dnc just had a record month in september, $16 million. that will allow us to have resources to put into even more midterm races. talk is cheap. we will see what happens november 2. host: of the 16 million -- could you give us the 5 top races you will put the money toward? guest: there are 43 front-line members, plus a variety of other members that are in difficult elections. it is hard to pin down the key five. because our members actually have sustained a really aggressive pace. if you look at this point in previous election cycles, depending on who was in the majority, yanking money and abandoning races and giving up on members that were supposedly

lost, and we have not been in a position to do that yet because our members are on the climb, on the upswing. what the numbers are showing is that democrats are waking up, they are realizing what the stakes are, and quite frankly, independents are. host: whether or not democrats show of november, the vice- president recently said the democratic base, the liberals, need to stop whining and look at what the white house and congress has passed. are you concerned at all that he is picking a fight with the base weeks before the election? guest: i have spent a lot of time around the country in support of my colleagues and spent time in our progressive states, as well as a swing districts. the base is really solid. they understand what is going on. a lot of people who are progressives -- i am progressive -- but a lot of folks are concerned that they want to change factors. -- faster.

rome was not built in a day. we accomplished landmark health care reform, finally getting a handle on wall street and making sure the fox was not guarding the hen house, getting a handle on deficit reduction. we are trying to calm the base down and ask them to be a little more patient and about the stark choices on election day. host: what will you be doing leading up to the election? guest: i will be running -- i am running for reelection myself. i spent the afternoon walking door-to-door in a precinct in my district. talking to seniors and young families. also spending time all throughout the country helping colleagues. it's going to get your thoughts on how expensive this midterm is. -- host: i wanted to get your thoughts on how expensive this midterm is. you yourself a raise $1.5 million. it you are running for

reelection, but it looks like you are going to win handily and you have not had a strong competitor. why is it someone like you who runs in a democratic district needs to raise that much money? and are you turning around and doling it out to some of the more vulnerable colleagues? guest: i have been in office 18 years. i am running for the 10th time for legislative office. i have a healthy respect for my constituents who can take out just as they put you in. you never take them for granted. if i am on the ballot, i am running a full-blown campaign and making sure my constituents know what i have been fighting hard to do on their behalf. that having been said, my constituents also care very deeply about this direction -- the direction this country is moving in. they are supportive of me moving of the country and making sure we can implement an agenda that they care about. so, remaining in the majority of

something that concerns them as well and that allows me to be more effective. i have made plenty of contributions to colleagues across the country. host: the bush tax cuts, a big debate before congress left town. here is "the financial times." the stalemate threatens to stall the financial recovery. economists say not having any votes at all could be a real threat to what is happening to our economy. it says obama's promise to end tax cuts for the rich unraveled, saying his plea last week was unheated -- unheeded. it deprives democrats of the clear election talking point about republicans holding middle-class tax cut hostages. republicans want to extend the tax cuts for all americans and democrats want to exclude the top 2 percent. this obvious conclusion is not -- is that pelosi did not believe she could get large enough majority of democrats to vote the way she wanted.

guest: actually what it was is that the senate republicans in particular, with their republican colleagues in the house as well, they did hold up the middle class tax cuts hostage. making the middle-class tax cut permanent -- we knew that would not happen in the senate. mitch but -- mitch mcconnell made it clear. he insisted on tax cuts for the wealthy. it would have been a contentious debate. we had a lot to accomplish with the remaining time we had in the house. and to spend time battling over whether we would extend a tax cut for the wealthiest few as well in the house, that is a lot of heavy breathing in "the financial times" to suggest the recovery will be delayed a few weeks until the land back, when we

have an opportunity to take those tax cuts up. i think that is a bit of hyperbole. host: you are also a deputy whip for the house. what will be on the floor? guest: what will most likely be on the floor, in the house, that we permanently extend the tax cuts for middle-class, working families, small businesses. we have already given 95% of americans a tax break, 97% of small businesses a tax break. we want to make those permanent. the tax breaks for some of these millionaires from the extension of those tax cuts is fiscally irresponsible. yet, republicans continue to talk from both sides of their mouth. they talk about spending and,

suddenly, deficit reduction. for them to have suddenly found this on deficit spending is disingenuous. host: extending tax cuts for the lower and middle class permanently also does a lot for the deficit. you cannot sustain it. guest: over all, it does add a huge amount to the deficit, but if you are going to take a fiscal hit a from those tax breaks, we should provide a break to those individuals who we know that will take a windfall from the tax break and put it back into the economy. remember, we are talking about income over $250,000. we are not suggesting that we take away completely tax breaks.

just the income over $250,000. frankly, those individuals are not taking that windfall and putting it back into the economy. they are putting it into their already-fat investment portfolio. host: first phone call. gene, go ahead. caller: first of all, it is the people's money. he mentioned it was a generic race. well, in california, there have been nothing but negative adds by boxer. you also said that you are going to do research on these candidates and avoid personal attacks. host: do you have a response?

guest: not really. i think we're making sure our members are pointing out the contrast from the people who are asking for their vote, those who are suggesting, like barbara boxer, who are already fighting hard on behalf of her constituents in california -- we need to compare the record. what a lot of people described as negative campaigning is really comparing and contrasting the candidates. barbara boxer has a fantastic record. i have debated her opponent, carly fiorina. we can always agree that she is running a equally, if not more so, negative campaign. host: next phone call. caller: i am a democrat, and i will be voting for the democrats

in november. i am urging all the democrats to get out and vote. if people had voted for al gore, we would not have been in this situation because they would not have had george bush. anyway, i want to thank you for health care. i am one of those people who could not get coverage, because i am a cancer survivor. keep up the good work. please defeat the republican tea partys. host: are you hearing from democratic candidates in your state about this bill, what are they saying? guest: i will be voting for tim conaway, because i have ron paul here who is out of his board. he wants to put a $2,000 copiague on medicare. he wants to fight the civil war all over again.

-- co-pay on medicare. i am here from tim conaway, but they need to be more vocal on their agenda. they have done some good things. they corralled wall street. ms. wasserman, could you please tell them to talk about what the republicans have voted no on? we tried to get a bill through on the outsourcing. host: i think she was referring to jack conway, running against rand paul. i have consistently heard our members talk about health care reform, the major record of accomplishments on tax breaks

for the middle-class, small businesses, on wall street reform, the recovery act, the fact that before of president -- before president obama took office, we were bleeding 700,000 jobs, the month, now we are gaining. we have a long way to go, and people want the pace of recovery to be quicker, but we have made some significant progress. i understand her annexed. there are some members who are partners in various issues, talking to their constituents. that is why it is important to highlight the real importance of what we can focus on. the generic ballot, that generally compares people's

sentiments. making sure that we look at the race-by-race polling. even in races where a few months ago, the democrat was down, the numbers have now turned and the democrat is ahead again. host: clinton, missouri. larry, good morning. caller: is not a wonderful morning. we have obamacare, capp and tax, and that will bring this country. i am not a republican or democrat, but believe me, this independent is going to vote republican. now, i would be willing to give the president a break, when he started, and you guys, the same way, but all i see is you want

to bring our country down. several years ago, george soros said that he would support the democratic party. you can call me what ever you want. i am 72 years old. i have been around this country for a long time. i have never seen things as bad as they are, could be. host: we have your point. have you voted for democrats in the past? did you vote for clinton? guest: i voted for harry truman who said the buck stops here. the deficit is just astronomical. host: we get your point. how do you attract an independent voter like that? guest: i am not sure that he was a true independent. sounds like he has not voted for

a democrat since harry truman. the true independent voter is someone who cares about the deficit, economy. we are focusing talking to our constituents, focusing on the results that we have given. you look at this year, we have created about 83,000 private- sector jobs already this year. that is more jobs created than in the entire bush presidency. there were no net new jobs created by that administration. host: what do you say when people talk about the unemployment rate above 8%? when he pushed the stimulus bill, he said that an employment would be below 8%. it is not. guest: no, it is not. it was probably not a good idea

to tie a bill to a specific number in the drop of the unemployment rate, but there is no question we have made progress and we are on the upswing. the way to talk about it is simply through demonstrating the results, recognizing that people still have a lot of thanks to -- angst. we are talking about the efforts that we have made on their behalf and drawing a contrast between us and our opponents on election day. while we still face the potential for significant losses, i believe we will hold the majority. if you refer to to eric bolling, dammit -- a generic pooling, democrats were the ones that turned around jobs and focused on middle families. there is a lot more confidence to make those both a priority.

that is what will bring the voters to the polls. host: next phone call. guest: your guest said -- caller: your guest said a little while ago the democrats have finally woken up. you should turn off your alarm clocks because you are going to be beaten. host: why are democrats asleep? let's take a part of her question. guest: i think there was an undercurrent of angst from democrats who wanted us to pass everything in rapid fire, everything on the agenda. some of the more aggressive voters did have some angst that immigration reform was not passed, that we need to repeal don't ask, don't tell. some concern -- rightfully so --

that those things have not gotten done yet. the public option. a lot of voters were concerned about that. those are all still things -- immigration reform, don't ask, don't tell, changes that we need to make on the public option -- those are things that we need to focus on, but as we crystalize what is at stake here in november, our democratic voters are beginning to realize they do not want to elect candidates from afar, extreme right wing fringe of the party. they do not want to elect people who want to get rid of the 14th amendment, social security. host: henry, democratic line.

caller: i am an 80-year-old african-american man. guest: nice to meet you. caller: i want to ask you one thing. why don't you go after boehner? you have a man in ohio running against him. he was saying that you'll do not help him. guest: you are following the elections pretty closely. we have a lot of races in play. 43 members in our front line program, which i am responsible for. those members we need to make sure that we protect and help get reelected and maintain the democratic majority, so we can continue to turn the economy around and create jobs. we are asking them to prove themselves, that they have a

certain amount of support that they generate on their own. i have not looked at his opponent, but we have so many people on the playing field right now, 22 protect the incumbents, then look at the open republican seats, incumbent republicans that we can try to recruit and elect a democrat. that is what we have been trying to do. it spreads our resources thin. i have not been involved in any decisions on mr. boehner's race but i heard the president take it to him pretty good last week. getting into the personality thing is probably not a good idea, but challenging them on their wrong-headed things is the thing to do. host: next phone call. caller: first of all, every time

i hear you talk about the failed bush policies, is it not true that the democrats have held a super majority for the last three years? when you talk about the failed pushed policies, is that not disingenuous? it is actually not a policy that came from washington. you held a super majority. bush could not pass any thing. guest: we do not have a super majority. we have been in the majority since 2006, when president bush was still in the majority. obviously, when you have a divided government like that, neither the executive or legislative branch gets everything they want. certainly, we were not able to steamroll the president. in the past few years, we have had the majority, but because of

the unfortunate way that the republicans have conducted themselves, filibusters, requiring every single bill to get 60 votes, they have brought legislation almost to a screeching halt. they have refused to be cooperative. the president has tried to reach across the aisle repeatedly, trying to get republicans to work with us, but they have been more interested victory on election day and regaining power. host: governor's mansion in west virginia, running for robert f.'s open seat. -- byrd's open sea. t.

"the wall street journal" says -- repeal of the healthcare bill, no matter who is in peril of it, does not make sense. any piece of legislation that we pass in washington, certainly is not stamped with protection. there is always room for improvement. the two provisions that governor mansion is talking about, i certainly do not agree with the characterization, but he is entitled to his opinion. what majority of americans are pleased with is that we have finally taken the insurance industry out of the driver's seat when it comes to health care decisions. as a breast cancer survivor, i am thrilled that last thursday was -- we finally enacted a patient's bill of rights.

patients can now be dropped from coverage. young adults, until 26, can remain on their parent's insurance. they got rid of annual caps. when a to make sure that we have real benefits here. i would love to have that debate, we welcome that debate on whether or not healthcare reform should be repealed. once people -- as people have these benefits kicking in, and for seniors, the closing of the doughnut hole -- then we will see which way the debate goes. morning.llecaller: good i voted for president bush the first time around.

when the war started, i started to get second thoughts. he doubled the deficit. the wars will cost over $3 trillion after everything is done, taking care of all of our young men and women. the other thing, i cannot understand -- i wish the democrats would really pound the republicans on this. pardon me, i am nervous. they held up a vote for the military. demint held it from going to the floor. it was the last military vote that came up. host: defense authorization bill? caller: yes. mr. coburn is holding up our

money that we have allotted for because somebody needs to be paid to put that money out. people need to know these things. these senators are acting like gods and holding the people of this country hostage. guest: i could not agree more with the way the senate is. it is baffling to me and most americans, that one senator can put a stranglehold on a piece of legislation that the majority of senators support. that is the way the republicans have conducted themselves. instead of pursuing the position of majority rules, they have changed the procedure or rules, and now 60 votes is required to do anything. host: when democrats were in the

minority, which they did the same thing. guest: we certainly did not. we did not set them up so that every single bill needed 60 votes. they have filibustered every single bill, every major piece of legislation. we did not even come close to that. the filibuster has its purpose. there are times when it makes sense, but when you are using it to stop the president's the agenda at every step, that is irresponsible. again, something that we are talking about, leading up to election day. host: tom, republican line. good morning. caller: did is out of the question to continue telling mistruths that the bush administration did not create any jobs. they created about 3 million.

it would be nice to go back to that unemployment rate. guest: i do not know where you get your numbers from. there were no net new jobs created. we ended up with a $1.30 trillion deficit. he inherited a $5.60 trillion surplus. that was because the of ourpay- go rules. the republicans allow that to collapse. they passed trillions of dollars for tax cuts, mostly for the wealthiest few. that put us in a situation, combine with their other measures, that put us in an $11.50 trillion deficit, worked out over 10 years. we are trying to rein in that

fiscal recklessness. with the reestablishment of pay- go rules, with limited exception, we would have to pay for everything that we pass, just like americans have to pay for all their bills. host: next phone call. from vermont. democratic line. caller: let me tell you what i see in vermont. i see big corporations staying here and they are doing fairly well. but the small businesses are leaving in droves. a semiconductor oem, burton snowboards is leaving -- guest: are they leaving for

other states? caller: what i see our siemens, other big corporations, and they are connected militarily. it seems the regulation that are happening are keeping big business alive, and small business does not have a chance because of the tighter regulations. guest: i am not sure if he meant they are leaving for another state or another country, but one of the important distinction that folks need to be aware of, the republicans in congress have repeatedly voted to keep a tax loophole open that allows any business to ship jobs overseas. it incentivizes the previous law -- in the previous law, it

incentivize them to ship jobs overseas. we want to focus on creating jobs in america. you talked about the burden of creating four new businesses. we have talked about tax relief for small businesses. this past week, we have legislation including 16 tax breaks for small businesses. complete tax breaks on capital gains. making sure that they have a 100% deduction for those who are self-employed on the health insurance. a long list of those tax breaks. we want to provide relief for those small businesses because they are the engine that will drive our turnaround. host: an earlier caller mentioned george soros. he writes this week --

if the economy were to falter again, would you have to put more stimulus back on the table, aid to states, etc, would you have to do more? guest: ben bernanke has been keeping a close eye on the economy. he does not believe the fed will get involved in making adjustments, unless he sees a significant downswing, which he has not seen. remember, a couple of weeks ago, folks were talking about a double-dip recession. we successfully avoided that because of our balance between spending and making sure that we can create enough jobs, responsible tax-cutting policy that gets and keeps cash in the hands of small business owners. we have to strike that balance

with also a focus on deficit reduction so that we do not continue to send our deficit over the economy which was amassed in the bush in administration. host: so some spending would be on the table if the economy would falter again? guest: we need to see. we have not talked about another stimulus. we just pass rules for banks that increased the amount of lending that they could give out to small businesses. there was a real problem with getting out to small businesses. we believe that is going to have a huge impact. host: back to phone calls. springfield, new jersey. david, go ahead. caller: i wanted to get your comment on what you feel about global governance, the abuse of

wealth that is going on, how europe is looking to break down our -- bring down our style of living. i am curious if you feel responsible for how we are being trapped with obama, with his policies, to bring down our standard of living. i do not think you realize what is going on. guest: we certainly cannot ignore the fact we are in a global economy. there are essentially no walls and economically now, particularly with this huge rise in technological capability. i think president obama has dramatically changed the perception of the nine it states. his diplomatic out reach -- the united states. his diplomatic outreach -- even

with countries that we have had a terrible relationship -- he has reached out. in the bush and administration, when he used the go it alone strategy on the iraq war, the perception of america was pretty bad. we have recovered significantly, and now we are able to win agreement on sanctions from russia and china against iran. president bush would never have won that because of the approach that he took interacting with other world leaders. host: old town, florida. dianne, republican line. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. basically, i think the american people are naive. when president obama it first came into office, if he had been

the blame on the bush administration and really got into the economics of what was left after he walked out the door, there would not be all this rage against obama because they would understand he had nothing to work with. like an ex-wife that walks out your door with your credit cards. guest: i think president obama was wise to avoid the blame game. we have made sure that folks understand he inherited the most significant set of problems than anyone in history. right as he began, the economy was about to careen off a cliff. we had to rescue it from a second depression. we had to make sure that we did not lose two of the three major automobile companies in this country. he had to get to work. the american people certainly did not want to hear finger- pointing. they just wanted us to get the

job done. now that we are approaching the election, the results that we got for the american people, we will be talking about where we were compared with how far we have come. that is an important point for people to focus in on when they are deciding which candidate to focus. -- to vote for. the republican candidate almost exclusively wants to return as to the policies under the bush administration that put us in a deficit, that send our economy over a cliff, that made it almost impossible to regulate wall street, financial institutions. making sure that

>> c-span's local content vehicles are traveling the country as we look at some of the most closely contested house elections leading up to november's midterm elections. >> how are you today? >> fine. >> we look forward to seeing you in washington. >> i am not going. >> oh, you are not going? >> thank you for being here. >> next time around. i hope i will see you again. thank you very much for your service. >> father, we thank you for our firefighters, police officers, civil servants and military. father, we have another fight, and that fight is in washington. >> the first thing we have to do is get the debt and the deficit under control. that means stop spending. that is one of the first things i think we need to do.

