between the jobs that would be created if we took the action to deal with the climate change problem. that is the affirmative reason that we have got to act. there are other costs for inaction. they can even be more profound. our weather is getting more extreme and me dangerous every year. droughts are affecting the world's food supply. floods in pakistan and other cotries have displaced millions. many of our forests are dying. scientists warn of tipping point that could be possible to reverse. that is why i keep coming back to the science. if the scientists are right, we are facing a problem that we cannot avoid. we cannot delay action and we cannot strip epa of its authority. we cannot hope that this proem will go away.

in fact, we know that doing nothing will make these problems worse. we know that carbon emissions remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and more. that means the delay will mean far deeper and costly productions tomorrow. speaking of tomorrow, on this tuesday, we are having an important hearing in our committee. the democrats use our rights under the rules that exist on the hearing on climate science to their credit. they scheduled the hearing for tomorrow. we havenvited four leading climate scientist to testify. we did not think that the senator should be the only person to talk to our committee about science before we pass legislation. i am going to tell my republican

colleagues that i am not -- i am willing to work wh them on new approaches and creative ideas. we can start with a blank piece of paper. there are many ways to make progressn climate change. we can invest in research and development of clean energy technology. we can promote energy efficiency. we can send a clean energy standard. we can build a smart grade and we can put a price on carbon. i have my own days on all these issues. -- and i have my own and views on all these issues. i know that we need to find a way to work across party lines. i will tell republican counterparts that we want to work with them. i am hopeful, as i was on all

those other issues where we ran into a wall that seems impossible to overcome, that we will start to work together. we need to be working side by side on a bipartisan basis. i want to conclude by -- not to give up hope that that can happen to write i want to conclude -- happen. i want to conclude with reflections on a historical context. climate change is an economic issue. it is also fundamentally a moral issue. we have an opportunity to act now. we had that kind of an issue another times inur history. we had during the civil rights movement.

leaders stood up and said, this is an issue that will not go away and must be resolved. the time has come. i think climate change is such an issue. if we do not act, we will not meet our moral ability to shape our future. we will not meet our moral obligation to our children and future generations. history will not judges kindly. our path forward may look for bedding, our journey may be longer than we hoped. but we have to keep in mind the moral perative to act. the economic imperative to act. the environmental imperative to act. we have to keep pushing, working, and we will overcome.

i just hope it will not take so many years that we will find that we will be putting more money into adaptation to deal with the hm from climate change then we would in developing the technology that will aow us to deal with this problem. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you so much. that was very inspiring. i am going to ask a cute -- a quick question and then i will open up to the floor. you made an important point about the shift from this being a regional issue to a partisan issue. i was wondering, you also made a point about emerging industries that have been helped by -- dec anyw for word -- forward that

is a regional approach as well -- in a way that my kind of bridge the ideological gas? >> that is an excellent point. people need to -- representatives need to hear from people they represent. there is an issue on the floor of the house of representatives were the start, we need jobs, jobs, jobs. and then they go on to another topic. but we do need jobs. and this approach will produce a push the economy forward. will drive for the economy and i think it may well be the only way we will ever close the deficit. we will produce the growth in our economy and i am open to the idea of using some of the bonds -- funds to help reduce

the deficit itself. people togot toet have a stake in all of this to tell their representatives that this is a jobs issue, not something that is based on some theory that environmentalists thought of scare people. that is what a lot of people believe. >> thank you. i want to open it to depress first. -- the press a first. briefly about the role of the administration now that congress appears to be paralyzed. are you persuaded that they have the tools and the resources on the political will to take the action? >> i bieve the administration has the tools, the ability, and the determination to act.

they've kept in mind the political opposition, which has led them to modify some of the proposed regulations. when the modified recent regulations, they made it quite strong. the ease up on some of the industry concerns. there is nothing wrong with the epa and other regulatory agencies looking at the cost of regulations and tried to figure out how they will achieve the results with the least amount amount of destruction to the people affected. the head of the station has got to stand up to the republicans. -- the devastation has got to stand up to the republicans. -- the administration has got to stand up to the republicans. they have got to fight this out. the republicans have made it a

battle grounds. they will but the other bills a battleground. they cannot shut the government down on this issue. they've got to have their bluff called. i expected the administration to stand up and be counted. it is one of the key planks upon which the president said he wanted to become the leader of our country. he wanted to lead on education, health care, and the environment. if we cannot get to a major bill through in the environment as we did in health care, we'll be stuck to use all the tools of our disposal -- we at least talk to use all the tools at our disposal. the clean air act, which the supreme court has told us on a 5-4 basis, includes legislation.

