what the u.s. force structure needs to be to provide these important roles of deterring opponents in assuring allies, the latter goal is going to become more challenging and require more of the united states if nuclear proliferation continues at a pace. >> in response to your question about where the obama administration is, i think that when the every time he has come back to the subject, he has made the point that as long as nuclear weapons exist, united states needs to have a safe and robust nuclear deterrent. i think he square that circle.

if you go back to the time the new start treaty was signed, the administration put out a couple of plans looking at 10 years. both are with regards to the strategic retirement of heavy bombers, but also modernization of the nuclear weapon conflict, the national labs and infrastructure that maintains the weapons themselves. the announcement was that over the next 10 years the spending plan was $100 billion for the strategic triad and $80 billion for modernization of the nuclear weapons complex, which was a 10% or 15% increase over previous plans. i think that was in part to concern.senator kyl's if you are going to reduce nuclear weapons, you have to have complex -- of to have confidence that the weapons you

have a reliable. there have been a lot of exchanges of their last four months between administration officials including the vice president and secretary. two weeks ago, the administration said it was prepared to commit an additional 4 billion to $5 billion to upgrade nuclear weapons contracts. it does sound like there is an effort on the part of the administration to address the senator's concern and to assure him that there will be sufficient funds so that the weapons complex can support the nuclear arsenal in the future. my sense is that the administration has gone quite part in this. i think there is a question of how much more it needs to go to in order to secure senator kyle's support. i would agree with keith, who said in a point of nuclear weapons is not only to deter a range enemies, but to assure allies including japan,

australia, and the asia-pacific region. as far as i have seen, every allied governments so far has spoken out on the new start treaty and has endorsed the treaty. i think i have to come to the conclusion that our allies say -- at the end of the day, the u.s. has a strategic force. in needs to be sure that force can not only deter attack on the united states but can also extended deterrence to them as well. >> let us go to the next round. i will start with gary and take one more as well. then we will go to responses from the panel. here and then in the middle, and then we will have a set of responses. >> gary mitchell from "the mitchell report." i wanted to say at the outset that i feel like a paid some attention to this issue. this is far and away the best conversation i have heard about it, because i think it is laid out, the complexity which is

very very helpful. it seems to me we have heard at least four points of view. one is the treaty is good on its own merits, vote for it. the other is the treaty is good enough, and is also important because it helps us in other issues related to russia. the treaty has been badly misrepresented and has been badly handled politically, and therefore it is in trouble. and if i can characterize toms, widen the aperture. this is not necessarily the time to be concerned about whether we close this deal but whether we take this opportunity to take a wider look at the way we think the world should be further out. i will throw in another one which is not mine, but you are probably familiar with the case that was made last week in an off-ed by jamie rubin that we do

not need to do these big trees anymore because so much can get done under executive deals, and given the difficulty that non- parliamentary governments like ours have, we ought to be thinking about that. mike also alluded earlier in his presentation to the notion that this sort of helps us with our discussions on deep- nuclearizing -- denuclearizing the world. this deal will help smooth the path. i wonder if that is operational but -- is aspirational. what i would really like to do is say, "how are you going to vote on this?" i have a clear sense in a couple of places.

but i would be interested in knowing is given everything we have heard, each of your contributions and the contributions of your partners -- when push comes to shove, it is there more upside in approving this treaty and approving it during the lame- duck session, or is there more downside on doing that? if there is no downside in doing that, what is your recommendation about how the senate ought to move forward on this? >> before we hear the vote, what is the next question, and then respond. >> i am not speaking for any organization. is there any strategic utility for the u.s. to modernize nuclear weapons? assuring allies is really just an extension of deterrence, because we are assuring the allies that we will defend them against an attack, and it is to

help deter anyone who could attack them. related to this, is there any strategic advantage for high reliability for nuclear weapons? this seems to be taken as a given. but since the basic point of possessing the weapons is deterrence, not fighting, and the appointment cannot assume that a weapon will not work -- any opponent cannot assume a weapon will not work, and so it is useful. without very high reliability that any particular warhead would work, that would actually make it so a first strike might be less likely for whoever might need to assure that a surgeon bonn needs to go off. -- a certain bon mot needs to go off. -- a certain bomb needs to go

off. >> i would not support the new start treaty if i did not believe we could have very high confidence with that treaty and with a comprehensive nuclear test ban. i support both those accords and believe we can have high confidence in our arsenal, part of the reason being that we are showing the plutonium in and hold up quite well. we do a lot of monitoring for $6 billion to $7 billion a year of stockpile stewardship in various ways. i understand the debate senator kyle is having now with the administration. we are all doing a great deal to assure the reliability of the u.s. nuclear arsenal. the question is what assets be needed in the future. i think americans can have confidence in the very high reliability of our nuclear arsenal today. a couple of more things and i will pass the time to steve. in terms of jamie rubin's thinking, he did want to seek congressional action, not just executive dictate. he wanted law as opposed to

treaty. that would allow a majority vote instead of a two-thirds vote. other countries will say that means the united states is not quite as committed as we would like them to be. there is a pro and con. while i do support, way down the road, a nuclear-free road, but i do not support new start for that region. if new start prejudged the pe at which we could assure a nuclear-free road, i would not support it. we are a ways from being on that path. there things i would like to see the next round to. for example, more focus on cooperative missile defense. i applaud the lisbon summit spirit for what it has done, but it has not yet translated into programs. these are things we have to learn more about and do more of to even see if a nuclear-free world may someday be a tenable. ratifying new upstart does not prejudge that debate.

-- ratifying new start does not prejudge that debate. >> i emphatically support new start. i think it is good arms control, but i think it also has other positive effects, such as on the u.s.-russia relationship. if the treaty does not get rectified in the lame-duck session but polls in 2011, that may not be the end of the world, but i do not know what that time from looks like. i do not think it is january and february. how far back does that get pushed? that is why do linda, six days from now -- that is why the lame-duck, six days from now -- how far do we stretch that out? the longer that time goes, the more our confidence in our assessments about russia's strategic forces weakens. is it going to weaken fatally? probably not. but i think there is a certain logic there to say getting new

start into force sooner rather than later will limit that time when we do not have inspectors on the ground, when we do not have data exchanges. why not do it in the lame-duck session? you have 18 senate hearings. i think the time i heard from the administration is they have answered 955 questions for the record. there has been a lot of study over the last six or seven months. it seems to me the senators have the information they need. certainly, it is out there. they ought to be able to take that and make a decision. i do not see a persuasive argument for not going into the lane duck session. to come back to the point keith made, i think the administration is partially in this bind because i think as keith said they did oversell new start, and some of their language was in precise. it raised suspicions that do not need to be there. the administration did say -- some administration officials

said there are no limits to this treaty on missile defense. i think it is more correct to say there are no reasonable restrictions. one paragraph says the united states and russia could not put a missile defense interceptor into an old silo. that is a constraint. but i do not think it is a meaningful constrict, because we have converted five icb silos to hold missile defense interceptors and built 25 or 30 new silos in alaska to hold interceptors. the new start treaty allows us to grandfather those five interceptors. those are ok, but do not do it again. it would cost about $20illion more per silo to convert them to build one grand -- and to build one brand new. it seems it is a constraint that prevents us from doing something we would never do under any circumstances. that is probably a constraint we

could live with. likewise, i think the administration was in precise when it said there are no constraints on conventional ballistic missile warheads. we have more than 5050 icbms. neither the united states nor russia deployed those. there has been talk about a combined strike system, where the bush administration proposal was for strategic ballistic missiles. the administration now says if there were able to exercise the option, it would be a few tens of warheads. i know some people are uncomfortable with the idea that a strategic offensive arms treaty would limit any conventional capability. i am not uncomfortable with the idea that if you want to deploy 30 or 40 conventional warheads -- i do not see that cutting deeply into a total war had of

1550 on the nuclear side. how the administration originally described some of these provisions raised suspicion. i think that is where we do not have a strong base. >> i will start with your question and follow on from stevens point. -- stephen's point. it reflects on what we talked about earlier. i am not making the argument -- i did not intend to make the argument the restrictions on missile defense are extremely significant restrictions. that was not my point. my point was that the administration took the opportunity to explain the treaty in a number of different ways. it was incorrect in its explanation. it misrepresented the treaty. the was in very important areas. these were the folks who created

the treaty. they misrepresented it in open testimony. the reason why that is important, never mind for now whether the missile defense option is important are not important -- the point was that by misrepresenting the treaty and overselling it so thoroughly and so consistently, even to the current time, what it creates is skepticism about those who are asking for answers. so i point you to, for example, senator kit bond tips speech on november 18, where kit bond it said factual, correct things about the treaty. the state department replied last week specifically to senator bond's speech. some of the responses to the senator's point are literally factually incorrect. when you have a process like that, which went on in the past and continues now, what it

suggests is there would be many who would like more time to sort this out. that is why i think that not having this decided in the lame- duck would be a good idea, because there are still questions about the treaty, given the types of responses before you have the administration. i see no value or advantage whatsoever in pushing this treaty through during the lame- duck. there are some great disadvantages i think in trying to do so. and the advantage of moving it into 2011 in the senate is that the senate will have time to methodically, systematically, seriously go through these issues that have been created by the administration handling of it. it would seem to me that the administration would want that. >> let me go to the second question, with regard to the terms. it was a fabulous question. thank you for pointing it. but the question said essentially was that nuclear

weapons provide a deterrent effect even with great uncertainty about them. therefore, why do you worry about modernization or in essence the details of the structure? if deterrent effect is available because of the uncertainty surrounding nuclear weapons, if the deterrent effect is available with uncertainty, and stop worrying about the rest of this. we do not need to spend all the money to get these things down to great precision. the gentleman is shaking his head yes. that is the point. let me suggest there is a strong tenant of u.s. thought on strategic policy going back to the mid-60s that is exactly that. that was one of the profound schools of thought in the united states on nuclear deterrence, nuclear strategy, and force requirements. the other school of thought says that in some cases opponents will not be deterred by

uncertainty. in other words, you have to posit an opponent that is deterred by uncertainty for them to apply. you have to have an opponent who is deterred even if the reliability of our weapons may not be our satisfaction. you have to posit an opponent who is deterred even if the weapons may not be structured such that they meet our satisfaction. you have to pause at, i should say, a very specific type of opponent who is deterred within a great context of uncertainty for those points to apply. that, as i said, has been a team in u.s. strategic policy for decades. that is exactly so. the other thing is that on occasion there will be opponents who will need to be deterred, lest we are allies suffered a devastating attack, and they will not be deterred by uncertainty. in fact, they may be spurred on

by uncertainty. they may feel uncertainty is something to take advantage of instead of something to be deterred by. because we do not know what the future looks like and we do not know what all the opponents -- how we are quick to catch a late in the future -- my view -- how we are going to calculate in the future -- my view is we want to also a -- also deter opponents who might be spurred on by uncertainty within the u.s. support structure. michael, i believe, said i am one of those who say we want to have reliability. we want to have precision. we want to have a very effective strategic force structure. deterrence to require it. the failure of deterrence one time in this area could lead to several millions of to scores of millions of fatalities in the united states or in our allied countries.

we cannot afford to take a lot of chances with deterrence in my view. and relying on opponents who are deterred by uncertainty, and thinking we have an adequate deterrent in that case, i believe is a mistake. >> before passing to tom for what will have to be the last word, i wanted to make sure you did not want to directly respond to gary's question about the vote. the use want to say that is up for this month or -- do you want to say we should not wait for this month, but should wait until 2011? would probably should. -- we probably should. >> my desired outcome for the treaty would probably be for the administration to essentially satisfied its critics. -- satisfy its critics, to frame a deal that would be acceptable to senator kyl and ideally would

be passed in the lame-duck session, because that would represent a commitment on the part of the administration and the democrats as a party to nuclear modernization and missile defense that has so far been lucky -- been lacking. you could not take that to the bank for very long, but in american politics that is as good as it gets. and actually i would like to put this whole discussion in the rearview mirror and talk about the things that i was describing earlier. my ideal promoting for the treaty would be like a five-year moratorium on arms control negotiations with the russians. just simply cut it out and actually start talking about the things that are more critically important. if you can meet those threshold tests, i would be willing to vote for the treaty, and the sooner the better. >> i think you just ratified it.

