, health care. open enrollment for insurance plans start november 1st. costs continueing to up. two insurers, united and moda have withdrawn from the

marketplace. next year the average premium increase will be 13%. is the health insurance market in washington working and what will you do to slow the premium increases? we'll start with you bill bryant. >> well, this is a huge issue for whoever walks into the governor's office in january 2017. if we don't get a handle on our health care cost, and particularly our medicaid cost, in 10 years it's going to consume a disproportionate amount of our budget. so we need to make sure that our health care system works. right now it's not. it's meeting the needs of some but a lot of people are seeing their premiums going way up and their coverage going way down. that is not a pathway forward. one of the other things i'm hearing from patients and doctors alike is that if you want to have a marketplace that works well, you've got to be able to provide them with realtime information so that patients can make informed decisions and so doctors can communicate to patients about what their choices are and we don't have that. we need to have that. we also need to combine primary

and mental health. right now i'm being told in a lot of cases our costs are going up because if somebody comes in for a primary health issue, let's say a sore throat, the doctor realizes there's a mental health issue as well, they will give them a prescription for sore throat and tell them to come back in 30 days for mental health situation and that never happens. if we want to keep costs under control we need to provide for mental health. that's good kpampgs of where that's happening in southwest washington. there are opportunities for savings. it's going to take an engaged governor, activist governor, and that's kind of governor i want to be. >> governor inslee. >> we are doing in the state of washington today with the current governor every single thing bill talked about, all of which were good ideas. guess what we're already doing them. we are leading the united states in maintaining a low medical inflation rate. we like it to be zero.

we like to be negative 5%. but we are leading, and here is the best evidence of this. last week the federal government gave my administration because of my leadership and my team's leadership a waiver to creatively use $1.5 billion. here is what we're going to do with this. one, we are integrating mental and physical health. this is a no-brainer. we are leading the country in integration of mental and physical health so you don't have to go to different places for treatment between your mental and physical health difficulty. number two. we are inventing whole new ways of purchasing health care so we buy value rather than volume. the old way of buying health care was to buy a procedure. you pay the physician per procedure. we want to pay the physician and the hospital for health. we are leading the country in buying value rather than volume. we are increasing the

availability of help for this opioid epidemic we're experiencing. last week i announced our initiative to attack the opioid epidemic. it has to do with making sure our physicians don't overprescribe anyone, particularly our youth. it's providing telemedicine services to primary care physicians so if -- you can call somebody and get the latest information. these things are working today. we are leading the country. i'm proud of our work and we want to continue. >> it has become very common in washington, as you both know, the tacoma bridge, 520 bridge, viaduct tunnel will be tolled. hot lanes 405, i-67. governor inslee to do you support expanded tolls and hot lanes for money to repair other corridors across the state which will soon need major upgrades.

is that an appropriate user fee. >> we have not made that part of our plan going forward. here is what we did this year. when i started as governor, i knew how troublesome traffic congestion is. it's driving people to distraction in many places across the state of washington. so i decided to focus intensely to build a big infrastructure improvement plan that can reduce congestion, to build more buses, light rail, single vehicles, overpasses, connections 405, 167. we had a lot of opposition to that for a couple years, because the folks in the senate didn't want to pass a bill. eventually i brought the parties together and we passed a $16 billion transportation package. this is the largest infrastructure development project in the history of the state of washington. this is going to help everybody from red mountain interchange to highway 12 here in this part of the country, finish the north/south freeway in spokane. it's going to finish 167, the highway to nowhere in pierce

county. we did the first ground breaking to improve congestion on 405 just a couple weeks ago. so we have in the pipeline, and this was financed not by tolls but by an increase in the gas tax. we'd like to do that for nothing. if you're going going to build an infrastructure program obviously you have to have revenues. we thought that was a fair and best way to do it. we now are involved in a program to have a two-year program on tolling on 405 that bill helped design. we are improving that 405 corridor by adding a lane so we can reduce congestion. >> bill bryant, where are you at on tolling? >> i have no idea what the governor is talking about me designing toll lanes on '05. i want to take one 405 toll lane and convert it to general purpose lane. let me be clear, you didn't get a clear answer from governor inslee. you heard hill take credit for passing transportation package. i find that amazing. in the last month before

governor gregor left office she put together a transportation package whoever was walking into office. at the end of 12, 16 month period we put together a plan for the next governor. it was ready to go for the next legislative session. governor ibs lee came bo town and made transportation a partisan issue for the first time ever and blew it up. it took many of us three years to put it back together again. we need to reduce traffic congestion. it will be the top priority for my washington state department of transportation. we don't need to have more mega projects. the engineers the department of transportation, former and current, are saying you know what you need to do, bill, you need to have some microsolutions. we know there's an on ramp or off-ramp that was never intended to handle the kind of traffic it's handling now so we need to reconfigure it. we know there's difficult parts of road where we need to add a lane. i reiterate we need to remove

one of the toll lanes from 405. we need to invest in transit that works and people use because of it works. we need to be able to deliver this transit in the next six to eight years chbl that's why in my administration i'm going to add capacity so we can bring in bus rapid transit to communities all across puget sound area. >> we go to ed da saab news radio 610 kona. >> good evening, gentlemen, and west coast to the tri-cities. this next question is from both and comes from an audience member concerned about water quality in the yakima basin, arguing the state department of ecology is disregarding the recommendations of its own scientists to protect lower yakima valley well water from nitrate pollution resulting from big ag. how would you address that concern. >> some of you know i lived in yakima early '80s and mid-'90s. my company still does business

there so i'm involved with a number of folks who are struggling with the issues you're bringing out now. what they are telling me, bill, we're not making decisions based on sound science. they want to protect the water quality. they are saying actually these are regulations written more for over on the coast. what we need are regulations written for here in the yakima valley. they are not against the regulations. they just want to make sure before they make huge investments it's actually going to yield a result at the end of the day. they are concerned they are going to be asked to make huge investments and the water quality won't be improved at all. none of us want that. that's actually why i said on day one i'm going to impose moratorium on new regulations until the departments can justify the ones we've already got. i think it's going to take us about six months. by june 2017, we're going to look at every regulation. we're going to see whether it's meeting its objective. we're looking at how do you know it's meeting its objective, how do you measure success. if it's successful what will look differently in four to seven years. what's the legislative authority that gives you the ability to

