alice and all part of the panel. thank you for being here is so close to christmas. thank you, c-span, for being here. some may confuse this for "how the grinch stole part of the defense budget." we hope or i hope that the ultimate goal will be to shore up american and national security by contributed into deficit reduction. that is the basic spirit by which i understood this exercise, which was to investigate the proportion a cutting and the defense budget. defense doing its fair share to reduce the deficit, inspired in part by the commissions that alice was working on and by other scholars who have argued for some form of strategic

restraint or defense budget restraint. but the basic idea here, and i want to explain the philosophy first, was not too strongly advocate a 10% reduction in the peacetime defense budget, which is the number i picked, but weher c, to say why don't investigate whether the pentagon can do that kind of cut? what is the case for considering it? and then leave it to the broader policy committee and the reader to decide for him or herself as the kinds of reductions that might be necessary to achieve that seem worth the risk. so that was spirit in which i am said the paper. -- i understood the paper. i think there are calculated gambles associated with the basic concept, but the question is, as admiral mullen pointed

out, there are a huge risks associated with running $1 trillion deficit for our national security. therefore, can we afford to keep running those? if we're going to take a serious crack at reducing the deficit, is it realistic to think that you can start demanding that one big part of the budget is somehow protected. so the minute this someone says, defense is the top constitutional obligation of the federal government and it should be protected regardless and we should make our deficit reduction out of other accounts, if we start a conversation in those terms, another constituency will come up and say, let's protect social security or college loans. or let's protect science research or infrastructure. you get the idea. pretty soon you have lost the shared sacrifice that i think is essential. that is the basic motivation.

we will not reduce the deficit effectively and strengthen our long-term economy and the foundation for our military power if we do not establish a shared sacrifice. so 10% reduction in the real defense budget becomes my number. i am not going to go through detailed our arithmetic here to explain how i got to that number, because i think i would probably confuse you and confuse myself in the process of trying to keep a slide straight and talk to real or nominal dollars. the basic idea is we are not talking about the wars. the wars will be decided on their own terms. we are talking about the part of the defense budget that you could call the peacetime budget or the base budget, sort of the regular, normal budget we would expect to continue on even as drawdown hopefully and the next three years. of that base budget, is a 10%

reduction possible? 10% in the real or inflation- adjusted dustamount. that seems consistent to what the pentagon should contribute to the budget. if we will look at the overall federal spending and tax accounts and try to establish a way to get close to fiscal balance over the next half a decade or so, with proportionate cuts in each area. now let me start talking about defense itself and explain what i think needs to be grappled with, what kinds of reductions might be necessary if you were to aspire to this 10% reduction in the inflation-adjusted defense budget. i want to say -- i want to stay conceptual. part of michael and his paper was to try to -- part of my goal was to try to be a bridge between the defense community and the budget papers that i

have sometimes been a part of writing myself, but the stronger strategic community or the policy debate so that everyone can begin to link by 10% to what it would mean for our place in the world. and whether the risks are worth it. 10% is a big cut. it's not trivial. it is not the sort of thing that will require russ to instantly stop our engagement anywhere, whether it is northeast asia, europe, or another key part of the world. so the goal here is to preserve most of our key strategic underpinnings and see if there are more economic ways to pursue.

and with somewhat greater risk. there are two main ideas that i raise in the paper as sort of strategically meaningful concepts for ways to understand the implications of this sort of cut. there are a few specifics as well, in the spirit of what secretary gates has been trying to do with his business reforms within the department of defense. i have a few more ideas along most lines as well, but i want to emphasize the two big concepts that would account for most of the savings that i am trying to illustrate and discuss. and what of them is the size of our army and marine corps, and the other is the basic strategy by which we modernize weaponry. the me say a couple of words about what i think would be a somewhat more economical approach to each of those areas of american defense policy, and then passed back the baton to martin and alice and bob and you for further discussion. first, on the issue of ground

forces, let me remind you first that we have increased the size of the ground forces by 15% over the course of this past decade. that is after having reduced the combined army and marine corps by about 35% once the cold war ended. we reduced in the 1990's and we built back up almost half as much again in the last 10 years. we are much smaller today than we were during the 1980's, but the combined strength of the active duty army and the active duty marine corps is nearly 100,000 personnel greater than it had been in the 1990's. i supported this increase for the engagements we have been involved with. there was no way to do the operation in iraq over a sustained basis, no way to do the operation in afghanistan without increasing these

numbers. we already ask a great deal, probably too much, of our men and women in uniform during the period when we were still building up and we probably resisted too long, and i am not support of a secretary resistance to increasing the army and marine corps, but we gradually built up further in the eighth period. now we are about 15% larger. i am suggesting that we may have to reverse that 15% increase once the war in afghanistan begins to wind down. so we go back to clinton-era levels on the army and marine corps. that is one big strategic concept. it is a simple idea. and we have been there before. you can think to yourself the implications of this. if we were going to have another decade like the one we are now

finishing we would probably not want to go to a smaller army or marine corps. if the mission in afghanistan was going to take a lot longer we would,000 troops have to delay. i'm not suggesting we should do this next year. these kinds of cuts should begin in the next presidential term, as the economy hopefully has begun to improve in the war in afghanistan has substantially wound down i hope by then. it would be a mistake to do these things prematurely. that is one big idea. we can talk about specific scenarios if you like in a discussion, which ones would be too demanding for that smaller army and marine corps, but perhaps, almost undoable today. let me remind you very quickly in passing, then i will move on to modernization and rafah, but in terms of scenarios we could still handle our role in the early months of another korea

contingency if that happened. because longer-term operations in any future korea contingency, and here i am speaking hypothetically and i am not predicting another korean war, but you have to think about these scenarios, the possibility of another korean conflict would presumably lead to the occupation of north korea. but the good news is that we have an ally, south korea, that would handle all lion's share. our role would be in the opening 6-12 months. that may prove a debatable assumption. we may want to discuss that. i think we will still have ample forces to create that scenario, even with a smaller army and marine corps. that is just one example. alice and bob may raise other scenarios as well. let me move to modernization. how do we try to modernize

weaponry with a more economical approach towards the basic idea of buying new weapons and researching new weapons? today, we are spending in the normal peacetime budget, about $100 billion on procurement, and another $80 billion on research. then we spend several tens of billions more and what used to be called a supplemental budget, intoh has been folded the regular budget prepa. i think there is a possibility of being able to reduce that by reduced war expenditures and then by another 10% or so. it would be hard to do more than 10%. if you take the following three ideas as guideposts, i think you might be able to accomplish this. i will mention them briefly. one is a systems where there is redundancy in the way we are

modernizing, because we are building several different things, accomplishing the same goal. a good example would be tactical aircraft modernization, where we are building a super hornet for the navy, planning to spill -- to build three different kinds of airplanes for the navy and marine corps, completing the purchase of the f-22 and modernizing munitions that are capable of far more precise attacks that have never been possible. the full range of modernization is excessive. it does not mean that any one of them is wasteful. i am not trying to c ritique, but we take a gamble but what is the healthiest way to build a strong defense.

a second guidepost would be programs that were way over costs or would underperform. this is common sense. i am not saying anything radical here. the army has adopted some of its philosophy in recent years with some help from the office of the secretary of defense and canceled its future combat system. the next generation vehicle system that was probably not doing very well in performance terms or financial terms, and it was the sort of thing we need to be able to scrutinize and potentially canceled. that is a very important area as well. and a third and more difficult area is military missions that, while perhaps still within the realm of the feasible, seem less likely than they have been before. here a classic example might be marine corps anmphibious assault. i do this in full knowledge that there might be marines of this room. -- in this room.

i do not want to suggest that forced entry operations are a thing of the past, but we have capabilities up for carrying this out already, and two of the modernization efforts are both to my mind dubious ways to further our capabilities. if it is a mission that may seem to be beyond the heyday of its likely application, this may be also an area of modernization that we are willing to run more risks. not because the existing programs are wasteful, but because we have to introduce a spirit of trading off short- term, calculated gambles about how we can make do with less to shore up our longer-term economic foundation and national power for future decades. martin? >> thank you. alice, put this in a budget context for us. how important is it to actually

reduce defense expenditure? >> i think my role is to say as well as i can, why are we having this conversation at all? and i think it is very, very important that we have it. michael has written a very thoughtful and interesting paper, which i think will help as people think about what might you do in defense, but why should you do anything at all is the first question? frankly, i think admiral mullen is right. he is not the only person saying this. the greatest national security threat we face is an economic catastrophe, and i do not say catastrophe lightly. i believe that we are now facing the possibility, the real possibility of an economic catastrophe, all real meltdown

in the u.s. economy. now, with the discussion of the defense budget and how much is enough and national-security has always started with a throwaway paragraph that said, the most important thing for national security is to have a strong look, resilient, a growing economy. but then we moved on, because we thought we had that, that we could take for granted. we did not need to worry about it. so the next question was, how much should we spend for defense? but i would submit that that is no longer true. now, we worried that as michael points out, the somewhat in the 1980's about the future of the american economy. but we thought we fixed it. we got the budget deficit into a surplus. i am very proud of that, because i served as budget director.

and we got the economy growing again. but what we did not fix was our national saving rate. we did not fix the fact that we as an economy were living way beyond our means. and now we are facing a very new and different situation. i think it is important to understand that. that thing that is bothersome and worrisome is not the current level of the deficit, although that is high, but it is related to the recession and the financial meltdown, which we never should have said. that was dumb policy, but we are here. we have to get out of it. but what is really scary is what happens to the projections of the federal deficit and rising debt as you look beyond the recession, as the economy recovers. we are facing a budget

deficit that does not go down. it keeps going up, and a debt that rises off the charts. and that is driven by the demographics, the aging population, and more importantly, by our taste for expensive medical care, which we have. we have to recognize that we have it and we needed. and the combination in the federal budget drives spending up faster than revenue can possibly go. and we are borrowing back, i believe half of it from the rest of the world. people say, the japanese, they have a hired jett -- debt to gdp ratio. but they owe themselves. we owe it in large part to the rest of the world. if you think about competition going forward in in the world

with the chinese, i would submit that the first thing that we need is a strong, growing, resilient american economy. the second thing we need is a not to be dependent our man o r n them for selling our debt. and way down the list is a strong military. so that is just trying to explain what averdmiral mullens put more succinctly. we have to worry that the rising debt is unsustainable. we cannot borrow that much. we will get to a point, and it could come quite quickly, the europeans have been surprised by how quickly it comes, when we simply can't market our debt, except at astronomical interest

rates. we have a spike in interest rates, a crash and the dollar, and we are into a deep and prolonged recession that will affect us for a generation. now, what does the defense budget have to do with this it? that is the next serious question. these projections are not caused by rising defense spending. by assumption, everybody is making these projections, the war is winding down, and the defense budget goes up at some rate, maybe at the rate of gdp growth or maybe inflation, but it is not what is driving the future spending. so why are we talking about the fans? well, i think we are talking about it because we have to do everything we possibly can, and we cannot do it all on the health entitlement side, because

