and private. two-thirds of parents felt that way, and the majority of teenagers felt that way. that is a great concern to kids, teachers, and parents all across the country, and i hope we address that today. the fourth point we saw in the poll was that people, and parents in particular want clear, simple, terms and conditions regarding privacy. nearly all of the parents polled -- 91%, said they would take more time to read terms and conditions if there were -- if they were shorter and written in more clear language. for all of those who have gone through the complex privacy policies have been sent to us, and often change, the simplicity and clarity message comes across loud and clear in this poll.

the fifth point that we saw, that we think is important is that parents and teenagers are concerned about geo-location services -- places that can track your behavior, we found that 91% of parents found that search engines and online social networking sites should not be able to share their physical location with other companies before they have been given the specific authorization to do so. a strong majority of teenagers, 81%, said the same thing. geode-location services have popped up -- geo-location services have popped up recently, and on the radar as a serious concern. the sixth point is that approximately 70% of parents think schools need to educate kids about privacy -- it needs

to be part of the basic curriculum in school as social media and digital media, more broadly, have revolutionized the lives of students across the country. the seven. we found is that parents want updated privacy laws. we will speak to that with sharon genachowski, jon leibowitz, and deputy secretary miller. the majority of parents think that congress should update laws relating to security. i will read a statement from congressman ed markey who was the original author of the top, though, which was offered -- coppa bill, which was authored in 1998. the last point we found about pole was simple. concern is growing dramatically.

85% are more concerned now than five years ago. it comes as no surprise to us, or everyone in the room, probably, but it is a fundamental change. let's talk about what this means to common sense media. we look at it in several ways. we look through the lens of parents and kids. that is our primary audience. we also look through the lens of schools and teachers, and how they feel about it. we also feel, since we are here, in washington, d.c., there needs to be a new policy framework that addresses some of these issues. we have laid out today -- on the board over here, and also the chant -- the centerpiece of how we view the policy, we have six basic things we feel strongly about in terms of protecting our kids privacy. we believe there should be new

laws and regulations that say do not track kids. by that we mean no behavioral marketing, no transfer of information to third parties and advertisers. the second policy plank that we believe should be adopted in the coming months is that the industry standard for all kids privacy should be out be -- out- in, not opt-out, so, for example, no geo-location services without formal permission. the third basic policy framework that we would like to enunciate today is that privacy statements should be clear and simple, and easy to be understood for someone like me, as well as my much more technologically- sophisticated children to understand.

clear and simple privacy statements should be the role. the company should be required to develop easy to understand policies, and a third party should form a rating so an average citizen cannot look at the privacy requirements for an independent rating. the fourth part of our framework is that we think parents, teachers, and kids need to be educated on an ongoing basis about protecting privacy. we believe there should be a massive public education efforts funded by the industry, because it is the industry whose growth and technological advancement has brought on so many of these issues, and second, that schools should teach privacy as a part of digital literacy education. we believe there should be a digital literacy curriculum in every school in the united states with privacy as a major

component. we believe that the industry needs to innovate to protect kids and families. my office is in san francisco. we spend a lot of time in silicon valley. some of my students at stanford have become major leaders in the tech industry. they have done some major changes over the past decade or two because of their extraordinary innovation. that ought to be turned to helping to protect kids today. for example, we believe that the industry should develop an eraser button, so that when a 15-year-old does a dumb thing on their facebook page, they do not have to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. we know adults make dumb mistakes on their web sites and other pages as well, but we

think the industry should develop an eraser button. we cannot tell you how to do that, but we know the ingenuity exists to develop these solutions. we think the onus is on the industry to develop that. finally, we believe that government needs to update its policy on privacy for the 21st century. you'll hear from three of the most important government officials in this country to have an ability to do that, but i just want to mention that congressman ed markey, who was the house author of the original coppa act made a statement that said he remains intensely interested in making sure kids rights are protected, and new technologies have emerged, making a legislative update necessary. hi, ed markey, look for to

introducing such legislation to bring coppa into the new century. we need to see education, outreach, and to bring everyone along. our framework, before i turn it over to chairman leibowitz and chairman genachowski is that there are four parts that have a huge part to play in our society with these privacy issues. first is the industry. a significant honest is on the attack and -- a significant onus is on the attack and media industry to change practices to develop new, innovative technologies, that allow parents to protect privacy in a recent white. you may have seen their recent study that highlighted how cookies were being attached to kids websites. there is an onus on industry to

play a big role. i am sure the chairman will address that. from a parent and kids standpoint, we expect and call on the industry to do their part, and to quite frankly change their practices in many cases where they did not promote the best interest of kids. the second is parents and kids. we have handed out today, and will be distributing privacy tips for parents and kids. simple stuff, that everyone needs to know. we will spend a lot time and money doing a broad, out reach -- a brought out reach campaign. we also expect to work closely with industry, and folks in the federal government to educate the broader public. the third element will be schools, as i mentioned earlier. we believe they need to integrate privacy as a part of a

broader digital literacy curriculum. finally, the government is to play a leadership role. that means the federal trade commission, the federal communications commission, the department of education, and the very top levels of government from the white house on down. if i will turn it over to the three distinguished from the leaders we have with us. i will first introduced jon leibowitz, who will then introduce julius genachowski, who will then introduce tony millller, the deputy secretary f the department of education. the three major agencies that have the ability to help us protect the privacy of kids and families. i would like to remind you that the best thing about all of these gentlemen is that they are parents, too. chairman leibovitz. >> thank you, jim.

let me start by thanking you have an common sense media for inviting me ftc to be part of these events, and also for your thoughtful remarks and you're pulling results. last december, chairman genachowski and i unveiled a new guide for chatting with kids about being on line. it is now a multimedia toolkit, including new printed material, the video for kids, slides and discussion guides, and a video for parents. it is absolutely terrific. let me give you a preview. this video is called share with care. it is directed at kids. can we cue that up? [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ♪

>> being on line is a great way to share information. before you post anything of mine, ask yourself a few questions -- how would you feel if your parents, teachers, coaches, or neighbors found it? even if you turn on privacy settings, it is impossible to completely control everything you post or when. do you want a message or fall you posted it to show up years from now? once you post the information online, you cannot take it back. even if you did leave it, it is still somewhere else. why a video or picture might be funny to you, it might be embarrassing or hurtful to someone else. being on line is a part of your life, so stop and think before you click. >> i thought that was pretty

darn good. there are plenty of materials like that. some are longer, some are shorter, and they are both for adults, parents, and kids. now, the original was based on a very simple premise -- adults help kids navigate cyberspace safely and responsibly, not by being more tech-savvy, because i don't think we ever will be, but by passing an hour values on to them. those values are the tether that anchors kids as they explore these dangerous corners of the net. provide -- protect your -- be mindful that your videos have consequences. under the golden rule of mine, as well as off. recently, we have seen the tragedy that can result when that tether is cut, as a kid

approaches the net as a value- free zone. and 18-year-old college freshman killed himself after his roommate strain and video -- streamed video of him online. add to that the countless stories of the jobs lost, but it -- reputation's ruined, and teenagers tears caused by pose -- posts that never disappear. the common sense pole puts numbers behind these fears. now, the ftc is very concerned about these issues. we brought well over 100 cases involving privacy, spam and spy-where cases, and violations of the childrens' on-line privacy protection act.

we are currently reviewing that role, which requires parental consent before intermission can be collected from children under 13. we accelerated this role by five years. we felt it was so important and we felt that technology was changing so fast, that we needed to assess the situation sooner. we will be publishing of report, probably in november, said that examines privacy broadly, including issues about how difficult it is to read -- read and understand privacy notices of that we retain the say online. as a commission, we dedicate a lot of resources and a lot fought tooth internet education initiatives -- and a lot of thought to internet education initiatives. tellingly, the common sense poll

found that three-quarters of teenagers found that adults were better source of information for advice about staying safe online. children are looking to their parents for guidance. parents are eager to talk to their kids about these issues. netsetter has helped, and we are pleased because of the plain-language invites it contains. we distributed more than 5 million guides, and we are responding to orders of about 150,000 more each and every week. across the country, they are receiving the guide from their school system, including large districts like prince george's county, maryland. we are making available the community outreach toolkit, which has resources to extend that conversation that netsetter

has started. the kits offers both a background information and presentation aids. anyone who wants to talk to kids about online safety can use it. parents, school administrators, teachers, law enforcement, and any adult. all materials are in english and in spanish, and there are c d and dvd. you can order a free copy or find it on mine. we understand that the values are personal, and washington can not provide his kids with the moral grounding they need to travel in cyberspace responsibly. parents can.

scout leaders, church leaders, and coaches can, and when they do, the toolkit is them what they need to start talking to kids about taking their values with them when they go online. thank you so much, and let me turn it over to my friend and colleague, mr. genachowski. >> chairman leibowitz, thank you, for your leadership. i'm glad we are joined by deputy education secretary tony miller, and thank you jim steyer, for organizing this event, commissioning the pole, and for all the work you do on behalf of our children. privacy is a basic value. protecting privacy as always been a central, and it will continue to be essential in the digital age. understanding the challenges

leads one to also appreciate the possibilities of the digital age. broadband internet can bring away of an unprecedented opportunity for our children. it has the potential to improve every aspect of our kids' lives -- how they connect with friends and families, including in all emergencies, how they receive care when they're sick, and how they learn. it is mandatory in the digital age that we work for universal access in digital literacy for all of our kids -- that all of the kids have the tools to be full presence in the digital economy and 21st century democracy. seizing the opportunities require that we confront the issues of privacy. this past march, the sec released the country's first national broadband plan, which focuses on seizing the

opportunities and tackling the challenges of broadband for our country. all work identified the importance of data -- our work identified the importance of data to a healthy broadband eco system, and also identified privacy concerns, including a as a barrier to broadband adoption. when people fear that new technology puts their privacy at risk, they are less likely to use those new technologies. to fulfill the promise of broadband for our work children, parents need to feel confident that their children are safe online, and that their personal information is protected, and children, in fact need to be safe online. theon-sense's poll revealed we have a lot of work to do. this distress has serious consequences. serious consequences for our

children, small businesses, and our economy, which needs a vibrant and trustworthy online marketplace. at the fcc, our over-arching goals when it comes to privacy are to ensure that consumers of broadband, cable, and mobile communications are empowered to control their information, that providers are transparent and clear about their practices, and that personal data is handled in a way that protect consumers, including from malicious third parties. if we have -- enforced rules that apply to communication providers, and we will continue to do so. the fcc national broadband planned understands the importance of data. we enhance privacy through education, tolls to empower consumers, updating policy, and inter-agency of child of mine

safety work. interagency coordination is important for so many reasons. it would not be the right thing to do for each of our agencies to develop their own education plans for parents and kids, and small businesses, etc. then, distribute similar information. it makes much more sense to have real coordination, to leverage the assets the government does have to provide excellent privacy-related education, and then use our joint resources to get it out. i am pleased that the fcc and the ftc have joined together. i am pleased, the we have been able to work with the department

of education on this, too. this is how government should work when it comes to these issues. ultimately, this is what will work most effectively for consumers, parents, and kids. as chairman leibowitz mentioned, we have been working closely uard onlinec and ongar will continue to do that. we are launching a campaign. today, we released a new web page dedicated to online privacy and security. you can find it at fcc.gov \consumer. there are many different kinds of privacy and security risks that consumers face. drop the month, we will be

releasing digital guides on -- throughout the month, we will be releasing digital guides on a range of topics including how to browse the internet safely. these are just some of the resources we are making available. last month, we launched a new parent place. it is intermission and parental controls for media, a minor child safety, and child obesity. technology can and must be part of the solution to the challenges technology creates. this is a key area for innovation, and there is much that private companies, our best and the bidders can, and must do. we're at the computer museum in san francisco, and we saw a tremendous set of examples of innovators that were developing tools to help parents help their kids navigate the internet to

select and find content that is educational and entertaining. there is the beginning of tremendous innovation in this area, and we are all working together on ways to spur that kind of technology and innovation. the education of our kids, in and out of school, must be a part of the solution. we will hear more about that in a minute. fundamentally, we need solutions to the real and growing needs around digital challenges -- solutions that protect children, and our parents, and honor the first amendment. today's information, today's poll is a spur to action. i was inspired to work together to seize the opportunities, and tackle the challenges of the digital world. with that, let me invite tony miller, our deputy education

secretary, to the podium. >> thank you. first of all, thank you to jim and the common sense media, for the work that you are doing in this area, for shining a light and promoting education and understanding on this critically important issue. i am pleased to be here on behalf of secretary duncan to join chairman genachowski and chairman of leibowitz to bring focus on this important issue in this digital age. the president and secretary has said repeatedly that education is the civil rights issue of our time, and that improving education in america is clearly an economic imperative. the president has set a high goals that by the year 2020, the united states will have the highest per-capita graduation rates in the world. meeting this goal will mean getting many more of our

students to be much better prepared for colleges and careers. to accomplish this, we will need an all-hands-on-deck approach -- parents, students, with the support of community-based organizations, will have to rise to the challenge. we know to be successful we must leverage the best of modern technology. we have talked about what is going on with broadband and the abolition of web technology. we need to create more engaging, and inspiring personalize learning environments. these learning environments will not only be in the classroom, but extend to the community as we think about after-school and extended-day programs, and into the home. weekend news these to accelerate learning, and -- we can use this new technology to accelerate learning, and a mixture teacher's pet access to the data that can make them more

effective. we have to be equally committed to promoting, understanding, and protecting privacy and safety of our students did the commitment includes investing -- students. the commitment includes investing at the government level. let me give you a sense of what we are doing at the department of education. we are investing in a new position of chief privacy officer to serve as senior adviser to the secretary on all policy and programs related to privacy, confidentiality, and data security. the officer will provide guidance to the field, helping to provide solutions for sharing information is protected. in addition, we have launched the privacy technical assistance center. it will serve as a one-stop-

shop, four states, districts, and schools, and help them understand data security issues and practices. they provide resources such as privacy tool kits, and technical briefs to enable access to the best affirmation and practices in these areas across the field. archie's privacy officer will serve on the -- our chief privacy officer will serve on the advisory board. in addition to the work we are doing in the department, we are actively engaged with our sister agencies across the department. we are promoting cyber security through the national initiative for cyber security education, in partnership with the department of commerce and other u.s. agencies. we are also agents -- at the on the interagency subcommittee on privacy. these are some of the efforts we are taking at the department.

