they phase in gradually. so 75-year period is really necessary to show the full mature ramifications of a proposal. one example is the 1983 amendments which included in it an increase in the normal retirement age, which didn't even start to effect until 17 years later and it's full effect won't be completed until 2022 for people reaching 62 in that year. so the 75-year period has a couple pretty good reasons, but we do have the numbers in the report to look at shorter periods. >> okay. thank you, everyone, for coming. if you go to our website nesi.org you can find a video of this event within a few hours of now. thank you. in just a moment we will take you live to la malbaie,

canada, for the official welcome ceremony of the g7 summit. president trump and other world leaders are taking part in that ceremony. we will have live coverage when it gets under way here on c-span. while we wait for it to get under way a portion of this morning's washington journal. >> and we are back at our table here this morning, congressman tom reed, republican of new york, ways and means committee member, the problem solvers caucus, let's begin with the president's tariffs on steel and aluminum on canada, germany and some of our allies. the reaction overseas has not been positive. do you support what the president has done? >> i do support the disruption the president is bringing to the trade agenda because the status quo is just not sustainable and it's great to be here with you. thanks for having us op. what the president is doing is what he promised he was going to do, he is going to put american interest first and he is going to disrupt the trade policy to get to an even and level playing

field so we can compete around the world. that's all we are looking for is a fair deal that allows our american workers to have an opportunity to succeed. >> the chairman of the ways and means committee republican texas kevin brady was quoted as saying if tariffs -- it tear tiffs on steel and num thumb imports hurts or efforts for good paying jobs to sell more made in america products to customers in these countries. sarin warren hatch saying tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will have damaging consequences for consumers manufactures and workers. >> obviously i share those concerns, but this is about having a different trade policy and different trade agenda that is ultimately going to strengthen the american consumer position. it's ultimately going to strengthen the american aluminum and steel industry and from my perspective that short term type of concern that so many people are worried about is losing sight on the long-term outcome that i think is achievable here. what the president is doing and having worked with the trade

ambassador just had a meeting with them yesterday, working with the trade team, working with the administration i think the administration rightfully deserves an opportunity to go down this path of disruption and tell the world that america is not messing around anymore. we are not going to put up with these unfair practices and let's face it what these initial skirmishes are all about is not the real battle. the real battle is taking on china and saying we are not going to put up with this unfair practices they have been engaging in for decades. >> how could it be short term when the countries are threatening to retaliate and go to the world trade organization. >> there is a process in order for that to occur and that process as you often see on our end when we go to the world trade organization and we litigate cases and we have been successful 99% of the time at the wto and the cases that are brought against us we have been successful in defending them. that essentially tells me that everyone else isn't playing by the rules, but we are. and that takes years to go through that process. so, you know, there is a process, these tariffs don't go in immediately overnight and

what will happen is i think in the meantime negotiations will continue and i think it's in everyone's best interest, take a deep breath, stay at the table. worst thing canada and mexico could do is leave the room, leave the table. we are seeing some indications especially from the canadian negotiators that that's probably the path they are trying to elect, but at the end of the day i don't think that's sustainable for them. they will come back to the room and they will negotiate because you see what happened to brazil and south korea. they came to the table, we negotiated, fixed the problem and now we are having an opportunity to compete with them in a much fairer situation than we did before. >> are you concerned about any long-term diplomatic damage with our allies when you have the french president emmanuel macron saying -- and the canadian prime minister on twitter and in a news conference yesterday saying our soldiers fight side-by-side. why are you citing national security concerns in tariffs and then taking a con sill i can't

tore approach to china? >> i think exactly -- >> when it comes to the zte deal. >> the zte deal and other issues. obviously the zte deal is a one off in my humble opinion. the longer play against to really hold them accountable on their unfair practices in the engagements they've engaged in over the years. when it comes to canada and mexico, clearly we're very close allies. i often say this, i'm the youngest of 12. i have eight older sisters, three older brothers. in our household, we loved each other and got along, but when we had a difference, we were often cats and dogs for a period of time. but mom always corralled us, got us together, and we worked it out. that's how i see canada and mexico being taken care of. we know there's differences, but we know we're close friends. stay at the table. we need to negotiate. in any negotiation, you're not going to get 100% of what you want. i think everyone recognizes that. >> let's hear from our callers. harris is in illinois, a democrat. good morning to you. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, c-span.

