to be out thursday and friday at this week anyway due to some retreats planned by one of the parties. the only plan to be in through wednesday up this week anyway. coming in this week on wednesday to take up the resolution. host: let's go live now to tucson for the medical briefing. >> three divisions were put to test a couple of days ago for the division of trauma under dr. peter reed and the division of neurosurgery and astro surgery. we did not ask for this, obviously. when it happened, we were ready. we were able to deliver in a way that will make our community and the state proud. i am happy to report that the victims are doing better. you'll hear a few minutes from

the doctors as to the exact medical condition of the victims. we have discharge two patients. only two remain in the ico. the rest of the patients -- the remaining patients are in regular hospital wards. i want to take the opportunity to make clear that dr. reed and dr. lemore are the official doctors for the medical center. across the nation, many experts have been asked their opinion. we appreciate that. we cannot really go into speculation about long-term out comes and the only official words are coming from doctors rhee and lemuel. we will have another press conference on wednesday when things have stabilized, at 10:00 right here. if there are any changes, better or worse, we will inform you.

we are making sure that we provide you with all the information. we are very open, very transparent. i would like to thank the many, many helpers and volunteers who have come to, angela supported want to thank the entire organization that we are serving for the support. i am very happy to tell you that things have stabilized and are looking better. i would like dr. rhee to inform you of the medical conditions of the patients. >> thank you. good morning to everyone. i would like to make a couple of quick comments before i get into the nitty gritty about what is going on. we all know that we cannot do the on duke the events that have occurred. the city of tucson is very heavily effected. i am proud to be a citizen of tucson as we see the amount of care and support that has happened.

it has been tremendous and we are proud of that. the community is pulling through this very well. there has been tremendous amounts of offerings and getting started a lot of food is being brought to the hospitaltochick filet came out a few minutes ago. those type of activities are very much appreciated. right now, we have eight patients in the hospital. two of them remember -- remain in the eyes you perry only one of those two is in critical condition. we have five people still in serious condition at this time. there remains two people in good condition. there is still further subsequent surgery is that still need to be undertaken. at this phase, as far as putting things back together for a surgical point of view, that has been done very well without too much of an issue. a very important part of trauma and trauma care will not take over. -- will take over. we will discuss the patient as a

whole. this is a time. when emotional issues are important for us. we are accustomed to taking care of things like post-traumatic stress syndrome. there will be things done with compassion and issues with depression that take place. we have psychiatrists in the house and social workers, the best ones in the country. we all have a lot of interest on what particular patient -- on one particular patient. i will let the neurosurgeon give you an update. >> thank you. before i go into details, i would like to recognize the outpouring by the community. i was personally touched. my wife brought my children by to the memorial.

the looks on the children's faces said it all. it really spoke to the way the community has come together and the pain it is feeling. with regard to congresswoman giffords recovery, at this phase in the game, no change is good. we have no change. she is still following the basic commands. on top of that, the cats fans are showing there is no progression of the swelling. we're not out of the woods yet. the swelling can sometimes take three days or five days to maximize. every day that goes by and we don't see an increase, we are slightly more optimistic. with that in mind, i think we will proceed over the next few days to see how she does. >> with that, we are trying to keep it short. we will take a few minutes of questions and answers at this point. >> tell us more about the

protocol? >> i don't want to get into the pacific. when i say someone follow simple commands, it could be someone showing two figures or wiggling toes or gripping a hand. those are simple commands that she can do even though she has a breathing tube in place that would prohibit communication. >> [unintelligible] into hert want to go specifics. >> what about the swelling in the brain? >> first of all, the way we do it is not quantified. it is a qualitative assessment between the cat scans to see if we see a change. as far as intracranial pressure, because there is a window, the brain is relaxed and there is no reason to put pressure monitor and especially because she is doing well. if she were not doing well, we

would have that but we have not needed to put that monitor in. we don't need to treat medication for the pressure because there is not an issue. >> give us the basic idea of the general command's you're giving her. [inaudible] >> this implies that not only the centers of the brenner working but they are communicating with one another. -- not only the centers of the brain are working but they are communicating with one another. >> [inaudible] >> swelling typically peaks around the third day. i have seen it go as far as 10 days. most often in the third day which is why we are much, much more optimistic and we can breathe a collective sigh of relief effort the third or fourth day. we're getting close.

>> you know if she could speak if she did not have the ventilator? >> we don't know at this time. >> how many times did you reduce her sedation? >> there is no absolute number. we do that several times a day. the doctors do that but the nurses are assessing her and we expect to see other signs and reactions. there is no absolute said no.. number. >> [inaudible] >> we're doing the same steps we have been doing the last couple of days. the regular neurological assessment, the examination, and the cat scans we are doing on a daily basis. we will start to spread that out to whatever is necessary >. >> we say that she came in on

saturday so sunday is post of day one and this is post of day 12. 2. >> [inaudible] is there a way to tell the psychological prognosis? >> are you talking about the congress woman or the other patients? >> at this point, we cannot measure psychological function nor would we tried. the important thing is to make sure the needs of the family are met and to make sure we are treading -- starting to anticipate needs down the road, getting our crew involved to make sure she started to think about the rehabilitation and physical therapy and those sorts of bags. it is a little premature to go into those this of exporter. not only the psychological health of the victims and their families but the care providers. this has had a tremendous emotional impact on all of us. >> [inaudible]

>> without getting too specific, we have had a variety but we have had people who have had an operation in the abdomen. we had one patient where we have to look around the heart to make sure that was not injured. we have had vascular injuries, orthopedic injuries, we have had extremity injuries, as well. some of these people who has severe torso-type injuries, their social being is injured as well. some of their family members are deceased and they will have to go through the ptsd phase at this point. >> are you confident they will survive? >> yes, as a physical standpoint but we try to bring them back as a whole human being. is more than whether you are just alive or dead. >> you mentioned there are eight in the hospital. two more in the ico and one is

critical. cu and one more is critical. >> i think that added up to eight. i was counting on my [laughter] fingers] >> how many for sure? what >> two two in the icy you. u. five remain in serious condition and there are two left which make eight. >> [inaudible] will any patients have further surgery? >> yes, some will have further surgery's, orthopedic surgeries and some patients had compartment syndrome and vascular repairs. that will mean follow-up surgery later this week. >> what do you know about congresswoman giffords of vision? >> as far as function ssc, we

are not in a position to do that at this time. the track of the bullet is higher, away from the base of the skull where the nerve center and texas about as a positive that. >> so where it entered doesn't necessarily affect your vision? >> it could. when we think about vision, we think about the nerve to the eyeball and the fibers that go back to the part of the brain that processes all of that but also of the higher the trajectory, the better the hope is that that will not be affected. >> is there any movement in the lower half of her body? >> i don't want to go into those the sex regarded her case. >> -- i don't want to go into those specifics regarding her case. that kind of assessment would, and we removed the breathing tube. >> as she been able to visually

recognize anyone? is there a smile on her face? >> i have not witnessed that. without going into details, sometimes that is hard to do in this setting. the apparatus of the breathing tube precludes a lot of that. >> [inaudible] >> without being able to fully uncover some of its face, you cannot notice whether they fully recognize things. the family appreciates all the condolences and well-wishers supporting them at this time in the community and media. >> how close to a normal life can one expect? >> i will not speculate on that. i have seen the full range of possibility. >> [inaudible] >> it depends when michael will let me pull it out. [laughter] things are going gori well so

typically about four or five days when all the swelling and the worry about the swelling as gondar the swelling is not typical of most swelling in traumatic brain injuries. he has plenty of room to swell. blunt trauma is where we really get concerns. the pressure is off of everybody, no pun intended. >> how often do you of the day her family? >> the family is with her constantly. we update them all the time. we provide whatever needs they have. we concentrate the full spectrum of trauma care. it is not just for the congresswoman. we do this for everybody. >> [inaudible] so they can keep by her side? >> yes, we get context from everybody in the city but nationwide and worldwide. i want to take an opportunity to

thank everybody who is wishing us well in this endeavor and sticking with us through this process. thank you for caring. with that, to everybody and we will talk to you later. >> before we quit, there are two or three other announcements. we are planning to have the next press conference on wednesday at 10:00. however, if there is any change in the condition of any of the victims, we will have another press conference tomorrow. if you want information about what we will release tomorrow, go either into the umc or the arizona health science website. we will make announcements there. i want to take the chance to thank on behalf of dr. shelton, the president and the ceo to thank everybody from across the country who has supported us. within the state, we like to

thank the governor, governor robert orr, for her support and the mayor of tucson, mr. walker. this has been a tremendous experience for all of us over the last couple of days. we are happy to report that things are stabilizing and the patients are improving. we expect more discharges over the next few days. we will see you again on wednesday, thank you again for coming. >> if you missed any of that briefing, you'll be able to see it surely our website at cspanvideo.org. more live coverage from arizona will be coming up from tucson at 3:45 and governor jim brewer which was going to be her state of the state but it will be her addressing the state legislature. >> there is a way to follow congress with the cspan

congressional chronicle. track the daily time lines, read transcripts, and find a full video archive of each member. that is part of the cspan video library, washington your way. every weekend on c-span 3, and experience american history tv starting saturday at 8:00 a.m. eastern. 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. here historic speeches by national leaders and eyewitness accounts of events that shaped our nation. visit museums, historical sites, and college campuses as top history professors and leading historians me delve into america's past grade american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span 3. >> the supreme court returns today for the second half of its 2010-2011 term. we spoke this morning to the george washington university professor jeffrey rosen. jeffrey rosen is here, a

professor of law at the george washington university. as the look at the shootings, what is the most important legal issue you are looking at? guest: there are so many. it raises a number of legal and constitutional issues. it brings up the question of whether hate speech was responsible. it was interesting to see at a polarizing speech on the internet, director moeller is also looking at that. i think it a corporate to look at that, to figure out the motives of the shootings. it would not be a corporate to suggest legally the shooter could be prosecuted or because of inflammory speech. there is a strong tradition in america of punishing speech only with imminent lawless action.

for example, assassination how- to manuals have been prosecuted under the second amendment, but other than that, which can only say that it is deplorable. host: we are already hearing a lot about gun rights, legislation being proposed today. guest: of course, arizona and has one of the most generous gun laws in the country. they allow concealed weapon to be cared without a permit and they also allow you to carry a weapon to bars. i do not think there are constitutional restraints to what is suggested in the wake of the tragedies. the supreme court has said the second amendment right to bear arms is an individual right and therefore has to be strongly respected. but both cases involve pounds of gun ownership inside homes. the arizona regime is much more

generous, certainly congressional efforts to regulate guns would not raise constitutional difficulties. the basic thought is the supreme court does not seem to be inclined to pick only but the most restrictive gun laws. host: the supreme court is returning for its second session. the phone numbers are on the bottom of the screen for our guest, jeffrey rosen, a professor of law at gege washington university. twitter.com/cspanwj caller: democrats, 202-737-0002. republicans, 202-737-0001. independents, 202-628-0205. we booked you before the shooting here, but a couple of questions come to mind. the mental state of the

perpetrator, how the courts treat people with mental illness. what is your take on that aspect? guest: the standards for in sanity are extremely high. you haveo be able to not appreciate the difference between right and wrong. it is impossible to say from these early reports, but nothing we have seen so far suggests an easy case for insanity. this young man had paranoid fantasies, was concerned the government was trying to control his speech, he was interested in the gold standard, but these are all standard tropes of the extremist rhetoric on both sides of the spectrum. his public defender, who represented both zacarias and sally and the oklahoma city bomber, is comfortable with

highly charged defendants. host: before we get to college, go back to the supreme court. what are the top cases we are looking at in the early weeks? guest: of course, the supreme court is recess in early in order to eress condolences. there are a series of interesting cases. there will be a case involving the establishment clause, religious freedom, a case involving john ashcroft. the most interesting cases have been argued and will be decided soon. there was one recently that is relevant to our current debate involving arizona's immigration law. this was something that representative gifford and the

sheriff had heavily criticized. state law has been considered a clash with federal law because it allows arizona to choose which immigrants not to fire, and puts them in charge of immigration laws. it seemed like it could have been a 4-4 split during oral arguments on the basis that arizona needed to enforce this because the fed's had not been doing the job on their own. if it is tied, it would uphold the lower cour in would be a victory for arizona. host: let's get to our phone calls. richard. you are on the air.

caller: is the second amendment really -- what is the word? all of a sudden i am going blank. is the second amendment really an anachronism? at theime it was written, it was meant to be a defense against an overwhelming government who was coming with rifles, artillery, bayonets, of course. now, the government is armed with nuclear weapons and things that are unimaginable. should we then have things that would protect us from our forbearers governmen if not should the allowance of gun possession thrown out? guest: it is a great question. at the core of the supreme court

decision, identifying this individual right is it an historical dispute. should this amendment be seen as meant to protect militias and anything that related was not protected, or was the founders' concern protecting against an overwhelming government? five conservative justices said it was a broad, individual rights and should not be limited to militias. what you bring up isow hard it is to translate any constitutional amendment into an age with new institutions. the framers could not have imagined the scope of weapons available. there is so much more of a monopoly on weapons than the has today than the colonial governments were. either you have to shore up the individual right to bear arms in

order to counteract new technology, or by contrast, now that the fed's have so much power, it is inappropriate to try to counter them with arms and you should basically limit this to self-defense and militias. the constitution does not clearly ll us one way or another. it just provides a framework for discussing these issues. host: peter isrom tucson. good morning. caller: [inaudible] i have no idea why he came out and said what he said yesterday.

also what he was saying, part of there are laws for fully automatic weapons and things like that but your ordinary citizen need special permits. as far as your right to carry arms, there are all sorts of laws. host: the caller touches on the first and second amendment. guest: it important to remember that representative gifford is strong supporter of second amendment rights and would not support the sorts of laws that you are talking about, which would restrict gun rights entirely. was the sheriff wrong to suggest

that this was a speech that could of been responsible for the assassinatio there is an interesting column in the "the new york times" which reminds us that many of the tragic political assassinations in the past decade have not had a clear political connections. lee harvey oswald, although there was a lot of john birch creek in the air, he was more of supporter of castro. we do not know the motives of the speaker, but there seems to be a connection between his political views and this assassination. if that is right, the caller would be correct to suggest that this was politically motivated

in any way. and we are not like pakistan. in a cntry like pakistan, you have political leaders who are assassinat because of their opposition to the merging of church and state, and that was supported by the army. this was a lone madman, for all that we can account. let's hope there is no closer connection to hate speech. host: santo from east point, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. everything everyone is talng about actually contributes to this. he had mental problems and drug problems, but he also has a youtube video where he talks about conspiracy theories, mind control. he was an outsider. one girl who had made friends with him said that he had met

the congresswoman in ccago in 2007 and asked her a question. he said, what she said to me did not make sense. with all the hate rhetoric, mental and bonus, the sloppy gun laws in arizona -- outside of detroit, that would never happen. i think a lot of us have contributed to it and we need to come together, no matter what the circumstances. we need to do something. guest: it is an eloquent plea for us to come together. it is heartening that members of both parties in the early condemned this in strongest terms. senators including john mccain made clearow wrong this was. the house decided to postpone some of its controversial

political moves such as the effort to repeal health care. i would not make this a legal point to say that hate speech made him do it, but from a cultural point, it is a reminder that words have consequences. our poll rising political culture can lead to terrible clashes and is an opportunity to come together. host: you mentioned the high court would be taking a break. how long will that last? guest: i think just today. host: taking a step back, looking at what has happened since october, how has the year been? guest: of course, we have two new justices. watching their different styles has been fascinating. justice sotomayor has been very active in her questioning.

most recently, they filed separate decisions about capital defense, insisting the court review capital cases, which puts them at odds with justice alito. justice keychain has not been sitting on many cases because of her involvement. on those that she has been, she has gone to the heart of the legal issues, defining it in its clearest terms. i love seeing her do that. i also love the fact that we have some number of justices. there was a case about california's effort to ban violent video games. justice scalia and alito were arguing about what james madison may have thought about violent video games. justice kagan chimed in talking about her own experience with british games.

