withheld from congress and said the cost of this thing would be much greater than what was being advertised. i sent letters to secretary sebellius, let us see the emails on what went on with the actuary and head of h.h.s. before we voted on this bill. why was congress denied accurate cost information on this bill? i've not gotten any answer from the administration yet. >> can i say you did get an answer from the congressional budget office which is one of the sources of high quality information and what they said and what we based a lot of our analysis on is that it would slow the growth rate of costs and save a trillion dollars over 20 years. . lot of our analysis on is that it would save $1 trillion over 20 years. >> to prayer phrase, they said oops, we goofed. >> thank you very much, dr. romer and thank you for being here today. i'm someone, i used to be a prosecutor. so i believe in facts and i've been hearing a lot of

accusations that aren't i believe are not fact-based. you seem to be someone who's pretty straight straightforward. just to get one fact completely straight. is it true that we lost 3 million jobs in the last six months of the bush administration? >> yes. >> and then is it true that so far, this year, private sector employment has increased by nearly 600,000 jobs? >> yes. >> okay. well, i think i'd rather be on this trend even though i will admit it's not exactly where we want to be yet than where we were back before we passed the recovery act, before we starred doing a number of transportation projects in my state that i know were long overdue. i guess this question of predictions. at the beginning of the year, i assume you had a counterpart under the bush administration that headed up the council of economic advisers. did they predict that year that the administration was going to lose 3 million jobs. >> no. >> did they predict that they would gain jobs actually?

>> i believe they did. >> i think that's interesting because people seem to be making a lot of hay out of things. when i look back at the time when we were basically on the edge i've financial cliff, i remember the country came together at that moment, good or bad, with president bush and with john mccain and barack obama and made a decision that we needed to shore up the financial system. >> absolutely. >> i will believe we then continued with unemployment losses under the bush administration, president obama took over. my memory of the facts is in the first month when he took over, while bush was still president, we lost more jobs in this country in the month of january than the state of vermont has people. we then passed the stimulus package. we evened things out and are now in what i consider a recovery that is taking too long. i'd like it to go quicker like everyone else. i will say in my state the unemployment rate is in the low 7%. but as senator schumer pointed out when people are hurting in a household, if in their household

no 00 has a job it's 100% unemployment. the things have i found helpful in our state is the jump start of the stimulus but then the belief in the private sector economy and,ing with small businesses. that's why i so badly want to get the small business bill passed as well as belief in innovation and american jobs and america making things again and exporting them to the world. i would like to see some shift in focus. i actually spoke with people in the white house about this today. continue, this is a continuous of what the people talked about in the state of the union, doubling the exports in five years, a major focus on math and science, nation building in our own nation is what minnesota native and "new york times" columnist tom friedman calls it. so i'd like to you shift a little bit and talk some about where you see this going in terms of some of the other initiatives outside of stimulus that the administration is working on that you think will be helpful, starting with the

export initiative. >> i'd be delighted to because that is, you know, one of the issues that you know, we've talked a lot about is you know the world is different before the recession, we know that we were saving very little as you know, consumers had very low savings rates. we were building a tremendous number of houses, right? so that we had an overbuilding in housing. when we think about what the economy is going to look like as we come through, we don't think consumers will go back to saving zero and we anticipate that construction will be a smaller fraction at least for a while. the question will be where is the demand going to come from for all of our goods and services so we keep people employed. one of the things we've identified for the president is an obvious place where we can expand is exports. that creates demand for american products and keeps us employed here at home. so weep are doing a range of things. a lot of them are simple no

brainers. what we learn from the theoretical economics literature is often it's just small fixed costs that make it hard for a firm to get over that first hump of starting to export. and so just things like providing information through the sba for small businesses or some more credit through the import, export bank can make a big difference in getting firms that first export experience and getting them used to exporting. so we're taking a major initiative there. secretary lock is working with a tremendous amount of additional commercial diplomacy taking people around the world trying to showcase american products. the state department is taking a lot of the personnel we already have abroad and saying, can you get better at helping, you know, helping our firms sell their products, get used to exporting. we absolutely think this goal of doubling exports is completely reasonable and something that will be very good for the american economy.

>> senator lemieux and i have a bill that will actually, which we're trying to get with the small business package. 80s bipartisan bill. he's a republican from florida. went through commerce unanimously to try to beef up some of the work the department does with small, medium sized businesses because i've seen a huge success in our state along those lines. i did have one question that senator schumer was going to ask and then he had to leave early. and he is introducing a bill to extend the hire act for six months. it includes a tax credit for businesses that hire unemployed workers. 179 expensing that allow businesses to deduct expenses in the year they are purchased. that's something i heard a lot about out there with our small businesses and build america bonds. is that something you think will will be helpful? >> in the fall, it the council did a lot of research on a jobs credit like the schumer hatch

after. and we were very enthusiastic and thought it could have very good employment effects. as senator schumer mentioned, there is some evidence coming in how many workers are eligible for it and suggesting it could be quite effective. i think it's an issue we need to study to figure out, but what i can tell su we are very enthugs yas tick as always to work with congress on measures that will help to put people back to work. >> one last clarification of a fact question before i turn it over to senator brownback or representative pur jess was asking you about health care expenses and you i thought made the good case that over the long-term, this bill took on the difficult task of bringing down health care costs which have been going up and up and up at the expense particularly of the self-employed and small businesses in this country. the cbo scored this by nonpartisan cbo which i know is relied on my by colleagues

during the bush administration to get accurate numbers. is it true that the cbo scored this bill as saving $138 billion over ten years? >> yes, it. >> for the health care bill over 20 years, the score was it would save $1.2 trillion. are those the numbers you're talking about? >> those are exactly the numbers i'm talking about. >> again, i believe in facts. thank you very much, i turn it over to my colleague, senator brownback. >> and i believe the taxes kick in in year one and the benefits not till year four, chair? >> the important thing is i believe at the end of the ten-year window, it is still positive. so i think that's actually -- that's not what's getting you that good number. >> when you have ten years of spending and ten years of taxes on that. >> that's when it saves a trillion dollars or $1.1 trillion. >> good lord, i hope you're right. >> i hope the congressional budget office is right. >> well, i want to talk about

the uncertainty factor that's out there because surely you're hearing that. i know the president called a number of business leaders and they cited to him the series of uncertainties why they're not employing and looking forward, which hopefully, are you, i'm sure you're looking forward saying look, how do we get these guys to put money in the game, men and women that are investing, creating jobs. trying to create an atmosphere for growth. one of the things that people staerl at as saying it's going to drive up cost is the cap and trade proposed legislation. to pass the house, chapter 9 of the economic report, the president supports cap and trade, carbon emissions, transform the energy sector. cbo questions the premises for cap and trade, how policies reduce greenhouse gas emissions could affect employment in a may 5th report, they say emission

policies would decrease employment in energy intensive industries. "eventually the country would return to full employment, average wages would be lower than would otherwise prevail because the higher cost of energy would reduce the cost of productivity of the country. that's a direct quote of the cbo report. give the uncertainty and the difficulty we're having in the economy, would the administration now say it is not time to pass cap and trade legislation? >> let me first talk about the uncertainty because it is something that we will hear a lot from business. i think the important thing to realize is what will have been the major sources of certainty over the last 18 months? it's been the financial crisis. it's been the terrible recession. that's the number one thing we have worked with the congress to try to turn around with the federal reserve has been working on, what secretary geithner worked on with the financial stability plan. i think that has been incredibly

important. also, on the regulatory side, i think as was made, an the statement made very well. >> i'm going to really run out of time. do you have cap and trade -- i was asking you directly about cap and trade and its uncertainty factor. >> the president has said he actually thinks getting a sensible energy legislation like many other changes we make can help to resolve uncertainty because people understand what the framework is and what we do know is that we have a problem, we have our dependent on foreign oil. >> even though cbo says this is going to drive employment and wages down, you're for cap and trade at this point in time in our economy? >> we are for a comprehensive program that will counteracts many of those things by investing in clean energy, by trying to jump start the clean energy economy. we think a lot of -- that can have very positive employment. >> do you believe emission reduction policies would

decreases employment in energy intensive industries? >> i a it's going to ached different industries in different ways. >> what about that industry. >> renewable energy for example. >> what about in an energy intensive industry? >> we'll have to develop it very well. that's something the bills are being very careful to try to make sure we minimize any costs on some centers. >> you're an economist. you're an excellent economist. you know this is going to drive down employment in energy intensive industry? >> what it's going to doing is to change the nature of what we produce. we think that's something we to. >> will it drive down employment in energy intensive industry? >> it's going to depend on how we design it. that's going to be the basic thing that has to happen. >> so you honestly believe it might not drive down floimt an energy intensive industry? it's what the cbo has said, what every economist i've read. >> we're certainly going to need

to think moral about the evidence, i think the other thing is, right, the whole thing that the president is trying to do is to invest in new energy too longs, clean energy technologies. that's the way you're going to counteract, if you're making carbon fuels more expensive, the way you can counteract that is coming up with alternative energy. >> will this make carbon fuels more expensive? >> so certainly what a cap and trade system is designed to do is to put a price on carb. >> and it will make carbon intensive fuels more expensive. >> the most likely and then eventual to think how do you deal with those consequences. you have to remember why we're doing this. >> i understand why we're doing this. >> no one would do this if there weren't a problem. >> i watch europe backing away from some of these policies now because their economy is in such difficulty. i'm thinking why shouldn't we be watching what's taking place

there if that's the same sort of track that we're looking at going down. if they've already pursued that aggressively and now saying wait a minute, look at what it's costing us and look how difficult this is, maybe we ought to take a moment and say, well, let's watch what happens here. and let's look at this for a little while and see that we don't hurt ourselves in the process in an already soft economy which i think with all you've been saying today, i believe you think this is still a soft economy. i'm not quite sure, but i believe that's what you think. >> it is still a soft economy. it is a economy that is recovering and as miss klobuchar described, we want to it to be recovering faster. >> the president has a very positive policy which let's be growing the alternative energy. >> i'm all for growing the positive end of it. just don't tax and kill all the other end of it in the process. that's why i always think you do these things by investment and innovation, not by taxes and

regulation so you grow it and push it. you've got a hydrogen fuel cell locomotive bee we built in toe peakka, kansas. but it's an investment in and i novation. it isn't us telling the railroads you've got to go to this type of technology and that's how you move through these. on the deficit reduction because i know you've got to be concerned about the deficit. you've said you're concerned about the deficit. it's being added to at $55,000 a second under the obama administration. just had the budget director leave office, financial times reports june 27th that he resigned "frustration over his atlantic success in per swagd the administration to tackle the fiscal deficit more aggressively." and we're looking at nearly a trillion dollar deficit throughout the next zmakd i really hope you can tell us how we're going to start getting

away from this borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we're spending right now and move in a positive direction we need to. >> all right. i think we should very much separate the current deficit, which to a very large degree is being kausds by the terrible recession that we have been through and our long-run fiscal problem which i absolutely agree is a serious problem and something that we need to be dealing with. i think if you talk to director orszag and you talk to the president what you will hear is they are both in complete agreement about how important it is to deal with our deficit over time. that's why our budget charts a path to get the deficit down to 4% of gdp by 2015 and then sets up the fiscal commission encouraging it to then have a goal of getting it down to 3% of gdp or even further. so that is a very carefully worked out plan and something that absolutely is important and it's going to take people from

both sides of the aisle. that's why the fiscal commission is there. this is going to be a hard problem. no one side can solve it by themselves. we absolutely need to reach that consensus. >> thank you, madame chairman. if you have a second round, i'd like to have another sest questions. >> wonderful. we will do that bip want to go back here along with my theme of getting to the facts. senator brownback was just asking about the debt commission wit president, as you know had, to basically set up his own bipartisan debt commission with the former republican senator simpson, democraters kins boles of north carolina and he had to do that because we were unable to get 11 of the republicans in the senate who were on the bill to support the statuary debt commission. i was one of the democrats that held out my vote till we made sure we got that commission, held up my vote on the budget. i think it's incredibly important. my question on this is what was the debt going in that the president inherited from

president bush? >> well, certainly the numbers are that before we ever walked in the door, i believe the deficit was going to be over $1 trillion. that was what we inherited. and obviously, the debt accumulated. >> as the president has reported, decisions were made to shore up the economy when it was teetering on the financial cliff and how much was added to that then for the deficit? >> in the short are up, obviously, we spent the money that we spent on the recovery act. i think an important fact we have on the economic report of the president, when you look at our long-run deficit, all of the actions we take are about a quarter of 1% that have long-run deficit number that is as you know, enormous. and so that they are a tiny, tiny fraction. and that makes sense. it's a one-time expenditure take in an emergency than does not add to your long-run deficit. the kind of things that add to your long-run deficit are rising health care costs we grow over

time as our population ages. >> very good. i'm very much looking forward to the suggestions of this commission. i think it's incredibly important as many of us do to do something on this long-term debt. it's very important we get the facts straight about the debt that the president inherited when he got in. another fact clearification, you were asked about the benefits and the costs associate with the health care bill. you and i went over the long-term cost savings with the health care bill. but just to clarify what the benefits are, if you're a senior, there was a question are there benefits. i think someone had said you won't get the benefits for four years. i that i it was very important to clarify the record. in 2010 if you're a senior, are there reductions in the costs of brand name represcription drugs and help with dloegs the doe dutd hole? >> absolutely. >> is it true that the insurance companies will be barred from him limiting the total benefits

americans can use over the course of their lifetime and affordable insurance coverage options will be made available through a high risk pool for americans and that these are short-term goals of this -- short term provisions that will take effect immediately. >> yes, i'd love to also actually add the credits for small businesses are something that kicked in very quickly to help them cover the cost of health insurance for their workers. >> that's right. because right now small businesses are paying 20% for heldcrit care costs. finally that parents are able to keep their kids on their insurance till they're 26 years old. is that correcting? >> that is correct. >> we were talking about some of the long-term solutions here and things that will be helpful to the economy. up with of the things that i've been very focused on is how we