good morning to your guest. on the tariffs he's imposing, you know, i don't know how to really think that it's good or bad or not, but what i think the problem is, is companies getting tax breaks to leave the country. that's where half our problems are. we need to make these companies own -- bring jobs back to america. cities like flint, ohio, and things like this where the automobile industry decimated them by going to canada, going to china. we need to bring jobs back. if this is going to bring back jobs to america, i say then trump's doing a good job. >> okay.

congressman? >> harris, absolutely. not only is the new trade agenda going to be good for american jobs and american jobs in regards to making it here and selling to america, once we get through the long-term process. what he also points out is tax policy. thank goodness we did tax reform. i know a lot of folks are hearing the political arguments out there. the political campaigns are engaging on it. if we had not done tax reform, especially on the business side of the code, we would have lost companies left and right because we were the least competitive tax environment in the world. we had the highest tax rate. we were under an antiquated worldwide versus territorial system. every other country around the world was in a much more attractive position. companies were leaving in droves from america because they just could not sustain that tax burden. we fixed that. now what i think you're going to see is an opportunity to grow the economy with a trade policy that's fair, and you have a tax policy that makes america competitive. i will tell you, i think that's a recipe for bringing jobs back to american soil.

that's the long-term vision that i know this administration is trying to achieve, and i do believe we are on the right path to see that growth and opportunity right here on american soil. >> in the last couple days, we've heard from the actuaries of social security and medicare that part of the early solvency reports that they've put out -- insolvency reports on those two programs is due to the tax cut. >> and i can appreciate some of those concerns. however, when you see that the trustees' report reaffirm exactly what we all know, both social security and medicare have been on a path to solvency, to bankruptcy for decades. we need to fix social security and medicare. i don't get bogged down into the political campaigns because that's what they want to do. they want to say, we want to destroy social security, we as republicans want to destroy medicare. that's the furthest thing from the truth. we want to fix these so they're there long-term. what i saw in the trustees'

report is whright. we're going to put millions of americans in harm's way. they've paid for that. they've contributed to it. what i think will be proven different than what the actuarials are doing in the trustees' report, when you start seeing that economic growth, when you see 3%, 4% growth in america that everyone told us is impossible, that 2% growth is the maximum we're going to be able to see, growth is going to overcome a lot of these problems in these trustee reports, but we still fundamentally have to fix social security and medicare for the long-term. >> ron is watching in california, a republican. hi, ron. question or comment here for the congressman? >> caller: yes, greta. thank you so much for taking the call. congressman, a couple things that you might want to consider. have you ever heard of october 29th, 1929? >> yep. >> caller: that happened to be a time when we had 25% tariffs on most things in this country protecting our imports from foreign imports.

as a result of that fact, we sailed into the biggest world -- global depression in history. we had 3% and 4% growth at that time in our country. so you know, some of these things are counterproductive. we -- and the big question i have for you is here we produce from our federal banking system $35 billion a month that we plug into the global economy, and we have, what is it, we're one-sixth of the whole total global economy. now, that's my question. are we part of the global economy or not? and if so, how can one-sixth of our global economy influence the other five-sixths positively if we're going to take away their jobs? and there's one thing that's really important, as everybody brings up this 300% tariff on

daught dairy. you know what, butter used to cost $1 for a pound. then we started exporting all of our good dairy products overseas, and of course they pay a lot more for those dairy products in all the five-star restaurants in the whole world than they do here. so you're a dairy guy, you're going to sell your goods overseas, and it's going to raise the price of our goods here. so please answer the question, are we in a global economy? >> yeah, and just so we're clear, you know, i recognize 95% of the world consumers live outside of america's border. we need to access the world economy. but accessing the world economy in the position we are today, in my humble opinion, puts us in a negative position, puts us in an uncompetitive position. what we're talking about with these tariffs is not to impose tariffs for the purposes of isolationism. it's to say to the world, look, we need to adjust our trade policies so that we have a level, fair playing field upon which our market then can service the world economy and