>> the 24th congressional district is a new district created after the 2010 census. it is one of the most government-didn't congressional districts in the united states. that is because of the space program. with the winding down of the space program, there is a lot of unemployment. not just for the usual reasons of a sour economy. it was really carved out for team philippiney, who was the first to win the race. he had a key role in carving out this district, one that was designed for him to win. yet, it is only barely a republican district and about 20% of the voters are independent. another candidate was able to win the district because of tom fe everyone neyy's problems.

feeney responsible for its victory. show has been cagey in the way she campaigns on that. she doesn't defend the health care plan as a whole but rather selectively defends aspects of the health care plan in order to i guess not be associated with everything that has happened in the obama administration. her pundit is cindy adams, who is a long-time state representative, who won a very contested republican party race. there was only a 3% difference

between the three candidates running. sandy adams was the won with the most political experience. she comes from law enforcement, and so she has used her background in law enforcement to present herself as a person tough on crime, someone who is pro military and has sort of a strong self presentation as a candidate. >> all in all, they all have the same concern, and that is the out of control spending, the debt of our nation, the deficit, and they want someone to actually take control of that, someone who will listen. they don't feel like their representative currently is listening to them. >> there is a strong local issue that is felt strongly by voters, and that is what about all the displaced workers here, who are mostly skilled workers? retraining for them, new employment opportunities for

them and what national legislation they will support or grants they will procure. as a democrat white house, democrat majority maybe still in the congress, she is in a better position to deliver pork barrel, if you will, to address the job needs in the district. >> we work every day in the halls of congress to try to improve benefits for veterans. i am happy to say that in a bipartisan measure we brought $371 million to florida. it has been a 20-year battle to get the v.a. medical center built here, and it is under construction. it will be serviced a great new state of the art facility right here in central florida. >> i think because it is a republican-leaning district, the cook people rate it an r-4, meaning it leans barely republican, but does lean that way. it has had a history of

republican representation. tom feeney is a very conservative republican, and they feel it was a fluke that he lost, because of ethical issues and not because the district was becoming more democrat. they think it is their district, and they want it back. >> c-span's local content vehicles are traveling the country as we look at some of the most closely contested house races leading up to this november's midterm elections. >> for more information on what the local content vehicles are up to this election season, visit our website, c-span.org/lcv. >> our coverage of campaign 2010 continues in a few moments with a debate between new hampshire's second house district seat candidates. in an hour, the debate in

connecticut between the candidates for governor, republican tom foley and democrat dan malloy. after that a conference on national security. >> a couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow. british prime minister david cameron speaks to the conservative party conference. that is on c-span-2 at 9:30 eastern. margaret hamburg will be at the national press club for a speech with questions afterwards. that is at 1:00 p.m. eastern. >> next, a debate between new hampshire's second house district candidates. former republican congressman charlie bass and democrat ann

kluster. the debate is courtesy of new hampshire public tv around radio. >> from new hampshire public radio, this is the kennedy for on business -- can deform on business and the economy. -- candidate forum on business in the economy. in hello and welcome to that candidate forum on business in the economy. we're coming to you from studio d, and for the next hour we will hear from candidates for the 2nd congressional district discussing some of the most challenging economic issues of our time. we want to hear what they would do was members of congress rather than attack each other. let me introduce our canada's. former republican congressman charlie bass and democrat ann

mclane kuster. here are our panelists. during the first half-hour forum, the panelists will ask questions, then we move on to an exciting lightning round would brief and decisive answers to a series of issues. then i will take over and lead a discussion. questions came from our readers, listeners, and viewers. we tossed a coin to see it would go first. that goes to an mclane kuster. >> good morning and welcome, ms. kuster. this week the first round of regulations went into effect. how will this affect new hampshire's business's ability to provide health care for their employees? >> i want to help families right here in new hampshire.

like a number of families who have been struggling with their health care costs, and as a member of the small business community working with new hampshire's businesses for the last 25 years, i know that the double digit increases in premiums are simply unsustainable. the important law that went into effect this weekend was children being able to get their health insurance, having to do with older young people up to the age of 26 being able to stay on their family health insurance, and these are solutions that families needed. what i do not think they did overall was go far enough to control costs. i believe in the competitive model and the increase of competition to bring down costs. that would be a priority for me when i got the congress. it is clear that new hampshire businesses need help from the dramatic increases in premiums year after year after year.

it is simply unsustainable. jean i would like to ask you -- i understand that the cost is going to be $88 billion over 10 years to fund this reform. you mentioned that competitive marketplace. if you could give me more about that, that would be helpful. and will businesses bear the burden of this $88 billion? >> the congressional budget office indicates that over time this would bring down the cost of health care and would help to lower our deficit. there provisions in the health care that are going to be extremely important for preventative care and keeping people well. that would dramatically lower costs. it is important for people have

access to health insurance coverage so that they get the preventive care that they need. we're bearing the brunt of the dramatic increases were people do not get the prevention and treatment to be well. i am actually encouraged by those developments in the new health care reform. i would go much further in terms of addressing the cost issue. the example that i would use is similar to public university systems, where if we have the public insurance option. i do not support the public provision of health care, but as to insurance, there should be an option similar to the way some people choose a public university, some people choose a private university. the health care bill that was passed relies on private health insurance. and in order to create competition to bring down the cost of health care, the reality

is that it is too expensive and too much of a burden. >> i don't think you addressed the question directly on businesses. >> what the bill provides for is support for small businesses to pay any type of increase in premium that they might have. i'm talking that this is -- bill did not go far enough in bringing down the cost. we need to have something along the lines of an option, of public insurance option that would increase competition and bring down costs. i would not have supported the bill in its current form and we need to address the cost issue. this bill addresses access but not cost. >> now mr. bass. >> i like to ask you the same question. how do you see the changes of the health care reform bill affecting businesses? >> 3 provisions that went into

effect yesterday are supported on a bipartisan level and i would support them as well. unfortunately they are like icing on a sponge cake. the tougher stuff is coming later. as you mentioned in your follow- up question, these new provisions tied in such a fashion that they go into effect before some of the other tax increases and other revenue bases go into effect over a period of years. the business community will bear the brunt of increase costs, which are very significant. it is unfortunate that the health care bill is structured in such a fashion so that parts of the bill that everyone supports take effect a month before an election day, when the taxes which are coming, certainly on the way for small businesses, will have a serious negative impact on our economy,

and take place in a year in a half. for people like me yourself in short, i will not have -- people like me will not have any ability it all and will have to pay premiums that will $200 to $400 higher. that does not help rejuvenate the economy in this state. >> thank you. could you be more specific that people will not be able to obtain insurance? >> ultimately we're all going to have the same insurance. she mentions that this will turn out to be a public option. the public option is in essence a choice of one. the bill actually says that if you choose to maintain your wrong policy, you can, but there are restrictions on how that policy can be administered, how high premiums can go, and so insurance companies will drop

the individual coverage, forcing you into the exchange's or your premiums will go up. small businesses and individuals. >> thank you. >> we move on. >> a lot of politicians there s -- are saying that allowing the bush tax cut to expire would hurt small businesses in new hampshire. do you agree with that or to merge >> i can give you an example of that. i served on the board of management at one of the northeast possible largest manufacturers of wood pellets -- pallets. the idea that a llc like ours would pass its profits on to the shareholders and expect just the tax rate for the owners of the

company to go up, and it would take ultimately across the business community -- one person spoke to the manchester chamber of commerce on wednesday. we like to see economic recovery sooner rather than later. taking $300 million out of this economy is a bad idea. these tax relief proposals were past 10 years ago. they were not supported for the most part by the entire democratic caucus. now they are for all of them except for this measure, which i believe frankly is political. i hope that we can work this out. what worries me the most is the people in washington who are going to allow these taxes -- right now it is delayed until after the election. whole thing is going to expire.

it will cost new hampshire families and business and average of $1,700 a year. let's get beyond the political rhetoric of so-called tax cuts for the rich and talk about how it impacts small businesses in this state, how it impacts people where the profits flow through the owners. let's talk about the real economy and get off of this political applause line, election-year rhetoric. >> what would it cost so much money a? >> they believed that they have done the actuarial work, i assume, and the revenue created for the federal government by cutting that part of the tax cut proposal would take $300 million out of the new hampshire economy. either from individuals or businesses. for the most part or in large

part, these tax revenues flow through corporations and limited liability corporation. the impact is going to lead in many instances on jobs and the ability to expand, and the ability to get out of this economic recession quickly. in general, i do not think you should be cutting taxes. >> a quick question for you. the democrats think of just increasing the tax on the wealthiest individuals. would it only fall on a very tiny slice of our population? it is not small businesses go much, but individuals. explain more the effect on businesses specifically. to many small businesses in new hampshire are known as corporations where the profits flow through to the individual.

it the business has more than $250,000 in profits, that flows through the individual and the individual tax rate is affected by that. not only that, the company itself would have to provide more taxes to pay these taxes, because they end up paying the money will be in and there would be less revenue for these companies to have, to create employment, and new hampshire is a small business state. the effect here in new hampshire would be far greater than it would be elsewhere in the nation. >> we will give you a chance to respond to that. >> should the bush tax cuts expire? >> i cannot disagree more with charlie bass and this is you. he has been in washington for 12 years. part of this is politics as usual. we need to get onto a new approach. i agree with him that 65% of the workers in new hampshire are

small businesses. but the truth of the matter is, this needs to be poured back into the company to create jobs. what we're talking about is the creation of jobs. i would not focus on giving tax relief to millionaires who are taking the profits out of the businesses, as he explained in detail. those are profits. they are going into the pockets of the business owner. what i want the tax code to do is to incent small business owners to create jobs, the plow all these profits back into the company. i want to eliminate the capital gains tax for small businesses to create jobs, rather than a tax relief for the wealthiest among us. i want to focus tax relief on middle-class families. all across the state, one person

lost his job because his job was outsourced to mexico or china. paper mills have closed, other companies have closed, thousands of people across our district have lost their job and have no tax relief whatsoever. they do not even have a job to pay taxes. i would the fact is tax relief on the middle class families, not the millionaires, and i want to incent millionaires to create jobs. not on small business owners that want to take the money out of the business and put it in the wrong pocket. we need to close the tax loopholes that send jobs overseas, and investing companies right here in new hampshire. >> are you punishing those people who are bringing in more money corps sergeant not punishing all. everyone pays the taxes. i am not willing to borrow --

this is borrowed money, just so we understand, this is you and i contributing to tax relief for millionaires, borrowing that money, increasing our deficit, and putting a burden on future generations. i am raising teenage sons. i do not want to pass on the irresponsible spending and the skyrocketing deficits from the bush era, on to my teenage sons. i want to be responsible about federal spending. federal spending includes borrowing money for tax relief for millionaires. i won a focus on creating jobs, using incentives for small businesses to create jobs right here at home. and that's why i like the capital gains tax which is more aligned with the creation of jobs and income tax, which is wealthier people getting wealthier and wealthier.

this has to do but people putting it away for savings for future generations. >> the wellhead. >> mr. basse claimed it would remove $300 million from the economy. judy and i don't understand that calculation at all. he is saying that those people would not be putting that money back into our economy to create jobs. they're taking it wherever it is -- wherever they are taking it and pocketing. i want to create jobs right here in our communities on main street. i have met people across this district, in claremont, thousands of jobs lost in the industries. all across the district. >> another question. >> ms. kuster, a recent study from the economic study institute found that new hampshire all 16,300 jobs to china, the highest percentage of any state in the country. analysts have cited that is

because of current trade policy to china currency manipulation or that you hampshire is not a good place to do business. what do you see it as. >> this is one of the primary issues of my campaign. i'd much in -- mentioned a couple of times. these are real people with real life whose lives have been hurt dramatically. in one of the house parties in nashua, i met a man had lost a job three times to companies that and move overseas. he has a resume where he cannot find a job in this economy. when charlie bass was in what washington, he voted in 2001 and 2004 for these tax loopholes that out source jobs. they compare the deduction of

moving the jobs overseas and they do not have to pay taxes on their incomes. some companies pretend to pay taxes on their income, take a deduction, and then never pay those taxes. there is also trade policies. he voted for most favored trade status for china. this caused thousands of jobs to be lost in new hampshire, the highest percentage of any other state in the country. i want to close those tax loopholes and investing companies that are right here in new hampshire, the small businesses that we're talking about, main street. we need to build more jobs here, clean energy cops, manufacturing jobs, then to be shipping jobs overseas to china. >> any other proposals on how to deal with the exodus of jobs? >> i am concerned about the most favored trade status for china. i feel very strongly that we need to in our foreign policy,

work on this trade imbalance that we have. we are borrowing from china and we're not able to export. so many of our imports are creating a dramatic trade imbalance. when i got a congress, how will clean up for the people here in new hampshire. >> the same question now for mr. bass. >> what you see is the reasons for new hampshire in the loss of jobs to china? >> let me set this straight. i am providing jobs for the north country. that is talk, this is wall. -- walk. we need tax relief, not election-year gimmicks. the job loss to china is unfortunate. we are borrowing money from china because we're spending so much money now, the deficit has

exploded. and he talks about the voting for exploding deficits. the deficits i voted for our a firecracker. the ones that have big stick -- occurred since january 1 of last year are a neutron bomb. the chinese are the only people with the cash to buy our bonds and we need to have stricter trade sanctions on china. but most favored trade status for china means that china must abide by our rules. we want to get them into this rules system. i do not like the currency situation between the two countries. i think that should be ended and i know that that is occurring. the big issue here is that providing real jobs and not talking about rhetoric, we need to allow companies to accelerate depreciation on tax assessments.