implement that regulation? let's go through and make sure what we're asking people to do in yakima and all across washington state is based on sound science and is actually moving us towards a goal we all want to achieve. if we do that, and we can do that, we'll have a regulatory system that people have confidence in and want to invest in. >> thank you. governor inslee. >> the people of yakima deserve to have a well where you can give the well water to your 3-month-old and not worry about them getting nitrate poisoning. that's pretty simple. my administration is adopting a rule that will ruse the amount of nitrates that get into people's wells and preserve women's health and children's health. i have to tell you, i'm going to take issue with my opponent who doesn't want to look forward on what clearly scientifically is necessary for health. it is an approach that is not just about wells. look, we need rules against oil trains blowing up. we saw that in oregon. we need a rule that will help

the railroads be safer. inspector the rails at a more frequent basis. do some other things to help first responders. my opponent wants to stop that rule making process. i just don't understand that. i don't understand when we now have in the pipeline the ability -- this is a little off subject, comes back to the last issue when i use my time, we're going to build a red mountain interchange here, big infrastructure project, costs $40 billion. we're going to fix highway 12. but bill says we don't need to do that. he's just going to do it with some kind of magic in the dot office. i have to disagree with him. we've got to build this state. we've got 50 or 60,000 people moving here because we have the number one economy in the united states. it's one of the reasons we have a homelessness problem. they are driving up rent. we need to build a transportation infrastructure project that can accommodate all these new people so we don't die in congestion. we need to have rules that will protect our children's drinking

water in the yakima valley. >> all right. let's move on. republican secretary of state kim wyman is calling for a law that would require residents to prove u.s. citizenship or legal residency to get state driver's licenses. also, it would ensure noncitizens don't vote. washington is the ensemble state in the country that does not require legal documentation to get a driver's license or state identification. immigrant rights groups argue there is no proof of noncitizens voting. others say this could hurt the state's agriculture industry and workers to harvest crops. governor inslee, where do you stand? >> i'm not sure what the secretary is proposing. it's quite unclear to me. if she is proposing we need to bring our driver's license rules into compliance with federal real id act i agree with that and i propose legislation to do

that. it's really a simple piece of legislation. the legislators have not seen fit to pass that. i believe we can and should pass that. if she's talking about requiring people who started voting in 1948, you know, fought in the korean war but now we don't let them vote unless they trundle down to the courthouse and show them their birth certificate, no, i don't believe that's necessary, because i think there's such minimal suggestion that there has been this particular problem. look, i think we need more people voting. so if that is what she's suggesting, i don't know if it is, she's been pretty clear. i'm trying to use nonjudgmental language but i can't figure out what she's proposing. yes, we do need to bring our driver's license system in compliance with the federal law. the reason is at some point the federal government will no longer allow us to use our driver's license to get on an airplane. that will be a substantial inconvenience. so i have talked with the administration, most recently talked to assistant secretary

three weeks about this subject in hopes that the federal government can allow us to pass a law that will fix this and i will get that done. >> mr. bryant. >> i want to go back and address some of the issues governor inslee brought up because we need to clarify the record here. he said i was opposed to any regulations of oil trains, which is just flat-out not true and he knows it because it's come up before. saying it over and over again, governor, doesn't make it true. i was talking to railroad workers and they are quite dissatisfied you haven't done anything -- >> i want to remind you the rules for bid you from talking directly. >> i'll talk to you. they were telling me the governor has done nothing on this issue. as your governor, i'm going to move forward with laws and regulations that will ensure that we have adequate crew on the back of the trains, that we restrict the train length carrying oil and regular inspections of our cars and our tracks. let's be clear.

also, the whole idea that i'm not going to fin michigan 405 or 167 is absurd. i'm not relying on magic. i was relying on a transportation package you blue up and we passed three years later -- >> no direct. >> in spite of him. when it comes to transportation, oil train safety, i'm going to be defending the interest of people of washington state. in terms to ensure we have voter id, ensures we have citizens vogue, yes, we have to do it. we're one of 50 states that don't. if we do not take action you're going to have to have a passport to get on an airplane. i do not want people to have to go buy a passport to visit their grandparents in california. >> we now welcome tom from kepr tv here in pasco. >> gentlemen, as a father of two little girls, education very important to me, very important to many people in this community and this state. but a new report shows in the last five years, the demandter

new teachers in washington schools increased by 250% partly due to the fact experienced teachers are leaving. mr. bryant, what is your plan to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers. >> i love this question. for me, teachers are family. my dad was a teacher. my sister was a teacher and is now a principal. my sister-in-law and brother-in-law are all teachers. there isn't something that we study about, this is something that comes up at family dinners all the time. we have to ensure we're keeping young innovative teachers in the stenl. right now they are leaving after three or four years. why? part of it is compensation. this is why i as your governor want to dedicate increased funding for teachers to go to the new teachers and young teachers. governor inslee put through a proposal that would have given the most increases to teachers who make over $70,000 a year. that's not going to solve the problem. it's actually going to make

funding more difficult. so let's put the funding into new teachers and encourage them to stay in the profession. let's also make sure we're recruiting teachers of color for communities of color so they can identify with the children. let's figure out how we can compensate excellent teachers. as your governor, i want to build a state where every teacher wants to teach in washington state because they are fairly compensated and they are supported. that's what we've got to strive for. it's what i will strive for in four years. >> governor inslee, same question to you. what will you do to keep teachers in the classroom? >> let me tell you what we've done, because this is an extremely important issue. we lose about 50% of our new teachers for a combination of their lack of support in the classroom, excess class sizes and inadequate compensation. and i, as your governor, have moved and have made substantial progress on all three of those things. it's one of the reasons why i'm proud to be endorsed by the

55,000 educators -- actually it's about 70,000 educators in the state of washington because they know this is very high priority to me. my dad was a biology teacher, my brother is a teacher, brother and sister-in-law is a teacher, so i know what this means. here is what we've done. we and i fought and won and have the endorsement of the educators about this to get them a small increase in compensation. but it is not enough. we're going to need more to attract and retain quality people. i'll tell you what, they teach two or three years and go to work for amazon. these are very high-quality people. second, i have provided and i'm very pleased by this, because this was one of the things that i really fought for a mentorship program. we throw these young teachers into challenging conditions without mentors. my dad always told me he learned to teach from a guy, old football coach, took my dad aside and really taught him how

to teach. now our teempers have a mentorship. new tri-cities, i saw this the other day, they get a mentor that stands beside them and works with them. third, reducing class sizes. it's not fair for teachers to see 25 or 258 charming faces but there's too many of them. we are reducing class sizes. those are the three most important things weaver done. we've done every single one of them and we're going to keep them up when i'm governor. >> thank you very much. gentlemen, you both have proposed a state income tax. going forward would you support closing any of the tax breaks to help raise revenues and meet obligations to schools programs. if so, what specific breaks would you close? and if not, why? governor inslee. >> yes, i do and have supported closing some of the corporate tax breaks that are no longer economically justifiable, are

not creating jobs but making it possible to educate our children. we have closed some of them. because we have been able to close some of them, we have been able to give every student a tuition break in our public schools we've been able to increase compensation for teachers. we want to move forward and extend some of the things in the four-year clings to columbia basin community college. we have a grant program, first in the nation, where we give kids, mostly minority and kids in poverty, go into a stem problem you get a free education. it's magic. i want to extend that to every community and technical college across the state of washington. that may include or require using revenues that come in because we have such robust economic growth and closing some of these loopholes. i know bill has another view.