we are aging and we do like to have medical care even if we do it more efficiently. so we have to look at spending the rest of our budget more effectively on the domestic side and the defense side, and raising more revenue. now, that sounds like shared sacrifice, but i do not think shared sacrifice is the way to think about it i think it is, we are in a bad situation with respect to our public debt. how we use our resources more effectively, and let's come back to the defense budget. now, you serve on these commissions and you hear an awful lot about waste in certainly is there's quite a bit, and that's a question of nomenclature. mike is much more polite

when he talks about the ospry. he does not say it is wasteful. he just said we do not need it anymore and it does not work. but you can have lots of conversations about that. in the end, you have to come back to where mike came -- do we need such a large force? that relates to the question of stairs -- shared sacrifice, because much of the public does not believe that we need to go in and take over other people's countries because we do not do it very well and it is awfully hard to get out. and so if you are going to look at how we use our resources better on the domestic side, you are going to have to convince a lot of people that you are also looking at, do we need to spend so much on the defense side? >> thank you, alice. bob, let's put it in historical

context. larry summers, i think, said recently, how long can the greatest power in the world remain the greatest power in the world while being the greatest borrower in the worldd? ? and there is an inherent tension there, it seems to me, between the need to solve the problem that mike and alice portrayed, and on the other hand the need to stay strong to protect our interests abroad. how you reconcile those? >> first of all, let me say that i appreciate the spirit by which we approach the problem. and i also appreciate alice rivlin. it is easy to say, let's cut the defense budget. i do not think one of you are saying that is an easy decision. i worry sometimes that we are

like, it is like we have a gas- guzzling car with a huge gas- guzzling engine and we are looking for ways to reduce the guzzling, and one of the things we are going to remove is the front bumper and the air bags. you might say that would be a shared sacrifice along with reducing the power of the engine, but you might ask if that was the right way to go about it. there is a little bit of a danger of talking about our budget deficit as a national security problem if it means that the way that we have to deal with it is to reduce our national security. and that is the problem that i guess i am here to try to analyze. by the way, i take very seriously the budget deficit, but as alice says, it is not primarily a defense budget problem. it is many other things. the question is, what is the risk we are going to take? i think you do need to put in some historical context and ask,

what is the character of our nation in terms of our behavior in the world? what is the character of the international situation and where are we going? and then we need to make a kind of cost evaluation as to whether the savings that you might get it in national security budgets might actually lead to a more expensive situation because of the contingencies you are not able to deal with. let me try to go through those. you know, i do know the american people, the majority say they do not want to get in the business of invading other countries and using our force abroad in various contingencies, but i have to say that we as a people have a short-term memory disorder, because even though the american people do not -- say they do not want to do that, it is astonishing how frequently they do it. i think when we talk about, of

course nobody wants to be sending troops of around the world willy-nilly, but if you look a little bit at recent history, it is quite remarkable how often we do in fact do that. to make a quick look through recent history, we intervened in grenada, panama, iraq, somalia, haiti, bosnia, kosovo, afghanistan and iraq. so we have now gone a record number of years without an additional intervention. it probably has something to do with the number of troops we have. and i recall, after each one of those interventions, there was a great cry, we will not do that again. this is abnormal. only people with a wonderful memory can think that

intervening every two years over 20 years is now all of a sudden an abnormal activity and we will go back to not doing that anymore. that may be true, but i would say if you were looking from a distance at the united states, you would look at that record and say, i am not so sure they will never intervene again. so i would be careful about assuming that is what the american people want. and i would especially say that given that there are some obvious, possible contingencies looming ahead of us, which are by no means far-fetched and which mike mentioned one. any of which that we might wind up doing. north korea is one. iran is another, even if the president, as i assume he does not get into a military confrontation, iran may suck us

into a military confrontation. the consequence of sanctions may be that iran may lash out and do something, or israel may do something that drives us into it, whether we want to be in it or not. this is what our military planners have spent years of worrying about of two of those things happening at the same time. is not a question of whether we could do one or the other. the question has always been, would you do one if you knew the other might have been and he would be completely incapable of dealing with it? that is why we had a two, or tried to have that two major contingency force. might we have to do something in somalia or yemen, or place i have not thought of yet? that would also be true. i think we need to be cautious before saying, we will take a vacation from that stuff. neither our history or the

international conditions suggest that is a good bet right now. that addresses the question of the size of ground forces. because we fought two wars badly because we "a" did not have, and did not want to put enough forces into iraq or afghanistan that might have actually brought those conflicts to a quicker resolution and then less- expensive in the long run. this is another one of those cases where you say, you might want a larger force but that will be cheaper than a war that drags on inconclusively for five years. you might want to pursue the powell doctrine and send in enough forces to cauterize the situation. that might be cheaper. on the prospects of a coalition helping us, so we do not need as large a force.

if anything our traditional coalition partners are decreasing their own military capacity. europe is becoming a shadow of what it once was and what it once was was a shadow. going tooion that we are have significant support. maybe, eventually, we can hope that india will pick up some of the slack in east asia. japan has a large force. if they are willing to use it, is often a question. ok. the second, and fortuon force aa characteristic is we are back to great power competition. and the most significant competition is china. it is a cliche to say that china is the rising power, but it is a rising military power.

it is not going away of new, peaceful development. it is challenging not only our own position in east asia but the independent capacities of allies of ours. i would say that avoiding a conflict with china -- and if you look through history, the odds of a conflict are higher than the odds of not having a conflict in this situation. the number of times that rising powers have entered into the existing international system without a war are few and far between. and the way to avoid this war is going to require, and we are not going to be able to get away from this, some kind of arms race with china. china is going to keep building and improving its capabilities, and they will accelerate that, in my view. we will be very lucky if they do not. and we are going to have to keep

up. if you look at the administration's own approach to east asia it is all about reassuring allies that we are there. you cannot reassure allies you are there if your own capacity is dwindling. i know mike is not calling for a reduction in our forces in east asia, but i think the one thing that is missing from the paper is the realization that those expenditures will have to increase because we are in an arms race out there. that is something that i think will make it difficult for us. at the broadest level, the question we have to ask ourselves is, what does the liberal world order that we support cost? how much is it worth to us? i would argue that the great, almost miraculously prosperity of the 40 years after the end of world war ii and on was a very much a product of the liberal world order that american power was preeminent in supporting.

if we are talking about a reduction of america's capacity to support that liberal world order, and by the way, that may be inevitable in a matter what we do, it would be hastened by are weakening, by our ceding power to countries like china but maybe russia. there will be a cost, and possibly a direct financial cost to our inability to make sure that the lines of communication are always open. that is one of the great public goods that we provide and benefit from. so that it seems to me also has to be brought into the calculation. you know, it is extremely unfortunate that we happen to have an economic crisis at a time when the international scene is getting more crisis prone. that is a bad break.

it is the kind of bad break we had in the 1930's when we had, at the same time, and even related by the way, a great depression and an increasingly perilous international situation. things are not as dire now as they were in the 1930's but, yes, you can have a double bed by over the decade. that is where we are. -- a double bad biorhythm over a decade and that is wehre we are. the biggest mistake that we could make is to weaken ourselves in the process. saving $60 billion per year so that the defense budget can make its fair share of the sacrifice is too risky and not necessary. we do have to solve our budget crisis, but we would be taking grave risks if we try to solve

the by cutting the defense budget. >> ok. good. at least we have a debate. thank you. like to respond to bob and abbas. lice. if they are -- if there are savings to be made, they need to be done in terms of achieving more efficiencies. another context in which we are already spending way beyond defense expenditures of other countries combined. we account for 45% of the world military expenditure. is bob right that this is too risky? and where we define the efficiencies? >> i am not saying only efficiencies. i said the opposite of that. i think efficiencies are very

important. if you are going to discuss the defense budget as much as mike is proposing you do need to think about the force structure, and we should. >> let me start with bob and see what i can say in response. frankly, i agree with everything except his last three sentences. and so i think that's part of why, as i say in the paper, i would only support the cuts here, i would only consider supporting the cuts i lay out if it is part of a serious national effort of deficit reduction across the board, because my goal really is, even though we see the risk differently, my goal is to shore up long-term national power. if there is no chance of accomplishing that, then i would agree with bob that the $50 billion you might be able to cut from the defense budget is not worth the risk. again, i want to emphatically state that while i do think there is waste, you have to cut muscle not fat in order to get

this level of reduction, and you have to take real risks. i would emphatically make that argument. i would support serious consideration of this kind of a plan in the context of other major changes to our federal budget, such as income tax reform that brings in greater net revenue, whether it is higher rates or preferably smaller and fewer loopholes, such as reform to social security that for most workers increases the age and delores the adjustment rate of cost of living-- and lowers the adjustment rate of the cost of living. i was struck a few weeks ago giving a talk at the university of las vegas, and i asked the students in the room how many of them expected to get social security when they retired, and three of them raised their hand. the notion that we should consider social security as a sacred cow, that does not hold water. the younger generation is already recognized the dilemma. they recognize the need for

reform. but that kind of spirit of shared sacrifice will only be established if we ask a -- every major part of the budget to contribute. at the end of the day, i fundamentally disagree with bob. i do not think you can make major progress on deficit reduction unless everybody has to do something. while i always like to ellis for guidance on fiscal matters, i do think that we need to up the spirit of sacrifice. and the national security area, they are risky. instant loans, they might be less generous. and so what it down the road -- they might loans, be less generous. let me just talk briefly about iran, because i take this

country and this problem very seriously, just like bob and martin does, and i am sure most of you do as well. what i would say is the following. i tried to test various scenarios against the 15% smaller ground force. and most of, all the scenarios i can think of, that 15% reduction is not crucial for affecting our basic capability. if we do airstrikes against iran's nuclear facility, which i do not support but i recognize are not out of that, question certainly, the size of our ground force will not be relevant. if we do e a naval blockade, to prevent them from shipping out oil or importing gasoline, then the size of our navy is much more important. i am generally in support of protecting those of the naval force structure, not every single element, but 90%.