we need to cut the corporate income tax, eliminating small -- capital gains taxes on businesses do not create jobs, because capital gains do not occur until you sell the business. the capital gains tax cut everyone else is going up on january 1. the real issue here is expanding huge tax relief measures, which democrats support 98 percent of -- 98% of. >> what would your -- what would be your approach to tackling the massive trade deficit with china? >> we have to reduce albert deficit. we have to make our companies more competitive on the task level with other companies around the world. i will not going to the history of that, but the fact is that our corporate tax rates are not competitive, and this is an

issue that should be dealt with, not in an election year dialogue, but rather by both parties working together to figure out how to keep our companies here. all companies have a fiduciary duty to shareholders to maximize the health of their business. if the u.s. government creates an environment which are companies 5 -- pay more taxes and others around the world, they cannot compete with others around the world. this calls for real change, that change that i will bring to washington next year. >> mr. basse, congress has been considering energy legislation and reducing greenhouse gases. it is called capt. trade, to eventually overall carbon emissions from businesses over time.

now you oppose it. why did you change your mind? >> note change of mind. the cap and trade bill, waxman and markey and obama and po elosi and reed, proposed, it had no relationship to the one i supported. the cap and trade bill that henry waxman and congressman markey proposed would raise taxes over $700 billion -- $794 billion on businesses over a 10- year period. the money goes into the federal government. it does not go to companies that are going to be clean energy producers, clean manufacturers. a lot the allocation goes to the oil industry. the democrats needed to get the

oil state democratic votes in order to get this out of congress. it is sad that good environmental legislation has gotten such a bad name because of the waxman-markey bill. the tax on businesses that produce carbon, not clear where the money is going to go, and i is one that has worked try to develop alternative energy technologies in this state, because i truly believe that new hampshire could be a place where alternative energy frieds and provides real jobs, and no working example of that is to have this -- and to have this government monstrosity attack these businesses, put the money into the till to be spent on other programs, it is really very sad and it will take awhile for an hour -- to work our way out of it. we need to have meaningful environmental legislation.

it diversifies our energy resources in a way that we are not simply taxing businesses and sending money to the till in washington. >> said use of force some environmental legislation. -- so you support some environmental legislation. judy the nation to start a debate on national renewable electric standards for our nation. the president began this debate back in the early 1970's when he talked about listening our dependence on foreign oil. the issue in america should be diversifying our energy resources and our energy consumption. we should do it by setting standards that balance the need for economic vitality and stability in this country, keeping the government's role at a minimum, yet at the same time, increasing the incentives that we can provide for electric

generation. the bill was supported was an electric standard. it ought to be expanded to include formal as well. around here, we have a significant thermal resources -- would fiver and so forth -- that can be used to replace heating oil for manufacturing. right now we're stuck in the debate on a bill that taxes companies, puts the money into the federal treasury, it does not provide a meaningful path to develop alternative energy resources. >> i like to turn to you know. >> what i want to do is put a price on carbon emissions. the whole time that congressman bass was in washington, 12 years, thousands of votes, some of the most difficult and worst impact on our community and society and on our globe had to

do with his support for oil and gas industries. billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to oil and gas for deregulating oil industries that led to the environmental crisis in the gulf. what happened is all, over time we have an unbalanced energy portfolio. we want to be much more focused on renewable energies. our society has been paying the cost of propping up the oil and gas industry in all of these years. look where it has gotten us. we have a problem with the environment and our economy. i think new hampshire is primed for investing in renewable energy. i want to see that kind of investment in companies that are building new plants in the north country, putting up wind energy, solar panels, all these things taking tax incentives and encouragement and investment

that will not float as long as we're propping up the oil and gas industry and paying the tough price that we all are as a society and our public health from the air pollution, and certainly in terms of our global future for the rising emissions -- carbon calls into our planet. >> i know that you'd like to put a price on carbon. had you address the fears that it will mean higher electricity rates here in new hampshire, especially for businesses? >> i would support tax relief for the small businesses. so there is not a negative impact. my point is we are already paying the price for the subsidies to oil and gas. we are all of us part of our deficit, part of our tax relief flows to the oil and gas companies that are driving up the use of carbon.

it makes us more dependent on foreign oil which is causing some of our global problems and our foreign-policy issues, getting us into wars. what i want to do is make sure that we level the playing field, not at the price of small businesses. i support the credits for small businesses so there is not a negative impact. but i want to level the playing field so that we invest in renewable energies that has a better future and can create jobs right here in new hampshire. >> fasten your seat belts. we're going to the lightning round. this is where our panelists are asked a very straightforward question, and we hope that they can give this a quick and decisive answer. the last candidates have a little trouble with this. [laughter] to the candidate that can answer quickly and simply. >> to which canada it first?

>> you can go to mr. kuster and mr. bass. >> according to recent u.s. d.a., job creation brown creation table -- should the federal government subsidies high-speed internet service to the rural pockets of the state court charging an absolutely. it is critical for small business development and for young people getting into college. we do not want to have the digital divide between both parts of the country that had access and those that cannot. >> absolutely. i agree. and i plan to focus on the preservation of our existing infrastructure that is here in new hampshire. i am afraid it will go the way of the railroad if we stay depended on wireless and cellular and satellite.

good internet is the key, especially in the northern counties of new hampshire, but we have to make sure that it is a public/private partnership. companies that are providing access to the area have the necessary support. i would recommend reauthorization and review and reform of the universal service fund. >> lightning round, mr. bass. i do apologize. another lightning round question. to get president obama has proposed making the federal research and development tax credit permanent. good idea? >> absolutely. i support that. that is an important part of my plan to create jobs to agribusinesses themselves rather than mushing -- money from washington. making that tax credit permanent is a very high priority -- i say yes, and i think it was a

brilliant suggestion by president obama. >> our next lightning round comes from dennis. >> mr. bass, which in minimum wage be? >> i believe the best minimal wage is all paid paid by businesses that is profitable, that is growing, that exists in an economy where taxes are lower. i believe that minimum-wage created by government are not the kind of minimum wages that i want to see. i wish that everyone in america made more than the federal minimum wage. i believe the best way to go about doing that is to promote business development. i do not support increases in the minimum wage. >> could you give a dollar amount? >> i would keep it where it is now. >> i believe it is $7.50 right now. i think anyone would be hard

pressed to raise a family and that figure. i support their wages and investing in jobs here in new hampshire. i would do everything i could to make sure we create good jobs and good wages. >> any specific dollar amount? >> that would keep its $7.50. >> would you support legislation of guaranteed sick leave to employees chris a margin yes. >> i believe those decisions should be made in businesses. another effort on the part of a federal covered -- government to mandate how businesses are run and i would oppose that. judy lightning questions. >> miss kuster, named one federal tax you think should be eliminated. >> i would say i support keeping the research and development

tax, but there are other businesses that are burdensome on business. >> i think that for least a temporary period of time, corporate taxes should be cut. i think the depreciation schedule should be reduced by 50% for a limited period of time, so that we can get capital to grow businesses. >> any specific tax code to mark can you name names? >> having to do with taxes on businesses that keep them from creating good jobs. i do not have specifics in mind right now. i want to be sure to focus on businesses being able to create jobs and the tax code needs to incent the creation of jobs. >> mr. basse, name one tax that you think is fair?

>> the definition of fair and appropriate is relevant. we are where we are today. in a period of economic stagnation, the worst thing we can possibly do is raise taxes. whether they are fair or not is immaterial. what is important here is that be assured that businesses have taxes that are low enough so that they can employ people who make real salaries. >> is there one in particular that you think, ok, i do not mind paying that? >> i don't think that anybody thinks that a tax is either too high or too fair. the reality is that we have certain expenses that we have to meet the governor and we have to raise the money to do it. unfortunately right now, expenses are so far out of whack for what we're creating, it is hard to say what tax would be fair or not. the government expenses are so

bad, we have to start from scratch. >> ms. kuster. >> i definitely think that we do not need tax relief for millionaires by borrowing money from our children and grandchildren's future. mr. bass, should unemployment compensation be extended one more time? today know. i would vote to extended. every time that occurs, it is a reaffirmation of that the europe the stimulus bill. it is now 9.6% nationwide. >> new hampshire is under 6%, and i would strongly recommend extending unemployment benefits for those families that are unable to find new jobs.

my focus will be a budget on creating new jobs and bringing unemployment down. >> should the retirement age for social security be reached for younger workers? >> i do not think it should be raised beyond 67. i feel very strongly about this social security trust fund being strong. >> mr. bass, do you believe that it should be raise? judith know, i do not. i believe that republicans and democrats should work together to create and protect social security with a national commission that would bring this back to congress. >> you did pretty good job of being lightning fast. it's good to miss kuster for. >> congress and president obama of $40 billion bill for small

businesses gaining easier credit. the you support it? >> i have had lots of conversations with local community banks. i want them to be able to lend to businesses that can grow right here in new hampshire. >> this is another example of a potentially failed stimulus /t.a.r.p. program. where is the state? there's so much uncertainty in washington over taxes and deficits, and not have the federal government taking interest in small banks, the rules are going to be too strict or they are not strict enough and bad loans will be made to businesses. the results will be a failure. if we have a good business environment in the state and nation, we will not have to have these injections of taxpayer money to now banks. this is like stimulus #five or

six or seven, and unemployment is still high. to end the problem has been the bailout of the big banks. congressman past vote for the debtor -- congressman bass voted for the deficit bills. >> really quick. cheated everybody knows sitting here today that the collapse on wall street occurred on subprime mortgages, freddie mac and fannie mae, bad legislation passed before my time which led all these bomb project -- subprime mortgages be made in the first race first place. -- in the first place. >> we want to switch gears again. we will move to the long form discussion of our program. i will ask the candidates won

all logic, philosophical question. we would get their thoughts. it is an open-ended discussion among the three of us. i'll turn to mr. bass first. what is the proper role of government in the private sector? >> the government should protect america from threats domestically and abroad. it should provide assistance for those who are truly in need. i think that the government should make sure that we have good, properly monitored interstate commerce. i think the government should provide domestic protections for sectors across straight lines. as far as business is concerned, the federal government should stay out of business and people's pockets as much as it possibly can. government should also seek to live within its means. the impact of $1.5 trillion deficits has an effect on everybody.

in general, laura, government's role should be kept to as low was possible. unfortunately within the last 10 months, that relationship has changed dramatically, and it is getting worse and worse every day. if we do not have a change in washington now, i do not know where america is going to be. the government will be bigger than the country itself. >> stay out of business is pockets, regulations? >> regulation is important and self regulation does not work. i believe in certain regulations in commerce. i believe in accountability and transparency in business transactions. what i try to avoid is the creation of your bureaucracies -- of new bureaucracies. a lot of industry in america is so heavily regulated that the regulators do not know how to

administer the regulations. it is not only unfortunate for us domestically, but it has an impact on how we compete in countries around the world. and health care bill will affect every business in the country, it will cost $110 billion. that is not a good role for government. >> i think congressman bass demonstrated with his votes over 12 years in congress exactly what approach it would take. deregulating wall street, that led to the collapse of our economy. deregulating oil and gas industries that led to the biggest environmental disaster of our lifetime. what i think the proper role of government is is to protect people, not businesses. congressman bass had been part of the problem as usual in washington. i don't think we would see anything different if we sent him back there. i am looking for a new approach to government that would put people's needs first over

politics, they would look out for investors where they your saving -- whether you are saving for colleges or retirement. so that people do not have to fear for their future. the work hard all of these many years. during my campaign, i have met families who have lost everything because of the greed that led to this collapse. i think we need the proper role of government, not over regulation on small businesses. i want to let small business thrived in the state. but smart reforms, smart regulations for wall street said that we do not have to fear that our future will not be secure. that is the proper role for government. judy people are fearful, all right. they are fearful lest the what has happened in wishing to -- over what is happening in washington of the last few months. trillion dollars deficits as far as the eye can see, taxes going

up to%, the specter of inflation, the specter of a health care plan that knowing can understand. it will produce, not increase, competition. people are scared and that is the fundamental reason why this economy hasn't turned around -- uncertainty. how many times that people told me that they are uncertain and worried? they are worried because of the obama administration in washington is on a new approach -- you are right. it is a new approach in america is running for the hills. we need to change in january. said, we do hear from business owners saying that they are afraid to invest, the government is too involved, i am a friend of health care bill, and afraid of new regulations, i am deaafrd of deficits. there's a fear about how the

government. did this all started with president bush and the 12 years that congressman bass of voted. how would it be any different if we sent him back there? we need to get this economy moving again. president bush took office and we were in a surplus. when it was handed over to president obama, we were dramatically in debt, losing 800,000 jobs every month. these to the problems that the republicans and congressman bass left our economy in, a shambles. to send them back to washington is not going to turn this around. but we need to do is invest in business, invest in small business, that is where the jobs one will come from. invest in our infrastructure,

modernize it, roads and bridges and highways that we need to invest in, broadband communication. create jobs here in new hampshire that are bringing down our unemployment under 6% -- these are all the advances. but this was a catastrophic collapse of our economy. at the hands of president bush, and these were the years when congressman bass was in washington for voting for the skyrocketing deficits and what types of the regulation that did not protect consumers, did not protect families here in new hampshire. >> it's easy to blame things on george bush, dick cheney, and halliburton. those days are over. the reality of the exploding of the deficit went from $4 trillion to $8 trillion.

unfortunately, we would have had more if the unfortunate events of september 11 had not occurred. the deficits that have been rung up by the democrats in the last 20 months are greater than the entire period that i was in congress. and for a democrat and a supporter of nancy pelosi and nancy -- and barack obama to suggest that the deficit has not happened in all -- the deficit that occurred in the last 20 months happen because of the prior administration, means that they are going the wrong way. let's try a different approach. i hope i have the chance to do that, come january. >> these to the people that drove the car right into the ditch. >> de you think voters will feel

the way that mr. bass does? you've had the reins for two years. >> the bush administration, they know the loss of jobs, 800,000 jobs per month, and we have created jobs. it takes a long time to pull out of this deficit that was created by this crisis. we were on the brink of the next total disaster in our economy. it was a total meltdown. the next great depression. and voters are very savvy, this i know from talking to voters for the past 15 months in every corner of this district. people understand these are challenging times. and for republicans who voted for the very policies that got us into this mess to think that we're going to hand back a key

and just make glib responses that they are going to bring changes -- what kind of change? we know that they favored the special interests, they favor the large oil and gas companies, they favor those parts of the financial services that caused all of these problems. the big banks. we need to make sure that the big banks pay back those bailouts in full. that is our money. that is our tax money. spend that here at a time. >> most of the big ones have paid that back. >> laura is right about that. no matter how many jobs you may have created, the unemployment rate in january of last year was 7.7% nationwide. now it is 9.6%. i know see how you can say you are creating jobs when the unemployment rate is going up. few had 20 munson made it better. the fact is that the actions they have taken was wrong. they increase the deficit, they

may have saved jobs, but most of those jobs were not producing real goods and services for the economy. the result is that the recession is thumping along, and until we have a change, until we revitalize the business community, and get people on payrolls that are making things that people buy and sell, and get money in their pockets to buy stuff, we will be right where we are today next year. >> so government's role in doing that? give me three things. >> speedup appreciation so that companies put money into new stuff. cut the corporate tax rate temporarily. maybe consider having a payroll tax holiday to stop these government bureaucracies and the $10 billion stimulus that the government runs.