also they can compete against us into the american market. that's what the president's trying to do. it's not about tariffs for tariff sakes. it's about fixing trade policy that's putting us in a negative position. i appreciate your preference to october 29th, 1929. the concern i have there, much different world. we have been running decades, decades of trade negative balances. we've been upside down on trade for decades, and it's hollowed out that core u.s. manufacturing base, for example. it's hollowed out many of our industries because you can't absorb that type of deficit long term. what i'm supportive of is opening up our market, opening up their markets, and engage in that world economy in a fair and level playing field manner. then we all win. we all win. and that, i think, is the difference. also, you got to remember, in 1929, china was a much different situation than it is in 2018. and that's ultimately where this

trade issue is heading. it's not about canada/mexico, in my humble opinion, though they're just as important. it is about china. it is about china. it is about china. >> let's go to chris, who's an independent in tennessee. >> caller: yes, sir. i agree with you 100% on that. it is about china. and i'm just some poor stupid hillbilly. >> no, you're not. >> caller: i think i could write a trade bill in one paragraph. reciprocal trade. if people impose tariffs on our goods, we impose the same tariff. this seems a lot more simple than, excuse me, but politicians are making this out to be. i think you're maybe on the right track here. >> i think he meant no offense. >> i totally appreciate that. you're one of the wisest voices

i've heard over the last few months in the commentary that you've just offered there. you're exactly right. this is about -- let's keep it simple. we're not looking for any unfair advantage for us as americans. all we're looking for is a fair shake. all we're looking for are policies that when you have people like china stealing our intellectual property, requiring us to locate our businesses, it puts those businesses at risk. it puts that next generation of product at risk. and when china engages in practices like stealing that intellectual property and they build a whole industry based off of that and when we say, hey, that's not right, we have to turn to the courts for four, five, ten years worth of litigation in order to get some sort of justice. after four, five, ten years, that business is gone. that business can't sustain that. and now that technology has left america. this is about putting our interests at the same level as chinese interests as well as other trading partners around the world.

i think if we look at it from that perspective, greta, i think a lot of folks that are suffering, rightfully so, some anxiety and fear as we go through this new trade policy, we'll look at the long-term and say there's a vision here, there's a path here that we are ultimately going to come out at the end in a much stronger position. >> the president has been citing section 232 of the trade expansion act as giving him the authority to do these tariffs. the provision of a 1962 law that gives the white house broad flexibility to impose and adjust tariffs, exempting some trade partners along the way based on national security concerns. "the wall street journal" editorial board says today that the president should not be citing that law, and they agree with senator bob corker of tennessee that congress should be able to approve or disapprove of these tariffs. do you agree that congress should get a say? >> i think it can be mutually shared, but i do believe congress needs to utilize that authority much more than we have

done historically and also to take more of our responsibility and roll back into this process. that's why trade promotion authority, how we set up these trade deals going forward, was exactingly along that aisle. it said, you know what, we're no longer going to delegate trade policy to the administrations, to the executive branch, to the president 100%. we claim back in congress, and rightfully so, some of that authority, a lot of that authority so that we can be part of that legislative process and be a voice of the people in that exchange. so i think we're going down the right path when you see things like trade promotion authority. but at the end of the day, this is about making sure we work as partners with the president as well as in congress. >> so you can sign on to senator corker's legislation if there was the equivalent in the house? >> i think i'd be interesting in taking a look at that, making sure we in congress put forth more of a role, more authority over this and go forward. but 232, you know, national security concerns are something we cannot take lightly. so i appreciate what the president is saying in regards to if you don't have a strong

manufacturing base, if you don't have supply chains that can get you rare earth materials, get you aluminum and steel, it puts you in a dangerous position from a national security perspective. that's why hopefully we can rely on trading partners. my mom also taught me many years ago, you know, you can rely on your friends, you can rely on your family, but you also have to be able to stand on your own two feet by yourself. that is something i think we're trying to achieve through this process. >> we'll go to south carolina. john on the line, a democrat. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i'm a little confused here, sir. you keep talking in circles. give me time to explain myself. first you say china is stealing our intellectual properties. nobody made these companies go to china. second of all, you're talking about the tax breaks.