the way the epa has handled putting forth a tailored clothes will -- rule to stop emissions from major sources that make new improvements or yet to be built to greater efficiency was a thoughtful approach and will be a very important contribution to reducing the carbon emissions as best we can until the congress and the american people insist on doing more important gislation, which i think requires putting a price and carbon. thank you. >> wel you have been talking, one of my colleagues reported that the energy and power subcommittee is going to start the market up on thursday. what will you do to stop it?

can you stop? >> i have to face the reality that in our committee, it will be hard to stop legislation with which i disagree. i will have to make the argument as best i can. i think i can make them quite well. we will lose the votes in committee and may even lose the vote othe house floor, but we are making the argumentor the senate and for the administration and for the american peopl passing a bill t of committee and at of the house does not produce a lot. it is something that i relearned last year. and republicans are going to learn this year. >> good point. in the other press questions? -- any other press questions? >> good morning, congressman. i'm a freshman at george

washington university studying political science. i'm originally from los angeles. since i am from the l.a. area, i am eager to see the outcome of the yet to be called special election in california's 36 district. several candidates have already deposed their candidacies. my question is, you describe yourself as a bipartisan legislator, but -- defending public health and energy part of that criteria? have you endorsed a candidate across party lines? >> i want to work withse who get elected from the other side of the aisle. but i am a democrat and i support democrats. it is easier to get things done with people who share a basic political philosophy, even

though we may not agree on every issue. my first choice is to get a democrat elected. i make no predictions what will happen after redistricting in california. we have a new law in california that the top two candidates will run against each other. in that district, we will elect a democratic -- a democrat. i think elections are the key to our democracy, but they should be conducted and after they are over, we have to govern, not continue the campaigns. one of the unfortunate contributions of someone like newt gingrich is that the election campaigns never ended. he and tom delay tught it was all political all the time. it was always for the next election. at some point, we have to say,

that election is over. we have to deal with each other. that does not ser the american people. what can we do? that is my bipartisan philosophy. i recommend you as a student of political science, read this terrific vote. that is it. "the waxman reports." in each chapter, i go through a different issue. not always a consensus from all republicans and all democrats, but i can say clearly that almost all the bills that i offered became law have republican support. it may not have been what they have put -- they would put on

the agenda. >> you planted him in the audience. >> i think you have a future in california. >> i am a retired scientist. one of the issues that you did not mention is that it is a national security ise. the defense to part -- the defense department has done studies. wod you enlist the military to come to congress and explain why -- what their views are on climate change. maybe they have some influence on the republicans. >> that isn excellent point. last congress did have testimony from the military about national security threats. there is so much tumult and the middle east and oil prices are spiking that are dependent on

foreign oil makes us beholden to those countries, most of which did not have a national security interest in mind. we have to worry that a revolution in libya can drive up the price of oil and even when there is no apparent shortage. the psychology of its is so important. many people will say, that means we have to become dependent by drilling more year in the united states. we need to keep in mind that we consume 25% of the world oil resources. we drill and available to our own people 3% of the world's resources and oil. we're not going to match that 25% consumption. in possible -- it is impossible

even to contemplate. we can move away from our dependence on oil and over all. that will have an important impact on lowering the price of the world market for oil and will have an important impact on making our country much more secure. >> any other questions? >> my name is george walter. one of our concerns is -- it is a grave situation. this bill that happened in kingston the destroyed over 300 acres and put people in dire straits and the emery river had arsenic and mercury.

but we have been trying to do is divide the solution for that. we have met with epa, usda, because if you could mediates -- remediate, we have looked at taking that combining it with my new are -- manure and coming up with an organic supplements with every and tradition -- reintroduction of trace minerals. what it does is optimize production. plant growth and production. at this stage, we are battling with epa and the usda to look at what we have. they have invited us to, and they have looked at its, but there is still that way to -- wait.

