voted against a second term. for more information, visit c- span -- c-span.org. in davos, former president bill clinton asked businesses to increase humanitarian aid to he. a senate hearing on relief efforts in haiti. later, a couple of news conferences from the house of representatives. wil. .

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> president clinton's remarks are followed by with those of world leaders. this is about 45 minutes, from davos, switzerland. >> mr. president, ladies and gentlemen, your excellencies we all welcome you to this very special, very important, crucial session on haiti.

all of us in this room remain deeply saddened by the scale and scope that has ravaged haiti. the scope of the destruction. disasters of this magnitude serve as a harsh reminder of how fragile life can sometimes be. but it is also during these moments that we are reminded of the common humanity which we all share. we decided to convene this special session immediately following the earthquake as the scale and scope became really clear of the devastation. in speaking with president clinton, he and i immediately agreed that a joint effort of

the clinton global initiative, the world economic forum, together with the united nations, should be a powerful partnership to effected meaningful change. let me be clear. we are not here to try and coordinate and address issues related to the short-term disaster, relief and recovery. there are many agencies already doing great work, and here, i know many of you have already generously contributed. i would also like to mention that many of those who have done such great work at a very short notice and have engaged personally in a very deep way

into the help for haiti are sitting here in this room. and i would single out particularly the former prime minister of haiti, who has come all the way from haiti just to be here today, together with us. please, let's particularly recognize the work and the presence, not only of her, but of all those ngo's people in the room who have done a fantastic work. [applause] i would like to introduce someone who has become a real friend of the world economic forum and whom we owe a lot.

william jefferson clinton, the president of the united states from 1993 to 2001, and i will never forget, on the education of our 30th -- 30th anniversary, the very difficult situation where you joined us and where you made such a great speech. since that time, you have been with us, i think, every single year. and we are so glad to welcome you back, and particularly at this very special occasion. [applause] i think what people appreciate most is your sense of passion

and the deep sense of humanity which you show always as an individual. it is not so much your formal work as a president which impresses everybody, but it is in addition -- you as a human being, which is such a great characteristic of yours. bill, you have a relationship with the country that dates back several decades. even you had your honeymoon in haiti. and since that time, i know that you had to spend a lot of your attention, of your time in your presidency but also after words with the clinton initiative in giving special attention to haiti. your knowledge of the country, its people, and its challenges

has also been the reason why in may last year, secretary-general of the un it appointed do is the u.n. special envoy for haiti. despite all your tremendous engagement with haiti, i know from our conversations that nothing could prepare you for the degree of devastation that you have witnessed personally during your recent visit in haiti. we are now all the ford to redress, but it is more than just been addressed. -- we are all looking forward to your address, but it is more than just an address. -- we all have an obligation to help haiti in such a way to show the world that we are really committed to improving in

sustaining the country. mr. president. thank you. [applause] >> good morning. i want to begin by thanking the world economic forum for making the opportunity for all of us together here today. let me say briefly what we are going to do. i will try to tell you where we are and i walked -- what i want you to do. and then we will have remarks and the conversation from the others who are here, including the minister of foreign affairs of brazil, foreign minister -- foreign minister, i want to say

to all of you who got -- who do not know this, the united nations security force has been commanded by a brazilian general. the brazilians have led an enormous increase involvement from south and central america in the caribbean, 80's neighbors, and they have done so superbly. -- haitis's neighbors, and they have done so superbly. they have held things together. president obama and the secretary of state and our a.i.d. people have signed an agreement with the brazilian leader so that we, of the united states, have tried to provide extra logistic and distribution support in haiti. but i want to say, sir, on behalf of the world, i think brazil has been magnificent and we are very grateful to you and your country and to your

leaders. [applause] dennis o'brien is the chairman of the digicell group. he lives in ireland, except when there is and earthquake in haiti. we have been friends for many years. he told me not long after i met him, that young haitians who sold his telephone cards on the street or the best under norris he has ever met. he has worked tirelessly to rebuild the haitian economy. he has worked out -- to coordinate the business people that we have recruited through the clinton global initiatives that have made it well in excess of $100 million dollars in commitments to invest in haiti. he has done everything he can to get cell phone server is back up again and then number of things

to help peahaiti. hele,n, the former prime minister, who went to a lot of trouble to be here. the former president of the canadian international development agency. i, too, would like to thank the former prime minister for being here. when she left office, she asked me to keep working. she has been no real inspiration to all of us. she came all the way from haiti to be here today. if you have questions about that, you might want to talk to her. and i think all the others to send emergency aid and long-term commitments, including our want to mention george soros who has reaffirmed his commitment to make a substantial, private sector investment in haiti.

let me be very brief. i want to say a few words about where we are and then i want to turn it over to the people here, and then maybe give opportunities for you to talk without or with everybody here as soon as we break up. the world economic forum has agreed to work with us in partnership to work between now hinted that clinton global initiative in september and for the next couple of years to increase private sector involvement in haiti. there will be outside here are haiti desk and robert will explain how it will operate. we want you to think about this. if you want more information, we will get you the information. but there will be a place where you can go between now and the end of this session of the world economic forum, to tell us what you are interested in it or ask

for us to follow up with you, or to tell us what you are doing now and are prepared to do. so, where are we? the bad news is that somewhere around 150,000 have lost their lives. many of the survivors have had limbs amputated and have not received wheelchair's or prosthesis. there are hundreds of thousands of people who need temporary but extended housing and even more who need to get food and water every day. the united nations security force has been working well. i think the americans have done a good job. the government of haiti has asked the united states to manage the flow at the airport. there are 800 to 1000 planes

trying to land there. on the day before the earthquake, only 10 or 12 airplanes landed at the airport. now they land more than 100 a day, on a big, one-runway airport. they are managing it well. there are serious, and that food and water needs. part of it is the distribution system does not exist. the government was devastated by the earthquake. the united nations suffered its worst loss of life on a single day in the history of the un . but the airport has become the de facto operations center of this relief effort. and the haitian government is building up offices there so everybody can be in one place and work on a daily basis. the immediate needs -- think

about it like this. in the aftermath of the earthquake, you had all these people walking the streets, not knowing how many of their loved ones are living or dead, with only what they had on their back, with no food or water, able to get no sleep, no light anywhere at night. for days and days, there were stumbling over bodies living and dead. and i do not mind the international media showing people in unrest at the food distribution centers because it spurs us all to do better. but i think you need to know, in my opinion, given what they went through, the people of this country be paid magnificently in the aftermath of the most unimaginable tragedy. so i think that things are better now, but there are serious problems with getting enough food, medicine, and shelter. what do we need? we need safe, sanitary shelter.

that camps are being developed. both are important. right now every piece of green space in the larger port-au- prince area is i.t. by by somebody sleeping at night. -- is occupied by somebody sleeping at night without sanitary conditions. we need more food and water distributed. we are attempting to set up, even today, a better system of monitoring the hospitals and clinics in the area, basically a traditional hospitals and a number of field hospitals and off-shore hospital units have been set up. -- do daily monitoring on what the medical needs are so that we can fly in or distribute what is already there at the airport in a more effective way. we have to then get temporary schools open and get the kids

back in the schools, the teachers before they leave, and the government has no revenues to restore basic services. everything was taken away. i told somebody i spent last weekend on toilets and trucks. and i say that not to make you laugh but to remind you of what they are up against now. right now we need to figure out how to get through the week. i want the people of haiti not to have to worry about whether they can eat today, whether they can get water, whether their kids will be hungry. i want them to be able to know from one week to the next they have a place to sleep, that it is safe and sanitary, that there are some light conditions at night, all of that. the thing we need most now is, instead of 15 distribution centers for that food, we need 100 or 200, and the only practical way to do it is trucks. we have the money. dennis and i were talking about

it. former president bush and i were asked to raise money. we have raised money in our fine. i raise some money through the u.n. fund. we would like to have a good deal, but we can buy these trucks. we need to get them a distribution network down there to get this food and medicine out. the camps are destroyed. people do not have a way to get around. -- the cabs are destroyed. it is not enough to distributed at 15 sites. so if there is anybody scheerer who knows where i can -- if there is anybody here who knows where i can get, not big trucks, pickup trucks or slightly bigger, i need 100 yesterday. they do. so, i will say again, if you want to help, unless you are in contact with a medical facility and you are sending specific

medical facilities, or unless you have access to medical teams, right now we need cash more than anything else, because we have an of clocks in the kitchen and not enough distribution. -- we have enough cox in the kitchen and not enough distribution. -- enough cooks in the kitchen. the united nations is committed to cleaning up. we can involve a lot of haitians in that. insofar as they can, they are returning to normal life. there are a number of ngo's there. they have about 10,000 there, the largest number per capita in the world with the possible exception of india. all of them had been heroic in this crisis and good on a more consistent basis. the un, the agencies like the world food program, unicef, a lot of people have been working

a hard, in spite of the fact that our leadership was crushed their. here is what i want you to think about. before all this happened, i was asked to be a u.n. coordinator in a very different time. haiti lost 15% of its gdp in 2008 because of four hurricanes. michelle lui was then the prime minister, and the haitian government had a commitment to modernize the country, and the u.n. secretary-general said, we want you to go in there and help them by making sure that the donor nations and international organizations on their commitments and we get more private investment. i said that i would do it, but only if i were helping the haitians to implement their own plan. that our goal this time should not be helping the country by helping the country to stand on

its own, to determine its own destiny, to be sustainable in a fundamentally positive way. so they did that. the haitians took dr. paul colorado your's economic report. they made amendments to it. they had their own plan. -- paul collier's economic report. the donors were beginning to distribute the aid. we had a foreign investment conference where there were more people from the neighborhood, latin and central america, then from europe, canada, the u.s. and asia combined. the first time in my lifetime the neighbors have been committed to the future. as i said, dennis o'brien will tell you in a moment, we had a group recruited over the last year or so and through the cgio that invested millions of dollars there. i tried to organize the haitian

diaspora. the parliament gave dual citizenship to the haitian diaspora, which has enormous potential in positive implications for the development of the country. and the ngo community was beginning to work together for the first time to try to harmonize and intensify their efforts. we have people interested in building up the agricultural sector, the tourism sector, the potential for development of call centers, all kinds of things. then the earthquake happened. here is what i want to say. this is horrible for the people of haiti. they are in shock now, and a lot of them are frustrated they are not getting beat a fast enough. -- the aid fast enough. i still believe they have the same chance to escape the past and build a better tomorrow they had before the earthquake, if we can manage this crisis. and then, develop both a plan