i know he served for years as a federal lobbyist, close to the oil and gas industry. i believe the loophole that gives oil and gas industry $65 million that they do not need, it wasn't meant for that industry. that ought to be closed. there are others as well but i'm out of town. >> bill bryant what loopholes would you close specifically, if any? >> i'm in favor of putting all loopholes on the table despite what the governor says. he knows that but saying it over and over he hopes people think it's true but it's not. specific objectives for every department. looking at every program, every agency and tax incentive, every loophole. if they are not moving towards that strategic objective, we fix them an eliminate them. everything on the table in a bryant administration. he says he doesn't support an in come tax, fine. within weeks getting into office proposed over a billion dollars on new taxes. a tax on carbon, a tax on

bottled water, a tax on beer, certain types of income. he says he doesn't support a tax, i've asked him will you veto a tax on income if it lands ongoing your desk, he won't say know. in vancouver he said he would consider a tax on certain kinds of inko we need to close loopholes. ladies and gentlemen, closing loopholes will not provide us with funding mcleary. why four-pronged plan where we deal with equity, increase funding to 50% of the general fund, look at uniform between school districts, that's how we get it done. it's hard work. hard to talk about in a minute and 30 seconds but it's the kind of work i'm dedicating myself to as your governor. >> all right. we've reached the point now

where we're at the end of our questions. time to provide your closing statements and we begin with bill bryant. >> i really appreciate this opportunity to come and have this debate. i appreciate you, governor, being part of them. i know you don't like them very much but they are important to our democracy and it gives people a choice. this year you really do have a choice between different kinds of people. i don't know what will change with governor inslee. if you listen to the debate toby, think what you didn't hear. we heard talk about what he's done and how much money he's spent we never said where we're going with education. i gave you a four-point plan. you didn't get that from him. when we talked about transportation, he took credit for a lot of people's work but didn't really talk about how we're going to get rid of traffic congestion. we didn't talk how to recover salmon runs.

we didn't talk really what to do with the homeless and i gave you a six-point plan. what do you think will be different if we re-elect governor inslee. i don't think anything. i think we'll continue to have gridlock in olympia and on our highways. let me tell you what will be different if you elect me. i want to be an activist governor. i wan to make sure we have an education system that meets the needs of every kid. i want to make sure we work with employers to provide communities in washington state that are still suffering from 8 to 9% unemployment. i'm going to be dedicated to ensuring we reduce traffic jams so people can get to work on time and can get home to see their kids. i want us all to rededicate our selves to rebuilding our mental health system. these are the kinds of things we can do. that is not a partisan or ideological agenda, it's just about all of us, republicans and democrats and independents coming together. so people can get a good job here and afford a house here and raise a family and retire in this natural beauty we all love

and want to protected. that's what i want to do as your governor. i'm asking for your vote. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> okay. governor inslee. >> thank you to all, to my opponent. i love debates. i don't know where bill got the idea i didn't love debates but i love taking the oath of office even more. i would be honored if you would help me in that regard and let me tell you why that is. the last four years i got up every single morning and i tried to figure out what i could do to help washingtonians realize their dreams. they are realizing a lot of their dreams because of work i've done in a bipartisan fashion. most all of our success in the last four years has been on a bipartisan fax, because we have divided government from the legislature. i think it's a bipartisan joy and certainly a personal joy of mine when i can go to an elementary school and see a young child who might have a speech difficulty, who if she

didn't get help with her speech difficulty might end up never reaching her full potential. now she's going to do that by the thousands because of the success we're having in early childhood education. it's a joy to go to a ribbon cutting, like i did the other day when we were improving 405 which will connect to 167. it's going to reduce congestion on one of the most congested corridors in the state. interstate 405. that's a joy to go there, because what it means is we are an optimistic state. when you think about it, a bridge fundamentally is a monument to optimism. it means you're going to do better, your community is going to grow, you're going to create more jobs, you're going to have more scholarships, better early education and, yes, less oil trains that blow up. i think all of those things are good things. so i would be very appreciative of your vote. good luck. let's remain a confident,

optimistic state. >> gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> all right. would very much like to thank our audience here at columbia basin college. thank you for joining us. have a good evening. >> florida began early voting yesterday and democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton campaigns in coconut creek. c-span will have live coverage of that beginning at 2:15 eastern. republican presidential candidate donald trump is also campaigning in florida. he's holding a rally outside the tallahassee car museum. live coverage of that at 6:00 eastern on c-span2. here on c-span3 tonight american history tv prime time continues with the look at the life of

alexander hamilton starting 8:00 eastern with a visit to the morris-jurnel mansion, then a look how close the musical "hamilton" follows history and a look at the legacy. that's at 8:00 eastern on c-span3. >> after i came up with my idea of reproductive rights, i went and researched. with recent events i've heard about in news, i knew i could find information on that. i also could figure out what points to say about it and form my outline to my piece. >> i don't think i took a very methodical approach to this process. you could if you wanted but i think that really with the piece as dense as this, i would say, it's really just the process of reworking and reworking. so as i was trying to come up with what my actual theme was, i was doing research at the same time.

and i was coming up with more ideas for what i could film. i would come up with an idea and thing, that would ab great shot. i would think about that. that would give me a new idea what else to focus on and do research about that. the whole process is about building on other things and scratching what doesn't work and you keep going until you finally get what is the finished product. >> this year's theme, your message to washington, d.c. tell us, what is the most urgent issue for the new president and congress to address in 2017. our competition open to middle school, high school students grades 6 through 12 with $100,000 awarded in cash prizes. students can work alone or in a group of up to three to produce five to seven-minute documentary on the issues selected, include some c-span programming and explore opposing opinions. the $100,000 in cash prizes will be awarded and shared between 150 students and 53 teachers. the grand prize, $5,000, will go to the student or team with the best overall entry.