three votes of four. >> thank you for being here and things for the pattern. -- and thanks to the panel. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> up next on c-span, congressman aaron kantor -- erick kanter and other house republican leaders -- eric cantor and other republican leaders speak to students at american university. how secretary to speaks about energy -- energy secretary chu, the federal pay freeze, and secretary of state clinton on wikileaks. jeb bush is the founder of the organization for excellence in education. the group will hold a conference tomorrow on federal education

policy. live coverage begins at 8:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. there are 37 governors' races in november. 34 open seats. mary fallin won an open governor's seat. the governor elect will become the state's first female governor. in hawaii, a democrat neil abercrombie succeeds a republican governor. the 10-term u.s. congressman will be sworn in on december 6. leaders of the incoming house republican majority hold a town hall meeting. will hear from incoming majority leader eric cantor, incoming majority whip kevin mccarthy, and paul ryan. they spoke at american

university. >> my name is george levitt and i am the director of the kennedy political union. [applause] i am very pleased tonight to join the american university college republicans and center for congressional presidential studies in welcoming congressmen eric cantor, kevin mccarthy, and paul ryan. congressman eric cantor has served in congress since 2001, working to limit regulation, strengthen small businesses, and encourage entrepreneurship. in 2008, he was elected minority whip and is set to become the majority leader in the 100th of congress. 12th congress. paul ryan has represented since 2009. he is author of "a road map for

america's future," which outlines some of america's most pressing issues such as health care, medicare, medicaid, and tax reform. mr. ryan is a ranking member on the house budget committee and will become chair this january. congressman kevin mccarthy was elected to serve california in 2006. "newsweek magazine" called him one of the gop's most persuasive and compelling numbers. another magazine named him the rookie of the year. by 2009, he was named chief deputy whip. congressman mccarthy is slated to become the next majority whip in the 112tht congress. [applause] during the 2007-2008 election cycle, these congressman founded a member driven organization of house republicans dedicated to

identifying, recruiting, and mobilizing a new generation of conservative leaders. young guns was about finding candidates that would solve problems using conservative beliefs. pete sessions, the chairman of the nrcc, adopted it as a recruitment and training program for house republicans. the results to date have been very successful. in the 2008 election cycle, four young guns defeated incumbent democrats. dozens were elected to the house of representatives as republicans took back the house for the first time since 2006. these cars men have co-authored a book called "young guns -- a new generation of conservative leaders." it offers the collective vision for the future of the party. on behalf of the kennedy political union, it is my pleasure to welcome the congressmen. [applause]

>> thank you very much for coming out tonight. i am kevin mccarthy from california. i thought i would give you a little bit about the recruitment. i was recruitment share for the national republican congressional committee. we won 63 seats. there are 85 new freshmen. 62 of the 63 were young gun candidates. the whole idea of young gun candidates getting through. to recruit, if you would go back about a year and a half from today, the republican party was not that popular. the president was very popular. it was not the easiest thing to get people to run for office. what i did when i was in charge of recruitment -- i went back and i studied 1994 and 2006, the last two times majorities had switched. i did that before i went out recruiting.

if you want to do the obvious, you go by how many candidates we had them. 421 candidates, 122 democrats, and this time we had 430. an odd fact is no minority has become a majority in modern history without bringing in professional -- without bringing in professional athlete with them. we got a former lineman from the eagles. every thursday, and would bring a number of people in, current members, like a microcosm of society. we would look at the district and where we were going to go. we thought this would be a wave election. we thought we would challenge people who had been there a long time. we would be three sitting committee chairman. we would literally go on the road. i will give you a quick story on recruiting. we would go on the road. i would drive in and we would

not have much money. we would rent a car and forget the garments. i get lost all the time. .ofhe i realized it was wisconsin and made a u-turn. i had been gone about a week. i was with another congressman. weaver going into tennessee. we decided we have to challenge democrats who were going to retire. i went to tennessee. before i got there, my staff said there were going to try to find someone to run against tanner. kenner was a democratic congressman, a bulldog, with a million dollars in the bank. two years ago, no republican ran against him. this guy was nervous about meeting the because tennessee has a strong accent. i am tom -- i am from california, and the things we are all fruits. probably true.

in comes this guy, 38 years old, good looking guy. we sit down and have this conversation. "i am from frog jump, tennessee." i do not know where that is. i ask people why they want to run. steven gave me the same answer about 400 other people gave me. i said, "why do you want to run for congress?" he said, "i watched the country changed before my eyes, and i do not know how to tell my children i did nothing." that is a great reason. he said, "i have never been elected to any office before. i have never even been to washington, d.c. on vacation." i said, "as of right now, you're the top recruit in the nation." he got into the race, never running before.

he ended up raising $600,000. do you know what happened to tanner who had never been challenged? he ended up retiring. once he got challenge, he retired. snyder in arkansas, with 77% of the vote two years prior. he ended up retiring. for a national campaign, what is the campaign good to be about? it is going to be about jobs. who in congress both -- best represents spending? the chairman of appropriations. he is a guy named obie. he has been in congress since 1969. he got to congress before we landed on the moon and before woodstock and he has never left. paul is helping recruit. he finds a young guy by the name of shawn duffy. he was on the mtv "real world."

he is a four term district attorney. what is really important is he is five time world champion lumberjack. he runs and no one gives him the time of day. but he starts campaigning on national issues. do you know what happened to the guy who had been 1969 chairman of appropriations? he ended up retiring. just those four races show that we are going to win across this country. the thing i will tell you is republicans did not win the majority. democrats got fired for the same reason republicans got fired in 2008. we spent too much. stephen fisher told me he watched the country change before his eyes and was not going to sit and do nothing. that motivated people across the country. when you look at the freshman class, you have to go back to 1938 to find an election like

this one. this is such an earth shattering. what is most odd to me is that the democratic party kept the same leadership that led them off the cliff for this election. those were just some of the recruitments. let me turn it over to paul to give some of the fiscal issues we are talking about. >> i do not think of myself as the much older than you. it was not too much longer ago that i was hanging around here. i went here for a semester. [applause] alumni. i went for a semester. yeah, all right. i spent a lot of time in this arena. there are a few bars and never even heard of because these are the bars you've never heard of because they're already out of business. it's good to be back here at au.

riley graft goes here, he believe. he's a family friend. he's one of your powerforwards. you have a pretty darned good basketball team here, by the way. that's something to be proud of. let me tell you why the thr of us founded this group. the three of us founded this group because we wanted to get people to runor congress not to get a career in politics but to come up here and advocate a cause. you see, democrats are not our enemies. they are o adversaries and they're our adversaries in the battle of ideas. our enemies are people who fired planes into our buildings, who put roadside bombs up against our shoulders. but in this battle of ideas this is a very, very momentous time in this country. the future you are about to face when you graduate from here is going to be decided in the next few years. this is one of those sort of pivotal times in this countr in our nation's history, where the next few years will determine what america's going to be in the 21st century. and the idea we are fighting over is what i would ca the

american idea. what does that mean in a nutshell? in a nutshell, according to the declaration of independence, our rights come from natu and god, not from government. very important idea. that means we are a society where the individual is the nucleus of our society, not the government. the individual's the nucleus of our economy. so these are very important principles that we've lost sight of over the years. and this struggle of ideas or of an idea is coming to a head. let me give you the fiscal effects of this idea. i'm 40 years old. my wife jen and i live in wisconsin, where i'm from, we have three kids. they are 5, 7 and 8 years old. by the time our three kids are my age, the size of this government is projected to be double what it is today. just to pay for what we have right now. we have taken over the last 40 years, 20 cents out of every single dollar made in america to pay for the federal government. when my kids are my age, we are taking 40 cents out of every

dollar. i asked the head of the budget committee what are the tax rates on my kids' geration going to be mid-century, when you are in your peak earning years raising your families, what are the tax rates going to be. they got back to me, said well, let us do some math. what the lowt taxpayers pay that's now 10%, that goes 25%. middle income taxpayers will have to pay 66% tax rate and the top income taxpayers, mostly small businesses, will pay 88% tax rate. in the next sentence, they said this could have some negative effects on the economy at that time. the point i'm trying to say is we have a fiscal train wreck coming in this country. the general accountability office told us three years ago the unfunded liability, the debt that this generation is passing on to your generationas $62.9 trillion. that's more money than we are worth as a people and citizen together. that's more than the gross domestic products of the world, for the most part. well, last year they told us that number went up to $76.4

trillion. know what they told us last week? no, no, that number is $86.6 trillion. that means $88.6 trillion would have to be created and set aside today, invested at treasury rates so the government could continue making the promises it is making to the current generation of retirees, my generation and your generation. we have a debt crisis coming in this country. there's no two ways about it. the question is do we get ahead of it, do we preempt it, do we prevent that from allowing us like is happening in europe. you see france, you see young people coming into the streets in tir teens and 20s, throwing molotov cotails, you know. they burnt down a school the other day. they're doing it because the french government is trying to raise the retirement age to 62 years old. young people are taking to the streets before they even started their careers and are protesting having to work longer. they're already thinking about their retirement. think about this. that's not who we want to be in this country. the great thing about this country is whoever you are and

whereverou come from, whatever your condition or story is, you can be whoever you want to be. it just takes your own effort, your own god-given talent. what do we want to do. what we are trying to do here is turn this thing around before it's too late. before we have a european austerity debt crisis kind of system. what i mean when i say that is we want to have an opportunity society with a sound and reliable and sturdy safety net to catch those people o can't help themselves, to catch people who are down on their luck so people can make the most of their lives. we do not want to turn this country into a welfare state which saps and drains people of their incentive and will to make the most of their lives. unfortunately, that is the path we are on. we are on trajectory in this country because of the tax stem, because of our debt burden, because of the fiscal train wreck ming, into a federal welfare ste. the goal is not only to protect our rights so we can make the most of our lives and promote equal opportunity but the

government sees its role and goal as equalizing the results of our lives. that's not who we are. that was never who we were intended to be. that is not what our founders created and that is not what our veterans fought for. so this sort of fiscal day of reckoning, this economic realism is here right now. so why we founded this young guns organization was to get people to come to washington, stop trying to be career politicians, and do what's right for this country so that your generation actually has the kind of tremendous opportunities and potential that us and previous generaons had. thank you. >> thank you. he's got his hand on a roaming mike so i'll try and keep it short. first, thank you for coming out tonight. i know that many of you are facing, if not all of you are facing final exams the next couple weeks. believe me, i get it. i' got two teenagers, i've got one at university of virginia, one at university of michigan, both of whom i sent back t

school last night and they were complaining every bit. so i guess you could have taken the route that paul did and hang out at the bars tonight, but you came here instead, so we're excited you're here. but just to y and sum it up to see where we're headed as a new republican majority, i want to say this. we as republicans, i know the room may be equally divided, we as republicans look at this last election not necessarily as an endorsement by the american people, young and old, for republican leadership. it was, in fact, as you heard us all say just now, a repudiation of the direction the public has seen over the last couple years. in fact, i think all of us would make the case it's not just the last couple years that have turned america off. its probably the last decade

or so that people have come to the realization that they want to see their fedel government working for them again, and it is about delivering results for everybody, for all americans. again, it is t just about republicans bei in this spot. democrats are as well. we're all facing some very difficult choices as far as how we go about focusing this country and what we're going to do, as we assume majority, we will take e will of the people which we feel is less government, focus on job creation, get us back to a point where we can believe in our economic future as students from your perspective, from working families, from small businesses, every aect of the society we're in right now is facing a bit of uncertainty. in some cases, a lot more than others. so we see it as our role to try