i ink that is important. host: you touched on a case about john ashcroft. guest: it is a technical case that i will not try to resurrect but it puts the obama administration on the side of defending john ashcroft. stafford,s hear from virginia. glenda. good morning. caller: there has been a lot of assassination before arizona. there was no tea party, no sarah palin. what i want to talk about is the sheriff, he is on cable tv and he said on national news that they are prejudice and bigot. i am sure president obama was glad to hear him say that.

when the governor was trying to get the deputy to ask for ids of people who are suspicious, there is a lawsuit against them, about civil rights and all of that. democrats and republicans should call the white house and demand that sheriff turn his bed in. where i am from, he would have had to. -- badge in. guest: that statement did provoke a lot of criticism and support in both directions. he mentioned something about the tea party. i think it is so heartening. it is clear this man was not a member of the tea party and nothing in tea party rhetoric could be associated with this violence. they have a strong constitutional vision. it really has to do with

democratic political change. they want to elect representatives who will abide by the constitution. they are also filing lawsuits arguing against things like health care and financial regulation reform are unconstitutional. whether or not you agree with them is up to you. we can distinguish that kind of rhetoric with this kind of violence. the debate on whether or not the sheriff should have blamed bigotry or not is a legitimate one, but i am glad to see it is not having any legal consequenc. i am so hardened that there is no suggestion that actual tea party members would be responsible for this kind of tragedy. guest: our guest has worked at harvard, yale, currently a

professor of law at gw university. his most recent book is "the supreme court, rivalries that shaped america." our next caller is from chula vista, california. caller: good morning. i am a moderate republican. this woman was a moderate democrat. i like to talk about hate speech. it really boils down to an attitude that someone has four other people. -- for other people. i see this coming up with the t party and the ideas that they disagree with, vilifying those ideas and making them responsibleor an act that they would never condone, never encourage, would be totally opposed to.

such people areerging on hate speech themselves because they are vilifying the people instead of having a reasonable discussion about the idea. guest: i think that is well said, not engaging in hominem attacks. it is heartening that the congresswoman herself had so many people who respected her across the aisle. just look at how this tragedy -- how unpolitically targeted it was. one of the judges that was shot was loved by both sides for his bipartisan fairness and decency. you are right, this was not

random violence, in the sense that representative gifford was targeted, but they just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. it is important not to suggest that political rhetoric was responsible for this. host: in your legal mind, take us deeper into the idea of security for federal judges. we talked about members of congress. how wel our federal judges secured, are they secured when they travel? can you explain that for us? guest: the supreme courts protected by the federal marshal service. when a supreme court justice goes out, they will be accompanied by one or two marshals, driver, security persons who will be with them at all times. most federal judges do not have that kind of security. this judge just walked up to the

shopping mall and was waiting in line like everyther citizen because he respected representative gifford and wanted to thank her on behalf of the judiciary. unless you are in the middle of a trial, most judges do not. host: these judges have received numerous threats. we have read them all weekend. do you see things changing? guest: i do not know if we are going to rethink security for judges. it is true, these attacks in america against the judges are rare. there was one a few years ago, but thankfully in america, our culture does not target judges for assassination in the way that absolutist governments in other places do. there are a lot of federal judges. the idea that each one should have security at all times is

unalistic, but there will be a debate as to whether or not it is appropriate for them to be completely unprotected. host: next phone call for jeffrey rosen. you are on the air. caller: i have two questions and a comment. my first question -- and this is nothing personal, just to get it out. jeffrey rosen, are you jewish? guest: i am, what does that matter? caller: i am not against them -- host: why do you bring it up? caller: in my opinion, europe, russia, the entire world is concerned about the occupation of palestine with israeli jews.

host: i am not sure where he is going with that. let's go to market in new hampshire. caller: good morning. i apologize for my fellow american on the phone. i am 42 years old, white, three small children, and i work six days a week and i am losing everything. we look at our colleges, our judges, our government. we spent eight years with code pink, the war, and now that obama is president, the media discusses none of it as far a they did with president bush. i think our colleges -- you look at them and say they are conservative or liberal. the same thing with judges.

guest: it is dismaying. this was par for the course. he never mentioned the liberal justice or conservative justice. nowadays, it is considered par for the course. we have lost something in the country without the sense of common purpose. the internet may have something to dwith it. maybe it is in moments like this when both parties can come together and realize how dangerous it is to forget that wos have consequences and to have some kind of coming together. this is a free country. people can say hateful things. the previous caller, i guess you could call that hate speech.

peop should be able to present hateful views. listee -- relished their raucous of political debate. thank you for your reminder of th importance of bipartisanship. host: we have a republican on the line from maryland. caller: i have a question and a comment. my comment would be, i know a lot of times an event happens and the first amendment and the second amendment always seem to get thrown out there like that is the reason. the first amendment is not a reason -- people should -- people should not shoot up a crowd of people. a crowd of people will knock it shot up if people have their first and second amendment rights.

i don't understand how the second amendment -- if anybody should have guns or guns chicken band -- four guns should get ned -- guest: this was the question at the center of the violent video games argument that the supreme court heard late last year. the question was, does crazy kids moreames make likely to commit violence. legally, our supreme court has agreed with you. unless youan prove watching the video is going to immediately make you go out and commit a violent act, you cannot ban the speech. it is a safety valve that makes

people less likely to commit violence. i do not believe we should assume for his a direct connection. host: missing, david, a democrat. good morning. -- michigan. caller: i have a comment about the news stations like the left new stations and the writers new stations. they both have such different viewpoints -- and th. people take these viewpoints to heart. there are news junkies. these politicians have these averages viewpoints, too. people do taken to heart. i remember when news was news, not an hour show of some of these viewpoints. it is out of hand on both sides.

i pride might -- i find myself watching this stuff and i have to turn it off and watch someing else so i concur my head. thank you. est: the first consequence of your observation is, thank you for c-span. it makes platforms like this all the more precious in our democracy. it is a reality. everybody who watches this network knows it. people watch polarizing views and are more likely to have their own views becoming more extreme. juries that deliberate in like- mied groups will become more extreme after deliberations. if you spend all your time in a bubble just watching a liberal station or a conservative station, your views will become

more extreme. it makes the rhetoric more extreme. you cannot force people to watch c-span, although justice scalia has unleashed a suggestion. he said he opposes cameras in the courtroom. he thinks people would watch only snippets. if you have a federal marshal in every home that would force people to watch from beginning to end, he would be for it because then they would understand the entire argument. there could be some first amendment difficulties. host: not to mention how the gets paid for. -- men's and justice scalia you mentioned some justice scalia. what is it constitutional original the iism? guest: what an interesting

topic. constitutional or regionalism is the belief that it should be interpreted in light of the original understanding of its framers and ratify hours. justice scalia has been suggesting the universe might have to change if origil was we resurrected. there would be no death penalty restrictions. you could -- no restrictions on banning abortions. he said the framers of the 14th amendment did not think it protected sex discrimination or seal orientation. the court was wrong to ban both of those things. this article try to pass, what else would have to change? justice scalia said there are some things he would not resurrect. was approved, and

justice scalia said he did not want to bring back flogging. justice clarence thomas is willing to go further than scalia. both scalia and thomas bieve the first amendment did not agree to have a complete wall of separation between church and state. he did not want a ban between the established churches. this would allow unregulated religious expression. scalia said, i am not willing to have these decisions applying the decision to the state. i am not a nut. he said thomas was a little crazier than i am. thomas will overturn any decision he thinks is wrong and judge scalia would not do that. that article basically said that

conservative originalists -- many liberals said if you took history series a, many of these cases would point to progressive rather than conservative results. there could be protection for bans on sex disimination. i think our discussion this morning confirms ises likeun rights to sex discrimination. there are strong arguments on both sides. it begins the debate, but does not ended -- it does not ended. let's get to a couple of calls. lynchburg, virginia. independent. caller: it is sad that when tragedies happen, we start to judge sentenced a's n laws --

laws.n state's gun i personally grew up and new york where gun restrictions were more restrictive than they are here in virginia. i just think we need to start blaming the people who are responsible for the shootings instead of certain laws. st: thank you. barry is on the line, a republican. caller: i wanted to talk about one. point. it is one of those interesting topics that makes me -- or the suspect talks about mind control. it kind of makes you wonder with all the technology they have these days. a kind of makes you wonder if they are doing it.

you had pink floyd in the 1960's. the kind of makes you wonder -- maybe there should be mined patrolling. you never know what kind of people are out there -- maybe there should be mined patrolling. are they putting thoughts in people's minds and making them do things? guest: in response to the first call, arizona allows for weapons in bars, which is unusual. i did not suggest that law was responsible for this shooting. it is unlikely to be unregulated, an individual's right to bear arms. it would not apply to a permissive laws like arizona. mind control, there is another

interesting note in "the new york times." it is similar to a position someone describes himself as a judge and has the website talking about how the governments trying to control the schools. the schools determine the language and grammar and this is a form of mind control. host: 1 viewer tweaets -- where most markets before the public good? guest: states cannot past economic legislation unless they affect the public good and not individuals. those court abandoned after the progressive-career decisions which have the court striking down a minimum wage laws on the

grounds they didot affect the public good. that is an interesting claim that conservatives favor the market. the supreme court tossed business decision -- the supreme court's business decisions. 80% of the business decisions are unanimousr nearly so. these are not polarize liberal conservative 5-4 decisions. liberals shared a suspicion of regulation by litigation and tend to favor more business in just rather than economic populist views. maybe that is right. it is not a conservative court. host: we're reading that health care law might be winding up in the supreme court. guest: the great constitutional case of our day. will the supreme court strike down health care?

justice thomas has embraced the view that is so narrow that it might strike down health care as a form of economic inactivity rather than activity that cannot be regulated by congress. none of the other conservative justices have embraced thomas' view. when you think about the conservative justices, you can identify three different strands of conservatism. thomas v. tea party conservatism. -- thomas v. tea party conservatism. then there isudge alito and judge roberts, the pro-business conservatives who tend to side with the -- i do not think they are anti-health care. figuring out where they will come down and whether judge

scalia will come down is difficult. all the cross currents of conservative legal thought may needs in t >> and what that conversation on line at cspan video.org. the flag across the capitol and across the country is at half staff in honor of the victims and the memory of the victims of the saturday shooting incident -- in tucson. outside the office of gabrielle giffords, a look as people have come by to offer their good wishes andropov flowers. the house chaplain has been bipartisan. also has been set up in the cannon house office building, this is the rotunda. a guest book is being set up for

members and congressional staff and park visitors as well to sign in honor of gabrielle giffords. let's update you on our schedule. at 3:45 eastern, we will be live in export governor jan brewer for her address to the state legislature. that is live coverage at 3:45. the house is coming in this week but not any real legislative business. they are in at 2:00 tomorrow for a pro forma session and at 10:00 a.m. wednesday and the only legislative work is the resolution on their colleagues gabrielle giffords. live coverage of the house will be on c-span tomorrow and wednesday. the election was held yesterday in sudan. it is a referendum vote on independence for south sudan. the discussion from this morning runs about an hour and a half.

>> good morning, everyone. thank you for arousing yourself out of bed early and making it down here on a monday morning. we appreciate you coming along. i am sure there will be a few people drifted in as we get going. we will try to start now so get plenty of time for discussion. my name is richard l. downey. i and deputy director of the africa program at csis and i am grateful this morning before our panelists had a chance to tackle the sudan referendum. the monday morning, we get first crack at discussing the referendum which began over the weekend. as we sit here and discuss the

sudan this morning, the people of southern sudan are in the middle of making an historic decision. voting began yesterday's in the referendum on their future. , whether to remain part of sudan or secede and form their own nation. millions of people appear to have taken the opportunity so far in the first day and a half of obote. many of them were lining up outside polling stations hours before they opened, patiently awaiting their chance to play their part in settling the future direction of southern sudan. a few months ago, it seemed unlikely we were going to get to this point. , and at least on time. we have seen a big push in reston weeks by the international community -- we have seen a big push in recent weeks by the international community and even the people in sudan have made this process work. the results in recent weeks, we

have also seen public statements by politicians both north and south that have helped to reduce tensions and create an environment where we can be more confident that the process will go smoothly and the outcome will accurately reflect the will of this is a momentous time. i would like to acknowledge our representatives from the southern sudan. in getting to this point today, they have travelled a long way to decades of civil war, the peace agreement in 2005, and the subsequent six-year long process of making the deal work. we are glad that they can join us. we look forward to hearing them speak as well this morning. today, we're going to reflect upon how sudan has arrived at this moment.

mainly, we're going to look to the upcoming challenges. those who have worked on the referendum deserve credit for the fact it is taking place. it has taken place in a relatively orderly fashion. a referendum is not the end of the road. it is premature to say the job is done. in many ways, the real challenges lie ahead. that is particularly in the six months following the referendum. if the vote comes out in favor of secession, this will be the time when the negotiations begin in earnest on all the issues which will help determine relations between north and south for years to come. the people have been denied their chance to vote in a separate referendum on whether to remain part of the north or join the south. we have had reports of violence. during the past few days.

our speaker will discuss these big issues today and perhaps something about the role of the international community and the role they can play going forward. the united states, sudan's neighbors, and the african union as well. we're joined by two experienced analysts from the international crisis group. the organization has thoughtful analysis and well-researched reports that we find useful here on the africa program. on my left, we have the new africa program director. she oversees four different projects in africa covering central, southern, west, and the horn of africa. there 20 countries in all within these regions. she was previously director of the south africa office and deputy director of the africa program of the international center for transitional government -- transitional just this transitional justice.

we also have a special adviser who also takes part in the management of the working relations sudan for sudan a and the a.u. he is literally -- has literally just touched down from sudan this morning. he can give us the up to the minute perspective on what is going on now. no pressure there. i am going to hand it over to comfort the will give us an overview of the situation. for passing and over. we will then have plenty of time for questions and comments from all of you. thank you very much. comfort? >> thank you very much. i would like to start by wishing

you a happy new year and banking thank -- thanking the center for hosting the group of the day after the important referendum. i think is quite telling that the first job for the director is to come to washington and speak to the gathering here. that shows you the importance of washington in the question of the future of the new sudan. it is a pleasure and honor that we have been asked to come here this morning. it is very cold this morning. we have been announced to talk about a new dawn in africa. i will start off by saying and introducing the international crisis group to all of you. we are generally recognized as an independent, non-partisan organization that services or

provide an analysis to governments and international governmental bodies like the united nations, the european union, and the world bank. we worked closely with a number of organizations here in washington. we were founded about 15 years ago in 1995 as an independent non-governmental organization. there was an initiative by transatlantic figures who despaired over the international community's failure back in the 1990's on tragedies like somalia, rwanda, and bosnia, and even then sudan as well. we're known for the report we published. there are between 80 and 90 reports that we do. the sudan team could write a report within three months if given the leeway because of the

nature of the situation there. we also produce a crisis what bulletin that provides a monthly snapshot of what we consider to be the conflict alert countries at that moment. we have several advocacy offices. we have the washington office. we also have the office in brussels. the headquarters for the africa program is a strategically located in nairobi. as the africa director, we operate in 20 different countries across the continent. before i joined icg, and was also at the united nations mission in liberia as well. my colleague will go into deeper details on sudan. i want to acknowledge that this is a momentous moment in the history of the continent.