>> the clock is staring at me. three things the government could do to provide that. >> tax relief for small businesses to invest in capital, they can invest in new equipment. those of the ideas that are being put forward by president obama. we need to give tax relief -- we do not need to give tax relief to millionaires. we need to give tax relief to families that are actually hurting. those of the steps i would take. >> thank you very much. we turn to the last segment now of our forum. i will go to my colleagues. this is the final panelist question. the candidates will have one minute to respond. >> but if you talk about cutting wasteful spending. mr. bass, what three programs would you suggest? rolling back the spending

increases with the goal of getting it back to where they were 20 months ago. each appropriations subcommittee would be given the job of getting at least 50% of the money out of the budget right away. secondly, i think that the congress ought to establish a spending reduction committee. that committee would be charged with the responsibility of pulling spending reduction ideas and bringing them to the floor of a house for a vote. so we can get the public reconnected with congress, saving money on the same level as spending and taxing. i believe that the first priority has to be to get this budget under control and get spending back to where it was. when the democrats to cover, we have had on average 50% increases in spending last year. that is unsupportable. absolutely unsupportable. that is where i would begin.

>> give me the specifics on the programs. >> the appropriations committee has the responsibility for those programs. that would be a task for cutting were they see fit. but they cannot take their appropriations up unless they are less than they were the previous year. indeed to have a freeze on non- defense, non-discretionary spending. >> the same question. judith congressman bass butter for thousands of different earmarks as he voted for deficits that went from $4 trillion to $8 trillion. how would in the multibillion- dollar subsidies to the oil and gas industries that congressman bass of voted for. we need a level playing field for renewable energy, to make us less dependent on foreign oil and to save the planet, so we could save billions of dollars there.

congressman bass took a different pay increases and i would freeze congressional pay until we get that balance the budget. we need to do everything we can to get these deficits under control. >> dennis, go ahead please. >> first to you, miss kuster. a question from someone who says that congress is like a third grader at recess. what is one business or economic issues that you would reach across the aisle to get your party to resolve? >> i could not agree more. i grew up in a bipartisan household. many people know that my family was republican, my mother was in the new hampshire's legislature, and i am proud of the heritage that i have. i've been a democrat my whole

life. we had a real dialogue in our family about issues. i am used to listening here in new hampshire, bringing people together to get things done. i have always worked in a bipartisan way on a bridge in a unique college savings plan. i have had a long record of working in a bipartisan way. i think one top priority would be the renewable energy and getting republicans to come to the table. i know the republicans here in new hampshire's share this concern that i have about creating good jobs, making us less dependent on foreign oil and saving the planet. it is a real win-win. .

>> i think we ought to work across the aisle in a bipartisan fashion on preserving and protecting social security, it's a huge issue. secondly, i think we should change the debate on health partisan health care bill that was passed last year, no discussions with republicans until after the election in massachusetts, and have a bipartisan agreement on reforming health care. environmental reform is the same

way. no discussions with republicans over the last 12 months on environmental reform. as for the pay raise issue, annie and i have the same position on pay raise no cost of living adjustment until the budget is balanced. i worked for four surplus budgets an i'm sorry that 9/11 occurred in 2001. i thought the congress did a pretty good job of 9/11 and frankly, it's unfortunate you're spending $100,000 or $200,000 or whatever yao spending on television advertisements on such an idiotic issue when there are such bigger issues that americans are facing today that need to be resolved with level, pragmatic leadership. >> all right, congressman. we look forward to more discussions with you and the public looks forward to more bipartisan cooperation. that's all time we have. i want to thank our audience for joining us here at new hampshire public radio and you at home for watching an listening an thank you to our panelists and to our

candidates. thanks for coming out. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] cletclet [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> the candidate forum on business an the economy has been sponsored by lincoln financial group and produced in cooperation with the new hampshire union leader and new hampshire public television. the

"hartford current." >> live, fox connecticut and the "hartford current" presents the debate, here's our moderator, fox chief political correspondent. >> good evening. i'm carl cameron, chief political correspondent at the fox news channel. welcome to the connecticut gubernatorial debate between the

democratic nominee, dan malloy foley. this debate will cover a wide range of topics from the economy to education. joining me are our two panelists, once asked a question, the candidates have 90 seconds to answer the direct question and 30 seconds each in rebuttal. timekeepers from the yale debate association are watching the clock for us. the order has been determined by a coin toss. specific subjects and questions for chosen by fox connecticut and the "hartford cow rant." they have not been shared with either candidate. the audience has agreed to remain quiet. the first question will be for mr. tom foley. we start with breaking news, so to speak. this afternoon, stephen hayes was found guilty of 16 of the 17

charges he faced in connection with the horrible triple murder home invasion in 2007. six of those counts are capital murder felony which is carry the death penalty. since the first question is to you, mr. foley, and you do support the death penalty, there are many criti who don't think it should be used. what do you say to them and to your opponent by way of making them understand why you believe it would be appropriate, and what would you do to expedite it? >> first of all, if there was ever an instance where the -- where capital punishment, executio should apply, it's this ce. it's a truly heinous case against three women and a nice family in a community her in connecticut. i support the death penalty, first of all, a majority of the citizens of connecticut support the death penalty and i support it for two reasons. first of all, i think it discourages crimes but an even

better argument that i've heard is that corrections officers are safer. somebody is sent to life in prison with no chance of death penalty can kill a corrections officer and there is no further penalty to be put on them. it does jeopardize their safety. i also think there's a fundamental sense of justice related to the death penalty. i support it, i would not change the law. for the next governor, there will be a death penalty abolition bill waiting in their in box, i will veto it. my opponent said on friday he would not vee it. if he's elected, there's a virtual certaintthe death penalty will be apolished here in connecticut. he said it wouldn't apply to the criminals who perpetrated this crime, but it would. even if it specifically excluded

them, they would have a good case. i will veto any attempts to abolish it. >> mr. malloy, your opponent said it upholds a fundamental sense of justice. explain your opposition to the death penalty and why you'd veto it. >> let's be cheer. -- be clear. i want to express my condolences and my grief, it's a profound thing that hpened to him and the two victims of the homicide. i want to be very, very, very clear that under the legislation that was proposed in the past, anlegislation that i would sign, if these two gentlemen are sentenced to death, that sentence will carried out. period. what i have said is that i would sign a prospective elimination of the death penalty. i also want to be very clear about this. i'm the only person running for governor who has prosecuted people, tom. when you went away to make a lot of money, i took my first job in

brooklyn, new york, and i did investigations work for 18 months, i prevented 250 cases to the grand jury, i tried 23 felony cases and i had convictions in 22 of those cases. the last four of those cases were homicides. i'm the only person running for governor who has put someone away for life. so i wan to be very clear, no one is going to protect your family as well as i will. if tom wants to insinuate that, he's simply wrong and trying to play politics with a very serious issue. >> mr. foley, you have 30 seconds. >> dan, you're a lawyer, and as you said a prosecutor. the prospect of these people being executed if you fail to veto a bill, it's certain to be on the next governor's desk, apolishing the death penalty, it's almost certain that stephen hayes and his colleague in this crime will not be put to death. >> tom, why don't you tell the

people of connecticut the truth, that the people who are currently on death row in connecticut, the one who has been there longest is 22 years. you can't assure anything is going to happen. what i said is, any legislation that i would sign would be out into the future. i guarantee it would be drafted in such a way, it's a guarantee that these two individuals, if we ever had a workable death penalty, would be put to death if that's the sentence of the jury. >> gentlemen, thank you. our next question is from the "hartford cow rant." >> we'd like to ask you about some of your ads tonight, some of your attack ads. this has been a nasty race, fought over the airwaves. we're going to take a listen to some of those ads and get your thoughts on them. the first is from the foley campaign. >> dan malloy's new negative ad? three lies in 30 seconds he said he created job bus official records say stamford lost3,000 jobs since 2000.

dan malloy, misrepresenting tom foley's record and caught in a lie about his own. connecticut needs a governor who tells the truth. >> tom doesn't like to tell t whole truth. for instance he doesn't want to tell you that from 1995 to 2007, stamford was the only city that had grown jobs and retained more jobs than they had in 1995. with stamford severe -- was -- with stamford cervily hurt, the answer is yes, it was. but what we did was take an old industrial city, not unlike the other old industrial citie of this state and change it into a financial center of the world. not the financial center, but a financial center. in fact, our community is so strong that tom actually moved his company there and has his headquarters for his campaign there. doesn't sound like a community that you wouldn't want to spend

time in. but i also want to be very clear that what we did were some other amazing things, lowered crime by 63% between 1995 and 2008. we created thousands of units of housing. we added more open space. we retained a triple-a bond rating and invested in instra -- infrastructure so the next generation has infrastuckture equal or better than our own. we improved our educational system. tom can take a point out of anything and boil it down and make it work for him but there's nobody that thinks stamford is not a great place to live and work. >> ok. >> mr. foley, you have 30 seconds to respond. >> 90? >> yes, 90 seconds. >> i agree, stamford is a great city. dan is misrepresenting his effort. i think it's important in negative ads you provide the

voter with accurate information. stamford lost 8,000 jobs, he was mayor at the time. if you want to go back to the time he started, they lt 7,800 and something job. dan says he's created thousands of jobs. when did you create those jobs? as these jobs have been lost. he said stamford has a top 46 ranked school system. it has the largest achievement gap of any city in connecticut. only 37% of their 10th graders read at their grade level. so a lot of things that dan says and i hope tonight we'll be able to point out others, simply are kind of loose with the truth. i think advertisements legitimately, when you're providing information about an opponent's record, as long as you're truthful, an he was not truthful about my record, i

assume i'll have the opportunity to talk about that when his negative ad on me comes up, as long as he's truthful. i'm running for office for the first time, i said i'm always going to tell the truth and i've done that. >> and nowe're going to watch one of those ads and we'll have the chance to hear your response. >> here's foley's history. in 1985, foley borrowed millions to buy a textile company and started firing people. when he couldn't pay back the loans and 2,000 jobs were lost but he made a million dollars, greedy business men ruined our economy. >> mr. foley, accurate? >> no. i never fired anybody. i bought the company in 1985, it was failing. i turned it around and sed the company. i owned it for 11 years. i sold it in 1996 and it has new management and new owners. two years later they closed the

plant. and yes, unfortunately, when hundred people lost their jobs. but i was not involved with the company at the time. i had nothing to do with making that decision. it's uair to blame me for it. as a matter of fact, when the company changed hands in 1996, it had 3,000 more employees than when i acquired the company. and the company and those employees were far better off than when i first got involved. so it's simply untrue, the objective here of my opponent is to scare state workers. i travel all around the state, state workers are hard working people. they're trying to provide for their families. they have many of the same concerns as we do. they see the waste, they want government to change as well. but state workers have nothing to fear from my being governor. i have said in my plan that i think over time we need to reduce, modestly, the size of the state work force. i said we can do it through attrition and not layoffs.

so two things in this ad, dan malloy once again is not always truthful and second you're a to worry about if i'm governor. >> mr. malloy, you have a minute and a half to respond. >> tom likes to blur reality. he's doing it again. he was the chief executive officer of this corporation on the day they filed bankruptcy. period. they did fire their employees. tom was responsible for that. he did downsize those jobs, he was responsible for that. in fact, the town was actually named bibb and after he was done with the bibb company, the town of bibb disappeared. it was dissolved. in case i have it wrong, why don't you release all your records concerning the bibb corporation? why don't you give us all the tax document, open up all the files that pertain to this? let's go through all of that. maybe these folks would allow us some time because the reality is

that the people who live in that town actually know what you did. you destroyed their live, you destyed their futures, you destroyetheir pensions, you destroyed their town. if that's the kind of business experience you plan to take to connecticut, then the state workers in connecticut should be worried. after all, what we have to do is judge you on what you've done in the past. you can say you haven't run for office in the pt but for 30 years, according to your own resume on your website, you've been involved in politics. you were involved in politics when i was still in law school. >> mr. foley 30rk seconds to respond. >> dan, you're making this stuff up as you go along. you're an attorney, you should be doing better homework this company was not located in columbus, georgia, or bibb city, it was in macon, georgia. i never fired anybody. the company went through a financial restructure, it didn't go out of business. no employees were affected from the financial restructuring. it was an exchange of bonds for

equity. you're misrepresented what happened. why don't you be truthful with the voters, why don't you be truthful with your negative ads. just be truthful, that's all we're asking. >> mr. malloy. >> tom, everything i've said is based on f.d.c. filings, on the bankruptcy filing in delaware, on the statements of people who worked for you who lost their jobs. tom, release the papers, that's all you have to do. but you have to understand, it was fair for you to walk away with $20 million wn people lost their pensions. >> gentlemen, we're going to move on. our next question comes from fox connecticut morning anchor logan burns. >> we want to get more specific about jobs right now. that's what everybody is talking about. connecticut's unemployment rate as of august is above 9%. over the past two years, connecticut has lost roughly 100,000 jobs. we are dead last in the nation when it comes to job growth and job creation.

junge people are leaving the state fast than we can educate them. on the subject of jobs, william glickman of glasstonberry sent us an email of -- email question that says, i've been out of work for two years, how are you going to get and keep high tech jobs in connecticut? what do you tell him and others like him? >> we are one of only two states that has had net job losses since 198 the other is michigan, they have an excuse. it's the wrong policy. i have 25 years in the bids world, i know what business people need to hear before they'll be willing to hire people in connecticut. we have an out of control legislature that changes the rules of the game every year and puts mandates on businesses and we have a d.e.p. and d.o.t. that can take up to 24 months to get a permit to expand a plant this

doesn't make any sense. other states do a much better job. when i'm governor, i'll fix the things. i've identified seven industries in my plan for connecticut. who should, once we fix the problem here's in connecticut, including our budget deficit be interested in coming to connecticut and using the wonderful assets we have here in the state. we have a highly educated, well-trained work force, some of the best academic institutions in the world. we're centrally located in the northeast corridor, near cultural centers and financial centers, we have a high quality of life. a lot of reans why employers should want to be here if the government would get off their backs and make it easier for them to do business here. i come from the business world, i know what business people and employers need to hear. i can deliver that here in connecticut. >> mr. malloy, what to you tell william who asks the question, how do you get and keep jobs here in connecticut? >> you go after them, but you've got to begin on day one by

consolidating three broken agencies that are supposed to be doing economic development in this state and connle is dating them and changing the leadership and making them perform. you begin by having a governor who has had experience. tom has attacked my record on jobs. u.b.s. brought over 2,000 jobs to stamford, purdue brought over 650 jobs to stamford, nestle waters is in the process of moving over 400 jobs from stamford and one of his competitors is bringing jobs. maybe you want to somebody who has dobe the things tom talks about. a transportation system needs to be invested in, a quality public education system needs to best tablied an ever-improving. we also have to make sure we benchmark every tax that we have and understand how that affects our competitive advantage or disadvantage. we also have to benchmark

regulations and understand whether we're putting jobs at risk. finally, we need a governor who understands that most job creation in the next 20 years will be done by small businesses. a majority of those small businesses will be owned by women and people of color. i want to support those small businesses. after all, i come from the middle class. >> mr. foley? that sounds pretty good to some people, what do you think? >> an important part of getting businesses to come here and getting -- providing the confidence that employers need to start hiring again is solving our serious budget deficit. we need to reduce spending, not raise taxes. we have the highest tax burden beeen state and local taxes of any state in the country. it's simply too high. the average tax bill on a home in -- on a household here in connecticut is $8,800. that's too much my opponent wants to raise taxes to close the budget deficit, i'll do it

by lowing spending. >> mr. foley makes a decent point about how mandates hur businesses and businesses are leaving. what do you do to try to bring businesses back? >> tom makes some good points and leads into things that simply aren't true. for instance, tom, an average household of $68,000 pays $2,680 in taxes. you need to know how government works. what we need to do is curb our appetite for expenditures. we need to live within our means and set our priorities. i intend to do it. after all, i did it in stamford. >> our next question. >> since the state budget came up, we know the state faces a deficit of $3.3 billion. mr. malloy you said you'll cut