in this digital age, a thriving, dynamic education system requires a focus on technology, and equally strong protection for some information and privacy. to advance this important work, we are pleased to be able to continue to distribute then netsetter guide. as a parent of a college student, i can tell you firsthand the need for us to understand and engage our students about these lasting technologies is in critically important. we are committed to this work, and look forward to working with our counterparts. thank you. [applause] >>, we will open it up to questions from the floor.

we have chairman genachowski, chairman leibowitz, and deputy secretary miller. i believe there are capable of answering questions. why don't we start with you. >> [unintelligible] what about privacy [unintelligible] >> i would just tell you that we look at everything to the lens of kids. we frame did in two contexts. first of all, how kids can do really dumb things, if you well, put stuff up there that they should not come up or might other people's privacy. that is one element of -- or by

other people's privacy. that is one critical area. the other is for marketers are taking information and selling with or without their knowledge. we did not call on that specific issue, but i believe chairman genachowski or chairman leibowitz could probably speak to that one. >> to have a successful, a vibrant, broadband at the system as it is important everyone trusts what is in the cloud. they need to be confident that they are protected against people who deliberately try to steal identities, violate privacy, and they need to know there will not be accidental ones, either. his one of the reasons why we are launching an education -- it is one of the reasons we are launching an education program to help consumers who use wifi networks that they should

encrypt. there are other examples that stops -- of steps that consumers and small businesses can take to increase the protection they have. we want to make sure we have a trusting environment where consumers only controlled their data because the -- controlled their data because that will be a key ingredient to a vibrant, successful broadband echoes as compared >> at the ftc, we do a lot of law enforcement. we have brought 29 at data security bases in the last seven years. i agree with chairman genachowski. obviously, the internet gives us these wonderful gifts, but it also raises concerns on the other hand. we have to be on top of that, both with education, and with law-enforcement. >> we are likely to have a

blair, who directed our national broadband plan, and make sure that in looking at the epic is around broadband -- the enormous economic opportunities around broadband, that they also looked at challenges like security, and make sure that the coordinated efforts going forward takes that seriously. it is a fundamental issue of values, and also, we need to tackle it to harness and sees the economic benefit. i am glad that she is here. >> i would like to make one point and pick up on something chair -- chairman genachowski said. we are calling for serious policy change. i know the industry might complain and say this is expensive. we believe very strongly what chairman genachowski said -- in

the long run, it is really good for economic growth. unless there is trust in privacy, unless we invest and put the right policy in place, people will not years the broadband environment as much as they should. it will curb economic growth. you do not have privacy laws, just like in the 1900's, where you head meat-packing -- had meat-packing standards. he made clear regulations to protect kids and teenagers. if you did that, the economic vibrancy that we all recognize will be at the centerpiece of the economic and educational engines of the future, that will happen. the industry might say that as a burden, but we would strongly disagree. we think it is in all of our

best interest. next question. >> first of all, how will it is a kid? 17 and under? is it 17 and under? >> for common sense media, it is under the age of 18. >> do you agree. >> different policies with a different kids. >> i agree, but for our purposes it is 12 and under. >> the department of education thinks about privacy, safety and a private security across all the information. >> how does all company now when a person goes on line at -- let's say they are looking at a tapeworm on wikipedia.

how does it now it is a giggling 13-year-old against a 35-year old person with the medical condition. -- medical condition? >> do you want to take a shot? >> sure. companies cannot always tell, of course, but certainly, they developed profiles of the internet addresses. they do behavioral marketing. if you go online, you will see that advertisements generally sent to you are sort of a relevant to your universe of interests. i think, in lots of instances, those profiles are developed often using third party cookies, which are somewhat controversial. at some level, you cannot distinguish between kids and

adults. -- you can. >> how many believe the regulation so far has been relevant -- adequate? >> we did not believe that industry self regulation is adequate. >> to the rest of you feel that it has fallen short? >> there are clearly issues that need to be addressed, and that can be addressed in a number of different locations. there is no question that industry is looking more carefully at their privacy policy because it is a broad consumer issue, and we are also looking at the best way to foster a growing and trust and broadband system. -- trusted broadband system. >> if some companies have done a very good job on privacy protection, but overall industry needs to step up the plate and self-regulation. there will be a very big debate in the next congress, and if

they do not improve collectively their efforts at self- regulation, i think congress will be very interested in writing more prescriptive rules. >> my last question is, if these companies get very tough on privacy they could lose a lot of revenue. they depend on advertising. what is in it for them to act on what would seem to be against their short-term self interest? >> i will take that from a common-sense standpoint. at common sense, we do not believe the only value that matters is shareholder value or short-term profit. we believe the interests of kids and families are paramount. the idea that certain privacy policies may limit corporate profits from companies that are making enormous profits, by the way, and having enormous public offerings, and enriching their employees, founders, and shareholders greatly, is simply

not a huge concern for us. we believe they have a responsibility to the public, specifically to kids and families. if there are short-term investments they need to make, or certain restrictions on profits that come from a do not track law that did not allow them to share third party information with marketers and advertisers, that as a bargain that as well made. he has to balance the best interest of kids against short term profits. we believe the interest of kids and families is paramount. >> i would add that i think we are on the cost of dramatic growth in the application of new technologies in education, not just in the classroom, but beyond. i think many in the industry see that potential and are poised to deliver against that. i think it is in our economic best interest to ensure that

students are protected, that teachers and parents feel like these are safe tools to protect privacy, and that will accelerate the deployment of these tools. to not do so, is not in their economic interest because it will slow their use. >> a lot of companies and executives do actually care about privacy. with respect to something like do not track, i think is most consumers -- it is not clear that the technology is there, but it seems close -- if there was a do not track mechanism, a lot of consumers what ought not to be is it not to use it. they prefer more relevant adds. i am not sure the rate would be terribly high. time may tell. >> very quickly -- i think there is a growing awareness in

companies that operate in the the space that if the internet is not a trusted place, it will not have the growth characteristics that are needed for the greater success of those companies. if small businesses do not trust the internet, and did not taking advantage of opportunities in the cloud to expand to new markets, and lower their cost, said it will hurt the business that is try to sell to those small businesses. we of all participated in discussions where the industry is taking this issue more and more seriously. it really is broadway required -- broadly required for both protecting basic privacy values, and also ensuring the success of the internet to have it be trusted and secure.

>> we will take one more question, and that will be it. >> i was wondering if you could collaborate on the current state of privacy law -- elaborate on the current state of privacy law with regard to protecting kids, and what potential improvements would be needed. do you feel like current law is adequate? common sense is calling for no behavioral marketing to kids. how should the law treats behavioral marketing to kids? >> well, i would sit privacy laws in america are a quilted patchwork. sometimes they do -- they work well, but often they were developed in isolation. that is why you see some members of congress that are far more comprehensive privacy legislation. we are doing an accelerated review of the childrens' on-

line protection act. my recommendation -- my sense is that we're want to have some policy recommendations out of that, and maybe some minor changes to regulations themselves. we have not decided that yet. again, when you are an agency, and you do rulemaking, they are cabin begin by the parameters of the extension of the law. >> i agree with jon. privacy laws and protections up here in many places. they are a patchwork, and they do not fully anticipate the challenges we are now facing. that is why this is getting a serious look in congress, and why each of our agencies are looking at it, and also one of the reasons why we set our joint

task force. we want to be able to deliver to the public a coherent, sensible rules of the road that accomplish the goals we have been talking about. >> i think that congressman markey's statement today is quite important, since he has been of one of the leading figures in the past 15 or 20 years, looking at the whole issue of media and technology, and was the primary office -- , author of the act that the chairman have referred to. for him to say he would like to see an update on the law, we see that as good news. there will be legions of lobbyists who are trying to protect their own self-interest. we hope very strongly that the best interest of kids and families will be part of that, and we can come up with a true

set of common sense privacy rules for the 21st century. as parents, we all know we need this. i agree we very much with what chairman genachowski said -- in the long run, and even in the short-run, said it will benefit our economy. i am optimistic, and we have common sense would like to see that a bidding of the laws in a comprehensive, common sense way. all of us will benefit if that happens. >> part -- privacy is one of the least partisan issues in washington. chairman genachowski and i testified before the committee in the beginning of august. privacy issues, particularly do not track, really resonated with members on both sides of the aisle. on the house energy and commerce committee, you have ed markey,

who has been a leader on privacy, and so has joe barton. this is an issue that has been looked at, and it will be looked at and a bipartisan way. >> if we lose the room, we really should go. thank you very much for coming. [applause] >> thank you, guys.

>> next, a forum on ways to use u.s. culture to improve communications around the world. then a senate hearing on the security of pensions. then the discussion on today's news coverage being trivialized. >> arguably, washington's great is was as much what he did between battles, simply holding the continental army together.

>> our interview with ron chernow on "q&a". >> political and cultural leaders gathered monday for the aspen cultural diplomacy institute forum here in washington d.c. they discussed hell of the u.s. can use culture as a means for communicating with other nations. -- discussed how the u.s. can use culture. this portion of the forum is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> better than they did in the previous session. because of the precision of the recording we are trying to achieve, we will not be passing the audience microphones. we will keep them in the stands, and when you post your questions, we will ask you to go to the microphones in the

corridor. i want to not introduce dr. azar nafisi and our moderator. we all know her because of the book we love so much. michael is the pulitzer prize- winning writer for "the washington post." please join me in welcoming our speakers. [applause] >> thank you. before we go any further, can you hear me all right? >> can you hear me in the back?

>> can you hear me now? [laughter] >> thank you all for coming. our conversation is about cultural diplomacy. i will start out by asking azar , she said she was in minnesota giving a talk. what were you talking about? >> i can take this off? sorry. >> now no one will know who you are. [laughter] much better for me. >> you had mentioned you were giving a talk. what we are talking about? >> i was going to talk about

hair is going to bail out the imagination reviewed about who is going to bail out the imagination. everyone is asking for a bailout. how much attention are repaying to the attitude, the perception, the passion that makes this country move forward. merely anink it is economic crisis. we are living in a crisis of vision, an economic crisis is part of that. we the people have to have a national conversation about it. >> what is cultural diplomacy? >> sometimes i think cultural -- culture and diplomacy don't really exactly go hand in hand. culture essentially means seeing

the world through the alternative eyes. even see yourself unquestioning yourself the way you have never seen yourself or question yourself. diplomacy sometimes is all about trying to see yourself in a conventional way. it is a contradiction in terms, but a very necessary contradiction in terms. i think that real cultural diplomacy means two things simultaneously. one, [unintelligible] curiosity. you need to be curious about others in a genuine way, and not just pay lip service. at the same time, offer something that makes other people feel curious about you and want to know about you. once you have that curiosity, then you have with the chairman was talking about, which is the

ability to put on someone else's shoes and walk around in them. cultural diplomacy from my point of view is the simultaneous occurring of curiosity and connection to others. but there seems to be a kind of tension in the idea of cultural diplomacy between what we call a desire to americanize the world as opposed to seeking a more cosmopolitan, global notion of cultural citizenship. do you feel that way? you have grown up in iran and you now live in america. >> as a writer, i consider myself sort of homeless in away.

you need to be the stranger. i always remember, the highest form of morality is not to feel palm at your own home. having said that, i was uplifted many times in my life, beginning at -- uprooted many times in my life, beginning at age of 13. leaving everything that you call home, being uprooted, it is full of anguish and pain. it is the same anguish and pain that you feel about your first love. it is always within your reach, and not. what i learned at that age even is that the only way i can have a home is through this --

through the imagination. neither flood, nor war, nor government can take away from me a home in my imagination. the same time, carrying -- the world in a sense becomes your home. >> i grew up in a working-class town in ohio. my desire was to feel at home and the world, no matter where i might find myself. i would not be just a kid from ohio, but the guy would get to travel and mix with people from different cultures and feel at ease, to some degree. it seems to me that cultural diplomacy is a lot about a museum without walls. that is, we should read more

widely and deeply. in some ways it is the failure of american diplomacy that people are not reading enough, or not reading deeply and widely enough. we don't know anything about persian literature. that is a good point. should we have a book called reading the blind owl in washington d.c.? >> he should have asked this question -- you should have asked this question because i might never shut up. there are two aspects to this.

when you talk about your childhood in ohio, and i immediately remembered one of my favorite books. someone this morning talked about maxwell anderson. from very early childhood, and i talk about this in my recent book, i learned that we live in the realm of the real. there is very little we can control. we don't control what country we are born in or what name we are given or what language we are taught to speak. there is that other realm of the imagination where you have control, because you talk about

reality and you read about reality from a perspective other than the one imposed on you. at the same time, my father used to make revisit what he called imaginary maps. but first discovered about iran through my father telling me stories of a great poet and his thousand your birthday and what he did. in the 11th century was an amazing revival of the iranian culture. the mythology, the 3000 year mythology of iran, and to the invasion.