need to jump started and focus on our university research. used to be we had the bell labs and at&t labs and those kind of things that would generate ideas and new products and they would go right into the stream of come mertz. we have gotten away from that obviously. but what i'm concerned about, i always think about those the beijing olympics with the 2,000 perfectly synchronized drummers in the opening ceremony. i thought when i saw that we're in trouble. those drums are getting louder and louder. while they're building high speed rail in shanghai, we're still debating transportation policy and unfortunately, not coming together as we need as a country and while brazil is producing more and more engineers and scientists, we are falling behind. so that is my major focus here. one of the parts of this is how we generated more commercially focused university research and i mean that in the best of ways. so that that is also focused on jobs. and that we use our universities

and great learning institutions as incubators for new ideas that will become the next google or the next medtronic in minnesota. could you comment on that and how we can doing that and maybe improve the requirements of the america competes act? >> i want to first agree with you completely of how important their innovative research is. when you talk to businesses, the thing that they say still gives us an edge in international competition is precisely because the new ideas are tremendously developed here. and so keeping that i think is incredibly important. if you go back to a speech the president gave early where he challenged both the government and the brilliant sector to make research and development 3% of our gdp to reach a number we haven't seen in decades, i think that is an important challenge. it's one that we starred to meet through the recovery act. and it's something that the president is dedicated to

continuing through our funding of things like the national institutes of health, the national scientist foundation and i think your point about as much as possiblen you know, a natural role for the government is, of course, in doing what the private sector won't naturally do like the basic scientific research. but as much as we can help to make the innovations that we develop here then turn into industries here is incredibly important. one of the things that it's not, you know, particularly exciting to many people is reform of the patent office. just making the way that we protect intellectual property when we cover discover these things is something that we can think can help to make this process better and that's something we've been working on and i think it's an important thing for news congress to work on together. >> very good. maybe someone asked you about this before. as you know, we've been struggling to pass the extension of unemployment benefits here. i did a bunch of events back in

mind for the week. everywhere from brainard, minnesota to, lanesboro, minnesota. and i was actually struck by the number of people that just came up to me. even though we have a lower unemployment rate if they didn't care about that, maybe they had a neighbor that did. how important it is to make sure we have a safety net for those people who no fall of the their own have lost their jobs. >> absolutely. the numbers that i gave in my testimony that by the end of this month, 3.2 million people will have exhausted their benefits because the program wasn't extended. and that is 3.2 million people whose live will be devastated. but it's also a drag on the economy. that is when people have unemployment insurance, they spend it. and that is good for local businesses. it's helping to support their communities and help to put other people back to work. it is incredibly important both the congressional budget office, private analysts like mark zandy

identify unemployment insurance as one of the stimulus things you can do that has the highest bang for the buck. that is incredibly important for us to keep in mind. >> one last question before i go back to senator brownback. one of the things i've noticed in our state that, there are businesses looking for workers and they don't always match-up with the location of where the workers are. i just want to make a pitch for three business iz just visited in the last few weeks. one nest last few months, digi key was hiring over 100 people. they make innards for computers. new french bakery in st. paul, mind, needed people for their nightshift. they don't have the enough people to produce the bread. monogram breads in chandler, minnesota, that i visited just a few weeks ago, was also looking for new employees. so i end with that. my last question will be how do you deal with that when there are places looking for workers

but it's not where the workers are. to end with the positive note there clear little are some signs of recovery across this country. >> i think you're absolutely right that there are signs of recovery everywhere. and i think that is so important for to us keep in mind. but as we've said many times, it needs to be stronger. and i think that is certainly what we are focused on. on the mismatch, we've heard some, there have been some stories about mismatch in skills. you were describing people aren't where the jobs are. you know, one of the great strengths of the american economy is its flexibility of its workforce. and i would anticipate that when you tell people there are jobs in this areas, i can imagine many people are anxious to get there. in terms of skills. >> that's why i tried to do it for the benefit of the c-span viewers. >> excellent. >> like beef jerky. >> but there's also, there is, within the recovery act and certainly there's a other legislation improving our

educational system and our job training, making sure that the skills that our children and our existing workers are developing are the skills that are going to be necessary in the 21st country is a never-ending challenge. it's what every economy needs to do. eneed to constantly be growing and changing. again, working with congress to make sure we're spending that mean as effectively as possible. >> thank you very much. senator brownback. >> thanks, madame chairman. to start off with a softball for you, i'm very pleased that the president set the november time frame to address outstanding issues on the u.s./south korea free trade agreement. i think that's where we can have a broad base of agreement. this is a positive for the economy. there are issued outstanding still related to autos and beef. it's my hope that those can be resolved. you can submit and aggressively push that before congress. i would hope as well you would

push the trade agreements, colombia and panama as job creators as well and that you would push those aggressive wlae t with the congress. >> the president mentioned those and he's singled out korea at the g-20. but i think you pointed out an important point which is as we want to increase exports, opening up world markets through trade agreements is an important way to do that. that's ultimately good for america and for our workers. >> i think you can get some broad base of support. chairman, you're a votednoted economist. is this a good time to pass cap and trade legislation? >> you know, with the -- the president has said that he thinks this is an issue that we need to face. that is absolutely correct, right? so what is true is -- >> so this is a good time to pass cap and trade legislation? >> we need to deal with our energy situation.

we have -- we are dependent on foreign oil. we have a problem of climate change. and there's the opportunities in alternative energy. now is a great time to make sure that we -- >> and it will drive energy cost up? kansas city, kansas, board of publ public utilities projects it's going to drive up their energy costs 25% to their customers. over a near-term basis. that's over the next three years. is that a good thing? >> okay. so let's go back to say, though, the legislation that was passed by the house, the waxman/marquee legislation, the idea of making it a package is that you deal with any sxweconsequences in te of industries and consumers by -- >> fiair enough. how is kansas city, kansas, going to benefit from this? >> every american is going to benefit by jump starting clean energy, by breaking our dependence on foreign oil and by not warming the planet to the

point of catastrophe. all of those are things that need to be dealt with. >> and utility bills go up 25%, their cost of gasoline in their car goes up to them on a near-term basis and maybe some of them see a job opportunity. so by and large, they're going to benefit from this and near-term and a soft economy. >> so the key thing has been how do you protect consumers? we had a rebate to the energy -- you know, to the service providers to insulate consumers. we can have long discussions on how you design this thing to minimize impact on consumers, to get the benefits through clean energy, you know, preventing climate change, breaking our dependence on foreign oil and deal with consequences. i would love to talk with you in detail about how do you design that in the best way possible? the president said that we need to do it. >> i would prefer you would talk

to the american citizens that looking at prices going up about this. that's where -- i mean, and my point to you is that you talk about uncertainty, talking about why we're not creating the jobs that we need to at this point in time. there's a positive we can look at trade issues. there's a positive we can look at chinese currency issues. i think that would be a helpful thing if the administration would really push on china to float its currency. and with senator schumer on that, i believe the administration is supportive of that policy. i think those are good bipartisan things. cap and trade, this is a bad time even if you support the idea. this is a bad time. and that's where, you know, i look at it and i -- that's when you get people keeping their investment on the sideline or you get people saying i'm not sure about whether or not to move this on forward. and it would be wiser, i would submit to you, let's invest in renewables. let's do more ethanol.

let's do things that support wind energy. but not cap and trade that drives up your cost at a time when you have such a weak economy. i would really -- i'm not going to convince you to do that. >> you have convinced me that we should talk more. >> i'll be happy to talk with you. i'm going to run out of time. your -- you talk about using the best data available. >> uh-huh. >> you've created this term jobs saved. jobs created and saved. >> uh-huh. >> now, that's -- you've got well-respected economists that belie this is a non-measurable number. i'm sure you're familiar with this. >> uh-huh. >> harvard university professor greg manky said it's an act of

political genius. you can measure how many jobs are created, but there's no way to measure how many jobs are saved. another professor recently says the council of economic advisers shamefully vetted a number called jobs saved that has never been seen before and has no agreed meaning and no academic standing. now, i'm certain you're familiar with academic standing on numbers in terms -- and, you know, i don't really want to dispute with you about the nature of the state of the economy. but i think we should be on measurables that have been generally agreed to by the profession and this one is not. >> actually, i disagree fundamentally. actually both those distinguished economists i'm sure actually understand the fundamental notion that any policy has to be judged relative to what otherwise would have

happened. allen meltzer is a distinguished historian. everything we do is about counterfactuals. in terms of how do you measure it, that's exactly what our report is about. we go through pages and pages of saying how do we identify what would have happened otherwise? and, therefore, how do we say what we think the contribution of the recovery act is? it's hard. it's not an easy thing to do. that's why we spend weeks writing these reports. that's why the cbo spends weeks. it's why the federal reserve looks at this. everybody being -- it is a well-defined concept. it's just hard. and that doesn't mean that you don't do it. somebody has to say what's the effect of this policy? and it's just simply not possible to say, well, look at this point, look at that point. this is what the policy did. you need to know -- you need to have some way of estimating what would have happened in the absence. it's the fundamental issue in any economic analysis of a policy measure. >> of jobs saved.

but let me ask you quickly on the g-20 recently, it was strongly focused on government deficit spending. and appeared to be saying that, you know, we're all concerned about it but it didn't appear that the obama administration was. of what game out of that meeting. they are saying we need to get deficits under control. i would hope the administration would look at that push by european governments particularly as they face this recent debt crisis that for most americans, they saw that as a shot of -- a warning shot to us on the track that we are on. and that you'd put more emphasis -- i understand your concern about deficit, but a lot more emphasis. we just recently pushed -- let's do a freeze on spending for this next year. in the republican appropriations and trying to get the rest of our colleagues to go along with

that as a way to get focused on this deficit. i would hope the administration -- >> will the gentleman sum up? he's way over time. >> we did about ten minutes while you were gone. >> okay, okay, okay. all right. >> okay. and i'll sum up here. but my point being that the g-20 is deeply concerned. they've confronted this debt crisis that is a -- is a crisis of confidence as much as anything. and we cannot let that come to the united states. that crisis of confidence in the fiscal house in the united states. and i would really hope that if you were more aggressive on dealing with that, we wouldn't confront that crisis of confidence moving on forward. i'm afraid it could come this way. >> all right. so let me first respond by saying, you know, in our budget we talked about non-security spending freeze because the president agrees that he thought

that was a sensible strategy. on the g-20, there is no disagreement on the notion that our budget deficit needs to be brought down over time. we agree completely with the other countries of the world. that is an issue that we all face. i have said before, i think one of the great, you know, lessons from this crisis is don't, you know, get your fiscal house in order in good times because you never know when you may need the ability to take care of an economy that is in trouble. but i think a fundamental issue that came up at the g-20 is the rate of exit because we do know that fiscal stimulus is having an important effect on the economy. and those distinguished economists that you mentioned, i can tell you from their textbooks, for example, he believes that government spending and tax cuts have an effect on the economy. and if you take away all of that too quickly, what you run the risk of is pushing the world

economy back down into recession. and so very much what secretary geithner and the president were talking about is as we move toward fiscal consolidation, take into account what's happening in our own countries and the -- what's the appropriate rate of moving in that direction. that was the only level on which there was any discussion. the overarching goal of getting our deficit under control, i am exactly with you, the president is with you, secretary geithner, we are unified in the importance of getting that under control. that's why we strongly supported the bipartisan commission. >> thank you very much. congressman snyder. >> thank you very much for your patient today. one quick question, if i might. mr. brady is not here, but i'm reading from his opening statement when he was talking about things that he considered bad things that president obama and congressional democrats, of which i am one, have done. he states the top tax rate on capital gains will increase 15% this year to 23.8% in 2013 while

the top tax rate will skyrocket from 15% this year to 33.4% in 2013. and i don't recall you recommending to president obama that he sign that bill. that was president bush's april 2001 economic plan that was adopted by the republican congress and signed into law by president bush. isn't that correct? >> that is correct. >> which mr. brady voted for. so when he talks about the skyrocketing tax increase, it is a plan they voted for. one of the great weaknesses of that plan was that the numbers were gained so that the ten-year and 20-year numbers would look better because it came to an abrupt end. they didn't have the nerve to carry it out. that's a plan they voted for. they voted for skyrocketing tax rates in 2013, not congressional democrats, certainly not signed

by president obama and not recommended by dr. christina romer. >> absolutely. and by structuring it the way we did, we didn't -- it allowed them -- the debt, you know -- to hide the impact that it was going to have on the deficit over time. >> that was the big reason for it. >> yeah. >> frankly fooled the american people. i want to get into this -- we use this word stimulus. we've kind of ignored the word countercyclical, but i'm a te h teacher. if this was the consumption of -- by state government before the recession, jobs drop off, that's what they're -- if this was the consumption by local government before the recession and this glass is what they're -- a drop-off. if this is the consumption by private corporations, small business firms, and this is it

after the recession begins. if this is consumption by individuals in the economy like myself is about to borrow some money, this is our consumption after the recession began. this ilgreats the problem, i think, which is economy is about demand for product. and all those components of the economy, demand has dropped. i can add on another one, which is -- is international buyers. the same thing has happened there. that's demand for u.s. products before. that has dropped off. now, the only one we have tried to maintain or even do a little better is the federal government. to try to -- to be a counterweight to all this drop-off. i want to make one point and then one question. my point is i don't understand what is wrong in the times of a downturn economy, why it has become so bad to talk about

orredor ed advocate for something countercyclical to be a counterweight to this. my friends on the other side, they were fine to do a military runway in iraq in afghanistan, but somehow that money that goes to little rock air force base, that's bad and not a good investment. or, you know, $50 million for clean water projects in arkansas under the stimulus bill is bad, but the deficit spent for clean water projects in iraq or afghanistan is good. i don't get it when you've got this kind of a situation. but here's my question. and somehow i got -- i got put on a goldman sachs mailer years ago and i'm afraid to mention it because they'll pull me off. but is there something inherently different now about these components that's making them difficult -- making it more difficult or by choice they are not buying more product to get that up -- back to the normal

level? it's taking them longer. are they making decisions, a deliberate decision, we're going to work on keeping our debt load lower this time around because we've got some uncertainty out there. so we're not coming back as fast, whether you're local government, state government, a corporate entity, big or small, or an individual. and international. is there something inherently different about this recovery using my bottle analogy? >> you're doing very well at your teaching. >> i'm getting behind bottles. >> you make a couple of excellent points. one is just what's the notion of countercyclical policy? it's precisely what the president always said. at a time when the private sector isn't buying things, the government has a very legitimate essential role in counteracting some of that. that's exactly what the recovery act was designed to do. the one thing i'd say, though, is that one of the key ways it was designed to do it is not all just the government spending,