and detangle some of what has happened in this town so we can send a signal that america can lead again. so it's about delivering results, delivering results for you. how many in here are going to be facing the job market within a year? two years? all right. so you are getting close to half the room, at least. so this decision on taxes will affect you. because it is a certainty connected with the extension of existing rights which will allow small businesses and large the confidence that they need to go about putting moneyo work. when you deploy capital, you create jobs. when you create jobs, it's opportunity for all of you and frankly, for our kids as they come along. and that's the very real nature of what we're doing. now, finally, i would say this. you know, paul and kevin both talked about american exceptionalism, about why we're so different in this country,

and some have saidn the past well, you know, we're unique in america just like the british feel they're unique, jus like the french feel they are. well, i think that all of us can agree that we have something very special here that does really set us apart, and as paul just said and kevin as well, in recanting their experiences, it is about being here that has bred what we have seen success-wise, whether it's microsoft, google, facebook or you name it. why is it that those entities have been spun in america and not elsewhere. because we have been a breeding ground for innovation. we have been the country where you can start a business in your garage, five years later make it to be the biggest hit on wall street. that's what america's about. i can tell you from my family experience, and all of us come from somewhere because we are a country of immigrants, my

grandmother came from eastern europe and it was there at the turn of the last century that her family decided to escape religious persecution and to come and find a better life. they were lucky enough to make it here, came through ellis island, new rk harbor and the rest. but i think that what separates her upbringing from my upbringing is that no matr how hard she worked in eastern europe back under the czars of russia, no matte how smart she was, there was only but so far she could because of who she was, what religion she practiced, and where she lived. you compare that to what you've got today, you don't have to go to the right schools. you don't all have -- this country doesn't all have to be here at au. that's the beauty of it. you know, you can do what you want to do here and nothing's stopping you. and what we've laid out and talked about tonight is the

direction that the government is headed, it's gotten so big, you have such an amassing of capital here in washington, that when decisions are made here, they begin impact the ability for you to do what you want, because all of a sudden it becomes more important that you know somebody on capitol hill for your business to be successful than it is for you to work hard, play by the rules and expect to get ahead. so all of a sudden, a rational catalist begins to think wait a minute, i need to go fight in washington to gain my competitive advantage. that's what's gone wrong. that's what our congress is hopefully going to be about. it is on behalff all of you, all americans. whatever political idealogical stripe you come from, we are about trying to make a better economic future for everyone and that's going to take some tough decisions and support from all corners of this country.

so we thank au and the kennedy political program for sponsoring us tonight. i know we will be glad to answer any questions you have. >> hi. my name is elissa. thank you for being here tonight. my question is with regard to your earlier statement about >> i have at's chronic and has no cure and i will probably be taking pills for the rest of my life. the provisions that are already in the democrats' health care bill involving not allowing insurance companies to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions and for dependents to remain on their parents' health insurance until 25re the exact same as the health care bill that you republicans have already requested that be passed. so my question to you is by repealing the current health

care bill as it stands and starting new deliberations on a bill, it will lengthen the amount of time that these two provions can be implemented. will you try to preserve these two positions -- sorry, preserve these two provisions as they stand or continue to push for a full repeal of the health care bill? >> what i think you will see us do is to push for repeal of the health care bill and at the same time, contemporaneously, submit our replacement bill that as you correctly point t has in it the provisions which you speak of. as i said tonight in the interview with greta, we, too, don't want to acct any insurance company's denial of someone in coverage for that person because he or she may have a pre-existing condition. likewise, we want to make sure that someone of your age has the ability to access affordable care whether it's under your parents' plan or elsewhere.

so we in our formula have a way to produce those befits without raising the costs for everyone, and we have put in protection for those such as yourself with pre-existing condition that neither will you have to face exorbitant costs that in fact put you in the category of uninsured. so we feel we have taken the positions that adequately address those proble but done it in a way that we can preserve what's good about our system wiout bankrupting this country, which is exactly where the obama care bill will take us. >> thank you gentlemen for being here today. congressman mccarthy, my question is for you. you have described the senate as the country club and the house as the i-hop and one of the things you have pushed for --

>> it's true. >> one of the things you pushed for is allowing all members of congress to have a little more power, lik allowing every member to submit amendments to spending bills and giving the change of the political makeup of capitol hill, would you still support such a move or have you changed your position? >> no. and what you talk about, first, let me tell you what i thin why is one a country club and one's the i-hop, i guess. it's because it's where the founding fathers created it. we're the revolutionaries. we're all up for office every two years. we should be very reflecte of what america thinks because it can put everybody in, it can throw you out. you just had two big waves. the senate is ery six years. what you find from a senator, they get elected, then for four years ey're off and the founding fatrs, it's a little check and balance. you're talking about the pledge to america. we all worked on it. i happen to be the head of it. part of it was we went around listening to america and we sat with a lot of individuals and

said how could this building work better, because our belief is politicians don have power. the people have the power. they put it on loan every two years and they decide whether they want to loan it again. well, how can you, and we wrote this when we were in the minority, how could we guarantee that absolute power doesn't corrupt absolutely. because i ran in 2006 and when i ran, i ran against the republicans and the democrats. the one thing i found when the republicans were in the majority, you put too much power into leadership and so what we said, and for the last two years, you know, yeah, i'm just a bill on capitol hill you're supposed to go through and you get to the committee and wait and you make it to the floor, then people can offer amendments. that's not how it works. goes to the rules committee, for the st two years, no one could offer amendments. they would pick what the amendment could be and they would pick the ugliest amendment and put that on the floor. that was your only option. we said in the minority what do we think is the best way.

we said when it comes to spending, every single person that's sitting in congress got elected about from the same amount of people. we do that every ten years, right? so aren't they all the same power, because the people have the power and they loaned it, right? so we said every single pson can offer an amendment on a spending bill. we take away the power of that leadership to keep it away. what happens then, it's not about republicans or democrats. it's about america, because what happens, the best idea wins at the end of the day. if your idea is so bad you can't sustain an amendment, it doesn't -- it's not worth becoming law. and u know, if you're a political science major and you're thinking you want to be the czar or whatever, you would hate that amendment. but if you were a founding father, an american sitting out there, yeah. that proves the people have the wer. we support it then, we support it now and it's going to become our rule.

>> hello. gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight with us. we really appreciate it. my question is directed to representative paul ryan. i just want to know being that there's so much political grid lock in washington today, what's your take on immigration reform and also, in specific, the dream act that's coming up to the floor fairly soon? >> first of all, this isn't something we should be whisking through in a lame duck session with no committee hearings. didn't we just have an election at said we wanted congress to act with more transparency and accountability? let me first say this is a nation founded on immigration. i'm here because potatoes stopped growing in ireland a number of ars ago. this is -- we are an immigrant country. that's a great thing. i believe in manifest destiny. i believe in the melting pot. the way i would proceed with immigration reform is first of all, let's fix the root causes of the problem. i think the dream act, as noble as some of those ideas are, it's two wrongsrying to make a

right. let's do a border control bill. let's do an employer verification bill so we can make sure that we get at the issue of identity theft because illegal immigration and identity theft are often one and the same thing. let's deal with visas. let's deal with making sure people can find work. let's make sure we have a good guest working program. let's deal then with much more difficult issue of how to handle those who are here illegally and do it in a way that does not create an amnesty, that does not reward those who cut in line in front of others. to me, we can do this, it's tough to do this without a lot of emotion but you got to do this in a methocal way that respects the rule of law, that respec the fact that this is an immigrant society, that also respects the policy of assimilation so that we can move forward to try and improve upon the american idea, and moving bills in like this, in a lame duck session without any hearings in congress to treat a symptom without trying to address the root causes of the problem, which dream act flows

from, to me is not the right way to legislate. this is a political move meant to try and jazz people up. there's protesters at my office while we speak right now on this issue. let's do this without all of that. let's do it methodically, let's do it honestly out in the open and let's deal with the root cause of the fact that we have a broken immigration system. that's not fair for immigrants and citizens. let's make it so that works so that we can embrace legal immigration which makes our country better. >> thank you. >> hi, congressmen. my name is james connors. i'm from wayne, pennsylvania. thanks for being here tonight. so the 2010 elections just wrapped up and everyone is obviously looking towards 2012. one big candidate that the republicans are looking at is mitt romney. now, as you know, i'm sure many of you in this room know, mitt romney passed a bill similar to obama care. obama has even said that the chitecture of obama care was based on mitt romney's bill. so i'm curious as to how it

would work politically if you guys were to repeal theealth care bill and then have our presidtial nominee be someone who supported obama care. how do you think that would work politically? >> you got to ask mitt romney that question. i don't know who wants to go -- >> again, i don't, you know, wee going to go about trying to effect health care reform in a way that makes sen focusing first on bringing down cost for everybody. because we believe you bring down cost through promoting competition, giving patients more choices through insurance options as well as the ability to make decisions with their physicians. that's the kind of health care that we know in this country. that's the kind of health care most americans should and do want. so i do think that in the end, that mitt romney probably would say he did not support obama care, and i'm not familiar enough with the plan in massachusetts to know why it is

that that is different but i think, i'm not putting words in his mouth, but he would be suorti of our position when we voted against obama care. i know that. >> i would simply say the mandate doesn't work. this is something we had opposed as part of obama care. what's happening i massachusetts is sort of a foreshadowing of what will probably happen here which is you don't buy the insurance until youre really sick because then you can buy it without a penalty. what happens then, only sick people actually have the insurance and what actuaries call this is a death spiral. you have sicker people in the ol, prices go up, everybody's insurance premiums go up and if the penalty for not having insurance is not as high as actually having the insurance, then you have this problem that manifests itself. that i think is one of the undoing of obama care. this is why the presidential chief actuary, medicare/medicaid services, is telling us obama care will not work. it will be bigger deficits, they are telling us it will make health care costs go up, not down. it's not that we just dislike this law because of these mechanical reasons.

it's because we believe because all the independent fiscal authorities are telling us it's a fiscal, economic and health care house of cards that will lead to higher health insurance for most people, it will create a massive, massive deficit and de and it's going to reduce the quality of health care and lead to rationing of health care services for the elderly with all these new medicare bureaucracies created in the law. so this law is going to collapse under its own weight rather than watching that happen in a very ugly, slow pace over the next number of years, let's repeal it and replace it withealth care reform that works. e point we are trying to make in obama care is you can have affordable health insurance for all americans, for people regardless of pre-existing conditions, without having the government take it over. by having a patient-centered system where the patient and doctor are the nucleus of the health care decision-making system, not the government. that's what we want to get to at the end ofhe day.