we had a sense of our history and our identity. my father always told my brother and i that it was an ancient country and it was invaded so many times. what makes us iranians is our culture. he had no prejudices, and like some of our academics today, if you are a woman in a muslim majority company -- country, as soon as you come here, they tell you are lucky because your a woman. go into woman studies and you can, you know, write about middle east and islam. no, i said you go into women studies and write about middle east and islam. i want to write about dead white men. because the whole idea of

equality, the whole idea of equality is based on the ability for us as the other to speak to one another, off one another, and about one another. and not be categorized. because this republic where my father showed me at the beginning, it was composed of pinocchio, we had the little prince, we had that little tom sawyer who i learned to discard after i discovered huck. we had hans christian andersen. it was a republic of imagination that transcended the boundaries of nationality, religion and race. we need such republic licks. we need to be able to will transcend our little nooks and crannies that we create for one another.

so these were the two things that i learned, that the world is my home once i start reading rablay, once i read donte, and once i come to phillips, i forgot to tell you the added bonus to coming to this meeting was coming to phillips museum. i wrote a great deal of books here at phillips. i would go to the cafeteria up there. it used to be a very small one downstairs, which was very difficult to work in. but now it's some wonderful, wonderful cafeteria. i would go up, take a look at my favorite paintings, come down, write, go up, take a look again, and the only complaint i have against "washington post" is that at the section -- >> you have a complaint against the "washington post"? >> definitely against "washington post," a few one is the closing down of the

bookworm. it was one of the most tragic. it was -- you know, that was what gave me a sense of community. i got to know you and all of your colleagues. not because i knew you, but because i knew that something is waiting for me during the weekends. and i feel very deprived, you know. >> well, that said, we all regret the loss of bookworm. as much as anyone. there are many books in washington. the paper does believe in the importance of literature as it does in art, music, and the coverage of culture in general. so it does exist. >> i appreciate it. i think sidney should take over the bookworm. and you know, give it back to us. >> are you listening? >> bring it back to us, you know. it's all fine with you. but what about the nation's capital.

let's bring culture to this capital. it's not all about the superstar politicians. i don't know how many are in this. but with phillips, the only complaint i had against the "washington post" is when they did a profile for my recent book, "things i've been silent about," which was great, i loved the interview, i asked them to do the photograph in my favorite places, that gave me something. and we came to phillips. they generously guided us and gave of their time. and "washington post" did not write that this was at phillips museum. that was the most important part of that photograph. not me, but the staircase at phillips. so i want to rectify that. >> i will sing phillips' praises as well. because the museum is being renovated.

the greatest paintings and works are here because of the phillips generosity. now that we've said enough about phillips, do you feel that then cultural diplomacy is simply a form of comparative literature that we should all be reading a more globally from the cultures of various countries, and that that will develop simply through the experience of reading, understanding, tolerance, sympathy for cultures and people of different backgrounds? is that the way? >> well, you know, first of all, cultural diplomacy is something i do believe in very, very deeply. we cannot pay lip service. what is happening about this whole "i feel your pain" thing about other cultures, the sentimental way of looking at them is very dangerous.

we have -- i mean, literature is all about truth. and truth is always about taking a risk. it's like that little girl alice, you jump down the hole without asking any questions. and we have to jump down that hole. our dialog with others should not be paying lip service to them, using them as children almost, or, you know, you have a beautiful culture. but genuinely understanding the culture. and you understand it only by going to its art and music and food and literature, you know. let me give you an example about iran. i came here in 1997. i came from a society where the regime had taken away -- it either killed people or killed them by taking away their history. their sense of identity. monopolizing their culture,

taking away their voices. so for me coming here was, you know -- i could express myself freely, become myself again. what do i find out that there are two camps usually. there are people who really understand culture in either of these camps. there are two camps. but their attitude is the same. first, they reduce all these amazing countries, that from 1979, had their particular identity and names. will you in literature know how important it is to give every single entity its name. so countries as different historically, traditionally, culturally, politically, as afghanistan, iran, turkey, indonesia, malaysia, saudi

arabia. the first disrespect we showed towards them culturally was to take on the language of the rulers and the extremists and call them the muslim world. there is no such thing, the bad and good news, there is no such thing as the muslim world. it is an entity that exists in the minds of those who like to not look at the truth, because truth is complicated, who like to simplify. because if you call it the muslim world, then where do you go from there. either it's a good world, or it's their culture, you know? whatever they do over there, that is terrible. it's their culture. and we should not impose our culture on them. or it's a terrible one. and we should do away with them. muslims are all -- islam really never gave anything to us. now, if you read through the alternative eyes of the great literature, arab and turkish

and, you know, persian literature, and the history, you discov discover -- there's a wonderful new book cleopatra that people in egypt, it was alexandria. iran was persia. these cultures have changed. and islam has mixed and mingled with the greatest philosophers and poets, who came out of the post-islamic culture. and if you knew iran through its poets, what you would know was that 1,000 years ago, not just ferdoesy, but another great poet wrote this amazing love poem, which is basically written that

iran was a country before the invasion. it is one of the most erotic and subversive books that you can read on love. women in ferdoesi are some of the most independent minded and sensual women whom not only choose whom they marry, but who they love. of in this poetry is a way of communion with god. 750 years ago, they mentioned flogging people in public and drinking wine in private. so i as a woman want to go back to culture, do i think that i need to be independent because i

have read a few books by western feminists? bloody hell no. i go to my own culture. the egyptians go to cleopatra. they go to these amazing women at the turn of the century. in egypt, in lebanon, in iraq, in iran, in turkey, who said we want to be free. ten minutes. sorry. michael, you should stop me. what i'm saying is if you want to understand our culture, you have to go and do serious work to understand that culture. and once you understand it, the amazing thing is not how different we are, but how alike we are. it is the literature, it's the shock of recognition that shakespeare said ask the questi

question, if you prick us, do we not bleed. that's how i want cultural diplomacy to be done. i talked to the u.s. embassy in spain, actually, sponsored my program for my recent book in madrid. and that was the kind of talk we had. and you have to remember that when you go to spain, or when you go to saudi arabia, or iran or afghanistan or you go to france, you have to have a sense of their culture. you have to remember spain not only produced don ki hoet day, but that is the whole point to generally immerse yourself in who that other is. >> it does seem to me, however, one of the great changes over the last 50 years, in literature, that americans, the world, too, to some degree, are reading more globally. who are our best-selling

writers. there are rushte and moracami, and any number of other people from, you know -- steve larsen. we are no longer bound only by kind of nationalism in our sense of american literature. but i think sometimes the world looks at america and reduces it just as we might look at the muslim world, whereas american culture, american literature is there as the countries that you describe, that we are not just girls gone wild. you know, that's not our culture. we have a lot of variety here. which is what has troubled me in some ways when we think about people criticizing the more sort of overt exploitation of american culture. what is american culture. american culture is a lot of different things.

>> yes. i'm so, so grateful that you brought this point up. first of all, i think americans should start understanding, we need a cultural diplomacy for inside america. you know, americans should understand their culture. now, let me say something, michael, as an immigrant. i just became a citizen in 2008 and i definitely did not come to this country to fill up my pockets, or to train my children so they all go to wall street and be happy ever after -- live happy everly after. this is one of the most poetic countries in the world where it's declaration of independence ends with pursuit of happiness. i mean, that is why people genuinely, even that's, quote unquote, illegal immigrants comes here, because deep down there's this passion, and this desire for me. and what i discovered here is that because now that passion is not being replaced by -- is

being dominated by something very shallow, politicalization. but in fact, it's utilitarian when we ask stupid questions like, who needs the art museum. you know, why should the congress pay for them. and the congressman who says that, he smiles coyly and says, i am in fact on the side of the workers. i have not seen many of his kind coming to national galleries, you know. who does he think crowds the museums? every book festival, the book festival here on the mall, who are the people who come here? not even the academia, the elite, it is the people. and we need to appreciate our own culture in order to be able to communicate it to the world.

and i agree with you, that reductionism of good and evil that exists among the right and the left, and exists among the elite, not just in this country, but has gone viral and is global, that attitude is what you and i should fight against. that is why i am going to the jon stewart rally. i am. [ applause ] and, you know, i'm not a new-fangled fan and i'm not a fan anyway. but i started thinking about this before -- in 2000. because he sees the world through the alternative yifs. and i think we need to do that. >> sometimes diplomacy in the largest sense looks at the world in almost a trans actional way. we'll give you this, we want something back in turn. i think we need to simply share in the riches of the world's

art, culture and literature, and rejoice that these things are now available to us. that we have the means to read books from other nations through translation, that we can watch move i was from around the world, that we can visit and see art from every culture and every period in our art museum. these are things that enrich us, that humanize us. >> you're right. may i say one last thing. a lot of people come and tell me what can we do for iran. and to quote a great president, don't ask for what you can do for iran, but what iran has done for you. and i mean it. young people in iran are being accused and put to jail and even murdered because they want democracy. they think that america has, which is the best weapon, is without paying lip service to it, a culture of democracy.

it's this democratic imagination. one of the reformists in the recent trials had to come and confess that max webber corrupted him. reading max webber is not only censured, but dangerous. you see, violence knows what threatens them. it's not weapons that threatens them, it is a mind-set that the people, the children are taking. so if our young people back home are fed up, they were treating the young like the rock stars. you know, if people over there are ready to risk everything they have, to read all these

authors, we should understand that every day of our life we have to fight for this gift that is given to us from the countries that are fighting for the same things we fought for, you know. >> i like to think of north of prague, a recent critic said the function of education is to make one feel maladjusted to ordinary society. >> yes. >> it goes with your idea of not being at home. you want to question, feel uncomfortable, not be smug and provincial and think that you alone have the truth. >> that is the whole point. and i think that is why our academia -- our liberal arts are so underfunded. actually, we're going to have a symposium on that. the whole point on that is, where do you go to re-discover

the meaning. you go to humanities, and to liberal arts. and that is one of the things i'm very scared about today. even women talk about education. we're not talking about the content of education. i'm so happy that bill and melinda gates when they said on "60 minutes" that they are paying so much money for education, and they are wonderful people, but who is going to take care of the attitudes? this black and white attitude where literature and arts has become a hand maiden to politics. i have been called all sorts of names just because i talk about it. and if i do, i'm empowering american imperialism. this is so preposterous. yet it comes to us as a new thought, you know. >> it's just part of what the -- what some people felt was kind

of increasing shallowness in our young people. often the internet is blamed. often the various media which encourages, you know, quick searches for answers rather than the kind of slow attentive focus on the texts, interaction which is true reading that leads to understanding, and the kind of wisdom that you're talking about. that if we're going to think about culture, we need to really engage more fully with this than we do. >> you are very right. our enemy is not our political opponents. it is our attitude. i think imaginative knowledge is not just something that you need today and discard tomorrow. it is a way of perceiving the world, relating to the world and changing it. and you, i think, said the most important thing, that no one should feel smug. this theory is about literature. we should not impose theories on

literature. literature is like life. you drive from the experience of reading, something new. i don't want to reveal my age, most probably you can see it anyway, but when i was going to college in the '70s, reading lionel or edmond winston, it was a new experience. it wasn't theorizing the work and demolishing it, but encountering the world the way you encounter life. and that's what makes you uncomfortable because life is complicated. i hope we go back to complex thinking. which is fun. it is really fun. >> i see that i've ignored our sign when i was supposed to ask a question. we just got rattling on. >> i'm so sorry. >> but before we actually end, as you said, persian literature is rich in poetry. can you recite a few lines of persian poetry for us?

>> i -- >> i've put you on the spot. >> which one do i choose. they're both amazingly impossible with words, which i love. [ speaking foreign language ♪ ♪ ] >> basically he said you go against the flow to be able to survive. i think it's a good ending to what you were talking about, mot feeling at home. >> thank you. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> we're trying to keep on track

with this very ambitious schedule. and we'll hopefully have time for questions over lunch with dr. nafisi. now, i have -- this is -- i'm multitasking because i'll be introducing myself as moderator and being miked up. it is my great pleasure to introduce our next speaker. the internationally acclaimed artist, painter, eric fishel who agreed to join us today. you know me by now, i'm the director of the phillips collection. eager to have this opportunity to talk with my dear friend and colleague, eric fishel.