right? we gave very large tax cuts to consumers so they would go out and buy. we gave unemployment insurance out to consumers so they would buy. we gave the 48-c tax credits to businesses so they do more investments. so a whole bunch of that is not in that cup. it's in all of your -- it's in all of your bottles. the other thing that you were pointing out is something i was mentioning when you were gone. the world is different coming out of this. we have a lot of consumers that are overindebted. and so they may not -- we probably don't think they should go back to the high-spending ways from before the crisis. if consumers are never going to be all the way up to the bottle, you have to ask what's going to make sure that demand equals? that's why we talked about exports. that's another source of demand. i've talked in the economic report about investment, right? if we can get firms to do more investment, that's going to be something that holds up demand but it's good for our long-run productivity. that's why things like the small business lending fund, the bonus

deprecation, zero capital gains for small businesses, that's going to encourage them to invest and be a source of demand for the economy. so you're absolutely right. we need to get demand up to the level of all those bottles, but i think the composition may be different as we come out of this crisis and we need to be adjusting policies to try to support that very healthy what we call in the economic report a rebalancing. >> thank you, madam chair. >> thank you very much. dr. roammerromer, the long-term unemployment rate during this recession is at a historic high. and in your report, you mentioned that the historical relationship between unemployment rate increases and output declines did not hold during this recession and that the unemployment rate rose much more than expected given the decline in output. do you still believe that this

rule of thumb is holding? >> that's an excellent question. it does go back to how did some of our forecasts not come to be. part of it was what we discussed at length with mr. brady about the deterioration in the economy, just much faster than we or any private-sector forecasters were calling for. but the other piece of that was an unusually bad behavior of unemployment. that given what's happened to gdp, the unemployment rate has risen more than would have been expected. and the economic report, we say it's probably abo bout bout a pa point and a half higher than you would expect. i can't help but note that law is named after the previous chair of the council of economic advisers, arthur oaken. that is certainly part of why the unemployment rate is so high and higher than people expected

is the breakdown in that relationship. the question is what's going to happen on the other side? what we've been seeing is gdp has started to grow again. the unemployment rate has come down. i think that relationship is pretty much following the usual oaken's law relationship. i think the one thing we, of course, all hope for is anything sort of the -- the bad residual that we got in the recession at some point do we see firms suddenly hiring more bringing the unemployment rate down more quick lly for a given behavior gdp? that's hard to know, but that's a hope that we can have, that when this thing gets going strongly, do you get that oaken's law residual back in the recovery phase? >> well, many people have noted that during this great recession, we've been very fortunate to have you and ben bernanke, two noted depression scholars, working in the government and advising us. and i would like you to really express -- this is actually a

hearing that we talked about that would be interesting, a hearing with you and ben bernanke on the great -- on the great depression and the lessons that you learned from them and some of my colleagues are arguing that we should look to greece as a cautionary tale of sovereign overspending. others are arguing that given low inflation rates, we are much more likely to end up with a lost decade such as japan faced. or do we look at the tight monetary policies put into place during the great depression, which many believe prolonged the misery by preventing the flow of credit. what is the most appropriate lesson for us now? is monetary policy too tight? what are the lessons that you feel we should be studying and listening to the most? >> well, certainly i think, you know, many of the lessons from the great depression are actually things that we've put into practice in this -- in this recession. i think it is no accident that chairman bernanke and the

federal reserve took such extrao extraordinary actions, were very creative in thinking about how do we deal with the freezing up of our credit markets? because chairman bernanke had studied how devastating the evaporation of credit in the 1930s was. likewise, what we learned in the 1930s is that a collapse of aggregate demand does cause the economy to go into a tailspin. exactly what we've tried to cou counteract is that. it's where the motivation for the expansionary monetary policies have come from. i think if i would take one lesson, it's actually a short note that i wrote last year, is actually from later in the great depression, from the experience of 1937. i think what we saw then is the economy was recovering. it was on track. and there was a -- a desire to have both monetary and fiscal contraction, to basically get

back to normal as fast as we can on the policy side. exactly what we saw is another terrible recession in the middle of the great depression in 1938. so i think one of the things that we do need to be cautious of, it goes back to what we were talking about about the g-20. everyone agrees policy has to go back to normal. we need to get our deficit under control. it's a question about when can the economy manage that? what's the right trajectory? do you have a glide path or do you have a -- a very quick adjustment? i think that's a lesson that i'm certainly very aware of and thinking about as we go forward. >> actually, the senator and i had a personal conversation once that this would be a fascinating hearing. i would welcome him to have a little discussion about this, since we won't be having a hearing about it. this was one of your requests for a hearing. >> yes, thank you. you've been very kind to accommodate some of those. there's another school of thought that thinks that a lot

of the requirements put in by the administration during the great depression also added to the uncertainty of the environment during that period of time. and that's what i keep harkening back to. that's what i'm hearing people say. now, i don't base that -- i don't have a poll number to base that on. i don't have something else, but that -- that you create that uncertainty out there. that's why i've been harping at you on cap and trade at this point in time. why you would push for something like that. that's one of the other lessons. now, i would appreciate your thoughts about when you read economists writing about that point within the great depression, what -- you must not think that was a particular problem during that era. >> i feel very strongly that the main thing that went on in the great depression was a collapse in aggregate demand and that is what caused the high unemployment. and the arguments that the regulatory regime was important,

i think, are greatly overblown and actually not a very big part of the story at all. let me come back -- i mean, the issues of uncertainty, you act as though not dealing with climate change and with our dependence on foreign oil somehow resolves uncertainty. in fact, those are problems that we have to face. many times, by dealing with the problems you actually resolve the uncertainty. i'll give the example of our car rule. there was a lot of question about how were we going to enforce emission standards, california doing one thing, it was actually the industry that said can you just come together? we're happy to have a rule, but we need the certainty of that rule. after we passed it, you found the -- the truck manufacturers came and said, we want one of those, too. so oftentimes getting the legislation, getting things, you know, actually setting down the rules of the road can help to resolve uncertainty. that's the same with a company

hen -- comprehensive energy plan. >> if you put cap and trade , you're going to get a big fight here. you're going to get a big fight in the country anyway. and you're not going to get the investment that you could on renewables if you don't put cap and trade in. i'll give you an easy one. raise the ethanol level up to e-15 instead of 10% ethanol. domestic produced, looks like it works pretty well. you open up to a renewable industry. you get bipartisan support for it. why not pick those pieces like that that you can look at and say, you know, we could do something like that. >> but what the president has described is one of the ways -- again, let me come back to -- >> you're not going to go with 15% ethanol? >> we're always happy to discu things. i'm sure secretary vilsack would be delighted to talk to you as well. >> i'd like for you to look at it. >> we will certainly do that.

i do think the -- the -- putting out what everyone knows, which -- it's an unsustainable path in terms of our consumption of foreign oil. we need to deal with it. by dealing with it we get certainty. by putting a price on carbon, then people know how to make their investment. that can actually be very good for investment because people know what they need to do. it's, in fact, if you're worried about uncertainty, actually dealing with this, dealing with this problem that is not going to go away can very much help to deal with that. >> i would say that finally acting on financial regulatory reform in many ways is making the economy more stable and people -- i'd like to ask the question that i hear from my constituents, a lack of access to credit, lack of access to capital. we did pass a $30 billion loan

pool that the administration supported, which i think is important. but wee're also reading that banks are holding on to excess reserves. why are banking holding on to these excess reserves and not lending? why do you think that's happening? and is that what happened during the great depression? what happened after they recovered somewhat? >> this is fun. this is -- so one of the things that happened actually in 1937 was there were a lot of excess reserves and what the federal reserve did was to change the reserve requirements and just declared that those were now required reserves. what we discovered was banks said, no, no, no, we wanted to hold excess reserves. we've just been through the great depression. they were very nervous and we saw them gathering more excess reserves above the new, higher limit. we have to be careful about figuring what is driving bank

behavior. chairman bernanke was talking about what regulators were doing on the ground and how the fed was trying to talk to them about, you know, making creditworthy loans when they were, you know -- when they were -- when there were possibilities to do so. so i do think that, you know, we do need to be careful as we go forward, but there is a certain amount of remembering what a terrible crisis we've been through and how it was a searing experience, not just for american citizens but often for some of these small banks. that was a very frightening time for them as well. you can imagine some of their behavior. i think what we're trying to do through the small business lending fund is exactly to make the banks have access to capital provided by the government at a good price. if they're willing to do lending as a way of making them feel more confident about doing lending. we think that's a very sensible -- >> that's a strong argument for that. we could use help in passing that bill in the senate.

i hope you'll take a good look at it. >> i've taken a lot of good looks at that bill. the numbers i'm seeing is it's going to drive down employment and drive up cost. but i understand we have a difference of perspective on that. i just want to thank the chair for being here. i do hope you get a lot more aggressive on looking at this deficit. i don't want to see this crisis of confidence come to these shores. and your stance and your view on that would be very helpful, to be aggressive on that so we don't see that. chair, thank you for having such an open hearing. i appreciate that. i appreciate your willingness to discussion. >> and i'm just going to keep talking about the great -- lessons from the great depression if it's all right with you, senator. do you think the fed is favoring its mandate of keeping prices stable over full employment? >> so at this point, madam chair, i think it's very

important to remember that the federal reserve is an independent agency and i think one of the rules that we in the administration follow is to not comment on federal reserve policy. >> okay. well, let me ask it in a different way. isn't the inflation well below the targeted level? >> i think we can have a very interesting discussion on inflation. because what is certainly true is, you know, the usual relationship is that when the economy has high unemployment, the inflation rate comes down. we have been seeing that happen in this recession and certainly in the last few months, both the level of inflation and expectations about inflation are continuing to come down and are getting to quite low levels. >> is deflation a risk? >> it is certainly -- you know, as the unemployment rate stays high, that puts continued pressure on inflation. yes, it is a risk. >> since the fed can't lower the targeted federal funds rate, they've already lowered it to between 0 and 25 basis points,

to influence short-term interest rates, what other tools do they have in their arsenal to spur employment? >> well, here i would mainly -- again, i think the most appropriate thing would be for you to bring chairman bernanke in. i think there certainly -- there have been reports in the press of various things that other countries have done. for example, we hear about quantitative easing, which is things like the -- the fed did last year when they bought a lot of mortgage-backed securities and pushed down mortgage interest rates so that's something that other countries have certainly been doing. that's an obvious additional tool that the president -- that the fed has certainly used in the past. >> and senator schumer asked me to ask this question. he's introducing a bill that we passed in the house and in the senate called the higher act that gave tax credits to

employers to hire unemployed people. do you believe this has had a positive impact on employing unemployed americans? and do you believe the administration might support such an endeavor? >> the same question was already asked. certainly the answer that i had given then is that we were very big fans of the schumer hatch, the hire act, and that we thought the -- a jobs tax credit was something with very good job bang for the bucks that are on the line. and so it's something that we're going to be monitoring. the treasury just did a study on the number of workers that are eligible. i think it's something that we certainly are anxious to talk to senator schumer about and see what he has in mind. and to pull together the evidence. >> many of my constituents ask me and others about whether or not we might be seeing a double-dip recession.

and what is your forecast for the economy? will growth and employment gains in the second half of 2010 be better or worse than the first half? i get asked this question all the time. i'm sure you are, too. >> the first thing to say is important. i do not foresee a double dip. >> great. >> i think the -- what most of the private forecasters are saying is we have gone through a period of turbulence. the troubles in greece that we talked about, slower growth in europe has unnerved financial markets and caused some certainly lower growth abroad. i think what most people are thinking is that we're going to -- like the blue chip consensus, lower their forecast just a very small amount. but it's stl basically steady. i should say that the administration twice a year does an official forecast that comes out first with the budget and then with the midsession review that's going to be coming out certainly before the end of this

month. i would rather not get ahead of the administration's forecast, but we will be coming out with what, you know, our updated forecast is. >> thank you. and i would say that i'm hearing in my district -- i believe probably senator brownback is hearing the struggles of small businesses' access to capital. i'm astounding at how many respected firms that have been in business for many, many years have always paid their bills and been outstanding businesses tell me they can't find or get access to capital to hire and move forward. and it's a huge challenge. i'm hearing it in the democratic caucus. i believe it's a problem across the country. could you tell us what the administration is doing to ease that? could you comment further on the small business loan guarantee program and any other initiat e initiatives or actions that we

could take to help small businesses have greater liquidity so they could move into the future with more confidence? >> so, i hear exactly the same things that you are hearing. again, chairman bernanke gave a speech this week talking about what they were seeing in their data. yes, small businesses are having trouble getting credit and that is something that is impeding their growth in job creation. it's absolutely one of the head winds that we face and should be dealing with. you know, when we did a very compa comprehensive review of this, what we thought was the best way forward was the small business len lending fund that is in the legislation. we thought cutting small business taxes by having zero capital gain, we think that's a very sensible strategy. we proposed some small changes to the small business administration loan program so that they could have bigger loan amou amounts. all of those, we think, are things that are likely to work. they are what we thought was the

best shot we could take at dealing with this problem. we want to get it through the congress because we think it would be very helpful. >> another area of concern and if you could comment on the economics of the unemployment benefits, many economists have testified before us that all of this money is plowed back into the economy. it's not only the humane action to take care of unemployed workers, but it also has the effect of keeping them working, looking for a job instead of going on welfare and social security disability, which is very costly to the country and certainly it's better for us to have them working to get employed and every one of these dollars goes back into the economy. i believe we have 15 million unemployed americans at this point. we have passed it in the house. we are hopeful that the senate will pass it. if you could please comment on the economics of the unemployment benefits. this committee did a study that showed -- because some of my

colleagues on the other side of the isle were saying that giving the one employment benefits would discourage workers from looking for a job. they very much want a job and they are frantic to find a job. so your comments on the importance of extending unemployment insurance. >> absolutely. i think what your report found is very much what the economics literature finds, that -- especially to the degree that there are incentive -- or disincentive effects from high unemployment insurance benefits, those are issues that apply in normal times when the unemployment rate is much lower. at a time where there is a -- a lack of jobs, the main effect that it has is keeping people attached to the labor force. i can't think of anything we want more, exactly what we're worried about is workers becoming discouraged, dropping off, losing their skills and not -- and not looking for work.