as you probably know, there are over 600andfills over 35 states. >> one of the writers that passed in the house was to stop epa from acting in this area. the epa is talking to you and to others. this is toxic air pollution problems. it causes cancer and birth defects. in the case of mercury, it poison our kids. the republican majority wanted to stop the epa from acting. your frustration is to get the epa to act. there are some rules and regulations that the republicans want to stop that and then in the process of being developed

over a 10-year period trade is an incredibly long period of time when you recognize how many people other than hertz. it took lawsuits -- how many people have been hurt. it took lawsuits. the epa is determined tdeal responsibly with their obligations under the law. we will continue to conduct oversight to be sure that they are doing what they need to do. republicans may be doing oversight in the opposite direction, but we will continue to push the epa. >> that brought up the interesting bigger question. you talked a lot about holding the line. where do you see specific opportunities to move that line, to start addressing some of the

things that are urgently needed? >> i am going to hold lines of the epa can move the line for word. i want the rest of the government to be able to spend the money under the recovery act, to adopt appropriate regulations under existing law, and to use whatever administrative tools they have their disposal that did not require congress to pass official legislation. at some point, we will pass additional legislation, hopefully in a positive direction. if they do the job that they can do now, and they are proposing to do, it will move us forward. it is only going to be two years. >> i think we have time for one more question. i should go to that de. >> wait for the microphone.

>> you said in your speech? you were finding that the industry was much more on board into a dozen 9 with some kind of a positive vote -- 2009 was some kind of a positive vote. where is the balance? where are you saying you support from industries or regulation? >> i mentioned the coalition that we have behind legislation. that was an impressive coalition. it would be addressed eventually ended the to have some rules of the road. the two industries that come to mind, one is: the other is oil. -- coal and the other is oil.

i am reminded of the situation we had been we were reviewing the acid rain problem. we were so. to get legislation passed and to answer the plight of the people in the midwest due to bear the cost. we will have the charge on electricity throughout the country, a sll charge of pennies per family. the coal industry said, there is no problem. leave us alone. after the cap-and-trade legislation on sulfur emissions, we did not give the many subsidies. we said that they have to figure out how to reduce the emissions. we're just telling you the goal. you figure out how to reach the goal. the result was reaching a goal

at a lot less of a cost, a fraction of the cost of what people were testifying before. the biggest change was that those high sulphur people who said there were no problem, they were displaced by the low-sulfur coal. that was the cheapest way to achieve the results. rather than protect high sulphur coal, we'll let the market force it's worked. they suffered a real disadvantage. some industries can overplay their hand. the coal industry they overplay its hand, especially when we are reaching their hands out and saying, we will try to develop a

program so that coal be a viable industry. we will help pay for it. perhaps ey will have to pay for it. they are not as interested in the financial well-being. they are interested in ideology. they are uniquely involved in the right wing of this country. they are financing the tea party movement and the republican party and they are making the politics pay off for them both ideologically and economically. there are industries that we will never completely satisfied. we will do our best to hear their concerns and try to be responsive to them, but if their position is, nothing, no way, no how, it is hard to compromise. >> thank you so much. [applause] [captioning performed by

national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> the u.s. house meets today at 2:00 eastern for general speeches. legislative work starts at 4:00. members will consider bills designating dentists and vetenarian as emergency responders and disasters. tomorrow the congress will hear from the australian prime minister in a joint meeting. we'll have a live coverage of that at 11:00 eastern. on wednesday members begin kuwait on eliminating mortgage relief. transportation secretary ray lahood is on capitol hill this afternoon. he's testifying before the senate transportation committee. about his department's 2012 budget request. c-span3 will have live coverage beginning at 2:30 eastern. >> the new way to get a concise review of the day's events it's "washington today" on c-span radio. every week day we'll take you to capitol hill, the white house, and anywhere news is happening. we'll also talk with the experts, the politician mrs.,

and -- politicians, and the journalists. the stories that matter to you the most every week day on c-span radio. can you listen in the washington-baltimore area at 90.1 f.m. and nationwide on xm slight radio channel 132 or go online at c-span.org. available as an iphone app and download the program every evening as a c-span podcast. >> the u.s. house coming in at it:00 -- it:00 p.m. eastern. until then the chinese foreign minister who held a news conference yesterday called the national people's congress, it's a largely ceremonial session. nearly 3,000 delegates met to approve the government's economic plan. coverage of the half-hour briefing is courtesy of cctv, china central television.

>> particular because of u.s. arms sales to tway juan. it caused strains on sino--u.s. ties. how do you see the future of this relationship? what will be the reaction from the -- if the united states further sells weapons to taiwan. second, foreign journalists encountered some difficulties and restrictions in their reporting activities in china in the past weeks. some foreign journalists were even beaten. what is your comment?

[speaking foreign language] >> i would like to say that we all know president hu jintao paid a state visit to the united states at the invitation of president barack obama last january. that visit achieved full success , important agreement was reached between the two countries on further advancing china-u.s. relations. in particular the agreement was reached on building a china-u.s. cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit. >> there is now good atmosphere in china-u.s. relations.