>> thank you for coming. there will be a net loss in the number of women serving in the next congress and we are going from having a woman speaker of the house to having fewer women in the majority party's leadership. do you see this as a problem? >> let me try and address that and i will let the head recruiter do it. just to put some numbers out there, we in the republican conference now have nine new women with us and we will have more diversity in terms of hispanics and african-americans than we've had since i've been here in the ten years that i've been here. so i think your point is one well taken, is that congress eds to look more like america looks. our party, we get and as we are here tonight as founders of the young gun program, part of it was about saying look, it's time for us to findndividuals who want to come join us to change the way washington works, not to

come to washington for a career but to come here for the right reasons. we also felt very strongly that our party had been pushed into a corner, in many cases warrantedly, because it seemed to be a party of exclusion, not inclusion. and because of that, i think all of us e very excited about the increased diversity that our conference will have. >> one thing eric touched on, if you look at the class that just ran for the republicans, it was the largest republican class in the history of the republican party. 430 candidates. if you look at people, you have to go through a primary and general. take everybody that was recruited to run, there were more women running than ever before, it was more diverse from nationality than ever before. that was a great start. look at who the freshmen elected, the largest class, 85 freshmen. they elected tim scott to be

their representative in the leadership table. we have two frshmen leadership tables, we have never had the freshmen at the leadership table. they have two. they weren't picked because of gender or color of skin, because they were natural leaders inside their freshman class, and to me, that is a very good sign because you want to look at okay, where we are but where are we going. where we're going, especially with this class, is a much broader party that reflects america. and when you look at who won and where they won, they won from all parts of the country. so that it's not a party that's based in one section of the country. it is really a majority party. ann marie burkel was the last race. we have one more race to be called. in new york, she came from behind. another new republican woman coming through. you go to martha robey. in the book, not to force you to try to buy it, we talk a little bit about this

>> thank you very much for coming, gentlemen. my question is for congressman ryan. congressman cantor mentioned the difficult choices in deficit reduction. it looks like the bull-simpson commission is going to have a lot of those difficult choices in it. i was wondering if you could reflt on some differences between that and the road map you proposed? >> sure. i'm on the commission so i'm very familiar with it. with respect to tax reform it's not all that dissimilar. we both agree that you need to broaden the tax base to lower the tax rates meaning if you take a look at all the loopholes in the tax code, they're mostly enjoyed by higher income earners. take the way the loopholes, you calower the tax rate on everybody. we agree with that direction. i don't use those proceeds to raise taxes. they use about $1 trillion in ten years. where the big difference lies is in health cae.

bolls-simpson basically embraces and furthers obama care. it doesn't do any restructuring around obama care. it actually does some things that makes obama care implement itself even more quickly. obviously i have a big problem with that. i go in a different direction. so in response to that, i proposed an amendment to the process with alice rivling, bill clinton's budget director and vice chairman of the federal reserve under bill clinton. alice is one of the heads of the brookings institution. she's a democrat on the left side of the aisle, i'm republican on the right side of the aisle so we had t plan we proposed as a substitute for the medicare and medicaid reforms. that's something that we're trying to advance in bolls-simpson where we block medicaid to the stat to let governors innovate and customize their health care programs to meet their state's needs and for medicare which has a $38 trillion unfunded liability, the biggest fiscal problem we have in the federal government, obama care would actually exacerbate the problems in medicare.

propose for a younger generation, the program work just like what we have in congress, like what federal employees have, where we have a benefit and we can use that benefit to select among a list of private plans competing against each other, exactly like the federal program works. i believe we should means test some of these so the wealthy don't get as ch of a subsidy and help lower income people as they age and people who are sicker. those are the things in the proposal. so that's -- i don't think you're going to get -- you need to get 14 of the 18 votes to have anything pass. at this point, this week it wraps up, i don't see an area where you will get 14 votes for any one of these big ideas. my name is second because i wanted to defer to alice because she's a really cool lady. >> president obama got in trouble recently on "the view" by saying that a 20-something did his tweeting. i'm curious who does the tweeting for your offices. >> did he?

i tell you a funny story about tweeting. the tweeting comes from several 20-somethings, but i will say this. i was a tweeter and in fact was on a codell tweeting and was admonished for tweeting. so in all seriousness, we found a lot of success trying to access the likes of all of you students around the country, people who have, you know, sort of rlly become engaged in the political process, because of the incredible development in technology, whether it's social networking, facebook's provided tremendous ability for us to acce folks. we in the whip office, this

congress initiated a program called youcut program is very much what it says, you have the ability to propose cuts to the federal deficit. what we did was we put out five choices every week, if you go to republicanwhip.house.gov, it's there right now and you are able to vote on one of the five ways to cut the federal deficit, and then the following week, we bring that provision up under the rules to push yet again the emphasis on trying to cut spending rather than grow it. over the last, i don't know, six months or more, what republican members of congress did is they voted for $150 billion in program cuts, deficit reduction, and that's one of the things in the pledge of america we said we were going to continue which was every week, we're going to listen to the american people

that were on twitter, facebook, and the rest who bothered to come to youcut and have their voices heard. well, now well over 2.5 million votes on that program. so twitter and the rest, go get them, because it's been a terrific ride for us and we want to continue that. our days get busy so i will send e-mails saying tweet this, tweet that, and so that's how we do it. >> hi. thank you for being here. the a.p. had an article over the weekend that said that representative ryan's plan

wasn't included in the pledge for america because it didn't do very well in the polls and the focus groups that were used to put the plan -- the pledge together. is that true? >> we didn't poll it or focus group. the reason we didn't put it in there, i will just take it as -- we wanted to put -- we didn't want to promise things we couldn't deliver. with divided government that we have right now, i don't think it's practical to think that this thing could pass with the senate the way it is and the current occupant of the white house. that's why in the pledge, we put out things that we thought we just in control of the house, if we got that, could work on delivering. we didn't want to overpromise things we knew we couldn't deliver. that's why it wasn't in there. we had to get our budget under control and pass a budget that does this, but i for one don't think it's possible given the divided govement we have to pass the amendment into law right now. >> paul worked on the pledge with me. the three of us sent a lot of time together probably more than

most people want to. paul helped, when we did the pledge when we wrote the preamb preamble. you got to think what the pledge is. the pledge was written not as a political tool but things we could do in this congress right now that could make the country better, with jobs, with spending, you could say about $100 billion. paul's plan and the road map is 75 years. so i never talked to that a.p. writer so i don't know where they got that. i don't know that paul ever talked to them. but eric talked about the youcut ideas within there. this was a collective body of everybody going through and there were pieces of legislation that could have been brought up before we left congress that would have made the country in a much better place. >> to be shameless in promotion of our book, and i would say all proceeds go to fisher house. none of us make any money on this book. but we have a chapter in the book that talks about and is

dedicated to the road map. i think all of us are here telling you we understand the tough choices that we're going to have to make. paul's road map is a plan, the only one that's been out there, frankly, for some time. while there's been lip service paid by others, finally perhaps now we're going to see other plans come to the fore with alice rivling, simpson-bowl and the rest. >> paul wrote a plan sitting in the minority. since the budget act of '74 passed we always had a budget until this congress. we have a $1.3 trillion deficit and no budget. what happened? they attacked paul because paul laid out ideas. what paul was trying to do, here's an idea, now why don't you lay out an idea and we can start finding where we have common ground. it's hard to do it if only one side does it. if you patake a political scien class, the first thing they tell you is you never put out ideas

but we put out outside, we put out the pledge to america with ideas and what happened was they started saying the republicans were no longer the party of no. they actuly had ideas out there so they just wanted to criticize the ideas. >> thank you. thank you very much for coming. in recent years, inequality has been on the rise in america. what step do you or what steps do you as republicans support to try to lower inequality? >> if i could just take a quick stab at that. inequality i think lately has been couch in terms of the disparity of incomes in this country and the rich getting richer and the poor staying where ey are or getting poorer. and what i say to that is the only way to fix that is to level the playing field as far as opportunity. you can't sit here and ask washington, expect it to be able

to, by waving the magic wand,y writing a big check, you know, on a bank account that's out of money, you can't impose an outcome to say you're going to close the gap on incomes. what we've got to do is be serious about making sure that everybody in ameca has a fair shot. and what we've seen in our institutions of late, whether it is the corruption existing at l levels of government, whether it is the scandals that have ripped through wall street, or whether it is any of the number of things you can pick up reading the paper at any point in this country, people need to be assured they've got a fair shot, that they don't have to know the right people. remember, it goes back the sense of you can be anything, do anything in this country. so if we're serious about affording everyone opportunity, we talked about health care and how we believe we can do that. we have talked about job opportunities d how we need to

open up the economy again for more optimism and growth. welso have to be very focused on where we are right here, which is education. not only higher education but secondary education. if you really want to know where fair shot is developed, it is to make sure everybody's got access to quality education early on. so those are the kinds of things again, long term, these are problems that are going to just get worse if we don't go ahead and make the decision to make priority now to make sure everyone in this country's got a fair shot. >> that's an insightful and important question. there is basically two ways to go at it that we have been struggling with in this country for this and the last century. with respect to inequality. do we believe that the economic pie is fixed and therefore, it's the government's role to redistribute the slices more equitably? i would argue that's sort of the prevailing doctrine that's occurred in the last couple years. or do we want to grow the pie so

that everybody can increase in their opportunity. that's really a different idea. so what is the aspiration we want to have as a country, then let's go do that. do we want to have this kind of opportunity society where everybody, people who have never seen it before from corners of the country that have never had it before, really have a shot at making the most of their lives. that's what our policy ought to be designed to do, not taking from some to give to another, but giving people the opportunity to make something of themselves. because if you keep raising the barrier or putti new hurdles or bars by taking from some, then you won't be able to have investment. you won't be able to have risk taking. we want to put a premium on hard work and success. we want people to earn success in this country andnjoy the fruits of their labor and the rewards. we want more people to get it. that's the kind of society we ought to be striving for. in milwaukee, we have the worst, the lowest african-american graduation rates of anywhere in the country. it's a crime against society. why should we not be giving

these poor families who are trapped in these failing schools a voucher to go to a good school so their kids can get a good education. there's things like this that have been bothering people like me for a long time that weant to do to give people who have never seen opportunity before a chance at opportunity so they can make the most of their lives. this is not a rob peter to pay paul kind of society. this ought to be an opportunity society where we do everything we can, government has a really important role to play in this, to democratize capitalism, decentralize wealth in this country so everybody is an owner. i have been pushing social security reform for years so everybody who is a worker in society is also an owner in society so every person owns a piece of the free enterprise system so they have a stake in the outcome of our society and econy. these are things we can achieve in this country which means everybody can tap and reach their potential. if we think that that idea of america is over, and that it is the job of government now to

decide who gets what, when and how, when it comes to health care or income or retirement, then we are simply managing our decline. we are turning ourselves into what you're seeing going on in europe. a welfare society that cannot sustain itself, where we manage our decline. that is not the kind of path we want. let's find those pockets of america and there are lots of them, where people don't get those opportunities, where they can't pull themselves up by the bootstraps and they can't get that kind of education they need to get ahead, and let's address those problems. >> my name is benjamin. i'm a freshman here. thanks for coming tonight. i just had a question about bipartisanship. i know self and all my friends have been frustrated, especially with the recent elections, about how one side accuses the other, especially when it's politically convenient. that comes from both sides of the aisle. i get e-mails from democrats saying those republicans and i know a bunch of republicans

including some of yourselves have accused democrats andt goes with political game. i was wondering if you could discuss some of the ways that political or committee appointments and leadership, some of the ways they hurt or encourage bipartisanship and if there's any light at the end of the tunnel you see anywa we can work on smaller bills are better and kind of come together on ways that actually help americansnstead of the big decisive issues and all that. >> the best way to do is i have a belief that structure dictates behavior. you either adapt to the structure or you leave. the structure and the way congress worked for the last little bit was dysfunctional and one-sided so you didn't see bipartisanship. part of the thing we did in the pledge was just allowing any member to have an opportunity to offer an amendment so you didn't have to go to rules which is stacked nine to five on one side, so one side's always going to win so you always get your amendments, you get none. anybody could bring it up. the idea that bills have to go

through a committee and be debated. the idea that a bill has to be out in the public for at least 72 hours. sunshine cures a lot of things. that small structure change within congress right there hopes to start building the bipartisanship. but i think when you watch this engageme with greta, what if the president says this, what if the president says that. we don't know. we haven't been to see the president yet. the first things that we did when we came into office when the president won, you know what we did? we invited the president to our conference. in our conference, we have them every week, okay, and it's all the republicans come and the democrats do their own conference and the president got up, i thought it was a good conference on both sides. i thought the president was very honest with us, sometimes he would say you know, i disagree with your whole premise or you know, you've got some ideas there, we might work on that. and we weren't crazy.

we weren't going saying things, you know, crazy about him. we were talking about how to make a better stimulus. know what the president said? we sat there and said let's all work together. yeah, let's work together. know what happened when he left the room? pelosi introduced the bill. so she created a structure that boxed him in at the same time, that he had to make a choice. either he could have said no, we're all going to sit down, i just talked to them, we're all going to sit down and write a bill, or he had to accept what his party did and he didn't want to have a loss at the very beginning, so he went to battle for it. i think when he looks back in history, the sad part is the stimulus, he sat there and said if it passes by this date, unemployment will never go above 8%. that's not true. cost close to $1 trillion with interest and today more people believe elvis presley is alive than the stimulus created a job. true fact. so you want to be able to have it but if you create a structure that doesn't allow it, it's not going to be there. what we have done is tried to create a strture that makes

the idea win, not that you sit there and say it has to be bipartisan. make the idea the strongest part. because then it doesn't be able to go through it. know how we started to make the pledge to america? we started something called america's speaking out. it w a website where anybody could give their idea. you know when you came to the weite, we never asked y what your party affiliation was. all we asked you to put in your e-mail and you voted on ideas and you went through. so the idea was the string. maybe if we took paul's name off the road map, maybe if we took the word road map out and laid out the ideas and you put it in a room, probably a lot of people would say yeah, we can do that. okay, well, the idea won now. now let's move it forward. >> this is the final question. >> the three of you have all made mention to not creating career politicians, so then what are your stances on term limits in congress? >> i have always been for them.

still am. >> in the context of leadership, i am for them. i have never taken a position for term limits because i feel that the voters turn you out as quick as they will put you in if you're not responding to their will. so again, we've got some discussions ongoing right now about leadership and about how long those of us elected in leadership can stay and i am absolutely for making sure those term limits are in place. >> i come from california. i supported the idea of term limits in the initiative because we had a speaker you could never get rid of. i served in the legislature only two terms. serving in there, i realized why i wanted term limits but the thing i found out that term limits doesn't solve the problem. what if i put a bad person in, now i guarantee him or her the ten years to serve there. whatever the number is. i think what you really need is competition. so my first bill on the first day was to change redistricting

and make it competitive lines because then what happs it puts the power in the people. if i can be king for a day and you give me three wishes, i would change redistricting where the people would have the power, where you could throw somebody out if they were good or they were bad, and then i would make campaign finance different where you had to get half your mey from your own district. so i couldn't get $1 from somewhere else so the district had the power so people would go back home. that's where the power would rest. then my third wish would be make me king for the year. then i can continue on. >> thanks, everybody. thanks for coming out. nice to have you. . . coming out tonight. if you would like your book signed, please line up in the center. we will be signing them in the back.