when you are looking for key moments and dates on the continent, when a reference 1957. ghana was the first independent country and on the continent after the end of colonization. one would also note the freedom of nelson mandela in 1990. there's also the end of apartheid in 1994. this is another historical moment on the continent. it is the birth of a new nation. the key concern for us is how the events will unfold. the voting for the referendum started yesterday on the question of self-determination. it may result in the independence. two decades of working to an end in 2005 with the peace agreement. now we are at a stage with the delicate peace will be tested. securing the referendum has been an international priority. the long-term security of the

region lies in the ability of the north and south to forge a relationship. if the situation goes well, it will see the smooth outcome of the referendum. if the results are respected by the government, we should see some significant progress made. this will provide a perfect platform for negotiations for post-referendum arrangements to go successfully. should the vote go poorly, we might also see readmission -- readmission reignition of violence. there would also be an impact on the region that would be quite great. at this point, the situation is fluid and uncertain in terms of how things will go. the situation is tricky and creating a new and independent southern sudan that has already

been dubbed as a pre-failed state. institutions and services are urgently need to be regenerated and rebuilt. this is still a fundamental issue. the future and arrangements on nationality and resources, wealth sharing, management of oil and water, currency, assets, security, and international treaties must be negotiated regardless of the referendum outcome. these were referenced in the report from last year. there are popular confrontations in some areas. we must congratulate others for their work in the last few weeks in bringing out the voter registration process. there will be a need for a cohesive statement from relevant

activists. we call upon the african union and key leading states on the continent to make the necessary statements in relation to sudan. the secretary general has been monitoring panel that needs to take a more public lead over the next few weeks. there must be careful monitoring and communication during this tense time for sudan. the real issue we need to avoid in the next three weeks is rumors and disinformation. these are triggers for instability. we cannot forget the role of the united states government. the u.s. incentives have been helpful. they have been limited given that the government is savvy enough to understand that if the congress is not affected, it

will not affect things on the table. the referendum contributes to the uncertainties about the future of north and south. it can be a zero sum game that sustains the conflict and affect the results. because of the deteriorating and then in darfur ongoing situation, insuring stability in the south and improving relations between north and south will be critical to solving the darfur problem. it is a critical time for africa. this will be a significant and game changing moment for the continent in the international community. we welcome the opportunity today to engage in a debate with you

here on the future and how to guarantee the stability in the north and south while we concentrate heavily on the future of sudan south -- south sudan without forgetting the future of the north as well. >> thank you very much. >> good morning. she has impressed me very much. she says that she is new, but her speech does not sound like she is new. i think she did half of what i am supposed to do. she already did half of my briefing. that makes things easier to me. i like to start by saying thank

you for inviting us to this event. it is a difficult moment for me as a sudanese. if i remove my hat for -- from icg at the end, i am sudanese. i am very happy for some sudanese to go for this important moment. if i am on that side, i will be happy and jubilant for a lot of reasons. also to see the map that we can draw now by heart. i do not know how we will drop it in six months' time. the south border will be difficult to draw. it is a sad moment for us. for me, it is not a surprise that sudan is going through

this. before talking about the challenges, i think one of the main things with the context is that the two parties seem to have failed to implement the peace agreement. it is a mistake of them for them to fail to implement a comprehensive peace agreement. i do not only call the two parties on this that they could not maintain the unity. if we want to do that, we can go up to the government that they took control over from. the responsibility goes from there. all of the government's failed. on the cpa, it had two important principles. the was democracy and the reconciliation process. hopefully the democratic transition and reconciliation

will happen. there will be self-determination that makes unity attractive for both sides. those things need to happen. for a lot of political reasons, and as we know the benchmark was the elections, it will also happen in the interim time. it could take another three years of the interim time to force the legal arrangements been done and then work in those three years to make sure that unity is going to be made attractive. elections have been six or eight months, just before the end of the interim time. three years went into eight months for a lot of reasons.

we wanted to augment the influence of control and those who remain in power. that is why a thing they did not want the elections to happen on time. they have failed in these three principles. the democratic peace and reconciliation. the only success is that they reached together. for me when i look into the comprehensive peace agreement, it became a cease-fire for six years. it was a cease-fire for six years. after six years, the question is whether we can maintain the cease-fire. the other reason is also, and i want to draw specifically on the islamists, when they took power

in 1989, they have their own vision for sudan. unfortunately, the region could not support the preference. they were seen as minority groups rather than groups in their own right. they wanted to maintain power. cpa reduced their power from 100% to 52%. the other political parties got the remaining part. in these six years, they saw they continued to maintain power rather than looking in to pluralism. that is one of the problems that led the cpa to fail. separation is a logical outcome. i do not think unity will be an outcome. this is sadness always in sudan. i hope someday it turns into

some happiness. the challenges are immense. let me focus on a few things. the positive referendum issues have been covered. the referendum itself is a procedure. it is happening in an environment where there is serious tension. there is volatility. this that is where the procedure is happening. there is no full agreement on any positive referendum issues. there is a military buildup along the borders. there is a recent economic import -- economic embargo on the south. in the last few weeks, it is not a government of national unity that is making the decisions.

let's make a distinction. sometimes the president talks on behalf of the government in terms of unity. he is not actually talking on the half of the splm. he made the decision that 20% of the southerners were to go home after secession. he refused to give the sudanese people citizenship unless there is a political arrangement. there are 24,000 southern sudanese students in universities in khartoum. what will happen to them if you send them home? we note there are a lot of people going back and forth to south sudan better in a dire situation as there is no issue monetary assistance -- humanitarian assistance.

recently, there are transactions of vital goods that have been blocked. they got the message not to transfer things into south sudan. the topic of oil has become a big problem. wilt shot up to 750 sudanese currency. it is over 100%. these are policies better not favorable for a mutual and good relationship between the north and south. this sort of direction will

reflect negatively on the communities along the border of 1956. if the splm keep the policies of blocking a capital that spent nine months along the border of 1956, that is their livelihood for the last 500 years. if they block that, it will be very serious for those people. they are very serious constituency of sudan. these communities along the border are highly militarized. the people are highly militarized. they have been used and abused during the wars for militias,

popular defense forces, and there were like the front line of the regime in the last 20 years in the war against the south. these kind of policies have made it difficult for people to describe. it is a sort of an ethnic cleansing. that is debatable because that is a legal term. but when you deny your own citizens a right in the constitution, it says that sudan allows dual citizenship. sudanese can have citizenship and other countries. even the president does not have the right to remove a

citizenship by nationalization. international law also does not accept that. i think is important for the north and south to secure a good relationship to mitigate the consequences of the political separation. they need to focus on the economic and financial union and unity and working on the common market. the direction and approach appears to be a very difficult one. we're talking about a state based on ethnic and religious hegemony. the situation has not yet been resolved. they are part of the north. one of the main challenges in the coming six months is how to avoid the conditions that could

lead to confrontation along the borders. unfortunately, both parties are creating the conditions that could aggravate the situation along the borders. they are actively mobilizing along the borders to rejoin the popular defense forces on the pretext that they will lose their interests or their interest will be jeopardized by south sudan. if things do not go well and the results are not accepted, separation will happen. the time will be full of violence in my opinion. the aggravation of the relationships of the communities along the border will aggravate the situation. that can trigger a war between communities that will drive the

north and south into conflict that could rearrange the whole process. it would be very difficult for the two parties to conclude the cpa. in the last six months, they've failed to find solutions to the referendum issues. there is a framework presented by the african union that includes principles but no solutions. it is important to this-the issue of citizenship -- to discuss the issue of citizenship and issues that affect the day- to-day lives of people along the border. if the issue of citizenship is resolved in the interest of both, but it could open political dialogue to reach an agreement on the referendum issues. that is an entry for the positive referendum. then there is no need for the

huge military buildup that we see now along the borders on north and south. it is very serious. the second challenge and want to draw attention to is called the blue light. they have forces inside south sudan and over the borders of 1956. these are military forces that fought for years. the fault for their rights. they fought for their rights and a comprehensive peace agreement. it is a protocol that is supposed to go through a public presentation based on democratic elections and then to negotiate. when they agree, the protocol

becomes a final peace agreement of the blue line. at the moment, it is not a binding peace agreement. they have to go through the public consultation. recently, the national congress party asked the splm to withdraw forces out of 1956. they cannot come over the 1956 borders. they asked for the south to redeploy of the borders of 1956. they refused on the blue line. they will refuse after that. and no public consultation -- they know that a public consultation in a constitutional vacuum is not going to bring the

final solution that is acceptable to the people on the blue line. we know it was supposed to be happening in the context of the time with democratic elections. people are elected in a fair and free election. then there is the public consultation that is premised on the framework of citizenship. now that is in sort of a vacuum of the framework. you can imagine that if the public consultation will bring any lasting solution, that is why they want to keep their forces. they know there is a future challenge. i think this is a very big conference. recently south sudan agreed president basheer.

i think it is important. but the risk here is that ncp could disagree or change their mind from here until then. what happens if they try to move their forces up to their borders of 1956 with not recognizing the specifics of blue nile. that's one the serious risk. the cease fire agreement which is in southern kurdufan, if you remember, the geneva cease fire. there it is still valid. it might be debatable if it's valid or not. but there's an agreement. but the cpa did not specify anything for this information for the forces in the blue nile. i think one the channels now is the two parties, they need to renew the cease fire agreement

in southern kurdufan, and looking at how to maintain the cease fire in blue nile. i think this is one the very big challenges in the coming period. and that's the role of the international community, and it's very important and look into the public confrontation cannot happen in a constitution and vacuum. because the constitution of sudan is going to end in july 2011, after that what is the constitution? after that, the public is going to work on what? that's why a lot of people argue that the constitutional arrangements have to be debated before the public consultation. and therefore, until this happens, the cease fire needs to maintained in southern kurdufan and blue mile. -- blue nile. people focus on abyei and they don't see this point. as we know that, all the time

ncp wants to weaken it's part, because it's important to negotiate with a weakened splm. now with the referendum going, i think it's not subsiding. because even the southerners who are opposing the splm now at the moment, they can't go around the current. the referendum is going in new country so even the opposition parties, in south sudan, they need to be careful. at the moment, there is no leverages to use and so on. splm is becoming more stronger. but they might get weaker along the line. and as we are going to talk about it in the challenges of south sudan. so in general, instability in south sudan is not -- but the political stability in south sudan cannot happen unless there is a stability north sudan. and if this is a stable

advisory. if the south hits one area, the north will be able to hurt it and vice versa. it's important there is stability in both, and if people want the stability in the south to progress, they have to seek the stability in the north. and i think pluralism is the direction. for both south sudan and north, given the diversity of cultures and regional interest. it appears the splm is aware of this. they had the south of all parties on the conference, they agreed during the framework, it is still on paper. it needs to be implemented after the referendum, and the referendum of the party is over, so they move towards pluralism. but the problem in the north even if that president basheer recently said he's calling for the national unity.

it's a calling. but looking into the last 20 years and the six years, can we imagine that you had our 100% cpa to 28% or 48% of that and now there is a possibility to go to 100%. they are going to go for the national government to reduce your power to what? and that's a very big question. it's going to create the reasons for continue struggle in the north of sudan. and this, of course,, -- an approach like this for the no option for darfur. the dialogue as we see cairo agreement, old agreements, sudan is governed by so many agreements, sudan, agreements, there are about seven or eight

of them. they didn't go anywhere, includes cpa which became the cease fire. the option is very clear. the darfurians picked it up. the darfur is not going anywhere. i think they did. if people lose the opportunity to go to the boxes to change the situation, they will go for the boxes of ammunition rather than the books of elections to change the situation. now at moment, the south sudan is -- succession is a reality. and the government will not oppose it. and the acceptance of the north of the referendum hopefully it will reflect in the north and south, and then the south will start to deal positively with the north and the north to try to deal responsibly with the pending issues. but, of course, that will be different dice if one or within

one the two take a different approach. so if people use the secession of south sudan for regime change, some political forces think so, including people from outside, that is very dangerous for sudan. i think people need to be thinking very seriously about these. and it shouldn't be a step for a regime change. and a lot of people argue that in the recent america international community, market twist the arm of the ncp to accept the referendum and the results. and this perhaps encouraged the opposition party, darfur rebel groups to say now this is the time since the bull has started to fall, it is time to take out

the knife and kill the bull. i think that's very dangerous for sudan and stability, not only for sudan, but the southern is highly mobilized, and it is highly mobilized and it will not be easy for them to let go. what is important here is to force a strategic cooperation and relationship between the north and south, to look into the constitutional arrangements that i talked about it and how can the north and south address this issue of pluralism, but also for the north if there's no discussion about the constitutional arrangement, the public consultation will not be resolved, the conflict in darfur is not going to be resolved. you know that doha, i don't know where it is. i mean if somebody could tell me what is a doha now? but there is an agreement. but that agreement if this is a

genuine solution to darfur, then people have to address the cardinal issue in sudan, governance. the issue of the center. and as i say, that will not be easy issue that the ncp will accommodate. that's why it is very difficult to go for vice president for the region, for the regional government and so on, because also the arabic tribes in darfur are seriously conflict, seriously conflicted, they want more districts and more states in southern darfur. now we know there is three. people are arguing for another three extra. because the idea -- the thinking of the division and so on that actually led to the conflict in darfur during the beginning of this regime when they were trying to put the pluralism

dividing darfur into the districts and borders between the ownership of the tribe was divided with the others. with so many districts, everybody started to want to have the control of that district which then led to the tribal differences. and that was the beginning of their conflict in darfur. it started from the beginning of the '90s, because there is historical beginnings. but that was the key point. i agree with many people that darfur needs to be resolved from the bottom up. definitely darfur dialogue is extremely important. it is burg djibouti, and now darfur, they talked about it the darfur forum. now the government came out with a new strategy in darfur, let's find the solution for doha, and bring it to darfur. in principal and theory, it is

good. but if we look at it conceptually, it is very questionable. and i don't think it is a strategy that it will bring a lasting peace in darfur. because if it is to bring lasting peace in darfur, then the elections could have, should have been a fair elections where they were presented in the counsel of the three states are two representatives. now it is a strategy put by the government to be discussed by the legislative states of the council of the three states which is actually the government, but the three governments, which is actually the government, but the tribal leaders who are corrupted by the government. so this is the government. it is the government with the government with the government, i don't know where the rebel groups and the rest of the darfur people. i think the african union high implementation plan now they are advocating for let's go since doha is not going.

i think the americans have the approach that we go for the darfur forum, i think it is a grave mistake and will deepen the crisis in darfur. and so i suggest let me make it short and just go over very quickly on the -- on south sudan before i go. for south sudan, the issues is the challenges are immense. as we know that now, the party will continue in couple of days until july 9. where then they became independent, and even the party will become more stronger, may finish maybe a dent of the year. there is one year of party jubilation and so on. but they need to look into the political instability.