your staff and what taxes will you raise to close the gaps and when you make the cuts, how do you do that without angering the public sector unions who have been your base of support. >> most of those unions did not support me in the primary. >> they're for you now. >> sure they are, they're afraid tom will do to connecticut what he did to the bibb company down in georgia. i'm not promising to raise anybody's taxes. what i said is we have to bring everyone to the table and start making cuts. that's why i'm prepare to elimb gnat 15% of the job that the governor plays a role or the governor's commissioners play a role in filling, of which there are about 600 of those jobs. cutting by 15% or maybe more. ebay has existed for a long time but in connecticut, we bid commodities basically once or twice a year. what we need is an ebay system

to allow us to price the things that connecticut consumes on a daily bay sitz and i plan to do that. we need to consolidate the services performed even with the structures and institutions that will remain. in of -- many of ou colleges and universities operate on different labor and i.t. structures. if we move them all to one, we'll save quite a bit of money. we could save millions by purchasing our electric energy differently. we could save more by moving to a reimbursent basis for car use. but what we'll have to do is get everyone to the table and i believe that those same employees that you just talked about want to play a role in turning this state around for the children -- for their children and themselves. >> mr. foley, speaking about the state budget, you said you have a plan to cut $2 billion from the state budget but many of those proposed cuts are long-term that won't do much good nt year. how will you deal with the

budget crisis? >> i don't agree they're long-term problems. i set forth in my plan for connecticut many ways to reduce state costs immediately. we can change our incarceration rates, for example. we can -- i feel an obligation to the taxpayers, if i'm governor, and we can provide something more cheaply by using an outside contractor with the same quality of service, we have an obligation to do so. we have very expensive medicaid elderly patients mostly in nursing homes. states that pay more attention to their elledler -- elderly population prefer community based care. if we get to where oregon is with their elderly population, we could save up to $600 million a year. health care costs are very expensive in connecticut as you know, it's one of the highest health care costs states in the countr $7 billion of our budget is

health care cost related. if we could reduce that by 10%, which is what the estimates were for the front end, we'd save an additional $0 million. there's a lot of waste in our government. you may have heard several weeks ago, it was reported that two cell phones were lost by state employees. and our state government continued to pay the bills, $31,000 over eight months were paid for people who had stolen those phones and were making calls around the world. we can save a lot of money and save it immediately and we can save that $2 billion and i'm confident i'll do it. >> my opponent didn't give you a single specific cut he would make. not a single one. in fact, i've looked at his plan where he says he'll save $2 billion, it doesn't exist. the reality is, there will be hard work to do. i've sat across tarblees and negotiated contracts, i've had

to disappoint people. i understand what it is going to take. we'll reshape connecticut and make it work again for the middle class. >> here's dan malloy bng loose with the truth he said he would reduce the governor's staff by 15%. that turns out to be fewer than five people. on friday he said, it was the whole executive branch. that's over 7,500 people he'd be cuts from state government. tonight he has a different story system of it's somewhere in between, i guess. when are you going to make up your mind? >> may i? i was asked a question. >> make it brief. >> tom you really don't understand government at all, do you? the governor appoints directly by himself at least 600 people. there are in fact 7,000 employees who are not union members or civil service. we can reduce this work force and do it humanely. when you accuse me of not telling the truth, you don't think i should respond to you?

i'm responding to you because there's a lot riding out there for connecticut's middle class. >> mr. foley? >> i stick with what i said. i think dan really doesn't -- he's been a mayor in stamford but it appears clear to me from what he said in his ad, what he said on friday and tonight, he doesn't really understand state government. you need to do a little more homework before you put yourself up as governor. >> fox connecticut and the "hartford cow rant" asked for questions from viewers and readers, this is one. what will you do to bring state employee wages and benefits in line with the private sector. mr. foley is this >> first of all, we need to make our state work force more efficient. we need to make our government do more with less. part of the problem we have is that we don't get as much output out of the same size work force as we do in the business world. we have a very expensive state

work force, it used to be the contract was that they would in exchange for more job security and better benefits. what's happened is tt the current composition of our state work force is higher than the private sector. and the benefits are about 60% of payroll, whereas in the private sect a good benefit package for a large company tends to be 25% to 30% of payroll. we can't afford to keep doing what we're doing. i wish in harm on state workers, they're hard working people, trying to provide for their families like everyone else. we need to figure out a way to get compensation more in line with what's available in the state, in the private sector. we need to use information technology, other ways to get efficiencies out of a state organization and if the private services at an equivalent level for less, i feel i have a responsibility as governor to

make sure we have those private contractors provide those services. when that's happened in the past, the private contractors invariably end up hiring the state workers, probably on a different compensation level. >> mr. malloy what wouldou do to bring down state employees wages and benefit or is it appropriate th they should be higher than what's made in the private sector? >> i think the position on each salary needs to be based on the salary class and the work being performed. using generalities is sometimes unir. tom refers to 60% of payroll in benefits. if tom actually talked about current employees, it is 30%. what he fails to tell you is that because our state government failed to fund benefits through 1984 in some classifications and through 1997 in others,hat has added expenses for the failure to have done the right thing to begin with. when iecome governor, what sure that the state repts

under gap finance rules, generally accepted accounting principles. if we don't start telling the truth to ourselves and the people of connecticut, we'll never dig our way out of thi hole. tom talke about privatization. some of those privatization experiments his colleagues in the republican party brought to the state of connecticut led to drainage systems on 84th not actually being contracted, led to bad construction all over the state, led to a system of construction of schools where school construction per foot is on average $100 more and most of that being reimbursed by the state of connecticut. let's be very clear. we need create efficiencies. what did i do in sfamford? i downsized the work force even as we were growing the population by 12,000 people by 8.4%, creating efficiencies and having people make the decisions at the closest level to the service provision level. we can do this. we can create those efficiencies and we can curtail the increases we're talking about. >> mr. foley 30rk seconds. i guess his answer is he

doesn't think there's opportunities to get savings out of the state work force, i didn't hear any suggestions. leme give you another example, riverview hospital where we have 80 young patients who have mental problems, across the state, $922,000 a year to care for each of these young people. private stor people who can provide an equivalent level of care, perhaps even better, offered to do it for less than half that amount. that could save up to $25 million. do the taxpayers of connecticut think that paying that kind of money, $25 million, makes sense when an outside contractor is willing to do it for yes, sir. >> mr. malloy. >> sure, let's be clear. we need to create efficiencies, i've done it before. i've talked about changing work rules, talked about getting around the table and having conversations about how the employees who gave up $1 billion last year to play a role to continue to play a role to get connecticut's economy back on its feet.

but tom's republican party entered into discussions with that group and he wants to pretend his party and the salespeople he supported to be governor, because we have had republican governors for 16 years. >> now gentlemen, the point where you have an opportunity to ask one another questions. mr. foley, you get the first question of mr. malloy. >> dan lovato announced he has a union questionnaire you filled out committing not to reduce any union mber whors state workers or reduce their benefits. he has promised to release this questionnaire soon. my question to you is, have you made any commitments to unions such as this one and please just provide a yes or no answer. >> does tom get to make those rules? >> i think he just did.

>> no. no. >> that leaves you with 30 seconds to respond to his answer. >> ok, then do you deny that what you said on a teletown hall meeting to teachers last week it was widely reportedn the press, which did provide commitments to preserve tenure, to not have money follow the child, to not support choice to not move to performance pay, do you consider what you said to be accurate? >> you've read my education plan. all the things you mentioned are in that plan. if you want to make teachers the enemy in connecticut, good luck to you. but these are hardworking people doing the best they can and in my school system we closed the educational gap that exists by 3.8% -- or 3.8 points last year as opposed to the statewide average of 2.5. if you want to argue about whether teachers work hard, tom, you are so disconnected from the

people of this state, it's just unbelievable. >> m foe ree, you have 30 seconds. >> ladies and gentlemen, i'm going to ask you to not do that i'm sorry to be a bit of a nag but we all agreed. mr. foley, you have 30 seconds to respond. >> listen, i don't think you're being candid with the voters. i think it's widely believed you have made commitments to unions. i think if you had -- if you have, it will be impossible as governor to faithfully represent the voters and to have a conflict such as that. so i would hope in the weeks ahead you'll be candid with the voters and talk to us about any deals you cut to get elected, both in the primary and deals you cut hoping to get elected. >> mr. malloy, i did not mean to heat you out of the 29 seconds, so you can have another. >> well, thanks, tom, the fact that you repeat things more than three times doesn't make them true.

>> are you still denying that that company went bankrupt under your leadership? are you really denying that to this crowd of people? >> i'm denying i >> what we're talking about -- >> and i deny i ever took $20 million from the company. >> show us the records, tom. >> stop lying about it, dan. stop lying about it. >> gentlemen and audience. thank you. mr. malloy, you have an opportunity to pose a question directly to mr. foley. >> tom, you have aunning mate who has said he's anti-choice, and doesn't support a woman's right to choose, has taken various positions that you are not comfortable with, as you acknowledged yesterday in a debate we had, so tl me, tom, when you have the opportunity to name a running mate, why did you leave it the way you did? why did you end up running with

mr. bouten a candidate who might ultimately be governor, why didn't you express the kind of leadership you talk about in choosing and bringing a ticket forward? >> dan, again, maybe you ought to go back and take your civics class on connecticut government. i didn't choose a running mate. the lieutenant governor is elected separately. the registered republicans in mate to run with me. i didn't choose him. but it's also important for people to understand that the governor sets the policy and he's not running for governor. so my policy, what i promise to voters, is what the voters will get. mark happens to be quite an experienced person in government, he served in the legislature for a number of years, served as a successful mayor of one of our largest cities, he's very qualified for the job and frankly, since i'm coming into government, i serve twice in government but never in

elected office, our resumes fit together perfectly. we have all the skills required to fulfill this job. i talk to him about how we'll divide the responsibily in the executive branch and he's a perfect person t promote our legiative agenda, he'll do a great job because of his experience as mayor, he'll also do a great job working between our state government an town government, which have not had good relationships recently. we need to have state governments and town and city governments working together more cooperatively and mark can do that. we'll have a good lieutenant governor serving once we're elected. >> i want to make sure i have this straight, tom. it's ok with you that your running mate is anti-choice and doesn't support the minimum we and voted against it three times as member of the legislature. here's a history lesson. our current governor was previously lieutenant governor and had to take over mid stream and the governor in new york was

previously lieutenant governor an had to take over mid stream, what your lack of leadership did in failing to select a canada that matches your values and ideas is potentially endanger the well welfare of the people of this state. >> mr. foley, you have 30 seconds. >> well, i mean, you picked a running mate who served most of her time in government. you don't have anybody in your government who has ever had any serious private sector experience, nobody has ever met payroll, nobody can talk to employers aut what it's going to take to create jobs here. you're missing a piece of experience on your ticket that connecticut needs to bring jobs to this state and close this nagging fiscal process we have. >> i'm sure you'll have ample opportunity to work in your additional response there. >> we're going to move on to education, gentlemen. connecticut used to be number one in the nation in school test

scores. we have slipped recently, in fact, connecticut's achievement on education recently received an f grade between low-income students and their wealthy counterparts we have the worst achievement gap in the nation. connecticut also lost out on $175 million in the federal race to the top funding. mr. malloy, what can you do differently to work with the legislature to try to effect some change in the education system? >> i'm proud of my record as an education leader. in fact, in stamford, i'm known as the education mayor. why? because we started universal prekindergarten 11 years ago and eight years ago, we brought together onef the first commissions on closing the achievement gap and rogers international school is the third best school with respect to the test scores of children living in levels of poverty. and westover school is ranked sixth. rogers international school a

school i helped move along and get a new building for was actually ranked by concan as one of the 10 best schools in connecticut. aye done some of the things tom talks about. iigned the applications for two charter schools in the city of stamford. the only mayor, only board of education and the only not-for-profit to do that in the state of connecticut was in stamford and as a result, children are doing better. we had far higher average closure on tests this past year than the state average and a far larger closure than other cities in the state. tom will say something which he referred to and has wrong, 70% of the 10th graders are reading and performing on grade level. not the 36% that he quotes. tom just doesn't know how to read that document. if he did, he would actually admit what every writer for state newspaper has admitted that tom has it wrong. >> mr. foley, dewpoint to respond to that and tell us why

you think as governor you would do a better job in the education environment? >> i've been in involved in education for over 15 years. i think it's a shame connecticut hasn't done better with its achievement gap and failing inner city schools. i have -- i want to be known as the jobs and the education governor. i put together a comprehensive education plan three weeks ago. there's some very important school reforms that we need here in connecticut to fix our failed inner city schools. we need school choice. we need money following the child. we need excellent teachers and i'm all for excellent teachers but we don't have aystem right now that gives us excellent teachers in all instances. with need performance pay for teachers, we need teachers promoted on the basisf merit and performance, not time on the job. we need to be able to measure teachers' performance and if they aren't meeting the standard we need profeional development for them and if they still

aren't performing, we need to find a way to retire them from the system so our young children aren't being cheated. dan talks about charter schools. he's talking about local charter schools. nobody thinks local charter schools, the two he authorized, they're unionized. the answer and real choice in this state is state charter schools. thank god he doesn't support race to the top. race tthe top is what's put pressure on our legislature to open up more charter schools, which have shown theay. they'll never solve the problem but they can show the way for what we need to do if in our inner city public schools. >> mr. malloy, do we need performance pay for teachers? >> i know that tom needs to do his homework. the charter school he is referenced are state charter there is one difference about stamford, under my leadership we closed the gap between ste dollars going to that institution and its actual cost.

we were the only city that actually did that. race to the top, tom says i don't support it? where does he get that? he makes it up. of course i support race to the top. i think connecticut can reform its education so it can compete and bring money to the state and as governor i'll make sure that happens. >> we were in an education forum last week and you said you didn't support race to the top. do you just say what the audience in front of you wans to hear? >> i'm happy to engage with you. did you realize you had it wrong about the two charter schools? do you realize they're state charters? are you wiing to admit to people -- >> money following the child. >> are you talking about dollars going out of new haven to some other community? >> gentlemen if either one of you would like to answer your

simultaneously posed questions, we'd be happy to wait. >> mr. maloy, is it your understanding that performance pay for peachers -- teachers is part of the race to the top funding reqrement. >> it is a system that receives a lot of points in that application. that's why i support what was done in new haven this year, where the teachers union sat dun with the school administrators and brought about a program that everyone can live with and support. why didn't we do that ithe rest of the districts? with a governoror who understands education and bothers to read about it, we could. >> mr. fol, you have 30 seconds to respond. >> one of my goals as governor is to solve the vexing problem of our inner city schools. i was involved in drafting the legislation that unfortunately took until 2005 to get teach for

program working across ameri, getting excellent young people into classrooms. i helped write that education legislation. i have been working on this problem. as governor, i will continue to work on it and i believe i can continue to fix the problem. >> it's been a spirited debe, we've been talking about our seemingly sometimes intractable problems, so mr. foley, why would you, or why would anybody want this job and if the voters do lift you into it, what policy decision do you most dread? >> well, listen, we have serious problems. i've spent 25 years in my career in business turning around companies, i know the difficult decisions that executives face when there's financial stress and organizations nd to be turned around, when they aren't performi. and that's definitely what's going on here in connecticut. i don't like making those decisions in many instances but i am -- one of the things i'm

most proud of in my business career is i've always made those decisns fairly. decisions that take int account the needs of families, that take into account the needs of the people that you're representing. and that you never trade the long-term for the short-term which is what we've been doing in connecticut for far too long. challenge for the next governor. i have a plan, i was surprised when i got into this race that none of the other candidates had a plan. nobody goes in to think about turning around a business or running a business that's doing well without a plan. you need a destination, you need a place you're trying to go. then you need a road map for getting there. i've put that together. i know that based on my preevet sector experience and my two times serving in government tt i can fix connecticut's problems. i look forward to the challeng these are things that i've done bere, i have the skills and experience that i think connecticut needs now and the next governor needs, i don't

believe my opponent does. >> mr. malloy, same question and what is that policy choice that you'll face that is the -- that leaves you the -- with the most trepidation? >> let me begin by explaining what motivates me. i was born in a middle class family, the youngest of eight children, the seventh son. i was born with severe physical disabilities and it was learned that i had a processing disorder, including dyslexia. i had to fight every day to overcome those. my mother made an important decision, not to listen to people who talked about the fact that i would never amount to anything that made all the difference. but she also said something to me almost every day of the 30 years we shared this earth. she said, dan, you have an obligation to leave this world a better place for your having lived in it. for all of my 55 years, including the years since my mother died of cancer, i tried to do that. is it aerfect recd? probably not. but as a member of a board of

finance, a volunteer position, i fought to improve education and hold down spending in my city. as a membe of the board of education, i fought for improvement. as mayor, i fought to bring new industries to replace those leaving sfamford. the toughest decisions are those that will affect people's les, who will have a job, who will have the medical coverage they need, who will have the mental health treatment to keep them out of a hospital or prison. what i'm saying is, if you elect me your governor, the values i was born with, the values my parents fostered are the values i will govern with. >> we're going to move on. >> our republican governor has enjoyed a lot of success, can you name some things she's done right?