for what happens in port-au- prince and west, and a structure that will have the confidence of donors and accountability that will both in power and increase the capacity of the haitian government and involve haitian citizens and all the rest of us in the long-term reconstruction. and i am working on that. we did in indonesia after the tsunami. we had a system that mobilizes and coordinated what the government could do. we had total transparency, accountability, and a regular set of progress reports that made a big difference. i also believe that a country can rise from the ashes in a very short time. my model for that is rwanda. dr. paul farmer who is my deputy at the un and has worked in haiti for 25 years, his foundation and mine went to rwanda and it helped rebuild the

entire health care system in three years. four years after the genocide in 1998, per-capita income was two under $68. 10 years later, it was $1,100. it had nearly quadrupled. [applause] a lot of you were part of that. do not tell me they cannot do this. this is an opportunity to read imagine the future for the haitian people to build the country they want to become, instead of to rebuild what they used to be. we have to get through the emergency. we have to get it organized, and we have to have the right structure and support. i invite you to be a part of that. and i can tell you this, and then i will turn it over to the other panelists here. after we had that investment conference in port-au-prince, we did what we always did. we went out and said, how did you like it? how you feel? you're is the most important

thing, those of you on the outside of you neo know. 97% of the people who came to the investment conference agreed with dennis o'brien. they said they were surprised by the positive opportunities available there for them. i want them to become you. i will turn it over to the panel and ask all of you to visit the haiti desk. if you know you are prepared to do something, signed up and let us know. i assure you we will organize it for you and be back in touch. thank you very much. [applause] and i think we will go down the line. dennis, would you like to speak next? >> mr. president, ladies and testamengentlemen, there is a by

for haiti and it is tomorrow. there is a huge case for direct investment in haiti. we have invested over the last four years, it is -- it is a terrific place to do business. the government policies are favorably disposed towards foreign direct investors. more importantly, he has a very young population. we have 900 staff. they are hugely talented people. they are very committed. they are hard working. if there are 10 million consumers in the marketplace. and it is my view that over the next five years, the president has given an example of what happened in rwanda, that can be replicated in haiti with a proper reconstruction plan and development plan. by way of example, i met a man at the other day, he came back to work. he lost five of his family, and he showed up for work. i think haitian workers, haitian

staff, patient managers, and most of our business is run by haitian managers are some of the best people in the world. you know, you probably will ask yourselves, where are the opportunities for me and my business? first of all, there is opportunities in tourism, in the northern part. there are wonderful beaches. already the crews liners are coming in. there are hotel groups like choice hotels, best western are investing money. also in the areas of light manufacturing, particularly in textiles. there is the thing called the hope two agreements which allows manufacturers to have favorable tariff treatment in the united states. the president has been involved in pushing that. there are opportunities in fruit production, and in food production of taiwanese group is putting $16 million into rice production. also for people in

reconstruction and rebuilding businesses, property development. i think there is an enormous opportunity for those people to come in now and make solid investments. infrastructure, electricity generation as well. we, in the space of five years, have never had any problem with our business. we have never had difficulties with the government. he that is why i actually think that this market is at the doorstep of the wealthiest consumer market in the united states. most of us in this room have investments all over the world, but they are generally pretty boring, because they are -- we are making money, creating jobs in other countries and that, but haiti is not boring. it is challenging it is cg. you can strengthen your management team by sending them there. haiti is wide open for business. for those of you who are looking

for all low-cost manufacturing location close to the u.s., please go and register at the haiti desk. or get in touch with the clinton global initiative, because with in that, we are pushing investment. i will personally go and make a presentation, even though i am not the foreign direct investment agency for haiti. i just cannot strongly urge you enough to actually do something. and do it for the right reasons. not just do it for all to rest of reasons, but for economic reasons. -- not just altruistic reasons. haiti is our great country. tomorrow, it will be an even better country. >> thank you. let me just say, first of all, we were going to have a meeting of all of the people who had already made business commitments. -- in haiti. then the earthquake intervene.

dennis told them all to come to sell florida and meet anyway. and they all re-upped. i cannot thank you enough. you are right. haiti is not boring. but neither is it hopeless. i thank you for your commitment. i should also tell you i met with 50 plus ngo and philanthropic leaders, all of whom reaffirmed their commitment. the people who have been down there are hot. and they believed -- they are hooked and they believe in what we can do together. i t y very much. i would like to ask the foreign minister from brazil to speak about his prospective -- perspective on this. where he thinks we are, where we are going. then i would like to ask ellen clark and talk about what our partnership is going to be like.

mr. foreign minister? >> thank you, mr. president. i am really very honored and touched and moved to be here today, because i just came from haiti about four days ago. i could see with my own eyes some of the things that are mentioned here. in spite of all of the tragedy, people are living. the markets are reviving, even the street markets. certainly, it is not boring. actually, what i would say, just as an aside, even in the aspect of art, painting and music, that is also an area which can bring money and which can be used. remember, that roosevelt when he was busy reviving the american economy, he also paid attention to the artists. that is an important part of the self-esteem of the country. i was reading yesterday an

article which speaks about the cathedral where you have a stained-glass window with bible figures but they are black bible figures. so this is part of the national pride that has to be recovered. as president clinton said, brazil is committed in terms of security forces. we lost 18 soldiers and officers now. and we also lost what we consider the brazilian that mother teresa, who worked with children there. and also the vice deputy of the un mission, of the civilian mission. but that did not detract retention period on the contrary. we are even more committed now. -- on the contrary. we are even more committed now. i will extend myself -- this is

not the time to make propaganda publicity. this is a moment of solidarity. i am moved to see the list of donors, countries like chad, like botswana, like the bogabon. it is a moment in which the world has to show solidarity and i want to complement them for promoting this. there are a lot of experiences in haiti going on, some by ngo's, some in tri-lateral corp., that have to do with some sort of economic activity. but these are small-scale things, like the cash for work, which is now very important at this moment. but i also want to take on what president clinton said, thinking in the medium and long term, because they are around the corner. we have to deal with them as we deal with the emergency. in this respect, i think there

are four questions that have to be addressed in the private sector. i will just mention these four. jobs, energy, environment, and food security. jobs for young people. one of the main preoccupations with the president was the outflow of young people, the keys -- because these are the people who can reconstruct haiti. it is important the investment comes quickly so that people see there are prospects. in the area of jobs, just to take one, like garments, and hope two. in brazil, we were discussing with the united states how to facilitate the rules of origin to make it easier for people to invest. i had 11 businessman from brazil in the mission that was coordinated by president clinton. it is essential to do that. for the first time, i saw the

brazilian textile industry saying they are prepared to give reciprocity. if the american companies invest their, and if the hope to be wrote gives easy rules of origin, we will do the same. -- if hope two gives easy rules of origin, we will do the same. it is an area we have to do something. one of the worst -- one of the causes of the last political crisis in haiti before the earthquake was precisely the food. in energy, brazil has an enormous experience in biofuels. but this can be done and not just to help haiti but to make money. in the beginning, it can be to hydrate. biofuels coming from brazil, going to the u.s. market. then it can be used in haiti itself. finally, environment. haiti is a devastated land, from the point of view of the

environment. i do not want to go into the causes, but that is the fact. so we would need a massive program, financed maybe by the world bank. but with also private sector interested in replanting trees in haiti, because otherwise, the country will continue to suffer from floods. floods do not come only because it rains. it floods because the environment is not adequately prepared to absorb those reins. if i could just finalized, since i always came to these forum to speak about trade. this is the time to show we are not only about profit and greed. this is the time for all developing and developed countries that can do so to offered duty-free, quota-free to all asian products with facilitated rules of origin -- to haitian products.

>> thank you very much. let me clarify it. for those of you who are not involved in haiti, you saw the pictures on international television, not just of this human misery but all the channels repeatedly showed of map of the islands and of haiti and of where the earthquake was most severe, in port-au-prince and west. i want to emphasize something that both previous speakers said, but i want you to be clear. 70% of the land mass of the country and about 60% plus of the people were not directly damaged by the earthquake. the economic plan which was developed by the government then headed by the prime minister lui includes commitments for this whole country.

it is more important than effort, in my opinion, while we are trying to rebuild port-au- prince and help people put their lives back together, to try, if anything, to accelerate the impact of the economic plan and its implementation in the rest of the country. i want to make and events -- the defense of the royal caribbean lines. they were criticized for continuing to drop their ships -- to dock their ships. i think that is wrong. they brought in money that the haitians are desperately needed. the cat people working who needed jobs. -- they kept people working. you did not want us to shut the whole rest of the country down while the capitol was simple -- was broken and bleeding. let's just take tourism. there were 80,000 tourists in haiti last year, 500,000 broad hint by -- brought in by royal

cruiselines. i hope we can accelerate the construction of the airport. i know personally two businesses that will open resorts there. they will put a lot of people to work. a lot of people have left port- au-prince, gone back to their villages. they need to make a living. we have agricultural, environmental projects, tourism projects, all kinds of opportunities in the rest of haiti. doing something there will be a direct benefit to the area hit by the hurricane as we begin the rebuilding. and i want to thank all of the people who kept economic activity going in the rest of the country during this moment. otherwise, i do not have strong feelings about this issue. i am aghast that anybody would criticize the people who are trying to keep the rest of haiti together in this moment.

i want to call on our undp director ellen clark to talk about what the un system has done. i would like to say, i am of volunteer there, but i am profoundly moved by how dedicated they all are to doing their mission in the wake of an unimaginable tragedy for the u.n. system as well. so, please. >> thank you, president clinton, a distinguished fellow panelists, ladies and gentlemen. i think of all of the comet -- contributions made, there is a comment message that out of this catastrophe can, the time of renewal, if we put together in the partnerships that make that possible. and everyone can play a part in those partnerships. there has been an extraordinary outpouring of good will and commitment for haiti, from the governmental level, from the level of the ordinary citizens across our society is, from the private sector and foundations

and non-governmental organizations. the key thing is to keep that momentum going. right now the humanitarian relief phase is still very much their. we are moving into early recovery with cash for jobs. beyond that, there is the agenda that others have talked about. there is no doubt in my mind that the kind of private sector investment that president clinton and world economic forum have in mind in which i understand robert will talk about can be incredibly important. as president clinton said, there was an economic recovery plan is driven by the government in place before this catastrophe. that plan must not stop. that's plan -- that plan must be accelerated. there are large parts of haiti that were not physically impacted. the work can go on now there. i have come today representing the secretary general to be supportive of the initiatives

that president clinton and the world economic forum are putting to you and to say that the role of the private sector, the role of the foundations, the ngo's, this is just so important, alongside the role of governments can play alongside the role of development banks and multilateral institutions. it is about unique partnerships where everybody plays a role in supporting haiti at this hour of need to build back better and to actually knew. thank you. >> thank you. robert, why do not explain what we propose to do now. we have already run over time. we do not have time to explore specific questions, but we have tried to set up a system to do that. >> thank you. as you mentioned, i was involved in haiti as the president of canada's international development agency. i am proud of canada, together with brazil and the united states on this issue.