>> how about now? great. anyway, i can make my commentary now. if i get too loud, and it screeches, you'll all be very cross with me. i love the ideas that came out in the last discussion. have a seat, eric. put your mike on. this idea of crisis of imagination and vision. but the one thing that we keep

coming back to, it seems to me, is the importance of precision of language. one of the projects that alfredo jarr presented to us yesterday was his project on times square, which was about america, and the real gist of that project, which in the newspapers, caused a lot of controversy was the idea that we -- the people of the united states have appropriated america much to the disadvantage and perplexed reaction of the people of the americas, of the rest of the continent. but anyway, did you hear when dr. nafisi gave us our clue when she said what we need is cultural diplomacy inside america. i thought, thank you so very much. because that's -- when dana joya came to us with this beautiful opportunity to collaborate with the aspen institute, i couldn't

help but think of your project, america now and here. and then i want to also have time to turn to eric as a practitioner, as an artist for that very special perspective. it was very important for us to have elizabeth dillard here, to have eric fishel, because we want to hear the authentic voices of the visual artist. so let's start off with telling us a little bit about this ambitious project of cultural diplomacy within our borders. >> okay. am i miked? okay. first let me say i hate following writers. they are so articulate. that was a great thought you just gave. very inspiring.

i've been working on a project that dorothy referred to called "america now and here." and it's a project i started a few years ago. and it was an attempt to try to use art, the language and experience of art as a way of redirecting the conversations we have with ourselves in this country about who we are. and what i did was i felt that america was suffering an identity crisis, that events over the last many years had thrown us off our center. and 9/11 was a catalytic event

that confirmed that sort of spin off of our center. and threw us into a kind of world of fear and uncertainty, self-doubt, et cetera. and that the country was becoming more polarized, more tribal. and, you know, losing what our foundations are. i thought because it's a national crisis, we should turn to america's greatest artists, poets, playrights, filmmakers, et cetera, turn to the people that are generally recognized as the leaders of our cultural life. and ask them if they would create a work of art specifically about america.

i said make it something post-9/11. something that reflects on where we are using 9/11 as one of the markers. i said it didn't have to be about 9/11, it was just, where would you like us to think ab t about, experience, re-examine, et cetera, america today. i actually -- when i started out, i was just asking visual artists. and it grew over a period of time to include the other art. and the idea was that we would take this art and we would put it into trucks. specially designed trucks that would become mobile museums. we would travel them around the country, going to small towns, to mid-sized cities, the

military bases, state colleges, inner cities, et cetera, and try to engage a population of the society that is -- either doesn't use art as part of its daily life, or disaffected by it, or alienated from it some way or another, economically, socially, geographically. and that what we would do is try to go into those communities and engage the creativity within those communities to respond to the work and the programs that are in the exhibition. so that we would create a creative dialog. something that would bring local perspective onto a national stage. so we've been doing that.

the artists responded surprisingly quickly, emphatically. i say surprisingly, because we're -- you know, modernism has moved so much into a kind of culture of individuality. and the idea of sort of commission, the idea of sharing or collective response and stuff, is relatively alien to that culture. so at first i thought i would meet with a lot of resistance, especially from the sort of superstars. but instead i was, you know, incredibly surprised that they were all saying, yes, let's do this. this is great. >> did you demand -- >> these aren't clean glasses.

i'm going to drink out of the bottle. >> i thought of that earlier. every detail counts. but good thinking. take a bottle. did you demand from the artists that they adhere a type of iconography? i noticed the american flag. when you said that we were having a crisis of identity, could your project be accused or misconstrued as something sort of patriotic? is that what you intend? >> you know, first of all, you don't go to the great artists and say, do this, and it's got to be like this, this, this and this. and please put a lot of green in it senior og like that. a lot of green in it or something like that. i went to them to ask them, for them to give me what they wanted to give me. knowing that it would be a crap shoot. you know, that it could have

come back as, you know, very confrontational. very politicized. overly intellectual. you know, all of the things that are in contemporary art that certainly have been part of it. i didn't preconceive schematics for it. i left it open, let it sift back to me to see if it would be self-organizing. and i was really surprised and delighted to see that one incredible generosity of spirit on the part of the artists, that it wasn't confrontational, in a simplistic sense, that it was -- that it wasn't provocative in a sensational sense, that it was

stimulating, sensitized. i also was amazed, and frankly, relieved to see that there was a self-organizing thing that was taking place, which was -- it seemed like artists fell into categories of america as an iconic place. iconic reality. >> can we look at some of the images while we're talking? >> i'd actually like to just say something briefly about this. but let me do this first. the second theme seemed to be about america as plate. and that was a sense of a place within a landscape, region, a sense of a place as home. and the third was america as people. it was a focus on identity.

it was a focus on diversity. it was a focus on family, or friendships, community, that kind of bond. and these themes were sufficiently broad enough to include a tremendous variety of approach. this first one, jasper johns, it's a print that he gave to us that seemed absolutely appropriate. certainly fit into the category of america, iconic. what i found so poignant about it, that it's -- initially you see it as a jasper johns iconic image. which he's done for -- since the '50s. using the image of the american flag as a painting motif, as an iconic motif, et cetera.

what's different about this one than other ones he's done in his past is he's added a flag pole. which i don't know how well you can see it here, but there's a very delicate line drawn that anchors the flag to this orange field. and it both seemed to evoke for me that image of the american flag planted on the moon, which was one of our triumphs. and also, there was such a kind of vulnerability to that heroic act, when you see that small flag in the vastness of space. and he kind of recalls that in this. but at the same time, he's also saying that that america needs to be anchored. that he no longer feels the

confidence that he had in his past work, and had to ground it some way. so there's a tremendous, you know, contemporary vulnerability that he's expressing in this. and i think that's a poignant image. >> how do you think this project would translate -- obviously i'm jumping the gun. it has not yet even hit the road here in america. but how would it translate abroad do you think? >> you know, let >> let me just say something. you were talking about patriotism. it's interest iing that as this show becomes more and more known and people respond to it in terms of -- the project becomes more known, some people view it as patriotism that has a pejorative aspect to it because it employs nationalism, takes us

down the road to fascism, et cetera, et cetera. that's patriotism with a big "p" or something like that. but at the same time this is such an embrace, such an outreach from the community towards what we all consider home that you have to see it as patriotic in the small sense of it. were this show to go abroad it's toward cultural imperialism. that's the tight rope one would walk would be that we would be trying to go out and convince other cultures of something about ourselves without engaging the other cultures in response.

right? the only way i think this would be successful outside of this country is if we established it as a way of getting other perspectives to comment on their sense of what america is within the creative language that's been established. then i think it would be a very important program. >> you articulated very important and lofty goals. there was a good article in "the nation" that i was looking at last week. you talked about -- and i am assuming this is your fundamental goal. you talked about creativity as a form of literacy. so the idea of the art is coming together and jumping over the sort of isolation of the individual practice to partake, but also what are you imagining will happen in terms of the communities that you go to?

you're going to have other poets and musicians and -- >> yeah. let me -- as this program exp d expanded to include these other arts, the one thing that struck me was that the poets, pl playwrights, musicians all wanted to be seen as the arts. they didn't want us to go to a town and the movies go to the art house, the poets to the library, the playwrights' little plays go to the theater, et cetera. they wanted the trailer to be inclusive of all the arts and have them working together simultaneously which is an interesting problem.

the poets did something historical. first of all, they came up with a way of participatinparticipat based on the renga, a japanese conversational form of poetry. our poet's idea was to begin the poem and then give it to the next poet who would respond and rather than go back to the first, it would continue. and 54 of america's greatest poets, poet laureates mcarthur winners, et cetera, have collectively created an epic american poem. i think probably the first time in history that they have done that, certainly on that scale. 540 lines. it starts with robert pinsky who

was ready to go. we had to schedule the poets. we gave them three days to write ten lines. i don't know if you have ever tried to get poets to do anything. [ laughter ] >> but herding cats doesn't even describe it. >> a question from dana on that one, i think. >> by the way, dana was invited but unfortunately there was a conflict. he was the head of the n.e.a. at the time. we were hoping to get his voice in there. anyway, the renga started with pinsky who happened to be in massachusetts on the atlantic coast. he begins the poem and then it moves all around. 540 lines later, robert haas is looking out over the pacific. so that, in and of itself is an

american epic journey. that embraces the whole country. it's really quite extraordinary. and the playwrights came up with a really ingenious thing, too, which is that they invited -- i should say first of all carol dukes and bob holman were the poets who cue rated the renga. marcia nor madonna and john baits came up with a form for the playwrights to invite playwrights to write three-minute dialogues that would be performed unannounced in the exhibition like conversations overheard and wherever we went we'd pick up local actors to do these plays in a kind of random fashion when they felt the room was ripe enough for a good audience. so there's that.

>> i want to get to you as a painter. if we flow through these images i'm hoping we come to your work. you sent us some paintings that were obviously inspired by a trip to india, i'm assuming. >> i'm going to talk about this painting first. i don't mean to ignore you, but i'm more wrapped up in the america project than i am in my own work. >> that is rare for an artist to say that. >> i know. first of all, we are talking about visual illiteracy and what you're all participating in now is something that absolutely leads to visual illiteracy. you are looking at a slide of a painting. not only at a slide of a painting but a slide of a painting in really crappy light. there is very little chance that

the experience of this painting could ever bait you though in your minds, you have seen the painting. now this is something -- this kind of thing is pervasive in the future. we get pictures on our iphones, ipad, computers, et cetera, et cetera. we assume they are the same though they go from small to medium to large. it is the death of painting. painting is a somatic experience. when you stand in front of a painting, the painting puts your sense of your body into a specific relationship with the thing you are viewing. in doing that, it changes your

interpretation of what you thought before you experienced the painting. this is a tool that painters use. i'm going to talk about this painting which is my wife's painting, april gornick which she did for the america show. i think it is incredibly poignant and hopefully when you see the real painting you will have the same sense of revelation that i had when i stood in front of it. it's a large painting, a grand scale painting. you're standing there, looking out at the ocean, looking to the far horizon and, of course, one thing you will notice is that you're standing absolutely at the edge of the ocean. right? she's put you at the edge of the

ocean which is a boundary and you look out past the roiling waves to the calm horizon, to the distance. but you don't know when you're looking at this painting is whether you are looking east over the atlantic. if you are looking east over the atlantic you're looking to where we came from as a country. or you may be looking out over the pacific. if you're looking out over the pacific, you're looking west which means you're standing on the very edge of how far we've come. so within this one simple image she, too, has collapsed america into an incredibly poignant experience that puts the whole

country into your sense of self. >> what's the response been? you said to me earlier -- >> terrible! >> you said you're struggling with fund-raising which is a terrain i'm familiar with. how is it going in terms of realizing this? >> we're actually doing well. we're going to launch the show in kansas city in april 12011. we haven't been able to raise enough money to fabricate the trucks yet. so we'll start without the trucks, finding interesting places within the cities to put the works, draw attention both to areas that the city wants to embrace, engage, focus on. we're going to do that for probably three of the stops. and then hopefully by then we'll

have raised the remainder of the money for the trucks. the trucks are essential for mobility into areas like small towns, military bases. but also the area regions like the central valley in california which is one of the most complicated and, you know, shows up at the lowest end of all social indicators. it's an important area to engage in the conversation about america. so i don't know how many slides -- oh, this begins my work that dorothy asked me to put in. i guess because you want to talk about artists abroad or artists who paint broads. >> oh, gosh. [ laughter ] >> i'm stunned to have an artist

on stage with me who, for the first time, is resisting talking about his work. i just think that's important for people to know your painting and also to hear a little bit about the impact. you talked extensively about the notion of home which runs a little bit counter to the notion of home that was floated in the previous conversation. i just wonder about the impact of your interaction with the broader world as an internationally renowned painter. >> well, i started off with this painting from southern france. here is another one. i started off with them because in the early '80s, i went to southern france as an american a

bro broad. i came into a direct kind of confrontation with otherness in a way i hadn't anticipated which was the kind of hedonism, the kind of -- i can't say unself-conscious because they are very self-conscious about it, but very open about their self-consciousness about hedonism on the beaches of southern france. what i came in sort of direct confrontation with was my own puritanism. all of the issues around public and private in relationship to the body, in relationship to oh sensuality, eroticism, sexuality and whatnot came into focus.

as i sat on the beaches watching people be naked and socially interactive. i became riveted by that and took a lot of photographs, went home and made my paintings and stuff. i was kind of feeling like, you know, i have done to southern france what david hokney did to l.a. you know, i named it. right? but when i showed the work to the french they thought these were paintings from long island. [ laughter ] >> you know, i'm going to be a good moderator because we denied our audience a q & a last time, i think i should open it up, if you don't mind. >> i don't mind. i'll thumb through these while we are being asked questions. >> when did you go to india?

i'm sorry. if i ask a question he's going to talk. >> i went to india in 1987. i was invited by a family. i actually never had a fantasy, even when i was a hippie about india the way it was embraced by the hippies. i hated the smell of patchouli oil, et cetera. because of the way the family invited me i knew i would be taken care of. india terrified me because it seemed like pure chaos, which, in fact, it is. i didn't think i would go with a sense of -- that i would be inspired by it. i thought i would experience it. but it turned out it was the most extraordinary experience in relationship to otherness that i have ever encountered. as somebody who works with the body, for example, and i pride

myself on the ability to read body language. i went to india and i could not tell anything. i couldn't tell whether this was a good situation, a bad situation. it was like signals that i had -- >> another language. >> another language, yeah. >> may i ask if anyone in the audience has questions for eric? there is a question. we'll ask you to get up and go to the microphone. >> thank you so much. it was so interesting. cynthia schneider from georgetown university. i am so curious about your america project. i wonder what you would consider -- what you hope to get out of it, what you hope will happen when you travel around the country.

i wonder if any of the artists are going to travel with you. i also think it would be so interesting if you would collect in writing on the web -- and maybe you have done it -- why the artists wanted to do this because i don't think patriotism is a bad word. i think as the good thing. and the idea of artists doing something patriotic runs counter to, i think, the traditional american idea about artists. but other people outside america look to art as what embodies what america is. you know, for some strange reason, we don't do that. so i would love to hear what you hope this will accomplish and also how you decided to start in kansas city. >> the last question is the easiest to answer. that's where the money was. so actually kansas city is a

perfect metaphor for what we are trying to do. if you fold the map this way and that way, kansas city is right in the middle of the fold. it's the center of the country. if you look at maps of trails blazed across the country to discovery, et cetera, et cetera, there is like two lines from the east coast to kansas city and a thousand from kansas. it was really a place that generated, sponsored and brought together the exploration and unification of this country. so it works on all those levels. also it's interesting in talking to the people in kansas city, we have been talking to -- they saw it as patriotic. they got excited about it because it was patriotic.