i am not looking to make major cuts, partly because i take this scenario seriously. if we are looking to deal with the possibility, however unlikely, of an iranian escalation up to and including an attack on an american city by iranian-trained terrorists that requires us in response to at least raise the specter of an invasion to overthrow the iranian regime, and i am talking pretty unlikely scenarios but ones that i would agree with hawks need to be kept in mind, we have the capability to overthrow the iranian regime. we do not have the capability to occupy their country, but we do not have that even with today's army and marine corps. we would have to have an army that would probably be twice their current size to do an occupation of iran with a 75 million population correctly over period of years. when i test my smaller force structure against these scenarios, i would argue that

either we are still going to have enough or there is no different from what we have today. and i would accept implicitly one of the things i believe bob is arguing. but i would except that you do have to do these kinds of tests. you do have to think hard. and i'm happy to do this in regard to china and i want if people want to have that conversation in the next 45 minutes. i think you need to ask, do we have a strong deterrent for these scenarios that matter? recognizing that you have to stretch your imagination because there may be a scenario you have not thought of that winds up being important. that is one more challenge. >> the bowles-simpson recommendations -- alice was involved -- suggested there was $100 billion in possible defense

cuts. the big ticket items that they identified, the biggest of all was to reduce procurement by 15%. that would produce a $20 billion annual savings. i do not know whether you have looked at that and what that would mean as opposed to the kinds of more surgical strikes at the chairman you are talking about reduce overseas bases by 1/3, $8.50 billion. bob, you might also address the question of whether we really need all of those force deployments in europe. i could see the argument for korea and japan given exactly what he said, but can we save significant money by drawing driving europe wihtouthout

up risk to hide? then there was $9.2 billion in freezing combat military pay at 2011 levels for three years, non-combat military paper. y. let's look at those three specific issues -- reducing overseas bases, cutting procurements in a more draconian way, and freezing noncombat military pay. alice, would you like to elaborate? >> those were illustrations. both the bowles-simpson group and the other group that i cochaired with the senator demanded she recommended freezes in defense spending is at a hard dollar level. then put together a list of things that illustrated how he might get there.

in both cases, the illustrations -- in domenici, there were more heavy on force structure. they included a lot of the same things. in some of the non-military things like retirement and non- combat pay, and particularly the health system and tricare, but the acquisition, i think, i do not know where 15% came from, but in the bowles-simpson commission there was a lot of focus on waste in the procurement process. political interference and weapons systems that the

military has said time and time again they do not want and congress puts back because they're made in everybody's congressional district. and so that is how the acquisition number came in there. >> we will come back to the politics of this in the third round, because that becomes important. >> i'll mention a couple. one is there is one method -- methodological difference occur. if you are talking about established bases in a major allied countries, that is incorrect. the only place where you can save that kind of money to overseas base cuts is in the war zones because we do not have allies who are paying the lion's share of our local costs. in germany and japan and britain we do. . or we are so established that

the facilities are not that much more expensive than what we have at home. the way you get the savings is if you cut those forces out of the force structure. if the army troops that are brought home from germany are brought home and demobilize, then you can save that kind of money. the presence we have in germany, britain, japan, korea, you do not have those kinds of costs associated above and beyond what it would cost to have the same units in the force structure here in the united states. 10% versus a 50% -- versus 15% reduction, i believe that is within the realm of debate. it is worth remembering that 10% will be pretty hard. i do not disagree at all with alice. once in awhile, congress has thought of good weapons systems that the military may have made a mistake about.

let's remember, the military ultimately is the secretary of defense, and that person is infallible,. it there have been other -- there have been other secretaries of defense that did not want to buy things. lo and behold the medium weight truck that he wanted bill performed very well in operation desert storm and provided the capability we needed. most discussions of all right waste in the defense budget are overstated. i do not want to say 15% reduction in per term it is impossible, but i think 10% is already very hard. my paper does consider asking military personnel to pay a little more what you might call normal share of health-insurance costs, because the tricare program is a generous and for good reason. we want to take care of our men

and women in uniform and their families. this proposal makes an exception for combat pay and makes no reductions in health care costs for those who are hurt, but nonetheless, i think if we are going to ask military personnel to pay a higher share of their health-insurance costs, i would prefer to continue to give them at least a rate of inflation increase in their pay or better. >> bob, do you want to talk about base closings abroad? >> mike made the key point. having troops overseas or having them at home is not a big savings one way or the other. you know, i was not privy to how all these things came about, but i thought the commission said two things. one was that the united states has to rethink its role. i think the discussion of cutting bases by 1divided bythere was more about that than about savings -- cutting basese

was more about that than about savings. we are getting a little tangled in this debate. i think that it might be, not here, but maybe that is the debate we should be having. i start with a set of assumptions about the wall we have in the world. there is another way of looking at the united states -- i start with a set of assumptions about the role we have in the world. you're talking about a substantial retraction of our role. if we all agree on our role, there is not enough savings in the defense budget to spend a lot of time on it. it is not that we cannot find it weapons program that is stupid. many are wasteful. increase, ability is

and now they are creating ships that can go 1500 nautical miles, and will cause all kinds of problems for us to operate in that space. it will require innovation and duplications, and you know better than i do what it may require, but it may require not that we shrink our naval capacities but that we increase our naval capacity. we will find areas where we need to increase capability. >> do you want to respond? >> it's a fair point. i will say one small thing in reply, but i will not commit rebutts this concern. we are spending $9 billion each year on missile defense, which is 50% more than ronald reagan spent. even with the reductions that the obama administration has

carried out, some of the concerns that have been raised have already been internalized and the way we are thinking about defense resource allocation. do you think it will be adequate? no. i think offensive missiles have an innate advantage over defense missiles. therefore, once the reductions are made that i am laying out, i think we are going to need to go on a path of being able to increase defense funding, not to immediately on to the reductions but to allow for sustained, long-term, modest growth. that would be one more part of my plan that i think is important. >> i think the scariest thing that bob has said is that we will inevitably get into a long run arms race with china. i think we'd better think how not to have they long run arms race with china, because we are not talking about the soviet union. we are talking about a country that is very likely going to be

much stronger in the future economically and we are, and it has a lot more people, and if we get into a full scale arms race with the chinese, it does not end the way the soviet one did it come up with us bankrupting them because they could not afford it. i'm afraid it and thends that we lose. bankrupting us. >> let's talk about the politics before we go to the audience for questions. we have probably witnessed today's a surprising act of bipartisanship in terms of senate ratifying by more than 2/3 vote the new start treaty. indeed, when one looks at national-security issues, there seems to be a surprising degree of bipartisanship when you compare it with the extreme

partisanship involved on domestic issues. so would there be political support for the kinds of reductions that mike is talking about. ? >> it's a good question. certainly one hears a lot out there about the need to put the defense budget out there, and that has been the plight of some of the new republican voices. on the other hand, there is probably a bipartisan consensus and not to do that. and probably an agreement between the administration and the majorities in congress and not to do that. and so will be interesting to see how that plays. it is worth noting that that incredible, wild man and profligate disefense spender bob gates, when asked about the

cuts proposed of 10% said, it would be catastrophic. that is the word used. as long as you have a secretary of defense taking that position and you still have the group that passed -- you could say that the coalition that passed start is what i would call a kind of center-right caucus coalition, because you had to put forward missile defense, and modernization, which is another question we did not factor in. i think you are not going to have a coalition in congress that will substantially cut the defense budget. >> alice? >> i'm not so sure. i think we will not know for a while how much the conversation has changed as a result of the fixation now, right fixation i think, on the dangers of looming debt.

s-at i heard in the bowle simpson coalition was the bipartisanship that defense has to be part of cutting the budget. when you have a strong conservative like tom coburn and mike crapo and others joining with dick durbin to sign on to a proposal that you just read some have aelementals of, you new kind of conversation. >> democrats have to appear tough on defense in political season. is it conceivable that you have republicans who go along with your kind of proposal? >> a lot would say is, because i think alice and bob framed it

well, the specifics matter. you need to ask, if defense is part of the plan is to do something like i have tried to outline, are those risks acceptable? are the ones we should be willing to run or not? another example would be, can we keep the national security industrial base, the defense sector, healthy with a 10% at smaller budget? people have to wrestle with those issues and see the implications of these kinds of alternative plans. if they feel comfortable with them, then i think it is possible. maybe this is a naive thought, but i think the substance matters. people have to digest a bit of the detail, not at the nitty gritty defense planning level but at a strategic level of what the implications are. that is why am glad we're having the opportunity to discuss this today. >> the triumph of rationalism. let's go to your questions, please. please wait for the microphone. identify yourself, and make sure

there is a question mark at the end of your sentence. yes? >> thank you. hi. i appreciated mr. kagan's reference to the character of the american people as regards this issue, but i think it was not a corporate to say that that was contradicted by all of the many interventions, none of which i have forgotten, but none of those were preceded by any kind of consensus in their favor. yes, the american people always support the troops in harm's way and they want to see them succeed, but also, in many cases, we were misled. we were misled by the gulf of tonkin, buy weapons of mass destruction. i think there is more support for a less interventionist, less occupation-invasion-oriented foreign policy than we are living on here. in general, i think a lot of

the top of the suppose a third rail about social security, entitlements, and defense spending is more politicians expressing their addiction to conducting, being conductors of the gravy train than any real on willingness of the american people to actually face these budgetary and national-security reality's peies. is our foreign policy not is of one of the greater threat to our national security? >> thank you. [laughter] question. sure of the >> i think it's a good question. it is, in part, the history of those often-failed interventions, or ones that began with an assumption that did not turn out to be right

that i think is giving people pause about whether we need to keep on doing it. >> well, i mean, we could enter into theories of psychoanalysis of the american people, if you want to, and how they are constantly being misled into wars. that does not change my theory about how democracy works in this country or any other country. you would still left to say that, if that is the case, the american people are endlessly capable of being misled by whatever evil forces are constantly misleading them, because there is no indication that they have after each successive misleading -- which you should include world war ii, which was also a conspiracy by fdr to get us into a war, and all the other wars in american history which were all conspiracies, that never the less we keep being fooled. the reality is, this is what

america does. i could imagine that america gets tired and does not want to do it. but it is precisely, to fight against this tendency to believe that this is not really to we are, and therefore, we should not prepare for the contingencies that we have been engaged in in the past. i am afraid, for better or worse, this really is who we are, and we need to recognize that, just as we need to recognize that americans want all the things they want and do not want to pay for them. these are all elements of what it is to be an american. i do not think we should kid ourselves that right now, over here in the corner. >> picking up on what alice rivlin said about the strength of rising china, i have a

question for bob kagan. the you think that given the fact both america and china out what to pervert -- want to preserve the oceans for trade and so forth and the fact that we both have islamic terrorism problems -- china has a moslem uprisings ever so often -- is there a possibility that we could be cooperating together on these world-wide problems? >> yes. there is a possibility. i hope that can turn help to be the case. what is interesting is if you take a shot -- what is interesting is china's perception of these things. i do not know how much commonality we have, but setting that aside, on the issue of the

commons and how they are going to be protected and who will protect them, the chinese no longer want the united states to be operating in waterways they consider to be close to their territory. this happened over the past year. we have to decide, unfortunately, whether we want to continue to insist on the right of passage to these international waters as secretary clinton said, or if we want to say to the chinese that they can take this over. that would have implications for japan, southeast asia, etc. that is why contrary to many expectations all of these countries have been coming to the united states as china asserts these rights. china may, i think, being confronted successfully by the united states and its allies, decide to back off and move

towards the cooperation you are talking about. from a historical perspective, if you look at the history, the odds are against that. it is not because i am looking for to this competition, it is just because of the odds are they will continue to demand that right and increase their capabilities so the next time they demand it, hillary clinton can go to hanoi and say, "no." i would love to avoid it, but we have to take the up possibility seriously that we may not be able to avoid it because the chinese themselves do not want to avoid it. >> i like the last two questions as well as alice's answer.