we are calling for a global partnership. we are calling upon people to go beyond in gauging and beyond giving to engaging. after the tv cameras have gone, to continue with the hard work of creating sustainable jobs for haitians. we think the power of the international business community can be a major force behind that. how do we hope to do that? well, as president clinton mentioned, we will work under the haitian leadership of the haitian economic development plan. what we will be doing, together with the clinton foundation, is we will work in collaboration, getting together the business leaders here who are interested in engaging in committing to procuring, potentially looking at investing, a partner in to help build asian jobs and asian businesses. witt -- haitian jobs and haitian businesses. dozens of you have already signed up to look at the opportunities. i would invite to court interested to go to the haiti desk to receive more information

-- i would invite all of you interested to go to the haiti desk. and, just in closing, the theme of this year's davos is rethinking, redesign, rebuild. we should rethink how we engage in these challenging situations. we should read this and how we work together. together, we can rebuild haiti. >> let me close by saying is, there is a group of people meeting in haiti, including architects and urban planners trying to imagine the future. if he think it is hopeless, i urge you to go to new orleans and look at the former ninth water where everybody -- ninth ward. we now have some of the green as housing anywhere in the world that is more affordable than what was there before. yes, we need plans to rebuild

port-au-prince. we need plans to do the rest. yes, we need a structure that guarantees accountability and all that. the me tell you what the bottom line is. haiti is the only successful country ever established as a result of a slave revolt. for that, they're were punished by being ignored or abuse. the united states to not recognize them for 60 years. when finally we did, we were in with the rest of the crowd of european powers saying they had to pay enormous reparations for winning their freedom. then for 20 years, early in this century, starting during world war i, marines occupied haiti but did nothing to and power that people are change the fundamental structure of society, to build the self- determination you have to. when we left, things went to hell again. i cannot see how anybody could have been surprised that there were haitian leaders who abused

their people the way he had been abused by outsiders, the same way some children who are abused or to be child abusers. then they started trying to get their democracy back 20 years ago. i tried to give it to them. but a lot of us on the outside have not known how to help. so, haiti has also been hurt a little bit by all of us who feel self righteous, that we are doing good to help them. they wish to be empowered to chart their own course in the future. and they need to be helped through this hideous natural disaster to get there. but i will say again, they have the best chance they have ever had in my lifetime to escape their past. we have the best chance, those of us who are outsiders, to be partners, not just trying to help people so we feel good. but to empower people who are as gifted and hard-working and creative under unbelievably

adverse circumstances than any people i have ever seen. as dennis said, this will not be boring for you. but i will guarantee you, you will feel better if you do it. in all probability, you will be successful. after this is over, you might want to talk not just to the people here but to michelle lui who asks to meet all away from the port-au-prince. to head to -- who has come all away from port-au-prince and then went to dominican republic. anad td to george soros. i am grateful to him. there are others you're involved in the haiti project. if you have any interest in this, even if you do not have answers to your questions, for goodness sake, sign up, while davos is going on. i promise you, our office will

follow up. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> now to capitol hill for a senate hearing on haiti earthquake relief efforts. witnesses include un deputy special envoy, paul farmer, and former white house envoy, james dobbins. john kerry of massachusetts chairs the foreign relations committee. this is about an hour, 45

minutes. >> the hearing will come to order. we will start the hearing, and i think dr. farmer is not very far away. five votes been scheduled. if we had begun this hearing when it had been scheduled, we would not have had a hearing. i appreciate everyone's understanding. we will try to compress the hearing -- we have a grace period of 15 minutes beyond 10:30. we have to hold at 10:45 or so, and that ought to give us an opportunity to be able to get through both the testimony and the questions adequately. i wish we were not pressed, but the reality is we are. needless to say, today in haiti

is reeling in the aftermath of what may well be the worst humanitarian catastrophe that the americas have ever seen. well over 100,000 dead, and more dying every day. an estimated 1 million haitians are displaced. large parts of port-au-prince and several outlying cities are flattened. an already weakened infrastructure has basically collapsed. the numbers simply do not explain the forest that millions of haitians are living through. -- explaint he horrors -- the horrors that haitians are living through. a tent city next to a crumbled presidential palace. the haitian child dividing one rations meal among eight members

of his family. the 70-year-old woman rescued from the cathedral in port-au- prince seven days after the earthquake, too weak to stand, but strong enough to sing church hymns and she was carried out on a stretcher. only just this morning, the photographs of the 15-year-old girl being pulled out just a little more than two weeks after the earthquake. it is impossible not to be moved by the suffering, but also, by the resilience and the dignity of the haitian people. it is our duty as neighbors and frankly as a fellow human beings to respond to this tragedy. and that responsibility does not end with the rescue. we need to help haiti to rebuild in a way that leaves 80 better off and better prepared -- leaves haiti better prepared were any future natural

disaster, were to strike. america and the world has rushed in with as much assistance as 80's infrastructure has permitted. search and rescue teams, food, water, shelter and several thousand troops. we are well aware of the suffering and heartbreak that has affected the hard-working haitian-american community. my home state of massachusetts is home to the third largest haitian-american community in the united states. we must do what we can to help. there has been an outpouring of generosity from americans and the international community. people have opened their wallets in their homes and working closely with dozens of families, we have been working very closely, our staff and myself in dozens of families in massachusetts, to expedite the adoptions of haitian orphans there were already under way before the earthquake. we are also working to make sure that our governments relief efforts provide that thousands of haitian children who are orphaned or displaced by the

earthquake within the formal process that protect children from trafficking. i want to commend dr. shaw, secretary clinton, and countless other americans inside government to have made an impressive, a remarkable effort that all of us can be proud of. i would particularly like to honor u.s. diplomat victoria delong loss for life. and to recognize the losses suffered by the united states -- united nations. the un has made enormous contributions to haiti over the years. they lost many outstanding people on the ground. we offer profound gratitude and our condolences to the un and to the families of the deceased. we have also felt that tragedy personally in massachusetts with a loss of britney. i know personally the agony of her parents. first, and trying to find out what her fate might be an out and try to recover their daughter's body.

the task before all of us remains far from over first, we must continue the ongoing effort to meet patients' immediate need for food, water, shelter, electricity, and medical care. so far, thanks to un peacekeepers in u.s. forces, the security situations have allowed this to go on its helium. we have begun to reverse the poverty that plagued haiti long before this tragedy. we cannot be satisfied to simply restore haiti to the unsustainable conditions of the past. on january 11, haiti was already the poorest country in the western hemisphere. even before the earthquake, there were 380,000 orphans in haiti. most haitians live on less than $1 a day. 40% of the children were not

enrolled in school. 120,000 haitians are hiv- positive. they are played by malnutrition. we need to help patients build -- they are plagued by malnutrition. this is the chance for haitians to rematch in their country as they rebuild it. we must use every opportunity to help haiti improve its living standards. haiti has a duty-free access to the u.s. market. a large pool of low-cost labor. haiti was actually making steps towards recovery when the earthquake struck. and violent crime was declining. 80's progress would be more sustainable -- their progress would be more sustainable if we look at environmental devastation and runaway population growth. third, the recovery must belong

to the haitian people. they may need our help today, but they must be empowered to build their own future down the road. the president and the prime minister need to lead the national recovery in civil society and democratic institutions must be protected and nurtured. their long-term success depends on a government that can pick -- inspire its people, attract investment and marshal resources to provide basic security and rule of law. some have said that haiti is a lost cause. based on all i know of the haitian people, and i have learned a lot more in recent days, i could not disagree more. even in the darkest hours after the earthquake, haitians who were poor to begin with and then lost everything, reached out to help each other. they searched for missing neighbors, strangers, provided comfort and shelter and shared

their meager food. liang violence here and there may make headlines -- looting may make headlines, but it is their determination and decency in the face of disaster that will make the future. schools may have collapsed, but commitment to education will not. -- the president's wife urged patient people to stand up again and move forward. as they do, america will be there to help. we're fortunate to have with us today three very impressive witnesses with deep knowledge of haiti and the challenges that we and the haitian people face. paul farmer is the un deputy special envoy 8 for haiti -- for haiit. ti. he has been a friend to me. he has spent a great source for me.

-- has been a great resource. james dobbin has written extensively on haiti and on the challenges of reconstruction. finally, the doctor who emigrated from haiti in 1979 to study medicine, can speak to that enormous public health challenges that he faces. he is the incoming director of public health for the state of georgia. we welcome all of you in thank you for being here today. let me turn to senator lugar and we welcome your testimony as. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to thank you again for calling this important hearing on the rescue recovery and longer term issues in haiti. in the ongoing aftershocks since january 11 -- january 12, 2010, is one of the worst natural disasters to confront the western hemisphere in modern history.

nearly 3 million people have been affected. it is estimated that more than 150,000 people may have perished. my thoughts are with those of suffered loss. the crisis situation in haiti has the potential to destabilize security in the caribbean. the social instability in haiti represents a critical concern for the dominican republic and creates far reaching implications and deteriorating conditions and induced a mass exodus of haitians by land and sea. the heroic efforts of american relief workers and the international team's of first responders are deeply inspiring. i commend the administration and many of my senate colleagues who have worked to advance policies and legislation that would hasten he's recovery.