you gave these companies these tax breaks. they weren't paying taxes to start with. all this thing is about money. when an american company makes something in china and brings it back, you're going to charge them tariffs? well, if you do, you already gave them the tax break. so i meaning, you're talking in circles. >> let's give him a chance to respond. >> i appreciate the criticism, but what i'm trying to say is when the companies go to china, they're looking at obviously billions of people as a marketplace. when american companies go -- but what china says is you can't access those customers unless you put your business over here, and by the way, we're not going to allow you to have an ownership stake in that business. china essentially -- and i'm being very simplistic here, but essentially that's what's

occurring. what happens is the businesses go after those customers. they put their businesses over there because china makes them do it. and at the end of the day, that business then gets absorbed by those chinese influences and that next generation of technology coming out of those businesses gets absorbed in china and then china say, well, we're done with you. we're going to take it from here. that american business is no longer in existence. from my perspective what we need to make sure is when we do this with china, when we engage with our trading partners, they don't do that practice, that unfair practice. they recognize that we're an american company, we have a right to be in that american company in these marketplaces because they're giving us access to the market, and then we compete with chinese partners, with european partners, and the market then is a level, even playing field upon which we service that new -- those new businesses, those new customers that are overseas. >> where are you on the immigration debate within the republican party about how to move forward on the deferred

action childhood arrival program? >> we need to fix it, greta. that's why we've been working on this. problem solvers caucus, the group of us that i chair on the republican side with with 24 republicans, 24 democrats, where we get together and try to solve problems, and it truly is a group that's about governing. we came to a solution on this that took care of the dreamers, the daca situation, if you would, and it married it up with border security, fixing the root cause of the problem. i did sign on the discharge petition. i was one of the republican individuals that signed that discharge petition because i said to our leadership, and they were not pleased with that effort and are still not pleased with that effort. i said we should have dealt with this months ago. we should have dealt with this six months ago, a year ago. at least this discharge petition is putting pressure on us in the house to deal with this problem. all we're going to look for at the end of the day, if this is successful on the discharge petition s a debate on four

bills. i still believe in the house of representatives being the body of the people where you have that open and honest debate. what we can do, let the people speak through us as representatives. >> you need 218 for the discharge petition to go to the floor. i understand three votes away, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> are those three votes hard to get, easy to get? >> i believe those votes are there. two republicans have been leading this charge for the people they represent back home and deserve a lot of credit for forcing this issue to come to a head. i believe those votes are there. there's a tremendous amount of pressure on those remaining two individuals. they're getting a tremendous amount of pushback to not sign that discharge petition. we're working it within the family. we're working it within the republican caucus. i think that would be a better outcome than the discharge position, in my humble opinion. then we're putting forth the republicans' position and the senate will have to deal with

it. >> once a petition would go to the floor, what would happen next? >> how the discharge petition is designed, you would have four bills that the discharge petition essentially says bring those four bills up. there will be a vote and a debate on each one of them. it the one with the highest number above 218, because 218 is obviously the majority you need to approve any legislation in the house, the one with the highest vote above 218 would be the position of the house at the end of the day. so you have some very liberal proposals in that four. you have some very conservative proposals in that four. then obviously in the middle you have some kind of compromise position. my hope is that that compromise position sees its way to the finish line, and maybe we can do that without the discharge petition. we would not be in this position today in the house if that discharge petition hadn't been in the position it is. >> do you think if it comes to the floor, what passes is a pathway to citizenship for daca participants?

>> i do believe listening to the conference, listening to the folks and something i care deeply about -- i mean, these are children we're talking about. we're talking about children who were brought to america at no fault of their own. their parents essentially said, i'm going, i'm going to break the law, we're going to america, and you're coming along with us. these are young kids at the time they do this. those kids have a pathway to citizenship. now, the parents, they have to pay the penalty. and i will tell you, i've talked to so many illegal immigrants in regards to the tenure i've been here in congress, and when you say look at what i'm doing is giving a path to your child but to you, you won't have that path to citizenship, the parents will tell me, that's why i came to america. i am more than willing to accept that penalty so that my child could have the american dream. and we would take care of it in a way that would allow us to fix the border. you want to talk about a wall, you want to talk about physical structure. whatever is necessary in order to fix the border is what i support. what you then have is a functioning border. if you talk to the folks,