this year's deadline is january 20th, 2017. so mark your calendars and help us spread the work to student filmmakers. for more information, go to our website, student cam.org. army secretary eric fanning and army chief of staff general mark milley talked to reporters and took questions during a press conference at the 2016 annual meeting of association of the u.s. army. issues included structure, readiness, modernization and acquisitions. due to technical problems at the end of the press conference this is 30 minutes of a briefing that went slightly longer. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. my name is patrick seiber i'm chief of media relations division. it is an honor to moderate today's press conference.

shortly, we'll have secretary of the army, the honorable eric fanning and chief of staff of the army, general mark milley here for today's press conference. they'll both open up with a brief opening statement followed by an opportunity to ask questions, which i will moderate from this podium. we're ready. >> yes, sir. >> i'll now turn the floor over to secretary fanning. >> thank you. thanks for coming out today. first, i want to thank general hamm and asa for hosting us this

week. at no other time in the year do so many of the army's people, regular army, civilian, guard, reserve, and our industry partners come together for a meeting to discuss the army. as secretary, i have taken as many opportunities as i can to get out of the pentagon for my own morale, more than anything, and see soldiers and civilians doing what they do, where they do it, and if they allow me, to do it with them. my travels have spanned four contents, poland, to engaging more than 100,000 men and women in the pacific. i've seen firsthand how much we ask of our soldiers, our civilians and our families. as i saw personally last month, our soldiers are front and center in two theaters of war in iraq and afghanistan. each trip confirmed today's army is at an inflection point.

the army is responsible for diverse missions. for many weers we've had to focus on career needs. with the rise of russian aggression, challenges to stability in the pacific, and the fight against isil, there are even greater demands on our force. the army is at the center of confronting each of our nation's enduring security challenges. to meet our priorities and to carry our responsibilities across the world, the army has to modernize and realign. for instance, i visited ft. hood this past summer, where soldiers and civilians are working in maintenance facilities that were built in the 1950s and '60s. they have significant shortages of space, and the facility doors are not even wide enough for modern vehicles, forcing them to work outside. these facilities also lack the electrical and communications infrastructure to support maintenance of m1, 2 and striker vehicles. across our force, we have

soldiers and civilians living and working in 52,000 buildings that are in poor or failing conditions because of the $7 billion in deferred maintenance that we have aggregated over the last few years. since 2011, the army's modernization program has decreased by approximately 33%. that's the base budget. and today, our modernization program is about $36 billion less than the next closest service. these are the kinds of costs and tradeoffs we have made over the past several years to meet our current responsibilities. while we can't completely control the amount of resources received, we can insure we made more efficient use of what we have. this requires we draw more effectively from some of our nation's greatest sources of strength. our dynamic industries and culture of innovation. much of that necessitates making improvements in how we interact with and engage our partners in industry. this is a prime opportunity to exchange ideas and develop approaches to modernizing our force so we can meet our

priorities and prepare for the future. i have seen how nimble and adaptive our soldiers and civilians can be. my responsibility as secretary of the army is to insure we have that same capability institutionally and how we're organized and aligned to support their missions. as we build on the stes we've already taken to modernize our force, i look forward to working with general milley as we build on that progress and strengthen our army. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. secretary. let me just make a couple brief comments. last year, we talked significantly about readiness, readiness being number one. there is no other one. and we have made good progress over the last year in terms of readiness. but we're not there yet as an army on where we need to be to deal with the multiple and varied challenges that we anticipate in the near future. but having said that, this year, what secretary and i want to

emphasize at this particular ausa is the future of our army, the deeper future, modernization and future concepts, et cetera. it's my belief as the chief of staff of the army, after a year of close and rigorous study as the chief, but even before that as a career soldier, that we're on the cusp of a fundamental change in the character of ground warfare. we're probably this side maybe five, ten years this side of that actual fundamental change. and we the american army, the u.s. army, we don't have to get it exactly right, but we've got to get it less wrong than any potential adversary if we're going to prevail in the next war. the army will be essential to the conduct of any conflict, and our task is to prepare that army for that potential future conflict. and that will be a focus item

for the secretary, for myself, and for all of the senior leaders of the united states army, and indeed, throughout the entire institution. is to prepare our army for tomorrow so that we have readiness for tomorrow. up until now, we have essentially mortgaged future readiness or modernization for current readiness, and we have to continue our emphasis on current readiness because those threats are here, they're real, they're now, but at the same time, we have to do more to pick the pace up in terms of our future readiness, which is our modernization programs to make sure our army's in balance years to come. so thanks for that. and look forward to your questions. thank ausa for hosting this. i think it's a great event. once a year event, and we're very appreciative of them doing this on behalf of all of us. look forward to your questions. and sydney, you can't ask any questions. just kidding, sydney. >> thank you, gentlemen.

we're on schedule today, when called upon, each journalist will have an opportunity to ask one question and one follow-up. we're going to start off with ellen mitchell from "politico." >> not here. >> that was easy. >> all right. bloomberg. >> a couple questions on structure. about 65,000 more than you have now. is there a valid requirement for 540,000 active duty as your deep dive into the future show that, and what would be the cost implication of adding 65,000 straight up and then the sustainment costs over several years? and a quick second, there's been a lot of discussion over the last three or four years, the army is on the path to be the

smallest since before world war ii. is that a valid benchmark in which to judge the needs for army force structure improvement? >> refer to the secretary if you want or i can take it. >> well, to answer your second question first, on is the smallest since world war ii a valid benchmark. it's a little yes and a little bit of no. the idea of throwing out numbers and relative comparisons to world war ii is more of a metaphor than a specific number. world war ii, we had an 8 million soldier army by 1945, we had 90 divisions or 89 divisions. of course, prior to the war, we had very few. so the metaphor refers to the age-old tradition of the united states relying on a rapid mobilization at the beginning of a war in order to build up the force structure of the combat power to prevail in the war.

that has worked for the vast majority of times throughout our history, but it's worked at great cost so in the first battles of wars gone by, we have usually suffered significant casualties, and unnecessary because of unpreparedness both in size, canability training, modernization. that's kind of what that is referring to. i don't think anyone is suggesting, certainly not us, suggesting a multi-million, 8 million person army. we're not doing any of that. so in that regard, you know, the actual numbers are irrelevant, and then the reference is more metaphorical. the other part that is misleading, that can be misleading when you start comparing things to world war i, world war ii, is capabilities. an m-1 tank for example today is significantly more capable than a sherman tank of world war ii.