-- haiti's recovery. i called on the secretary of homeland security last week to grant 18 months of protective status and to grant these of parole for orphans in the midst of adoption proceedings with american parents. the secretary's quick action on both provisions will ensure that many vulnerable children are united with loving families and that all people of haitian dissent in the united states are in a position to contribute to their recovery. a senior economist at the world bank has projected that temporary protected status could generate an additional $360 million dollars in remittances sent to haiti in 2010. . .

limitations of the current government constrain prospects for recovery. these harsh realities, compounded by the significant loss of life that does weakened the government and other institutions in haiti, compelled the international community to consider measures. because of the devastation,

haiti is near a failed state. we should consider an enhanced role for the united nations and the daily operations of the haitian government until the country is stable. this would include the provision of food and shelter, reconstruction, budgetary affairs, security, and other aspects vital to the haitian people. the united nations has the credibility and capacity to perform that role. the relationship between the united nations and the haitian government should be a consensual, cooperatives relationship that preserves haitian decisions while ensuring the international community is brought to bear on the community. with increased security and recovery role, i believe the haitians would more quickly gather their bearings and begin to rebuild their lives and their country.

a top priority must be developing and implementing a plan to resettle temporarily the millions of displaced people for whom port-au-prince has little to offer. adequate food, water, and shelter must be delivered in earnest to these areas. i would also encourage the obama administration to coordinate asian-american volunteers into hometown associations, -- haitian american volunteers into hometown associations link to their former home towns. members can serve as interpreters, support the temporary resettlement of refugees, and provide assistance to haitians evacuated to the united states for medical treatment not available on the island. the haitian american community is eager to get involved, but greater coordination is needed to put their skills to full use. our government should explore ways to partner with ngos and

existing social networking platforms like facebook and twitter to expel erich this coordination. organizing will increase our ability to leverage the flow of the more than $1 billion from the united states. i look forward to the insides of our very distinguished panel of witnesses and innovative recommendations of strategies for moving haiti forward. thank you, chairman. >> thank you. let me welcome the senator here on the occasion of her 29th birthday. [laughter] >> 30, thank you for being truthful. we appreciate it. again, i am delighted to welcome the members of our panel. we have such admiration for the work in africa and all you have been contributing, so we look

forward to your testimony. we will be going to mr. dobbins and mr. francois. >> thank you for having me to testify. and speaking for the special envoy but also as a physician and teacher from harvard who has worked 25 years in rural haiti, my hope today is to do justice not by chronicling the events of the last two weeks, but by attesting to the possibility of hope for the country and the importance of meaningful investments and sustainable development in haiti. i will not pretend tobin is not difficult to muster. as i was coming year -- i will not pretend that hope is not difficult to muster. i would ask that my colleagues -- what would it be like to look

around you and see every federal building collapse -- the white house, all of them, and that is what we have seen in haiti, and as i was flying up here from port-au-prince to montreal, heading to a conference on coordinating responses to this earthquake, i did the painful math and counted close to 60 colleagues and friends and family members who have lost their lives in the span of a minute. most of the earth -- most of them were in port-au-prince for a meeting on disaster risk reduction. partners in the sister organization provide health to the rural poor by focusing on training and employing local talents. we have grown a great deal over the years. we are currently serving more than 1.2 million and count 5000

employees, most of them community health workers. not all our colleagues survive, but the vast majority did survive and spent the last two weeks working day and night to ease the suffering of the wounded and displays. my colleagues have been in port- au-prince as well as the less affected areas. ever where, we have seen great acts of bravery and solidarity. in addition to the heroism of friends and colleagues, i would like to note the dignity and patients of the -- suffering haitian people. during a visit last week to the sister campus, president clinton remarks no other people would be so patient and calm in the face of so much suffering. this must not be misunderstood. people in haiti are afraid, not

only for their options and futures, but for their safety. a few nights ago, we sat in and the medical wards, hearing in a after shocks, the patient's blood outside with ivies from their arms. -- burst outside with iv's attach to their arms. they refused to sleep inside. this is a reminder of the logistics challenges facing all those who would be involved in the provision of shelter, clean water, and health care. the relief efforts focus now on the initial wave of -- focusing on the initial wave will soon turn to new concerns. the camps are at risk of cholera and other waterborne diseases. the haitian government has

opposed huge dams that will be difficult to manage, but we must focus our efforts to get latrines or contacting toilets to haiti. it is humbling to see the relief effort be so slow, in large part because the delivery of services was so weak before the quake. now we must -- we must do much more to get food and water to people every day for some time to come, creating safe schools and hospitals, and store resistant housing must also be a carefully considered priorities since there is little time before the rainy season. students need to be back in school. the planning season cannot be missed and requires fertilizer, seeds, and tools. how will we find such settlements, the reconstruction that must follow? major pledges will be made by the united states, canada,

japan, brazil, the european union, the world bank, and others. most countries have responded to haiti's polite, even in once afflicted rwanda, a group of health workers making less than $200 a month have been able to pull together $7,000 in donations for their colleagues in haiti. this is a small portion of the billions needed, but hard to surpass as an eloquent testimony of human solidarity. i will make two points. even one such resources are available, the task before us will be -- even when such resources are available, the task before us will be difficult. haiti is facing an acute and chronic problem. before this, the country was solid -- already facing long-

term problems and an unemployment rate of almost 70% and a majority of population living on less than $2 a day. food and water were already large problems. does this catastrophe present a chance to have a sounder, more solidarity-based relationship with haiti, or is it yet to be another chapter in suffering and abuse of power. in my last testimony here, i expressed concern that the latter possibility was likely , given the policies of our time. i would like to conclude we're opening the possibility for a different way of interacting with haiti. that said, let me say i have attended only two donor conferences, both about haiti. the last one is in montreal.

the first one is in washington, less than a year ago. the results are noteworthy and worries some -- worry some. despite the pledge to support the economic recovery program, after the hurricane that destroyed 15% of gdp, it was estimated by my co-workers of the un that a mere $61 million had been disbursed. we have been tracking the disbursement -- 85% of the pledges made a year ago and are not dispersed. many of us worry if past is prologue, haitians themselves will be to blame for this, but as we have argued before, there are serious problems in the aid machinery, and these have contributed to the delivery challenges on the ground. the aid machinery currently at work keeps too much for overhead for its operations and

still realize too much on ngos or contractors -- still relies too much on ngos or contractors. the fact that there are more indio's per capita in haiti than any other country in this hemisphere reaching more ngos -- more ngos in haiti it than any other country -- 80 will need the contractors and ngos -- haiti will lead the contractors and ngos. we will need new ground rules, including a demand to create more local jobs for haitians, and building an infrastructure crucial to creating sustainable economic growth and ultimately reducing haiti's dependent on aid. what we need is a way of building back and strengthening government but also

strengthening the haitian economy to provide for the needs of its people, especially the vast majority of haitians who are desperately poor. there is an opportunity not only to build a be back better but to build a more functional and beneficial -- to build haiti but better but also to build a more functional and beneficial society. in building by cady, a credible body that has been working in 80 such -- in '80, a credible body could -- in haiti, a credible body could help. haiti needs of banks to fund its reconstruction. such an account could be managed with partners such as the u.n. and haitian leadership and would work openly and directly with partners to design and implement

recovery plans coordinated at central and local levels. the effort must include a comprehensive post disaster needs assessment, which should be supported by the united states and other partners. might such plans work? and some of the darkest moments in the last two weeks, when the incapacity of lack of coordination of institutions on the ground was repeatedly revealed to me, i thought often of rwanda and what happened there in 1994. as a physician and teacher in harvard, i have been lucky to work with the clinton foundation and the government of rwanda and reworking health infrastructure in three of the last four districts that lacked central hospital. they are now all bill. this has been a positive experience. it has resulted in thousands of jobs for rwandans and has created health care infrastructure with a modest price tag compared to

traditional aid contractors. if such progress can be made in rwanda, one hopes it can be made elsewhere. if there is any silver lining to this cloud, it is that we can push job creation. it is a strange irony that supporters to economic assistance to haiti are now obliged to shill for cash to work programs for the quaint notion people should be paid for their labour. let us be honest. it is absurd to argue that volunteerism and food for work programs will create sustainable jobs, but if you set the ground rules, we will be about to create sustainable jobs. i can tell you bad infrastructure and baubles policy are visible in the bodies

of the poor, just are good policy and well-designed infrastructure. in my almost 30 years in haiti, i have witnessed many interventions. they have been unpleasant, even if there affects pale in the shadow of what we're now experiencing. many look that he be in despair. they say aid is wasted, that there is no hope for this country. i would say this is not true. if we focus appropriately, we can achieve long-term benefits. putting haitians -- putting people to work is what brought our country out of its great depression. thank you very much. >> thank you. mr. dobbins.

we must instill a sense of caution and regarding the prospects for working in a real transformation there. as the candidate for assistance, haiti has many advantages, including some in which the state building process has yielded positive results. most of those sorts of states are surrounded by conflict-prone and predatory neighbors. haiti since in the midst of its own relatively -- peace and relative prosperity. all of haiti's neighbors are much richer, and none have any interest in destabilizing haiti or inhibiting its development. neither is it divided by competing ethnic or religious groups. haitians have a strong sense of national unity and no strong sectarian divide. it also has a relatively prosperous diaspora, many are

at -- many of which are at no great distance, so haiti does have certain inherent advantages. in an addition to these inherent advantages, i think there are three relatively new conditions that suggest this time around we may do better this time around. first, the final departure of president aristid in 2004 has greatly divided rancor. at the moment when clinton and bush are campaigning together, one might hope the american divide has close. second, the outpouring of sympathy as a result of the earthquake seems likely to yield substantial increase in american and international aid levels. more money means more assistance, but it also means more leverage to promote change.

finally, the very immensity of the recent disaster has administered a shot to the haitian political structure that can help ease resistance to reform and undermine longstanding barriers to progress within haiti. my own experience dates back to the american intervention of 1994. this was one of five nation building operations, with which i became associated, including somalia early in the day did -- early in the decade and finally, afghanistan. since leaving office, i have had an opportunity to reflect not only on the american experience but other u.n. operations with which the united states was not closely associated, so i would like to add a number of proposed guidelines based on that experience of the last 60 years in these kinds of fried chiles states.

first, security is an -- these kinds of states. first, security is essential. in absence of security, any positive changes will be washed away, so the bad news is an international security presence is going to be required for a long time. e that haiti is not a particularly difficult society to secure. contrary to popular image, the haitian government peaceful cha. haiti is no iraq or afghanistan. american troops are unlikely to be required once the immediate emergency passes. i think the united nations should be able to secure haiti successfully with modest reinforcements that have already been authorized. i do think the united states should consider increasing the assignment of american police officers to the un police contingent there.

we have a unique attribute to draw on, which is a number of haitian american police of a surge in big cities like miami and -- police officers in big cities like miami and new york and elsewhere i think can provide valuable contribution to the u.n. police force helping to secure haiti. the second lesson drawn from these operations is the stabilization and reconstruction operations take time. the 1994 american-led intervention was the case in point. that operation was almost entirely successful in its own terms, but those were much too narrow. in launching the intervention, president clinton promised to restore the freely elected president and to keep american troops in haiti only long enough to organize new elections and to inaugurate a new president. he promised to do all this within two years.

this, his and ministration proceeded to do, hitting every benchmark, achieving a retarded, and suffering almost no casualties, but two years was too short a time to fix a society as troubled as haiti, and the intervention accomplished little of value. the recent reconstruction operations have been lasting eight to 10 years. the current operation began in 2004, but i think we basically have to set the clock back to zero and assume the un peacekeeping forces going to be required for another decade at least. third, in a post-conflict environment, economic and political reform need to be evaluated not just for social justice but on our capacity to ease tension and promote reconciliation among long hall style groups. this means programs to relieve poverty -- long hostile groups. this means relief will be part

of the larger effort. fourth, assistance should be focused on building a more competent and efficient state. this is probably my most important message. 80 possible your ability to natural disaster is not just -- haiti's problem was not just weak infrastructure but having a weak state that cannot provide security, power, and education to the majority of its population. large amounts of american aid and other donor money are going to flow into haiti in the coming weeks, and the temptation will be to spend most of it on american and foreign ngos that can deliver service with good accountability, but this sort of a believe snow region leaves

no capacity to sustain. the second priority will be -- this sort of thing leaves no capacity to sustain. aide also needs to be directed on a priority basis towards enhancing he the's capacity to govern itself. -- haiti's capacity to govern itself. this means programs to train staff and provide information systems and other support services needed to maximize their efficiency. haiti needs to rebuild from the bottom up as well as the top down. it is not just port-au-prince. it is the rural populations. it is not just government ministries. it is creating the capacity to penetrate and deliver services at local level and promote development of local leadership, local council, and provide them the wherewithal to assist their constituents.