i was in japan last week. the japanese are talking about their concerns about china's rise. the japanese, as you know, have reallocated their defense resources more towards their southern islands. i talked to a lot of people in japan and ask them how they felt about their long-term relationship with china. there was not a lot of optimism. there was also not a lot of mention of war. i am not interested in debating a 30% cut. i think 10% is in the realm of law will allow us to keep a robust presence in the pacific. perhaps we can reallocate fewer forces to the atlantic.

we probably have a larger presence in the mediterranean and the atlantic then we showed. we already been doing that. maybe we should do more. all would agree enough with bob to say that 10% is the vast amount -- is the maximum under the structure. >> i would like to quote the indian national security adviser. "it should not be beyond the bounds of statecraft for us to manage the rise of these potential great powers of." >> i am en and turn. -- i am and intern.

i am from germany. if you look at it, it is the same for the cost to run an army base in germany as it does in the united states. i do not understand why it is much more different? >> you raise an important concern. we have some americans who want to bring the forces back home, partly because they want the economic stimulus associated with the base code to the american crop economy -- go to the american economy rather than the german economy. there is a broader economic argument that they could stimulate our own economy. there is also the argument to try to consolidate more bases

in one, two, or three places. that will allow army families to stay put for a longer time. the typical army life that we are familiar with from history is not as conducive to a spouse holding a job and keeping it for a long time. there are other reasons why secretary runs fell is looking to consolidate more forces -- secretary rumsfeld was looking to consolidate more forces. japan helps us a great deal. what modest differences there are are partially mitigated by host-nation support. this is not a big deal for an established facility in a major

industrial country. >> i wanted to get you to react to something that is a little more short-term. congress has just passed the funding to 2010 levels until march 4. this affects the pentagon's budget. does it affect national security? specifically to ms. rivlin, republicans are talking about knocking $100 billion out of non security spending this year. does that make sense from an economic point of view? does it threaten the recovery? what is your take on this energy? thank you. >> it is a terrible idea if it only goes to march 4. we should have had all of the budget, not just the defense

association long before now. government by continuing resolution is that for everything. i have not examined the $100 billion that you referred to and what they are talking about. i cannot really give you an answer to that. it depends on what baseline you are talking about. >> the state with the question of the incoming progress -- incoming congress. the incoming crowd seems to have gotten elected on the basis of cutting the budget. does that apply -- i do not know which of you has the desire -- to apply it to the defense budget or does the defense budget sacrifice? >> some do and some don't. during the campaign, what we

heard most of the tea party candidates, some of whom were elected, is that we have to get this deficit down. we have to protect medicare, social security, the defense budget, and we cannot raise taxes. i do not know what they are talking about. you cannot get there from here. [laughter] but mckeon has been very clear that they are not going to get savings out of the defense budget. he is not talking that way at all. i honestly doubt -- probably because some of the incoming budget cutter's positions are incoherent. i really do not expect in this coming year -- and the argument that mckean is very powerful at the moment. we have two wars going on, he

will say. there is the simplicity that they will not listen to any of the specifics we have been driving down on. when you have a defense secretary from the opposite party who does not want to cut any more -- >> the question is not where the new members stand. they have to figure that out. it is the shift in the senior republican leadership that would change the conversation in the next year or two. >> please stand up. >> i am a washington lawyer. we have heard two risk describe -- military risk, which are very dramatic. alice rivlin told us about the

economic risk. i wish alice would expand on what that risk is. how do you balance these risks? >> the economic risk, i think, is very serious. we are no longer talking about downturns, recessions, market disruption. we are talking about potential economic trajectory. come in the could form of a sovereign debt crisis to use the term be used in europe. that has always been thought to be unthinkable. i think we have gotten to the point that unless we change course it could mean a serious a

meltdown in the economy. when might that happen? nobody knows. it is happening in europe faster. it is happening to the u.k. faster than they thought. they decided to do something really serious. i am afraid they are going to overreact. we are bigger. we are able to borrow in our own currency. we have to face the fact that we are not immune. >> china owns a lot of our debt. are we vulnerable in that sense? >> china bought our debt for good reasons.

they saw it as a good risk. we are buying their stuff. the question is, how long can this go on? they have to realize that this is unsustainable. they do not have to adopt our debt to make really big problems for us. that creates very serious problems. maybe not total market meltdown. they do not want us to go down. it is not in their interest to have a catastrophe in the u.s. economy? -- it is not in their kind -- it is not in their interest to have a catastrophe in the u.s. economy. >> alice talks about our serious economic risk. i am take this very seriously. i think it is worth remembering -- and this is not to disagree

with her in any way -- our problems are fixable. i try to mention some of the strength in the paper. we still need -- we still do more research and development than anyone else in the world. we had the best universities in the world by any assessment system than any other part of the world. we have great innovations in areas like aerospace and computers. if we make a course adjustment that is significant but not radical, we can preserve a lot of the strengths and stay powerful. it is the underlying bullishness. >> i totally agree with that. >> i do not in any way question the nature of the risk that alice is talking about. i take them very seriously. my question is, do we want to compel that risk by reducing the

military budget by $50 million? i would urge that we think about, even if you just want to talk about dollars, whether the underprepared this in military terms could wind up being more expensive for us. the problem with the defense budget and thinking about his military risk is we are the captive and potential victim of forces that are beyond our control. we can decide what we want to do about social security act and it is a finite situation. but people can do things out there in the world that we have no control over. we have to prepare for that risk because it could be more expensive. those of you to remember 1948 to

1950, we had an $18 billion defense budget. everybody was madly looking around for a way to cut this thing. some were saying we needed to have a $50 billion budget. north korea invaded south korea, we are at war, the next thing you know we have a $50 billion defense budget. these can wind up driving up costs and we would be better off paying for them. >> we would be better off with a stronger economy. >> i strongly agree with you. i would say to cut social security entitlements before we cut the defense budget. that is what i would say, but what do i know? >> has -- the economic downturn of fax political power. do we have to turn to a stronger

military power in order to maintain our global influence? how does the adjustment of the u.s. military affect the rest of the world? >> i like the way you talk about this, but i am happy to do it if you do not want to. [laughter] 1 dynamic i like and what i have seen in the international system, is it is clear we are still the most powerful country on earth. we see it now in east in asia where countries are coming to us and asking for help. sometimes we get a snack in the united states for being the country that was to assert ourselves. the bush administration was tarred with this. there are some countries who want us to stay engaged. in our power ensues across the world, it makes them a little bit more nervous that we will go

away. they get more enthusiastic about lobbying for our association. we see that also in the broader middle east. there is a dynamic that is very interesting where we have to be sought after by other countries a little bit more. frankly, in some ways it is beneficial to our interest to be the superpower that leads the coalition that wants us to be there instead of always having to diagnose and address the problem ourselves. >> thank you. it was a very stimulating and thought-provoking conversation. it is first of many we will have on this subject. you have all made a great contribution to it. thank you very much for coming. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> coming up next, president obama holds a year-end press conference at the white house. today's bill signing ceremony for the repeal of "don't ask don't tell." later, the passage of the bill to give 9/11 responders insurance. washingtona's journal, census bureau director robert groves. eric hall from the alzheimer's association. washington journal begins live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> this weekend, "q&a" continues with interviews from london. saturday, diane abbott on budget

cuts and her experience as a minority. also, the elections and the impact of money in races. "q&a" this saturday and sunday night at 8:00 on c-span. >> you are watching c-span, bringing the politics and public affairs. every morning it is washington journal, a live call-in program about the news of the day. during the week, watch the u.s. house and are continuing coverage of the transition to the new congress. every weeknight, congressional hearings and policy former -- policy forums. on saturday's, the communicators. you can also watch our programming any time at c- span.org. it is all searchable on our c-

span video library. c-span -- washington your way. a public service created by america's cable companies. >> president obama said his biggest disappointment of the lame-duck congressional session was the failure to pass the "dream at." they also said if congress had not passed the tax cuts and unemployment bill, the u.s. economy would probably have begun to contract next year. this news conference came just before congress adjourns for the year. >> i >> i just want to say a few words about the progress we have made over the last couple of

weeks. some thought washington would be headed for more partisanship and more gridlock. instead, this has been a season of progress for the american people. that progress is a reflection of the message voters sent in november. the message was we had to find common ground. it is a message i will take to heart in the new year. i to my democratic republican friends will do the same. first of all, i am glad that democrats and republicans came together to prove my national security priority. this is the most significant arms control agreement in nearly two decades. it will reduce our nuclear arsenals along with russia. with this treaty, we expect to

be back on the grounds to look at russian nuclear bases. will continue to advance our relationship with russia, which is essential to making progress on a host of challenges such as keeping nuclear arms from falling into the hands of terrorists. the strong bipartisan vote in the senate sends a powerful signal to the world that republicans and democrats came together on behalf of our security. i especially want to thank the outstanding work but -- work done by vice-president joe biden, john kerry, and richard lugar for their extraordinary efforts. i just got all the fault with richard lugar and reminded him that the first trip i ever took in the senate was with him to russia to look ads nuclear

facilities there. i told them how much i appreciated the work he had done. there was a direct line between that trip we took together when i was a first-year center and the result of the vote today on the floor. this speaks to a tradition of bipartisan support for strong american or leadership around the world. it is reinforced by the fact that the new treaty won the backing of our military and our allies abroad. we came together across party lines to pass an effective tax cut that will spur jobs, businesses, and growth. it includes a payroll tax cut that means nearly every american family will get an average tax cut of about $1,000 delivered in their paychecks. it will make a difference to millions of students, parents, workers, and those looking for work.

that led economists to predict that the economy will grow faster than they originally thought next year. in our struggle to perfect our union, we also have turned a 17- year-old law into a past injustice by appealing "do not ask, do not tell." it is the right thing to do. in addition, we passed a food safety bill. it is the biggest upgrade since the great depression. i hope the house will join the senate in passing 8 9/11 helped build that will help cover the health-care -- with that will help cover health care costs of those that if inhaled toxic air at the world trade center. i think it is fair to say that this has been the most productive post-selectivelective

period we have had. that does not mean that business is finished. i am disappointed that congress did not pass the "dream act." i am also disappointed we were not able to come together around a budget to fund our government over the long-term. i expect to have a robust debate after the holidays. it will have to answer an increasingly urgent question, how do we cut spending while still making investments? investments in education, research and development, innovation, and the things essential to grow our economy over the long run, create jobs, and compete with every nation in the world. i look forward to hearing from both sides of the aisle on how to accomplish that goal.