arguably, a platoon of m-1s, four m-1 tanks could arguably defeat patton's third army with hundreds of m4 tanks. the quantity versus the quality argument when you start talking world war ii versus today, it gets a little silly to be actually correct about that. same thing in the air force. the number of munitions that can be dropped from a modern aircraft today and the precision and effects different than the b-4s in world war ii. i don't find it particularly helpful in analysis of force structure. now, with regard to the number, you mentioned i think 540. we do a lot of studies, a lot of rigor. i'm not going to share those numbers because it's not about so much numbers as it's about capabilities. and what we need to make sure is we have the most capable army to

deliver specific effects on a battlefield relative to u.s. national security interests. i don't publicly discuss specific numbers. i try to avoid it because it can be unhelpful and it depends on which way you're looking at it. how many of this and how many of that. people can turn those things in a lot of different ways. we do a lot of studies. we have lots of varied numbers on exact requirements. yes, we do have that, and the key question is, you know, that number, number x, for what? what is it you want to do? what is the requirement, the national security requirement? what does it say in the defense planning guidance, et cetera. those will vary depending on the contingencies you look at. >> just made a double tap on this in a slightly different way. numbers are just one way to measure the effectiveness of the army. and lots of things get lost in that conversation when we talk about just force structure,

whatever number that is. which by the way, is the active component number, not the total force number. but one of the dangers that we see, because this debate is taking place in a number of different ways, would be the army told to maintain structure greater than we're planning on without any additional resource to do it. that would put us out of wack in other areas. our modernization investments are down. we're trying to get our readiness up. if we had to maintain a larger force structure without additional resource, it would further unbalance the program that we have for the army. >> all right. dan from janes. >> coming together for a light tank or medium tank, acquisition plan and all that sort of being

formulated and you can make a pretty good case for why you need it, but what has changed in the last few years? why would the army be successful in buying this when so many of the more recent combat vehicle development programs have not resulted in anything being fielded? what are you guys going to be ov oversight-wise to make this successful? >> i'll take the last half of your question first and then the chief can talk about the requirement. we did go through a period, problematic acquisition programs. no one would dispute that. a lot of work has been done in the acquisition community, organizationally, processes, training, what have you, to improve. and our budget is substantially smaller than it used to be as well. well. so it's an unfortunate benefit of that, i suppose, is it's easier to oversee. but we have done -- the army has done a lot of work institutionally to build upon and learn from the lessons of those failed programs. many of which weren't delivered,

it's true, but they did deliver capabilities that we have rolled into other strategic acquisition programs. >> in terms of requirements, within the army, there's a couple of different basic fundamental types of units. you have mechanized bradley types along with armor abrams. and then you have light infantry that can be delivered by airborne parachute, light infantry that can be delivered by helicopter, assault on the division, and straight light infantry like the tenth mountain division as an example. and then you've got strykers, which is sort of a little in between there, and they have a tremendous amount of infantry. what is needed, especially for the lighter units, is a mobile capability that can go toe to toe with your higher end

potential adversaries and survive. that's really what mobile protective fire power is all about. and it's the ability to have a capability that can be rapidly deployable from a continental base, can operate expeditionary, when it gets on the ground, it has tactical mobility, survivability, and lethality. those are its fundamental requirements. if you think of just the little phrase, shoot, move, communicate, protect, that sort of sums up a lot of what armies have to do. so that system will have lethality, that system will have excellent mobility at a weight that's deployable, rapidly deployable across oceans. and it will have protection against a variety of enemy munitions that will be increasingly important. >> sydney. >> i'm asking a question. >> sydney, so good to see you.

>> sydney greenberg. >> i'm loud enough on my own, really. thank you, loudly. as you talk about refocusing on the future, on some of these new threats that we're looking at as opposed to our focus on the counterinsurgency wars. is there a new defining mission or concept the way the army has to get for so many years and then we had a confusing period and then a counterinsurgency. general odierno had them and -- had traction, now hearing about multi-domain battle which has some echos as well. is there a big idea that while the army has many missions that are important, is driving the priorities, the big thing that the army must do, nonnegotiable?

>> well, i would say a couple of things. first, we've got, as we look towards the future, we've got to maintain and sustain the counterinsurgency, counterterrorist capabilities that we have developed and refined to a high level of expertise over the last 15 years of war in iraq, afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world, and we have excellent capabilities. world class, second to none, capabilities to fight terrorists and to fight in a counterinsurgency environment. and that has been learned and adapted over 15 years. we have to sustain that. we can't not keep going with that capability. we have to sustain it, maintain it, keep the people, the equipment, the organizations, and keep that going. but at the same time, we have to develop the capability to be able to present the president with options, our president with

options, in the event of potential conflict with a higher-end threat, a competitor. we have to do both of those simultaneously. now, as i mentioned up front, i believe that the character, not the nature of war, but the character of war is undergoing some fundamental change, and specifically, the character of ground war is undergoing fundamental change. so the domains of war, space, cyber, air, sea, and land. land forces in the future are going to have to be able to be capable and to operate in all of those domains. hence what you heard out of some of my speeches about multi-domain, multi-domain battles. we used to have air land battles, two domains. then there was developed, you

know, by the navy and air force, air sea battles, two domains. in reality, joint forces, specifically land forces, are going to have to be able to operate effectively in all domains simultaneously. in addition to that, you're going to have to be able to operate that in those domains against a near peer, high end threat. and that's the capability that we are pacing ourselves against. if that answers your question. >> your face doesn't look like it answered your question, sydney. [ inaudible ] >> if you've got a formal question, go ahead. >> you went to harvard. i want to flesh this out for you. >> thank you. how does that drive investment

priorities? because of course, ultimately, everything can't be a priority. you have to sacrifice some things. if coin must be preserved and we must develop this ability, where do we get the resources to build a nuclear weapon? >> fair enough. so think in terms of time for a second. you have the immediate, the readiness, right, of the current existing force, with legacy weapons systems. legacy organizations. legacy doctrine. the fact of the matter is that organization, the army as you see it today, you go to a post camp or station, that's going to be around three, four, five years from now. we're not talking, you know, changing that in the next -- it will be changed at the margins but it's not going to be overwhelmingly changed, right? and these systems are going to also be around probably out through about ten years from now. you're still going to have helicopters and tanks and bradleys. when i talk about fundamental change in the character of ground warfare, i'm talking