>> she took a state that was reeling from ethical violations and restored a sense of decency and she is very decent person. but when it comes to transportation, she failed us. when it comes to job creation, she failed us. when it comes to reforming, a reformation of education, she allowea document for race to the top to be filed with 122 blanks, she failed us. she's a wonderful person but it's time to change direction. so i bring a different set of values, a different set of experiences and tom, i've laid out 72 pages of policy which you can down load, in fact you may have already done it, of how i -- what i would like to do with the state and how i'd like to govern it in the future. can we do all those things in the first year? undoubtedly, we can't. but if i don't tell you the way i want to lead this state, where i want to bring us, then you'd haveo reason to vote for me for governor because after all, i'm going to replaceody ralph if the voters decide it and i'll

take this state in a very different direction than the direction it's gone for the last 16 years. we need to create jobs, improve education, invest in infrastructure, and understand that local governors are our partner, not our enemies, that's what i'm going to do. >> same question, with a slightly different twst. >> last week, your plan was 17 pages long, now it's 7 . i'm confused. >> that's just not true. if you can use the internet, go and look at it. i think a lot of people who work for you already have. >> jody -- >>old on, the question for you is slightly different. >> i'm sorry. >> can y list a couple of thing she is has done wrong? >> i would have vetoed the budget last year. which she didn't, she let it pass into law without a veto. but she's done a very admirable

job i think under very difficult circumstances, because she has veto-proof majorities in both the house and senate. so her only option is to either veto things sent to her or not. and the vetoes more often than not get overruled, i'll give you a goo example of why democracy isn't working well in connecticut when we have a single party with overwhelming control of both the house and senate. when dan malloy decided to use taxpayer money to run for office, the grant was $3 million. and the house and senate both, democrats from his own party, waited until after they saw the results of the primary and when they saw i wasn't taking public money, and he was, they uped the grant, $3 million more so dan malloy can run his negative ads of taxpayer money. that's the kind of abution that we're getting in our legislature

right now. i hope the voters understand what's going on and have the interest in maki sure that we have a more balanced legislation for the next governor to deal with. i hope the next governor -- governor is me and i hope -- because we need a check and balance. >> mr. malloy in your rebuttal, can you address his concerns about too much power in the hands of one party? >> how about history 101. the majority of the governor's vetoes were upheld. that's the truth. she was never, ever, ever overridden on a spending bill. on a budget bill. >> she was everridden on your campaign -- >> you're not really telling the whole story. the maximum matching grant under that system was $9 million. $9 million. what they actually did was to limit the total expditure to $6 million.

the base went up from $3 million but came down from $9 million. why don't you tell the whole truth to people. that's what's wrong with our state government. people like you are not willing to tellhe whole truth. >> i'm not the career politician here, n. >> you are appointed to a position from a guy who you rised $100,000 for to become president of the united states. >> gentlemen, we're going to leave it there. we've been talking about issues and policy and mr. foley, you have another 30 seconds to rebut. >> what is the question to me? the opposite -- >> how would you do it any differently,resuming there's no chaming in the legislature, how would you work with the democrats? >> i mean what i said. i think democracy in connecticut is not being well served by having one party have such overwhming control of the house and senate. i've been working hard to support republican candidates to the house and senate to get a better balance in the house. we need a better balance in the house, no matter who is

governor, but particularly if i'm governor, we nee better balance in the house so that the legislature can't run roughshod over the will of the voters and the governor. this is what's going on in washington. this is what got people pretty -- pretty angry. we have a single party that overwhelmingly controls the congress and white house. it's not working very well as far as most voters are concerned. >> we have just a few seconds left, gentlen, we're going to do what we affectionately refer to as the lightning round. i'll ask a couple of quick question, give us one-word answers. mr. malloy, live in the governor's mention or commute? >> live. >> live. >> mr. malloy, favorite vacation spot in connecticut? >> any day i can spend a day with my wife anywhere in connecticut. >> mr. foley. >> that's a one word answer? >> only a career politician

could consider that a one-word answer. >> mr. foley what's the mood of the state right now? >> angry. people are angry. >> disappointed in their leadership. >> one word to describe your opponent? mr. malloy. >> rich. >> mr. fol. >> loose with the truth. it's hyphenated. >> one word to describe the former governor. >> unfortunate. >> i hope changed. >> this is a tough one. leno or letterman? >> leno. >> at least your both on the same side of that, i guess. gentlemen, thank you very much that ends our debate we very much appreciate it. we now go to closing statements. we'd like to thank the folks

here and newman's own foundation for its generous support as well as fox connecticut and the "hartford cow rant." we leave you with a few records from the c.e.o. and president but first, the closing remarks. i believe mr. foley, you get to go first. >> thank you for joining us tonight. connecticut's future rests on the outcome of the elections in four weeks. i wanted to state -- i love this state, i love its people, i've been traveling all around, it's a beautiful place with a rich history an culture. but all is not well in connecticut. too many families are out of work. too many people have lost confidence in their government and their leaders. i want to be your governor because i want to restore that confidence. i want to fix these problems and i believe i can. i want to take us in a new direction. there's a big difference between me and my opponent.

i'm an outsider, i'm a problem solver. i have real-world experience that i think enables me to fix these problems better than somebody who has been a career politician. -- politician. my opponent is a career politician. he's still wedded to the policies of tax, borrow, and spend that got us into these problems. i also have a clear plan for restoring jobs and bringing back the economy. i know what needs to be done to get employers to start thinking about hiring again. i also have a clear plan about closing our serious budget deficit. i will do it with reducing spending, i will not increase your taxes. my opponent says he'll increase your tax to close the deficit. i have committed to, as i said, solve one of theost vexing problems we have here in connecticut, fixing our failing inner city schools. .

condemn what deperms trying to do. i'm tryingo build a better state. you know, tom talks about not being a career politician, yet he frequently admits he has some experience, including having been awarded a job for somebody he raised over $100,000 for. so let's be clear. tom, we're both politicians and i hope we both want the same

thing for the state. but there's a gigantic difference between us. i was born in the middle >> and i have great vision for the state of connecticut. i also have experience. some of the things you talk downsized city government, improved education, invested in infrastructure. infrastructure, brought new employers into my state of connecticut. i did things that you can only talk about. now, businessmen do some wonderful things, but they've also led our country astray. some oyour friends, tom, are responsible for the downturn in our economy, the things that happened on wall street. in many ways they mirror what you did to he bib company but you did it 10 years ago and it came home to roost finally in the biggest collapse in our economy since the great depression. if we hire you, tom, i'm afraid you willo to connecticut what

you did some of your companies, some of your employees. and there is but in your history that tells us -- us you have the ability, maturity and strength to turn this thing ound. sometimes i think you are running to be captain of the titanic. i on the other hand want to launch a new ship, one that grows jobs, invests in the infrastructure and protects the middle class. i do want to pro tech the working man. >> thank you gentlemen, thank you bushnell, thank you one and all. please hold ur places for a quick word now from rich. >> thank you for watching tonight's debate for connecticut's gubernatorial office. fox connecticuand the "courant" believe in an open, honorable democratic process. we believe that a healthy democracycy just go

ahead and join me in welcoming

kshemendra paul. [applause] >> good morning. thank you for the kind introducon. m grateful to csis for hosting the event today. this is a wonderful forum which will allow us to explore the opportunities and challenges around building beyond the foundation, accelerating the delivery of the information-sharing environment. including clarifyingts scope and mission, the target vision towards which we are building together and how we measure the creative value. our high calling is to support our mission partners. the federal, state and local tribal and territorial agencies and our partners internationally and in the private sector. to protect the american people and enhance our national security through the use of information. thank you to our sponss today. we're grateful that you're supporting csis and continuing to shine a light on

information-sharing. there's a great linp of speakers and moderators today, i'm very excited about this, ozzy. and i appreciate all of them taking the time and all of you taking the time to participate in this dialogue. now, my communications team asked me to shamelessly promote the web site, so get out your pens. it's www.ise.gov. it's a great resource for folks who want to dig deeper and participate in the dialogue while they're not here physically and for you all to get more information and stay connected to the dialogue. while you're at the site, www.ise.gov, be sure to sign up for e-mail alerts. let me walk you through the structure of my presentation. i'm an engineer by training. i was an enterprise architect at the department of justice and the office of management and budget. my old colleague, jeff cook, sitting here on the front line. at times like this, i feel a

need to stay current in my functional domain, so, please, bear with me. i'm going to use a little ea parlance to describe my remarks. first, i'll spend time looking back at how we got here. in ea speak we call that the as is. next, i'm going to walk you through what we're hearing from thought leaders like yourselves. we call that the 2b, and we're going to sketch out a straw mat that we hope to define today eventually to be reflected in the national strategy. then i'm going to outline some really hard questions i need help answering, the questions that gao gave us just a little while ago. [laughter] just kidding. i think there are some colleagues from the gao. hey, there you are back there. [laughter] now, they are hard questions, but -- but they're not the ones i'm going to present today. there's a different set of hard questions. so in the remaining time, we'll move to questions and answers. you don't often find engineers

behind podiums addressing large crowds on c-span2. you'll find us in dark offices at odd hours noodling over whiteboards on hard technical problems or out in the field working to understand customer requirements and delivering solutions. as an engineer, my approach to solving hard problems is rooted in an appreciation of first principles, diving head first into the details of the challenge and then lifting up to solve the problem. this is the approach i'm bringing to building beyond the foundation, accelerating the delivery of the information-sharing environment. one more sidebar. the ise is a somewhat abstract topic. people have a hard time getting their headsround what exactly is that ise. it's useful to set a mental model. i like to think about concrete examples, so i'm going to give you four to help process what you are going to hear today. number one, a law enforcement officer is part of a routine traffic stop queries a national crime information center, ncic,

and is notified to contact the terror screening center to evaluate a potential match against the terrorist watch list. number two, an intelligent analyst using the national library of intelligence or the a-space platform to collaboratively develop new counterterrorism intelligence products withellow analysts across the ise. three, coast guard personnel working on the recent gulf oil spill using department of homeland security's homeland security network and fema's web emergency operating center, the same assets to be leveraged in both manmade and natural disasters. finally, a local law enforcement analyst and an fbi intelligence alyst co-located at the state fusion center working prison radicalization issues. both developing finished intelligence products as well as supporting specific fbi joint terrorism task force investigations. back to the main part of my remarks. first up is to outline how we got here. as an engier, i make a

concerted effort to stay away from authorities' discussions, but after five years in washingtons and three months as pm, i've learned to start with authorities and mandate. in 2004 the 9/11 commission delivered their report. the commission prescribed the need to transform government and brought to light multiple challenges around connecting the dots. as an aside, i'm not a big fan of tt term because it oversimplifies the challenges that face us as a community. it does not provide a good frame for working through many of the legitimate policy concerns we're facing and is not so helpful with the so-called information overlook problem. the 9/11 proposed that information be shared horizontally across networks that transcend agencies. the commission called for a decentralized network model which would allow agencies to own their own databases but enable them to be searchable across agency lines.

it recognized by moving to a data-centric model, the new framework would have to be established to control access to the data, not the individual systems or databases. the commission called for a government-wide effort to address the legal policy and technical issues that would arise from this type of system. the idea was to have someone looking across all the agencies creating a trusted information network to facilitate the sharing of terrorism-related information. excuse me. this recommendation was adopted from the 2003 marco report creating a trusted information twork for homeland security. i know, because i reread the report for the third time this summer at the beach now, we have some folks in the audience who participated in the markel task force. it's a very good piece of work. this concept as well as fed rated management, extense about to state local and tribal

territorial rtners and a focus on prevention, a focus on prevention were incorporated into the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004. irtpa. they called it, can you give can me a drum roll, plea? [laughter] the information-sharing environment. yeah. the congress agreed with the 9/11 commission that horizontal integration required government-wide authority, so they created the role of program manager to plan for, oversee the agency-based buildout and manage the information-sharing environment. and granted that rule government-wide authority. the pmic was told to walk across five core comnities; intelligence, defense, foreign affairs, law enforcement and homeland security. to enable the effective sharing of terrorism-related information. the recognition that this effort had to have horizontal capabilities [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2010] ly, g the recommendations of the 9/11 commission act of 2007, amended irtpa to expand the scope to include homeland security and wmd information. the 9/11 act also enhanced the authorities of the pmiac in two important ways. first, to enhance the ability to have goth wide standards, procedures, instructions and functional standards. and second, it mandated that we identify and resolve with our mission partners information-sharing disputes. many refer to this as the honest broker function. okay. i'm done channeling my inner policy wonk. let's pause for a second. now for the second part of the as is, what's been done to date.

a strong foundation has been built, and i'm going to describe a number of steps we've taken together as a government. in 2005 the presidential guidelines directed the ise to leverage existing systems to the maximum extent possible and directed that common information-sharing standards be deloped. i need to pause here and emphasize the implications of these requirements. it's essential to understand that the ise is owned and operated by mission partners. federal, state, local, tribal and territorial agencies are partners in the private sector and internationally. we at the pmiac, we don't build anything. we're not operational. our role is to help agencies find common mission equities to help them implement standards and drive resolion of policy issues. the actual point of implementation, the heavy lift, is with the agencies.