splm is not stable, it's not professional army. so the issue of the security sector is a very big challenge for the splm. this is what political stability, inclusiveness, what they agree to is the south sudanese political parties. they need to force. they need really to implement it. first of all, the interim south sudan constitutional is ending in july, they need another interim or draft constitution for south sudan. that will be the law of the land. i think that is the first step. the ddr, disarmament of soldiers and so on, that's something that's not going very well. there's a lot of arms, a lot of militias, the disarmaments didn't go well. if you look that it comes actually from the oil revenue

from the north. half of it is going through this big, big security sector. army and so on, nothing going for social services and so on. they need to reduce that army so that some of this money money -t how they are going to do the integration and demobilization for people to do what in south sudan. even though coming from the north, we know there's nothing for them at the moment. so imagine the challenges in front of them. of course, they have to address the issues of accountability very seriously. corruption is very high. and i think during the jubilation period, they will have to be careful thinking of how they are going to use the money. if they agree with the government of the north or the ncp on the government of oil and so on. those issues are very, very serious. i'm not going to go into the

details, as you all know, nothing has been agreed. but i think citizenship is very important. what i really see is that the way forward here and that brings me to the regional and international players is that if we look into the region, egypt, libia, what is their interest on sudan? they want stability. i think so. the issue of the nile waters that people talk a lot about as far as egypt is concerned, that is a bigger issue. the secession is not going to affect it any my opinion. south sudan will take it's share from north, from sudan's 15 or 18 billion cuber -- cubic meters. and still the corporation framework that's signed by five or six countries is going to be an issue. i don't see how south sudan is going to affect this for a moment. egypt has been very good with south sudan all the way. actually working to make unify

more attractive than the north. for utopia, it's a serious concern. they have borders with both countries, north and south. i think they are really looking for stability. but, of course, kenya, uganda, they invest on the cpa, now they are reaping the benefit of their hard work on the cpa. and that business people, and they want the stability and, of course, they don't mind the secession because that will actually reaping their investment and reaping the investments of the last six years and so on. but, of course, people are generally concerned about the islamic discourse that the ncp might take. in my opinion, ncp became the middle-class business people looking into their interest of work, wealth, money, more than becoming, you know, islamic and

iranian regime. they are different in concept and principal. now the recent called to go back to sudan and beating of the all of that is addressing the internal twenty sis -- internal constituencies to keep them together. they are asking questions ab the leadership. it is not really solid. i think that call to go back is an important call to maintain the unity of islamic. you know that division happened in 2000 when they left, and the rest left, and it is divided. i think it will be a problem. even for the rest of sudan. and but it's still -- they have a very big challenge for the ncp to have the decision. because decision now is in the hand of five or six. the idea of sharia and the islamic course and process now

it is very highly centralized. at the moment there's no shura. that will weaken the islamic behind the ncp. they need to deal with them. i question the role of the regime change. so there's a lot of countries in the region, utopia, they think the region change shouldn't be the way to go forward. it's hard to maintain the stability because ncp has the stability of moneys, weapons, and for the north, ncp has the monopoly. you need to deal with the ncp and the major players and how to get strategic cooperation between the north and south and final political stability, political stability in the north cannot happen unless there is an openness for political dialogue

for resolution of south sudan -- southern kurdufan and darfur, and resolution in darfur. i say this -- this cannot happen if there's no serious rethinking of the political system in the center and the restructuring of the state. maybe something is saying that this person is talking on behalf of the splm or the opposition party. and i don't know if anybody of the presenters of the government of sudan might say this person just read a couple of newspapers of opposition. but it is a reality. if that doesn't happen, i think sudan is going to face serious challenges. finally, north thinks that in sudan, south sudan, we can see there's a lot of challenges. it might take time. i think so. but the problems in the north might not take time. where we see now the referendum is finished, everything is going very well. resulted maybe accepted, abyei

might be the problem, and so on. but the problems in the north are going to erupt faster than in the south, and that might jeopardize the situation in south sudan. that's what i want to say. thank you. and we have a discussion more. [applause] [applause] >> thanks very much, for your comprehensive analysis of the picture, the very confused picture right now. i'm going to open the floor up to questions in a moment. perhaps first of all, i could ask you to think about -- let's look at the very short-term picture and the actual referendum process itself and perhaps the role of the international community in that process. we're told it's going to take -- obviously if everything takes place over the whole of this week, the final outcome won't be known for several weeks after that.

we might have some results trickling out, i suppose, in the mean time, all of which creates conditions for uncertainty and perhaps instability. and perhaps the worse-case scenario, the outcome itself might be contested. face with the potential pitch, what's the role for the international community, do you think? and how -- particularly how should it be coordinating it's response if the outcome is somewhat uncertain or is challenged by perhaps the north or one of the other parties? who should be taking the lead in this process? while you think about that, i'll maybe take a couple of questions from the floor. please identify yourself, and microphones should be on the way around. up in the front here please. >> thank you. that was a great talk. i'm doug brooks with the international stability operation association, and to follow up on that question.

specifically with the united nations, what should they be doing at this conture right now? >> we'll take one more. gentleman in the middle there. >> thank you. i listened to priorities about the recent involvement from the ncp side. we all know that the ncp is reluctant to do any arraignments to the referendum, and even accepting the referendum results. the recent that the ncp started to publicly say and accept the results and be recognized, why do you think the southern shift? the second question, can you elaborate more about the african

union implementation between doing the negotiation between north and south? thank you. >> okay. he wants to tackle some or all of those questions? >> don't ask me challenges questions. [laughter] >> i want just to say hello to my friend there. it's good to hear you. i think that all of the international communities is extremely important for the results. the observers of the european union, the center, a lot of observers, plus the u.n. has a special place separate because they are working on the logistics and the technical support. so it cannot be the body that --

or to make a statement on their process. because it is part of it. that's why there is the part led by president in kabul, former president, what is important for the international community and especially the role of the u.n. plus other observers and monitors to keep on the day day-to-day basis to the sudanese, on the international community, how is it going? i think this is very important. not to leave it until the end where then the results are going to be contested. in terms of contestation, i don't think so. if the ncp wanted to contest it, they could have derailed the whole process. some of the grounds second to the constitutional court, it

could have derailed or they could have. i think thanks to the ncp president, and president bashir, he didn't want to stop that. he said that in a speech. he wants the referendum to go. they are going to access the results. of course, the petitions are there. still it can appear in the coming days. it might surprise us. but i doubt and i hope not. but the international community, i think, is very important. especially the part coming together on the day-to-day basis. how is it going? if there's anything to mention it so then the results is not contested. :

>> so how to get that within the parties of the organization itself. the second thing is address the issues of the economy, economic situation. to build up reserves and also to negotiate the referendum to negotiate other things as we know. the issues of sudan, relation with the u.s. and all the issues

in between, the terrorists and the other functions and so on. and also the issue of the icc. so to buy time, and also issues, but it doesn't go anywhere. some counts have been provided that was very, very supportive. i don't think it speaks well. i don't think so. any thinking of another afghan, iraq or sudan doesn't work. so i don't think, but that was one of the reasons that they start to think that, okay, these issues is very difficult to delay, delay, to delay because of the region is going to go against, even they were going to lose leg of african -- lose the league of african nations.

i think more they decided, more than pressures. they think more intelligent regions that may be beside let it go, let it happen and then we deal with the consequences. >> thank you. comfort, is there anything you would like to say? in that case, we have another round of questions. anyone up front here? microphone is on its way. >> i am with csis. i must confess that i think there is pretty gross ignorance in this town about sudanese politics. and little understanding of problems of khartoum. i was interested in what you said, and i would like to issue a little further about what is

probably the fundamental problems from the perspective of resident bush year. and that is actually the divisions within the ncp. there is a tendency to see the ncp as a uniform block, and i think that's fundamentally wrong. there are serious fault lines. and that islam, as an ideology, is very attractive to many northern sudanese, not only in the nile valley but in the periphery as well in the 1990s. and that the islamists agenda still has many supporters who may well be mobilized by what they see is perhaps a compromise, a sellout, over the independence of southern sudan.

and 200 years of sudanese history. so my question is, what do you see as the strains and the pressures from the islamists within the ncp, and, indeed, without the ncp, those who followed to opposition? how potent a challenge are they? obviously par four, -- the door for, the blue nile are issues. but in the khartoum i would be much more worried about these guys. and what they are likely to do. and i think the international community does not pay attention to this problem that the regime faces. so i would be interested today in what you think about that. >> thank you. second question right at the back. >> i am jeremy. a question about the

post-referendum reconstruction of the south. there's been a lot of criticism about world bank, the u.n. and ngo community in terms of some of the department activities that have occurred in the south and that the limited success in going beyond just humanitarian service provision to get to actual development and reconstruction. and some recent criticism, particularly at the world bank. with the government of south sudan, as you pointed out, still spending upwards of 90% of its revenues on security sector issues, not able to invest very much in social service provision, what do you see as the prospects were actually getting beyond a paradigm assorted ngo provided services and getting to the point where the government of south sudan has both adequate revenue and adequate capacity, and will to start providing the services,

funding the services? and what do you see as a donor structure aren't international funding structure that would be more effective than we've seen so far in getting both the aid community and the government of south sudan to that point? >> okay, and let's take one more question. the gentleman at the front here. >> yes, marcus, u.s. department of state. i wanted to follow-up on part part of the question of the second gentlemen. i was a little bit surprised, by help pessimistic you were by the framework that the au had brokered. when moon was back here and spoke to a group, he was far more upbeat in terms of saying he felt that although no framework agreement had been signed, that there have been large agreement on major issues,

including areas such as wall sharing. he cited citizenship and abyei as being the two outstanding areas, but he was upbeat. for example, on demarcation. he uses the 80% figure in terms of agreement. the question really is how you view the au with all of this, particularly on north-south, specifically your thoughts on the role who serve has emerged as both the south and for door for in major role -- and darfur for a major role. at how do you think in a general will continue after the referendum? thank you. >> and let's also, we have representative from the government of sudan, deputy chief of mission. what you like to say something as well? >> thank you.

thank you for -- sometimes your views might be having, you're onerous is on some views that might give -- >> is the microphone on? >> i would like for us to in this critical time of sudan in history, there is both points which i think it might be raised on this. that political side of this historical moment, there is a friend which is recognize an outcome is expected to be recognized by the whole parties. the president said this, and vice president commented.

at this moment also people should view optimistic about, before they were very worried about this critical moment, how it goes. positive direction of recognition of this time, the piece of evidence on this time should be also recognized. there's also some worries, rumors and disinformation about this critical moment also here and there. but the challenge, this critical time, the challenge of the outcome which is coming in the coming weeks, and the worries about this new state might be in confrontation with the north.

i think the visit of the president said it clear, the outcome we be recognized. the challenge of issues regarding the citizenship, the security arrangements between the two in the area, abyei, and many other legal issues which you've mentioned here. the two sides now are negotiating. thabo mbeki is working with group, and the two sides now both are working on discussing these issues. vice president from center, they are negotiating. they are tabling these issues one by one.

and one of the things mentioned, optimistic about many issues that we so go forward. but what you hear of it, now people are optimistic that some of the overcoming the coming times. is this recognized, also did another satisfaction would be if the people of the citizenship also agreed upon, the constitutional vacuum which you mentioned, that there is now legislative in the south and the north. election come with parliament, regional parliament. and this issues also be discussed. of course, the other political, political parties as president

said, that brought government, discussion with political. but also regional and central parliament that would be in power. but this post-referendum issues is now under negotiations. locally between cut inside the country with the north and the south. these comments are waiting in abyei and now committee for us to get up to come with, there are many other challenges that you mentioned here, people know they are working. there's a delay also when the disagreement, so there is delay of, on, this is a challenge.

but i think the people starting to flow within a week will give, people are optimistic, are optimistic about the results. and how the people would respond to this would make the peace process, and not to go backwards. what i want to conclude, i think that the views which he shared, i think of it -- i hope that the people would adhere optimistic about themselves. president said and vice president also said it. i think there might be some good

in the whole peace process. even in the north and the south. i hope that many will come, the other side, the politics, the action. there will be peace in the coming time and we'll hear more cooperation between the north and the south in the coming times. spirit thanks for that, for those remarks. any responses to the questions we had, more details from ncp, internal dynamics and strength of the islamists, questioned long-term development in the south, whether the south will become economically self-sufficient, and then a question from the state department representative about are you being a little too gloomy about the efforts of the high level implementation and the post-referendum negotiations. >> thank you. let me start with the question

from the state department, which is a little bit also touching on my brother here from the embassy. actually i'm a little bit worried for what you say, because that's actually, to problems in sudan. but insurance of the au hiv, i'm not optimistic. the framework is very important but what i've seen, this is what happened so far. and it remembers the decision was taken in september last year when presented the report, the peace and security council mandated that a partner to become a high and limitation parliamentary and they did an excellent. much has been achieved and i think the framework itself, including the principles he is

very important come and what important now is that those principles be communicated to people because a lot of people don't know actually what is in this and what were in those principles. for example, the communities at the ground where now the recent active mobilization of the pdf of the tribes, along the borders, is that if that is communicated that there is no need, because issues are going to be resolved as my colleague here said. there is no need for military buildup. no need for -- on the contrary, efforts to go for something positive, something else. so those principles need to come. but still the referendum issues need to be discussed in the coming six months. and i think the african supported by the international community partners and so one is

key, and is actually important that i think we saw that. but the point is that unfortunately it is not mandated. they cannot bring the two parties to say come here, i need to discuss with you. there to facilitate the two parties to discuss and when they want, they can ask and they get to come at that process to give support. i don't mean here to imply they need to be mandated, but i think in the coming period the african union needs president to push these two parties to seek and discuss the referenda. i know there is this community, committees and so on, discussing a positive -- possible referenda. no discussion on referendum issues unless it is resolved. this is somebody that it sits

next to the president. so anyhow, but still it is a very, very important, and so i don't pessimistic, but if there is strategic relationship of which i alluded to in my presentation, if the two parties doesn't agree on what kind of form in principle, what is the former relationship? is a union? political separation but going into a union in terms of economics, the currency will be the same not only for -- will agree. the issue of citizenship we agreed. everybody remains if you want to be here or there, no need to keep the 24,000, no need to push the seventh or so one. so that is negative. it is not a positive. it is started by one of the senior ncp people saying not a

single injection for southern. that is the government of national. but i don't think, it is ncp government. then president bashir says no, no, no. we will protect with this, we will do that. and then comes, he merely followed by 20% have to go out from the secret service, consider them as foreigners. what kind of policy is this? i don't know how to describe it. if this is a policy for mutual and peaceful, you are setting a tone for very difficult confrontation on the positive round of discussions. >> i agree that there is a fundamental problems. and it's very difficult to shift from humanitarian assistance into, i have been in this field

for a couple of years, and before coming to crisis group. and definitely people need to shift the assistance into long-term, to adjust the pipeline of the human intelligence assistance and to get doctors for long-term so that it doesn't go out. and that's always the debate of that continuum. but for the south, get their independence, become a member of the united nation, the ss by their imf and in recommend world bank to give money for development, which is going to include employment. at the employment -- at this moment, there is no money for major development that can create jobs in south sudan. so the priority is to work with the security sector, to reform the security sector, to continue

building the institutions. y. fostering date can political consensus to accommodate those against the splm, so that when they are finished at least they can have a common ground where they can all move together. first, they need to address the issue of identity. a lot of people think seven is homogeneous. there is no south sudan identity i am again, when it becomes to elections, everybody goes to the constituency. that's why the issue top of some of the southerners say why do we need just because of that? small thing. but the people, the leaders at the top of the splm who are from abyei said no, no, no. this is very important. because imagining two years in south sudan, people say go to

your constituents who are you? where are you from? if you say i am from part of the north, who will vote for you to be a member of the government? you go to your constituencies on the other side. so that's why they won't be able to remain a part. so there is the issue of identity. they need to work. and the beginning of it is to set up the rule of the law. the rule of the land. where they need to agree and to put the political system for the inclusiveness, and then definitely if that is their we will be able to create the conditions from shifting from humanitarian assistance into a long-term rehabilitation, reconstruction, which is, it's going to be ideologically of course, on what ideology is the splm or is it an inclusive government to put that framework for reconstruction of government. definitely it is a challenge. finally, i come to the question

i think which is a very serious question, and the issue of the islamists. and i agree with you, it's not the uniform block and not a lot of deep understanding to the issues of sudan. people tend to think of ncp, south sudan. but if you want to really understand you have to go deeper into the islamic movement, then you'll understand why the cpa, it happened during the discussions, or maybe do a little, when there's possibility of fear agenda of sudan was lost and it was lost during the agreement. when the islamists didn't go on the agreement. that was the theory, for real united sudan, after the regime. islamists did want to go. then it was a transition come

into the was an election. all forces in sudan agreed to postpone the elections, but a constitutional conference to discuss about the constitution of sudan. the nature of the sudan a state and to abolish the september laws which is the sharia laws when they joined bashir. islamists refused, and when, imagine, when one became the prime minister, he formed maybe about five government, three of them are of them with islamists, brought back the islamists and that is where pdf and all these, splm was about to take. but when the international agreed support for splm, they were about to take these, that became a problem. and that's when they brought the military, route the message to prime minister singh either do something or we will change the regime. so they made the agreement.

they agreed on the agreement to go and implement outcomes. they agreed. and that, abolishing, not abolishing but to suspend the sharia laws come except to sudan as an array big, african but not an islamic. and to go for the constitutional review conference to review and put these constitution form an interim government with splm, political parties and all the civil society, the trade unions and so one can't add including the traditional. they all agreed. so after pressure, they moved from power from the government. he formed again i government.