the other point that you made about its stimulus impact is, again, very much supported by the economics literature. i cited a study by the congressional budget office that said this was a very cost-effective form of stimulus. it's at the very top of the list in terms of what has the best bang for the buck. that's an important point to keep in mind. it is a program that is humane to the people involved but good for the overall economy, good for the people in the community that get the jobs producing the things that unemployed workers buy with their unemployment insurance. >> my collyialollyinalolleague concern about the deficit and the debt. to put it in perspective, how much of this deficit problem is related to the recession? >> so i think an important thing is in, you know, the short-run deficit, a very large fraction. or probably about half is due to the recession. and half to the policies that we

inherited from the past. and it makes sense. when you have a terrible recession, tax revenues go down, your expenditures for things like unemployment insurance go up and that naturally tends to swell the deficit. in terms of our long-run deficit, however, it's a very small part of the long-run problem. the one-time actions that we take to deal with this emergency add just a tiny bit to your deficit over time. the much bigger determinate are things like health care cost, the aging of the population, things like that. >> because the unemployment insurance issue has come up here so much, wouldn't it be best if that were paid for? >> no. that is the simple answer. >> it's not best if it was paid for by the federal government? >> what i would certainly say, the way we set up our pay-go rules and the whole idea -- we had our long discussion of countercyclical policy. i think if anything counts as an

emergency, it is unemployment of 9.5%. you will get no argument from me, we should pay for many things. we should deal with our deficit over time. i would not get held up over paying for a temporary one-time extension of unemployment insurance. >> what if that is what's holding it up from passing? what if it would pass but for being paid for? would you then still argue it should not be paid for? >> i think the important thing is figuring out how it's paid for. because if -- so the -- if you cut expenditure that would be aiding the recovery at the same time that you're doing the expenditures, in terms of the -- you may help the particular people that are getting the funds but in terms of the overall health of the economy, you wouldn't have accomplished very much. >> so you would prefer it not pass if you have to pay for it? is that -- that's the whole -- if i could, chairman, that's the

whole issue in the senate. we did the doc fix after it was paid for. we did the home buyer tax credit after it was paid for. those passed with unanimous consent. that means everybody agreed to it. this sits there ready to go if it's paid for. and you would argue it would be better not to pay for it and -- >> there are certainly -- >> than for -- >> there are ways to pay for it. in our budget, we had listed various things that could be used to pay for various priorities. and i think, you know -- so obviously i think the important thing is we -- you know, we need to work to do this because we all agree this absolutely has to be done. and figuring out what we can do that will get this necessary insurance in a way that is good for the economy. i think that's something we can work on. >> so you do support paying for it? >> i support passing it. and that is certainly important

and i would love to work with you and talk with you about what's the best way to do that. >> i never seem to get a straight answer out of you. you're not opposeded to not paying for it? can i put it that way? that's accurate? >> so you're putting words in my mouth. we're having a very sensible discussion. >> she wants it passed and she thinks it's economically important. >> i agree with that. >> if you want a way to pay for it, go find it. >> and you support that if we can find to pay for it? >> so -- at this point i don't know what we're saying. what i do know, we absolutely need this extension. >> i agree with that. >> we absolutely, you know, the -- i think, you know, there are many things that absolutely, you know, need to be paid for. an emergency extension of unemployment insurance is typically not paid for. that's the whole point, that it's an emergency and that you actually need the stimulus that it provides. and if you wish to pay for it and you think that's important,

let's think about what's the best way to do that in a way that is economically sensible and doesn't counteract any of the way in which it is helping the economy. and that is what i stand for and would love to talk with you more. >> another important part of the economy is the -- is the housing. housing is always a large part. some say it's as much as 25%. do you think that the rebound in the housing was due to the new -- the homeowners tax credit? do you believe that the homeowners tax credit was responsible for the movement that we saw in our economy in that area? >> so what we certainly -- i mean, let me -- what the homeowners tax credit is, it's like the cash for clunkers program. it gives you an incentive to do the activity while it's in place. and what we found with cash for clunkers is what that did is to bring demand for new cars. not just from a few months in the future but it seems to be

probably from very far in the future because we've seen car sales continue at a higher level than they were before the program. i think we don't know yet about the first-time home buyers credit. we do so that people hurried up and bought their homes before it expired. i think what we don't know is from how far in the future they brought it forward. the big drop-off in may says maybe it didn't move it all that much from the -- from the future. so i think that's going to be the issue. it's a hard one. >> and also the issue that we're facing with the local and state governments with the f. map that many of us are supporting. the budgetary shortfalls for our state and local governments will result in additional lay-offs and service cuts at a time when our economy is very, very fragile. was aid to the states a cost-faeblthicost cost-effective and efficient storm of stimulus?

i'd like an overall statement. >> you will absolutely get one from me. i think it is one -- frankly, we hadn't had a lot of experience with that form of stimulus. and so we didn't have a lot of evidence to go on when we passed it. but certainly the -- the conditions were dire. it was worth a try. i think all of the evidence since then has been it has been particularly effective. and i will actually cite our first quarterly report on the recovery act. we highlighted the state fiscal relief and actually did a very innovative study trying to really try to pin down causation and what the results of that showed us that it was very effective. and looking state by state, you saw a very big impact. >> how does it compare to other components that were in the recovery act such as tax cuts? what was more stimulus? what was more effective than getting the economy churning again? >> i think we would put the state fiscal relief as one of the highest ones. i think when you look at conventional macroeconomic

models, typically tax cuts have less stimulative impact than direct government expenditures and we'd put state fiscal relief closer to the government expenditures. >> do you think that additional state aid is warranted now in our financial recovery? >> i do, indeed. the numbers that you get from various sources will tell you that state and local governments have a -- still have a budget deficit of about 1% of gdp. if they deal with that by cutting spending, raising taxes, that's going to be a contractionary force on the economy. that's something that we can very sensibly -- it would be money very well spent. it would keep our teachers in the classroom and our policemen on the beat. >> we've passed a stimulus for teachers in a supplemental budget in the house and we hope the senate will act on that, too. one of the good news that you had in your report was manufacturing where we're gaining jobs.

and what do we need to do to sustain the current gain in manufacturing -- the current manufacturing trend that's very positive? what do we need to do to keep this going? >> no, you are exactly right that manufacturing is one of the areas that we have seen coming back in the recovery. i think the numbers are -- we've added 126,000 jobs in manufacturing. industrial production is up something like 8.2% in the last 11 months. and that is certainly a trend that we're very encouraged by and want to see continuing. you know, what is one of the things that the president has talked about is how important it is to -- to make sure that we -- that our manufacturing continued to grow and evolve. and he has identified clean energy technologies as an xwrae of the future and one that we know china is working very hard on, korea, many other countries. germany. and he doesn't want to get left

out. that's part of what is so innovative about the recovery act. in our second quarterly report, we talked about how $90 billion of the overall act went into the area of clean energy broadly defined. that was a lot of that was designed to jump start this, to make our transition to clean energy work better. i think that is going to be something that's very important. those public/private partnerships that we've been talking about in our report, that the president will be highlighting later this week in michigan, are, i think, an important step towards helping that sector come back, you know, very strongly. >> i want to -- i could listen to you all day, but i have -- i'm supposed to be voting in another committee. i'm sure the senator has other demands. it was really fascinating. it's always really wonderful to -- to hear your report. we're honored that you discussed the economic outlook and had your fourth cea report on the

recovery act before our committ committee. we're deeply grateful. i look forward to your future reports on the leveraging between the public/private sector, job creation projects. i found that very interesting and certainly support your desire to move forward with special reports on how they're affecting the various states. and it's very clear that we need to expand every tax dollar we have and have it go farther and farther to spur jobs and the fact you've been able to document that is very, very good news. and i just -- i feel -- i just thank you for the documenting that the recovery act is trending, moving this country in the right direction and -- and i'd like to continue working hard in congress to try to help move these proposals, to have access to credit and help create jobs in our country. and, believe me, i don't think either one of us will stop until every american who wants a job has a job.

and that our economy is strong enough to support their desires. i want to thank my colleague and good friend, senator brownback, for being here today and all the colleagues. thank you, chairman romer, for your outstanding report today, and for your public service. thank you so much for being here. we look forward to the next time. we hope we hear again from you soon. maybe you can come back when you have your states reports and tell us what states have innovative ideas that are really working and helping us employee americans. thank you so much. this meeting is adjourned. he has overseen and consulteddon

political campaigns across the country from alaska to new york. he is a graduate from the university of montana. thank you again for coming. >> my pleasure. >> we have lots of young peoppe in the room, young people getting started on their political career. what is it like working in the white house? >> it is like a dream every day. it is as cool as you think it is. [laughter] you spend your whole life getting one of these comes that you wanted. i remember when he called me. he said, messina, do you want to

change the world? i thought that was a perfect way to describe my job. >> in the first 16 months, what has been the biggest challenge? >> i would say health care. there is a reason why it took 70 years, so many presidents. it is the hardest thing i have when i die, i know that i will be part of thissamazing thing, giving health care to millions of americans who did not have it. it will be a crowning achievement for both the president and all of us who worked on it. >> i know it felt like forever, especially for some of the number advocates. can you relive the moment for us when it passed, what was happening in office? >> i can do one better.

we stayed up the night before in the house to negotiate to get the final votes. i went to the president -- i will never forget this. he was playing basketball in his suit with reggie. he ran over to me and put the ball down in front of me and said, after seven years of trying, we are going to pass health care in the united states. he gave me a big hug and fist bump. [laughter] he leaned over and said the most true thing. i told you so. [laughter] that moment, we knew that it would pass. the next day went very quickly. when you spend time working with someone, you get to know them better than anyone. after working with him for 18 months, he is the leader that

you all wanted him to be. time and time again, people said is politically too hard. the president said over and over that we are going to do this because it is the right thing. we got it done. [applause] >> i know one of the central thing that you just said is that you did fist bump the president. can you say truthfully that you are a fist bumper previous to meeting the president or post- administration? >> i am a recent convert. >> that is the sign of a good staff. in the same vein, how would you counter it -- portray working in

the white house to the tv portrayal of "the west wing?" >> we curse more. [laughter] we are better looking. [laughter] i am indiana kit from montana. every day, i drive my car into the gate of the west wing, and i think, only in america can you go from montana to the west wing. i think there is a difference working, compared to all of my other jobs. things happen that you never expect. the challenges that this president has had are just monumental. when you work on the hill, you do not have those issues. >> knowing that there are a ton of the issues constantly coming up, how long does a typical day

go for you? >> i am in the office by 7:00 a.m. every morning. at 7:30 we have a gentle morning rahm meetinn where he is always calm, placid. then we have another meeting at 9:30. then we meet with the senior advisers. i try to leave by 9:00 and be in bed by 11:00. >> what has been your longest day so far? >> the story i like to tell about how weird this job is.3 was watching robert gibbs in his daily press briefing. that day, someone decided to fly

air force one past the statue of liberty. it scared a lot of people in new york. i was watching him give questions about that, and i thought, it sucks to beat him. and then i heard, the president has appointed jim messina to deal with the matter. i said, excuse me? [laughter] >> why do yoo believe this administration has accomplished, thus far, -- i know you talked about health care -- but things that will benefit young people? >> we have had some of the most significant student loan reforms. that will give you better access to grants. contained in the bill will be contiiue to have the best higher

education system in the world. as well, this allows you to stay on your parents' health care bill until you are 26. you can go into public service -- [applause] you have a lot more options know when you have health insurance. i took six and a half years to get through college. i kept leaving to work on campaigns were other progressive organizations no one had ever heard of. sometimes i had health insurance, sometimes i did ot. when i got my degree, i was ready to have this career. part of that process was getting a great educction. not all of you can go to the university of montana, but if you could, it is the best school in the world with the best football team. but it did prepare me to be a young organizer.

>> i must reserve my personal feelings and affiliations, so i am agreeing with you, because of my current position, but i will say that theeuniversity of miami might be the best. as a community of young activists, we have spent a lot of time on key issues like college affordability, health care reform. there are three key issues that a lot of people in this room, young peopleearound the country, would like to see a lot more progress on. i am interestee to see how the adminiitration plans to make progress on each of the following. on immigration reform -- >> the president gave a major national address of laying out a way forward on immigration

reform. about. it is something that we are workkng strongly on with border security. we are looking to give the immigrants in the country a way to pay their taxes, a way to serve their country and move forward to a path of citizenship, while securing our borderss we have taken a real steps on the border, there is more work to be done, but all of that needs to be done in a comprehensive immigration from work. we are continuing to work with the house and senate to move on this legislation. >> climate change. >> an issue near and dear to my heart. last week, the president and i had 21 members of the senate in. energy research -- reform legislation passed the house last year. now we are working hard to get it through the senate, working with members of both parties to

figure out a way forward on this piece of legislation. you all are about to enter the job force. one of the best ways to help you create jobs is through a clean, sustainable energy future, which is an economic and national security priority for the president. we can pass hundreds of millions of jobs by passing this bill. that is what the president will do. >> last but not least, lgbt rights. >> this issue was given to me by the president. we have mmde more progress on these issues than any other president in history. the president sattin the east room and signed the matthew shepherd hate crime bill into law.

that bill took 17 years to get through. the president took care of it in one year. don't ask, don't tell it is next on the agenda. -pa senate armed services committee passed that, and we're hoping that the bill will move through the senate, and we are hoping that it will end up on the president's desk so that we can end don't ask, don't ttll. [applause] >> you come from many years on the hill. how would you compare working in the white house to working on >> security is a lot worse. [laughter] whenever you do public service -- i say this all the time. public service is one of the best things you can do.

it can be a lot of different things. every day, i get to go to work and make millions of people of lives etter. i have a picture of my family and my dog on my desk. those are the people that i am working for every day. do that in the west wing, then i did on the hill. that is a privilege. but the challenges are real. what the president said in the campaign is true. change is really hard. there are always reasons not to change. what you are doing is huge. you could be doing 10 different things, but you are here talking about ways to make people's lives better. what you will do to help this president will truly change the country, change the world. we all have a responsibility to do that, so i think you -- thank

you. >> those are definitely inspirational words, but i know for a lot of people currently working on the hill, it is a lot of answering phones, stapling paper. how do you inspire people that are truly looking to be in public service? what is your piece of advice to be successffl? >> all that matters in life is getting things done, making progress. that is why we are here, right? i was an intern on capital, like many of you come up for a nonprofit company. first to get there in the

morning and the last to leave. 17 years later, i am still one of the first in the best winning and one of the laat to leave. they re stupid enough to pay me to do this job. [laughter] i would just say, keep at it. see what you want next and go after it. it takes everyone to get something done. why did it take several decades to get health care? these things are heard. climate change? you cannot just get off intense said, iijust have to make copies. somebody has to do that. in your next job, you might be doing something else, you might be jim messina. i was a kid that came from montana, i put myself through

school, but now i get to drive a cool car and work for the president. [applause] >> i think also, especially in a down market, why we choose these drums. you mentioned you took six years to get through undergraduate. how was your mom doing in that time? >> she was not pain, so it did not matter. [laughter] just like all of you, sheelooked at me and said, he is happy, he has passion. as long as he is happy. i think she'd got it when she went to my job at capitol hill and said, wow, you are not a slacker.

the single most important thing love. if you do not love it, do not do it. it does not mean that you will love making copies or answering the phone, but working for people that you are passionate about, it will make you motivated. if you like making cupcakes, go and make cupcakes. i wanted to be the star quarterback of the denver broncos, but that did not work, so i went to work to camping -- on campaigns. >> who do you look to to be motivated? who are your role models? >> i would say two. first is my mother. single mother raising a family, toughest woman i have ever met. give it up for mom.