if there is any lesson to draw from the last two weeks, it is that we are not doomed to enlist gridlock. we have shown in the wake of the november election that we can't make progress together. -- that we can make progress together. i am not leave. -- i am not naive, but i hope we can have a spirit of common purpose. if we do that, i am convinced that will lift up our middle- class, we will rebuild our economy, it will print -- and we will make our contribution to america's greatness. i want to send a message to all americans serving our nation this christmas in our's way. the american people stand united in our support and admiration for you. in this holiday season, i ask

the american people to keep our troops in your prayers and a planned a hand to those military families who have been empty seat at the table. i am it will take questions. -- i am will take questions. in inu had a lot of when l the last few weeks. are you ready to call yourself the comeback kid? do you think agreement will be harder to reach? >> as i said after the election, we took a shellacking. i take responsibility for that. but i think what has happened over the last several weeks is not a victory for me, it is a victory for the american people. the lesson i hope everybody takes from this is that it is

possible for democrats and republicans to have principal disagreements, to have some link the arguments, but to ultimately find common ground to move the country forward. that is what we did it with taxes. those arguments have not gone away. i still believe it does not make sense for us to provide tax cuts to people like myself to do not need them when our deficit and debts are large. that debate will continue into 2011. in the republicans feel justice strongly on the other side of that. i think we are still going to have disagreements on spending priorities. it is my goal for us to make investments in education and research and it -- research and development. we need to cut programs that are just not working. there will be debates between the parties on this issues.

what we have shown is that we do not have to agree on a 100% to get things done to enhance the lives of families all across america. if we can sustain that spirit, regardless of how the politics played out in 2012, the american people will be better for it. that is my ultimate goal. >> thank you, mr. president. merry christmas. >> mary christmas. erry christmas. >> what was your conversation like with general and less when he said he would abide by whatever the ruling was? can you understand why the -- why he had the position he did?

is it intellectually inconsistent to say that gay and lesbians should be allowed to fight and die for this country, but they should not be allowed to marry the people they love? >> i do not want to go into detail about conversations in the oval office with my service chiefs. jim amos expressed the same concerns to me privately that he expressed publicly during his testimony. he said that there could be disruptions. what i said to him was that i was confident looking at the history of the military with respect to racial integration, with respect to the inclusion of women in our armed forces that that could be managed and that was confirmed by the studies that were done prior to this vote. what he assured me of and at what all the service chiefs assured me of is that regardless

of their concerns about disruption, they were confident that they could happen that this policy without it affecting military cohesion and could discipline and readiness. i take them at their word. the event took place. they have all said that we are going to implement this smartly and swiftly. they are confident that it will not have an effect on our military effectiveness. i am heartened by that. i want to give up robert gates and admiral mullen enormous credit for having guided this progress through in a way that preserves our primary responsibility to keep america safe and, at the same time, allows us to live up to our values. with respect to the issue of whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to get married, i

have spoken about this recently. my feelings are constantly evolving. i struggle with this. i have people who work for me who are in powerful, strong, long-lasting gay or lesbian unions. they are extraordinary people. this is something that means a lot to them and they care deeply about. at this time, i have said my baseline is a strong civil-union that provides them the protections and the legal rights that married couples have. i think that is the right thing to do, but i recognize from their perspective is not enough. this is something we will continue to debate and i personally will continue to wrestle with going forward.

as i said, this will be an issue that is not unique to the military, it is an issue that extends to all of our society. i think we all will have to have a conversation about it. >> thank you, mr. president. happy holidays. >> happy holidays. >> can you give us an update on where that car that was in the ditch is today? to will really be behind the wheel given the makeup in congress? what do you think republicans will be sitt pping and saying next year? >> you gave some thought to that question did you not? [laughter] the car is on level ground. the car is the economy. i think we are past the crisis

point in the economy, but now we have to tip it and focus on job growth. my singular focus over the next two years is not rescuing the economy from potential disaster, but rather jump starting the economy so that we actually start making a dent in the unemployment rate and we are equipping ourselves to compete in the 21st century. that means we have to focus on education, research and development, innovation, we have to make sure that in every sector from manufacturing, to clean energy, to buy attack, to high-tech -- we recognize the private sector is going to be the driving force. the government needs to make sure we are a good partner with them, that we are good facilitators, that we are a catalyst when they are a fledgling industry.

we have to look at some of our old bosses, both democrats and republicans, to think about what works. if there are regulations that are in the regulation -- that are in beating innovation, let's get rid of those regulations. we have to make sure we are also protecting consumers and the environment. let's find ways to do business that helps this. people were doubtful about the approach -- the approach we took to the automobile industry. a timely intervention that is limited and restricted can end up making a difference. i think democrats, republicans, house, senate, white house, all of us have to be in a conversation with the private sector about what is going to be

sure that we can export and sell our products. how do we make sure that the green technologies of the future are made here in america? how do we get all these profits that companies have been making since the economy recovered into productive investments and hiring? that is a conversation i had with the 20 businessmen who came here. that is a conversation i expect to continue in the months ahead. the answer about who is driving, the american people are driving the car. they are the ones who will make an assessment whether we are putting in place policies that are working for them. both parties will be held accountable and i will be held accountable if we take a wrong turn. fo[laughter] my sense is the republicans recognize that with greater power is going to come greater

responsibility. some of the progress i think we saw in the lame-duck was a recognition on their part that people are going to be paying attention to what they are doing as well as what i am doing. >> mr. president, can you explain the anger and even outraged many democrats felt with the tax-cut bill extended tax cuts, not just for the middle class, but also for the wealthy. when you and the vice president talk about morally irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy -- >> the frustration people felt about that was frustration that i shared . i said that before and i will probably say it again. i do not take over the long run

we can afford a series of tax breaks for people who are doing very well and do not need its. they were doing well when bill clinton was in office. they were still rich then, and they will still be rich but those tax cuts go away. this will be a debate will be heading over the next couple of years because, i guarantee you, as upset as the new congress is sworn in we will have to have a conversation about how to start balancing our budget for getting to a point that is sustainable. that will require cutting programs that do not work, but it also requires us to be honest about paying for the things we

think are important. if we think it is important to make sure that our veterans are getting the care they need with get home from fighting in afghanistan or iraq, we cannot just salute, which them well, and have a parade, we have to make sure that there are doctors, nurses, facilities -- that costs money. if we say that education is going to be the single most important deterrent -- determinate for our success in the 21st century, it cannot as schools are laying off teachers to start going to four days a week. they did that in hawaii, for example. we have to make sure people can go to college. if we want to keep our competitive edge in innovation, we have to invest in basic research. the same basic research that resulted in the internet. the same basic research that

resulted in g.p.s. all of those tanks originated in research -- all those things originated in research provided by the government. we have to look at the option of maintaining the tax cuts for the wealthy permanently or cutting the things we think are important. i understand why, not just democrats, but republicans think that part of the tax package could have been done without. having said that, i want to repeat -- compromise, by definition, means taking things you do not like. the overall package it was the right one to ensure this economy as the best of -- the best possible chance to grow and

create jobs. there is no better anti-poverty program then at an economy that is growing. there is no better deficit reduction program than an economy that is growing. if the economy started contracting, then the choices we would have to make would be the toughest. >> [unintelligible] >> i think middle-class folks would confirm what the statistics say. they have not seen a real increase in their incomes in a decade of their costs have skyrocketed. that is a fact. what is also a fact is the people in the top 1% orhave a larger share of income and wealth since the 1920's.

those are just facts. that is not appealing on the part of democrats, those are facts. something that has always been the strength of america is a thriving accommodate booming middle-class where everybody has a shot at the american dream. that should be our goal. that should be what we are focused on. how are we creating opportunity for everybody? we celebrate wealth. we celebrate someone like steve jobs who has created two or three revolutionary products. we expect that person to be rich. that is a good thing. it is part of the free-market. we also want to make sure that those of us who have been extraordinarily fortunate, that we are contributing to the larger american community.

a whole bunch of kids coming up are doing well. that means schools are working. infrastructure like roads and airports, colleges and universities that teach and are not just restricted to people who can afford it, but are open to anyone with talent and a willingness to work -- that is going to be part of the conversation we will have over the next couple of years. >> phillies now the dfeliz navi. the dream at failed by five votes. how are you going to be able to keep your promises when the republicans control the house when you have not been able to do so with democrats controlling the house? >> let me say that there are a

number of things that we did not get accomplish that i wanted to get accomplished light collective-bargaining for firefighters. we did not get that done. i am disappointed in that. wheat stocks will still have to figure out how we work on energy. -- we will still have to figure out how we work on energy. that is something i will engage republicans in try to figure out. my biggest disappointment was the dream act vote. i get letters from kids all across the country. they came here when they were five. the came here when they were eight. their parents were undocumented. the kids are going to school like any other american kids. they are going up.

they are playing football, going to class, dreaming about college. suddenly, they come to 18-years old and they realize, even though i feel american and i am american, the law does not recognize that i am american. i am willing to serve my country and fight for my country. i am want to go to college and better myself. i am at risk for deportation. it is heartbreaking. that cannot be who we are. to have our kids, classmates of our children, two or suddenly under the shadow of fear. -- who are suddenly under the shadow of fear. they were not breaking the law. there were kids.

-- they were kids. my hope and expectation is that, first of all, everybody understands i am determined and this administration is determined to get immigration reform done. it is the right thing to do. i think it involves securing our borders. my administration has done more on border security than any administration in recent years. we have more of everything. border patrol, surveillance, you name it. we take border security seriously. we take going after employers who are exploiting and using undocumented workers, we take that seriously.

we need to reform this immigration system so we are a nation of laws and we are a nation of immigrants. i am going to go back at it. i am going to engage republicans to, i think some of them know in their heart of hearts is the right thing to do. the politics are tough for them. that may mean that we will have to change the politics. i will have to spend some time talking to the american people. i think it's the american people knew any of these -- i think if the american people need eight of these kids they would say, "of course we want you." that is who we are. one thing i hope people have seen it during this lame-duck, i

am persisted. i am persistent. if i believe in something strongly, i stay on it. i believe strongly in this. i am happy to engage with the republicans about if they have ideas about more on border security, i am happy to have a conversation. i think it is absolutely appropriate for the american people to expect that anybody can come in here any time. that is legitimate. i want to do right by those kids. i think the country will want to do right by them as well. mike emmanuel. >> thank you, mr. president. merry christmas.