they're the engines th deliver the ise. they're the stars of the show. the guidelines also directed us to address the proliferation of sensitive but unclassified earmarkings, devop a framework for privacy andivil right protections and develop an approach to share with state and local tribal and territorial partners. much of this work was captured in the 2007 national strategy for information sharing, and in subsequent ise annual reports. you can find those on our web site, www.ise dot golf. [laughter] i want to highlight four areas, first up, privacy and civil liberties. it's a trust partnership between all levels of goverent and the private sector. in order to participate in the ise, the law requires that federal departments and agencies and our nonfederal partners have privacy protections at least as comprehensive as the ise guidelines. next, cui or controlled

unclassified information, the new cui framework will standardize more than 100 unique markings currently used for sensitive unclassified information. these are the markings you see around town, fou, for official use only, les, law enforcement sensitive and others. of course you'd only see those markings if you're a government employee. the standardization will be a critical step towardsemoving barriers to information sharing. that wasn't a joke, ozzie. laughalf -- [laughter] next, we developed the ise architecture and methodology to connect the diverse systems and distributed systems across the ise. now, i'm not going to get into that here in detail, but i am available for command performances on the architecture. finally, common information-sharing standards that document the rules, conditions, guidelines and characteristics of business processes, production methods and products supporting information sharing. the program was successfully

used to standardize suspicious activity recording. more on that later. there are so many other critical foundation blocks to the ise. some examples are performance measures, identity management, access controls, information assurance, performance measures, culture training, you can find the rest of the story at the ise community web site. beyond the ise's foundation enablers, much work has been done to enable ise core capabilities in the areas of sharing with state, local, tribal, territorial partners. to develop the common framework, we work closely with our stakeholders. in particular, i'd like to acknowledge a lot of our stakeholders, you know, in the nonfederal arena. we work with a lot of individuals and organizations. i'm going to miss someone, but i want to try to highlight our partners. we work with the criminal intelligence coordinating council, the cicc. great organization, was foundational to our work with

suspicious activity reporting. the global justice information-sharing initiative. when i came into justice five years ago, the way i made myself relevant was partnering with the state and locals through global. great organization. national governors' association. international association chiefs of police. major city chiefs association. national sheriffs' association. national association of state cios, chief information officers. national association of counties. owners and operators of critical infrastructure. and many, many, many, others. open government in action. the result was a series of recommendations to enhance the sharing of terrorism information across all levels of govnment in the private sector. one highlight of the work was the establishment of a robust network of state and uban area fusion centers. dhs, department of homeland security, is the executive agent with the lead on this part of

the framework. fusion cters are the critical nodes that connect state, local, tribal and territorial partners with the information-sharing environment. through these fusion centers, state and major urban areas wi be able to, one, receive classified/nonclassified federal information including sensitive time-urgent alerts and notifications, two, conduct risk assessments understanding consequences based on their specific areas of operation, three, further disseminate critical information to state, local, tribal and territorial partners and private sector entities within their jurisdiction, and fourth, gather, disseminate information to other localities, states and the federal government. more about this later. it's best manifested through -- or understood through the suspicious activity reporting initiative. the fusion centers will operate these capabilities within the scope of privacy policies. currently 26 fusion centers have approved privacy policy

solutions in operation. these policies are at least as comprehensive as the ise guidelines. we have solid momentum across the states to get the rest done in the coming year. the framework just described is laid out in great and useful detail in the 2007 national strategy for information sharing. the appendix to the strategy defines these roles and responsibilities. and it's in the process of being implemented. mark johnson -- bart johnson, dhs principle undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, is leading these efforts on behalf of secretary napolitano and undersecretary wagner. bart has an incredible perspective on these matters having spent most of his career with the new york state police culminating in the state fusion center. and just as he was getting it humming, the feds hired him

away. so bart's a friend. he's participating in the panel immediately following my talk. we have also seen significant information-sharing improvements within individual agencies. many of these are documented in the annual report, many more are out there waiting to be celebrated. two examples from the intelligence community that, incidentally, my office had direct involvement in accomplishing. that's the nice thing about being government-wide, you know? seriously, a core part of my responsibility is identifying and extending best practices across the ise. this is kind of a soft power, there's no authority that's specific to this, but actually it's very, very powerful. i learned that lesson when i was at the department of justice working the exchange model and then at omb as the federal chief architect. the most significant and visible change in terrorism-related information aring was the establishment of the national counterterrorism center. russ travers is also going to speak on the oening panel.

he's nctc's equivalent of a chief knowledge officer. russ is a respected leader in our community. he was recognized as a galileo award finalist this career for his thoughts on information sharing. further, the intelligence community has led information integration by implementing icd501. discovery and dissemination of information. this policy promotes responsible information sharing by distinguishing between discovery and dissemination and retrieval. it's based on -- i'm going to get a little technic -- metatagging. conclude be used more -- it can be used more broadly. there's one last element of the ise strategy to round out the as is. and it's important to highlight because it helps make the ise that much more real and meaningful.

in response to the 2007 national strategy, we convened several federal agencies, law enforcement orgazations, local police departments and others to develop a unified activity around unified process around suspicious activity. this unified process builds on what law enforcement has been doing for years, gathering information regarding behaviors and incidents associated with criminal activity. and establishes a standardized process whereby that information can be shared among agencies to help detect and prevent terrorism-related activity. tom o'reilly, who presented here at csis a couple weeks back, spoke at length about what is now the nationwide suspicious activity initiative or nsi. tom is a friend and someone i'm privileged to call a mentor. in march of this year, the attorney general announced the establishment of a program office at the department of justice bureau of justice assistance to facilitate the

implementation of nsi across all levels of government and named tom o'reilly the directer. tom's charge is to roll out the nsi nationwide while insuring that civil liberties and privacy are strengthened. you may be familiar with nsi due to secretary napolitano's see something, say something campaign. this is the public awareness component. the nsi is one of our most significant accomplishments to date and an example of the ise in action. policies, mission processes and systems which leverage ise core capabilities and enablers to empower the men andwomen on the front line, to share and access the information they need to keep our country safe. and i have late-breaking news, so i'm going to make a little nudes today. a little news, but it's important and it's good. the fbi is already well integrated into the nsi solution.

last week the fbi extended their integration to improve sharing of suspicious activity reports generated from their field work. what's noteworthy is that these sars, while unclassified, are being worked and contained in fbi's classified systems and databases. it's a great example of being data-centric in our sharing and sharing federal data with other levels of government. these sars are being shared with the fusion centers, state and local fusion centers through the nsi. which brings us to the 2b part of my presentation today and the purpose of this forum. my office is leading the process, with mission partners, of developing the national information-sharing environment strategy. this includes subsuming the 2007 national strategy for information sharing and bringing forward the foundational pieces of that document as it relates to information sharingith state, local, tribal and

territorial partners. we are working with our mission partners to conduct deep dive conversations. we also want to include thought leaders outside of government. that's why we're here today engaging in a process to do this. is will assist u in developing a target vision and supporting strategies to build beyond the foundation and accelerate the delivery of the information-sharing environment. to set e stage for the speakers and dlogue we'l be having for the rest of the day, i'd like to briefly describe three ideas. the first idea, the president's national security strategy calls for a whole of government approach to build national capacity based on applying and integrating the efforts of all agencyies with the national security mission. to effectively support wole of vernment, our working hypothesis is that the ise must, one, empower the front line with the information they need to do

their jobs. two, deliver data-centric capabilities that support reuse. third, strengthen privacies, civil liberties and civil rights protections. fourth, align with technology and information management trend. and finally, leverage standardbased innovation. to make the ise work, we need to focus on data. sharing it, discovering it, protecting it, fusing it and reusing it. we need a data-centric approach in alignment with the original mandate for the ise. i also highlighted standards-based innovation. we can dramatically improve ice performance, increase agility, decrease risk and accelerate deployment of the ise by effectively working with our partners in industry. such a critical aspect of what we need to do to deliver, and i'm anxious to have that information, and we have a technology panel later today,

i'm looking forward to that. okay. the second idea, the opening panel has focused on opening the aperture to the totality of terrorism-related information sharing as directed by law. there are several aspects of the expanding aperture idea. in the past we've advanced initiatives in t federal to state and local information sharing space. the 20 strategy does an competent job -- excellent job laying out roles and responsibilities. we want to enhance and extend partnerships across all five communities; defse, intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security, foreign affairs. looking forward to hearing from today's speakers as well as members of the audience on this topic. also the ise mission partners rarely have the ability to selling ri gate their terrorism-related activities or their terrorist-related informion. mission partners ask us for complete solutions. it's a reasonable and right reest.

such needs need to be factored into our strategy going forward. finally, the third idea is the role of sourcing, integrating and sharing best practices on the road to transformation. for example, our core standards framework, the national information exchange model, is used well beyond the national security space. another example is the potential to scale icd501-type schemes more broad ri. we're looking for feedback and discussion. are these the right ideas? what refinements are necessary? and what's the west way to -- best way to clarify the target vision and enable incremental progress? this last point is so critical. we need to be working in an incremental way while we're working towards the future. we need to deliver value every day. this brings us to the last part of my remarks today. we're in the home stretch, stay with me.

we need your help to better understand the landscape. so that the ise assists our mission partners in delivering the comprehensive and inclusive solutions to the issues they face daily. in addition to reacting to the ideas i just highlighted, here are a few questions for the speakers and participants in the today's conference to consider. so this is a good poin to get out your pens. there'll be a test, we'll collect the papers at the end, right, ozzie? [laughter] what are the best practices to be replicated across mission partners? what best practices should we be looking at? what's the best way to enable discovery? how do we balance data aggregation with decentralized nsi architectures? is there possible to be a single architecture, or do we need to take a hetereneous approach? a core isue in my mind with authorized use is not the technology, it's the very ability and the policies and the

lack of consisten precise semantics for expressing those policies. how do we get past that issue? are there successful examples that we can model on and build from? around embedding legal restrictions and policies at scale and across domains? .. i hope i kept my inner geek in check. i set the scene do allow us to

talk about the future. what the i.s.e. needs to be to support the counterterrorism mission in building beyond the foundation. how do we accelerate delivery of the information-sharing environment? i welcome your questions, remarks, and commentri. thank you very much. [applause] ? >> m. kshemendra, we appreciate the premarks. it's been a change of pace having been in the policy world for a little too long than i should have been in my naval career. but getting remarks from an engineer, there was actually substance in there and i'm not used to that. it was great. i was like wow, we're actually getting facts and details and a plan and how refreshing and then you also gave us homework, which is good, so for those of you who thought you were going to just get a free nch and listen --

>> that's open government in action. >> so we are going to take those questions and we are going to try to address those for you. another reminder toveryone here before we go into the questions, in addition to c-span here, we also are live web casting this on our web site, there's a link at www.ise.gov, and this will be available for down load on itunes in the future, if you want to go back over kshemendra's very substantive remarks. it's very refreshing that we actually -- i think people like to roll up their sleeves and actually tackle problems as opposed to just talking in the theory of things, so we appreciate that. we're going to go ahead and go into questions and answers. because in is web cast, we have microphones coming around, please state your name and your affiliation if you have one, so we can understand the context of the question and kshemendra is going to answe them, but i get to ask the first one, that

what i get out of this is the fit question. just rading your speech and reading some of the information you sent in advance and some of the stuff that we've done with ise in the recent months, i'm struck by your charter. in many ways, it's very similar and russ, my former colleague is here, similar to the charity that ncic had, you're responsible for coordination and sometimes limited ability to compel. so i guess i would ask you, what do you see as maybe your one or two, just limitou, to greatest challenges facing you in this new challenge that you have as psmic. >> you're right about the nature of the challenge of the information sharing environment. it's a horcental problem. it remind me when i was in the office of e government and i.t. there.

internal terribly we call ithe fice of horizontal government. it's working horizontal in a vertical world. that's the challenge of it. it's frankly where there's the greatest opportunity for innovation an how we think about government services and, you know, a lot of our challenges in counterterrorism is a core exple. counterterrorism is a cross-boundary, cross-domain problem. it's national in scope, lots of different folks have to come together out of different disciplines, organizations. how do you work cross-boundaries. you know, that's really the cutting edge, i think of public service and you know, it's just an honor and pleased to work on that problem. >> and i found my time extraordinarily rewarding at nctc because of what you described, so that's great and i look forward to it. okay. we would like to go to questions. who wants to go with the second question?

the gentleman in the blue shirt. >> i'm chair of the american bar association. my question is very simple. do you see any particular laws that have to be changed in order for you to be successful? >> well, that's a great question. do i see any laws that need to be changed. i can answer that a couple of ways. one is in terms of the authorities of my office, and the mandate that the law gives to the pmisc and the authorities, i think we're all set that way. it's a matter of bringing together execution partners, finding mission equity and execution is the core challenges i face. there are aiding policy issues that are out there. this is -- this is almost like the old analogy, you're draining the swamp and you see some system ups, you see rocks, you drain the water a little bit

more and you see some more, so you have to work those issues, so i think in terms of that side of the equation, there's always opportunities perhaps to look at the legal and policy frameworks, but that's not where i'm at right now. i'm, you know, in terms of the authorities of the office, we're all fine. >> and for those of you that are going to sy for just a couple of panels and leave, i would encourage you to stay for the last panel, because that's the one on civil liberties and civil rights, that's going to be an exciting discussion and that's one of the reasons why we stuck it at the end. next question? gentleman up here in the blue suit. i can't say that in d.c., blue suit, right? >> steve cantrell, office of global maritime and air intelligence administration. we're a partner with you, but one of the more interesting things i found is recently out

on a trip, other than why i followed you to the same location, was another location where the comment was made that as we tackle this problem set, we look at all of our inner agencies, state, tribal, local and other partners, one of the individuals i was discussing this with compared it to the nato of america. he said, because we all speak different languages, we come from different cultures, for example, you made reference to the significant activity rert, and of course, we take that acronym of sar, helicopter pilot, search and rescues, radar, special access required, again, usi the same term. i was wondering if you could reflect on what you've seen in the short time you were there. >> yes, thanks steve. steve is a partner, and working on airspace awareness and other demand awareness type initiatives. this issue and the term we use when i'm with my architecture

buddies is semantic capability. it's where we started frankly, when going back rewinding the clock, five years ago, the ise was standing up, i was over at the department of justice, leading something called the national information exchange model, the heart of which was creating this sort of rosetta stone between different function domains. somebody is working in the coast guard, homeland security and has a cerin definition for sar, whether you're in the military and have a different definition for sar and you're in the financial domain, using a different definition for sar and that there's a way to, you know, map those terms, so that you could translate it and you wouldn't use the same thing, so that two people communicating, if they're in different domains in different organizes, the message meant the same thing on both sides of that communication, so we've actually come a far away on the theory of how to do that and the practice

of how to do that. you know, and by using more formal methods, as we've done with the name and reflecti those in functional standards, business function standards and might go a step further working with our partners in the industry. one of them is suspicious activity reporting, so it has the standards based on the rosetta stone type concept in the national international exchange. we're getting the been fits of standardization in terms of the acquisition, really, that's so critical. think about the front line, you know, first responder has a radio, they just want to be able to press a button. they don't want to worry about the complexities, right, and that's kind of our challenge. one reason the space is so complex, we have tdeliver it in a compelling way to the front line, where we mask that mplexity, so yeah, it is a core challenge, one we've been working on for some time. >> next question, the gentleman

in the blue shirt, in the middle there. please. >> yeah. scott good for the senate judiciary committee. i want to follow up on harvey 's question. have you or anyone else in the government asked every agency to compile a list or identify the specific privacy laws that are impacted on the information sharing environment? in other words, do we have a baseline in which we can assess whether or not there are any laws that need to be changed, do we have that compiled across the federal interagency? >> i have some colleagues in the office, and the audience here that are a little bit more conversant on the specifics there, so if one of you want to help out, that's great. let me answer the question this way. we have been working on privacy guidelines for quite some time, the information sharing environment privacy guidelines. through that process, we've been working with chief privacy officers across the ise participating agencies, so through that process, you know,

've developed the privacy guidelines and then agencies now are implementing privacy to cies and have been implementing privacy policies that are as comprehensive as our privacy gived lines. -- guidelines. i can maybe follow up with you. okay, alex. do you want to -- >> i'm the civil liberties protection officer for the director of national intellence and i worked very closely with kshemendra implementing the policy guidelines throughout the government. i share a privacy committee that oversees the ilementation. one of the provisions in the privacy guidelines is for those privacy officers, if they identify particularly laws or policies, that might need to be changed to load those up, so we do have a process in place to identify them. we have not yet though gathered all those, but we have a process in place to do so.