but anyway, we are collecting in the show why these would be part of the website. we're doing a robust social media and web programming and stuff like that to try to be able to be inclusive as much as one can. obviously within the trucks we are limited to whatever the show is as it is now. so to get the local responses into the context of it we have to find other venues within the towns and upload this stuff so it intermingles that way on the internet. did i answer those questions? >> all right. i actually have to shoot out four questions. you don't have to answer them

all. i work at the smithsonian. i'm struck and i have heard about the project through various colleagues. my first question is do you think art museums are failing across the united states? you're creating a container that's going to go and travel, too. you talked about the lack of visual literacy. for those of us who work in regional, small museums, i am a curator as well as an administrator, i must confess. the whole thing has been trying to tempt people to see the art museum like a library for visual ideas. i think the fact that this is coming from the artists gives you a kind of freedom that there is not sort of an obvious curatorial stance. i guess i'm asking what is the long-term goal or hope you hope will come out of this. you can have interventions and artists are fantastic about interventions. they are create sieive in the w

they create this. art train has something to talk about containers. how will you connect with those places? i think the power you have is to validate the creativity going on. when you leave how is that going to continue? i just challenge you to think about the community involvement. at the smithsonian, this is something we deal with. thousands of people shuffle through. how does it connect with their lives? you have the capacity to do this and engage the regional institutions. >> all right. >> sorry about that. we think about this a lot here. >> first of all, a disclaimer. i'm not a curator. i did a shoutout to my peers to do this. it really iscurated show

in the strict sense of the word. also, when i started to conceive this program it went against something that i had really believed in about art which is that it was important for people to make pilgrimages to great art. i think the pilgrimage is something that is social glue, a cultural glue -- sorry. i'll flip this a little faster. >> i'm just distracted. >> so on one hand i believe in that. certainly with work that's like painting and sculpture which are unique objects and you really can't experience them except in the presence of them, i think it is important for people to make the connection, the commitment

to go see. here i am organizing an exhibition which is about us going to them. >> i'm not seeing chairs, tables. >> what are you saying? >> in your concept. i think it's so beautiful. you brought in poetry -- oh. you talk about containers. museums are containers. you're bringing containers. i'm struck by the diversity of disciplines which is kind of a theme here for awareness. i don't see sensitivity to other materials that embody that. >> you asked what we envisioned as the program and as a leave-behind. first of all, it went from being an immediate response to a crisis which had a particular

the mat tick thing, post 9/11 up to now. in the process of organizing the thing we began to develop a sense that, in fact, this isn't a show. this is a program. so these trucks will roll out frequently, you know, every two, three years, whatever it is, with a fresh perspective on aspects of america, whether it goes out and it's about ecology or the design or different ways that we can approach looking at us. so oh it is an ongoing program -- >> not static. >> not a static one. and the other thing is that in terms of leave-be hihind -- and

museums do this, too, but we are trying to make it happen. everything in the show is imitatable as a form and so what we are doing is we are going to get -- starting with school groups and then people -- you know, the arts community and nonartists to try to use those forms for expression as well. what we are looking for is that people come back to us with whatever perspective they have, but it has to be couched within a creative expression. when we pull out of town, that's what's left behind is somethinging that demystifies creativi creativity, that doesn't separate people so that only specialized people can do this

thing, et cetera, but begins to see the acts as something that can be self-generated, shared, fun, silly, fabulous, et cetera, et cetera. >> this is great. i think we have run through our time. so i'm going to call this session to a halt. first of all, i want to thank you, eric. >> i'm sorry i talk so much. >> no! that's why we brought you here is to talk. [ applause ] >> i want to say that it's a great pleasure beinging with you and hearing you. we are going to break now for lunch. we'll reconvene as you have experienced promptly at 1:45. i think that's all i need to say. thank you very much for your attention this morning. now in e

room. >> committee on health and labor pensions will please come to order. i want welcome everyone to ts hearing on retirement. this is an issue that is of critical importance to every american family. a recent survey found that 92% of adults 44 to 75 believes there's an retirement crisis in america. are they right? is there a retirement crisis? let's consider the following statistic that we will hear more about in this hearing today. over a quarter of workers do not have meaningful retirement savings the all. one out of four.

nearly half of baby boomer that ll turn 65 will not have sufficient retirement savings to pay for expenditures. food, fuel, housing and uninsured healthcare costs. we learn from the testimony that we'll hear from the employee benefit research institute that the gap between what people need for retirement and what they actually have i $6 trillion. i think those numbers make it perfectly clear the system is failing many americans and the 3-legged stool of retirement. private pensions, social security have gotten wobbly. it use to be retirees could count on a secure requirement

because they provide a predictal source of income. but unfortunately, it's endangered. the number of employers offering these plans has fallen drastically over the past three decades. now, less than 20% of the workers in the private sector have the security of a pension. not many have a 401 k. they do not provide real retirement. they leave workers with the risk that investment may perform poorly. billions of retirements have evaporat evaporated. 401 k's do not provide lifetime income like the traditional

income plans. workers and their families will outlive their retirements. families are faces unprecedented challenges and saving for retirement is not an option. wages have been stagnant for years. people are working harder and longer then ever before and still cannot meet the cost of everyday needs. education, transportation and housing. let alone save money for their old age. for many americans, the only sold retirement security they have is social security. but that too is under siege. there are those that want to privatize the system, cut back benefits, raise the retirement age. they said everyone should just work longer. retirement is a luxury. clearly these people don't swing

a hammer for a living ortring power lines or work in our corn fields or oil rigs, lay bricks. drive trucks. for americans who work in these physically-demanding jobs, working longer is not an option. we will hear about that at our hearing this morning. so we're facing a future where no one other than the rich will have an opportunity for a safe and secure retirement people that work hard will find themselves teetering on poverty. that's going to have drastic consequences for o families. it's time for our nation to face the retirement had on. i am going to make retirement security a priority. over the coming year, i tend to

hold a number of heangs from a number of different angles. i look forward to working with my colleagues to assure they have a sense of retirement they cannot outlive. it's been an area where we can reach across the aisle. i thank you all for being here and i will yield to my good friend who is been heavily involved in this from his days in the house to had here ithe senate and i'm going to count on senator sanders to be one of our lead persons in our hearings going into next year to examine all the aspects of social security. i yield to my good friend, senate sanders. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for stepping up to the plate and getting involved in an

issue that is of concern to many americans. i don't want to tell you, but all over this country, there is a feeling of deep anxiety. something is happening in our country and people are not quite sure what it is. what they do know is that in this great country of ours, the middle class is disappearing. people know that. they may not be phd in economics but they know. they are worried their kids will have a lower economic security. and they understand our manufacturing base, which supplied so many jobs working people has disappeared. millions of people left the middle class. went into poverty. they understand we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the world.

that is why the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. virtually all of the income has ne to the people on tom. today we have the top one % top 1% earning more income than the bottom 50%. top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 90% and that disparity is growing wider and the widest in the industrialized world. in the midst of all of that. there are now attacks often from billionairetype people, going after the one area where people had security for the last 75 years. the truth of the matter is that social security has been the most successful federal program

in our history. during all economic times, whether we are in prosperity, or in severe recession, social security has paid out every nickelwed to every eligible american. during the last collapse, not one american did not receive 100 centsn the dollar what high or she was owed in social security. that is a pretty good record. and, while all of us must be concerned about the $13.4 trillion national debt that we have and the very large federal deficit, it is imperative that we be honest about the causes of tt national debt. i get a little bit tired of people saying. we need to privatize social security. we have got to cut back on

social security benefits. we have to raise retirement age because we have a $13 trillion national debt. you know what? social security has not added one penny to the national debt. quite the contrary. we are fighting two wars and given hundreds of millions dollars in tax breaks. bail out of wall street, unfunded. social security has a surplus. hasn't added a nickel to our national debt. if there are people who are ideological reasons. want workers to invest in wall street for their retirement programs, that's fine. that's a good ideological

position, but not mine. social security is not responsible for our national debt. let's also on the other hand from the c. b. o. social security can may out every nickel owe for the next 29 years. we got a lot of problems in this country. 25% of our kids are on food stamps. we have an infrastructurure is collapsing. yes. but for 29 years, 29 years, every beneficiary in this country will get 100 centses on the dollar they are owed. that's pretty good. you have ideas, i have ideas. let us not going forward either in privatization, let's not go forward in raising the

retirement age to 70. as you just indicated, amount of these guys that think raising the retirement age to 70, they are not out laying bricks, lefting patients in a nursing home. they are not out doing the physical labor. to ask american workers to work to the age 68, 69 is reprehensible. for those people working to 70. you know wt else it does. it tells the young people who want to get into the labor market. you can't. so social security, the reason there is so much opposition to social securit for some of these billionaire guys. it has worked for the elderly, the disabled, widows and

orphans. this senator is not going to let wall street people raise the retirement age. thank you. mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator sanders. and we become back, we have two panels. our first panel, phyllis borzi at the department of labor which over seeing private sakt -- sector retirement. she was a professional at george washington university and counsel at a law firm specializing i issues affecting employee benef plans. ms. borzi will give us an idea of the problems facing social security and improved at helping social security. welcome back. your statement will be made as

part of the record in its entirety. please proceed as you so desire. >> well, the mic. >> no one ever accused me of not being heard. sorry. so good morning chairman hart and senator sander thank you so much for inviting me to discuss how the department of labor is working to ensure americans have a secure and safe retirement there's their systems. i fills -- phyllis borzi. we are responsible for enforcement the title one. we oversee 700800 plans. that he plans provide benefits

to until 150 million americans and along with social security and individual savings. provide workers and their families with income during their retirement as you said, both senators, senator sanders and chairman harkin. many americans are worried they may not have saved enough for retirement. for fewer employers offers benefit plans and a dramatic increase in the offering of 401 k type programs. they have shifted on to the shoulders of american workers in the 2011 budget, initiatives are included to improve the transparency and adequacy. we are working to find benefits plans to provide workers with a steady stream ofncome in

retireme retirement. we plan to help workers get the services they need at a fair price. senator harkin, in particular, i want to thank you for your leadership in this area. we are in the final stages in a rule that will aow workers access tohe information ty need to make informed decision. for the first time, they will receive information in a format where they can compare the investment options. and retain the information they need from service providers. this will help fiduciaries with the reasonableness of the fees they're paying as well a potential conflicts of interest exist with respect to investment

services. we believe this rule wl particularly benefit small and medium sized companies. we are all taking steps to make sure unbiassed investment advice is accessible to workers. we with help worker avoid common investment mistakes, while all providing strong productions against recommendations about investmented tainted by conflicts of interest. but, not only do we need to pport americans in savings for re tirement, we all need to make sure that good options are available to them. the department is exploring proposals that appropriate the availability of lifetime income streams for workers that want access to these products. we also want to improve plan reporting reliability.

the arisa retired audit perform a critical function in making sure assets exist. un fortunately, many of these reports filed contain substandard reports prepared by auditors with the or no benefit experience. we are seeking correction to allow the secretary to define stdards for plan auditors and provide accountability for accountants and others responsible for ts report. we also devote resources to protect workers employee benefit plans. for fiscal year, 2009. our enforcement program achiefed results of $1.3 billion and closed 287 criminal cases.

the criminal investigations lead to indictments of 115 individuals. lastly, the department believes it's important that workers have access to information and education. they need to make sound decisions for retirement. to that end, we have established a dedicated saving matters education campaign. this campaign using publicati s publications, only outreach to provide information. the campaign helps the workers understand the importance of savings. most the materials are available in english and spanish. together, these will help workers retire with confidence. thank you again for this opportunity to testify at this

important aring. private sector retirement plans together with social security are important components of assuring to find a dignified retirement. but more clearly needs to be done to strengthen the system. chairman harkin, i know your committee is starting this process to think about how these goals can best be met and we look forward to working with you. thank you so much >> ms. borzi, thank you very much for your leadership on this issue. and the department of labor is under secretary so lis. >> first of all on the transparency issue. 401 k has been a priority for me and senator sanders has been

involved in allowing people knowing what they're getting into with their fees. you provided in your testimony as a footnote, just what the differences can be in small percentage changes in the fees. a difference of just one percentage one. 1.5 as compared to one rcent. you say 1.5% to 1%. if the 1.5% has ornaments on this. over 35 years, dramacally facts returns. if you hav $25,000, averages a 7% return. you wl have $223,000.