i do not expect you to comment on the executive order, but it makes me wonder where you are on at guantanamo plant-closing it was one of your initial priorities. >> obviously we have not gotten it closed. let me step back and explained that the reason for wanting to close guantanamo is it because it might number one priority is keeping the american people safe. one of the most powerful tools we have is not providing al qaeda recruiting tools for fledgling terrorists. a guantanamo is probably the no. 1 recruitment tool that is used by these organizations. we see it on the website they put up. we see it in the messages they are delivering. my belief is that we can keep

the american people safe, go after those that would engage in terrorism. my administration has been as aggressive in going after al qaeda as any administration help there. every intelligence report we are seeing is showing that al qaeda is more hunkered down and then they have been since 2001. they have reduced financing and operational capacity. it is more difficult for their top people to communicate. a lot of them cannot communicate because they are underground. it is important for us even as we are going aggressively after the bad guys to make sure we are living up to our values. that is what closing guantanamo is about, not because i think

that the people who are running guantanamo are doing a bad job, rather because it is becoming a symbol. i think we could do just as good a job housing them somewhere else. i will not comment right now 18 review i have not received. i can tell you that over the last two years despite not having closed guantanamo, we have put our battle against terrorists in a legal structure that is consistent with our rule of law. one of the toughest problems is what to do with people that we know are dangerous, that we know our engaging in terrorist activity, proclaimed enemies of

the united states, but because of the circumstances in which they were encountered, it becomes difficult to try them in an article for the court or in a military commission. releasing them at this stage could present a greater danger to the american people. how can we manage that? that is what this team has been looking at. are there ways to make sure these folks of lawyers and the opportunity to challenge their detention, but making sure we are not simply releasing folks who could do us grievous harm and have shown a capacity and willingness to engage in brutal attacks in the past. when i get that report, i am

short i will have more comments on it. striking best balance between our security and making sure that we are consistent with our values and our constitution is not an easy task, but ultimately, that is what is required for practical reasons. the more people are reminded about what makes america a special -- what makes america special, we had the score ideals -- we have these corp. ideals that are our most powerful weapons. with that, everybody, i want to wish you all eigha merry

christmas and happy holidays. we'll see you in 2011. >> it is a three-day holiday weekend on "booktv." the latest nonfiction titles and authors on saturday including jimmy carter. afterwards, james smiley the man who changed the world and invented the computer. find the complete holiday schedule at booktv.org. this weekend on c-span3, we visit the museum of the confederacy in richmond, virginia. we find many christmas traditions began during the civil war. also, from the nixon presidential library, former astronaut frank borman as his

role as a liaison to the white house. the director of the eleanor roosevelt papers project reveals the controversy and media savvy of the former first lady. see the complete schedule online at c-span.org/history. >> it should not take a constitutional crisis, a terrorist attack, where a financial calamity to someone from each of us ever in this body collectively, the greatest to which we are capable nor can america afford to wait. >> search for speeches and hear from retiring senators on the c- span video library with every c- span program from 1987. all on line, all free. it is washington your way. >> the senate ratified a nuclear arms treaty with russia known as

s.t.a.r.t. after the vote, john kerry and richard lugar spoke to reporters. this is 15 minutes. >> this will move our country to a stronger and safer position and away from the brink of nuclear disaster. in the coming months this treaty will help us work with russia. it will help us to be able to put greater pressure on iran, north korea, as well as to assert our leadership on a global basis on nonproliferation. this was a bipartisan vote. it represented senators on the side of the aisle coming together to do america's business. this is a vehicle for our country and for making our

country sector -- making our country safer. i am grateful to richard lugar who has banned one of our leaders on nonproliferation for years and years. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i join the chairman in rejoicing, not only for the american people and security of our country, but likewise for people all over the world to kill up on our leadership. our ability to work in a bipartisan way when it is in the national interest -- i have visited russia frequently in the past 19 years. we have often worked on the arms control treaties. the russians wanted to work with the united states.

we have a large scorecard in my office of missiles destroyed, silos blown up, summary's destroyed -- this is well beyond the arms control treaty, but it set the stage for engagement. and those who also want to contain the problems of the weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical, and biological. i am hopeful that the russian duma will act soon. there are some accounts that the press in russia has given day may act during this calendar year. that would be a victory for both of our countries and the world and would set the stage for a very productive arms control talks on various other as box --

aspects that were discussed. i think the chairman for the opportunity to work with him and with a committee that i believe has had a remarkable two years in this congress, and we look forward to more. >> any questions before we rush to the airports? >> they said in a closing statement that perhaps this was the final treaty and then move on to other tactics to address others. i'm wondering about your feelings. >> i think it is fairly dark news to suggest there would not be the ability to have further arms control treaties on a global basis and bilateral basis. the world is a tinderbox when it comes to various types of weapons, so we need to continue to work at that. that clearly, he was sending a

signal about both the process. i think it is very important to try to establish an understanding of what that process can be and how we proceed forward. and i think there are very creative ways in which we could it rethink and retool some of the approach to the question of weapons and how we deal with them. that does not necessarily have to be through a treaty, but there are other treaties i could envision would have an impact. we will explore this in committee, look at very carefully, work with senator jon kyl and others to define the process. >> a lot of people in the gop, were you surprised at the final vote tally in the gop support? >> i was pleased of the 39 republicans who voted, it appears 13 voted for the

treaty, one-third on this occasion. i would only say that it is, as many as you have reported, a very strong statement that president obama has made throughout the world and the leadership of vice president biden. it, but likewise say that on the republican side, we have been attempting to do a good job for many years on arms control. there are many of us who have been around through that time, working in a bipartisan way within the committee. i think that was respected and my colleagues decided for a variety of reasons the decided to vote no, i think they appreciated the spirit in which the debate was conducted. sometimes there is a call for civility on contentious issues, and this was contentious. you heard the post-election argument, a new congress has

been elected, the people have spoken. the suggestion was made that this congress was waiting to get out of here, we're no longer representing the people. well, some of us still large, and -- some of us still are, and we finally came to the conclusion worked out by senator kerry and senator mccain, senator jon kyl, and others, ways in which members could be accepted, and their positions accepted that we found had validity. >> yesterday you said at 70 was the new 95. >> 71 is the do 78. >> econo sense to you have from the russian duma? -- what kind of sense to you have from the russian duma? >> i don't know when they will. >> in the calendar year? >> it could be. >> in the broader context of the

president's foreign policy, where does this fit as the president moves forward? >> it is enormously important for the credibility of the president. it is important to talk about this, but the reality is that any president's ability to sit down with leaders in another country and to say to them, if we agree to xyz, i can deliver is critical. if leaders in the rest of the world look at the president of the that states and say he will not be able to make this happen, they will be less willing to put themselves into an agreement which requires them to do something. this was a very important measure for the president in terms of his ability to move on america's agenda on a global basis. an example of that really is the

next extension of what happens with iran. these tougher sanctions came about because of the reset button. next visitt obama's with president medvedev was that this had been defeated at home, he would have an enormous question in his mind about what he may or may not be willing to do. does is that it makes a statement about the united states of it also says that we are a country that even contentious times, where 100 senators have irresponsibility, 71 came together, which is a super majority, and went ahead and articulated the direction that eat the united states wants to go with respect to nuclear weapons. nuclear weapons rried that is going to be critical in shaping inion on a global basis. believe me, i will be in the

middle east in early january, and possibly in pakistan, afghanistan, among other places. i am convinced already that this will have an impact on our discussions. >> as the two of you working together. how important was a that you had a republican ranking member workg for the treaty? >> indispensable. it was -- i'd call it the sine qua non of being able to afford on the treaty. -- to move forward on the treaty. >> the administration has applied $84 billion over 10 years. how should we pay for that? should be cut the defense byr to it? -- the defense budget/ >> we will come back next

january. i will say something in early january, my sense of where we will go. but we will have some of the toughest choices that we face over the long haul regarding our fiscal situation. our national security is our national security. if we can afford to do that, we can always afford to do that. i believe, as you know, there was $70 billion already committed. what we have done is response to our experts who told us that if we do not do x, y, and z, our deterrent would be impacted. that differential is not going to be hard to find in the context of the overall budget. we will look at everything next year as far as i'm concerned. but at i'm deeply concerned about is that we do not get locked into just one ideological approach to how we are going to

resolve the fiscal crisis, there we understand that long-term investment in america, particularly to createhe kinds of jobs we need to create in order to compete in the rest of, the world is not a spending measure. it is an investment. and it will repay itself many times over. if we can approach that within the next year with that sensitivity, i think you will find people more disposed to making some tough choices, including touching and looking at and evaluating some of the so-called third rails. >> i would add to that answer by saying that one of the values of the start mechanism is that because we had boots on the ground and we haa good idea of russian developments, we did not spend billns of dollars during the last two decades on all sorts of armaments and that we would have, if we simply did not know what was there. that is an important point aut

this treaty. i heard much conversation about the real threat is iran or north korea. ll, still, we are talking about a limit of 1550 nuclear warheads prepar. with one of them being enough to annihilate the city in which we live, indianapolis, indiana, for example. that has not gone away. in order to figure out how to spend our defense money, we need to know as much as possible, with boots on e ground, american contractors, so that we get it right and we do not spend money needlessly. i think we have made we have made a vast economy on that basis in the last two decades. >> given that there was so much republican opposition to this, one of their arguments was

that doing this in a lame duck with a lot of senators on their way out did not lend the legitimacy that it could have ha otherwise. you think this leaves this open to be relitigated? >> i think maybe dick lug wants to speak to that. under our constitution, the united states senate has the responsibility for dealing with the treaty. the duly sworn senators all considered this treaty. i congratulate those that are elected this year, but they are not senators. they are not senators until next year. they had nothing to do with the evolution of this treaty. they have not been to one hearing or one briefing. they do not know anything about the in depth details that the senate was charged with responsibility of doing this year. we did that. it was entirely, completely, and

only appropriate that this senate be the one that dealt with its own work for this year. and there will be things in the future that the next congress can deal with. moreover, 2/3 of the united states senate was not up for election. and that 2/3 into a large degree has spoken in thisreaty. so the fact you have an election does not suddenly derail the responsibility of the senate. there is only one reason this to the not donep prior election or the summer break, and that is because of friends on the other side of the aisle requested that it not be. we ceded to that. you cannot ask for the delays and then, and blamed the delays. >> [inaudible] >> last question;

>n. >> what about the closeness of this vote, and the majority of the democrats will be reduced for the test ban treaty? >> i said months ago to the president, vice president, and to the administration that the test ban treaty and the current atmosphere is very, very difficult process. a whole lot oeducating has to go on for all of us, with our laboratory experts as to what the status of the stockpile is and precisely where we land. now, some people will oppose it automatically. others will go to the same kind of analysis we did this time. we will have to go through that in a very meticulous, very careful way, laying the

predicate over a long period of time. i believe that we may be able to begin down the road towards some other paradigms' even as we are working on that process. i think it's way too early to not to scope out what's going to happen with it. we have a lot of preparatory work to do before we contemplate that. >> an aument made by some of our colleagues against this treaty was that president obama gave a speech in which he talked about a nuclear free world and won the nobel peace pri a while back. there were some orators in one party or the other who said, this is one treaty after

another. first of all, you take up the new start, and move on to stage two and three. analysis. my own counsel to some of these dear friends is that you have no idea how difficult it will be to gain ratification of the new start. this is not going to be chapter one accomplished by april 15, and three months later you try something else. i think they are believers now. they appreciate that this is important works. it takes months of hearings and education, in which we all learned a great deal more. i uld not want to jump ahead at this point. it is just the reality, that there may in fact be some further negotiations. and the chairman and others have suggested that with regard to a smaller missile or various other

aspects, but that is why we will be back to the table with the russians. they may not be a monumental trees, but there will be important -- they may not be monumental treaties, but they will be important. >> on that note, very, very hpaappy holidays. merry christmas to you, happy hanukkah, happy new year, and to all good night -- a [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> senators demint and inhofe