and he agreed finally on the constitutional conference. that would have led, but who then, really quickly, made it coup? they did want that to happen. they removed a democratic. no, close the door for democratic conference and we know what happened. so that's why halfway the idea is to create that islamic country with the islamic organization of the islamic movement that, you know, how do i say, that it into that thinking, solidify the organization. of course, creating a system related to all the tribes and groups and so on. and then the rumors of the

state. and then to go for federalism and decentralized, but they took it wrong. the military was supposed to move after three months, three years. they disguised military, the islamists into military form with office. it was supposed to move after three years. that's what they agreed, to make the coup, put them in prison to nobody knows he has an islamist. but they were hiding. they were doing that. they were driving the whole thing. and then the military took a three years come and to start to put the constitution of sudan, federalism, decentralization. the military refused. they like it because they have been three years there. so they refused. so okay, president bashir become the president. his vice president who died

later, forgot his name, vice president. and then the military became the power. president bashir remained and that continued until today. and so they had discussion and division until when the agreed on the federalism, and the decentralization system. and also that the army could go back to the civilians to will and to go back to the shura. it is divided. and so what remains now with ncp, it was always a problem, always a problem when oil is discovered. and so that became a problem. and so when the money start to float up, the system became so strong, and it bit by bit that system, it went into ethnic pattern is -- patronization. you will see whose type is this, to the government, to the

position, to everything. they clinched the secret services, the army. they fired the generals, the police, the civil service and everything. that's a system now very serious. but now with the cessation coming of course people are asking questions for coup so. you ruled for 20 years. you did a couple of agreements. the cpa came. you didn't maintain sudan and you want to continue ruling sudan. on what basis? on what basis do you want to continue growing sudan? so the ncp have got a question. the present versus the future of the party and the political party. the party versus the future of sudan and its affiliates again. also the stability of finding solution to darfur. and also the president versus the whole future of sudan.

between brackets and issues, those three fundamental questions need to be asked. we think islamists, if they want to maintain, to continue as a viable political party to play, that's why there is a those divisions within even the current. and i can go further ,-com,-com ma but i can see eyes looking at me. but it's a major, major question so that's what i question here talking about the present so on. i understand i'm cities. it is about what are the key issues you want to do in the coming very. possible referendum issues you have to address the full of the other partners to become state. that state has to be separated from the party. are they willing to do that? if not, that will continue to struggle to find a viable lasting peace in sudan. spectacular much. i'm very reluctant to stop in mid-flow.

i very much appreciate your analysis. i'm afraid we're pretty much out of time now. do you have anything to add? fair enough. look, i would just like to thank you, both of you, for coming and going to take part on what is a momentous time right now with a referendum on the way. and i'm sure you'll agree, despite the notes of some gloominess and pessimism that sudan has come a long way to this point at least. but, of course, as the challenges, big challenges lie ahead, both internally within north and south, and how these two areas, if they are two separate, manage the diverse people, the interest within their borders. so please join me in thanking our guests fouad hikmat and comfort ero. [applause] spin and thanks for your interest and we will be following the referendum and

beyond and you can find more information on our website. they will be putting out a new report on sudan shortly within -- [inaudible] >> there is a report that someone is working on it. actually on the big question. islamists and the future of sudan after secession. >> and a live look at the capitol, and where flags are flying at half mast to remember

how those killed and wounded this weekend in arizona. speaker of the house, john boehner, has postponed business for this week. and the congresswoman's office -- people have been coming by throughout the day to visit and pay respects. they have set up a guest book so that people can come by and sign and recognize the congresswoman, the remains in critical condition. we had a briefing earlier, and we will show that to you shortly, in just a moment, the briefing from earlier. there were signs of improvement. later on today, at 3:15 p.m., the governor of arizona will speak to the state legislature. and we will have that for you live. it was supposed to be a state of

the state address, but instead, she will focus on arizona in service, policemen, firemen, etc. president obama met with- france's president nicolas sarkozy earlier today. >> and i am very grateful to have president nicolas sarkozy here. i want to take just a moment to make a comment about the situation in tucson, arizona. all of us are still in shock

over what took place. the congresswoman is fighting to recover. families are absorbing their losses. a criminal investigation is ongoing, and no doubt charges will be brought against the perpetrator of this heinous crime. how i think it is important for us to also focus and go on the extraordinary courage that was shown during the course of these events. a 20-year-old college student ran into the line of fire to rescue his boss. helped securenpowe the ammunition that might have caused even more damage. citizens wrestled down and the gunmean. part of what the speaks to is the best of america. even the face of such mindless violence.

and so, in the coming days, we're going to have a lot of time to reflect. right now, the main thing we're doing is to offer a our thoughts and prayers to those that have then impacted, making sure we are pulling together as a people and does a country. as president of the united states, but also as a father, obviously, i am spending a lot of time just thinking about the families and reaching out to them. , i want to say to presidents kozy that i offero

my condolences to him as well. they recently had two citizens gun down. we have cooperated over the last several years on dealing with a global economic crisis. we of dealt with the challenges of terrorism and a range of geopolitical issues from the middle east, to iran, to afghanistan, and i have always found an nicolas sarkozy to be an outstanding friend to the american people. we spent the initial part of this meeting discussing the g-8 anti-20 agenda -- and a g-20

agenda. while we are in the process of recovering from the economic disasters we went through, we are not where we want to be. too many people are still out of work. too many businesses are still having problems getting financing. paris still too many imbalances in the world economy -- there are still too many imbalances in the world economy that are hindering prospects. in our discussions, and with the french in the lead at both the g-eight and g-20 this year, we discussed how to best deliver reforms andf follow through the will deliver the best results to people around the globe. after this press appearance, we will be having lunch. and during that time, we will be discussing issues on which there has been extraordinarily close cooperation.

obviously, the french are one of our closest allies. french troops have and sacrificing a alongside -- and then that sacrificing alongside american forces in afghanistan -- been sacrificing alongside american forces in afghanistan. we are going to be discussing lisbon as well as nuclear proliferation in iran. we will discuss the middle east, where we share a deep and abiding belief in the need for a two-state solution. we will be discussing issues

lipophilic -- issues like the where democracy is being threatened. in sudan, as so much is at stake. violence is being threatened. ful e could be a peace faux p transition that could lead to a better life for the people in both northern and southern sudan. we are also discussing a special tribunal and making sure that justice is served. i just want to say how much i appreciate not only the friendship of nicolas sarkozy, but also his leadership.

i also want to point out a last time that he and his lovely wife were year, and we took them to bowl.and chili i cannot say that the same food will be on at the menu, but i hope the you find the hospitality outstanding nonetheless. again, on behalf of the american people we wish to express our friendship and welcome to you. >> [speaking french] >> by first of all one to say into -- i first of all want to say to the american people how deeply moved and upset the eight

french people are but what happened in arizona -- the french people are by what happened in arizona. . i also want to thank president obama for his expression of solidarity with the french people in light of the loss and what we have felt, after the killing of two young frenchman killed and barbaric fashion by terrorists.

and both the u.s. and france are determined to stand firm as allies on the issue of terrorism. that we us to believe step have no choice but to go after these terrorists wherever they may be. when values as fundamental as those we cherished are being challenged, democracy must combat. with the american president, we talked about the future of the

g-20, and i said to him in very clear in terms the we wish to work hand in glove with the united states. we are in the 21st century, and we need new ideas for this new century. with president obama, we are determined to forge ahead, come up with these new ideas, for the greater benefit for the people of the world, for their prosperity going forward.

i have always spend a great friend, a tremendous friend of the united states, and i know how important a role the united states plays in the world, how important the u.s. dollar is as the world currency. and with president obama, we are determined to propose new ideas to get the economy moving g.riapod and our teams are going to be working very hard together to become a up with -- to come up with common issues, such as

currencies, commodities prices, and all that needs to be done in order to reduce present imbalances. lastly, as i want to thank barack obama, my host, for his show of leadership, and also point out his ability to get to the fundamentals, of the root of

the issue, the root causes of things i appreciate the way that he is very frank about things and i am convinced that in 2011, we will be able to come up with a structural solution that will enable us to tackle the world's imbalances and problems. >> thank you, everybody. >> thank you. >> we are in close consultations with the family's pool have suffered these losses -- who have suffered these losses, as well as the governor. we will establish some sort of memorial in the next several

days. when we have that, we will announce it. i think it will be important for the country as a whole as well as the people of arizona to a knowledge so we are -- to acknowledge the we are speaking directly to our sense of loss but also speaking to our hopes for the future and how, through this tragedy, we can come together strong resignation. -- strawberry as a nation. -- stronger as a nation. >> president obama and french president nicolas sarkozy earlier today. outsideooking at the office of the arizona rep gabriela giffords.

and visitors are signing a note pad offering condolences to her and to add to those -- signing a book offering their condolences to her and to those the board killed. we will have an update -- and -- to thoseof that erro that were killed. we will have an update from her doctors in just a little bit curio.

>> help us to move from this dark place to a place of sunshine and hopine. more than anything, god, we ask that you help keep our hearts and europe. we ask this and all up -- and keep our hearts and pure.

piazzas and all blessings in your name. -- we ask this and all blessings in your name. amen >> good morning and welcome. in the chief of the department of surgery. we were put to task. we did not ask for it, obviously, but i think when it happened we were ready and were

able to deliver in a way that made our community and the state crowd. i am happy to report that the victims are doing better. you will year in a moment as to the exact medical conditions of the victims. we have discharged two patients. only two remain in the ico. and the remaining patients are on the regular hospital in florida. i also want to take the opportunity to an -- are in a regular hospital lashward. i also want to take the opportunity to mention the there are only two official doctors. experts across the country have and then asked for their opinion, but we cannot go in to speculation about the long-term outcome.

as things seem to stabilize, we will have another press conference on wednesday at 10:00. if there are any changes, better or worse, we will inform you. and we are making sure that we are providing you with all of the information. i want to thank all of the health care is that have come here to give us a hand, show their support. as mentioned, i am very happy to tell you that things have stabilized and are looking better. we would like to now inform you about the medical conditions of the patients. >> good morning to everyone. i would like to make a couple of quick comments. we all know that we cannot undo the events that have occurred,

however, this city of tucson has then very heavily affected. i have spent very. -- i have been very proud to be a member of the city of tucson as these events unfolded. and there is a lot of food being brought to the hospital. people are showing their concern and their help. those types of activities are very much appreciated. right now, we have eight patients in the hospital, two of the icu.in in two people are in good condition. there are further, a subsequent surgery is the still need to be undertaken. at this point, as far as putting

things back together from a surgical point of view, that is all going very well. from and there will now take over. -- trauma care will now take over. we are accustomed to dealing with things like the gst. there are going to be things ptsd.ith an -- whiith they're going to be things done with care and compassion. we have a victims and services here. that is the part we are really going to be concentrating on. it is vitally important to be taking care of these patients all the way through. and i will let the neurosurgeon and primary care giver give a report.

>> thank you. before i go into the details, i would also like to recognize the community. i was personally touched by the memorial myr. it really spoke to the way the community is feeling pain, but is also trying to heal. at this phase in the game, no change is good, and we still have no change. on top of that, of the cat scan is showing bet there is no progression of -- that there is no progression of the swelling. every day that goes by that we do not see an increase, we are slightly more optimistic. . will proceed over the next few days to see how she does.

>> we will take a few minutes of questions and answers at this point. >> as i have said before, and when i say that someone follow simple commands, it could be something like showing us her thumb, showing us two fingers. it shows a she can communicate. i do not want to go into her specifics. let me address a couple of things. first of all, the way we do it is not really quantify. it is a qualitative assessment between cats ganz to see if we see a change. we do not -- between catscans to

see if we see a change. so far we do not. there is no need to put the pressure monitor in, especially since she is doing so well. we do not need to treat with medications for the pressure, because we do not think there is an issue. >> is her ability to understand you but also unmoved and body parts and what is important? >> absolutely. >> normally, when you have swelling, a is it more likely to and be at its worst in the

first, second or third day? >> normally, it is the third day. we can be more optimistic and breathe a collective sigh of relief after the third or fourth day. we are getting close. >> do you think she would be able to speak if she did not have the tube? >> we cannot say at this time. [inaudible] there is no absolute number. we are assessing her even with the sedation orrin on. there is no absolute number. >> this is day three. [inaudible] >> the same tests we have been doing for the last few days. neurological assessments,

evaluation and catscans. we will start to spread those out to whatever is necessary. >> a little clarification on the day. she came in saturday. sunday is a post-op and day one, so this is a post-op day 2. [inaudible] >> are you talking about the congress woman or the other patients? >> at this point, we cannot measure psychological function, nor would we try. the important thing is to make sure that the needs of the family are met and that we are starting to anticipate the needs down the road. she needs to start thinking about rehabilitation, physical therapy, and all of those

things, but it is a little premature to be getting into that myriapods we will -- in do that. we will be a and dealing with the psychological impact on the the victims.orties of >> we had many people who needed surgery of the avenue. . had vascular -- of the abdomen. we have had vascular injuries, orthopedic injuries. we also had people that had serious injuries. their social being is injured as well. they are going to go through posttraumatic stress disorder. they will survive a from a physical standpoint, but we have to bring them back as a whole

human being. that is what we concentrate on, more than just making sure they are allies. -- alive . [inaudible] >> there are two in the icu, a patient's total. one remains in critical condition, five in serious condition, and two in general care. >> will any of them be discharged soon? >> many of them will have subsequent surgery's. in some of them have compartment syndrome, so there will be

follow-up surgery later this week as well. [inaudible] >> as far as functionally assessing it, i am not in a position to do that at this time. what i will say is that it is higher>> where it enters, does t necessarily affect her vision? >> it could. when we think about that, the fibers that go to that part of the brain processes all of that, the higher the trajectory, the better the hope is it will not be affected. >> heavy seen any movement from the lower half of her body? >> i don't want to go into any of the specifics. >> [inaudible] >> we have not moved to that

stage yet. that kind of assessment would come when we remove the breathing tube. >> has she been able to visually recognize anyone? >> i have not witnessed that. without going into details, that is very hard to do in this setting. the whole apparatus of the breathing tube sometimes precludes that. >> [inaudible] >> without being able to fully uncover someone's face, you cannot tell whether they are able to recognize someone. the family is doing well and they appreciate the condolences and well-wishers supporting them in the community and in the media. >> how close to a normal life can one expect? >> i am not going to speculate on that. i have seen the full range of possibility.