>> it's very difficult at times to get the government to talk about crcl, it's challenging to do, but a good points on the panel as well. we'll take that for future reference. next question. any more questions? well, i have another question, you know, kshemendra again, in your speech, you talked about some things in the future and you asked us some questions and gave us homework to do today, but i guess i would ask back to you, what, in your vision, what does ise look like a year from now, what does it look like five years from now, what does look like 20 years from now? what do you want to accomplish and what do you see? >> so that's a good question, and we have several initiatives underway that are bearing fruit, so let me describe those. you know, i see bart johnson in the back, he's on the panel. immediately following, he's

leading a process where we're doing the baseline capability assessment across the 72 fusion centers. and that report should be coming out shortly. we've identified certain critical operating capabilities, and we expect that those operating capabilities will get mitigated, so we have a robust, measured infrastructure of these state and local fusion centers, looking across things like privacy protections or the ability to receive classified information or, you know, some of the other critical operating capabilities that i described earlier, so that's one thing in the next year is substantial progress on the network of state and major urban area fusion centers. the nationwide sars initiative. earlier this summer, secretary napolitano kicked off the see something, say something campaign, by all accounts, it's been well received and we're ramping up the nationwide sar initiative across the country. we'll have, i believe, the majority of states actually integrated into the initiativ

and there's lots of anecdotal evidence and measured information that tells us that it's making a difference. a big initiative in our office has been interconnection of the so-called sbu sensitive and classified netrks. this has been a core refrain from l enforcement, homeland security, first responder type, state and local types, that the different federal networks don't interoperate as well as they should, so we're seeing that interoperability and we've delivered a lot of capabilities over the last little while, documented in the annual report and over the next year, we'll see simplified sign-on, so you don't have all the passwords, it'sees easier to get access, so those are just some examples of the incremental progress we're dereaching. longer term, i think - deriving. longer term, i'm going to defer that, i'll come back and answer that question if you'll have me, but i want to defer that because

i'm really hoping to hear from the audience about where we think we want to go. i would say, that i -- i think within five years, the idea that we're data centric is i think a reality more than it's kind of a future. >> speaking of a data centric, i would love to hear some of the experts in the room talk about and address some of the terms, mega magazining and other things that -- taggg and other things that me as an engineer don't understand, so that's a good dialogue we could have as well. i think we had a question here as well though. >> good morning. i'm from the homeland security and defense council. i admire your job, i think you have a tremendous a. work to do, to figure out how we can share information currently, but to follow on to your question about the future, how is social mapping or almost offensive data collection playing into the

future of the ise? i think right now, we're coecting information, we collected tremendous amount of information and sorting that and sharing that is certainly our first priority, but going forward to kind of face tomorrow's battle, how are we using kind of the social networking andapping tools that are being developed? >> so a great example of using the web technology is t ace based application inside the intelligce community. it's a wicky collaboration platform, that's very useful, for different tell against analysts to be -- intelligee analysts to collaborate and share the information. yes, this information sharing, there's also collaboration around information sharing. so there's its unstructured information and the social sort of thing, so that's a critical part of the inrmation sharing effective social media integration, and you know, the ace base is a great example of that. >> great. any additional questions?

anyone else? sir, in the front right here. >> >> peter sharp. one perception of the problem faced by the national security generally is that there is a very high ratio of noise to signal. in hall this data we're collecting. could you address a little bit how the various initiatives that will promote interoperability both at the business level and semantic level would also help the problem of extracting the necessary signals from the abundant noise? >> that's a grea question. the question is how do we raise the signa and decrease the noise. this is part of the reason why

the connecting the dots metaphor is not so useful, because it doesn't get to the quality of the dots, right, and you know, to establish best practice around the information management is working upstream, trying to, you kw, the point of collection, getting the data in as clean a possible format and then also the different tagging, how you describe the data, so to the extent that tagging is well designed, right, so it supports downstream comparison, and so a great example is with the suspicious activity reporting initiative that i talked about earlier, key part of the work was getting all the different communities to agree on standard code lists for describing behavior base activity, or you call it a car, you call it a vehicle, right, so no, no, we're going to call it a car, right, and things like that. so those are some of the examples for how we think about how that issue, but it's a core issue. you know, it's about sharing and

discovery of information, but discovery only works if the information is described inconsistent ways from the point of view of the person that's trying to discover, right, the he information comes from the domains, so there's the standardization issues. sion only works if you're able to correlate data, but then that applies to certain high level of quality, so you're exactly right, that the data quality issue is a core issue and needs to be engineered into the solution. it can't be dealt with as an after-thought. >> yes, ma'am, right in front. >> i have a question that relates to the discovery issue. at one point in 2007, when i was most familiar with what your office was doing, attribute based access was the mechanism that was used to determine who would be able to discovery

versus access the information. is that still used, if not, what approach are you taking? >> the question is as tribute-based access controls and how do we, you know, make sure that somebody that's accessing the data has the proper authorization to access that data. some refer to that as authorized use. it's the right idea. you know, attribute enrolled access control, the challenge comes in that the, you know, the policies to describe, do you have access, the right to access this information, some of those policies are information assurance policies, some might be a u.s. persons rule, some might be, you know, a variety of other rules that are coming out of different domains, different agencies that are described potentially in different ways that would make it difficult to automate the evaluation of those les to make a judent, you know, in realtime, right? so this goes to the issue of, you know, looking across the different policies, there's a degree of harmonization that y

need to occur so that the policies are described if consistent ways, so those policies can be automated in a consistent way across the ise, so that's the -- the technology, it works. it's established, but doing it at scale, and across these different dough mapes, right, that becomes a hard issue. we actually did a pilot, with nist, over the last year, and i think we described them in our annual report. and the hard part of the pilot wasn't the technology, that's all -- that all works pretty well. it was the effort taken to take, you know, text based policies that weren't written with an eye towards automation and then turning them into rules and then is that actually a valid expression of that policy that will satisfy, you know, legal and decision makers, right. and in some ways, this is similar to the journey that we went through as a cotry with digil signatures. now we accept digital signatures, but it took a long time for the legal and cull rally to catch up with the

technology. the technology was ready for digital signature well in advanced of the wide based market support, so i see it as an analogy. our challenge is to try to accelerate that by working with our partners in the policy community and elsewhere. jure. >> yes. >> hi, i'm went difficult walsh from the naval postgraduate school. you mentioned the word cultural and you mentioned it in your talk as well. what are you finding as far as looking at the issues of trust and culture and how can we build at in our information exchange environment? >> thank you so mch for asking about culture and trust. these are core issues. it's -- you know, one of the things that i found so refreshing in my time in public service is that there is a commitment to sharing and i've seen that commitment grow in the

last five years that i've been workinin the federal government. an looking across, you know, mission partners, there is a commitment to sharing. it becomes difficult with the legitimate policy issues that sort of get in the way sometimes, or, you know, e need to express these policy issues and negotiate them because we're coming at the policy issue from different domains, and things like that. so i see the -- a lot of sharing. i think that from a cultural perspective, we're ready to take that next step to go from, you know, need to share toeed to share well, right, and this comes with the ideas like establishing a learning culture, having metrics around how we share, to help inform operational and management activity. so one of the ideas that we're trying to pursue, interested in pursuing as part of thenational strategy here is what does it mean to have a learning culture around sharing, how do we make sure that we have more cross-cutting metrics that are

shared, cross-agencies, on similar capabilities, technical mission policies. i talked about the sbu networks, intraoperability anybody testifies, so we want to make sure that we can count the number of users in an sbu network, whether it's dho, dni, or doj's grant funded risk net in a consistent way, so we can see how many users do you have. it sounds simple but it gets complex to make sure that you're counting in the same way. counting, bass yo because you we predescribes about it. then you want to say, okay, i want to measure how often the neorks are used and how many of those uses does somebody access a data base in another network. these are simple metrics, but it gets slightly complicated when you want to have the same precise measure coming from different organizations and entiti so you can roll it up. collecting those kinds of

measures gives feedback. feedback that can drive changes in a data-driven way, right, so that helps you with this idea of a learning culture and so we're looking at other opportunities to explore that learning culture idea. >> it occurs to me in the conversation that we've talked about discovery, we've talked about trust and sharing environments, but there's another use for the word discovery in the legal community. and i just -- i wonder whether this horizontal integration that you talk abo is potentially subject to a court order or some other change in our legal system, that pierces the veil, so to speak, and opens this all up to examination for discovery and support of somebody's defense, and i don't know if y'all have thought through the

unintended consequences of the application of the technology at that level, but it seems to me that we may be exposed here in a way that will be very hard to fix, once the door is open. >> so the question is about discovery. that's a really good question. people are aware of that issue. so there is an awareness of the issue and, you know, it manifests itself in a lot of different ways, but there is an awareness of that issue. you know, one of the -- one of the aspects of the information sharing environment that was called for in law and is important to providing confidence to people that policies, whether they're licies are on strengthening privacy, civil liberties and civil rights or policies around information assurance, or other information sharing policies, are effectively implemented are capabilities, so making sure that different activity across the information sharing

environment is lged in a high integrity way that is consistent across different participants in the ise, so you can look across and understand what's going on and understand that the policies and stuff are being followed. >> so now we're starting to get to the good questions. any other questions from the audience? any other questions. kshemendra, again, the reason why we're doing this again and these are great questions and i think these are the questions that ise wants us to address, instead of building the strategy in a vacuum in their government offices, they're coming to the -- to us, the public, you know, the industry, the government people that have to work thisin different department agencies, the pressure organizations, state and local governments and saying, give us -- what are the questions we need to answer in this strategy and what are some of the concerns that we need to take into account. and i think it's critical. i think it's very important, so again, we need to keep that in

mind. we are doing a job here today for the ise team and trying to help them out and to get these critical issues addressed there. any additional questions? >> the p micgan, you talked about an enabler, and you talked about get to go the point in the future where you have best practices. can you envision the point where the pmi does get to that place, where it doesn't just give broad guidance, to protect civil liberties, for example, but it actuly gets to the how, it starts recommending best practices, for example, for encryption, or for data retention across what are very disparate organizations. when does it get to the point, if ever, of actually doing a little more of the how in terms of how far itells other groups to do things? >> so th question is when do we get to the how and the awer is

we're doing that today actually. you know, we do that at the, you know, the business process level, when we use the word functional standard, functional standards, the business proces standard and the exchange, so with the suspicious activity reporting, there's a certain business process that's mandated in terms of what the sar looks like to generate a sar and to share it. we're doing it in terms of the technical standards, we call them segment architectures, but they're a set of standards around intraoperability for the sbu networks and for our other initiatives and similar kinds of things. so i think we're doing it now, and i see us being more prescriptive in the future. that's the power of standards based innovation. one of the core challenges we have is when you look across the ise, it's a huge space. lots of different participants, federal agencies, state, local, tribal and territorial governments, the private sector, it's a huge space. to the extent that we can help

standardize some -- at the exchange, right, not the internal processes, but the exchange, so that people can mesh what they're doing and then we can work with our partners in industry, right, to say here's a standard, an interface standard, the technical level, it allows our industry partners to start to bake those capabilities into their products and services and make them more accessible. a great example, when you think about state and local governments, there's 18,000 police departments in this country. we're inherently a very federated decentralized from a law enforcement perspective. you get past the major cities, you know, the verybig forces, and it gets to be very challenging for small, mid-sized police departments to effectively integrate into the ise, because they can't invest in customized solutions. they need to have solutions that are basically standards based. so that's, you know, part of what we want to do is to become

increasingly prescriptive. not in a vacuum, but with our mission partners. it's really critical. we're not out in front, we're bringing them together, common mission equitying, but come -- equities, but coming to an agreement and leveraging industries and working with industries, so we can bring those kinds of solutions to bear. >> great. any other questions? okay. before we thank kshemendra, we'll take a short break and we'll reconvene here at 945 al. buff i would like to know that this is kshemendra's first major speech as a psmie, but i think he set a high bar with so much substance in his speech and it's very useful for those of us trying to get our arms around this, so let's give kshemendra a warm round of applause, please. [applause] tile.

get your last bagel and cream cheese, danish, coffee, orange

juice. >> go ahead and take your time. while you're headed back to your seats we'll get into the sub stantive -- substantive parts of the remarks, charter, and he has -- anyone want to guess how many people work in ise? less than or greater than 50? less than or greater than 20? less than or greater than 10. less. nine people and they're hiring. so if you need -- if you're looking for a government job or a contracting job or whatever, kshemendra said only qualified applicants, please, but somebody -- so that leaves me out, but please contact the ise folks. second, we also -- great irony of life. we learned that the live streaming of the ise web site is

not accessible by the intelligence community. so we would encourage you to use your home computers later to down load the pod cast and lastly, i want to report a couple individuals we have here, some folks have been working this information sharing for a long, long time and one has been instrumental and has been working overtime since 12/25, mike resnick and monty over here from the national security staff, and they're not speaking but it's important that they're here and recognize the efforts that they've done at their level to bring this dialogue to where it is today. the fact that we have this many people in a room and this kind of a star studded panel here to talk about this issue, so thank you both for your efforts. [applause]

this is a phenomenal panel, some of these individuals have been here above. they're each keynote panelists, speakers themselves and the fact that we have four of them together is quite a testament to their commitment to this issue, an we're very fortunate to have them here. we kind of organized this international to domestic, that was my logic, and if it doesn't make sense, i'm sorry, tallahassee the only thing i could come up with. you should have received a packet, has everyone's detailed bio, in there and we'll start off with russ's remarks. first up will be rust traverse, a deputy director for information sharing and knowledge development at national counterterrorism center and he manages information sharing initiatives and has been there since the beginning. to the right of him is the chief information officer, in the bureau of counselor affairs and director not the consular

affairs of he can nothing and he manages all of consular affairs technology systems. no that's task. next up is gil kurkowski, director of the national drug czar policy and also for a repeat performance, we had with the secretary a couple of months back is bart johnson, principal deputy undersecretary for analysis at the department of homeland security, mr. johnson serves as a second ranking official in the office and provides secretary napolitano and her staff, and i love this one, along with state, local and tribal partner sectors with timely information on terrorism threats. that's what's so key about that, that's state and local and private sector. without further ado, each of them will have five to seven minutes and questions and answers again. so rust, if you would like to kick it off, that would be great. >> thanks very much. it's a pleasure to be here with my colleagues to talk about what is a very important and i think

extremely complicated question. if you ask 10 different people what the information sharing environment is, i think you're likely to get 10 different opinions. i think for the purpose of my talk this morning, i'm going to try to be a little bit horicon create and focus on nctc's role specifically and address what i believe to be the current state of information sharing across the community. i think it's an important question, because if we go back to the attempted bombing of northwest flight 253 on christmas day, there was a good bit of discussion afterwards about information sharing, and i think frankly, some of it was pretty muddled. there was suggestion that information sharing was worse now than it was before 9-11 and i disagree with that.

what i'm going to do is give you a practitioner's perspective, i'll give you three facts or what i believe to be facts and address two follow-on questions that i think flow from those facts. facts number one. 12/25 was not a 9-11-like information sharing problem at all. there were two key pieces of information regarding farouk and these 2 pieces of information were broadly shared across the entire counterterrorism community. they could have been found with a google-like search but they weren't, because the community didn't address either one of those of particular dots. they didn't find them important in the overall mass of information. that's a big problem, but it's not an information sharing problem. fact number two. by any objective standard, there is more information being shared with more people in a timely manner than at any point in hour

history. and that's just -- that's an unassailable fact. if you look at every major plot that's been disrupted over the last six, seven, eight years, effective information sharing played a critical role. in some cases, it was federal to federal. in some cases, it was federal to non-federal. and in some cases, it would have been u.s. government to allied. we are getting pretty good at this. fact number three, despite relatively positive trends, there is still clearly work to be done, and you're going to hear from my colleagues, i'm sure, on a number of the different aspects of what we need to improve on and there will always be need for improvement. i would say however, i think as a result of the good work that has been done over the last seven, eight years across the united states government and with our non-federal partners, the low hanging fruit is largely gone. and what i think we have are some very difficult issues to address. so what i want to do is bill on those three facts and attempt to

address two follow-on questions. first, why is this so hard? you will often hear why can't we just give analysts all the information. why is that a problem? and i think actually, the answer to that question is really pretty easy. is there anyone in this room that would advocate complete unfettered sharing of u.s. persons information. kind of doubt it. secondly, do we believe that we should abide by the law? question came up earlier. find the court restrictions on information. or privacy act. or bank secrecy act, or systems of record notes. there are many legitimate restrictions on information flow and that will always be the case. thirdly, our foreign partners, our critical foreign partners give us information. they may well put restrictions on how that information is shared within the united states government. if we want their information,