$163,0 if everything else remains static. i hope and trust that we are soon going to have mandatory regulations rules that any fee have to disclose this up front. absolutely >> so a person will be whatever plan they pick how it compares to the other plans. >> the disclosure i alluded to is in the form of a chart so the participants can look and compare every investment option offered to them on fees and expenses. you're absolutely right, mr. chairman, most people don't understand the impact that fees have on their returns. you know, they look at a retn and say, hey, that's pretty good. they didn't understand the return can be dramatically

reduced once the fees are subtracted. the fees are paid by employers in a 401 k plan, it's passed to the individual and makes a difference in the bottom line. >> the other thing i wanted to cover with you. i have been more aware over the last couple years how many people are borrowing on their 401 ks. the re i looked into it. they are depleting it. taking the loans or withdrawals. do you have any sense of how many people are borrowing? and then, as i said. they borrow and if they don't pay it back within a certainly period of time, they get penalized. i don't have a hand on how many

people are borrowing. >> i don't know the numbers off the top of my head. i will be happy to look into that. i share your concern. i worked on the house side as a congressional staffer for 16 years, and when this provision that allowed loans from 401 k plans was being considered, certainly the members of the labor committee that i worked for were very, very concerned. but the provision was put in because the argument on the other side was put in that people wouldn't save unless they knew they had access to the money. that really illustrates the difficulties we have with 401 k plans. senator sanders, you alludeed to that. they are savings plans. that's a good function. we need to have people save. but, people can get their money prior to retirement and all that

does it reduce their ultimate retirement security. i will be happy to try to get those numbers for you. if you have health expenses or something happens to your family. downturn in the economy. lose your job. borrow the money now. borrow and you get penalized. >> we need to get a handle on that. >> we will try to get those numbers. >> thanks ms. borzi. >> senator sander >> thank you very much. you in your statement say," 27 percent of workers report they have no savings or investments or less than $1,000 in savgs and 54% report they their house

is less than $25,000". if we were to raise the retirement age in social curity to 70, and you were living in the economic period right now and you had somebody who was out building roads in the state of vermont, or this is his job. he's a construction worker, what happens first of all, how many employers are going to hire a 68 year old construction worker as opposed to a 25 year old construction worker? and second of all, second of all, if that construction worker or if they nurse or anyone else who is 68 or 69 years of age waiting for social security is unable to get social security, what happens to that person who has virtually no savings right now. is 68, 69, has a number of health problems and can't get

social security? how are they going to survive? >> i wish i could give you a good answer. i know that there are many, many hundreds of thousands if not millions of americans who are exactly in this situation that your posing. the question about older workers in the work force is one of issues that i did work on when i was in the private sect. because age discrimination issues we one of the sets of issues i worked on. it's very definitely. it's not just the 68 year old. it's people like one of my brothers. in his early 50s. >> i absolutely agree with you. >> but the idea there are people out there, the leader of the republican party and the house of representatives. 67. 68, go out, you know, go out and

work on construction. be a carpenter. what world are they living? then. if this person has no income coming in from social security, what happens to that rson? you know, it is, you know, it is, a idea i guess it's okay for wall street billionaires to come up with. pete peterson who made billions of dollars on wall street has pledged to spend millions of dollars to cut medicare. among other things, mr. peterson funded a movie entitled i owe you u.s. a. just worthless i. o. u's. >> well, senator, it's what i say to my, the children of my

friends who tell me that social security won't be there for them. and what i say is the one thing i know and it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that i work for the obama administrati administration, the one thing i know is that social secuty will always be there for people. our task is t make sure, over the long run ar it remains there. >> isn't it true. these are backed by the u.s. government? >> that is true >> and the social security is thleast of the problems we will have to worry about. >> i think that's absolutely correct >> now i'm going to ask you a hard question. i know what your answer is going to be. it's going to be a hard question, on april 16th, 2008, a

gentlemen runs for president of the united states. i won't give you you his name. he said, "a propose raise the cap on the payroll tax. today it's $106,000 a year. that governors name will not be named but did win. in fact, only 6% of population does. i have always said i will be willing to look to exempt people making more than that. raising the retirement age or raising payroll tax on people. those are not good policy options. it really was barackbama that

said that. >> what do you think? >> this is a hard question. >> i know. >> and in other words, what the president said to me when he was campaigning makes sense. in fact, while social security is not in crisis right now and can pay out every nickel owed. we want to make it stronger. even in years beyond that. what the president proposed during his campaign is to get rid of cap. i think that makes sense. do you want to comment on that? >> well, the only thing i can say is that if i were to comment, it would be well beyond my area of expertise. but i do think that over the years as a citizen taxpayer myself, i know over the years a lot of ideas have been floated. it seems to me that we ought to examine that one very carefully. >> thank you very much. >> thanyou. mr. chairman. >> well i can't help but remark

on that. we often talk about the middle class in america. i think we got a little confused to who is the middle class america. >> uh-huh. >> at $250,000 a year income, that's the top 2%. 98% of the american people make less than $250,000 a year. at $150,000, that's 5%. 90% of the american people working make less than $150,000 a we're. i think we have forgotten the people in the middle class are thoses making 40, 50, $60,000. we forget about that. ey are rightfully concerned. i think the fairness of what senator sanders said. the fairness. if you're an american making

$40,000 a year, you pay on social security on your payroll tax on every dollar you make. >> uh-huh. >> you are a person making $400,000 ayear, you only pay on social security on 25% of you >> right. >> 1 fourth. where is the fairness in that? >> so i can understand that the middle class in america is upset. i don't mean people making $250,000. i many 40, $50,000 a year. i can see why they are upset. i didn't mean to get into that, but you brought it up. i have one other issue i want to cover briefly. >> sure >> as you know the money in i. r. a.'s dwarfs the 401 k.

i am worried that some employees may cut costs by encourage roll overs. is the department looking at rollovers? and in particular. the communications between employers and service providers in terms of rollovers. >> mr. chairman, we are looking at it. we have a legal problem. once the money is rolled out of the arisza-covered plan. it's not quite clear to me how we can reach the money in the ira's. but we can look at the information. making sure it's accurate and there aren't conflicts of interest associated wh it >> do you plan to take steps to implement the inspector

general's recommendations? >> i am sure we will do whatever we can to make what the ig suggested. >> exposing conflictses. >> exposing conflicts is important. >> i want to work on the issues of rollovers and how they are being promoted. the fees that are taking and how people are enticed to do that. the other area is the whole area of borrowing. we need some good data on that. how many people are defaulting on these loans? unable to pay them back? >> we will get you whatever data we have, mr. chairman, i appreciate that. >> do you have any follow up?

>> just one briefly. just very briefly. as i know, ms. borzi, social security not only covers the elderly, but it all is a very important part of the life in our country with people with disabilities. >> absolutely. >> um, what happens to the 8 million people currently receives social security who have disabilities and the four and a half million widows and the 4.3 million kids who receive social security if we make cuts in social security? in oer words. my point is, there are, as senator harkin said aptly. people are hurting all over this cotry. it's so easy for people up here

who take campaign contributions, we got to cut these contributions. what if you're a widow and your sole income is social security? >> we need to protect those people. >> we sure do. thank you. thank you ms. borzi. >> we will now move to panel two. have three witnesses. mr. jack vanderhei. the research director at employee research institute. has more than 100 publications. he focusing on the private defined plans. we will give us statistic on

participation. >> we also have ross eisenbrey. he worked in the u.s. house of representatives. and the counsel will in the senatend a policy director of the occupational and safety administration. we will speak of the importance of social security. and finally, we will hear from shareen miller, a home care worker from falls church, virginiawho will give us a first account of the trying to prepare fo retirement. your written statements will be a part of the record in its entirety. sum it up in 5, 6. seven minutes. i won't get too excited. somewhere in that range to sum it it up. >> mr. vanderhei, i read your testimony, extremely interesting

and insightful. >> thank you. good morning. senator harkin >> i am jack vanderhei, we are a nonpartisan institute that conducts research on retirement and health in the past 32 years. we do not take policy decisions or lobby. first, sponsorship and participation in retirement plans. second, the adequacy deficits. third, the importance of social security, and fourth, americans retirement confidence. first a quick look at the numbers will show you where the nation is today in regards to america's retirement plan. almost half, just over 49% worked for a union and almost

40% participated in a plan. for full year, between 21 and 64, 54% of these workers participated in a retirement plan. obviously, the likelihood of a worker participating goes up with with size. less than 14% participated in a plan. now looking at the more than 78 million workers who did not work for. employers, the remaining 69 million workers, almost half were not full time, full year workers, 27% has annual earnings of less than $10,000, and 57%.

they don't work full time. they work at small firms or they are very low income. measuring retirement is an extremely complex topic. when we modelled the baby boomers and gen x-ers. they were at risk for not having basic retirement expenses plus uninsured healthcare costs. even though this number is large, the good news. that's 11 to 12%age points lower than in 2003. who is most at risk? my oral testimony shows lower income house holds are much more

likely to be at risk. the 2010 at risk range from 76% to the lowest income households to 25% of the highest. the average retirement deficit by age. family status and gender for baby boomers and gen x-ers. it's estimated to be apoximately $48,000 per individual. if you were to eliminate social security benefits, that would increase approximately $89,000. that would be from 4.6 to $8.5 trillion. the importance of social security for low income workers is shown in my testimony. 91of the lowest income households would be at risk if they had no social security

retirement benefits. that's compared to 76% with the current social secury benefits. the otr three also benefit from social security to the extent that 24 to 26% of households are saved from at-risk status because of social security benefits. these trends have been reflected, excuse me, in annual retirement competence study. in the 2010 rcs they are very confidence they will have money to live through their retirement years. the percentage of workers that reported they and their spouse saved for retirement substantial doubts at 69%. the amount of works that have no savings has increas over the past year. as you mentioned, our workers

providing this type of information. 54% report that the total value of their household savings is less than $25,000. the amount workers say they need appears to be rather low. 29% of workers say they need to save less than $250,000 for retirement. another 17 mentionetween $250,000 and $500,000. thank you for the opportunity to testify testimony. i look forward to the opportunity to work with youn the future >> thank you very much, mr. vanderhei. now we turn to ross eisenbrey. >> thank you for inviting me.

>> i am ross eisenbrey. >> together we represent over 50 million people to strengthening retirement requires strengthing social security. the retirement usa, just this month happens to be in the middle of "wake up washington" month and let the policy makers and the american public realize what a crisis we're actually in in retirement sangs. the three legged stool has always been wobbly for most americans. it has one sturdy leg. social security,

employer-provided plans and personal savings. social security covers 97% of employee, provides more than half of retirement income for 55% of seniors and a quarter of seniors get more than 90% of their savings from social security. the second leg, personal savings, as you just heard is not very substantial. it's been shrinking has middle class incomes has squeezed. the third leg, employer-provided pensions have never covered more than half of employees. but the quality has decreases with pernal retirement plans disappearing.

the reasons are well known. they don't provide lifetime benefits. employees return professionals manage their own assets and do so badly. they fail to diversify. they put their investments in their employer stock, even after enron we see this. fees can decimateinvestment returns loans and hardship withdrawals leak away assets. the employers generally contribute only through a match for employee's contributions and lower income employees tend not to participate. so they don't get anything from their employer as a result. the tax incentives are completely upside down for this

program. they are skewed to higher income tax brackets and as a result, 80% of the tax benefits, incentives for participating go to the top 20% of earners. just increasing the kind of inquality that you and senator sanders has been talking about. the result, i have slightly different figures, they are about the same magnitude as you heard from mr. vanderhei. the senator for retirement research says tha household says 32 to 64 is $6.6 trillion. the federal budget deficit is about $1.2 trillion to give you a reminder about the magnitude about this. the 401k, i think is at the

heart of this problem. it's had serious negative consequences, allowed upper income familys to shelter their income from taxation without increasing overall retirement savings as a cost you shoul try to calculate. between 1 and $2 trillion over the last 30 years. what have we bought from that. other congressional actions have harmed the defined pension plan. before 1986, some of these were well intentioned and some were actually, i think, wise changes. but they still lead to a decline in pension plans. the pension plans were a handy

tax sheller for employers, and employers rounely over funded plans. congress put rules in place and made it harder for employers to recapture excess assets they were doing by putting on large excise taxes. congress put on tighter rules and you did this just again a few years ago. to pin hardest at the time the employers could not afford to incrse the contributions. whereas 401 k programs are funded at 100 percent at the contribution the employer makes. they can cut back unless they have a collective bargaining

gleam. and faster vestingrules. to make sure employees got a pension. all of these things and others when i can talk about contributed to the decline. but the result, of course, is a huge shift. 40% used to have a defined benefit plan and now less than 20%. so as on page four of my testimony, you will see what the center for retirement research predicts. the share of americans at risk of being unable to have ample retirement. they will have less security going forward. gen x-ers, god help them. the most important thing i can

y. cutting social security benefits in this context will be disasterous. it would be pulling the rug out from under millions of people. there's a six and a half % cut in benefits that are very modest. the average retiree only has $14,000 in retirement. the fding gap is less than 2%. it can be closed with revenue increases. more and more of whose income escapes the taxes. polls show this is the solution americans want. 83% of americans in the rockefeller foundation poll said they would like to see taxes raised on the upper income

people who are not paying on their full share right now. good policy hapns to be politics. thank you. >> thank you very much. ross, and now we'll turn to miller. >> good morning. >> i heard your testimony last night and it's very profound. >> i like to thank senator harkins and senator sanders for inviting me to speak on this important issue. i am shareen miller. i live, i'm a personal care physician and a member of the sciu local five. i started working when i was 17 years old. i have done everytng. worked in a nursing home. i am used to living hands to mouth.