6, the u.s. government needs to organize themselves for a sustained high intensity effort. i would suggest the president and secretary of state should take a single individual with power similar to that which holbrooke possesses for afghanistan. they should have new money and a single account, unencumbered by earmarks and then work as part of an oversight process with whomever of the administration designates to make sure the money is well spent. 7, it is important the international program for reform of haitian institutions not bear a made in washington imprint. i believe the united states should work to establish conditions and insists those conditions are met through

institutions like the united nations and the world bank. we should help those institutions target reforms that are feasible and essential and set the conditions which will use the leverage assistance provides to get those reforms effectuated, and the u.s. should work quietly behind the scenes, use its political influence to make sure the haitian institutions to adopt those reforms and embrace them. the u.s. should be contributing directly and substantially to both un and world bank efforts. i would suggest an addition would be the united nations continuing to take the lead in reforming securities sector in supporting elections and promoting political reform while the world bank takes the lead in supporting economic and social reforms. finally, there are a couple of things the united states is uniquely positioned to do by its

proximity. these involve trade and immigration. you already mentioned the preferential access haiti has to the market. i suggest we essentially set the clock back to zero and assume that access begins as of today rather then when it actually went into affect, and second, i suggest the united states should consider a temporary increase in family unification emigration to the united states. haitian society may be economically dysfunctional, but haitian immigrants prove to be hard-working, law-abiding members of our society, even as their one of the largest sources of support for those believe find in haiti. every dollar they send to relatives in haiti is a dollar

that does not need to come from the u.s. taxpayer. >> thank you. those are very thoughtful suggestions. >> good morning. >> can you push the money on your -- there you go. >> good morning. my name is dr. i will be the dic health. i want to do thank you. my testimony will focus on the following. economic goals of long-term path to recovery. economic damages of an

earthquake this large is a challenge to any country, but when it occurs in one of the most fragile countries, it seems destructive in the vast landscape of feeble structures. the estimated mortality is about 200,000. there are about 40,000 missing americans. the number of missing is 4 million. the number affected is 3 million. the damage is difficult to qualify. my mother and father in law lost everything. ferguson -- fortunately, they were in the united states with me when this occurred. the critical needs our food and water, medical care, temporary shelters, security, and sanitation. in terms of diet, the most vulnerable groups are new york -- newborns and infants who require attention.

the capital city problems continue to grow as people do not have access to goods. if resources are not more strategically distributed, the security situation on the ground could rapidly deteriorate. medical teams must also remain vigilant. respite trade affections and typhoid -- thousands more -- respiratory affections and typhoid could kill thousands more if steps are not taken to mitigate risks. the immediate goals -- in light of over 50 aftershocks with magnitude of 4.0 or greater, it is -- the structure of homes and buildings as critical for the future of the population. before entering the u.s. and earning his doctorate degree in structural engineering, specializingvati and water resources, my brother carl worked as an engineer in port-

au-prince, and building codes at that time did not exist, and construction practices were geared to withstand hurricane wind forces and not earthquakes. you know it is appropriate to compare this recovery effort to the message learned after the september 11 destruction at the world trade center, after hurricane ike and hurricane katrina's devastation of the gulf coast states, where reconstruction is still occurring today. assuring proper drainage of rain water will be a massive undertaking with the steep watershed and drastic reduction of areas with old construction. the existing system was already

obsolete and did not need to rely on accurate data. have sustainedenerated, it muse irreversible damage. the waterworks and sewer infrastructures gauged against current environmental engineering standards were already inadequate. construction from scratch might be considered. the source of water supply might be adjusted after an inventory of other resources through groundwater hydrology. another viable option is to tap into the readily available sea salt water through a desalination process. long-term construction and development -- decentralization must be a priority goal of future development efforts. the earthquake not only triggered the migration, but in order for them to become permanent, investments must be made in local jobs, tourism

infrastructure, security, roads, and airports. access to rudimentary medical care must also be decentralized with a network of community health centers across the country. public health must become the foundation of this new health system and foster the widespread training of health promoters. improvements in literacy should also remain central to any development efforts. i would like to share a few of the recommendations of the haiti advisor regroup created by executive order by the former florida gov. jeb bush. the group consisted of 17 asian americans with significant experience in haitian issues. they formally -- 17 haitian americans with significant experience in haitian issues. this included a wide range of problematic issues that fall and the following categories -- security recommendations, economic development, disaster

preparedness. although florida was the main partner of these projects, i propose these recommendations be adopted by the united nations. examples include creation of a dedicated professional exchange program with the government of haiti. this would allow volunteers, utilizing vast skills, to travel to haiti and provide technical assistance and training. the objective of the program would be to provide haitian participants with the assistance, knowledge, skills, and resources they need to work more effectively in their respective field and build greater capacity within haitian institutions. he produces only about 80 physicians each year. what will happen to medical students already enrolled? how will they create their studies? will opportunities to study abroad be made available? a sharp increase in doctors creates the formula.

the international community should yielded great expertise in public safety to assist the growth of the haitian national police. the united nations could sponsor a mission in which representatives of haitian businesses can travel abroad to meet their counterparts. the promotion of economic opportunities for haitian product would be goals. united nations should begin to assist industry and tourism in its plan to retarget tourism, marketing campaigns, and other visitors to their country as tourists in order to discover its natural beauty and historic attractions. haiti's infrastructure is exponentially more vulnerable to hurricane-produced disasters like mudslides and flooding.

hurricane season begins june 1, and immediate action must be taken to mitigate potential risks. the united nations should deploy it experience -- employ its assistance in order to your -- for this agency to develop appropriate disaster management and infrastructure and training. in closing, i extend fervent prayers to all those who are affected by the earthquake as well as to the first responders who came from near and far. i also want to and acknowledge the magnanimous generosity of those who have contributed to the relief efforts in haiti. as we move forward, the united states and the international community must insure that investments made in rebuilding haiti are actually carried out through community-based organizations, faith-based

organizations and non-profit organizations. my personal hope is that a new generation of leaders will emerge from these ashes to selflessly leave haiti on a new path of prosperity through longevity, hard work, transparency, perseverance, and true democracy. thank you. >> thank you very much, dr. francois. thank you, all of you, for helping lay out the magnitude of the challenge here, and you put a lot of ideas on the table about things we need to think about. in the time for we have, i think if we do 7 minute rounds, every one ought to have the opportunity to ask questions, and if i can ask you to keep the answer is tied -- income was everything you want to, but we're going to try to cover a broad swath here if we can.

on a personal note, let me just say, dr. farmer, i want to thank you for the example of opportunity you have shown my daughter, who i know values enormous and the relationship working with you, and i want to thank you for that. let me begin -- i want to come back to the framework you raised about rules of the road, and i think it is important to look at that, but let me ask you quickly about an immediate challenge. there is a lot of concern about access to food in haiti and whether or not there are adequate levels being appropriately distribute it, and wfp is requesting emergency funds to feed people, flooding food into the arena. can you speak quickly to this question of adequacy of food and assess food distribution

efforts? >> thank you, mr. senator. in the short term, it is difficult to think of an alternative to wfp and, which has been determined capacity. it is hard to find groups that might have the procurement capacity, other than the ones by my colleagues. that will also allow people to buy their own food. at the same time, the rules of the road -- i would go back to those, even for a group. good for example, how can we focus on local procurement of foodstuffs so that food in sick -- food and security in haiti is not heightened by the huge but necessary influx from abroad, and i could give one small example from our own work in central haiti, which i have shared with my colleagues. we have the proper treatment for malnutrition for children, and

we grow peanuts mostly, but it can be other grains as well, and made essentially peanut butter, which is a readily used therapeutic food with vitamins. right there in local food processing plants in central haiti, and we have gotten the wfp to support that, and if we ramp up production in a moment like this, if we get the right kind of mold of vitamins and other things needed, we will have done several things at once. one, we will have responded to the acute need, which is extreme. it is very upsetting how hungry people are now. no. 2 -- we will have local produce from farmers. number three, we will create jobs, and it is not unthinkable

for processing plants could be scaled up to needs elsewhere, so i think the rules of the road still should include what is your plan for local job creation, how can we linked our short-term interventions to long-term interventions? >> that raises the question of how you get from here to there. some say it would be great to ramp up production. it would be great to gauge the local community. who is going to do this? one thing that has struck me as we deal with various hot spots is who is coordinating this overall effort. who is going to say you have to get the debris out of here and here is the rebuilt, and you began to organize all that. there are a lot of free actors

floating around. can you speak to this question about who is going to both direct and enforce these rules of the road, and how do we get the kind of coordination necessary to make sure we are shifting to a haitian solution as fast as possible? >> i am sure my colleagues have thoughts on this as well, but i would say the way we do this is to actually write it into the rules of the road as a condition for some of our aid -- not a condition for recipients but a condition for donors. some of the problems if you go from the marshall plan, which you have talked about many times over the last few years -- if you go from the marshall plan to some of the legislation written by the senate from 1961 until now, you will see the rise of a class of contractors who can provide useful services that are

difficult to obtain. that is true, but i think of we shift the rules formally and said this aid is dependent on our reforming ourselves, so i think part of it is in your hands. on the ground what i saw -- it is very possible -- i have been bemoaning the lack of coordination, but what i am seeing is going from chaos to chaos to a little bit more coordination, so the u.n. is trying to coordinate along lines of the health cluster, and the structure is the merging. i think it is probably the necessary structure. most of this is having on port- au-prince, but there are 10 districts in haiti and, 10 departments. there needs to be a locally-

driven process there. this may not be a popular thing to say, but in 1995, when rwanda laid down the law, saying if you as an ngo wish to work here, you have to fit into our development plans, it is estimated by some that half of the ngos left rwanda in a half. there were all sorts of - critiques, but many say they were right to push forward a tough line. some of it is going to be in your hands, and some of it is going to be in the hands of the un, and part of it is going to be in the hands of local government. >> what are your thoughts about the rules? >> i think it is useful to make a distinction between the relief phase. if there is one thing international community does well, it is disaster relief. it looks messy when a thousand