>> in colorado, republican businessman scott tifton defeated a long term democrat john salazar in the state's third congressional district. mr. salazar is the older brother of interior secretary kim salazar. the district includes much of western colorado, including the towns of grand junction, pueblo. terry sewell will be the first- ever an american woman to represent alabama. miss sul holds degrees from harvard and oxford and is an attorney and the only incoming freshman democrat who has never been elected to public office. >> the panel is expected to

report to the president on wednesday. ord university and research at the at&t bell laboratories. he has that sense and plished two hundred 50 scientific papers. he also literally walks the walk on sustainabily conservation. he often rides hike to walk and often walks the eight flights of stairs to his office overlooking the national mall. thank you for making your way here today. please welcome to the national press club energseetary chu. [alause] >> thank you. i have to say a few things. first, i ameled to be here, ourse. also, most of mbike riding i onhe weekends. they will not be able to reach a comprehensive deal. there is a lot of disappointment and a lot of frustration that

politics seems to have stood in the way of a really bold plan to do something about the plan, but you have seen people looking forward to the 2012 elections are ready to review of some republicans who are about to take power in the house and say that we have our own agenda and we are not ready to cut a deal with the president. >> since they are still working on the report, what are the chances that the committee will ask for an extension? that is an excellent question. there are no plans to ask for an extension, but often these things are put into overtime as it were. it is really hard to say. the commission chairman have been saying they would not work on this past december 1. as i can tell, is not as if -- it is not as if the person ship will break out.

they find that there are some partisan differences over this issue. >> there are a lot of things on the table. can you give us a couple of them? >> from the point of view of the republicans, they do not want taxes to go. six members of the commission are elected members of congress or senators of the republican party that do not want taxes to increase. that is one suggestion that the co-chairman will deal with. on the other side, there is a variety of spending cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars a year and some of the democratic members of the commission are hesitating in endorsing the spending cuts. in particular, that they are opposed to a limitation on future benefits for social security. that is a real no-go for democrats. >> humans and alan samson.

he is quoted as saying that everything depends on the president. >> depending on the president's message to make clear that he is willing to make tough choices that will be unpopular with his party and unpopular for him personally as he gets set for reelection. difficult choices are what is more to be necessary to tackle this deficit problem the leadership starts with the president. >> where are those tough choices manifesting themselves? in the budget? >> yes. the president will be coming out with his budget in february. as a collaborative process with congress but the president gets the first say and he will signal and i think it will be very clear whether or not he is willing to make some of these tough choices. these constituencies do not want to see big budget cuts. >> when will we find out more

from the co-chairman, alan simpson? >> we'll get a good idea at a press conference tomorrow. we are hopeful of getting 14 votes and arriving at a consensus or you will hear them start to say that it looks like we may not get that consensus, but we still have a good report and the president should look at it and consider different options from it. >> i appreciate your time. >> >> find great holiday gifts fothe c-span and in your life at the c-span store. books, the bidis, mugs, umbrellas and more. >> now energy secretary stephen chu talks about energy technology. at the national press club, this is what our. -- this is one hour.

for more informational of the national press club, please visit our web site. to donate to our scholarship program, please visit i would like to welcome our speaker. i would also like to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. after the speech concludes, i will ask as many questions from the audience as time permits. i would buy it -- now like to introduce our head table guess. from your right, neal roland,

derek sam's. kathy andrew schneider. skipping over our speaker for just a moment, the speaker committee member who organized today's event. the director of the office of public affairs for the department of energy. and the energy reporter for reuters.

the future looked bright for dr. steven chu when he became the nation's 12th secretary of energy in 2009. he found early support the summer when the house of representatives passed comprehensive legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions and this alternative fuel sources and uses. then the road got harder. the senate never agreed on a plan. now, with the republican party taking control of the house of representatives, the consensus of political observers is that such a sweeping bill is dead for the foreseeable future. the department may have found another approach, however. bolstered with tens of billions of dollars of stimulus funding, the department has given billions in loan guarantees to support new transmission and power products in nearly every state. a personal cause of his is to develop collaborative relationships with international competitors whose governments are committed to the policies that congress has failed to enact. on november 15, on his facebook page, the secretary warned that the united states needs to work closely with both china and japan lest we risk falling behind in the race for the jobs

of the future. the self-proclaimed life guandique is the first person to be appointed in a -- life long geek is the first person to be aointed. he has taught at the university of california and stanford university and research at the at&t bell laboratories. he has that sense and published two hundred 50 scientific papers. he also literally walks the walk on sustainability conservation. he often rides his bike to walk and often walks the eight flights of stairs to his office overlooking the national mall. thank you for making your way here today. please welcome to the national press club energy secretary chu.

[applause] >> thank you. i have to say a few things. first, i am delighted to be here, of course. also, most of my bike riding is on the weekends. i virtually always walk up the eight flights of stairs, much to the chagrin of my security who have to follow. [laughr] what i want to talk to you today about is something that i feel very passionate about. unfortunately, there was a little miscommunication and i spent thanksgiving holiday preparing a powerpoint. i was told that was not here, so you will not see a powerpoint. but i will walk you through it. i should just say that most types of our points are boring, bullet point in speaking points and they take away from the context of the audience. i would hope that, in the future, power plant could be used because they can be used to show images and they can be

used to show data. i know data is maybe a new concept here in washington, but i think it is a good one. [laughter] but anyway -- sorry. [laughter] let me start. i titled this talk "the energy race, our new sputnik moment." let me suggest that this is perhaps something that should be taken seriously. just to remind you, on october 4, 1957, the soviet union launched a satellite, sputnik. it was about the size of a basketball, 184 pounds, and it went into orbit and it passed over the united states several

times. this was a bit shocking. on november 13, president eisenhower responded to this by delivering a speech, a major speech. he said "the soviet union now has the combined category of scientists and engineersn greater number than the united states. it is producing graduates in these fields at a much faster rate. this trend is disturbing. indeed, according to my scientific advisers, this is, for the american people, the most critical problem of all. my scientific advisers place this problem well above all other immediate tasks, over producing missiles, of producing techniques in the armed services. we need scientists for the 10 years ahead. -- ed." said he took a long view of this moment of crisis -- ahead." so, he took a long view of this moment of crisis. i was the beneficiary of that. in high school, i went to

science programs during the summer. when i went to college, there was money being poured into investments for universities. i got a fellowship when i went to graduate school. i got a post doctorate scholarship. many of my scientific colleagues were trained in a similar sort of way. the united states will cut. i want to make several points in my talk today. first, i believe innovation adds to the wealth of society. second, science and technology are indeed the heart of innovation. thirdly, leadership, which we still own common innovation --

in which we still own, innovation cannot be taken lightly. an economist at mit got a nobel prize for his work that show that increases in society productivity were the direct result of technology development. he started with a premise that it was the investment of capital and investment in society can make to do more stuff and produce more things and that ultimately would be tied to labor. and in the long run, labor and capital would increase together.

in the absence of any technology development -- as your work force grows, you can produce more stuff, but that really means that your standard of living person will remain fundamentally the same. so he pointed out, yes, that is true. but if you have technology innovation, everything can change. in fact, what he showed was that additional wealth other than population increases would be caused by technological innovation. for that, he got a nobel prize. this theme has been picked up a number of times. the fact that innovation is key to prosperity and progress has been reactivated a number of times. a committee was tasked with how will the united states compete in a flat world of the 21st century? the committee has made a number of recommendations. but investing capital will give you more wealth creation. anyone in 2010 is entitled "rising above the gathering storm revisited, approaching catego five." this talks about the collective society of america, the government, congress, administration, everybody, and the long term united states competitive outlook having further deteriorated since the initial gathering storm report

five years ago. so what are other countries doing? while it did not invent the automobile, it took the invention and process it into something that had not been seen in the world before, especially in the ford model t assembly line. it took over the leadership for automobile manufacturing for pretty much three-quarters of a century. the first airplane was discovered in america. the first transistor, the first integrated circuit, optical and satellite communications, gps, the internet, they all came from the united states. they all did wonderful things in terms of wealth creation for the united states. and so, i say that today this leadership is at risk. we are no longer leaders in manufacturing. more startling, we are no

longer the leaders in high- technology manufacturing. in terms of global high-tech -- the first integrated circuits, optical and satellite communications, gps, it all came from the united states. so, i say that today, this leadership is at risk. we are no longer leaders in manufacturing. more startling, we're no longer the leaders and high technology manufacturing. in terms of global high-tech exports, we hit a peak in 1998.

the captured about 29% of the market. it has been declining steadily and so it is about 13% of the world market. europe remained the most constant during this time. that is a fact. in fact, china says, quite candidly, and i am quoting from premier winter about any talks he gave -- from premier win jaobao in a talk he gave at a world summit.

in innovation to gain worldhe is basically taking it out of a playbook from the united states. china decided to use governmentsector into playing the leading launched on a long- term plan to for another five- year plan. -- they decided to do this and the first five-year plan falls in a soon-to-be other five-year plan. so what is the evidence that your technological leadership is at risk. in the united states, most of the patents were originated in the united states. but in 2009, for the first

time, 51% of u.s. patents were awarded to non-u.s. companies. to fifth place in international patents during that time. the world is some form rank 48 in mathematics and education. chinese universities are leading in the '80s. china has moved from 14th place to second place in published research articles, now just behind the united states. eight of the 10 global companies with the largest r&d budgets in the world are established r&d facilities in china and theythese are facts from the gathering storm report. an american company, applied materials, recently opened the

world's largest private solar r&d facility in china. there is other evidence of chinese innovation, particularly in the energy field. china has installed the largest high-voltage capacity lowest loss d.c. line and high-voltage ec lines in the world now. it has plans to integrate back down. it has broken ground on 30 nuclear reactors of roughly 50 being built in the world. the united states is building two nuclear reactors. it just past the united states with the world's fastest supercomputer. it now has the record for the highest high-speed rail in the world. but the scandal speed is 220 m.p.h. it has plans for more models of high-speed rail.