both opposed the start treaty. here are her -- here are their floor comments. year, but there are obviously very important issues to discuss. november 2 americans made a pretty historic statement. after two years of many things being crammed down their throat that they didn't like, they made historic changes in the house and in the senate. and i think all expectations were that a new congress would come in and begin to change things. very few americans, and i thi very few of us here in the senate, actually thought that we would use the time between that election and the swearing in of the new members of congress to continue to cram through more thin that america doesn't want. most businesses have learned, if they ever have to make the

difficult decision of firing someone, that it's very important that tt person be sent home right away. because getting fired often makes people angry, less loyal obviously to the company that fired them, and instead of dealing with all the misief that might occur, the fired employee is sent home right away. we're a fired congress, in a lot of ways. america has sent us home. many people who set the policies for the last two years have been unelected. some have retired. but the decisions that are being made now in this congress are decisions being made by people who have either retired or have been turned out of office. anso much is being pushed through because of the fear here that if we actually let the newly elected congressmen and

senators be sworn in before we take up these important issues, that they will actually reflect the opinions of the american people and stop what we're doing. so we have decided to use this lame-duck session to push many things through, a very unaccountable congress. we tried to push through a huge omnibus spending bill with thousands of earmarks, exactly the thing that americans have said, "no more." but thankfully republicans stood together to stop that. we needed to extend our current tax rates, but in order to get even a temporary extension, we in the minority had to agree to more deficit spending. and in this lame-duck session, we've pushed our political correctness onto our military b repealing don't ask, don't tell, wiout the proper studies, without the proper phase-in time, no rational approach to

this. it was diswrus a check-the-box -- it was just a check-the-box, another political payback. another act of amnesty, the dream act was brought up. republicans stood up against something that again avoided the big issue of border security. this congress h continuously rect led the idea of carrying through on our own law to complete the double layer of fencing that we put into law to help protect the southern border. thousands of people are being killed on the border because we refuse to take action. yet we're continuing to try to expand the problem with more amnesty and citizenship and public benefits to those who came here illegally. and the threat is now to keep us here until christmas or beyond to pass what we're calling a 9/11 bl. every member of this chamber, republicans and democrats, want to do what's right for the first responders who may have been

injured after 9/11. but we owe it to the american people to be accountable to ow we -- how we spend money to. put a bill on the floor in an unaccountable, lame-duck congress that that i has not ben through hearings when we don't know how the millions of dollars, how they've been used that we've already given to the same cause, certainly it is worth hearings on how to spend taxpayer money effectively in a way that will help the people that have been injured. but, no, we've got to push that throh in a fired, unaccountable congress. and of course now the big issue of the day is somehow in a time of economic recession and so many people being out of work that we want to use this lame-duck, unaccountable congress to push tough a major arms control treaty with russia. somehow that ended up on the top of our priority list, using christmas as a backstop to try

to force us to pass this bill. it's pretty interesting how this has progressed. the bill had no chance of passing. the treaty had no chance of ratification until the president agreed to billions of dollars of modernization of our nuclear weapons. folks, we've got to stop and ask ourselves, why should we have to have backroom trading going on to modernize our nuclear weapons? this should be something the president is committed to, we're committed to. we should not have to trade for modernization. but now we appear to have enough republicans who've decided that this is a good treaty to ratify, a few days before christmas in a fired, unaccountable congress. with the need to push it through before america's representatives actually get here at the 1st of january. the sense here is if we let the people america just elected come, that maybe the fret will

need some modifications. -- that maybe the treaty will need some modifications. there have been some things expressed here about the treaty. me very legitimate. clearly russian defense is a problem. the russians have expressed that americans cannot deliver any kind of missile defense system under this treaty. we say, no, no. we're going through all kinds of language to put things in nonbinding areas of this agreement to say, oh, we're really committed or we're going to communicate to the russians that we're really committed. bur we even -- we're unwilling to put it in the preamble that there's no linkage between thevestment our missile defense system and this treaty agreement. clearly, there is a linkage. the russians believe there is a linkage. all the correspondents from the president-- --all the correspondence from

the president says, liltrd linkage. we never could get the records to confirm that. but everything suggests that there is an implicit and explicit agreement that america will not attempt to develop a missile defense system capable of defending against rusan missiles. perhaps capable of defending against a rogue missile launch, an accidental missile launch. but the language of this treaty, the communications from the white housethe hearings all say that we will only have a limited missile defense system. so there should be no mistake, there should be no confusion, the agreement to this treaty is an agreement for america not to develop a comprehensive missile defense system. if that's satisfactory, then let's ratify. clearly, there's some holes in the verification process of this treaty. the growing, and biggest threat are tactical nuclear weapons, shorter-range missiles, ground-based, subbased are not even included here in this

agreement. so the russians are finwi this. they were going down to the same long-range missile account that we require in this treaty anyway. they give nothing. we don't restrict any of their tactical developments. the verification is less stringent than it was in start i, fewer inspections, and the ability to actually look at things like telemetry are obviously omitted here. so we really can't ratify this treaty with any pretense that america's going to be any safer. in fact, i think the bigge problem with this treaty is the whole presumption that it's built on is that america should be at parity with russia. and we've talked about it here in this chamber that we do not have the same role as russia in this world. russia is a protector of none and a threat to many. america is a protector of many and a threat to none. over 30 countries live in peace

under our nuclear umbrella. but we're saying we're going to reduce it, with a lot of questions of whether or not we're going to modernize it. and we're telling our allies that tactical nuclear weapons are not going to be restricted in any way, which is probably their biggest concern because of their contiguous location to -- to russia. a senator: will the senator yield? mr. demint: yes. mr. inhofe: for a question. when you talk about the -- the missil defense aspect of this, has it occurred to a lot of people that maybe this treaty's with the wrong people. i mean, we know right now tt iran is going to have the capability -- this is not even classified -- have the capability of -- of a nuclear weapon, a delivery system by 2015. and i think one of the worst things for america that this president did was take down the site that we were planning in poland that would give us this

protection. my point i'm going to say and ask is that in the event that this is -- is ratified and that we are restricted in any way from developing further our missile defense system, doesn't that put us directly in an impaired positio in terms of north korea, maybe syria, but definitely iran, who has already indicated and already has the capability of reaching us by that time? it's interesting that that site would have been effective to knock down a missile coming from iran by 2015, the same year that our intelligee tells us they're going to have that capability? isn't that the threat that we're concerned about more than russia? mr. demint: well, mr. president, i want to thank the senator from oklahom for bringing out another very important point. we're laser-focused on this treaty with russia that obviously restricts our ability to develop missile defense, yet

we all seem to acknowledge that the greatest growing threat in this country is from iran and north korea and other rogue -- rogue nations that can -- can develop nuclear technogy. and it's almost like a magician play here of getting us to look at one hand while other things are going on. we're really not paying attention to the nation's business here. and i'm afraid what this is is another "check the box," a foreign policy victory for the administration, which if it did not have so many questions related to it, that would be fine. but to jam this through in a fired, unaccountable congress, rushing it through before the presentatives that america just sent here are sworn in, and doing it as part of a list of -- of lislation, a long list over the last two years of things that america just does not want. i want good relations with

russia and countries all over the world but i'm afraid this is part of a continued effort of accommodation and appeasement, that if we show weakness, other countries will accommodate us. we need russia to cooperate and -- with russia and north rea. folks, i don't think this is the way to get it, and i don't think we're going to gain respect for our process of trying to do this under the cover of a distraction of a major holiday, with a lame duck, unaccountable congress. and the way this is being presented, it's kind of a mockery of the debate process here in the senate. we're not amending a treaty. we were told at the outset, it's take it or leave it. the russians are negotiating clearly from a positio of strength because they said, here's the treaty, take or leave it, any changes and the treaty is dead s. that th - is dead.

is that the way america needs to deal with other countries? is that the way the senate should debate a major arms control agreement, where the majority party is saying, you can go talk about it if you want but we're going to kill every amendment, even though we say we agree with a lot of them there, will be no dmaing changes in th, we're trying to stick some things in the areas of the treaty that have no binding aspect and say we've covered it when we're making a mockery of the whole debate and ratification process. in an unaccountable, fired congress, cover the christmas, in a debate where we've been told "take it or leave it." folks, this is not what the senate's about. this is not what congress is supposed to be about. certainly we should not be passing major legislation at this time of year with this congress. so, mr. president, i appreciate the opportunity to speak. i still hope my colleagues will come to their senses and show the amecan people that we're going to act in a responsible way that respects what they told

us on november 2, and that this congress needs to go, a new one needs to come in. we need to stop cramming things down their throat that they don't want. with that, >> tomorrow, the director of the census bureau. the president of the alzheimer's foundation of america. it had a look at the economic forecast. -- and a look at the economic forecast. washington journal begins live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> this weekend on c-span, we visit the museum of the confederacy in richmond, va., and find many of today's traditions began during the civil war. also, from the nixon presidential library oral history project, former

astronaut frank borman on his role in the early space program. and the director of the eleanor roosevelt papers project. see the complete schedule online at c-span.org/history, or have the schedule emailed to you. >> russian television reported the start vote in their "russia today" program. this is 20 minutes. >> hello, thank you for being with us. it is now 11:00 p.m. in moscow. within the last minute, the top of the hour, news coming through that in fact the senate has finally approved a new start

nuclear arms reduction treaty with russia, after months of intense partisan wrangling on capitol hill. the voting in the end is up 71 votes out of 100 senators. it needed 67 to pass. it seems to the ap news agency that has got through. let's bring our correspondents into the story from over the atlantic. we have catherine in moscow, but we go first to washington. very good evening. can you confirm what i have been telling the viewers, from the ap news agency, that in fact 71 senators at the end of the day out of 100 voted yes? >> 71 votes for, 21 against. that is a big day for everyone.