different organizations -- ngos, governments, and international organizations all show up, but it works, and it works remarkably well, and it is working in haiti. that does not really require fixing, in my view. it requires resources, but people are generous, and it is the best resource the international community does. you then have the question of moving to recovery and driving that towards institutional reforms that will make future relief operations less necessary. that does require more hierarchical structure. i think the united states needs to help design such an effort, and it needs to drive such an effort, but it should not be the flight on which that effort is put. -- flag always the effort is

put. i think the world bank is the logical focus for planning and conditioning and assistance across the economic and social spectrum. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to ask your comments following up on the thought of who is in charge and how government is to proceed by citing an interesting poll that appears in "the miami herald" this morning, and it is the headline, "haitian americans decided -- dissatisfied with the response to disaster." if found 63% of 400 haitian americans in a poll conducted in creole and english, disapproved of how the haitian president's government has responded. the unhappiness runs so deep that a majority of haitian americans support the united

nations and international community taking over day-to- day operations until haiti recoveries from its disaster. an overwhelming majority has responded they're happy with the united states government. 96% approve of what we're doing. 88% of the united nations. 2/3 of haitian americans are so concerned there would be willing to move back to haiti temporarily in order to assist reconstruction. i just mentioned this as a basis for -- first, it is unprecedented haitian americans have been unhappy with the response in the past, and second, the thought it is not immaterial, but then they point out the president is not a great

communicator, has not addressed the nation. the fact remains he is their leader, and the haitian government has to be reconsidered -- restructured in some form, even if the united nations and united states take control and provide these services. this is all profits for asking for your judgments politically. what is going to occur? the common stock is this has been a disaster, but it will remain a disaster because of lack of political sophistication or abilities or rapport with the haitian people, and here is a place in which the american and haitians are saying we are so concerned, we are going to move back in large numbers for a while to try to bring some relief to the process. do any of you have any thoughts about the government's question?

yes? >> senator lugar, essentially my thought is about the analogy of how we respond to the tragedy or hurricane here in the united states. what happens is if it is in florida or louisiana, we may ask the federal government for help, and likewise, haiti is now in dire need of an international response. what is different is the infrastructure and plans that are in place in almost every state is that you have an infrastructure for the federal government can come in and insert itself to support that response. the framework is totally absent.

in 2006, the secretary of health for florida -- we made a public health mission trip to engage the leadership about preparedness, and you can tell from the lack of response that we were not taken up on that offer, so essentially, i think that because of that lack of existing infrastructure, you really need a coordination of -- for example, from the united nations to sort of lead that response. that makes it more difficult, because the folks coming in did not know the terrain, which that knowledge could have been facilitated by existing plans on the ground, which again, are non-existent.

>> [inaudible] >> i did not think probably the rest of your constituencies are going to support that, so i do not think we have any option but to try to rebuild the haitian state structure, one that is more resilience, more capable than what we had today or a year ago, and therefore, i do believe state building is the core mission of the post-relief phase. >> thank you, senator. in "the washington post," it says 80 government gets minimal aid. less than a penny is send to leadership per dollar. that is true. none of this money is going to the government, and i just want

a few vignettes on whether that would be -- and whether that would be effective or not i do not know. it is not my area of expertise, but a few examples from the last two weeks in haiti -- before the hurricane, looking at the budgets of money going to the un presence there -- the budget for i.t. international -- information technology was larger than the combined budget of the health and administration together -- help and education together. what we were told the roads were blocked and no one was there, that was not true. the roads were not blocked, and the director of public health was at his post, but he had no tools to ended -- to do anything, and right after the recent earthquake, i was with

the minister of communication. she did not have a phone. i give her my phone. these absurdities go on and on. when we got to the general hospital late at night, at 10:00 that night, we found the director of the hospital and the director of nursing, who had just had a branch of the day before and who have lost her family and home. -- just had a grandchild the day before who had lost their family and home, but they were there. i would say in addition to opprobrious skepticism about the capacity of the now devastated government to it in the -- implements, we also need a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the way our aid has been funneled exclusively to the non-government sector. >> more aid should go to

government officials in addition to the ngos. >> thank you very much, and i am going to ask that opening comments be made available. >> to you, dr. former, we thank you immensely, and i commend him for his work elsewhere. jim dobbins and i have worked over the years, and i want to pick up on this whole point. prior to the events of two weeks ago and having grappled and work that haiti and going back to my peace corps days, even absent what occurred in the past two weeks -- haiti is not a failed state, and on countless occasions, those of us on this committee and elsewhere have were various times to provide assistance, and we have had the obstacle of refusing to provide assistance to governments that were questionable in their effectiveness or level of corruption's that existed in

haiti, so in a way, i think the point of dealing with immediate problems, of seeing to it we are getting resources to get people through this time, and while -- well to suggest the idea that given the magnitude of this tragedy, this gives an opportunity to do things people have talked about for decades but in various ways were unable suit grapple with it, and that is to talk about the long-term viability of this country to become self-sufficient, and that as the opportunity i think we can offer, not just to our country, but the community as large, and the question is how we do this. we ought not to get into the debate as to whether we ought to continue to provide immediate needs, but i think we need to get into this discussion quickly about how we're going to emerge from this tragedy with the operation to do things that we

would never have been able to achieve before. it almost suggests -- if u.s. me the question who should i call in haiti, if -- if you asked me the question who should i call in haiti, there really is no one to talk to. while we are wandering around trying to provide assistance, so we are introducing legislation that deals with these issues -- and you talked about barriers of trade and debt issues. these may not sound like much, but they go to the heart of it, getting to the question of how we can start to provide work. we're not suggesting today that -- i do not know that we are not -- why we are not suggesting people going to work cleaning up rubble. they can create income just to create arteries to get to people at this point.

things can be done to give economic hope. is it too well to suggest talking about some sort of receivership. if this were any sort of -- any other entity, we would talk about it being bankrupt, and to not only provide immediate relief but also to start to provide the assistance, it goes right back to where it was before. the handful of entities in haiti that have run the show for years, small group of families around the country. we all know that. i think we're going to roll right into that situation again, but the conditions will be worse. what about the idea of an international receivership in haiti so we can start to provide that kind of support and assistance to rebuild or

construct a set of institutions to provide for their own self sufficiency? >> there is certainly precedents for that. we have set a provisional administration inco's a vote, -- in kosovo and one or to other situations like that. we have done that in cases where there was no local government but where we overthrew the local government. i do not know of any in which we displays an existing government that was universally recognized, so i think it would be controversial and difficult to simply impose an international administration in haiti. unless there was a pretty clear demand within haiti for that kind of --

. oooooooooooooooo ooooowoooooooooo the international community is going to be providing public services in haiti. they were before the conflict. whether you want to formalize

that, i would be skeptical. >> any thoughts on this? >> >> i would not be surprised if you heard support in haiti on the streets as they say in the same way that you do among haitian americans. that said, i think there must be another way to do this the problem, as we have discussed a number of occasions, are the policies that are flipping back and forth, especially over the past two decades. if the policy is we are going to bypass completely the public infrastructures and only support with aid, you made this point in 2003, we are harvesting some of that now.

that is what the government was week before that. i am not qualified to comment on that. and not know enough about it. there are other people that do. i think there will be resistance to that motto -- to that. back to that gainful employment for the hundreds of thousands of people that need it, i am troubled by the title cash for work because it is so absurd. if we were to put significant amounts of our support and to programs that are around watershed protections, agricultural in denver's and make sure there was gender equity and focus on women especially in these efforts, we could have substantial transfer of resources to the poor and needy. if we do that, we could

strengthen the local government structure. of course, people are at the end of those recommendations are very much alive and could be very useful as we move forward. >> thank you. i want to thank our witnesses. my sense is that haiti is a place where we have an opportunity. there is universal support for the people of haiti. all of us in some form or fashion have been touched.

i would not be in the u.s. senate unless i had been to haiti in 1982. there are several people who have been involved. it seems like we have an opportunity to get this right. i appreciate the analysis that has been given and also appreciate the comments by my friend in connecticut. i have said there is no question in my mind that we need to do whatever is necessary right now as far as resources. there is no question that all of our efforts in the past in some ways to undermine the government because every volunteer group, every ngo does what they do

despite the government. that is what everybody does. why think the notion of building the government up in some form or fashion is a bad concept. i think your reference to rwanda is a great example of what can happen. as i listened to the very good analysis from mr. dobbins, and still have difficulties understanding how we can transition from what we all need to do and what ever it takes now to would it takes for heydey to take the lead. for a period of time, it was more draconian than us working behind the scenes. those sorts of things are going to be necessary.

i find it very difficult to find -- to believe that with the type of haiti -- with the type of leadership that he has had, they have flourished under good government. government has been a disaster there for generations. unfortunately, it has held wonderful people back from reaching their potential. i sense that we are going to have to do far more draconian things to get the country to function. i wish you expend as a bit more. the concepts are great. i just do not know how you get from a to b. there are tremendous opportunities. you can change cities and other places i don't think they will

ever have the ability to do it in the short term. >> we are superimposing a pretty thin recovery -- a recovery effort on top of it reconstruction effort. we have about $1 billion per year in assistance since 2004 which was actually beginning to make a difference. there are reform programs that were agreed internationally with the haitian government. they are in place and are beginning to have an effect. we have to evaluate whether they

are doing more ambitious reforms that could be put into place as a result of the greater flexibility of the haitian system created by this disaster and the additional resources. we need to evaluate the new ideas. we need to make sure the new operation operates synergistic laly with the old structures tht were set up. people need to be made responsible for the overall american policy toward haiti and toward integrating that policy with other governments representing the haitian and working with the congress. i think the congress needs to provide that with the resources necessary and the flexibility and targets. in the question of

infrastructure, brick and mortar stuff, our experience in iraq suggests that building things for people is of little enduring value. if you do not have a contractual plan in which there is a funding stream for maintaining that infrastructure once you build it, we built a lot of electric plants in iraq, they are not charging for electricity. since there were not charging, there was no stream of income -- the stream of money to maintain those plans. they need a resource stream to sustain the project. we need people that know how to do these things. we need them to take the lead and set the criteria and establish the conditionality and use our political influence and money to make sure those conditions are met. >> thank you.

we very seldom have a way to make a lot of difference. i hate to say it on this committee. i hope that somehow or another, we will keep a focus -- >> i hope you are speaking for yourself. >> you have done a great job with karzai. this is an opportunity for us to make sure that more draconian steps are taken and said if they steps that have yielded little results. >> i could not agree with you more. i cannot disagree with you at all. this is a moment and it will take a tough hand. >> i noticed the vote has not gone off. and to set fashion, which are drifting along here.