>> it depends on when michael is going to let me pull it out. at this phase, everything is going pretty well. typically, about four or five days -- the worry about the swelling has gone and it is not typical of most swelling and traumatic brain injury. the doctor took off the skull and there is plenty of room to swell. unlike other trauma where the skull is in tact, that's where we week -- that is where we get concerned. >> how often do you update her family and are they allowed to sit with her? >> the family is with her constantly and we update them all the time. we concentrate on the full spectrum of trauma care. we do this for everybody, not just the congressman. >> are has been is able to be

buyer's side? >> yes. we have been getting -- able to be by her side? >> yes. we again want to take the opportunity to everyone wishing us well in this endeavor. thank you for caring. with that, thank you, everybody. we will talk to you later. >> before we quit, there are two or three other announcements. we are planning to have the next press conference on wednesday at 10:00. however, if there is any change in the condition of any of the victims, we will have another press conference tomorrow. if you want information about what we will release tomorrow, go to the umc health science website and we will make announcements there. i will also take the chance to thank on behalf of the president

of the university of arizona and the ceo of umc healthcare to thank everyone who has supported us. we would like to think the governor for her support and the mayor of tucson. i think it has been a tremendous experience for all of us over the last few days and we're very happy to report things are stabilizing and the patients are improving. we expect more discharges over the next few days and we will see you again on wednesday. thank you for coming. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> in about 10 minutes, we will be back in arizona, this time in the state capital where the legislature is opening today, the 50th legislature in arizona.

the governor is expected to deliver her state of the state address but will instead focus on arizonans who serve, including public officials, police, firefighters and other first responders. those comments are expected at about 3:15 and we will bring them to you live once they get under way. until then, of your responses to the shootings from this morning's "washington journal." the lead editorial in "usa today" has this headline.

host: first call this morning, dallas, tx.

caller: it bothers me a little bit that people are focusing simply on political rhetoric as the cause of this shooting. is it not really the cause of the anger -- rhetoric is the problem. people are losing their jobs and their pensions. it seems to me that route causes me to be addressed by the press and congress. host: thank you. maryland, good morning. caller: that man was 22 years old. he was not losing a job, savings or anything. his life was about to begin. the problem is this right-wing fanaticism. jesse kelly, sarah palin, all of this gunsights, it comes to a

head. this 9-year-old child, i wish i had been standing in her place. i would have given my life. that baby was born on september 11, 2001. i was 42 years old that day. this breaks my heart. it has nothing to do with the economy. it is right-wing fanaticism. this hatred towards blacks. i am black. this hatred toward immigrants. we need to stop and take a moment of silence. no more right wing, no more rush limbaugh. no more sarah palin. host: republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. your reaction to these shootings and where things might be going from here? caller: i would hope that they might be going down a more secure level for all of our

government employees in the congress and senate. to have a congresswoman there with limited security is mind- boggling. when you have people running for president, if you are running for president you have security. people will object to you that might want to harm you. people in congress are making decisions. people in the senate are making decisions. host: have you ever been to one of these events? caller: i have not. host: what is your sense about the separation between the member of congress? what do you think? caller: i disagree about that.

you certainly need to have some field officers there prior to the event. that would have prevented the president of security usually takes these loons away. host: we will spend the first 45 minutes taking your calls. we will take live looks outside of the office of rep gabrielle giffords. outside the capitol flags fly at half mast. mentioning security on the hill, "the washington post" rights --

host: more of your calls coming .p over the 45 minute s we have john stanton on the line. he was a house reporter for "roll call." what is your assessment of the security aspect of the story? caller: security for members is always a difficult issue. but there are 535 delegates. the idea that the capitol police

will be able to provide security 24 hours per day for all of them seems on realistic. particularly given the budget right now. there is talk about cutting members personal office spending levels. cutting the overall spending level for the congress. all of that is going to cost a lot of money. the new talks seems to center around making it so that lawmakers in at capitol police soldier on with state and local officials coordinating better. when members have an event back in their district, locals know that they have a presence there. but it really is going to be a big question that -- that the members are going to have to grapple with. host: one of the headlines declares leadership stalling in

the week of tragedy. caller: this is an interesting aspect. the congresswoman was very much beloved by her colleagues. most people had never heard her name. but people on the hill really liked her. she was one of the rare members in the house that tried to avoid the ugly politics that had become a hallmark of what was coming through congress over the last few years. i think that it struck a chord with people that she was the one who was attacked. some of the rhetoric that was used, whether or not he was conservative or liberal, capitalist, socialist, whenever,

the feeling in the capitol community is that at the least the rhetoric that people have used may have contributed to the overall atmosphere that this man was living within an operating within. they are not going to do the health care bill this week. no one at this point wants to fight with each other. host: health care is off the table for this week. what else should we know about? caller: today they will not be in session. tomorrow the house will be in session in a formal manner. wednesday they will come in to discuss the strategy and resolution, discussing the situation in arizona.

members are going to unanimously agree to and will see tribute's all day. host: we read about gun legislation being pursued as early as today. caller: members are certainly starting to introduce bills, limiting campaign ads. there was a famous use of labels i. sarah palin has become the most famous for it. democrats have used it for years. republicans have used it in mailers and fundraisers to pick out their opponent. legislation is being pursued to limit that. i do not know that it will get far.

freedom of speech and all of that. you can expect to see bills like this in the next couple of days. host: thank you for your time this morning. you can take a look at the special editions of "roll call" this morning on their website. the lead edition has a quote from the speaker. host: we are taking your calls and reaction to the shooting this morning. independent line, atlanta. caller: prayers go out to the representative and her family. and all of the other victims. i would like to approach this from two directions. i have called in before about fox news with their rhetoric, hatred, and bigotry. bill o'reilly talking about

muslims being the party -- the problem. glenn beck telling everyone that the liberals are coming and we need to get ready. these people spread hate and bigotry. they do not serve in the military. callot, john bolton, sarah palin, none of them served in the military. on the constitution, there was a man on their a couple of days ago, roger pylon. this man distorted the constitution. they tried to sanitize the constitution. it is a great document, but it has flaws. it was written by a lot of slaveholders. thomas jefferson had slaves until he died. and they tried to sanitize this. also, the general welfare, i hope you have someone on today to talk about it.

alexander hamilton supported the general welfare. saying that they could use it for whatever they wanted. that was supported by the report on manufacturing from december 5, 1791. these conservatives spread so much hate and it is time to stop them. i support the sheriff. fox is going after him out, trying to tear him down. host: william kristol will be done in half an hour. at 8:30 our guest will touch upon the shootings and related legal issues and give a view of the supreme court's second half of the current term. anthony is on the line. republican line, good morning.

caller: how are you doing? unfortunately we could be talking under better circumstances. i wish to congresswoman the best of luck, along with the other 16 victims. i just hope that we do not overreact, like some callers are doing already. we had a very unpopular politician in the 1970's named wallace. he was shot. blantyre point is that we did not go crazy when president reagan was shot to the point of clamping down on our own people without trusting them. horrible things will happen. this psychopath probably would have done this regardless of if he had a gun or if we had made a lot or if there were 20 cops in the room. he slipped by everyone and ran

in there. it is going to happen. even with metal detectors these psychopaths will find a way. for the first time in my life i have been happy with congress in the handling of this issue. being calmer, in morning, not spreading the hate. the last caller talked about rightwingers spreading hate. bringing up television people that had nothing to do with this tragedy. there is no specifics. you just hear them say that they are hate mongering. host: the front page of "usa today."

host: front page of "the new york times." host: "the wall street journal" says -- host: democratic line, maryland. your reaction? caller: thank you for taking my call. i have been concerned about all of the people that drink that and had thed retea nerve to call themselves the tea party. lness, i hope that sarah

palin and john boehner -- holding a hostage to protect tax breaks for the richest 6200 people in america who do not need those tax breaks, when you lie about the content of the health care bill -- being so disagreeable that you trash the patriotic values of america of which all of us are so proud. talking about free speech and then shoot an innocent person for not agreeing with you? we need to dial down the rhetoric. we need to remember what it means to be an american. it does not mean that we murdered those that do not agree

with us. i think that republicans need to gain a healthy respect for the truth without being willing to trash, like, say anything they think look at them into office. i think that the tea party people need to get sober somewhere and find out what it means to be patriotic americans. host: live coverage of the president's moment of silence for the shooting but them's 11:00 here on c-span. we are waiting to hear more medical briefings from the hospital, as well as anything else the sheriff or law enforcement might be putting out as far as investigation. we are also covering jan brewer, who will give her state of the state address in arizona. a previously scheduled event. we are told that the content of the event will be changing in

light of the shooting. that is at 3:00 here on c-span. fort worth, texas. your reaction? caller: i think that it is sad that that happened. i do. to anyone. i do not think that that person had the right mind. and i do not think that we need to start jumping to conclusions about who is at fault. there is certainly a lot of rhetoric from both sides out there. i do not believe in that. i do not condone it. i certainly do not understand what is really going on in the united states right now. seems to be a great deal of tension between people. there is a lot of information out there. people are getting so much from different places. you have a person that was

probably not have stable to begin with. they couldn't be. you do not have a right to take the life of another. even as the republican i do not believe -- we do need to tone down a bit. we need to settle down a bit and think about what is going on before we jump up and start trying to push through legislation that is not really going to do us any good. i feel greatly distressed about the shooting. it bothers me a great deal to see something like that happen. host: new york, independent line, thank you for waiting. caller: first of all, we can see what is coming when we listen to the media. folks like rush limbaugh talking about democrat bastard's meeting to be wiped out. sarah palin, the targets and the

bull's-eye, we know about that. the journalist this morning talking about democrats handing out fliers with cross hairs on them. i do not get those from democrats. but i do get those from the nra. they are known for pushing republicans. when he talks about the democrats' handing out flyers with cross hairs, i do not remember seeing that. it is dominated by the nra. i am sorry that this happened. this is terrible. if we eliminate exposure representatives of the lucky and alpha talked to them anymore. -- exposure to representatives, we will not be able to talk with

them anymore. host: from "the new york times" this morning -- host: west chester, democratic line, good morning. caller: i think that the people that spew this hate rhetoric, like sarah palin, she is the one who talks about reloading against certain congress people that need to be targeted, they

need to be held to the same standard. the military has but watch out for this american cleric in yemen to assassinate him for his rhetoric. why is sarah palin not being arrested for her rhetoric? she is virtually, literally doing the same thing as that cleric. people are acting on her words. just like that cleric. host: the lead editorial in "the wall street journal" this morning --

host: chicago, james, republican. what do you say this morning? caller: the congress people going overboard, more so than the senators, who do go overboard somewhat, but really what we need this year, with

president obama talking about taking on our enemies, that is a whole other step. a commander in chief spelling of like that. to hear him speak like that was so over the top. how is he supposed to be a person that calls for peace? that is my point. i have heard no one say anything about that. during the primary in arizona they made that statement. host: sandra, independent caller. your thoughts? caller: my prayers go out to the people yesterday. but outside the fact that the young man was mentally ill, the

congresswoman is defending the left and the right. i know that she was a politician, but the point was that she was mentally ill. i do not think that it is because of your political views. it is because of the way that he saw life. i do not think that they will be able to really provide police protection for all of the congressmen or congresswomen because of this event. like the people that went into the post office and shot the people in the post office, you cannot protect all of the post offices because of one person's mental instability.

the suggestion that the young man had the problem. host: the photograph here is from "usa today." gabrielle giffords and john boehner at the ceremonial swearing-in in less week. caller: it is amazing to me that i did not know about the representative through c-span or other news channels. it sounds as if she was a wonderful rep. the problem as a person that loves politics like i do begins in my mind the hard way, at those town halls. when people gathered and began to stand, scream, yell and disrupt. as a political person that follows this stuff by started to see something that was odd,

different and frightening. elderly people going to see their congressman, pushed aside in treated so badly. as much as i have been listening today to people say that it is not political, it certainly is. an abortion doctor was murdered by a crazy man who had political feelings. this happened, as well as several other incidents of hate crime and political belief. i am a strong believer in what i believe in, but not violent. i think the town halls will come to an end. host: you have touched upon the headline, sort of, that walter shapiro wrote about. will congress ever be the same? keep going. caller: right here in my neighborhood, when he was running for senator someone went

through his garbage. right in front of his home and went through his garbage. that is strange and twisted. and frightening for his wife and for him. this is not something that just happens. you will have to excuse me. i have a son in iraq fighting for our rights and our right to speak. right now i am emotionally involved with our freedom. watching them read the constitution on television the way that they were without knowing what it says. carrying it around in your pocket does not mean anything to meet. living it, like senator byrd used to do. host: more headlines, from "of the new york daily news."

host: another editorial this morning, "the washington post." part of the assessment focuses

on guns. host: dennis, republican line. nevada, good morning. caller: another factor involved in this that no one has been talking about, this man, this perpetrator had been using psychotropic street substances. we do not yet know whether he was using prescription medications because i do not think anyone has had the presence of mind that is in a

position to check into it. but one of the nose side effects of psychotropic medications is abnormal thinking. this person is clearly an abnormal thinker. check the web site, ssristoriees.org. host: independent line, some lewis. carol. caller: hello? they destroyed her office. were they crazy as well? but to say that this is political is ridiculous. i know that there is a clip where she says that she believes that things that people say have consequences. i was wondering if c-span could show that. do you remember when they did

general petraeus and everyone had to get on the floor and say how they thought it was awful? i think that they need to get on the floor to say how awful it is that people put targets on politicians. host: to that point, here is an op-ed from "the washington post." they go on to point out things that she said in the past regarding incidents towards her. a couple of other voices in the papers today. from "the new york times" the title of the op-ed piece is "climate of a." -- climate of hatred."

host: jesup, maryland. democratic line. caller: one thing that i wanted to mention that was compelling to me was the little girl that died. my heart goes out to the families of everyone. this little girl was brought into the world. can you imagine having a baby on that day, the way that everyone was feeling? to have her killed by a terrorist? he called himself a terrorist. bill riley wants to spew rhetoric, but this is a wake-up call that terrorists come in all colors and all walks of life.

while this man might have been mentally ill, this does not excuse what he has done. i do think that the rhetoric on both sides needs to be toned down. time to stop this, america. we need to have professionalism with congressman, politicians. both sides have stooped to levels that are so low and we do not know what the impact is on folks that are mentally ill. the best thing to do is to check it and stop doing it before someone else gets hurt. let's use this little girl as an example to remind us that terrorism comes in all colors and religions.

this little girl, it is a shame. host: betty, greensboro, north carolina. caller: i was thinking, you cannot cure the patient with the wrong medicine. trying to make this a political issue is not solving anything. we are a free and open society and to this kind of thing is bound to a happen. this is about mental illness, something that can afflict anyone in america. my brother was a psychiatrist who had many mentally ill people that were released on our streets as a result of outpatient treatments. people that should be contained within facilities. when they contacted the authorities, but were ignored -- ignored.

one man shot himself and his wife as was this little boy. this is just the tip of the iceberg. guns did not kill people. people kill people. and currently the center of the robert byrd center for studies. have we seen this before? caller: every time that happens , it seems like we have to remember it all over again. huey long when kennedy was

running for president as a member of the senate and there is a long history of different kinds of violence amongst members themselves or against them. in the form of bombings at the capitol. and this individual was stopped host: do you think about history or anything else that you would like to announce his starkly in terms of discord?

caller: where we meet elected public officials and are open you cannot protect people completely in the based on what there is a deal with it is out to maintain meeting with people. you cannot protect them completely. this is a free society. the other way to do it is to turn the capital into a

completely secured facility with people not being able to enter. we have attempted compromise. we have increased security around the capital. it is an armed camp. more so than it ever was in the past. in the house chambers, five members were wounded in 1954. there was talk of wall and of the gallery with bulletproof glass. lawmakers thought that being separated from the symbol. security is more secure, but they are still wide open. host: thank you for your insight this morning. st. petersburg, virginia.

bob, your reaction to the arizona shooting? hello? and it not all of them -- this country, fox television, i hope it will like it worse but it probably will. when gasoline hits $5 per gallon, when the people around here cannot for -- cannot afford fuel as is and they can look into their last.

pointing fingers, writing that --

host: this is the last call. hyattsville, maryland. caller: my comment before my quick question -- i did not hear the latter that this young man wrote. what exactly did it say? something about him knowing what he was doing? host: why do you ask? caller: because the republicans are saying that just because he has a mental illness this man does not know what he is doing. this man knew exactly what he was doing. this was a safeway in the middle of the day. this man got in her face and shot her dead on.

with rush limbaugh, glenn beck, >> we are taking you live now to the state capitol in phoenix, ariz. for the remarks to the state legislature, both of the house and senate by gov. jan brewer. it should get underway shortly. [applause] >> thank you. the joint session of the first

regular session of the 50th legislature is called to order. the sergeant of arms, announced the governor's arrival. will the members of the joint committee police escort her honor, the governor of the state of arizona to the podium. >> [inaudible] [applause] [applause]

[applause] [applause] [applause]

>> thank you. thank you all. good afternoon. speaker adams, president pierce, hon. centers -- senators and representatives of the centennial legislature, chief justice and justices of the supreme court, constitutional officers, tribal leaders, honored guests, and my fellow arizonans. i had intended to deliver the state of the state address today, remarks that avalon -- outlined an exciting plan for education, and tax reform. i will deliver that plan to you, but not now. not today.

tragedy and terror sometime comes from the shadows and steals our joy and take away our peace. that happened on saturday when a gunman took away people we love, and some people, an outstanding public servants like united states district judge, john roll. he had just come from a lot of a catholic mass and confronted the darkness of a madman. the gunman, gravely wounded others, people we love and respect, like my good friend, gabrielle giffords. this past weekend's events have caused me, cost all of us to reflect on many things, including how we respond to this terrible events.