[applause] you think this is a political entered, but it is not. the president. i see how hard it is to be the president in 2010, i see how hard he works at it, how hard he works to make the right decision, how much he has gotten done in the first 18 months, and i could not be proper of him. and he is taking me to vegas tomorrow. [laughter] >> it was a pleasure to speak to you. thank you. everyone join me in thanking jim messina. [applause] >> andrea gibson. >> hello, everybody. years ago, i was reading a book.

i read it is a fact, that right now if you were to press your hard against mine, but eventually, our hearts wwth start beating at the same time. we are that powerful. i read that in the same place that i've read, when two violins are placed in the rrom, if a court on one island is struck, that sound will be in the other one. we can sound of music and people around us simply by playing our own strengths. you and your fingers are ready. the time you master the parts, for the time that you give yourself to someone else. the steeples ballot to the sky. this is for you. this is also for the people who

wake up early to watch the flores sleep. for the mothers wwo feed their children first and thirst for nothing when they are full. there were men who cried, then who bleed from women's mood. for the people who cut her loose. for the people waiting to learn. this is for the man who showed me the hardest thing about having nothing is having nothing to give. the only reason to live is to give ourselves the way. this is the day we will quit our jobs and work for something real. this is for the people who run other cages at slave wages built. right now, we are beginning sound that sounds something like people bring their porch lights on and calling the homeless back home. this is for falling from grace

this is for your grandmother who walked 1,000 miles on broken glass to find that single patch of grass to plan the family tree. for the ones who know the mask of war has always been such directions, plan lived, when you give like every start pushing on you. this is for the time you went through hell when someone else did not have to. for the time you talk a 14-year- old boy he was beautiful. for he rascal anarchists. what are the chances of anyone moving from right to left if we only see nbc and cbs? for fear of saying i love you to people who will never say it to

us. remembering to shine. for the many beautiful things that we do come up for every song we have ever song. for refusing to believe in miracles because that miracles or the impossible coming true when everything is possible. tonight, saturn is on its knees, proposing with all of its 10,000 rings, but we stand even more the world need us more than it has ever needed us before. pull every string, play every chord. if you are writing letters to prisoners, a pair down the bars. never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart. play loud. you are the last chance for something. play like there is no time. you have a drum.

you have a song like a breath that could raise as like the sunrise. play like you know we will not survive if you do not. but we will if you do. play like saturn is on its knees, proposing with all of the 10,000 rings that we give our every breath. this is for saying yes. this is for saying yes. [applause] thank you. thank you very much. but not. [applause] i read a happy one first, that may have been a bad idea. here we go. i wrote this poem many years ago in this city. when i wrote it, i had no idea that i would be reading it as long as i have been.

i hope to stop reading it soon. >> the light ccme back from iraq and tattooed a teddy bear on the inside of his wrist. above that, in medical with an ivy bed, above that, the angel. eli said that the teddy bear will not live. he is only 24 but i have never seen is further away fromm childhood as his. eei's mother traces a teddy bear on the inside of my arm and says not all casualties come home in body bags. if i could find a fucking tunnel, i would write white flags, somebody please pray for the soldiers. how ironic that their death

sounds like a bible versus? 100,000 slain, npt on the third floor. forget-me-nots on the windowpane. and our sky is so perfectly blew, it is propulsive. somebody tell me where god and lives. if god is truth, god does not live here. there are ghost of kids who are three parked stars, and shewith swears she can feel his photographs bbrned. how many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead are there? the mortar of sanity crumbling. stumbling back home to a home that will never be home again. eli does not know if he can

write a poem again. one-third of the homeless men in this country are veterans. we have pretty yellow ribbons but nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands. each flight, a promise we never kept. he came back from iraq and hung himself in his parents' basement with a garden hose. he spent 45 minutes the night before rocking on his father's lap. they're watching him burn and hoarding the water. no senator daughters are looking ashes from their lips or dreaming up ropes that will wrap around their necks. i was are closed, america. you want to support our troops?

bring them home and hold them tight when they get here. [applause] its best to please ap up, i was going to read one more poem, and it was going to be ultra queer, but i think this is telling me to wrap up. ok, i am doing it. without being gay. >> i do ido do i do ding dong dang i do but the fuckers say we can't

because i am a girl and you are a girl. i want church bells come on one rosary beads. i want to walk down the aisle north carolina the patriarchy smile. that is not true. but i do want to spend my life with you. 50 years from now when you are getting ready to die, when there are visiting hours for family members only, i want to know that i can go in. i remember when you held my hand saying, baby, flow to me. i have watched you grow. from the day i said by me a ring that will turn my finger green so i can imagine our love is a forest, i want to get lost in you. i swear, i grew like a wild fire -- while the floor every day for those 50 years.3 maybe you can take a fucking

jokk. that night i slept on the couch, but in the morning, we were laughing. for 50 years, you were my favvrite poem. i read you every night, not knowing all the words, but that was ok. this kind of love have to be favored. if we do, it will be a masterpiece. and we were. you said fear it is only a burke only if you let it, but do not let go of my hand. that was my favorite line. we both broke down crying what are the chances we see anything but corn in kansas? we were born again that day. i cut your court, and you cut mind. the news of hate listening, listening from years f people like you are not welcome here.

people llke you cannot adopt. we had lots of cats and dogs. you were crazy like that. i was so crazy about you, i could not go to sleep, waiting for you to come home.. my breath turned silver the day you're here did, like a mirror gold on an island. when they bloomed, the first time i saw you dance in her living room.3 together. days strong and sang at high tide. you would fold our loved into an origami firefly and pass it through all of my in chambers. my heart is open because of you, because of us. so i do, i do, i do want to be in that room with you

with you in family hours. i want to be with you while i sing to you i am so in love with you baby i am so in love with you ding dong ding goodbye. thank you so much. [applause] >> please welcome natasha bidener. >> hello. i am here from the university of california santa barbara, representing the environmental affairs board. it is my great honor to introduce today another environmentalist from

california, a globally recognized leading voice on human rights issues and a green economy. he is the founder of three+ successful nonprofit organizations, including the ella baker center for human rights, which deals with problems of the incarceration in this country. he is also a best-selling author on the green economy. his name is van jones. after he gives his speech, there will be a chance for q&a. you can either text or tweet your questions to campus progress or we have a micrrphone over there. please join me in giving a warm welcome to van joness [applause] host: hello! -- >> hello!

how about a round of applause of applausepoet. unbelievable.oet. it is great to be here with you. the generation that saved us in p000, no doubt, the generation that will save us in 2010. generation obama. [applause] the last time i was here, i was a white house official. now i am not. that sucks! [laaghter] i want to talk to you about the. [laughter] i am like the rest of america. these are the ddas of hope and heartbreak. how many other americans, that

you are fighting for, just got their dream home, literally juut got it, and then lost it. or they just got a promotion, worked hard for, suffered so long to get, and then the company shut down. how many of your peers work theer way through high school, got all the grades, but at the end of the day, could not go to college because student loans were not in place. how many of your cooleagues, neighbors, roudly joined the military and are now coming back home to an economy with no job and no place for them. these are the days of hope and heartbreak. many of you here, although you look cute, you have a big smile, you are networking, some of you too much -- [laughter]

you have some hurt in you, the successes and might give you the confidence, but it ii the setbacks that give you character. we need this generation, in particular, to be a generation of confidence and character. you are the generation in 2008 that put the country on your back and carried it out of an eight-year health of despair, and you got us cross the finish line because you were willing to take a chance. he took us from despair toohope, which is hard, but now you have to take us from hope to channe. that is harder. anyone here who has ever tried to lose weight knows what i'm talkiig about. [laughter] you know you are 15 pounds overweight and you still a that donut today?

that is called despair. [laughter] then you see a fitness magazine, see somebody on the video, and they have this svelte body, the six pack, the tricep, and you say to yourself, i could look like that. that is called hope. actually losing the 15 pounds, that is called the change. and thht is tougher. you go up and down, back and forth. every day it is not a good day, but if you do not stand for real change now, if you do not say, we meant it, we voted for change, we will never have

changed in this country. i was born in 1968, the year they assassinated hope. they killed martin luther king, they killed bobby kennedy. for 40 years we had no hope in the country. hope wassjust a marginal thing. the politics of hope was murdered in 1968 and it took 40 years for you to bring it back. we cannot afford to let it die now. you cannot do that to america. you cannot do that to our country. as long as you do not go back to despair and cynicism, and all those things that people want to pull you back to now because we did not get everything done in 18 months, as long as you people alive, change is possible. we need a real change and we will not have it unless you stand for it. one of the most important areas where we need a change is in our

energy system. that is one of the most important changes. as a generation, you can say to america, it is your plan and that is on the line. part of the challenge that we have right now is we have an economy that is fueled by an energy systee based on death. what is oil but the ancient bbood of our ancestors on the ground that we ig up and burned with no ceremony? what is coal but broken bone oo our ancestors and burn in our power plants without ceremony. we take death out of the ground and use it to power our society. well noowonder, yoo are now going to get death from the sky, and now ww are going to have

death in the ocean because we have a ssciety that is addicted on an oil-based system. and we are pushing our oil workers to drill deeper, risk your lives, blow up your grandmothers mountain. keep on power in america the same way. go into the ocean, risk your lives to drill deeper and deeper so that we can keep power wing america in the same way. you have a responsibility to stand up and tell the people who run this country that america's future is not down those holes. if you want to see the future, look up. look at the sun. look at the solar power p could have been the country. if you want to see the future, look up. look at the sky, the wind. imagine the wind turbines that can be created in indiana, michigan, ohio, where industrial

workers are sitting idle. imaginn them going back to work tomorrow, turning ourrrust belt into a green belt, where they can build the smart batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and we power america. we can have wind turbines windfarms in america, not just in the plains states, but near the great lakes, off the coast. if we had wind turbines off the coast -- i have never heard of a wind farm collappe creating a farmwind slick!wind slick or a . that is real change. when you say you want your country to go from being a world leader in environmental pollution, to a world leader in

environmental solutions, that is a change. you cannot be afraid to call for that kind of change. if you do noo, nobody else will. the people who have a lock on politics will continue to give us partial solutions that are acceptable to the political status quo but totally unacceptable to the ecological reality that you have to live in. so do not back down now when you need to the most -- when we need you the most. do not be afraid to put your demand in the languageeof patriotism and love for your country. you can say to anybody, whatever party you are in, that when you were aakid, they taughh you a song. that song was "america the beautiful." you did not see them as a song, just as something your third

grader would sing. that song is a charge, a set of orders for everyone who loves the country, to defend america's duty against the clear cutters, the strip miners, the il spellers. do not say you are an environmennalist, say you are a patriot that is sticking up ffr the country and it is willing to defend ii. when you were a little kid, they made you say the pledge of allegiance. you did not take that as just some little thing, you took it seriously. when my kids say liberty and justice for all, i want them to3 iiwant to support a generation that means it. it is not liberty and justice for all, except for the immigrants and newcomers, those

the people. liberty and justice for all. we will fight to the death to get that. we are not going to back down from that. [applause] we have ancestors that spilled their blood on the ground so that women could vote, so that people of color could vote. we have people fighting right now overseas trying to stick up for the best for human families. about those values. you can blog and say that you do not like it, but that is not what dr. king, with bobby kennedy went through. as a generation, you have an opportunity and obligatton to fight for real change. if the country sees you fighting for real change, the country will not give up hope. you have the opportunity.

you have the obligation to pull america back to the other -- to put america back to work with new economics. if you do that, if you accept that responsibility as a generation and cannot put it up to the next generation, if you stand up and own that as your agenda, then we will get a chance to see, just as we did in 2008, the best of america flowering. -pwe can have that, not just on one day. you have an obligation to build a movement that does not happen on just one day. everything you believe, capabilitiis of technology, your family and love and support, we have a generation that can help america win every day. do not accept anything less. thank you very much.

[applause] >> at this time, if you want o line up at this podium over here, if you have questions, we will take somm questions now. >> my name is victor. my question for you is about green jobs. will the jobs created for a clean energy economy be significant enough to bring relief to our current economic situation? >> yes, and i will tell you why. first of all, many of us do not understand how much the green economy is already alleviating

some of the pain. we already have more people wwrking in the wind industry than ww do in coal mines. wind turbines, to deploy them, then we have working in the coal mine right now so the grain economy is much bigger than most people would understand. if it was brought in at the same rate as the rest of the economy, there woull be more pain. but to be honest, not everyone in ameeica will have a job3 turbines. there is a much bigger hole in tte economy that needs to be fixed. one of the reason we need to screen economy, if we shift from an energy system that is going from consuming dead stuff, and we begin to focus more on, domestic resources, we can put people baak to work, bring back

our productive capacity, and heal the economy. that begins to deal with some of the challenge that we have with our economy, but it is not a magic solution for everything. it is a necessary piece of the solution. >> thank you. do we have another question over here? >> hello, mr. jones. item from brandeis university. i consult for a student peace alliance. i hear rumors that you are great at founding suucessful my question was, how do you take something from start up to success? tips on founding powerful organization that can attract talent? p> sure. i have a secret.