beyond 10 years, 10, 15 years and beyond. that's where you're going to see some very fundamental change and the investment for those years is s & t, research development, and what we're doing in accordance with the priorities the secretary outlined in his speech just a little while ago. in order to explore opportunities in that timeframe. that once we believe that they are fleshed out, we have prototyped some of them, they have make promise. robotics would be an example. there's no question in my mind robotics is going to play a significant role in ground warfare in the late 2020s and 2030s. no doubt in my mind. the research development is ongoing and we have to invest in that to determine how much is going to apply to the american army. >> brendan, military.com. i have a question for the secretary and the chief. mr. secretary, you just

announced this summer a new initiative for rapid equipping. can you talk a little bit about what you're aiming for there, what types of gear? obviously there's been any number of rapid equipping offices in the decade. it would be helpful to hear more specifically what you're going to do there. for the chief, general, you have talked about in the past, you have been very candid with some of your frustrations about acquisition. any number of programs, but i know you singled out the modular handgun system. can you talk about updates there about mhs and also how you see some of these lessons learned unfolding in that effort and others as you go forward? thank you. >> so first, on the rapid capabilities office. it's different than the rapid equipping force. that's set up to get pretty much things off the shelf or maybe slightly modified out to the force in under 180 days. the rapid capabilities office sort of fills the gap between

that and our normal acquisition programs of record to try and accelerate targeted capabilities. sort of deliver in the one to five-year window. what we're seeing is, as we build towards the army of the future is adversaries are iterating more quickly, technology is iterating more quickly, and we can't continue to modernize in the way that we always have in the past. we have to find some ways even as we are building large programs of record, to get technology and capability into the hands of soldiers faster than we are right now because the adversary is doing it. we really set that office up with based on emerging needs that are coming from combatant commanders, commanders in the field telling us we have a problem with this capability, diminishing the capability, and that will be the focus of

this office, the chief and i will formalize the first activities out of this office by november 1st, i imagine, if they keep up on the schedule that they're on with the idea of being, again, to bring forward capabilities that maybe we have already in programs we're working, other services have, we see in industry. the example i use is the helicopter. we're not going to use this office -- this office isn't meant to be a work around traditional acquisition programs of record. it's meant to link into them. there may be a capability on a helicopter we need to get out faster and integrate into existing helicopters, and then whatever we do with it in the rapid capabilities office, as we field it we'll inform that longer strategic program of record as well. >> and on, you asked for an it's different to your question, it's not rapid equipping. it's rapid capabilities. >> and on, you asked for an update on module handgun. i'm not going to do that now. the robbery -- reason is, process in all this. i'll let that settle, but i'm

confident that it's on the right track, and more to follow in du. i'll let that settle, but i'm confident that it's on the right track, and more to follow in due time. but i'm comfortable now, as opposed to whatever it was a year ago or a little less than a year ago. on the broader issue, frustration, yeah. there's still a lot of frustration out there. not only me, but on the part of most of us in uniform. and i think not just us in uniform. i think a lot of civilian workers, et cetera. so you just have a very large process that is very, you know, bureaucratic, and there's a reason why it's bureaucratic, it's because a lot of mistakes have been made in the past for different reasons so now there's checks upon checks upon double checks and triple checks. it takes 21 or 30 signatures or something before it gets to secretary of army or me. so that's problematic. and it's still very slow. the lead times is very slow, so that's one of the reasons why the secretary has initiated the rapid capabilities office, which is a wonderful initiative, and

it's got the full support of all of us. i think it's great. but the system left to its own devices is, in fact, frustrating, slow, complicated, complex and i believe delivers product late to need to the soldiers. and it's not designed for the world we're now entering. the commercial sector produces things at a much more rapid pace. and our adversaries are doing the same. so we need to pick the pace up. there's a bunch of steps that have been put forward by congress, by the secretary, by secretary of defense and others, to reform, modify, change the acquisition system in order to bring it into the current times to deliver what we need when we need it and in the quantities and at a cost point or price point that's acceptable to the taxpayer and give them the best bang for the buck, so to speak. >> all right, we have time for one final question. yes, sir. right there in the coat.

>> hi, federal news radio. both of you talked about the importance of having talent in the military. at the same time you're drawing down, as the center gets smaller, i think general milley you've seen this on the panel of rhodes scholars, who missed his promotion for it. how are you making sure as you're drawing down that you're retaining the right talent and that you're not skipping over these really important people, you know, so i guess my question is, what are you -- what are you prioritizing in your military, especially going into the future? what skills? >> well, i think it's not just prioritizing and making sure as we draw down we keep the right people. i think we have to get more creative along the lines of secretary carter's force of the future initiatives at making sure that we are -- that we find ways to capitalize and access

the best talent and ideas that maybe aren't going to be in uniformed military or civil service. that's a part of what the rapid breaking down some of those barriers we've put in place to interact with industry, with the public sector, universities and so forth. and so, i think they're -- we've got to get more creative at how we do business and how open we are to engagement-interaction with entities, organizations, people outside the traditional military and the civil service. going back to the frustrations of the acquisition process, it is bureaucratic. bureaucracies are additive by nature. something bad happens, and you create a process to get it from happening again and you layer that one upon another one upon another one, and you don't have a process to go through all that and simplify it. and so, we've tried to squeeze -- i think we're trying to squeeze all the risk out of the process, and a lot of

technological development today is based on experimentation, prototy prototyping, eacven, really, failures. so, as we draw down, we not only need to focus on making sure we have the right people in the force, whatever size it is, but that we are opening up the institution, the bureaucracy, to doing business in a different way. >> a couple things as we look to the future about talent management. the future operating environment against a near-peer higher-end threat is going to be intensely lethal, the likes of which the united states army or the united states military has not experienced in 70 -- since world war ii. very, very lethal. it is likely to be nonlinear, and it is likely to be on a noncontiguous battlefield.