first, our response to this tragedy must be led by prayer and comfort for the victims and their families. so please join me in a moment of silence as we pray for all of those we have lost, for the injured, and for those who are suffering. thank you. with our faith and our courage tightly in place, we will step forward from this chamber, dedicated to the lord's work, continuing our service to the public. one year ago from this very place, i told you i would serve

beside you, proud to serve the people of arizona. i said then that public service is acting not in self-interest, but on behalf of others. i have asked people to join me in the field. gabrielle giffords did join me in the field and we worked together, knowing that when our public service and, we would be judged less by what we achieved than what we overcame. in addition to judge roll, and gabriel zimmerman. let me take a moment to recognize the acts of extraordinary arizonans who responded with professionalism and saved lives -- law-

enforcement, emergency responders, the tucson medical community, and the staff at the university medical center. daniel hernandez, a university of arizona junior, showed no fear in the face of gunfire. his quick action in going to gabrielle giffords's aid likely save lives. i am going to ask him to stand and receive the thanks of a very grateful state. [applause]

>> it was a sunny saturday at the supermarket in northwest tucson. it was a picture of what our country is all about -- public servants doing their duty, citizens old and young coming to here and participate in the beauty of our government in action. we lost someone else on saturday. 9-year-old christina green, who was just elected to her student council. she was hoping to be a positive part of the future of america

and she has become just that. she loved baseball. she was the only girl on her little league baseball team. she loved to wear red white and blue. she was born nine 9/11. she thought of her birthday as a day of hope, it's time to find goodness in america. as her mother said, her light shines on all of us today. saturday's events were not just an attack on those individuals in loved and lost but an assault on our constitutional republic, on our democracy, on all the in treasure and hold the year as

citizens and public servants. -- all that we treasure and hold dear as citizens. arizona is in pain and our grief is a profound. we are yet in the first hours of our sorrow, but we have not been brought down. we will never be brought down. [applause] in fact, we have been lifted up

by america's thoughts and prayers and we are deeply grateful for them. arizona, like all of america, has been through difficult times before. those times have united us and made us stronger, more in during -- enduring. the those of us to serve our state and country do so in a way that honors those who we have lost. our meetings on sunny days and will not and -- end. like the words from isaiah, i believe arizona will rise on wings like eagles. we will run and not get weary. we will walk and not grow wheat. -- grow weak. i ask for your help and continued prayers as we step from here and guide this great

state with courage and devotion. may god bless all of the victims, their families, and those suffering from saturday's tragedy. may god bless those who serve us in the cause of freedom and justice. may he bless you and your families and the great state of arizona. may god always bless and protect the united states of america. thank you. [applause]

[applause] >> members of the joint committee will please escort the governor, the hon. janice k. brewer from the house chamber. [applause] [applause]

>> there is a new way for you to follow congress with c-span's congressional chronicles. check the daily floor time lines, read transcripts, and read a full video archive. the congressional chronicle, part of the c-span video library. washington your way. >> every weekend on c-span3,

experience american history tv starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern, 48 hours of people in defense telling the american story. here historic site -- historic speeches. visit museums, historical sites, college campuses as top history professors and historians delve into america's past. all weekend every weekend on c- span3. >> middle and high school students, it is time to of those your video for the student can documentary competition. the topic, washington, d.c., through my lands. the grand prize is $5,000. there are $50,000 in total prize is. studentcam is open to students grades 6-12. for complete details catalog online to -- log online to

studentcam.org. >> the national press foundation held a seminar on the budget. speakers included the members from the budget committee. from the woodrow wilson center, this is two hours and 15 minutes. >> i am happy to welcome you on behalf of the national press foundation. i am the director of programs for npf. we are in non-profit based in washington and we are independent not affiliated with the national press club or any other organization. we did not take money from any government. we are happy to take money from you if you would like to donate. our mission is to provide information, resources, education for journalists to help them do their jobs better. i want to start rethinking the groups helping us today.

our partners in this series of briefings are the center of congress at indiana university bush does a terrific job of helping to educate the public about the work of congress, politico, and partnering with us today is the regional reporters association. we are grateful for their help. funding for today's program comes from the various endowments. we are very happy to have a member from the endowment here with us. given the tragedy this weekend in tucson, i appreciate that all of you are here. many of you come as journalists, had other things you could have been doing. we appreciate you being here. several members of our original speaker lineup for called with the professional duties said the second portion of our program today has been modified -- so the second portion has been modified. i am confident despite the modifications that this will be

extremely useful for all of us who really want to have a better understanding of the federal budget process and how this fits into the larger economy. if you are among our c-span viewers coming you will find two things on their websites that will be helpful to you. the website is www.nationalpress.org. nationalpress.org. on the website you can find a red bar across the top of the home page with the mallard about this program. click on that and it will take to the program age were you will find the updated agenda and also a link to the pdf document used by our first speaker it will allow you to follow along with the first presentation. so, we will get started with that. we are opening with a primer that will be delivered by one of the most foremost experts on how

that is structured and how would comes together. the federal budget is a voluminous, complex, and it is not a static document. it changes during the year and it changes every year. because it is so complex, it is a ripe for misunderstanding and it is often used as a political tool. those two things are related. when citizens do not understand the basic financial document that determines how we pay the nation's bills, it is a lot easier for politicians and others to spin the budget into sound bites and half truths. a lot of misunderstanding can have huge consequences. that is why we are here today as journalists. your job is to the get the budget through the eyes of your intended audience and give them the information they need to make the kind of good informed decisions that grease the wheels of democracy. to get us started, i will

introduce dr. jerome -- joe minarik. dr. minarik worked with congressional democrats for five years of efforts to reform the federal income tax. she has been widely published. he has testified before congress. in the early 1990's and until recently was a chief economist at the house budget committee. he became the assistant director for economic policy at the office of management and budget. he worked on clinton's economic program and was a driver of the clinton administration program which became the bipartisan balance agreement of 1997. those are strong credentials and we are very honored to have dr. minarik. >> thank you, linda. i am very happy to be here

under, but i guess, are as unhappy circumstances as you could possibly have. i will try to do what i can to accomplish the goals we all share which include having a strong and sound federal budget. i see in the room a few faces that look familiar. help me out. have any of the attended these earlier annual briefings in previous years? ok. a small number. so most of you are new attendees to these events. one other question. how many of you have not yet, as reporters, covered a federal budget? ok. so most of you have been through the budget and through the process of releasing the budget.

not many of you have been to these briefings. what i'm going to try to do, we have one hour which is not an awful lot of time, is to move through the handout for the quickly. -- fairly quickly. please fill free to ask questions if there is anything you do not understand. you will have the ability to work with this later. do have my contact information and i would be delighted to try and answer any of your questions later on if things should come to your mind at another time. let me start out before explaining to you, to the best of my ability, what the federal budget is, and when i said budget i mean the book he will be confronted with that sometime early in february, but i do have

a couple of pages in the handout which are intended to give you a sense that you should be scared out of your wits. when you think about the current budget situation, you as citizens in the united states and not you as reporters who will have to tell the story of. there are a couple of charts in the beginning of the handout. if i could suggest that you look at the first one which is this thing. this is intended to give you a sense of just how rapidly the federal budget situation is deteriorating. if i could skip quickly to the bottom line, in december 2007, under reasonable predictions of how the congress and administration had behaved, we would have anticipated that the nation's debt would grow to be 60% of the size of our economy

by the year 2022. now, there are reasons to look at the dead relative to the g.d.p. we will bring more copies of the handout for those of you who do not have it handy. the thing about dead is that you have to service debt, pay interest. the bigger the debt, the more interest to have to pay. the gdp is our collective and, as a nation so that is the resources out of which we have to pay the debt service. the bigger the debt is relative to the g.d.p., the harder it will be to pay the interest costs and keep the united states government on this relative to its creditors. is an arbitrary standard, but it is recognized, for example, by the european monetary union.

up until recently if you wanted to be a member of the european monetary union that your debt was less than 60% of your g.d.p. or that you had a pretty good plan to get it below that level. right now, there are not too many countries who would qualify if that standard were in first -- were enforced firmly. it is a reasonable level that when the debt gets higher than that you start to have problems. at the end of 2007, just about when the financial wave broke on the u.s. economy, the anticipation was that we would hit that 60% of g.d.p. troubles signaled in 2022. in the three years that have followed, the federal government did essentially nothing to solve that problem. meanwhile, our economy and our budget deteriorated seriously. at the end of the fiscal year 2010, which was in the end of

september of last year, the debt had already exceeded 60% of gdp. in other words, we had 15 years between us and the figurative wall of debt back in the end of 2007. we moved three years toward the wall and it moved 12 years towards us. people like me back in the end of 2007 were saying, "we have a serious problem and 15 years is not much time to turn the country's mentality around and address the problem and deal with this." we now have no time at all. the debt, as you can see in the chart, has just about gone vertical. it is rising extremely rapidly. we have a very little time right now. we need to immediately begin to get a grip on this problem. that is not to say that you take

precipitous action which is likely to destabilize the economy. it is rather that you get into very serious discussions in the begin to make plans as the economy improves to make changes to route the budget to limit the growth of debt and ultimately bring it down again. the second chart that you've seen will give you a pretty clear picture that by the end of this decade, we can anticipate that are dead, absent significant changes in policy, our debt will grow to nearly 100% of gdp, the full size of our collective income. to give the perspective, that is about where we were when we came out of work of warii. all the progress -- when we came out of world war ii.

1974, it bottomed out at about 24% of gdp, all of that progress in reducing the burden of debt on the u.s. taxpayer will have been lost. at that point, you get to even more concerns about the possibility of the crisis in the financial markets brought on by the inability of the united states to convince their lenders that they are a reliable bar were who can service their debt in the future. -- a reliable borrower. you should have a glossy publication of my organization, the committee for economic development, which i climbed into your shoes and tried to write some future newspaper stories of what might happen if, in fact, we lose control of our debt situation. there is one story at the end where i tried to tell how we might come in fact, turn this

situation around. i hope you have a chance to read it. i would be interested in your comments and reactions. that is to give a reason why you should be here. apart from the fact that you'll be working to cover this budget. beyond that, i would like to talk to you and little bit about how the budget is presented, give you a head start on where you can look in the budget documents for the information you will need to report the stories. what i would like to do, if i can commit is to go through this document relatively quickly. please feel free to raise your hand and ask questions there is something that is not clear to you. i will try to leave as much time as possible in the end the session for you to ask questions and i will try to get to your specific issues and concerns as much as i can. i'll try to get to your specific issues and concerns as much as i can. as i do every year, i will urge that you look at the book that

is called the budge of the united states. that is one of five books that you're going to get or at least be able to access online when the budget is released. the statutory deadline for the release of the budgetis the first monday in february, which this year i february 7th. however, there was a news story over the holidays that the administration expects that they're going to be a little late this year, this will be the first time in my mory that an actual budget is being released late. we can speculates to why that might be true, some say it was because of the late confirmation -- the delayed confirmation of the new omb director. it's possible the administration is contemplating a little change in direction from what they original anticipated. i don't know anything for sure. i don't have any stories that i can tell you, but at some point probably in the second week in february, you're going to see

that budget document,ou are gointo see before that another document from the congressional budget office, which is going to be cbo's take on the budt outlook. this is a distinctly different document and one of the things that i tried to explain to you in the handout is that the numbers in the cbo blj outlook and the numbers in the budget itself cannot be compared directly apples to apples. the reason is that the budget is the president's economic and budgetary program and it presents projections of future numbers on the assumption that the president's program is adopted lock, stock and barrel. however, the cbo document does projections on the basis that current law as of now is continued indefinitely so the difference between the two is not only cbo's possibly different perspective of where

the economy is going and how the cost of partilar programs will change because of that, it is also different cbo assumes the law today without change. the president's budget assumed the law to be changed according to everything that the president wants and presents in his budget. so keep that in mind when you look at the numbers from one docume to the other and that will help you to convey to your readers what those numbers really mean. cbo's document will be released probably sometime this month. i have no information about the particular date. next page in the handout, one of the things that is foremost in everybody's mind is what is the budget deficit going to be? looking at the budget as a whole, what you want to keep in mind is that the significance of the deficit is that it is

approximately the amount of money that the federal government has to borrow from the public to raise cash so that it can continue to fund its operations. i have a little explanation in there of the approximately part of that last sentence, the difference between the deficit and the ount of money the federal government has to borrow. we are in a time with the response to the financial cris when the difference between those two numbers is, in fact, much larger than it had been historically. this is because of programs like the troubled asset program, where the federal government bought private securities and it is beginning to get a return on some of those securities. there are flows going in and out of the federal government in cash that affect the amount of money that the federal government has to borrow in

financial markets. i've explained to you there in the very first table in the summary tables what is called appropriately enough s-1 where you'll find the amount of the deficit but then also going back to the last table, traditionally in the summary tables last year it was table s-14 and if you want to know how sick i am, i live for table s-14. this is just the most exciting thing in the world to me and if you look at table s-14 you will see an explanation of how much money the federal government needs to raise in the financial markets, you'll get a history -- a short history and a projection of the amounts of debt held by the public which is what economists are concerned about. that's how much money the federal government must borrow in the financial markets

therefore it's the indicator of how the federal government affects the financial markets and affects the economy. you'll also find numbers there for anothernumber, another concept which is debt subject to limit. debt subject to limit is not something economists look at very much but it is something you will be concerned about -- i assume many of you will be concerned about over the course of the next three or four months. that is the amount of money that the federal governnts allowed to borrow. it extends beyond the money that we borrow from the private circuit and fromthe rest of the world from the financial markets and includes th amount of debt is held within the federal government, the securities that are given to trust funds, notably the social secury trust fund but there are more than a hundred trust funds within the federal government that hold special treasury securities. you take all of that debt

together, the debt that economts care about which is the debt that is held privately, plus the debt that is held within the federal government and you get to the debt subject to limit. we anticipate that debt subject to limit is going to come very close tohe statutory debt limit, sometime between march and may, the treasury secretary wrote a letter to the congress shortly ago explaining that we anticipate that we're goingo run into that debt limit and that the congress will need to take action to raise the debt lim limit. i can tell you from my own experience working with this issue quite closely when the treasury secretary says he's not sure exactly when we're going to hit the limit and it could be any time within a two-month band, he was speaking absolutely honestly. you don't know how those numbers are going to accumulate. you don't know what tax receipts

are going to be. you can be incredibly surprised as you start getting into the tax season by the amounts of refunds that the treasury has to pay and the amounts of receipts that it takes in. the one thing that i will tell you is for people who owe money to the treasury, they are going to mail those checks on april 15th. they are going to mail them by the slowest u.s. post office service that they can possibly final. back in the old days the story was if you owed the treasury a big check, you would take a vacation to key west where the mail service was by boat. you would go to the post office on april 15th in key west, get a postmark, the mail would be carried to a boat. it would make its way back up north to the state of florida, by boat, island by island and you would finance your key west vacation by the interest that

you saved on the float on the money because you were sending it in bymail. so receipts, net receipts of the treasury a highly unpredictable. the one thing we know if you're owed a refun you want to file early. if you owe tacks you want to file late. one of the concerns is we could strike the debt limit significantly before april 15th anwe could be in a situation where the federal government is significantly short of cash. i'll just add for purposes of discussion right now. some people say that playing with the debt limit is playing with dynamite. i can tell you that is not true. it's not playing with dynamite. it's playing with plutonium. this is one of the most dangerous situations in federal government finance that could possibly be imagined. all we need right now in a time when the federal government's debt is sealingly out of control

would be a spark of concern in the financial markets that the federal government could begin to default. and the consequences for every american citizen would be enormous and that's part of the story that i tried to tell in that little document that you've received and i hope that you take a look at that and it might help you along with that understanding. so let me move on from the joy of table s-14 in the budget to some of the concepts that you're going to have to deal with and particularly for those of you who haven't covered a budget yet some things seem like niggly and piggly little things but you'll want to know them to keep your story on target. federal spend something divid into two fundamental categories and one of them is routinely

subdivided. we talk about discretionary spending and mandatory spending. a subcategory of mandatory spending is net interest. interest on the debt. the terms discretionary are terms of art. they sometimes are taken to convey meaning that they really don't have. but the simple story is as follows. discretionary spending is the spending that must be legislated earlier through the preparations project. a discretionary program if tre is no action by the end of a fiscal year, that program must stop in its tracks. this is what we call the quote/unquote shut dn of th federal government. mandatory spending is precisely the opposite. mandatory spending is created in permanent law and mandatory

programs keep on going forever until the congress acts to stop them. absent a debt limit crisis, which throws everything out the window. the quintessential mandatory program with which all of you are familiar is social security. the nature of mandatory program is just like what you understand of socl security. the law creates a formula that determines how much money an individual or possibly even a business is entitled to receive. and if you file for social security benefits and you qualify, they calculate the amount of benefits you are owed and those benefits will be paid unless the law is changed. the other side of the coin would be discretionary program and the quintessential discretionary program is an appropriation to build a bridge.