people have been pushing so hard for the treaty ratification. for the president and senators who have been tirelessly defending the treaty on the senate floor, excruciating debate, what do we get? we have some very significant reductions underway. over the next 10 years, both states will cut their nuclear arsenal by one-third, down 21550 on each side. there are also limits on the number of delivery vehicles and launchers. both countries will still hold more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons. many agree the value of the arms reduction treaty is not in the reduction, it is the trust and cooperation between the two . they have been calling for

senators not to ruin this reset opportunity for the u.s.-russian relations. this resonated with many senators, and they voted yes to the treaty. president obama has been stressing cooperation with russia could be close without this. there is afghanistan, iran, cooperation on missile defenses in europe. he has been varied vocal about the fact that building trust with russia brings benefits. the treaty as part of that trust. >> in moscow, now it is russia's turn to follow suit and ratify the new arms reduction treaty. what reaction can we expect from russia now? >> we expect immediately after the vote, it was not clear until the very last moment whether washington would say yes to the new start. yesterday we were still talking

about it, and today we are talking done deal. there were weeks and weeks of heated arguments, and moscow has been watching carefully. the vote was more about the u.s. credibility abroad rather than that of russia. president medvedev that assured barack obama from the very beginning that russian lawmakers would ratify the new start as soon as it was clear the united states voted in favor of it and that it was just a matter of time. the heated debates were on capitol hill, and republicans and democrats had blamed each other, getting into this last minute crunch. the treaty was signed in april of this year. ever since, there have been laid the and a delicate process of verification. moscow has been saying that the new start does not draw a line between winners and losers, that

both sides are winners by working towards global disarmament. the two countries, which account for 90% of global nuclear stockpiles, are leading by example. the question is, will everyone else follow? russia will welcome today's news, the last minute news that the u.s. senate finally ratified this crucial documents, just days before the new year. >> you also mentioned that you cannot overestimate the rocky past that this treaty had to overcome to get past. why were there so many obstacles put up to it? how difficult, how close was it at the end of the day? >> well, kevin, you'd think that a treaty that had so much support from both democrats and

republicans, but yet as we all know, it's way through the senate was so difficult. a number of senators went out of their way to undermine the treaty without substantial arguments against it, probably to get back at obama as many say. it in the final days, they wanted to rewrite the language of the treaty, which could have killed the treaty. they wanted to take out a line in the preamble which made the connection between offensive and defensive weapons. all of those in the military who testified before the senate said this were crucial, but some senators were sticking to the ploy, making the point that it would make the u.s. unable to defend itself, which is not the case. russia has always said that america can defend themselves as much as the one as long as they did not breach the arms balance

that have established. russians have said they would want to build a joint missile defense system together with the united states. for russia, the new start treaty is all about balance and the quality and it explicitly says the other side can pull out if at some point they have a threat to their national security. russell said they are three clear they are in it as long as the pressure -- russia has said they are in it as long as the united states is respectful of the balance. >> how crucial is this for the reset of relations between the two countries? >> the wait for the new treaty has been a long time coming. there were fears among skeptics there would be no accurate -- and the countries would start increasing their nuclear

stockpiles. this has not happened and washington managed to agree, a major nuclear agreement. of course, this was the culmination of intense processes from the delegations of both countries, colorful and face-to- face conversations between president obama and mr. medvedev. some of the decisions made by the u.s. administration or complicating matters with regard to the decision by the u.s. president about replacement of missile defense systems in eastern europe and poland and romania. still, the two presidents managed to find a compromise and in april of this year in prague, they met to sign the new strategic arms reduction treaty with pomp and ceremony. the presidents were well aware their signatures alone would not be enough for the new start to go into force. it was just the start of this

lengthy process in the united states of america, specifically, but now that the treaty has been ratified, there has been a tremendous victory for both sides. of course, this new start would pave the way for a stream of better relations between the countries. many say by ratifying this treaty, moscow and washington relations could improve. >> a lot of political observers say this is the icing on the cape, -- this is the icing on the cake, that this will cement relations between russia and the u.s.? >> yes, right, and also for the rest of the world, the treaty is crucial not just for moscow and washington. they will have to cut their

nuclear arsenals in seven years by one-third. but for the rest of the world, that means there will also be cuts in defensive systems. most importantly, there will be this link between strategic offensive weapons, missile defense systems, something russia insisted upon. still seekings are to obtain nuclear weapons, and the vast machinery of nuclear war is still with us, missiles, bombers, submarines, and moscow and washington are leading by example. they had to say for them, their nuclear arsenals from now on are not a security asset but a liability and that the biggest challenge now is to stop the nuclear technology from spreading worldwide.

of course, today is an historic day in this regard. the treaty is very crucial -- is a very crucial document in almost 20 years. about kathryn, thank you for bringing us up today -- >> kathryn, thank you for bringing us up to date. the u.s. senate has finally approved a new start nuclear arms reduction treaty with russia after months of intense partisan wrangling on capitol hill. president obama and president medvedev signed the agreement in april in prague but it has been bogged down by delays across the atlantic. both the white house and the kremlin see the deal as a cornerstone to renewed u.s.- russian relations and a boost to world nuclear nonproliferation. up until the vote, there were fears that republican senators could prevent the vote over domestic issues, but at the end of the day, the tree will be

sealed -- the treaty will be sealed. the agreement replaces the one signed nearly 20 years ago, cutting each nations deployed nuclear warheads by about one- third, to a maximum of just over 1500, and allows for the monitoring of each other's programs to ensure compliance. this new treaty is the successor to the 1991 strategic arms treaty, start. charles from the council on foreign relations in washington, d.c. thank you for taking the time. this treaty finally approved after being much poured over it. what does this say about obama's. on congress? -- about obama as a grip on congress? >> there is no question is a feather in his cap. he has a lame duck congress where he tried to set a lot of things in course and he

succeeded. he got the start treaty and the repeal of the don't ask, don't tell policy in the military and also a compromise with republicans on the tax-cut issue. i think obama goes into 2011 with a lot of wind in his sales. he had the domestic side, now he has the foreign policy. that does not mean it is smooth sailing because he will face republican congress in january, but it is a boost of his political momentum for the time being. >> republican senators still see the treaty as some sort of link between the new start treaty and the missile shield in europe. why is that? why are they linking them like that? >> i think there were two different dynamics. one was simply partisanship. i think some republicans fell

this treaty was being rushed through the senate and they had been pushed and pushed on health care and pushed on the issue of gays in the military. so they were pushing back on the start treaty. then there were those who were more concerned about some of the specifics. i would say at the top of the agenda of concerns was the link between missile defense and arms control. it was in the preamble, and the point the republicans made was, this means the russians may object when it comes to the deployment of missile defenses in europe. at the bottom line is russia may object or may not, but what it says in the preamble to this does not make much difference. in that respect, i think many of the republicans who voted yes correctly saw there was no legally or significantly to between the missile defense issue and the arms control issue. >> we are getting swift and fast

reaction from russia, hearing the russian foreign ministers agreed that the decision. in private, do you think president obama saw a lot of stalling in congress? >> a donkey saw this coming. when you look back, most arms control -- i don't think he saw this coming. when you look back, most arms control agreements sailed through the senate. i don't think there was clear that it was going to be such opposition. the republican party has changed over the past couple decades, moving far to the right, much more uncomfortable with the treaty ratification. i think president obama found himself facing an uphill battle, but it is also important to say the significance of the treaty is much larger than the implications for arms control. a it gives a lot of momentum and boost to the broader u.s. russia reset and puts obama and

medvedev on course to cooperate more closely on a whole host of issues, and it may well be this is seen as a turning point in which the russia-u.s. rivalry of the past is finally laid to rest. we're not there yet, but it may turn the page in the right direction. >> more news on the russian side on the news wires, the foreign ministers greeted the decision. of course, the treaty will have to be looked at closely by the russian foreign office and the foreign ministry before it is ratified on this end. at the moment, nobody is seen any big problems. the devil is always in the details, isn't it? were they only set on making the president's what? >> i don't think so. i think only a few weeks ago, the issue was very much in play. when the number counter sat down

and looked at the votes, it was not clear they would be able to get two-thirds of the senate, particularly after the midterms. i think the republicans felt they had done momentum on their side, and the tea party, which is a pretty right wing caucus within the republican party was strengthened and generally skeptical of the arms control issue. i think there were a few weeks when there was great concern in washington, in the white house that the treaty could be slipping away. then over the last 46 hours or so, the last three, four days, the ducks started to line up, and i think the democrats found they had enough centrist republicans, enough moderates to put together the 71 votes they got today, bringing more than the two-thirds needed to ratify the treaty. >> thank you for your thoughts, from the council on foreign relations in washington, d.c.

if you just joined us, the breaking news of the bottom of the screen is u.s. senators have now voted in the last 50 minutes to ratify the much delayed nuclear arms reduction treaty, paving the way is for cuts in u.s.-russian nuclear personals. on the russian side, the final thumbs-up has been given by america, but the headline is that the warheads deployed will be reduced to 1551 on each side, nearly two-thirds from the original start agreement that was signed back in 1991, and we have been out of an agreement since last december, just over a year. those were the headlines. that also limits to 800 the number of deployed and non- deployed icbm missile launchers and submarine ballistic missiles

and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armament, limited to 800 on each side. those are the headlines. if you have not called all of the figures, -- if you have not caught all of the figures on the screen, it got through with more than the two-thirds needed, sending the treaty through on capitol hill with 71 votes. that is the big story tonight. we will bring you more on this as we get more throughout the night, and also on our website. >> next on c-span, today's bill signing ceremony for the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, then the passage of a bill to provide 9/11 responders with health insurance. at the brookings institute discussion on the defense department budget, and a look at

the political situation in south asia. >> on c-span christmas eve, speaker of the house nancy pelosi and others like the capitol christmas tree, and president obama and the first family attended the annual pageant of peace. later, michael dukakis and charles gibson took about the preparations for presidential debate and the impact on the campaigns. then there is an keeler talks about human -- humor and public light and david souter discusses life on the high court. this weekend, saturday and sunday, interviews from london. saturday, the labor party shout of minister for health on the government's plan for budget cuts and her experiences as a minority in parliament. the senate, comparing the

british and american forms of government, elections, the impact of money on races, the power of the prime minister, taxes, social issues, and cost of living. that is this saturday and sunday night on c-span. >> this morning, president obama signed a bill repealing the don't ask, don't tell policy that prohibited gays from serving openly in military. the implementation of the new policy is expected to take several months. the bill signing ceremony occurred at the interior department headquarters in washington. this is 35 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, the vice president of the united states. [applause] [applause] >> how are you? it is a good day.

a real good day. some of my colleagues can tell you, this was a long time coming but i am happy it is here. ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. it was a great five-star general and president dwight eisenhower that said cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace. by repealing don't ask, don't tell today, and we adjust fairness and consideration. that is the real cooperation that president eisenhower spoke of. this was an important campaign promise that the president and i made.

and many of you have fought for it for a long time. repealing the policy that actually weakens our national security, diminishes our ability to have military readiness, and violated the fundamental american principle of fairness and equality. the same set of principles that brave gay men and women will now be able to openly defend around the world. [applause] >> it is both morally and militarily the right thing to do. it is particularly important at this result was fully supported by those in the military who are charged with implementing it.

i want to pay particular respect -- a point of personal privilege, admiral mullen. you're a stand-up guy. [applause] i think they like you. [applause] he already has enough power. [laughter]

it could not have been done without these men and women leading our military. it certainly could not have been done without the steady, dedicated, and persistent leadership of the president of the united states. [applause] mr. president. by signing this bill, you will be linking military might with an abiding sense of justice. you will be projecting power by promoting fairness and making be indicted states military as strong as it can be in a time where we needed to be the strongest. ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states and commander in chief, barack obama. [applause]

>> yes, we can! yes, we can! >> thank you. yes, we did. >> thank you, mr. president. >> you are welcome. this is a good day. >> yes it is.

[yelling] [laughter] >> thank you. thank you. [laughter] i am just overwhelmed. this is a very good day. [applause] and i want to thank all of you. especially the people on this stage. but each and everyone of you that have been working so hard on this. i could not be prouder. 56 years ago, and the dense, snow-covered forests of western europe, allied forces were beating back a massive assault in what would become known as in what would become known as