and your opponent is not only going to be competent, but he's going to be elusive and ambiguous. florida began early voting yesterday, and democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton campaigns in coconut creek, florida, today, in what's being billed as an early voting rally at broward college north campus. c-span will have live coverage of that beginning at 2:15 eastern. and republican presidential candidate donald trump is also campaigning in florida. he's holding a rally outside the tallahassee car museum. you can see live coverage of that starting at 6:00 eastern on c-span2. earlier this morning, donald trump stopped at his doral golf course in miami for a campaign visit. he posed for selfies and photos with employees there. and the hillary clinton campaign will be in cleveland, ohio, shortly before election day. tamara keith with npr tweets that grammy award-winning rapper jay z will be holding a get out

the vote concert. >> c-span brings you more debates this week from key u.s. house, senate and governors' races. this evening at 7:00 eastern, live coverage on c-span, the indiana governor's debate between republican lieutenant governor eric holcombe, democrat john greg and libertarian rex bell. wednesday at 7:00 live on c-span, democratic congressman chris van hollen and republican kathy shelega for the maryland senate seat. and then live on c-span, the iowa 3rd district congressional debate with republican dave young and republican jim mature. then, a debate for the florida senate between florida senator marco rubio and democratic congressman patrick murphy. and live thursday night at 8:00 eastern, republican senator kelly ayotte and democratic governor maggie haasen debate for the new hampshire senate

seat. now until election day, watch key debates from house, senate and governors' races on the c-span networks, c-span.org and listen on the c-span app. c-span, where history unfolds daily. here on c-span3 tonight, american history tv prime time continues with a look at the life of alexander hamilton, starting at 8:00 eastern with a visit to the morris-jumel mansion, the oldest house in manhattan, then a look at how close "hamilton" the musical follows history. also, a discussion of alexander hamilton's legacy. that's tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span3. with the supreme court back in session, we have a special web page to help you follow the court. go to c-span.org, select "supreme court" near the right-hand top of the page. once there, you'll see a calendar for this term, a list

of all current justices, and with supreme court video on demand, watch oral arguments that we've aired and recent c-span appearances by supreme court justices at c-span.org. scottish national party leader nicola sturgeon gave a closing speech at her party's national conference in glasgow, warning of another independence referendum if the uk pushes for what she called a hard brexit. she also outlined several initiatives involving trade, education and parental choice over preschool child care, and she called for more scottish control over immigration. this is about 45 minutes. >> delegates, we meet here in the city of glasgow five months on from the scottish parliament election. when we gathered back in march, we were preparing to seek election as scotland's

government for a third consecutive term. thanks to your hard work and your campaigning brilliance, we did just that. we won the election. from the bottom of my heart, let me say this to the people of our count country. thank you for putting your trust in me as your first minister. thank you for choosing us to be your government. the accc, where we meet today, was first opened back in 1985. it's witnessed quite a few changes in the 30 years since. the biggest change of all has been in the politics of our country and of this city. in 1985, a scottish parliament

seemed like a pipe dream. today it is the beating heart of our democracy. we no longer question if we should have a parliament of our own. instead, we ask if our parliament should be independent. we say yes. [ cheers and applause ] in 1985, every constituency in this city, bar one, was hailed by labor. today the political landscape is very different. last year, every westminster constituency in this city was won by the snp. this year, every leader's constituent voted snp as well. and just last week, just last week, in a canceled bi-election,

a massive 19% swing to the snp selected victory for our brilliant candidate chris cunningham. next year, we have the chance to complete this political transformation. glasgow was once described as the second city of the empire. in the case of elections next may, let's work as hard as we ever have to bring the snp to power, and then let's build this city as one of the very best in europe. glasgow is a vivid illustration of the success of our party but also stands as a lesson.

labor lost because they took the voters for granted. they became arrogant on power. they thought they were invincible. and they rightly paid the price. so, our promise to glasgow and to all the people of scotland is this, we will never take you for granted. we will work each and every day to earn and to re-earn your trust. conference is not just attitudes that distinguishes the snp from labor, it's policy and principle, too. when labor held its conference in liverpool recently, its defense spokesman wanted to announce support for the renewal of trident. he was enraged at not being allowed to go as far as he wanted in supporting weapons of mass destruction. well, we are pretty angry, too. we're angry there were so many

children still living in poverty. we have a government determined to waste tens of billions of pounds on a new generation of nuclear weapons. and we're angry at labor for meekly falling into lane behind the torries. friends, i promise you this, no one, no one will ever have to slip a note to politicians in this party reminding us to oppose trident, now and always with the snp, it is no to trident, not in our name.

conference -- in the conflicts facing the world today, nuclear weapons are not the answer. in syria, up to 400,000 men, women and children have been killed since the conflict started. over a million have been wounded. no one can fail to be profoundly moved and deeply angered by the appalling scenes we are seeing from aleppo. innocent children are being killed and wounded with impunity. the barbarism of the assad regime and the actions of russia are sickening. we condemn them unreservedly. we agree with the u.n. that all countries must stand up for the millions of civilians who desperately need help. and although at times we can feel powerless, we should remember that communities across scotland are making a difference

to families fleeing the conflict. last month, the 1,000th syrian refugee was welcomed to scotland. and conference, they are welcome. but we can and we must do more, especially for children alone without their parents. so i say to the uk government today, stop treating this as a migration issue. it is a humanitarian crisis. we must rise to the challenge. and scotland is ready and we are willing to play our part. friends, it may just be five months since we won the election, but in many ways, it feels like a political lifetime.

we are in a completely new era, a new political era and a new battle of ideas, a new era for a parliament with new powers and responsibilities, and a new era for our relationship with europe and the wider world. there are challenges a plenty. and as we face up to them, we must make sure of this, that scotland always remains the progressive, internationalist, co communitarian country that the majority of us living here want it to be at all times. make no mistake, today we face a choice of two futures. after last week in birmingham, there can be no doubt, that choice has never been so stark. the primary contest of ideas in

our country is now between the snp and the hard-right torries. the cameroons have fallen to the faredjistas, and let's admit it, the cameroons were never very appealing first place. conference -- the snp's vision for scotland is welcoming, progressive, open, outward-looking, and inclusive. theatory vision, xenophobic, closed, inward-looking, discriminating. let's be frank, the torries are no longer the conservative and unionist party. after last week, we should call them what they are, the conservative and separatist party, or ucip for short.