-- in truth senate fashion, we are drifting along here. >> i'd prefer to look at this as an opportunity to finish my questions. i.t. why for being here and for your insights. -- thank you for your being here a year and says. my first question before i ask more about the long term, if each of you are satisfied that everything is currently being done that can be done with the short-term relief efforts, dr. former, you talk about how slow the relief efforts are and to a great extent that is because of the lack of infrastructure. is there more than should be

done right now to address those relief efforts? >> thank you. i think there is a mismatch between the degree of interest and resources that we as a nation are putting in and the ability to observe that which is the fruit of failed policies in the past. in the middle of an emergency, you are not going to spend a lot of time on diagnosing the problem. i would suggest there is more that we can do but it does carry specific things. bring in surgeons but you also need supplies and long-term nursing. if i could bring this back to our previous discussion, i used the word accompaniment. if we have the patience, even for the relief work which is not going to be over in the next few weeks, if we have the patience

to accompany properly the various actors on the ground including church groups and nog'go's but also the remnants f the haitian public sector, we will have the word. if you had a division of labor and the international financial institutions like the world bank and you said to the ngo's that part of your job is to help this shattered infrastructure back. 85% of schooling in haiti as private. if you look back, that is why haitians are not a very literate. they are lottery schools because you take your chances when you go there. not just building codes but

curriculum. that is the wing to take patients. -- that is going to take patience. for the first 15 years of my engagement, we did not to this the right way. we had a lot of good will. rebuild a hospital. i was there sunday morning. it was spotless. people had been tended to and the beds for full. i was very proud and all of us are. what we really needed to do which is what we did over the last decade is how we can do the same thing in the public health sector with the ministry of health. so we did. recruited thousands of jobs and rebuild this public hospitals. that is a modus operandi that i and doors because it addresses the lack of ability and the public sector. it is more difficult of

agriculture because those are privately held fields. at least for education, ngo's need to do this. support the weak public sector. a colleague passed me a note that says the haitian government is looking for $3 million for run to pay off the space. all of their federal buildings collapsed. that is a transition to the private investment part. haiti does not want to be dependent upon foreign aid any more than rwanda does. their vision for development is called vision 2020. by then, they want no foreign aid going into rwanda. behalfs last fall, -- >> last fall, all of the hotels and port-au-prince were fooled by people coming down to get hotel

rooms that wanted to invest in haiti. i think there is good news out there if we can marshal our resources. >> to follow up, and to go back to what i think each of you are saying, as you look at longer terms, is the first priority governance? who should look to take responsibility to do that? is it the international community? is it the united nations? is it oversight from this committee? and the state department? as oppression from the asian american community? if it is governance to get that

done? >> as i suggested, i think that in the securities sector, and the general political support of the parliament, i think the un is the best place to do that. in terms of resuscitating ministries like education and transportation and agriculture, it is probably somebody else. it may vary. a single country may decide they will fund public education in haiti. the japan for the wells -- japan are the u.s. will say that is their department. it will have to work in the broader framework. it could take recruiting downtown port-au-prince as their focus.

i think a division of labor between the world bank and the un should be the primary international institutions. i think the west can be very influential. i think an american who sits in haiti and makes these decisions would probably be counterproductive. >> thank you, mr. chairman and the witnesses. congress is looking at programs and how we restructure foreign aid programs. . their record on gender equality is very poor. how can we focus our foreign aid

program to be more effective in carrying out of that objective? when we look at haiti and our previous foreign aid commitments in that country, we were not terribly successful as it relates to governance issues. i am for encouraged by the progress being made in rwanda. how we learn from our experiences so that we are not only focused on what needs to be done in haiti for the point of view of longer-term stability including government issues and international assistance and investment in jobs, what can we change in the overall strategy of this country and try to avoid another haiti in the future?

>> thank you, senator. i believe that the change that you are referring to has to begin inside haiti. we talk about governance and leadership, we have to remember that this country rose to become independent back in 18 04. i am personally skeptical about trusting entities that are in my opinion not delivered. you only have to look at the response, or lack thereof, of the leadership in haiti. as we move forward, we need to partner with leadership that has

the utmost integrity. the leadership that puts haiti and haitian people first. >> here is the dilemma. the governments are what they are. we can try to impact them in the way that they develop the institutions of democracy that protect the people from not only natural disasters but from abusive practices of the government. that needs to be part of the strategy. my point is how do we structure of our foreign assistance budget so that it does not become a tool for anti-american intervention in the country but uses the right incentives so that when we put money into a country, we know that we will get to the purposes of what we intended. >> let me offer a self-serving response to that. we do not have a very introspective or reflected foreign aid a bureaucracy.

the defense department spends a lot of time and money trying to find out what it did wrong. after action reports, a tactical and strategic lessons are a major element of military planning. if you look at the military in iraq from 2003 to 2007, you see a substantial improvements. they made studies in changed the method. the british agency does a lot of money pretty expensive lot of money on analysis to get people to tell them how they could do it better. there is no money in our budget for that kind of retrospect. this is a self-serving analysis. that is with the rand corporation does. we would for the pentagon all the time. -- we do with for the pentagon all the time. >> i do not work for the rand corporation. i want to add to what you say as a volunteer. i am lucky enough to be able to

be a volunteer for this 25 years because i have a job at harvard. would you suggest is not at all self-serving. there is no critical feedback loop in foreign aid. we could easily develop that. if we could use rand or universities or other people who are trying to be part of the same -- part of the scene to improve the quality and not have a slipping back and saying haiti or rwanda -- prior to the genocide, it was called the switzerland of central africa. there is a book by a man that says how the aid to going in from fans in europe actually set the stage for the genocide. you will see that some will argue that.

money served to weaken as food security. the good news is that you did not need to be a nuclear scientist to figure out that some of the rules of the road would be the ones you mentioned. gender equity. what are the ground rules on job creation for women in a grand even to do with agricultural improvement, small business investment? that is one. if half of these big grants crews to overhead. i have looked at major grants where more than 50% does not leave the united states or stays in consultants. that is way too high. we can create a lot of jobs just by tweaking the rules of little bit. finally, i would say integrating this into the district plans of these places

is difficult but critical. " that is very helpful. i appreciate that. >> thank you. we are on the back end of the vote. i would like to ask a couple things. some haitians have complained that they have not heard arsine carry much of president pro ball -- president preval. >> senator, chairman kerry, i have watched with a bit of news on this tragedy. i have not seen the president wants and what he said was that he lost his home. understanding the magnitude of this earthquake and what it has done, i can certainly

understand that there would be an initial paralysis. but from my perspective, crises are where could leaders to find themselves. -- define themselves. >> but me pin you all down for a second. i apologize. there are a number of questions about the aid programs that we wanted to air publicly that i think would be very valuable. what percentage would you say port-au-prince has to be rebuilt? >> just as an eyewitness, the majority of it. 75%? >> 75 percent, yes.

the standing structures, a building will be somstanding surrounded by destroyed buildings. >> that boggles the mind just in the idea of the clearing of debris and where to begin contemplating the rebuilding. you are looking at several years of major investment. >> i cannot see, maybe receivership is the wrong term. i do not know how we get this done with any semblance of normality in terms of the approach. this has to be, and this is probably the wrong term, it is like an invasion. you have to have so many moving parts coordinated and have to come in there with a new city

planning concept. you have to have a vision for what this place looks like and what kind of government buildings and where they're going to be put. will that contribute to the functionality of the country? i do not see any entity at this point or movement. that suggests that the global community is coming around that sort of organizational effort in the way they ought to. >> as somebody who has been very much opposed to any encroachment on the sovereignty of haiti and somebody who has underlined the dignity of the haitian people and their struggle over 200 years for basic social and economic rights and perhaps underlined some of my own country's previous and less than fruitful and richmond, i would like to say that i agree that you are right. this task is so massive, we need

the international a-team working on this problem. i have been in meetings where i saw that the haitian architects working under a tree. there are people there. >> i am convinced this will be coordinated. i believe this can be pulled together. i have to run and vote. i apologize for having to leave. you can work hand in hand but i do not think they would for a second go for the notion that there is a level of planning that is necessary. the rules are so critical. if there is an active effort to just not leave it to the outside

contractor or whatever entity, the to bring the haitians into that rebuild you create wealth, create good confidence and get them to build that future. otherwise, we are just going to buy into it and have intentions but ultimately end up in the same unsustainable situation that we have faced in the last 25 years, as you know. we are going to stay very focused. we are going to try to press this concept of how we pull this together. there is a willingness putting aid into this. the next chance for haiti, the best chance for haiti and all the definitions that we've given

for the problems of the past 25 years is to take this moment and create the kind of joint rebuild cooperative effort that provides for sustainability. the key is to really kick out there. we are going to talk to the administration about thit. we will leave the record open for about one week and we will try not to burden you with written requests. to block of the >> can i just say, to come up and make a series of proposals, it is refreshing not to have this considered to be not enough. that is a hopeful sign. >> we appreciate that concept. i am absolutely convinced that

we can get this into a bigger coordinated concept. i think that there is a unique nature to this challenge. hopefully, we can take it and hand. if i did not get over there, there will cut me off on the vote. i apologize profusely. we stand adjourned and i thank you.