if appropriations run out and you don't renew the propriation for the department of transportation, construction on that bridge will stop because the checks are not being paid to undertake that expenditure. so that's the difference between discretionary and mandatory. it is not intended to be an indicator of merit or an indicator of the extent to which people ought to continue a program or ought to stop it. it is simply a question of how that program is created in law. now, a subcategory of mandatory spending is net interest. of all the mandatory programs net interest is the most mandatory. you've got to pay interest on your debt if you don't as i've noted earlier, possibly in excess of what was reasonable, the consequences will be dire. that is a quote/unquote default.

so when you look at those categories of spending that will help you to understanwhat we're talking about and i cite in the handout a table in the supplemental tables in the budget that will tell you a little bit about that breakdown of spending. now, going beyond that let's focus in on discretionary spending. typically in the budget tables when you get a little bit deeper, you will find a subdivision of discretnary spending. the current subdivision of discretionary spending most commonly used is a distinction between quote/unquote security spending and quote/unquote nonsecurity spending. in the handout i give you a little bit of history how those concepts evolve, but what they mean right now and i think if you look at the history it will help you to understand this, but what they mean right now is for

security spending, we include defense spending and also selected spending outside of the pentagon that is pertinent to homeland security. and nonsecurity spending as the name would suggest is all other discretionary spending. this -- these concepts willbe in play as you hear the date about th budget this year because we have competing proposals for restraining nonsecurity spending. one side wants to roll it back to the levels of 2008, fiscal 2008, the other side wants to freeze it for three years. when you get to the securities side there are differing views about the extent to which in particular defense spending could and/or should be restrained. but when you look at discretion nary numbers in the budget you're likely to see them presented in this security and nonsecurity division.

beyond that, there is a question about supplemental appropriations. now, just to get you a head start on this, back in the old days when i was your age, a supplemental appropriation would occur when there was a hurricane or an earthquake. and the money that was appropriated in the course of the budget process turned out to be insufficient because there were big sudden unforeseen expenditures that needed to be made to respond to some kind of a natural disaster. in recent years with the military activities in iraq and afghanistan, we have gone through a cycle of enormous uncertainty with respect to the amount of money that would be needed to carry on those war efforts. we have gotten into a

circumstance where we have had relatively well anticipated but in their amounts uncertain very large supplemental appropriations bills that were necessary to fund the war effort. so one of the things that you're going to want to be looking at as you look at the budget is the degree to which the funding that is in the budget for the department of defense reasonably could be expected to reflect the amount of spending that will be needed over the course of the year for our continuing but presumably winding down activities in iraq and afghanistan. so that possibly of a supplemental appropriation is going to be in the background of the consideration of the budget. now, one of the concepts with respect to discretionary spe

spending going on to the next page in the handout that drives people crazy and it's one of the reasons why many people will tell you that they find the federal budget totally impenetrable is a distwins between the concepts of budget authority and outlays. it's really not all that complicated, but let me give you a little bit of backgroundust so that you're i hope up to speed on this issue. if everything the federal government did took less than one year, we wouldn't need the concept of budget authority. you would take revenues in. you'd spend them within a year. you would budget for one year. it would cover everything you're doing. there would be no problem. you get into difficulties because the federal government undertakes long-term activities that extend over several fiscal years. if you think about it, if you're

undertaking a long-term project, there would be ways you could legislate for that project that would be tremendously misleading and would possibly get you into trouble. and as an example i wrote about a possible dialogue between you and a home seller and mortgage lender. where you look at the cost of a house, you lookat the interest that you would have to pay on the mortgage, and you come up with a mind-boggling number and you say i can't possibly afford that. and the lendingnd home seller says to you, well, payment, look at it differently. we're in september. you're going to make your first mortgage payment more than a front from now in november, so, you know, you'll only make two mortgage payments this year. you look at the sum of those two mortgage payments and it's very small so you can afford this house, go ahead and do it.

the -- what you need to do, however, is to te into account the entire commitment that is involved. in signing that contract to buy that house, when you look at the federal government, there are a lot of things that are similar. you can buy an aircraft carrier. in the first year of the program of building the aircraft carrier the amount of money you spend will be relatively small you're drawing plans, you're, you know, possibly having conversations with potential contractors. before too long, however, that starts to be extremely expensive. if there weren't a way in the budget process to recognize the total long-term cost of that project, we could find ourselves starting all sorts of things, all sorts of expensive long-term projects that we could not ultimately afford so to provide that control in the budget process, there is this concept of budget ahority and that represents the total amount of

the cost of these kinds of long-ter projects like building an aircraft carrier. and what that says is when you look at theefense budget, you will see an amount of budget authority thatill be larger than the amount of outlays. that's because the spending on that new aircraft carrier in the first year, the outlays will be small. but the budget authority has to be large. there are other parts of the defense budget and all other agency budgets where the amount of money spent does go out within one year so defense manpower is an example. all of the salaries get paid in one year. but you want to be conscious of this distinction between budget authority and outlays and that will help you in describing the federal budget i believe to give your readers an accurate picture of exactly what commitments are being made. some of you will probably find that when it comes time for the

release of the budget, you are going to want to be able to know whether a particular project that is important to the geographic area for which you write is included in the budget. what you need to do to accolish that is i would suggest and i am not the world's foremost authority on this but you should get to know the folks in the appropriations committees in the congress who cover the areas where projects and i assume that in many instances it will be highways but certain other things and the people in theppropriations committees who rk on those issues, because they are going to want to know what's included in the budget and youan possibly get information from them. you'll want to go to the relevant agency, for example, the department of transportation, see if you can develop a relationship with people who work there and will be knowledgeable about your

particular project, see if the department is going to offer a briefing at about the time of the release of the budget to explain what the agency's budget looks like and there are some little pitfalls and traps of which you'll want to try to be conscious where there might be some happy talk in terms of trying to descri how much a particular amount in the budget can pay for. i've got a page in the handout that gives you my best advice on those areas, but when you come down to those questions you're really going to have to get know folks in the agencies and folks on the hill, in particular the appropriations committee, possibly also the authorizing committees to learn to have a relationip to be able to go to them a ask questions when the budget comes out. there is a concept which is pertinent to both discretionary spending and mandatory spending, next page in the handout which

is the baseline. if you were to imagine a wonderful mythical world in which the federal government were able to do exactly the same thing year after year, the cost of continuing to do the same thing year after year would be what you paid for that activity last year, plus an increase to reflect the rate of inflation for the next year. proposed freezes of federal pay aside, typically when you go from one year to the next year federal employees get a pay raise as just abo everybody wants to. th may not be true this year but the cost of supplies certainly is going to change. usually up. sometimes down depending upon what it is you're buying. and there is a baseline that is constructed by cbo and by omb. they're supposed to be the same.

they often are somewhat different, which is intended to reflect the change in the cost of doing the same thing year after year. so if you think about it given that the president won't propose to do t same thing next year that he's doing this year, the change in the president's program in terms of money can be expressed as the increase in cost of doing the same ing, the baseline plus or minus program changes. many people talk about the baseline and come to the conclusion that the baseline can drive policy. i've heard people complain that because the baseline includes typically an increase for inflation, both in pay and in the cost of supplies, that is biases federal spending decisions upwards.

the federal government, this argue goes, has no right to expect the pay increase for inflation -- of course most people in the private sector expect it but the argument is the fedal government has no right to expect an inflation increase. it should make do next year with the same amount as this year if not less, and, therefore, the fact that we have a baseline that represents inflation biases these federal spending decisions. i've never felt comfortable buying that argument. it always sounds to me like the baseline made me do it. what the congress ought to do, what its job is to review the budget every year, look at the extent to which programs should be changed or even if the programs aren't changed money can be saved and appropriations can be chosen, therefore, on a reasoned basis with appropriate

changes from year to year that economize on the use of the taxpayers' dollars. that is what we hire the congress to do. the baseline is merely an indicative tool to give a sense of where those numbers might go. it is certainly intended to tell anybody where they ought to go. so when people make reference to the baseline and, in fact, when you look at that cbo document that i mentioned at the outset which is going to be released later this year, it is in a sense a baseline document. it tells you what the cost of continuing to do what we're doing now can be anticipated to be next year and the year after that and the year after that. so that's a baseline, but it's not intended to tell anybody what we ought to do. the baseline holds true for discretionary spending. there is a concept of a baseline that is revant for discretionary spending. there is also a concept of a

baseline for mandatory programs. however, the mandatory program baseline is not quite as simple as the discretionary baseline. the reason is that if you're looking at what social security is going to cost next year relative to what it costs this year there is a lot more going on than just the rate of inflation. there is also the number of prospective social security recipients that choose to retire. there is the number of current social security beneficiaries who might pass away. there is an adjustment in benefits, a cost-of-living adjustment which may or may not be triggered for current social security benefits. there is a current history of what new retirees is. people who retire with higher wages can bigger benefits than those with lower.

there is a concept that applies to mandatory programs, but it is much more complex than that for discretionary programs. then in addition to that there is the addition of proposed changes and i've givenen you in your handout a very lengthy table. this is the table from the sum men tri tab one is proposed policy changes for mandatory programs and the other is proposed policy changes for revenues. the reason why those two have been combined, i believe, is that in many instances there are overlaps between the two. particularly with respect to so-called refundable tax credits. the earned income tax credit,

the child tax credit, amounts of those credits under the income tax law are paid to individuals without -- in excess of tax liability in excess of zeroing out the tax liability if those people meet certain conditions. those refundable amounts of tax credits are considerable outlays in the budget, not negative revenues. and so as a result, when you propose a change in the child tax credit or the earned income tax credit and we' extended some changes in those credits in the current tax law as it was modified last month, then you have numbers that apply to both revenue changes and outlay chges with respect to a single policy and because of that, those two tables have been combined. so if you look at that table in the handout you'll find out it goes on and on and on and on. it's quite possible it will do

so again this year, but if the question comes up, what is the president proposing to do with respect to medicare, with respect to social security, medicaid? with respect to the income tax, is he going to propose to eend the tax cuts that wre further that were extendedack in december, or ihe going to propose a change? you're going to ned to look at this particular table and i've tried to discuss in the handout a couple of things that can go on. if you're the president proposing the budget and you want to make your deficit look smaller, you may very well propose a bunch of policies with respect to particular mandatory programs that save money. you might propose targeted tax increases on people that many people don't like. there's a last year there was a proposed special tax increase for financial institutions, for example.

it may be possible that those policies do not have a snowball's chance in haides in being enacted. if you put them in as proposals remembering as i suggested earlier, the budget assumes the enactment of the president's program you can take those and make your deficit look smaller. the same thing, of course, can happen in a congressional budget resolution and has happened in recent years so you can see those things going one way or another. but you'll find in the handout some descriptions of ways in which mandatory and revenue policies can be used to make the budget look a little bit different as it comes out the door. i'm running a little slowly so i'll try to speed up a little bit. on the mandatory side of the budget, you will find that mandatory spending consists of a relatively small number

relatively large programs. so if you look at the mandatory budget and you look at the amounts of the programs, the mandatory programs in the budget, you will find the biggies are social security and medicare and medicaid and once you get to those, you've accounted for roughly 70% of the total. and then you've got a few dozen more programs that are much smaller that divide uphe remaining 30%. this is very much in contrast to the discretionary side of the budget where you've got an enormous list of ograms, many of which are extremely small. and for the of you who are familiar with the budget books and many of you might simply work with the online versions, but for those of us who spent years hauling those things around, the biggest, fattest book in the budget is a book that is called the appendix. that budget is solely about

discretionary programs, and it runs typically about 1,2 page, and it goes on and on and on with descriptions of individual program, individual line items in the budget it is, in effect, the presidt's guidance to the appropriations committees. that's what that book is for. you'll want to keep in mind if you have that book and you're carrying them all around and you notice that the appendix is virtually as large as the other books put together, you'll want to keep in mind that that book is only about the discretionary part of the budget, which is only about at this point i think it's roughly 1/3 of total spending. the other 2/3 are in much larger programs on the mandatory side of the budget and are described much more briefly in thcourse of the budget. there is also a concept of a baseline for tax receipts. in effect, a baseline is what

happens if you put the tax system on autopilot. you allow current law to continue, and the question then is, how much revenue are you going to collect? that is a nice, neat understandable concept. the only problem with it is that particularly in the last few years in the last decade really it can be terribly misleading. and the reason why it can be misleading is that going back to 2001 we have had enormous changes in tax policy enacted on a temporary basis. the tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 were set to expire at the end of calendar year 2010. even though the people who enacted those tax cuts had no intention of allowing that expiration to happen. the point was th's the way we can get those tax cuts through the budget process and get them enacted into law so we'll do it that way.

of course, we came to the end of 2010 and we found ourselves in a terrible situation trying to figure out what we were going to do about those decisions. those tax cuts and tax cuts that were enacted in 2003 and a few enacted in 2009, back in december extended for another two years. so if you were to look at a revenue baseline, it will show that at the end of calendar year 2012, those tax cuts are going to expire and revenues will jump up to an extent that they will significantly reduce the amount of the budget problem. in reality, just as was the case in 2001 with respect t tax provisions that will expire -- were set to expire at the end of 2010, nobody wants all of those temporary tax provisions to expire, almost everybody has a sense of extending at least some them, if not all of them. so extending at least some of them if not all. so a revenue baseline on that

basis can be extremely misleading. if you look at the revenue base line and you put it into the budget picture, the deficit is going to take a sharp drop beginning in fiscal year 2012 and then particularly the next year fiscal year 2013. the problem is that with those taxes, tax cuts expiring, you will have a significant economic dislocation and it will cause serious political problems to anybody who allows it to happen. you want to keep in mind that the revenue baseline is perhaps of all the parts of the budget thene where the baseline concept is the most negative and mieading in terms of results. i've got a couple more pages in the handout. let me say just one thing very quickly. part of the reason why we are where we are, part of the reason

i think why the release of the budget has been postponed, is that the president has got to figure out what todo with the recommendations of his commission. the complication with the budget commission recommendations is that you've g bipartisan policy decisions to reduce the deficit, all of which are extremely painful, all of which will cause extreme political difficulty to anybody who gets behind them in a very visible way. the president's problem is if he comes forward with those recommendations in his budget, his base is going to come at him and say that he has given a lot of ground in what should be a very contentious budget negotiation if there is going to be any negotiation at all and some people in his base will not

want one. people on the other side will take the position that the president hasust given us his negotiating position. now we want to find out where his give is and have him come even further towards us, more spending reductions, less revenue increases. so the president is in a political box and is going to have to try to figure out how to put deficit reduction on the table because, frankly, the rest of the world expects it, and if we don't make some serious decisions in this direction as i suggested at the very beginning, there could be significant financial consequences in our not too distant future. the president's got to do that in a way that keeps h political position sound and thats not going to be an easy thg to do so that, to me, is one of the most touchy issues going forward. i've