[ applause ] today's torries display an ingrained hostility to immigration and offer a stoney heart to refugees. they treat those with disabilities with suspicion. people seeking support to get back into employment are humiliated and harassed. a mother unable to find the bus fare to get to a job center appointment is more likely to face a benefit sanction than she is to be offered a helping hand. and those from other european countries who have chosen to make their homes here, human beings with lives, jobs and families, they're treated as no more than bargaining chips. conference, the prime minister's position on eu nationals shames her, and it will be a stain on her government each and every day that it is allowed to

continue. the fact is, with almost every action the tories take, somebody is excluded, somebody loses out, somebody is left behind. so, let us make it clear, that is not our way, it is not who we are, and it is not who we aspire to be. and what of labor? [ laughter ] it wasn't meant to be a joke. so lost have they become that they prefer the prospect of

years of continuous tory government at westminster to self-government for scotland. it is inexplicable, i know, but i guess branch offices just don't have all that much in the way of ambition. friends, labor may have thrown in the towel, but let me make this pledge today. the snp will never stand by while a right-wing and intolerate tory government undermines the very fabric of our society. at westminster, we will continue to provide the strong opposition that labor is failing to deliver. in recent months, it hasn't been labor asking the hard questions about our place in the single market and the jobs that depend

on it. it's been our westminster leader, our new deputy leader, angus robertson. just as it's been us making the case against the immorality of denying tax credits to women unless they can prove they've been raped. and in blackford, standing against the deportation of the brain family, or mary black standing up for women denied the pension and entitlements they have been working for their entire lives. the snp isn't just the real opposition to the tories at westminster. the snp is the only effective opposition to the tories at westminster.

so, our job at westminster is to provide the strong opposition that is so desperately needed, not just in scotland, but right across the uk. and our job is to use our powers to build the better scotland we all want to see. conference, if you remember just one word from my speech today, i want it to be this one. it begins with an "i." no, not that one. not yet. the word i want you to remember is this -- inclusion. inclusion is the guiding principle for everything we do. it encapsulates what we stand for as a party, and it describes the kind of country we want

scotland to be, an inclusive country, a country where everyone has the opportunity to contribute to a better future and to share in the benefits of that better future, a country which works for those who value the security they currently have and for those who yearn for change, a country where we value people for the contribution they make, not one where we will ever judge them on their country of birth or the color of their passport. that is the inclusive scotland we are working to build. and i'm proud of the progress we've made. earlier this week, a major european research study reached this conclusion, on health, on education, on tolerance, and on the environment. out of all of the four nations in the uk, scotland is top.

of course, i know there is still much to do, much to do in the next phase of scotland's home real journey. westminster is still responsible for the majority of funding for our public services. but more than ever before, the new scotland act means the growth of scotland's budget depends on the growth of scotland's economy. creating jobs, expanding the economy and growing tax revenues, these priorities must be at the center of absolutely everything we do, and they always will be. this time last year, workers at the tata steel plants in claybridge faced huge uncertainty. i stood up at our conference, and i promised we would leave no stone unturned in our efforts to

find and secure a viable future. we worked with the company, with trade unions, with local government, and with the local community. two weeks ago i returned there with this message for the work force -- we kept our promise, the plant is open for business and scotland is rolling steel once again. when i think of the many times in years gone by when westminster governments have stood by and allowed scottish industry to wither and die, i think about what might have been, what might have been if there had been a scottish parliament and a scottish government there to fight for them, what might have been if the people of scotland had been

able to store the enormous resources of these lands for future and present generations, just like independent norway did. so, let us -- let us make this resolution today -- never again will we be content to look back helplessly at the damage the tories have done to scottish industry and wonder what might have been. we must win the power to always shape our own future. conference, we will not just intervene to save jobs, we will also provide help and support for businesses to thrive. i can confirm today that our small business bonus will be exte extended. from april 1st next year, 100,000 business premises across scotland will pay no business rates at all. absolutely none.

our new half-billion pound growth scheme will offer guarantees in loans for companies seeking to export, expand and create new jobs, and we'll make sure that the benefits of growth are shared more widely. central to that is our work to extend payment of the living wage. there are currently over 600 accredited living wage employers in scotland. by this time next year, that number will rise to at least 1,000. that's what inclusion means in practice. we will also redouble our efforts to make sure our economy is internationally competitive. that's even more important now in the wake of the brexit vote.

make no mistake, the threat to our economy is not just the prospect of losing our place in the single market, disastrous though that would be. it is also the deeply damaging and utterly shameful message that the tories say about foreign workers is sending to the world. more than ever, more than ever, we need to tell our european friends that scotland is open for business. and let me be crystal clear about this, we cannot trust the likes of boris johnson and liam fawkes to do that for us. so, today i can announce a four-point plan to boost trade

and exports, by taking scotland's message directly and in our own voice to the very heart of europe. firstly, we will establish a new board of trade in the scottish government. secondly, we will set up a new trade invoice scheme. it will ask prominent scouts to help us boost our export effort. thirdly, we will establish permanent trade representation in berlin, adding -- [ cheers and applause ] adding to our investment hubs in dublin, london and brussels. and fourthly, we will more than double the number of scottish development international staff working across europe, men and women whose job it will be to market scotland as an open economy and a welcoming society.

friends, the difference between the scottish and westminster governments is this -- they're retreating to the fringes of europe. we intend to stay at its very heart where scotland belongs. conference, inclusive economic growth underpins our entire economic strategy. the queens ferry crossing, our new bridge across the fourth, has been our country's most important infrastructure project in a generation. in fact, this week it entered the guinness book of records. the central tower of the bridge is the biggest free-standing structure of its kind anywhere

in the world. what an amazing feat of engineering. but the more important infrastructure investment of the next few years will be different. it will be child care. over this parliament, we will double the amount of state-funded, early-use education in child care for all 3 and 4-year-olds and for our most disadvantaged 2-year-olds, not a bridge over a river, but a bridge to a better future for our children. and today i can announce a new phase in this child care revolution. now it's local authorities that decide what child care is

offered to parents. parents work very hard to be flexible, but often the places offered to parents are not where and when they need them. so today we're launching a national parent consultation on how to do things differently. it proposes radical, new approaches prioritizing choice and flexibility. first we will propose that parents can choose a nurse or child minder that best suits their needs, and as long as the provider meets agreed standards, ask the local authority to fund it. in other words, the funding will follow the child, not the other way around. and second, as suggested by children in scotland's child care commission, we will propose that parents can opt to receive funding in a child care account and then use it to purchase a suitable place directly, quality, choice, flexibility.

these will be the watch words of a policy to transform the working lives of families and the life chances of our children. and i am proud that it's an snp government that will deliver it. there's another policy for our youngest children that i will be very proud to deliver. in the election, we promise a baby box of essential items for all newborns. it's a policy borrowed from finland, where it's contributed to one of the lowest levels of child mortality in the world. so, i'm delighted to give you an update on our plans to introduce it here. next month we launch a competition in partnership with the v&d in dundee for the design of the box. the first boxes will be delivered to babies born in

pilot areas on new year's day. now, i don't know about you -- but as a first foot offering, i think that beats a lump of coal. and then next summer, every newborn baby across our country will receive a baby box filled with clothes, nappies and toiletries. friends, the baby box is a part of our belief that all children should start life on a level playing field. that's what inclusion means in practice. and our skills, raising the bar