[laughter] if i tell you, and will not be a secret -- unthinking. no, of the most important thing i can say -- there is a conversion cycle for building anything. i called it the 3m cycle. pobilization, media, and the money. mobilization, take action. call for rallies, pull together a conference. do fsomething that shows people you are serious. number two, media. call your note but local newspaper. many times, our generation does not take pictures -- your generation is a bit better, but document what your doing and take that to people who have money. if you do that, you will haae

bigger mobilization, which means more media, which means more money. if you keep that cycle going -- usually, if things are not going well, one of those is not happening. those are the three basic things. if you get them right, you will have a good chance. [applause] >> my name is louis. my question is a bit more personal. he spoke about a season of hope and despair. i have had difficulty maintaining my difficultylevemy. what do you do if you are faced with a hard day, or a month, and even though you have all of these objectives, how you maintain hope in the face of despair? >> everyyne has their own

trucks. i get a lot from history. whenever i feel like i am having a bad day, i will put in a documentary about mandela. not so bad after all. [laughter] say some more mean things about me, i am ok. i am not in prison. [laughter] honestly, we are a little spoiled. we are trying to build a pro- democracy movement in a country, that at least for eight years, was run by authoritarian. it is not going to be easy. the most important thing i can say is, there is this native american saying -- two wolves. one is a good one, one is bad, they are about to fight. which one is going to win? the answer is the one that you feed.

we feed the fear mongers. we feed those positions by giving it so much attention. we have to feed the hope. this country is extraordinary -- this is an incredible, and beautiful country where people or doing extraordinary things every day. that idiot box squawking in the corner, making you feeling this is a horrible country, making you believe that everyone hates the president -- it is just not true. cut if off and walked down the street -- cut it off and walk down the street and talk to them. they are wise. wthey are open to us, if you are

willing to be engaged. my hope is you will take a lot of this chatter less seriously. our information system is much more developed right now that our wisdom. we can have information about each other -- more than you want to. all of you have thingg on facebook that you wish was not there. i have to take my name off that. there is way more data out there, and it will only grow. the challenge s to develop a wisdom system that can put that into context. this president has done more and achieved more in a shorter peeiod of time than any president prior to him. the problem is, he has had superhuman levvls of achievement, but the hole is

much bigger than any other president has faced. you can achieve more ttan any other generation has achieved, and you can still come up short. that means you ave the responsibility to reach out and hold each other, listen to each other, and recognize it ii only from the strength and wisdom of your generation, even though you are the younger one, it will be your willingness to understand solutions, work with each other, that will get the country across the finish line. >> thank you. we're running pretty low on time. i will ask for two, three more questions. and keep it brief, please. >> i will keep my answer brief, if that will help. >> this is more a question on your personal outlook. on the redefinition of wealth,

people do not understand that what is around them, all the riches in the world. sort of close to home. people do not understand it is the family and community that matters, not this external definition of wealth. what do you think the future holds as far as that? >> that is a great question, a deeper question. a couple of things. one, our quality of life can go up, even if the gnp doesn't. not good. everybody is going to continue to grow and grow, everyone will have 20 cars in their rush --

garage. i think your challenge is to come up with politics that is more honest. we have this double in space called earth. on a finite planet where you have 10 million people, we are going to have to find a better way to live. . .

what we should be building l and making them shoulddbe things that are like her on the earth and create space for people. [applause] >> what is up? >> who led this guy in here? [laughter] >> when you got your white house job, many of us stands in the+ street. we recognize that we had a real change agent from oakland who pould take this green jobs when you left a lot of us cried. i wrote very hateful things about people. now i cannot get a job at the white house. [laughter]

how can you continue making sure that the positton is something that we felt could be made real. how are these jobs are -- going to really happen now? do you feel sense of frustration? is there something different or better? >> the good thing is that the agenda continues. the department of energy is still as committed to $80 billion in the recovery package that did not go anywhere. quest for redemption. better say something smart. it could have been easy for me to have equated my resonate,

position, and coast with what is best for the country. but there are a lot of ways to serve the agenda. "it was so terrible, you are in for six months and then you are out." did you listen to that? months? six months longer than you. [laughter] you have got to look at these things without a activity. what i learned in those six months i can take with you me forever. many of you have been in their plans before. imagine, you hit turbulence in the airplane and it feels a certain way and you hope that the people in the cockpit know what they're doing. i spent six months in the cockpit.

six months in the cockpit. this country is in. p know exactly how much, as we have. if you think you love your country, i will tell you this and i will go, if you had this opportunity to serve for six months and it was 100% guaranteeing -- guaranteed that you would have the same exit the do it. it is worth it. country now, hold it in your arms for six months. hold it in your arms every morning. understand exactty what a delicate experiment democracy is and what a rare window we have to continue to show the world that a rainbow people, a multi- cultural people, with every faith, and sexuality, gender, can be one country.

solving tough problems and showing every country had to do it. if you had six months, six weeks, six days. serve your country. serve your country. the beautiful abouttthis country is you are free to say what you want and free to change your mind. be a generation that is fearless in the face of these challenges. serve your country in the jail house or in the white house. do not let anyone tell you that you do not have the right to be the do -- to be the best generation we have ever had in phis country. thank you very much. [applause]

this hearing on the subcommittee on immigration. the immigration subcommittee and others who joined us today for the subcommittee's hearing on the ethical imperative for reform of our immigration system. today we welcome very important leaders from the faith community who are here to share with us their perspectives on current immigration policy, and the need for an overhaul of our nation's system. faith-based organizations often lead our nation in the ongoing discussion over immigration reform. over the past decade, faith leaders have often shepherded the often contentious national debate over our immigration system by claiming it as a moral

and ethical question. the united states conference of catholic bishops was an early leader in bringing faith communities to the table. more recently, organizers and denominations such as the national association of evangelicals, the southern baptist convention, and the liberty council legal ministry have assumed significant leadership on the issue. creating unprecedented coalitions across the denominations, eacof these groups has passed a resolution supporting comprehensive reform that provides for secured borders, immigration laws that meet the economic and family reunification needs of our country and an earned path of legal status for hard-working immigrants who pay a fine, pass a criminal background check and learn english. while these groups, and i don't always agree on every issue, we do agree on this issue. as do most of the american people. a recent bipartisan survey found that the vast majority of americans, over 74% support comprehensive immigration reform

that follows the above principles, border security, immigration laws that meet our nation's needs, and the needs of our families, and a pathway to legal status for hard-working immigrants. in fact, ts poll found that 84% of people who support the arizona law also support comprehensive immigration reform. today we will hear from those to whom we look for moral and ethical guidance about their support for a firm, rational, and just immigration policy. i commend our witnesses' efforts and their leadership. and now i would rognize our minority for an opening statement. i understand from mr. king that he would like mr. smith, the ranking member of the full committee to offer his opening statement at this time. >> thankou, madam chair. a recent zogby survey reinforced what many of us already know. americans, including the religious faithful, want america's immigration laws enforced. according to this study of likely voters, 54% of catholics,

61% of protestants and 65% of born-again christians support attrition of illegal immigration through enforcement. i suspect we will hear today that it is somehow immoral or unethical to enforce our nation's laws, in at, in fa, sometimes we should ignore those laws. for those who want to take ts approach, there is just one problem. the bible contains numerous passages thasupport the rule of law. the scriptures clearly indicate that civil authors preserve order, protecting citizens and pubishing wrongdoers. a prime passage is roamers 13, let every person be subject to governing authorities. on this passage the late father patrick bassio wrote in his book on the immorality of illegal immigration, clearly this is advice to christians to follow the laws of their nation, and to respect the laws of other nations. although christianity encourages acts of charity, we cannot be

both charitable and law breakers. now, consider leviticus, when a stranger of soldier is with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. some claim that the passage mandates we welcome any and all foreigners, even those in our country illegally. but is and other passages do not imply that foreigners should disregard civil laws to enter or that we should overlook it when they do. for instance the law for israel allowed legal distinctions to be drawn between native jews, and resident aliens. the hebrew term for sojourn, as well as the dictionary definition, means temporary stay. a related term used in some scriptural translations is stranger. so this passage offers no scriptural sanction for allowing millions of illegal immigrants to remain permanently in the united states. further more, in the new testament, according to the new westminster dictionary of the bible,he word stranger denotes one who is simply unknown.

not necessarily a foreigner. related to the leviticus citation is the passage about treatment of the least of these, my brothers. the hungry, the neighred, the stranger, the prisoner. this quote from matthew plainly advocates individual acts of kindness and does not mandate a public policy. a note in th new interpreters bible says, quote, it is the individual human being, not nations as corporate political structures, that stand before the judgment. this suggests little biblical support for anyone's claim to have a right to remain where they have lived illegally or to obtain public benefits, includin citizenship. father bassio takes it a step further stating, quote, the christian church currently favors an immigration policy that assists those who violate our laws, rather than enter the legal process that leads to legal immigration. the christian church in some quarters actually recommends to its ministers and priests that they break the law by helping

illegal immigrants who break the law. the church's decision disappoints those who play by the rules, placing legal immigrants and businesses that respect oulaws at a great disadvantage. end quote. bassio contends that the christian leadership of this country not really comprehending the wide-rangin prob lengts conducted with illegal immigration has blessed violating the sovereignty of our nation, depressing thewages of american workers, encouraging the growth of the most violent gangs in america, driving up black unemployment, end quote. a prime example comes from "the wall street journal." after a wave of raids, a local chicken processing company called crier lost 75% of its 900 member work force. but for americans the dramatic appearance of federa agents presented an expected opportunity. fothe first time in years, local officials say, kreider

aggressively sought workers from the area estate-funded employment office, a key avenue for w-skilled workers to find jobs. of 400 candidates sent to kreider, most of them black, the plant hired about 200. bassio says rightly that, quote, those who build their empires by constructing the world economic order on the foundation of cheap labor are immoral. and their sins cry out to heaven for vengeance. church leaders, we plead with you to take note of this, end quote. the fact is that americans need not repent for wanting to uphold the rule of law, and provide jobs for legal workers. i agree with father bassio's sentiment when he said that illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. there are an abundance of real victims, and christians have the moral obligation to aid and protect. a truly christian natural approach would be not to acquiesce to illegal immigration, but to work to end it. our nation has a wonderful tradition of welcoming

newcomers. we admit more than 1 million legal immigrants a year. as many as all other nations combined. . there is a clear difference, though, between those who play by the rules, and come in the right way, and those who don't. madam chairman, before i yield back, let me say that i have another committee markup at which i have an amendment to offer so i will be gone for some time, but expect to return. and with that i'll yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. mr. conyers, i believe, is on his way, and wishes to offer an opening statement, but while we await his arrival i'll recognize the -- for his opening remarks. >> thank you, madam chair. i want to thank the witnesses in advance for your testimony, and for coming forward here today. and it is just -- this is very interesting to me, this is a bit of a turn of what normally we see, folks on my side of the aisle are generally holding scripture and talking about ith and the core of the things

motivating us. you on the other side are saying this isn't, sometimes even on the floor of the congressional records say this is not a christian nation. i believe it is. and so let's examine some of that today while we talk about our core values. it turns out, might have been reading a copy of theible is a little different than we might hear about today. i didn't realize that moseswas an illegal immigrant, and neither did i realize that king david was an illegal immigrant. or that mary and joseph were illegal immigrants. i didn't realize that the bible barred the enforcement of immigration ws. and neither did i realize that it erased borders, demanded pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, or thathe bienl forbid the leaders of a nation for caring most about the well-being of its own citizens. the goal of this hearing is apparently to certify the self-evident truth of all of these propositions. not only must i have been reading a faulty copy of the bible, but in the land of the bibl the leaders of today's israel must have been reading the same copy.

because they built border fences to protect their citizens from terrorists, and illegal job seekers alike. they deported over 136,000 illegal foreign workers between september of 2002, and may of 2005. that's modern-day israel. the percentages of the equivalent of that was about 6.5 million removals in the united states, had we done the same thing. so, over that same period of time. and the law in return applies only to jews. now anything less would certainly result in the annihilation of the whole of the jewish people that reside today in israel. and for those reasons, they have their policy, which don't seem to be objected to by the clergy in americ and certainly not by me. i think they have a right for their determination. but at thease of this concept that animates this hearing appears to be that the only biblically acceptable immigration policy is an open borders policy. never mind the fact that four out of every ten mexican adults that were surveyed would migrate to the united states if given the opportunity to do so.

and, to the united states if given the oprtunity to do so and there are 5 billion people on the planet who have an equivalent standard of living than the people out of 6 billion people on the planet, about 5 billion of them live in a lower standard than the average citizen in mexico. and especially on our most vulnerable citizens. and i'm pleased that jim edwards is here testifying today. he's done much to articulate and right about the real clarity of the issues in the bible and how it addresses the issues of today. he's pointed out things that i think he may not have time to say and so i would reiterate those here. one is to look back through the old testament. deuteronomy. when he divided mankind he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sun ises of god.