by comparison, japan has 1,500 miles. france has 1,200 miles. the u.s. has zero. according to the vice chairman of china's national investment and reform, the r&d and china, it will probably get 20% by 2020, renewable energy in china. let me take you through examples of what china is doing. take the coal industry in china. china has a lot of old inefficient plants. they said, this is polluting our atmosphere. we will close them down. in 1992, they bought two 600 megawatt generators better called ultra supercritical. they're working at the highest

temperatures possible, commercially. they bought them from abb, a european committee, and g. they started operating them. in 1995, it established a research centers, and said, okay, this is the best of the world has to offer. this. can we make it better? between 2000 and 2004, began to build and install and operate the first indigenous supercritical plant in china. by two thousand five, it did its first export -- by 2005, it did its first export. it holds the record for the highest efficiency coal plants now. when they started doing this, the president of the china

hunan group, the largest power generating company in china said they should look at this from a purely financial perspective to represent the future. having said that, now they can build these power plants and cost per amount of megawatts, for example, is now we will to this super critical plant that the united states is building, and it is cheaper than the common cold plants that used to be made and are still being made in other parts of the world. the cost has come down and is now competitive in terms of power per unit investment. you get a lot more power per unit coal. there is a common myth, for example, that china manufacturers because it is the low-cost and cheap manufacturing and that is how it competes with the united states and the rest of the world. if you look at the largest

solar portable company in china, is and not followed by the myth. chinese heritage, but he got his ph.d. in australia and he is a citizen of australia. they did not have the right environment to develop this, so he went back to china. but this chief technology officer who is a professor at the university of new south wales, he is now in china. i toured the plant. this company, it was 100 meters

by 400 meters and 4 stories per it was a high-tech modern flat that imports its raw materials from the united states. its energy is cheaper. it as the technology is, all the things that make it in china, and an it sends a terrible world to assemble it. what is wrong with this picture? it is not succeeding because of cheap labor. not only that, it's focused on driving down the manufacturing cost, but it also set the world record for solar efficiency as measured by a german scientific institute. it is low cost and it is actually good technology. now, rest easy that the united states still has the record of

crystallization in the world. this is the threat that i see. america still has the opportunity to lead in a world where that will need a new industrial revolution to give it the energy that we want inexpensively but carbon freed. it is a way to secure our future prosperity as noted by the premier of china. i think that time is running out. i think that we should not lose sight of this and federal support for science is going to be critical for our economic pegasus. i mentioned the wright brothers. they made the first plane. very quickly after that, the airplane technology migrated to europe. by world war one, europe have the dominating airplane technology and all of our world war one aces flew planes made in france.

the u.s. government established a department for aeronautics to conduct cutting edge research and encourage the avionics industry in the west. that led to a resurgence back to the united states of recapturing the lead and now many aircraft companies, commercially, it is boeing and they are in a race with airbus. other countries think they can get into this game, including china. china has made forays into the aerospace industry. a report that came out with very recently was called a business plan for america's energy future. it was comprised of the committee of lockheed martin. bill gates, chad holiday, who is

now the chair of bank of america but the former chair of dupont. this small community of seven people said, what is the plan for america's future? they noted a couple of things. if you look at the fraction of sales and an industry and how much actually gets put back into r&d in the public and private sector, it is shocking. in pharmaceuticals, it is close to 19%. in aerospace and defense, and 11.5%. computers and electronics, 8%. what about energy? 0.02%. -- 0.03%. the budget is 6.3 trillion

dollars. how much is on energy research and development? 0.14%, $5.10 billion. the trend is even more alarming. peaking in 1979, there were a few bumps and jewels going downhill ever since then. although the stimulus funding offered a huge down payment in r&d, the question is, are we going to return to this downward trend or are we going to do something about it? this report goes on to say that government must play a key role in accelerating energy innovation. it says that innovations in energy technology can generate significant qualifiable public benefits. i am quoting from the report. these benefits include cleaner air, improved public health, enhanced national security,

international diplomacy, and protection from shocks related to economic disruption. currently, these benefits are neither recognized nor rewarded by the free-market. this also went on to say that the energy business requires investment of capital on a scale that is beyond the risk threshold of most private sector investors this high level of risk -- sector investors. this high level of risk causes this behavior. in this report, i urge you to look at it. there are little snippets from the industrial leaders. one of my favorite is from norman r. augustine. based on his own research, which faced with and major challenge content, youology wil

need are in deep. -- are in the -- r &d. there is a report on the president's council of advisers in science and technology that was released this morning. it says many similar things about the need to take energy investment very seriously. what can investments do? what we see and what the department of energy is investing is are very exciting technologies, a vehicle battery could go around a 500 mile range. a new approach at making biofuels and that could lower the cost. a program that could produce abundant domestic fuel directly from sunlight.

we have a road map that says, how can we get solar energy down? that is the magic number. we are now developing plans. at what point do not need subsidies? can you get there? if you can, we will design programs to do that. we need to dramatically reduce storage costs. we need to use supercomputers and supercomputer simulations to skip very expensive design steps. the department of energy laboratories actually designed, for the first time, a diesel engine on the computer, a simulated it, and built it and they did not need another

prototype. people were skeptical that could happen. it reduced costs by 50%. we can do this in many other areas. we have introduced to innovative research funding programs. one is called advanced research project agency for energy. what this is is a research program that is short-term. you have to get a private funder to do. it is a high risk, high reward. we're not interested in funding incremental work, we're interested in game changing work. an example that i gave you before, an electric battery that would be three to five times lower in cost than today's lithium battery to it is a takeoff from what is called a

dink air battery of that is used in hearing aids today. can you make one that is rechargeable that lasts longer and we think that it has a very distinct possibility of giving cars that have a 100 mile range of 500 mile range at a third of the cost. there is a really good shot at this. another thing that we are doing his energy innovation hubs. these are the same high risk, high reward. th we have to recognize that some research can be done in two or three years. it needs a bigger group of scientists working under one roof. in much the same spirit as what we did in the manhattan project. i like to call them little bell lablets. they are good at public affairs

and so they spot that their name was a better name. as another example, you look at it with a plant makes chemical energy. you take some like, you take the water, and the uses sunlight and energy to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen and it takes carbon dioxide and reduces the carbon dioxide and builds a carbohydrate. we can then turn it into a sugar which we can then turn into a fuel or we can eat it. the question is, can we design, using nanotechnology, something that can replicate what the plant does, but we have the advantage. we have what the biological world has access to, therefore we can design something better, just as when we learned to fly, we started by looking how birds flew.

the rights -- the right brothers were just like large soaring birds, but they used a gasoline engine instead of muscle power. today's engines use material that nature cannot produce. single crystals of metal in the turban blades. can we do this and our officials photosynthesis and skip the hydrocarbon and go from water to oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide to hydrocarbon fuel? it has been around for awhile. in the last couple of years, there have been enough advances in a technology and science that we have a shot that this can happen in a cost-effective way in five years. and innovation how it has been started to find that type of research. we face falling behind.

we need to seize this opportunity and we really cannot afford not to. in closing, let me say tha there are some differences between this sputnik prevent and sputnik the event of 1957. as was noted in the introduction, while we are competing, there is an opportunity to also collaborate. we have much to collaborate with china, india and other countries. china is going to be building buildings, cities, roads, transmission lines equivalent to the entire infrastructure of the united states. into with the 30, what india will look like they and does not exist -- 80% of what it will have a into thousand 30 does not exist today. -- 80% of what it will have it

end to thousand 30 does not exist today. -- 2030 does not exist today. our infrastructure has largely grown as a replacement of our population, although it is not growing the way india and the mass migration of chinese people from the farmland into cities is not occurring. there is an opportunity to work with china and india. and so when this sputnik moment of today, i urge that we do two things. we should formulate long range energy policies that have bipartisan support to guide the private sector in the united states. china is doing it and it seems to be working. we should do this. long range policies. what about increasing the support of energy research and

development? private investments do not usually recoup the full value of the benefit. companies are reluctant to do some of the early stage research and development, and quite frankly a lot of the new technologies could be met with resistance. the government passed to say this is the path we should be going in for long term future prosperity and we have to do that. but me emphasize that wealth creation is driven by innovation. if we collaborate with china and india, we both come out better for it. with that, i will stop and take questions. [applause] >> we have some high-quality

questions here. our first question, during the 2008 presidential campaign, now- president obama referred to a new energy economy as "my number one priority." congress has passed health care reform, financial reform, the stimulus bill, and an energy bill didn't pass. are you disappointed? >> of course i am disappointed. i think the thing is that we are here now. i do not think that there is a lot of good coming from visiting i am disappointed. therefore you stop trying? no, i am hoping united states can recognize the economic opportunities that virtually all of europe and western europe has recognized and developed countries in asia have welcomed -- recognized.

i think it is so important. america, i am optimistic, will wake up and sees the opportunity and it still has the greatest innovation machine in the world. >> much of your strategy for solving the climate change problems such as the economic stage for the embrace of nuclear and carbon capture storage, is based for price on carbon. now that it is looking almost impossible for congress to pass something like that, are you concerned the economics for fixing the climate are now impossible? >> i think the price will be paid on carbon worldwide and we would go forward with what we can do now. having said that, it is certainly true that carbon capture and storage, if you have a stationary emitter like a coal plant or gas plant or cement plant, the immediate micro costs of those industries, it will

always cost more to capture that carbon and storage. that is the equivalent of saying eat you are a city -- and we're not trying to debate to treat the sewage or just put it in the river -- the immediate costs of dumping in the river, it is cheaper for you but not for the fish downstream. the total integrated cost of doing this are much much cheaper. it's better to treated at the source and eliminate that. this is why there should be a price on carbon. nuclear, i think, it can be cost-effective and show that it can be built on time and on schedule, it can hold its own. but you also remember that one of the drivers we're trying in wind and solar and all these other technologies is we think it can be cheaper than fossil fuels. >> what is the role of the

climate change conference in cancun? >> i think -- excuse me. the answer is yes, of course we can meet copenhagen. it requires bipartisan will and support to do it. as pointed out, my tas and the department of energy is to develop and nurture the technologies to help industries go in the right direction, to help them nurture those technologies. in the end, when push comes to shove, when the rubber meets the road, this will allow us to do iwhat we have to do. >> the internet describes you as a self as -- self-described geek? are you sticking with that was

marred >> yes. >> scientist and universities have drawn of a large number of students. changes to u.s. immigration policy post-9/11 and rising opportunities and home countries lead students to return home after earning their degrees. what can the u.s. do to offset this trend and its consequences for u.s. innovation was a margin in many reports, when a student comes to the united states and its a ph.d. in science and engineering and does well, there's a green card next to the diploma. in actual fact, what happens in graduates grants paid for. the united states is investing in these people. if they do well, you do not want to encourage that investment to go back. you're quite right. things are changing.

they come to the united states to get an education, why? because the research universities in the united states still are the best in the world, bar none, and that is recognized. but they come here to get an education and get a ph.d. and to oppose dr. and then go back as a young person, then we in the united states have lost a great deal. out in the "rising storm," that the number of people getting a ph.d. is in science and engineering are now foreign-born. there is always good news in this. as i look across the country in the last three or four years, especially, the young people are waking up to the energy and climate change problem. that is drawing them into science, just as in my day, this little 184 pound thing going across the united states, made

us say, maybe i should go into science and engineering. the young people now want to go back into this. this is a good sign. it's important to the government, the federal government and state governments, recognize that this is a good sign and take advantage of it. this will be a cornerstone for our economic prosperity. >> just before this program began, was on news reports that obama may announce a pay freeze for federal employees. one of the issues in attracting top-notch scientific talent -- are you aware of such a freeze and how will this affect your average to recruit quality scientists? >> we will see how that unfolds. it ultimately has to be approved by congress. but in terms of the ability to attract quality people in to the doe, surprisingly and number

have been willing to take cuts in pay. to live in a fishbowl, if you will, because they feel it is that important. one election member -- one member is still in h 40's. he had to resign from you t- berkeley to come work for the government. he gave up but tenured position. it is not as though he were -- losing his gas. no, he was entering into his incredible words of high productivity and we've got a bunch of others like that. it is tough and you have to be a little bit crazy and a whole lot patriotic, but we can still get some good people.

to some republicans in congress have intimated that they may rescind some recovery act funds. well would that mean for the energy department in your efforts? >> i hope that they do not. i think that this recovery at funds that the department of energy are important down payments to what we have to do. and the real question i pose in my talks was, certainly after the recovery act, we are looking hard at how we can use our precious resources into the future in order to go forward. i think this fundamentally as a bipartisan/non-partisan issue. it is all about economic prosperity. >> on note -- among the new majority in the house are fairly vocal climate change skeptics. given the increasingly vocal voices on climate change debate, do you anticipate that you'll be

going back to fighting that climate change debate itself rather than pushing for solutions to it? >> i hope not. if anything over the last six years, the evidence is g more compelling. but sometimes you get sideways on this debate if you say, have you proven with 100% certainty that this is happening and some bad things are happening? and maintain you do not need 100% certainty. 89% and maybe 90% certainty is enough to say, ok, how should you want to plan your personal life? let me use this as an analogy. you just bought a home, the electricity comes in, the wiring a shot. you have to replace the wiring. this is how much it will cost. the teen thousand dollars. you are strapped.