especially our seasonal workers in particular, they're like we just want to be able to come here and go back to our family and not have to go through that terrible situation that smuggled them across the border to begin with. >> another domestic issue, you introduced a bill that would waive a new tax on wealthy college endowments if they spend 25% of investment earnings, reducing college costs for those in need. explain how this would work. do you have traction to get a vote? >> we finalized the legislation two weeks ago. what this legislation is focused on is saying to the universities and colleges across the country and especially the wealthy colleges, in tax reform we put a 1.14% tax on these tax-free accounts that people give to universities called endowments. billions of dollars of money are sitting in these endowments. essentially what i'm saying is we'll forego that tax so long as the money that is coming off of that endowment, the interest,

the investment return, portions of that go to working families. the people that are over the cliff that kind of are told, you know, there's no financial aid for you because you're making too much money. you're making $100,000 a year, $150,000 a year. at school prices, back in our back yashd, university just raised its tuition to $74,000 a year. i don't know how someone can afford that for one of their children to go to school each year. so what we say to them is give relief to those families. give the money from these investments and we're going to say give that to those children. on top of that, we're requiring all the universities and colleges to say because we gave you this tax-free status, this not for profit status, you're going to have to start telling the american people where you spend your money. we need more transparency in where these dollars are going. also, you have to adopt a cost containment policy in black and white by your board to say this is how we're going to get cost going down or at least not rising faster than inflation.

then we can hold those university and colleges to that accountability plan. that's what this bill is all about. i'm taking on this issue because when you got kids coming out with $200,000 worth of student debt, they can't survive. we're taking away opportunities from them and that's wrong. >> let's go steve in smiths creek, michigan, independent. hi, steve. >> caller: hi. >> go ahead with your question, steve. >> caller: okay, it's not a question, it's a statement. i was speaking earlier to the representative about fixing social security and medicare. there's really only one fix for it. it would be to go ahead and replace the stolen trust fund money. what was it, $2 trillion, $3 trillion taken by these politicians and spent elsewhere. you know, we'd be able to get paid a decent social security check instead of the measly few dpl dollars they give you now. if that happened in the public

sector where $2 trillion to $3 trillion was taken from a trust fund, we would all be -- >> okay, steve. let's get a response. >> steve, i agree with you, but at the end of the day, you have to recognize -- and this is where the $2 trillion to $3 trillion that was borrowed from the social security funds. the elected officials previously, democrat and republican, took the money and didn't put up obligations whether they had to pay it back. that's completely wrong. the bulk of what you're referring to is money where they were sitting with tremendous amounts of surplus in social security because we had so many workers, a lot of money coming into the social security account where they had essentially cash on hand. the question was asked to them, where are you going to put your money to invest in it? where are you going to keep it safe? the overwhelming answer by anybody in the finance world will say, well, you invest in the u.s. government. we borrowed from ourselves because we are the safest bet to pay back that debt. from my perspective, we need to pay back that debt, but it's a bigger, more structural problem than just honoring those

obligations. that's why the national debt of $20 trillion is so important to this conversation because if we can't meet that debt obligation, social security is part of that debt obligation. >> korcongressman, the associat press with this tweet, that the president calls for russia ousted from group of leading industrial nations after annexing crimea to be reinstated. respond to that. there's also in the papers today news that vladimir putin has requested a summit in that country. do you think those two things are good ideas. >> that's an interesting breaking news item. obviously i'm not a fan of russia's aggression, what they've done historically over the years. i will say sometimes when you're dealing with countries that engage in some bad practices, they still have an interest that may be relative to what we need to do in order to be a safe,

secure world. and so, like i just think of syria. it jumps into my mind thinking about this. russia has a tremendous amount of influence in that area of the world. if there's a way to make sure that russia doesn't continue to engage in this aggressive overreach and very irresponsible manner and we could still have a relationship with them so we could use their leverage to stabilize some of these areas, i'm open to that. i'll take a closer look at this, but my initial reaction is very cautiously hesitant to be supportive. >> congressman tom reed, republican of new york, thank you for the conversation this morning. >> thanks, greta. and a live picture this afternoon from canada where officials from the g7 nations are gathering for the g7 summit. this is the start of the opening ceremony. president trump and other world leaders are here for this event. this is live coverage on c-span3.