>> house speaker nancy pelosi said today that congress will pass health reform legislation. her news briefing is next on c- span. after that, we get reaction from house republicans on president obama's state of the union address. the afghan president and a conference in london on the challenges facing his country. >> on washington journal, jim mctague will talk about the upcoming elections. after that, a retired colonel on al qaeda's press the -- presence in africa. it begins each morning at 7:00 a.m. later in the morning on c-span

3, tony blair will testify on the iraq war. coverage begins at 9:00 eastern. house speaker nancy pelosi said earlier that the president's spending freeze proposal should include the pentagon's budget. she spoke to reporters about the proposal and other parts of the state of the union address. from the capital, this is about 25 minutes. >> good morning.. last night, the president gave what i thought was a masterful presentation to the country. it was about his new foundation for prosperity, reiterating some of the building blocks of that foundation. his administration and our work in congress has always been about jobs, creating jobs,

creating jobs to the budget, a blueprint for prosperity, to create jobs through investments in education and health care and an energy climate change legislation. those were the three pillars of the budget that give tax breaks for 95% of the people in our country and reduce the deficit. following up on this, it is important for us for the president to acknowledge the role of congress about passing legislation about the recklessness of wall street affecting main street. the education bill, regulatory reform for wall street, energy and climate change and the jobs bill.

i was particularly pleased the president placed on education. when we talk about the recovery package and retired -- retaining and hiring more teachers, it is not just about those jobs. if there are consumers that have families to support. it is about the education of our children. it is about the investment in the future. everything that you talk about, that is an answer to every problem. it is essential to innovation to keep america competitive. i was particularly pleased that the president talked about an end to discrimination whether it was don't ask don't tell, discrimination against women in terms of equal pay. all of this is in the context of

deficit reduction. the president talked about, and i agree, that we must subject every dollar spent too harsh scrutiny to whether the taxpayer is getting his or her money worth. and about what i hope the senate will pass today, pay as you go. our obligation to our future and our children is that we reduce this deficit. i am pleased that the president showed the road that got us here but also the path to prosperity for the future. he emphasized what is our first responsibility, protecting the american people. i thought he did so in terms of national security and our economic security to instill

confidence in the american people. that confidence, i believe, will help turn the economy around. i will take any questions you have. >> on the jobs bill that the president said he wanted on his desk, the house has already passed a house bill, do you think additional legislation is to be passed in the house? on don't ask don't tell, it was said efforts would be opposed to repeal it in the house. a puc yourself playing a role -- to you see yourself playing a role in discussions or are you going to be on the sidelines? >> to first question about the jobs bill. we believe that the bill we passed was appropriate and paid for. it was focused on how it can

create a good paying jobs and investments in infrastructure and our country and how we could support credit going to smaller businesses which are the major creators of jobs in our country. . we think it is the right framework. everything that we have done and that the president has proposed has been about jobs. my hope is that as the president called on congress to complete work on an energy bill and a climate change bill and an education bill, these are job creators. health care alone would produce 4 billion jobs in the light of the bill. good paying green jobs for the future to make us competitive and to keep us number one. those bills have to pass because they are about larger numbers of jobs. we're talking about addressing

part of the cyclical aspects of unemployment. we have got to be talking about a fundamental change for job creation. you have the industrial revolution, the technical revolution, we need to have this green revolution. we need to have education because that is where innovation begins. good paying jobs in the health industry and improving health care for americans, what is important about that is that it has a dynamic effect on the economy. people are not changed to a job lot and to be entrepreneurs. i think what we did was appropriate. i would certainly like to do more. we need to make sure that our legislation was paid for. we look forward to engaging with whatever the senate puts forth. i have confidence in what the president says.

i wish it could have been last year. the sooner the better. with a don't ask don't tell, this is a principal that has been carried important to us and appealing that. the leadership of patrick murphy and other co-sponsors for the legislation, i respect for chairman enormously. the time has come to end it. what would you replace it with? some principals of nondiscrimination in the military. it is not just about yes and no. it is about having a positive policy to go forward. a very patriotic american who wants to serve the country will be able to do so without being

discriminated against. >> there seems to have been some sort of expression. >> this is the legislative process. we are responsible in the house of representatives for the product. what we do for the american people. what is installed in each one of us as our work be relevant to improving the lives of the american people. if he'll take that responsibility personally -- we take that responsibility personally. rather than give in to that, there is a way we will kick it all done. our natural instinct is to be immediately responsive to the needs of the american people. senators and shirt share that

view. the constitutional afford them a longer time. i've not want to waste any energy on criticizing the senate. i did not want them could assessing how we do things. we all have our institutional responsibilities. >> last night, president obama talked about trust and calls for bipartisanship. do you see any way forward and terms of relationship with the gop and the you feel a responsibility to answer president obama's call for bipartisanship? >> i have always said that everyone of us represent constituents and we have the responsibility of them regardless of party to find common ground. to work very hard to see if we can find common ground to

address the challenges that the american people face. we also have the responsibility that if we cannot find that ground to stand our ground on principles that say no to wall street when they went to recklessly jeopardize the homes and savings and pensions and educations of america's families. to say we support a budget that is about the middle class and not about trickle-down from policies for the wealthiest in our country at the expense of the great middle class but we have differences. there is always a way. we do have a responsibility to try to find that. >> each piece of legislation, i myself welcome the opportunity to go to conference with comments. i always liked the idea of that. when i was serving on committees, i loved to go to conference.

i know our members like to have that exchange of ideas. the more we can do that, in the public domain, i think the distinction between the parties will be clear and perhaps the motivation on both sides to find common ground will be there. none of us came here to obstruct. we came here to do something for the american people and to be relevant to their lives. that is why i did not like to waste to must energy on this process issues. what are we doing to address the serious concerns and challenges that the american people have? if you cannot find a bipartisan way to do with, we're not going to say that we are not just going to do it. >> is this going to be about health care? >> the d.c. voting rights bill

has been pounded by these gun amendments. their conversations, at the time should come in february where she accepts the gun amendments even though they are onerous and horrible, and you're ready to move the d.c. voting rights bill? can it really pass in this election? >> the only six democrats left last time the issue came to the house. it had overwhelming support. >> a ticket back to what i said earlier. we have to find a way. it is very important for the district of columbia to have full voting rights and the congress of the united states.

there is no question about that. within the district, there are different views as to whether it should go with a gun issue or without a gun issue. we will certainly take our date -- take our the from the congresswoman. we are still trying to find a way to do it in a way that shows the strongest support for the voting rights act. she has been very resourceful in coming up with ideas and reaching out to the senate and outside groups to have an interest group -- had an interest in this on both sides but they have not materialized in terms of votes. >> is their time in this election year to vote on this bill? >> we do not know what the proposal will be yet. that is all we can do. >> how does the president's

called to pass comprehensive health care change the conversation? >> the president's appealed to pass the bill and to the american people as to what the possibilities were was it very powerful statement. the number of people that i have seen this morning one way or another, merchants or service people or whatever, have asked please pass health care. i am paying $1,000 per month. as the bill to when to pass? will it be better for me or worse? before the president's speech, i did not know. i feel confident about what he has said. we must pass health care reform. the problem is still there. the financial aspects of it, the cost to individuals and their families, to small businesses, to big businesses. to our deficit, our federal

budget, our economy. those are huge. we cannot sustain financially the current system. families, businesses, or the federal government. this has to take place. the fact is that as long as people are discriminated against because they have pre-existing conditions or policies are canceled because they get sick or their procedure is denied on the way to the operating room, as long as people go bankrupt, if they have a diagnosis, we must passed this -- pass this legislation and must take whatever time it takes to do a double -- whatever time it takes to do it. any front weekend.

we go to the gate, the day is closed, we use the fence. if defense is too high we will parachute in. we are going to get health care reform passed for the american people. i want to make one statement. the last question. >> this is a nighttime crowd. there is a narrow range of tweaks to the senate bill and putting it through on reconciliation as a way to get a way to get the senate bill through. >> we are not talking about minor tweaks. we are talking about the fact

that our bills are 75 percent the same, perhaps 80 percent. the president optimistically says 9%. -- 90%. they are got the same but we have to find a way to move forward. how would not call those minor tweaks because that would imply that there is something that we could easily accept. it is more serious than that. let me just say that some of the sad part issues are issues that are very important but they can be done and move quickly and that is not about one thing over another. it is about time. everything is about time, when you get it done and how soon the american people can feel the positive effects. >> just to follow upon that, what are the side bars? pre-existing conditions, how

quickly will those be on the house bill? >> when we are ready, we will bring them to the floor. right now, we want to see where the senate will go on their legislation. we will have some important announcements about those when we decide what order they will come to the floor. some of them cannot be done -- cannot be done without the basic bill. otherwise, you have no leverage with the insurance company. you tell them you must insure people whether they get sicker knocked, that you cannot have this and they will jack up the rates. that is not the point of this exercise. i want to go back to the point of fiscal responsibility. even if everybody loves to the health care insurance that they had, but still have to do this bill because of fiscal

responsibility. we cannot sustain the cost of this system. the president placed the emphasis that he did -- as he always does on fiscal responsibility. the commission, pay as you go, this is something that we have worked very hard for. we have been advocating for this for 30 years. this passed in 1982 and became a part of the democratic platform. the blue dogs have taken the lead. we hope the senate will pass it today. i believe that the freeze the president is suggesting, that drastic action may be necessary to do something. while we all want to support our men and women in uniform, and i

do not think they should be suggested -- subjected to the freeze, i did not think we have to protect military contractors. i want to make that distinction very clear. i cannot think the entire defense budget should be exempted. let me just say that john mccain said that he would have it across the board spending freeze. the former defense secretary said that if he is serious about spending, he cannot exempt the pentagon. i do not think they should be exempted from the freeze. there has to be a bifurcation in terms of supported the military and their families and we want

them to have everything they need but we did not support an entitlement program for overruns on the part of military contractors. thank you very much. >> next week in reaction to the state of the jin in the dress from republicans. -- state of the union address. good morning., everybody. we did this a bit later so you could get some sleep. yesterday i said that at the

president needed to prove to the american people that he was listening. unfortunately, the president does not appear to have listened to what the people in massachusetts had said, the people in new jersey and the people in virginia had to say in the elections. he decided to double down on his job killing agenda. if the democrat leaders in congress and the president are serious about getting our economy going again and putting people back to work, we can in fact work together to promote policies that will do that. there was nothing last night in the speech to indicate that there was any willingness to sit down and work together. except one point. the president said when he was talking about health care if anybody from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the

deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. that is when i put my hand up because that is exactly what the republican health care proposal does. much more so than the proposal that he and democrat leaders are trying to shove down the throats of the american people. we are eager for the president to come to our retreat tomorrow. we are going to have an honest conversation about america's priorities and try to find ways to find common ground. the republicans have stood all year against their job killing agenda. republicans also have offered what i call better solutions. we're going to continue to go down the same path this year. we are going to look for common ground but we're not going to roll over on our principles. we are not going to vote for things that we believe that will

hurt our country. at the same time, you will see us continue to work for better solution for the american people. as we go off to our retreat, republicans are going to work to develop better solutions but it comes to energy, the environment, better solutions on health care, better solutions on getting the economy going again. the american people want to know where are the jobs. the solutions that we have laid out will go much further in terms of creating jobs for americans than what this administration has proposed thus far. >> the state of the union and our retreat this week is an opportunity for us to press the restart button and the book for those areas where we can come together on some shared priorities. we believe it should center around creating jobs and getting this out of control spending under control.

it is clear that there is a consensus across this country that the government is spending too much money. that is not sustainable. this will impact us for many years to come. i was encouraged last night that the president at least admitted that there is a spending problem. he talked about the need for a freeze. i was like to go back and freeze that based on 2008 levels before there was such a spending spree. but a state that a step further. let's return the nearly $900 billion in tarp money and stimulus money rather than a whole long list of new spending proposals. every american family understands what it takes to balance budgets. it does not matter i