-- $15,000. how can you do that? you get another restaurant. i do not know, but the sec alleges in says you have to do it. it will be bad if you did not. you shop around for the one in the thousand electricians to say it is ok? not really. do you actually go and say, well, ok, i think it is more cost effective by major my fire insurance is up to date? your family is in the rigid living in a home that could burn down while they are asleep. -- your family is living in a home that could burn down while they are asleep. what i'm trying to tell the american public is that this is an economic opportunity. it is not as a you are -- you have to make this tax expenditure.

you're making an expenditure because in the long run, for the future economic health of the country, and that future is not 20 years in the future, we're talking three years, you have to make these investments. >> you would trust china and its own alternative energy development in your remarks. -- you addressed china and its own alternative energy developments in your remarks. what research and development is the energy department's pursuing to develop u.s. capacity to develop alternatives? >> i think that was a wake-up call, and if you depend on the producing 95% or more of this around well, and you have a single supplier that you run the risk. there has been a mine in california that has been shut down, and we are in discussions

with that mind to help start up again. there are a number of employees -- it is not that rare. what is at stake you have to be very careful in an environmentally responsible way and we're working that. many other countries have gotten concerned and looking at other places for supplies. we're look going deeper and that. we're looking at ways to use the more efficiently but also technological ways to get the same benefit. it depends on using electronics for paris high efficiency motors, or and displays for flat screen tvs and a number of things, looking at alternative substitutes. what has happened in some of these rares, the prices gone up tenfold.

that has worried them and we're doing a lot in terms of what you say, looking for substitutes. >> on the topic of energy independence, if you do a lot of work with the usda, especially on the s&l -- ethanol produce. -- at tunnel project. this december 31, there is a tariff and subsidies for corn- based ethanol of 4 expiration. this question as, to accord ethanol subsidies still need to occur -- do. ethanol subsidies still need to -- corn at an all subsidies still need to occur? >> this is a complicated economic issue as well. is -- ite focusing on is a good way of getting it going, knowing that americans

drive their vehicles using agricultural-based fuels. but we're primarily focused on developing the new technologies that can supersede ethanol made from starches and sugars like corn, but we're also focusing on ways to go beyond ethanol. it is not an ideal transportation fuel. gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, and diesel fuels are much better things to use. they did not require changing the infrastructure. one of the things we are focusing very much on is how to take biofuels the make direct substitutes for these tools that can be blended into the gas tank? let me add that because of this, we started some -- four years ago, before my time -- three

energy centers under the same rubric says these energy hubs. we have smart people that go, come up with dramatically new technologies, and within six months, one of these centers bacteria that you find that the of your stomach and put in a new metabolic pathway. when you bet it sugars, they produce correct -- direct substitutes for gasoline and diesel fuels. when they reported this discovery and "nature," i called up the director, a friend of mine, and said, jake, that is great. what you need to make it commercially viable? pick a price. any price. $80 a barrel? he said, it has to be within 80% of all we think is what we can produce and we are not there

yet. it has to be this price. but by then, but atomic up publish, a private company had already picked it up. the scientist that to the basic research, saying that this could actually work, let's do a little bench top prototype production think to see what other things we need to figure out. so again, the idea that you get really smart people trying to solve a problem, not to publish a paper, is the way the we have got to go. we see a lot of that evidence of that coming along. didn't this is a matchup of two questions which is always dangerous. both questions from the audience. the administration has indicated a desire to pursue development of nuclear. but also opposition against dumping spent fuel at yucca mountain. how off the table is the get the

project, and assuming that it is, how does the administration plan to deal with and lingering issue of nuclear wastes and advocating billions of dollars in nuclear produce? >> we believe that it is the right and proper thing to do to start the american nuclear industry. we believe this is not only good for going through -- increasing up -- decreasing our carbon emissions, but it is good for us economically. the analysis used to be the leader in this. this is one of those things that we have lost. the leadership is now in france and japan and south korea. and now china is going in such a big way, it has plans to build four new nuclear powers. i think the problem of the

nuclear waste is the problem fundamentally can be solved. it is but the scientific and political problem. the political problem is in beijing early and making the people in the area wanting it to happen. how can that be? we actually have that. there is a low-level waste repository that we run in new mexico. initially the people were worried about this because they were worried -- you stick this stuff on the ground in the formation. once you go down to the solow formation, it's been proven to be stable for tens of millions of years. even during the time the continents had been drifting around, this is ok. so the downside is, have used a kitten, it encapsulated and you

can i get back at it. that was not the original requirement at the amount. you wanted to not move around and not get at it. there have been no accidents. it is been done very safely. it's been the economic generators for the area around it. so the story has two parts to it. there may be better strategies, better ways of approaching, and that is why there is this new commission looking into this. the nuclear regulatory agency has already said that we can keep the storage where it is now, storage for 50 or even 100 years, so the commission's task is to tell us technically what we should be doing, what are the best options, what kind of storage you want? it could lead to will, it to be

permanent disposal, it could be lots of things. but knowing that you have 60 years, that we are not in a crisis situation, we can do much better job this time. that is the task of the commission. there's a realization that it is solvable. would you say, let's not do anything for the next 50 years until we prove it? not really. if we think about it, this is when the war, we know it is going to work, let's move ahead and restart our nuclear industry. again, it is important also to restart not only for economic issues but for the nobler version issues. -- not poor preparation -- nonpolar operation -- non-

proliferation issues. there are a lot of reasons why we should be team players. to do one topic that has not been discussed in great detail -- energy efficiency. what you see is some of the most promisininitiatives in that area that you may be risk -- you may be pursuing? >> estimate energy efficiency. i'm glad you raised this. as you know, i am fond of saying it is the lowest hanging fruit. it is actually something that we are pushing very strongly. this is a secretary for energy efficiency, now acting undersecretary for the department of energy, we're

pushing very hard to show that energy efficiency means saving money. if it really means saving money, then this is something that should be happen by itself. it is not happening by itself. why is it not happening? whether capital and initial investments, whether ignorance, whether a lot of thing -- habits -- can change that. we firmly believe that energy efficiency is the fastest, quickest way to make us more competitive, save money that will go back into the economy, many things. and it ultimately will be saving lots of dollars and lots of carbon. this energy efficiency is something very basic, especially when you think of cars. we can do better there.

buildings are a very big deal. we think you can build a building or decrease the energy consumption of the building by a factor of four in a way that would pay for itself in a quarter of a lifetime of the building. and we started in innovation up to show that you can do this with computer-aided design, it can be built, especially retrofits may abet factor to, and demonstrate that if you do this you actually save money. once you begin to demonstrate this, we hope it takes off by itself. however, there are some things that you have to be very conscious of. you have to be willing -- for a factor of two, a better design. know the current technologies that exist today.

the next factor for additional investment, are you willing to invest in a lifetime of a 50- year building to get payback time in 10 years? if youay no, then you can i do some of those things. that is something -- and you cannot do some of those things. that is long term, one of the issues that we have to overcome in our thinking of investments. >> we're almost out of time. before the last question, we have important matters to take care. to remind our members and guests of future speakers. we have booked the chairman and ceo of the coca-cola company. our first luncheon will be on january 12, and someone from the red cross will talk about one year after the haiti earthquake. i like to present our speaker and into murmuration with the national press club mud.

-- commemoration of the stay with the national press club mug. for our audience and to get a better sense of the man, we have one final question. you have a ph.d. -- excuse me, if you have a ph.d., you of your nobel prize in physics, a lot of people come with the assumption that you're pretty smart. [laughter] as many of us know, having lived and worked in washington, we know there are people in washington aren't -- who are not so says mark. present company excepted, please, how was the secretary of energy and a nobel laureate deal with people who do not get it in washington? [laughter] >> please tell my mother that i am smarter than she thinks. i do not think that you go into any job with an attitude like that. i was a professor for many years.

my attitude always -- when i was working at bell labs, sometimes i would have an idea and i would go and talk to management. i want to do this. that would say, no. my reaction was, ok, not that i am smarter than they, but ok, i went back and said, what did i not explain right? and then i would go back. this is what i think. once i went back three times and might then boss -- and might then-boss at said that i have the better things to do, he ended up actually letting me do it. he was not thrilled. but i always come in with the attitude that if you do not succeed the first time, try again. or they can try to convince you

that they are right. that is part of the discussion. i could be wrong. ok? so you have this give-and-take. the final part of this, this guy turned out to be a very good friend of mine that i have no for 35 years now. 32 years. is now the department of energy, the director of office and science. so he for gave me. [laughter] >> thank you, secretary chu, and thank you to the staff of the national press club. and they keep to the staff of the energy department that scrambled into the situation, and thank you all for coming here today. this meeting of the national press club is adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> president obama proposed pay freezes for federal employees of the next two years to help reduce the federal budget deficit. we will have the president's remarks in a moment on c-span. then a few minutes, secretary of state hillary clinton condemns the disclosure of classified documents by wikileaks and calls the disclosure an attack on the international community. later, an update on the status of the u.s.-russia nuclear arms control treaty known as start. on tomorrow's "washington journal," the house intelligence committee ranking member will talk about our recent release of classified documents by

wikileaks. brad sherman will also discuss wikileaks and the tax cuts that the house cut -- that the house will work on this week. susan glasser on the start treaty and wikileaks. plus a recent article on influential secrets for 2010. "washington journal" each morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. later in the day on c-span3, robert gates will brief reporters on the don't ask don't tell policy. we will their results of a recent pentagon survey. live coverage on c-span3. now, president obama poses a two-year pay freeze for federal employees in an attempt to save for than $60 billion over the next 10 years. the president also discusses a scheduled meeting tuesday with congressional leaders. this is almost 10 minutes.