>> we have four agenda involving china-u.s. relations in the following months. vice premiere and state consular will co-chair with their u.s. counterparts a third-round of the china-u.s. strategic and

economic dialogues. state consular will attend the second meeting of the china-u.s. high level mechanism on people to people exchange. moreover, vice president joseph biden of the united states will visit china mid this year and after that vice president -- the vice president will pay a visit to the united states at a convenient time. cooperative

partnership, i would like to emphasize here that we live in an era marked by deepening economic globalization and the coming pursuit of peace, devolvement, and cooperation. to pursue cooperation as partners represents the trend of our times and the call of the people. both china and the united states are countries with important influence on world peace and developmenter -- development. the position of the two countries to establish a cooperative partnership meets

the requirement of the times. it's also required by deepening cooperation between the two countries. more and more people in the united states have come to recognize that in handling the united states relations with china in this new environment, we need to embrace new ideas and foster a favorable atmosphere.

the presidents of the two countries have charted the course for future development of china-u.s. relations. what we need to do now is to seize the momentum, build on the progress, earnestly implement the agreement reached by the two countries and take solid steps in building the china-u.s. cooperative partnership. it is an objective reality that china and the us have some

differences or even frick shunses over some issues -- frictions over some issues. what's important is to properly handle these differences on the basis of mutual respect. you mentioned u.s. arms sales to taiwan in your question, we firmly oppose the u.s. arms sales to taiwan.

we urge the united states to strictly abide by the principles and spirit of the joint communique and china-u.s. joint statement. stop selling arms to taiwan and take concrete action to support the peaceful development across the nation. this is very important in upholding the overall interest of china-u.s. relations.

i didn't notice any signs of tension in the domestic situation of china. what i have seen in fact the chinese people had a joyful lunar chinese new year, the lantern festival, they are busy doing their own work, they are focusing their attention on pursuing domestic development. these are what i have seen and i don't want to see anyone making something out of thin air.

when i view actually in some countries, including some developed countries, the people there have much on their minds. people in those countries have seen that china has sustained an average 10% growth rate over the past 30 and more in its reform and development. it has lifted so many people out

of poverty and it has succeeded in tackling the international financial crisis and people ask themselves what is the secret of china in making all these accomplishments? maybe we can spend more time studying this. china is ready to exchange experience with other countries and aw on eac other's rength inursuing various fronts.

d llalloth, we vehe confibl in this way we will be able to live with each other in harmony. china and the e.u. are two major economies in the world and we are each at a crucial stage of -- in our respective development. we should pursue cooperation through mutual help. i think this is a good thing for both sides to do.

in a word we will work with the e.u. to further deepen our comprehensive strategic partnership. the two sides should work together to pursue a political partnership based on mutual respect and mutual trust. deepen their economic partnership featuring win-win cooperation, and build a cultural partnership on the basis of mutual learning and new

actual -- this year is the year of youth exchange between china anti-european union. we hope that by hosting such large-scale exchange being activities, the two sides will further increase the friendship and mutual trust people of the two sides so as to lay a more solid social foundation for the continued growth of the china-e.u. comprehensive strategic partnership.

>> i'm with phoenix tv and it's affiliated website. i would like to ask a question about a regional issue. as we know that the six-party talks have stalled for over two years, it seems that the parties

concerned are not confident enough about the six-party talks. we have seen that the dprk has expressed its willingness to come back to the negotiation table. however the r.o.k. still insists that the interkorea dialogue exceed the six-party talks. under such circumstances, when do you think the six-party talks can be resumed? how big are the odds for achieving a denuclearized peninsula through the six-party talks?

>> it is true that the six-party talks have been at a stand still for over two years. during which complex changes took place in a security situation in northeast asia. i believe this merits the close attention of all relevant parties. but i also believe that anyone who views the six-party process from a comprehensive and objective perspective will admit that important progress has been made in the six-party process.

for example, we issued the september 19th joint statement, the six-party talks contributed to greater exchanges between the relevant parties. and played an important role in maintaining regional stability.

in order to restart the six-party talks, the chinese side has put forward a series of positive proposals and the international community has fully recognized this. i pleeve it is the hope of the international community to see an early resumption of the six-party process and the parties concerned also in principle hold a positive attitude towards early resumption of the six-party talks. the challenge now is that we need to have further consultations on how and when the talks can be resumed and we still need to reach consensus on this point.

it's known to all that china has been an active supporter of the bilateral contacts and dialogues between the relevant parties. we believe that such dialogue and contact and the six-party talks can be mutually reinforcing. at the same time, we cannot expect the issue can be resolved

overnight. the six-party talks is a diplomatic practice where no stashed precedents can be followed. it's important that all the parties involved work even harder. >> as the old chinese proverb reads, one cannot travel a thousand miles without taking a succession of solid steps.