. i love more so. -- without the services i provide, she would not be able to live and full and productive life.

ically not do personal care forever. life. i cannot care for her forever. i have to lift her into the bed, the tu,b and if we want to go somewhere, i have to lift her into the car. it becomes harder each year. i think about the day i permanently damaged my back or knees trying to lift her. after all, how many of you could imagine your grandmother carrying a person around? there are not a lot of open doors for 65-year-olds with a high school education. e have no plann retirementd dave and i will continue working until -- have no planned retirement date and i will continue working until it gives out. my entire paycheck is to pay my

mortgage, keep electricity on, put gas in my car, and buy groceries. the money in mike 401k is half what it was before the crash of 2008. my retirement cannot be left to the ups and downs of wall street. thankfully, i know the social security will be there for me. if i retire at the full retirement age, i will receive $17,000 the year, and it will not be subject to swin of the market, but still not enough i make approximately $35,000 a year, and i'm barely making ends meet. if there is an emergency, like necessary dental and car repairs, i have to borrow from my 401k. this is a fight back holds up

for another 24 years. if the retirement age is raised to 70, as some are proposing, i would lose another 5% of my pay if i retired at the retirement rate. cutting social secuty or raising the retirement age is not an option. we need to do more. members of thisommittee and every lawmaker in washington needs to commit to finding solutions that allow americans to spend lifetime of hard work, driving the bodies to the limit, to retire with dignity, to be able to pay their bills and spent time with their grandchildren. i hope we can meet this challenge. thank you again for letting me share my story. >> well, thank you, ms. miller, for putting it in concrete human terms. a lot of times -- i'm not disparaging our experts whare here -- they tend to incredibly

important work in infming us as to what is happening. too often we do not get down to the real people and what is happening out there. we keep talking about tax breaks for to order tickets thousand dollars and above -- for $250,000 and above, as if that is the middle class of america. you are the middle class of america but most americans are making what you make. they are being squeezed like they have never been seezed before. on top of that, they are losing their retirements. is it any surprise that the vast middle class of americis pretty upset at what we're doing? does not come as no surprise to me. thank you very much for being here and telling us your story. i have a couple of questions for you, too. i wanted to ask mr. vanderhei,

in the old days, many people got their defined benefit through their emplors but they did not have to sign up or choose which plan. it is just automat -- it was just automatic. now retirements are much more complicated. workers with 401k's need to do research to figure out how much to set aside for retirement, their own choice, their own decision. less than half of the workers actually do the calculations and only 1/3 are getting professional advice. he noted in your written testimony that when workers understand how much they need for a secure retirement, they generally increase their savings. in that regard, there have been proposals, put forward by senator bingaman, to require 401k account balances to show a cordesman's projected -- to show a participant's projected income stream. do you think that information

would, number one, encourage retirement savings, and what if that weren't paired with an estimate of how much a person would need in -- if that were paired with an estimate of how much a person would need for retirement? >> senator harkin, that is an excellent question, and i am afraid my answer will be more complicated than yes or no. this is something we have studied for many, many years. we have at the 2006 issue brief just trying to estimate what people actually do need to have a comfortable retirement. the problem i would see of trying to do something that is just a boilerplate regulation or legislation is that there are so many complications in trying to figure out what is an adequate retirement target. it depends on whether or not you have any sort of annuity, it

depends on whether you have any sort of long-term care, it depends on a number of different things. just quickly, quickly emphasize one thing -- you can do all the simulation models you want and come out with here is the average value. yo have to keep in mind that when you shoot for a target based on averages, you are in essence telling people, one chance out of two, you are not going to have sufficient money, either because you live too long or you have catastrophic health- care costs, what have you. if someone were trying to purchase something like that, my professional opinion would be -- trying to approach somethin li that, my professional opinion would be that you cannot just have a number. you have to guide them to their particular comfort level and have to reflect their particular characteristics. i personally think it might be a bit misleading, more than a bit misleading, to just come out

with any rule of thumb and try to apply it across the board. >> that is really hard for people, the average person, to sift through all those numbers and say, "here is what i need." my wife i make good money. we are in the upper reaches -- ranges. if the counselor gives us all these things, i don't even understand it. what do you think is best for us? well, it's your is what i think. fine, we will do that -- well, here is what i think it fine, that is what we will do. people tended take whatever is presented to them -- people tend to take whatever is psented to them, suggested tohem.

how do you get it in aorm so that they do understand that here is what your income stream will be, here is wt you need. based on wherever you are now, assuming you are disabled now, here is what you need,f you are not disabled or don't become disabled, to is what y need, and here is your income stream. people wou have a good idea of that one thing. >> if one were to simplify the target to a place where one could do comparisons between the projected in which the value plans, plusution social security and their savings and an account balance the situation, and combine all that information together, again, what could come up with a relatively easy comparison. my extreme caution would be, if you are going to develop a target based on nothing but

average life expectancy, average investment experience, average health-care costs and retirement, you are in essence dooming them to a 50% chance of running out of money in retirement. if you are going to proceed down that road, one needs to be conservative in those assutions. one needs to realize that life expectancy is going to be relevant only for 50% of the population. one needs to get a target that they will be able to focus on and have some degree of certainty that that would be sufficient for them. >> i am trying to get a better handle on this, and also, this shift is to the 401k -- shift to the 401k.

i will pursue the later, because i want to ask -- my time is out. i have a lot of questions, but i will turn to senator centers and we will go back and forth. -- senator sanders and we will go back and forth. >> thank you for your excellent testimony. let me run through some economic history of the last couple of years. a couple of years ago, as a result of t greed and illegal behavior on wall street, the country has been plunged into a horrendous recession. congress deced to bail out wall street to the tune of $700 billion. despite growing income inequality for ameca, raising taxes for the rich -- warren buffett, one of the richest men in the world, pays a lower tax rate than that of his secretary.

we have some colleagues who want to give $700 billion in tax breaks for the top 2% and want to repeal the estate tax, which provid $1 trillion of tax breaks for the top 3/10. now we have folksike peterson foundation -- like the peterson foundation -- you say in your remarks that they are "a host of mostly well-off experts who have managed to convince much of the media and policymakers that the way to save social security benefits is to cut them doctors do you want to comment on a billionaire who made money on wall street suggesting using some of the money to persuade people that we save social security is to cut benefits -- that the way to save social security is to cut benefits? >> there is so much to say about

that. >> and so little time. >> the secretary might be paying 35% on our cellar, whereas someone like pete peterson -- on her salary, whereas someone like pete peterson, hundreds of billions of dollars and capital investments, is paying 15% on his capital gains and dividends. when confronted with the possibility of helping out the deficit by supporting the carried interest -- ending a carried interest exemption, which taxes private equity managers at a capital gains rate instead of the ordinary income rate, at chose to oppose the repeal of that exemption. his concern about the federal deficit is a very narrow one, and it seems to be focused on

people who have a very little on what date can contribute to closing the defit -- what they can contribute to closing the deficit. social security does n contribute to the deficit. the law prohibits social security from borrowing. if we were to do nothing and the trust fund were depleted, in 2037 or 2039, it would not even then contribute to the deficit. >> why are people on wall street so focused on closing social security? >> they happened since the inception, and people would have to save through 401k-like instruments which give them a fee. it is a business towards for them, and they would like to see their business expanded. >> thank you very much.

ms. miller, thank you very much for being here today. as senator harkin indicated, your experience is the experience of many, many people, who don't have their expenses will be reflected here on capitol hill. -- don't have their experiences really reflected here capitol hill. many guys sit behind a desk and make whole lot of money, and they think is a great idea that you work until the age of 70 and people involved in construction, pele on their feet every day, doing physically demanding work, should work until the age of 70. what do you think? >> i will work until i am 70 because i am going to have to, if my body does not give out. but that is a hope. i am lifting a 100-pound person in and out of bathtubs. they can work until they are

somebody because they are -- until they are 70 because they are behind a desk. if i were behind a desk, i would haveo problem working until i work 80 -- >> you would be one of the younger members. [laughter] >> my grandson would have somebody to be really proud of. when i turned 80 -- my grandmother was 80 and when i turn 80, i want to be up as a sound mind and body as she is. >> someone at 60 years old doing the type of work -- someone 68 years old doing your type of work -- many employers would prefer somebody who is 25 years of age, maybe with more rength?

what about somebody set -- what if they say, we cannot hire you any more? are there a lot of good job opportunities for someone like you? >> i was a bookkeeper, i was making good money. i was making over double what i am making now. i went to find a job, and i was semiskilled, i can do bookkeeping and all that. i coulnot find jobs. they wanted young kids. i was in my 40's are ready. >> and for physical, demanding jobs, younger people are stronger. and for other types of work, a young people are going to work for lower wages than older workers are. i am not sure what will people are living in when they say it that when you are 68, 69, you can go out and get a job and you don't need social security. it is quite incomprehensible.

thank you very much. >> just to follow up on that, i was reading mr. eisenbrey's testimony, and on page six, you said that about the peterson foundation and other mostly well-off experts at banished to comp -- have managed to convince the media and policymakers that the way to save social security is to cut it." the average social security recipient is not living in a gated community. i like alan simpson, he is a fine man, but i know a lot of retired senators, people who have left, or been defeated, voluntarily retire, and that is who they associate with, people who live in a gated communities. they may not live in a gated communities, but they are robert income. they're not this is sitting with ms. miller and the 40 -- they are upper income.

they are not associating with ms. miller and the people who make $40,000 a year. ey have the condo in miami and someplace else up north for the summer, a gated community. that is who alan simpson is thinking about. but that is not the bulk of americans out there. that is the thin veneer at the top. the averageenefit, as you pointed out, is $14,000 for social security. i doubt anybody on that is going to be living in a gated community. we have to get back to who are we talking about. mr. eisenbrey, you said also that we are weakening this retirement system, taking into account the increase in the

normal retirement age from 65, to 67, which we're doing rht now, based on the 1983 bill, as well as medicare deductions and income tax credit benefits. the net replacement rate for the average earner retiring at 65 is already scheduled to drop from a 39% to 28% in two decades. the replacement rate at 65 to 39, and that rate will drop to 28. what will it dropped to -- drop to if you raise it to 70? to either one of you know that? >> it is another 13% -- 70 is 19.5% additional cut in benefits. i cannot give you -- i will give you my calculation of what that wi do to the average replacement rate.

you can see that it is a substantial cut. each year that you raise the retirement age is an additional 6.5% cut in benefits. >> i would say offhand, thinking out loud, 39 to 28, 11%. if you went from 70 to 67, that is three more years rather than two years, and you need a replacement rate down in the teens someplace. am i very off on that? >> it would certainly be the height teens -- high teens. >> somewhere less than 20% 39% replacement rate is somewhere down in the teens -- somewhere less than 20%. 39% replacement rate to somewhere down in the teens. how does ms. miller, someone

earning $35,000, $45,000 a year -- i mean, their standard of living is really going to fall. it is that right, mr. eisenbrey? >> that's right, and the figures that mr. vanderhei if you on how close people are to property - , this would push millions of people into poverty. as benefits are cut, there is no question that more and more people will be pusd into dire circumstances. >> both you and dr. vanderhei talked about the decline of the benefit system, 401k. there is a book by jacob hacker

and there is a whole section in there about this issue. what i cannot sue to get my hands on is when did this take place -- what i cannot seem to get my hands on is when did this take place, and why? when did this take place and why? mr. vanderhei, and then mr. eisenbrey, give me some context here. >> you have to go all the way back to 1974,nd keep in mind the in november 1981, proposed regulations were released that all-out 401k -- allowed 401k plans to develop the way they have. you have had many instances since 1974 that have made a defined benefit plans these less

and less attractive to employers, due to certain constraints on funding flexibility. one of the things that happen in the mid-1980's was, because of the deficit, there was a problem when they were trying to do with -- deal with pbgc problems. they wanted to make sure that under-defined benefit plans would be increasing their minimum funding standards. the problem is, if minimum funding standards go up for that portion of the defined benefit population, that means more contributions, more tax deductions, more revenue losses. a decision was made, 1986 or 1987, that to counter the revenue loss for increasing minimum funding standards for under-blended plants -- under- funded plans, there would be a holiday on contributions for any

plan that had more than 50% more sets than they needed to cover liabilities. i do believe that the thought was that you give plans a holiday of one, two, three, five, seven years, and when the funding ratio came back down to 150%, eventually employers would start making their deductible contributions to these over- funded defined benefit plans. unfortunately, if you talk to many, many pension consultants, when that day finally came where the pension holiday window had evaporated, surprised employers have found other things to do with money they were making as far as contributions to the defined befit plans d. they had to decide whether or not it wanted to continue to prefund benefit plans to that extent. i worked at some of the initial

modeling for the pbgc, and we all knew that sooner or later he would get the perfect storm we ran into, where discount rates go down at extremely low and you saw what happened in the stock market, saw what happened with respect to bankruptcies. basically, when all these things happen it together -- happened together, you now have a number of people who used to think sponsoring defined benefit plans these make sense, in a financial situation with the volatility at the absolute minimum contribution you have to make every year can jump around severely. there was a lot of attempts to deal with this in 2006. i think some of these are still being worked out. but to be perfectly honest with you, i think the volatility not only in cash contributions by the way these things are acunted for has scared away a large number of employers.

if they did not just out right terminate the plan, the thing that they have been doing, i am su y are aware, is increasing accals certainly for new employees and maybe in some cases for existing employees. >> pretty good run down. do you have anything to add to that? >> i think that is all true. there a many other causes. the decline of unionization. unions are much more likely to have a defined benefit pension plan. there was a huge wave of terminations during the 1980's, the merger and acquisition craze, when employers leveraged buyout, corporate raiders could seize another company's pension plan and take it over in a hostile takeover and raid the

plan. that went on for a long time before congress intervened to stop it. bankruptcy law allows employers to terminate their pension plans, even when they have a collective bargaining agreement. that is a contribution. you know, the terrible industrial dline, where manufacturing companies were most likely to have pension plans. the steel industry lost its plans. right now, the auto industry, as part of the bailout, it agreed to put in place for new employees defined contribution plans th. the regulation in the late 1970's of the transportation industry was a huge contributor -- deregulation in the late