and ezekiel, 47, numbers 34 describes the borders the lord established for each tribe of israel. deuteronomy 19 commands against moving a neighboring tribe's marking of israel's inheritance in the promised land. mr. edwards writes elsewhere, st. paul addresses the ephesia s ephesians. they shawl inhabit the whole of the earth. mr. edwards points out, of course, some other issues in the old and new testament. one is in matthew. mr. edwards always writes timothy that paul warns that if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a

non-believer. here it is made and plain that we each have a very special obligation to those who are closest to us by family and blood ties and their needs and welfare must stay tops in our priorities and what it saysless the local civic community can besaid about the community on a larger scale. we have a greater more immediate moral obligation to be concerned with the welfare of the united states than any other countries, just as the residents of other countries should be concerned with what kboes on in their countries. e each of us have ties and we must all acknowledge the legitimacies of the ties. statesmen and political leaders have a special obligation to look o for the well being of the political communities that are entrusted to our care. i just to point out a couple of other points here as i close, and that is my church sponsors a

hispanic congregation in minnesotale we take up a collection on a regular basis, and that's something that we feel very good about doing. and i'll sit down and he conversations with many pasrs in my district. the problem with the conflict between the people who make the laws and the people whose profession and spiritual obligation is to all peoples of the earth is our job is to faithfully make the law and see to it they're enforced by our executive branch and i hope you respect that all of you and i respect your job and your mission to mission to all peoples on earth and so with that, i hope that's the appropriate tone for this hearing. >> the gentleman's time has expired. we will recognize mr. conniers for his statement when he arrives. at this point in t interest of proceeding with witnesses we will ask other members to submit their statements for the record. and without objection all opening statements will be placed on the record and without ox the chair is authorized to

declare recess of the heang at any time. now i'd like to introduce our witnesses. each one i esteemed. at first it is my pleasure to introduce dr. richard land. since 1988 dr. land has served as president of the southe baptist conventions ethics and religious liberties conviction, the policy arm of the largest protestant denomination in our country. he ee tess host of several nationally syndicated radio programs and s featured a one of the 25 most influential people in america by "time magazine" in 2005. he's been an active convener for conservatives of comprehensive immigratioreform and has co-authored a white paper on principles of immigration reform which lays out a world approach to the nation's yoifr hl of the immigration system. next i'm loo toik introduce the

bishop. he's the seventh of tucson, arizona, where he's served since 2003. he's e a vice president. he previously served as auction illy bishop for arern diocese of chicago and was the trekt over the mundelian seminary. he was awarded the joseph cardinal bern dean award in 2008. next i ed like to introduce ref rend dean. he's a non-profit legal ministry with a focus on litigation, poll circle and education. he's dean and professor of law at the liberty university school of law, a former seventh day adventist pastor. de s is taber has argued twice before the supreme court of the united states and has authored 11 books aunld 00 degrees of

articles. he's been active with conservatives, a group of over a dozen conservative faith-based groups pushing for an overhaul of our nation's system and finally i'd like to introduce the minorities witness. dr. edwards jr. as a fel o'. edwards was a legislate irdirector for representative ed bryant, a former colleague of ours and a member of theouse judiciary immigration committee when he served here. dr. edwards was an adjunct fellow with the hudson institute and was selected as 1998 lincoln fellow by the clairemont institute. with james g. game bbl. his bachelor and masters at the university of georgia. w you have written atements and thosestatements will be made part of our official rec d

record. we are inviting you to address us in about five minutes' time. that little machine on the table, when it's green it means there's a lot of time left. when it turns yellow, it's always surprising it's a minut if it turned red we won't cut you off but if you would finish up so we have time to pose questions to you subsequent to the testimony. with that let us begin with dr. land. thank yu so much for being here. >> thank you. good morning, cir man and ranking members of the subkrit tee. we are the largest pros stent denomination. the ethics and liberty commission is the public policy

arm of the southern baptist convention. with an estimate12 million men, women, and children working in an undockmented status in the united states we have a crisis, and despite the impasse of previous congresses on imallegation reform i do not believe that that crisis is insurmountable. i believe congress can and should bring these people out of the shadows. the more protracted the delay in action, the more severe the problem will become. i look at the arizona law and others to be a symptom. they're a cry for help from states that are suffering because the federal government has not done its duty. like other religious pods they have been vocal in the immigration reform in june of 2006. southern baptist convention gathered for its meeting. passed a resolution which called for enforcement of immigration

laws, balanced with compassion nr those who were here illegally and urged a pathway for legal status. there was a call from the federal government to provide for the security of our nation by controlling and securing our borders. clearly our federal government has not done that for several decades. fund mentally i believe southern baptists and others view it through the lid of their faith. as citizens of the united states we have an obligation to support the government and the government's laws for conscience sake, romance 13:7. we have a right to punish those who break the law and reward the laws for those who do not. southern baptist also recognizes a biblical mandate to care for those least among us, matthew 25, to care for the strangers who reside in our land and to act justly and mercifully, micah

6:8. bearing this in mind, they're to call upon southern baptists to act redem actively and to reach out to meet the emotional a spiritual nes of all immigrants, start english classes on a massive scale and encourage them toward a path of legal status. but acts of mercy by the church will remain insufficient end to repair our broken immigration system, nor is the church's responsibility equivalent to the government. while southern baptists and other evangelicals will do their part to reach out though those who are here illegally, only a proper government response can resolve our immigration crisis. your responsibility and responsibility is different than ours. i believe the first of everything must start with border security. we have to sew cure the border and i think most americans do not accept the argument that our government cannot secure the border.

the internal revenue service comes to mind. the american citizen understands if we don't pay our taxes you will come and get us and we believe that we have to commit whatever resources are necessary to secure the border. that does not mean to clees close the border but it means to have control of the border, have control over who goes in and who goes out. bu you know, the statement was made earlier that it's immoral -- that some peel would argue that it's immoral to enforce our nation's laws. i don't think it's fair or right. what's immoral is to not enforce the nation's laws for over two decades and then to say, oh, now we're going to enforce the l and we fwierpg to enforce the law retro actively. you know, it would be like if the government sent out a letter to every describe every in america, by the way, for the last 24 years we'v been

conducting surveillance on the interstates and to n we haven't been able to ticket you for violating the speed limit but we do now. we're going to send you ticket for every time you exceeded the speed limit retro actively for the last 24 years. i don't think most americans would thing that was inferior and i don't think most americans would accept it. i believe once we have secured the border and i believe that's got to be done with agreed upon metrics, that the government puts together and says -- certifies we have met this metric, we have met this metric, we have met this metric. then i believe we have to have a six-to nine-month grace period for people in an undock mend stad us the to come forward, to gister, agree to pay fines, back taxes, background check, take tests to read and right and go to the back of the line so they're not being rewarded for

having come here in an undocumented status behind those trying to come here legally. and over a time period they have the opportunity to then get to legal status. i do not believe you can strain theenglish language into saying that is amamnesty. amnesty is what president carter gave them for avoiding serving in vietnam. i would have let them come back but i would have let them work two years for mimum wage caring for those who took their place. thank you. >> thank you very much, dr. land. fr. kukanis. the microphone -- very go. thank you. >> i'm bishop of tucson, arizona, and vice president of the u.s. conference of catholic bishops and i testify today on behalf of the u.s. catholic bishops. i would like to thank you, madam chairman, as well as our ranking member steve king for holding

this hearing today on so critical an issue and inviting me to testify. i appreciate it. madam chairman, in my written testimony i outline at length what i and and the catholic bishops are kons vinced is the public policy needed for repairing our broken immigration system. i would like to emphasize this morninging what i and my fellow bishops think are some of the ethical and moral issues in this debate confronting our elected officials and our nation. the immigration issue is often dissected in terms of the economic, social, or legal impacts on our nation. what is not often acknowledged and frankly is sometimes dismissed is that immigration is ultimaly a humanitarian issue since it impacts the basic right rights dignities of millions of

people and their families. it has basic survival and decency of life experienced by human beings like us. madam chairman, our current immigration system fails to meet the moral test of protecting the basic rights and dignity of the human person. as the bishop who oversees the diocese along the mexico border, the epicenter of micromovement, witness the human consequences of the broken system in my diocese's service programs, hospitals, schools, and parishes. regularly anxious and troubled immigrants come to ask our priests, employees for assistance for a love one, a patient who has been detained, a child who has lost a parent or tragically a familyember who has lost a loved one in the

harsh arizona desert. we strive as best we can, realizing that unless we change the laws, which apply to immigration, with are only providing a band dadeor this situation. my grant workers are subject to exploitation by scrupulous employers. and those attempting to find work by coming north are being abused and taken advantage of by human smugglers. it's shocking to realize that about # 5,000 men, women, and children have di in the desert since 1998. e such victim was jocelyn hernandez, age 14 from el salvador. her and her brother were attempting to reunite with their mother in california when they became lost in the desert.

jocelyn became dehydrated and survived four days until she died. she was found on the 12th day. jocelyn's story sadly is being repeated far too often along our arizona border. madam chairman, the overwhelming offing my grants coming to the united states come not for any fairous purposes but to find work to support their families or to join their loved ones. once here they do contribute their work and skills to our country, yet on their way north and while in our country, and that atheir families often are subject to the dangers and abuses that i have mentioned. this is a situation from a humanitarian and ethical standpoint that needs to be addressed. from a moral perspective we cannot accept the toil and taxes of immigrants without providing them protection of law. let me address thessue of the rule of law which is a flashpoint in the debate and to what which many immigration

reform opponents point in arguing against liam status for the undocumented. u.s. conference wholeheartedly agrees the rule of law is paramount and those who break the law should be held accountable. as our testimony points out korjs pre hencive immigration reform wouldonor the rule of law and help restore it by requiring 11 million undocume undocumented to pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn english, and get in the back of the line. we believe that this is a proportionate penalty. let me also address the issue of border security, the topic of much discussion recently, especially in our own state of arizona. church teaching acknowledges the right of the nation to control its borders. it's our view that the best way to secure our southern boarder is through immigration reform. we have spent $100 billion on immigration boer and interior

enforcement. the border patrol in the tucson sectors whose work i deeply respect are trying their best to address this difficult situation. and i'll close there. >> thank you very, very much. dean staber, we'd be delighted to hear fm you. >> madam chairman, thank you, distinguished congress member for inviting me. i'm founder and chairman of liberty council a national and legalorganization, policy and education organization. i also seven as dean and professor of law a liberty university. it's the largest christian university in the world with over 26,000 students coming from over 74,000 countries. e crisis that the country is facing in arizona is a symptom

and a cry for help. it is an example of our failed immigration policy. however, the constitution places the responsibility for immigration on the federal government, not on the states. therefore it is impair active that congress act sooner than later to reform our immigration system. it's a matter of national security, tranquility and identi identity. wee must devise a system that is compassionate and just. immigration debate does not belong to a political party. it is in my opinion a moral issue. we should not allow partisan politics or the difficulty of crafting a solution that returns to a ultimate goal of fixing a broken system is. we must deal with the undocumented immigrant whose are currently living within our borders. on the national security issuing this is a national security an domestic tranquility issues. secure borders are not closed borders. violent criminals and drug

traffickers take advantage. such criminals are a threat to everyone in every community. we must also enforce our laws against those who knowingly employ undockmented immigrants. those who take advantage of them once they cross the border. regarding the undocumented immigrants in the united states there are three solutions, am necessary cit necessity or deportation. it is a disservice to those who have worked their way through the naturalization process.amne. it is a disservice to those who have worked their way through the naturalization process. many undocumented children have come here with their parents. some children are natural iezed citizens, having been born in america, yet their parents remain undocumented. deportation and n these and other circumstances would rip families apart which no fair-minded american wants to do. while undocumented fell ons or

those who have committed crimes in america should be deported we should invite the millions who are documented or living in the midst to come t of the shadows by providing them the opportunity to get legal status. subject to penalties, waiting periods, back ground checks, participation through american society through an understanding on testify english language, the structure of the government and embrace the american values. we must embrace a rational immigration policy which suggests we're a nation of immigration and policy of laws that would put law abiding persons on one of three passes. one path leads to purr sowing earned legal citizen ship or legal residency. one leads to acquiring legal guess work or status and one

goes back across the order which includes swift processing. it respects the traditions held by the people of many backgrounds that make up america while recognizing the importance of a shared language, history and cult yacht values. those who choose legal citizenship should with the opportunity to fully participate by removing any barriers to achieve those dreels. let me be very clear. an eard pathway to legal status is not amnesty. they should stop debating this needlessly and honestly acknowledge the difference. the time to forge a national consensus is now. america is a country of immigrant, melting pot of different ethnicities and cultures. it's one that begins with se securi securing, not closing the borders, one that enforces or

laws and one that aurs the opportuny for earned legal status. as the world's standard bearer for freedom, america's light shines for a hope for those around the world. we must never quelch the liberty. thank you. >> thank you very much, dean. now we'd like to hear from . edwards. >> thank you, madam chairman. first i'll discuss key bin lick call principle that relates to today's immigration debate and secondisle discuss important implications of comprehensive immigration reform. first, each christian is bound by a high moral imperative. love the lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. these cornerstone precepts instruct believers personally to love your enemies, to bless those who curse you, to care for these the least of my brothers. it's unreasonable though to try

to require civil authority to display the same kind of mercy or capacity individual christians are called to show. the god-given role of sishl governments is to restain evil within their jurisdictions. protect the innocent and punish law breakers. the things that are concentrated on justice. public acts of government differ fundamentally from individual acts and individual showing mercy decideslingly to bear an injustice. it's merciful when a private person turns the o'cheek, goes the extra mile or gives up

second we must consider the impact of comprehensive immigration reformn our fellow americans. more than welfare of the imglakts is at stake. >> it's the welfare of the american citizens. the american people would end up the forgotten victims of comprehensive immigration reform. i would put the most vulnerable merchs at risk. we had 21 underemployed or unemployed in 2009 just a year ago. comprehensive immigration reform would put them up against many more job competitors, forcing

down what the americas could otherwise command. today fewer than half of the american teens have jobs compared with two-thirds in 1994. they fell twoen 4% between 1980 and 2000. for native jobdropoudropouts. i eel sighting the border u 6 unemployment figure. 32.4%. for native born blacks 18 to 29d years old with just a diploma, 389 pint 8%. for native born wlaks who crops ott of skol, 18.2. for native born latinos 18 to 29 with only a deemployee na, 33.9%. there's also the fact on

america's current fiscal crisis. many officials would quality for many public programs for which they're currently disqualified. about 3.1 million aliens would qualify for medicaid. that's an ext $8.1 billion annually or 48.6% -- i'm sorry $48.6 billion from 2014 to 2019. that's the first budget window. in short what conant immigration reform would do unto the least of these fellow americans hardly ranks as ethical treatment. in closing scripture doesn't detail ee normative immigration policy, thus we have to exercise prudent judgment. they tried immigration reform that looks much like today's proposals. within a decade the illegal

population had grown to three times the size of 1986 level. the enforcement levels failed to secure the border or shut down the job. pursuing essentially the same felled solution would force compassion on our fellow americ americans that they can't afford. perhaps the most ethical thing congress could do is to suspend most immigration at least until unemployment rates drop to prerecession levels. thank you. >> thank you, dr. edwards. before proceeding with questions i'd like to enter for the record the -- we didn't have rupe for everybody who would like to testify. that will be added to the record. our chairman mr. conyers has arrived and i don't know if he had an opening remark he would like to make. >> if i could just briefly,