>> good morning, everybody. let me begin by pointing out that although washington is supposed to be a town of sharp elbows, it is getting a little carried away. for those of you worried about my lip, i should be ok. the doctor has given me a clean bill of health, and i will continue to be playing basketball whenever i get a chance. in fact, i played yesterday with sasha and malia and they took it easy on me because they were feeling pity. i hope everyone had a great things giving, but now it is time to get back to work. congress is back in town this week. i am looking forward to sitting down with republican leaders tomorrow to discuss many issues -- foremost among them the american people's business that remains to be done this year.

my hope is that tomorrow's meeting will mark a first dip toward a new and productive working relationship. we have a shared responsibility to deliver for the american people on the issues that define not only these times but our future, and i hope we can do that in a cooperative and serious way. our two most fundamental challenges are keeping the american people safe and growing our economy. it is in that spirit that i look forward to sitting down tomorrow and talking about urgent matters like the ratification of the new start treaty, so essential to our safety and security, and the status of the bush-era tax cut set to expire at the end of this year. this is just one at the many economic issues we have got to tackle together in the months ahead. as i said a few weeks ago, the most important contest of our time is not the contest between democrats and republicans. it is between america and our economic competitors all around the world. within that contest means we have got to ensure our children are the best educated in the

world, that our research and development is second to none, and that we lead the globe in renewable energy and technological innovation. it also means making sure that in the future, we are not dragged down by long-term debt. this is a challenge that both parties have a responsibility to address -- to get federal spending -- federal spending under control and bring down the deficits that have been growing for most of the last decade. now there is no doubt that if we want to bring down our deficits, it is critical to keep growing our economy. more importantly, there is still a lot of pain out there, and we cannot afford to take any steps that might derail our recovery or our efforts to put americans back to work and to make main street whole again. so we cannot put a brake on to prickly -- we cannot put the brakes on too quickly. i will be entered in hearing ideas from my republican colleagues, as well as democrats, about how we continue to grow the economy and how we

put people back to work. but we do have to correct our long-term fiscal course. that is why earlier this year i created a bipartisan deficit commission that is placed a report back later this week with ideas that i hope will spark a serious and long-overdue conversation in this town. those of us who have been charged to lead will have to confront some very difficult decisions, cutting spending as we do not need in order to invest in the things that we do. as president, i am committed to doing my part. from the earliest days of my administration, we were to eliminate wasteful spending and streamline government. i promised to go through the budget line by line to eliminate programs that have outlived their usefulness, and in each of the budgets i have put forward so far, we proposed approximately $20 billion in savings through shrinking or ending more than 120 such

programs. i have also set goals for this government that we are on track to meet. reducing improper payments by $50 billion, saving $40 billion in contracting, and selling off $8 billion of unneeded federal land and buildings. i have proposed a three-year freeze on all non-security discretionary spending, which would bring that spending to as low level of -- to its lowest level as a share of the economy in 50 years. we brought unprecedented transparency to spending by placing all of it online, so americans can see how their tax dollars are spent. the hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice. that sacrifice must be shared by the employees of the federal government. after all, small businesses and families are tightening their belts. the government should, too.

that is why all my first day as president, i froze all its paid for my senior staff. this year i have proposed extending that freeze for senior political appointees throughout the government and eliminating bonuses for all political appotees. and today i m proposing a two- year pace freeze for all civilian federal workers. this would save $2 billion over the rest of this fiscal year and $28 billion in cumulative savings over the next five years. i want to be clear. this freeze does not apply to the men and women of our armed forces, along with their families continue to bear enormous burdens with our nation at war. i did the research -- that did not reach this decision easily. this is not a line item on a federal ledger. these are people's lives. they are doctors and nurses who care for our veterans, scientists who search for better treatments and cures, men and women who care for our national parks and secure our borders and

our skies, americans who see that the social security checks get out on time, who make sure that scholarships comes through, who devote themselves to our safety. they are patriots who love their country and often make many sacrifices to serve their country. in these challenging times, we want the best and brightest to join and make a difference. but these are also times where all of us are called on to make some sacrifices. i am asking civil servants to do what they have always done -- play their part. going forward, we have to make some additional very tough decisions that this town has put off for a very long time. that is what this upcoming week is really about. my hope is that starting today, we can begin a bipartisan conversation about our future, because we face challenges that will require the cooperation -- the cooperation of democrats, republicans, independents. everyone will have to cooperate.

we cannot afford back -- we cannot afford to fall back on the same old ideologies or some bites. we have to budge on some deeply held positions and compromise for the good of the country. we're going to set aside politics of the moment to make progress for the long term. as i've often said, we will have to think not just about the next election, but the next generation. if there is anything the american people said this month, it is that they want their leaders to have one single focus -- making sure their work is rewarded so that the american dream remains within their reach. it would be unwise to assume they prefer one way of thinking over another. that was not the lesson that i took when i entered into office, and it is not the lesson today. while our ideas may be different, our goals must be the same -- growing this economy, putting people back to work, and securing the dream for all who work for it. to summon what is best for each

of us to make better lives for all of us. that is why we are here and that is why we serve. that is how we have moved this country forward in the past and i am absolutely confident that that is how we're going to move this country forward once again. thank you very much, everybody. >> secretary of state henry clinton talked about the release of documents by the website weeklies. to under 50,000 documents were released. she spoke to reporters for about 15inutes. -- 250,000 documents were released.

she spoke to reporters for about 15 minutes. >> well, good afternoon. do we have enough room in here? i want to take a moment to discuss the recent news reports of classified documents that were illegally provided from united states government computers. in my conversations with counterparts from around the world of the past few days, and in my meeting earlier today with foreign minister davutoglu of turkey, i have had very productive discussions on this issue. the united states strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. it puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national

security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems. this administration is advancing a robust foreign policy that is focused on advancing america's national interests and leading the world in solving the most complex challenges of our time, from fixing the global economy, to thwarting international terrorism, to stopping the spread of catastrophic weapons, to advancing human rights and universal about is, and in every country and in every region of the world, we are working with partners to pursue these aims. so let's be clear -- this disclosure is not just an attack on america's foreign policy interests. it is an attack on the international community -- the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations, that safeguard global security

and advance economic prosperity. i am confident that the partnerships that the obama administration has worked so hard to build will withstand this challenge. the president and i have made these partnerships a priority, and we're proud of the progress that they have helped achieve, and they will remain at at the center of our efforts. i will not comment on or confirm what are alleged to be stolen state department cables. i can say that the united states deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be confidential, including private discussions between counterparts or our diplomats personal assessments and observations. i will make clear -- i want to make clear that our official

policy is not set through these messages, but here in washington. our policy is a matter of public record, as reflected in our statements and our actions around the world. i would also add that to the american people into our friends and partners, i want you to know that we are taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information. i have directed that specific actions be taken at the state department, in addition to new security safeguards at the department of defense and elsewhere, to protect state department information so that this kind of breach cannot and does not ever happen again. relations between governments are not the only concern created by the publication of this material. u.s. diplomats meet with local

human rights workers, journalists, religious leaders, and others outside of governments who offer their own candid insights. these conversations also depend on trust and confidence. for example, if an anti- corruption activist shares information about official misconduct, or a social worker passes along documentation of sexual violence, revealing that person is identity could have serious repercussions -- imprisonment, torture, even death. so whatever are the motives in disseminating these documents, it is clear that releasing them poses real risks to real people, and often to the very people who have dedicated their own lives to protecting others. now i am aware that some may

mistakenly applaud those responsible, so i want to set the record straight -- there is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people, and there is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends. there been examples in history in which official conduct has been made public in the name of exposing wrongdoings or misdeeds. this is not one of those cases. in contrast, what is being put on display in this cache of documents is the fact that american diplomats are doing the work we expect them to do. they are helping identify and prevent conflicts before they start. they're working hard every day to solve serious practical problems -- to secure dangerous

materials, to fight international crime, to assist human rights defenders, to restore our alliances, to ensure global economic stability. this is the role that america plays in the world. this is the role our diplomats play in serving america. and it should make every one of us proud. the work of our diplomats does not just benefit americans, but also billions of others around the globe. in addition to endangering particular individuals, disclosures like these tear at the fabric of the proper function of responsible government. people of good faith understand the need for sensitive diplomatic communications, both to protect the national interest and the global common interest. every country, including united states, must be able to have

candid conversations about the people and nations with whom they deal. and every country, including the united states, must be able to have honest, private dialogue with other countries about issues of common concern. i know that diplomats around the world share this view -- but this is not unique to diplomacy. in almost every profession, whether law or journalism, finance or medicine or academia or running a small business, people rely on confidential communications to do their jobs. we count on the space of trust that confidentiality provides. when someone breaches that trust, we are all worse off for it. and so despite some of the rhetoric we have heard these past few days, confidential communications do not run

counter to the public interest. they are fundamental to our ability to serve the public interest. in america, we welcome genuine debates about pressing questions of public policy. we have elections about them. that is one of the greatest strengths of our democracy. it is part of who we are and it is a priority for this administration. but stealing confidential documents and then releasing them without regard for the consequences does not serve the public good, and it is not a way to engage in a healthy debate. in the past few days, i've spoken with many of my counterparts around the world. we've all agreed that we will continue to focus on the issues and tasks at hand. in this spirit, president obama and i remain committedo productive cooperation with our partners as we seek to build a

better, more prosperous world for all. thank you and i would be glad to take a few questions >> we will begin with charlie wolfson of cbs in his last week here covering the state department. >> where are you going? >> i am going into the sunset, but let me get to a question. >> yes, sir. >> are you embarrassed by these leaks personally, professionally? and what harm have the leaks done to the u.s. so far that you can determine from talking to your colleagues? >> as i said in my statement, based on the many conversations that i had had with my counterparts, i am confident that the partnerships and relationships we have built in this administration will withstand this challenge. the president and i have made these partnerships a priority, a real centerpiece of our foreign policy, and we're proud of the progress that we have made over

the last 22 months. every single day, u.s. government representatives from the entire government, not just from the state department, engage with hundreds, if not thousands, of government representatives and members of civil society from around the world. they carry out the goals and the interests and the values of the that states. and it is imperative that we have candid reporting from those who are in the field working with their counterparts in order to inform our decision- making back here in washington. i can tell you that in my conversations, at least one of my counterparts said to me, "well, do not worry about it, you should see what we say about you." i think that this is well understood in the diplomatic community as part of the give- and-take.

i would hope that we will be able to move beyond this and back to the business of working together on behalf of our common goals. >> bbc. >> madam secretary, i was wondering whether you could tell us what you think your upcoming trip is going to look like. presumably a lot of the people who have been mentioned in those alleged cables are going to have conversations with you. you think it is would it cause you discomfort over the coming week as you engage in conversations with those leaders? and i know you do not want to comment on the particulars, but one issue that had been brought up into the daylight is the debate about or ron. what you think the impact -- about iran. what do you think the impact is going to be of those documents on the debate about iran? >> i do not know if you're going on this trip for not, but we will be seeing dozens of my

counterparts in astana, and then as i go on from kazakhstan to correct stand and is pakistan and ending up in bahrain for the manama dialogue. i will continue the conversations that have started with some in person and over the phone over the last days, and i will seek out others because i want personally to impress upon them the importance that i place on the kind of open, productive discussions that we have had to date and my intention to continue working closely with them. obviously, this is a matter of great concern, because we do not want anyone in any of the country's that could be affected by these alleged leaks

here to have any doubts about our intentions and about our commitments. that is why i stressed in my remarks, policy is made in washington. the president and i have been very clear about our goals and objectives in dealing with the full range of global challenges we face. we will continue to be so and we will continue to look for every opportunity to work with our friends and partners and allies around the world and to deal in a very clear right way with those with whom we have differences, which of course brings be to iran. i think it should not be a surprise to anyone that iran is a source of great concern not only in the united states, that what comes through in every

meeting that i have anywhere in the world is a concern about iranian actions and intentions. so if anything, any of the comments that are being reported on allegedly from the cables confirm the fact that iran poses a very serious threat in the ideas of many of her neighbors, it is serious concern far beyond her region. that is why the international community came together to pass the strongest possible sanctions against iran. it did not happen because the united states went out and said, "please do this for us." it happened because countries, once they evaluated the evidence concerning iran's actions and intentions, reached the same conclusions that the and they states reached -- that we must do whatever we can to muster the

international community to take action to prevent iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. so if anyone reading the stories about these alleged cables thinks carefully, what they will conclude is that the concern about iran is well founded, widely shared, and will continue to be at the source of the policy that we pursue with like- minded nations to try to prevent iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. today we have got to let the secretary get to work lantana -- to her airplane and to her trip. jindal will leave you in p.'s very good hands. >> now reaction from the white house on the release of classified documents by wikileaks. white house press secretary

robert gibbs talk to reporters about the leak and discuss the president's federal employee pay freeze. as part of the white house briefing is 12 minutes. we have the statement that you put out yesterday condemning the wikileaks release, but what was the reaction from the president when someone informed him that these documents had come out? >> i was not in the p.d.b. when the president was directly briefed on this. as what actually not have been yesterday, but would have been sometime last week after we care -- after we became aware of the upcoming release, the president was briefed by those in his daily intelligence briefing on the size and scope of the information that was to become public. obviously, the secretary of state and the state department

at a foreign minister level have been very active in discussions with our allies and our partners around the world about what is in these documents. it is safe to say that the president was -- it's an understatement -- not pleased with this information becoming public. as you saw during the presidential campaign and during his time in the white house, open and transparent government is something the president believes is truly important. but the stealing of classified information and its dissemination is a crime. >> had any world leaders called him to talk about theea