1970's of the transportation industry was a huge contributor. and then finally, one health benefit promises were forced onto -- when health benefit promises were forced on to balance sheets, when those rules change and companies had to report these huge retiree benefit obligations, that was one of the things that employers realize that they had to do with their money, and it made them on a take money out of their pension plans the and put it into retiree obligations. there are a host of causes for this. >> i will think more about that. senator sanders. >> mr. chairman, we're not going

to go into great length today on this, but i hope at some point we can discuss the growing income inequality in america, and what that means not only from a moral, but an economic sense as well. mr. eisenbrey you write in your statement that 55% of all income gains in the last 30 years have gone to the top 1%, while the bottom 90% only received 16% -- i.e. the people on top become much wealthier and a middle- class collapses. you could talk about that from a moral point of view,conomic point of view, but let's talk about it a little bit from a social security point of view how has the growing income inequality in our country affected solvency of social

saturday? >> -- lee, i -- impacted the solvency of social security? >> simply, as more income shifts to that group of people, social security is getting a smaller and smaller share. going forward, the trustees suggest -- the social secuty actuary says that if we returned to where we were in 1983 and taxed 90% of income -- right now we are at about 84% of income as being taxed - if we return to going forward, we would close -- returned going forward, we would close about 1/3 of the gap

for social security's funding. this is an enormous problem. going forward, we have lost in the past 20 years or so a lot of money that should have been raised on the that tremendous engine of growth of the very wealthy people. -- tremendous income growth of the very wealthy people. >> you say that most americans don't realize that someone with a salary of $300,000 a year pays no more in social security taxes than someone making roughly $7,000. what is the implication ofhat in making sure social security is solvent? what do you suggest we do about that? >> my institute, the economic policy institute, recommends we take the cap off entirely for employers so that high-income people -- the way we do now for

medicare. an employer pays the tax on the entire income, the entire salary being paid too high-income people. -- to high-income people. we raise the cap perhaps to restore it to the level it was in 1983, were 90% of the income would be captured. that by itself would close more than 3/4 of the remaining gap in social security funding for the next 75 years. >> in other words, with fairly modest changes, social security would be so bad for the next 70 or 75 years. -- would be solvent for the next 70 or 75 years. >> you said that if we return to 1983 in texas, he would close about 1/3 of the doubt --. in -- i taxes, you would close

about 1/3 of the gap. now i hear you say 75% of the gap. >> in 1983, at that point, employers were not required pay a tax on the entire salary that they paid for employees. now it is capped at $106,800. i am suggesting that employers pay on the entire salary. >> but the employee does not match that, the employee -- sure to42,000, i'm not what the calculation would be now, but it would be a higher figure than it is. >> the social security is always

employer-employee -- >> the contribution would be the same for employer and employee, but employers should pay more. >> mr. chairman, if i could get back to mr. eisenbrey, in your testimony is that 40% of american workers last year were employed with the physically demanding jobs and jobs with the difficult conditions. how hard would it be for these workers to work until they were 70 years of age? isn't it a little bit absurd to suggest -- a, if they lose their job, would anybody hire them, and what happens to their health if they work to that age? >> large numbers of people,

nstruction workers and hire workers -- iron workers, it is hard to think of them working at that long. but there are other jobs like cashier, on your feet all day long. people are not retiring at the full retirement age. they tend to retire earlier already because of health concerns. if we raise the retirement age even farther, it does not mean that they will be able to work any longer. it just means that income will be reduced by the early retirement penalty that much more. >> mr. vanderhei, there was one issue brought up here and would ke to delve into a little bit more. -- i would like to delvento a little bit more. we know that collective bargaining is one of the most effective mes for workers to

negotiate better pay and benefits. do you have any data that would tells what percentage of unionized workers have access to employer-provided retirement plans, contribution and benefit plans, and how does that compare to workers who do not have help frothe union? >> i do not have that th me. i can get back to you with that. >> you have access to that information? >> there are collective bargaining cuts in a very old form that i might be able to put back together -- collective bargaining codes in a very old form that i might be put back together in a way that is useful to you. >> again, mr. eisbrey, we talk

about savings, but as ms. miller says, at $12 an hour is pretty hard to save. family, kids, housing, fuel, food, everything else. what is it -- we talk about saving more and people should save more. what is the effect on our economy as a whole of our low savings rate? what is the effect on the economy, and how would you help people in the $35,000, $40,000, to save more? what is the effect on the economy of the low savings rate, and if we think savings is a good thing, how do we promote more savings among a group of

earners? -- that group of runneearners? >> a high rate of savings is generally a good thing. it is put into investment and high use by industry. this is a curious time, because a lot oflly dowon't need savings and this year and next three what we're lacking right now is consumption. is a good thing, the build of pension funds -- the buildup o pension funds led to tremendous investment in the economy. of course, it is not always invested in the united states, but that is a whole other problem. to help people save, i think somebody mentioned -- senator

sanders, i think, mentioned him in nature earlier. it is hard to get people to save. it is hard to get people to think 40 years into the future and plan for their retirement -- >> if i may, it is especially hard to convince people to save if they can barely pay their bills today. "oh, by the way, you also have to save 40 years down the line at." is easy to talk about savings when you have money to save. >> incentives are being given to people who need the incentives the least. somebody who mes $25,000 or $30,000 the year gets much less, even if they are paying and taxe -- paying income taxes and making it $1,000 contribution to

a retirement plans, the government is providing them less tn 1/3 of what it provides the same $1,000 contribution of somebody who is mang $200,000 a year and paying a 35% tax rate. this is crazy. i would turn these completely upside down. i am actually in favor of a mandatory retirement system would subsidies from the federal government. in the retirement accounts -- i think it is an excellent way to solve this problem going forward. short of that, others have suggested changing the tax deductibility ofhe 401k's, turning it into a tax credit, a refundable tax credit, so that the government is helping the people who need help the most to save, and not just helping all people -- not just helping help

the people moved their savings into a tax savings account. >> i want to get back to the social security retirement age, because one of the arguments people use is that american people are living longer, what is the problem? it has not gotten the kind of attention that it deserves -- let me quote from a "washington post" article from september 2008. "for the first time since the spanish influence of 1880 -- spanish flu of 1818, life expectancy is calling for women. it is shorter than it was in the early 1980's." earmarks -- your remark that

over the past quarter-century, life expectancy at age 65 has increased by one year for the wort-income men -- for lower- income men, compared to five years for upper-income men. >> it certainly is not in longevity. >> what you are talking about with people who are already working really hard, who are not seeing any significant increase in life expectancy, if they are women, they may be seeing a decrease -- guess what, you will have to work until 70 to get social security. what does that mean? >> this is one of the most

compelling, to most people, reasons to raise the retirement age, that everyone is living longer and therefore they will be in retirement longer and will get a bigger benefit. but this is not an across-the- board phenomenon. in some counties, the evidence is -- there is a report that i can supply to you, a researcher who was found that lower-income women, especially in the low- income backed out, are living less long. their longevity is decreasing. they're not benefiting from the overall situation of americans who -- most of us are living longer -- >> if you raise the retirement age, many of these women would

never get a nickel from social security. they would be dead. >> their benefit would be produced that much more, and they would be punished -- >> but this is an important point we don't talk about. we always lump everybody together. for many low-income women, their life expectancy is actually declining, and for working class and lower-income men, the gains are minimal. the ones with good health care, they are doing just fine. interesting. >> we talk about life expectancy, but life expectancy starts at birth. life expectancy in the united states has increased substantially since 1900. we have immunization, vaccination, babies are not die at birth any longer. life expectancy has increased because a public health.

what have we done with public health in america? if you, in 1900, reached the age of 40, you have lived just about as long as if you've reached the age of 40 today. a little bit longer, not very much. a lot of people say that when we enacted social security and put the retirement age at 65, life expectancy was only, like, 68, but today it is 70-something, so we should raise that up so that it is comparable to what was in the 1930's. that is missing the point. the life expectancy may have been that. but he if you are aorking person and have made it to age -- but if you are a working person and have made it to age 30 or so and that, you could have expected to live as long as you would today. it is that people cannot live as

long because of low life expectancy because of job it -- it is just that people did not ve as long because of low life expectancy because of childhood. >> their working life as been extended, said the ratio of work life to retirement life has not increase at the same rate as longevity -- has not increased at the same rate as longevity after 65. >> if you raise the retirement age, what you are doing is going backward from where we started in the 1930's. you arectually going backwards, in terms of how many retirement yearswod be covered by social security. i can prove it with data, too, but i just don't have the benet of me. front of me. it in ms. miller, there is a lot of talk about raising the estate

tax exemption for states up to -- for estates of $5 billion per person, $10 million per coue -- $5 million per person, $10 million per couple. how would that impact you? >> i am still taking in whether i am going to die early, because i am low income. i'm sorry. layman's terms, please? >> in other words, you don't have $5 million in the bank that you were going giving your kids? -- that you can rely on your kids on? >> my children make the same

amount i do. i get very confused when you guys talk about all these numbers and taxes. i admittedly field fence at the moment, because i will never hit -- admittedly feel dense at the moment, because i will never have money to let my children. -- lend my children. i may be just a burden on my children. >> ms. miller just raised a very interesting point that we have not really discussed. we talk about folks raising the retirement age, and i am a bit of a johnny one-note today, but that is the issue that is on my mind. it would seem to me that if you raise the retirement age, people were not getting social security, they might put the

burden as ms. miller said on their kids. wouldn't we have more debt if we raise the retirement age? >> wel i cannot give you an exact number on that, but basically, that is something that we try to get at in the testimony. we try to look at what happened, in eence, if you eliminated social security benefits. we could very easily go back for you and, instead of doing the current status quo versus nothing, do these kinds of mparisons for you and show you exactly the percentage of population that would be at risk, and/or having -- not having any other financial resources, if that is how you wanted to find a burden. -- wanted to define a burden. >> i would like to see those statistics, but the middle class

might have even more overburden taking care of parents -- more of a bird and taking care of parents who are not getting social security when they need it. what common sense suggest that? >> absolutely. >> this has been very enlightening. we are going to have a whole host of hearings, because the retirement system in america is putting a lot of people at risk. there is a crisis in our retirement system, and people have to know this, and we have toake some action to shore it up. mr. vanderhei, you have some information you are going to get to us on collective bargaining, and mr. eisenbrey, you are going to give me some information on if you raise the retirement age to 70, what the replacement rate -- mr. vanderhei, if you

ve that data, too -- will be the replacement rate? ms. miller, you are the face of working america, middle america , and if nothing else, it seems to me that you and many millions of americans out there who are $30,000 -- who are making $30,000, $60,000, we have to shore up the retirement system for them. the most secure what we have is social security, because that is backed by the full faith and credit of the united states government. when young people ask me if social security is going to be there when they retire, i say, "let me ask you this -- when you are my age, will the united states of america exist?" they believe that.

if the united states of america it exists, social security will exist, because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the united states government. >> i think we have heard this morning, and most americans know, that there has been a war going on for many years against the middle class of this country. i see a tax on social security as part of that -- attacks on social security as part of that, with wall street and others extremely unhappy that we have a federal program that has worked enormously successfully for the last 35 years. >> the committee will stand adjourned. thank you all very much.

>> next, a discussion on today's news coverage being trivalized. then live at k78, your calls and comments on washington journal. now, "new york times" coliumist bob her better talks about the state of the news media with students at george washington university in washington, d.c. he expresses concern that newer media outlets such as cable news and the internet have muddled the lines between news and opinion. he also criticizes news organizations for spending so much time and resources covering what he considers trival topics like celebrities and the weather. ñd;ypñ"ça3

we welcome one of our fellows joining us here periodically throughout the year. he will be acceptable to you through events like this, lunches, classes, and networking events. we very much look forward to working with him, hearing from bob throughout the year.

here's what bob writes today. listen to the flowing prose and the fact that he pulls no punches to tell you exactly what he thinks. the piece is entitled that's where the money is. and it's about john boehner, the republican minority leader, minority whip who could be the next speaker of the house if republicans take control of the house in the election. it's beyond astonishing to me that john boehner has a real chance to be speaker of the house of representatives. i've always thought of mr.

boehner as one of the especially sleezey figures in a capitol seetsdzing with sleeze. i remember writing about him that day back in the mid 90's. when this slick, chain smoking quintessential influence pedler decided to play santa claus by handing out checks from tobacco lobbyistst to fellow congressional sleezes right on the floor of the house. tell us what you really think, bob. so the job of the colium nist is to tell us what he really thinks or what she really thinks to provoke, to prod, to make us squirm a little bit, to make us think from all sides of the equation. let me give you just a little bit of background on bob. prior to joining the "new york times" he was a national correspondent from 1991 to 1993. you would have seen him on the today show and elsewhere. he was a reporter and editor at the daily news from 1976 to

1985 where he became a columnist and member of the editorial board there. i am delighted to insbro deuce to you our smpa fellow, one of them, bob herb ert. bob. >> thank you very much for coming today. i really appreciate it. it's an honor to be here to talk to you and to be part of your program, at least in a small way. so i'm very happy with this opportunity. you know, i know that i am not getting any older. i know that.

so journalist students must be getting a lot younger. every year. oh, my goodness. but we're going to wing it a towards the end. some of my thoughts on some significant journalism issues of the day and also listen to some of the things that you guys may have to say. so we'll have an interchange from time to time. very frankly, this country of ours is in very serious trouble, very, very serious. and the problems facing the journalism community, which is part of that larger landscape part of that larger landscape that we call the media, are