madam chairman and ranking member king, thishearing is a landmark and i'm so pleased that the bishop is here, that the president of the southern baptist convention is here, that the dean of liberty university law school is present with us, and, of course, dr. james edwards. we welcome you all, and i just mentioned to the chair person here and i haven't talked to steve king about it yet, but i just want to put on the record that we might light to meet with

you after the hearing itself to talk unhowwe can expand our discussion beyond th formalities of the committee hearings. and i'm so pleasedand honored that you'd be with us here and the judiciary committee. and if i could, madam chair, i'd like to yield the balance of any time, a few minutes, to our distinguished colleague from illino illinois, mr. gutierrez, who's been deeply immersed in this subject. >> without on jej our colleague mr. gutierrez is the chair of the task force for the caucus would take the remainder of the time. >> i thinkour suggestion is well needed and i would

encourage us as when we met with the speak of the house to say to the men and women of faith that i think you can save us from ourselves and our own part sant political bickering. this is a moral issue and so therefore i would suggest that you call us to order and that you con phoenix the meeting so that men and women from this side of the aisle can meet with men and women from that side of the aisle, put it that way, and then you can discern who is working of good faith in order to achieve the goals that we should as a government. now i want to begin by saying to dr. james edwards i listen to your comments. you want to make a dissubscription between scriptur and government. between we as christians and the civil government but our

government should be a reflect of who we are. what is government but a reflex of the millions of people who condition substitute that government. when you say it should be different and has a didn't test, i don't see it that way. i see my government as the best and highest of our moral and ethicastab standards and justice. 's what i want my government to be. i wt it to be a reflex of my values. not distanceyself from the vaes. i'm sorry. i have to disagree. what are we talking about? we talk about them in these terms. you know, one member said we give money to the hispanic congregation and that means i'm not a bad person and 4 out of 10 mexicans. well, ladies and gentlemen, why do we always focus theish of

immigration on the latino and on the mexican community when we know that 40 f o the undock mended workers that are in this country came here legally? smart, we can go to the mall today who came here on tourist visa and will will not return. there are students who graduate hopefully fraught from liberty university but there are though those who are going to never return to their country of superior gin. when we speak about secure the bourder, secure the border, let's be careful about the message that wre sending to america, that this is not a fight between the united states and mexico. hundreds of meks con guide this year, in the last five moose, fighting the p cartel, the

thafrt the-mile-an-hours have for the drugs that come across the porers we do have a spount thr for the effect it's hag on the civil society. so i just want to say to all of you thank you for coming point. >> without ox. thing what is important is we cus families, who are these undock mended worker? >>? >> in my household. i'm look most americans nchl a family house, only twoing fwu grow look. five out of ten. phosphatidyl choline y of kosk if you came to my house you'd thunk we had children

because they're all showing u. think about it. the 7-year-old gl asked the first lady can you help my mom get the papers? we should respond we're going to get your mom the papers so she can raise the best citizen in america. >> the gentleman's time is expired and because we went to the chairman's opening statement i would like to refer mr. king for any questions tofair. >> i thank the chair. i look on this side and it looks like two and i see over here, the democrats a lot who are eager. so i would like to defer to the chair. >> that is absolutely fine. let me go first. let me first thank all of you for your testimony. it's thoughtful and informative

and i'd like to give my first queson to you, dean, because not only are you a faith lite you argue fwfrd court and you're dean of a law school. i was interested in your comment in a wherein testimony that there is a difference between providing amnesty and providing a path to status and that we need to stop the debate from unnecessarily politicizing. we all need to believe the laws ed to be obeyed but we make the law. i remember in 1996 we changed laws retro actively. we made it the case that someone was here -- someone was brought as a child to tu state, really was raced in the country and now

they've married their high school boyfriend and they're a married couple and yet that woman has to leave the united states and leave her husband for ten years turned law we passed that. was retro active. i one dir if you can talk to us about the rule of law and how the congress has an opportunity make changes to have a more rational set of laws as well as the am anyity question. thank you, madam chairman. as founder and chairman of liberty council and a practicing attorney i support strongly the rule of law. we must be a nation of law and a rule of law. so i believe this issue is critically important, that e we do support the laws. am necessary city that has always been used as a hot button

flash word and i believe that's what it's often used. it should ultimately be fined. am any city is what he said jimmy carter did with those who avoided the draft in vietnam. amnesty is what ronald reagan did. it's complete p -- the reason why i propose that is because of several factors. i propose first of all yo have is the path way to earn legal the us. whether that's citizen shep or temporariy status -- something that would be an opportunity for those that are here. we often get into this debate.

think peel agree we need to do that. we need to enforce that. people agree we need to do that. then they forget about the 12 million or so people that are he here. we can't starve them out. we over got to bring them out of their shadows. these with are singe ises who want to pursue their dream t sometimes the law has put a barrier between that and that goal. i propose a path way to earn legal status and that includes the various items that i mentioned. that is different than canada's statement and if you look at any law for example, there's not a cookie-cutter penalty for any hau that we e have. for example if the government were to entrap someone to break the law, it's complete vick friday for the child who is

trapped. in other kinds of cases we don't given them is the same. wee tail it upon individuals. in this case to deploit everything is immoral. i propose we have something deeming with that but compassionately but deals with those who are here within our borders. >> thank you. dr. land you havepoken out today and before today on the issue of immigration reform, d i understand. as a matter of fact i gave you a flyer that my office got yesterday that some are suggesting that they supported you before you spoke ow and now maybe you don't aually speak for the pews in your congregation.

>> no one speaks for all baptists. >> or catholics. >> the last time congress debated the issue passed a resolution overwhelmingly, 95% plus. and you understand tt when the convention pass as resolution those are messages who vote their church and their conscience is. i think any fair reading of the resolution is a policy that secures the borders and then finds an earned way toward it. i decided to test that theory. i presented what i've argued is

a f and just policy to our southern convention baptists in orlando. i have a reporting time and gave that what i presented today in more detail. and it was supported by the messages that were there. they're the most faithful southern baptists. you have to understand that hundreds -- we have hundreds of thousands of hispanic southern baptists, many of them undocumented who have come here to the united states. i don't think it's a secret that they're an eevangelistic. as so many of those undocumented workers have become members of

southern baptist churches and lead leaders during the last two decades. and in fact, i had a chance of speaking to them in orlando during our convention and of course they were very supportive of this. they were very supportive of what i've laid out including an earned pathway and going to the back of the line, et cetera. and i would haysten to add, i'm elected as you are. by southern baptists. and our convention aspired, the agency has in the last five years so they know how to do it and there not bashful about doing fit they think i'm not speaking what most southern baptists believe. >> thank you very muf. i recognize mr. kij now for his question >> thank you, madam chair. this would be an interesting situation to carry on with

points and counter points. i appreciate all your testimony here. maybe start with the reverend staber and you'd prefer we not use that language at all. of course it is in our diggs air and black's law and you recognize the definition when you staid as one definition of it that reagan signed the resolution in 1986 with prhlgs ere would never be another amnes amnesty. i would submit this. we do need to define am necessary city with more clarity and i would define amnesty this way.nesty with more clarity and i would define amnesty this way. reward them with the objective of their crime and i submit that definition and ask as a lawyer and attorney -- as a pastor and someone who studied this

theirly. a partner for immigration law, law breakers coupled with the rae ward of the objective of theicrime. we don't know whether iter it's to obtain ucitizenship or a job. >> congressman kick, that law wouldn't be consistent with the luol of law that'sn blackstone or blang's lck's law. i don't support whatonald reagan did. i don't propose that that's what i'm using here. >> i would submit then reverend the path that you've described is pay the fine, pay back taxes, learn english, that those things are design to use the objective of the person who already broke the law. learning english is one that

helps someone. i don't see that as a penalty or wreck come pence for breaking the law. at least 60% commit the cme of crossing the border illegally. >> with all due respect, we have three options. deport everybody or deal with them somehow. i think it's impractical. you'll tear apart families where the children are legal and the parents are not. you'll tear apart families who have no idea what the home country is, can't speak the language and i don't -- >> let me submit this. what i'm suggesting we do, people who break the laws, we put them back in the condition they were in before they broke the law. i turn then to reverend land. the example you used is if you had video camas up for 20

years and give them a ticket for every time they speeded, i would argue there's knew view point on that. what i'm hearing advocated on th this, no, let's dpranlt them however our definition is and aisle stick by mine on am any city but we're going to give a pass for all the times. but they didn't have a driver lease licee. we're goin to let them speed for the rhett of their time. that's the difference between am any city. >> with all due respect the one thing we mentioned you didn't mention is going to the back of the line. so that they pay a penalty of going back to as if they were just coming into the country. >> where does that line form,

reverend land? where does that ba back of the line -- physically where the are people that go to the back of the line snoom yo >> you know i'm very impressed with the way government keeps errors. i was audited once. >> me too. more than once. >> i came throughokay but it was an interesting experience. it focus your full attention. i think we've got a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed and it's your job to fix it, so you need to decide whe that line forms. it forms in government record-keeping that you have to -- you go to the back of the line. you registered on this date. you came forward during the grace period and you register on this date and you agreed to pay these fines. >> we'reatching our clock. i'm sorry. we're watching that t clock. that line still is in the united states. people don't go back to their home country. the back of the line is actually

in the other countries with they're coming in. that's my point. i'd briefly ask the bishop this question. you testified about 5,000 people lost their lives in the arizona desert 1998 to pren and it is tragic and i share that sense of empathy that you have expressed in your testimony but i ask if you have contemplated or you know the number of americans who died at the hands of some of those who did make it across the desert as victims of crimes and are part ofhe drug culture that we heard from mr. gutierrez and the part of the violence that comes in. do you have any idea how many died at the hands of those who made it across the desert? >> it's certainly true to say some who enter this country do so with criminal intent anding at in ways that harm others but that is dleerly not the majority of those enterinthe country

illegally. the vast majority of those are good people who are looking for a decent way of life for themselves or eir family. who want to contribute to the community or add to the life of the society. it's that individual that is of concern. certain isly a person who comes here with criminal intent or who harms another person, this is something that the law must address and needs to address. i was humbled to be able to celebrate the funeral mass for rob crentz. there were 1,200 ranchers present for his funeral. it was a sad and painful moment for suzie his wife and their whole family and the whole community. this is tragic, we don't know exactly what happened but perhaps it was a drug smuggler and that is an unconscionable crime that needs to be

addressed, that needs to be dealt with fairly and justly. on the other hand the person if it were a drug smuggler or a my grant who perm traded that crime, that is not characteristic of the number of people who are crossing the border. it's an entirely different people. >> you recognize the american people are in the multiples, thank you. >> i turn to conyers for his questions. think mr. conyers is deferring to chairman burr who's recogn e recognized for five minutes. thank you. dean staver, i -- this issue of what is amnesty and what is not. what jimmy carter did was a --

was a blanket amnesty that defined a group of people and said they're okay, notwithstanding what they did. the law that ronald reagan signed turned out to be seriously flawed, not because it gave a blanket amnesty. it invited individuals to apply, pay money and take english language in courses. it didn't have all the features we have now, but it was -- it was a specific individual generated legalization program that conferred a temporary status before it confirmed a permanent res accident status. the flaws were that it didn't -- while it attempted to increase

border patrol numbers it didn't secure the border. most of awe, the ini forms that he keeps in his files were not an effective process of providing workers, and so we have a problem compounded at this partilar me. you mentioned three alternatives. there's a fourth alternative. it's the alternative we seem to be locked into, which is really about the issue and leaving the status quo with all of the problems that exist, including the exploitation and the

continued magnets that exist and created this situation. but dr. land, i really did appreciate your testimony, and i take your point. it doesn't deal with that part of the population that my colleague mr. gutierrez referred, to but it's certainly a significant part of the isue, the control of the border. the problem is the securing of the border. i did not take what you were saying to we now spendreater time and effort to figure out how to truly secure the border. we know awe kinds of efforts have been taken. we know to some extent it's far more difficult to cross the border than it used to be. i took your comments to be a logical process as we pass legislation that focuses at its

initial stages on an effort to do better at the border. that you create measure for determining the test. and en that test is met, a process that allows and you at the same time implement the kind of employer verification system that tells people about legal status and when that system is designed to be implemented you allow a process where people under the testthat you've outlined for an earned legal program, payment of fines, tax issues, back of the line, comes into being. isn't that you -- somimes people use the argument secure the border as an argument to do nothing else and i want to clarify -- >> thank you. your notion is a tol scheme that puts that as the first

test, but then at the point where it's reasonable to conclude that's been achieved, these other operations move into effect. >> yes, sir. think that the effort last time as global as it was in 2006 has shown there is not a sufficient trust level so you're goin to have to do it sequentially, but you can do it with the law. once they have been met then it tligers the second part of the law which would focus on the -- on the pathway to earned citizenship or lal status, and i thi i think that part of border security is going to be we're going to have to have much tougher laws on those. you have to take awayny excuse they have and so i'm going to get really radical here. i ooh even going to suggest that what we really need is a tamperproof biometric social security card for everybody who

wants to be employed in the united states. i know people get all up set about a social security card -- i don't. >> we all have them. when i go teach for my best frnd, i have to show him my social security card before they employ me some of we already have one. if you had a biometric tamperproof social security card this would lessen the borer. if they managed to get across, ifou told the employer you're going to get six months in jail if you hire somebody that doesn't have a card, they won't beble to survive. >> i think my time has expired. >> gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you very much. as a person who was the republican floor manager and got the republican votes to pass it, i recall very well the

discussions in the long period of time in passing that bill. i must say, however, from my friend from california, it did apply to those who entered this country legally and whose legal stat status was overstayed. so long as that illegal status occurr four years before the date of the bill. so, yes. >> my point was that it didn't apply. my point was nothing in that bill dealt with trying to remedy that problem fro continuing. >> well, all right. the point i'm trying to make is it applied to all people who were in illegal status before the signing of the bill so my first question would be to all of you and hopefully short answers. to whom should this apply, someone wh's just gottener of the border, someone who's been here two years,hree years, four years, five years?