like an ocean cannot take shape without admitting -- emitting numerous small streams. as long as we get the dialogue off in -- off to a start, we can find more and more common language. and in the process of the talks, we can work together to explore solutions to various issues.

we believe that it's important for all the parties to work even harder for the restart of the six-party talks by taking advantage of the good atmosphere, momentum at present. we believe that all the parties involved keep patient, reinforce their resolve, and give full play to their wisdom and capabilities we will be able to eventually achieve the goal of denuclearization of the korean peninsula and maintain long-standing peace and stability in northeast asia. >> more international coverage 2078. british prime minister david cameron meets with members of the house of commons wednesday. to answer questions on current government policies, prime minister's questions, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow on c-span2.

the u.s. house is about to gavel in for morning hour. time setaside for general speeches. legislative work gets under way at 4:00. two bills today designating dentists and vetenarian as emergency responders in a disaster. votes on those bills are scheduled for 6:30 eastern. tomorrow the house meets with the senate to hear from australiaa's -- australiaa's -- australia's prime minister. debate begins on eliminating mortgage relief programs. meanwhile today in the senate they are working on patent law changes. they may hold test votes on a couple of 2011 spending plans and can you see live coverage of the senate on c-span2. they'll gavel back in in about 15 minutes at 2:15 eastern. live to the house floor here on c-span.

[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., march 8, 2011. i hereby appoint the honorable kevin yoder to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 5, 2011, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority

leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip limited to five minutes each but in no event shall debate continue beyond 3:50 p.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. stearns. mr. stearns: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: so approved. mr. stearns: i held a hearing on the problem of medicare fraud. . last congress i introduced a bill to increase civil penalties on those who defraud the medicare program. in fact the government accountability office, g.a.o., listed both medicare and medicaid as high risk because these programs are vulnerable to fraud.

waste, fraud and abuse. and mismanagement. now, how badly mismanagement are we talking about? well, the g.a.o. recently issued a report about -- that there was $48 billion just in improper payment. now, this isn't fraud. this is just improper payment. so when it comes to fraud it is estimated anywhere from $60 billion to $90 billion lost to medicare fraud every year. now, during this hearing i asked the director of medicare program integrity, whose job it is to protect medicare against fraud and abuse, if he knew how much money is lost to fraud in medicare. he could not answer this question. secretary sbeelias was asked in a health subcommittee hearing if she knew how much money was lost to medicare? she answered answered, quote, if we knew how much it was we would shut it down, end of quote. in my hearing the head of the medicare fraud strike force in

the miami region for the office of the inspector general testified he was able to find $3.8 billion in medicare fraud. . my friends, in over 20,000 municipalities, you can see how we can get to $of 60 billion to $90 billion of fraud. less violence, lighter punishment, and organized crime is taking notice and getting involved in defrauding medicare. so here are five reform ideas that came out of this hearing. they were mentioned to help secure medicare in defrauding the program. . it's easy for a company to do business with medicare and the burden is on the government to remove a company from the program. this needs to change to allow the government to remove bad

actors from the program quickly and efficiently. secondly, medicare needs to significantly improve their provider and supplier screening process. while individuals have a right to medicare, companies do not have a right to become or stay a medicare provider. third, medicare needs to shift away from the fee-for-service program, a cap tated managed care organization provides a strong financial incentive to the managed care organization to eliminate fraud and abuse. it is a managed care plan that has the financial risk and not the united states federal government. when criminals perform fraud, managed care organizations present its own set of challenges but needs to be considered when discussing reforms to eliminate fraud in medicare. fourth, medicare needs to increase the role of physicians in detecting and preventing fraud themselves. medicare providers and suppliers must use a doctor's prescription to obtain a government preimburse. the bad actors forge these

documents. g.a.o. has required that physicians receive a statement of medicare home health care service that is their patients receive so they can review the documents. this will allow them to look carefully and detect any potential misuse of their authorizations. lastly, medicare needs to use predictive computer modeling and other technologies. the credit card industry uses this modeling to identify potentially fraudulent transactions. medicare and medicaid should adopt this style of analysis to prevent fraudulent claims. mr. speaker, these are five simple ideas to empower the medicare program to stop the fraud in this system. this was recommended from the hearing we had in oversight and investigation. it must be stated again there is an estimated $60 billion to $90 billion in fraud and medicare every year. no one over at health and human service knows how much is lost. the secretary of health and human services could not even come up with a number. think of that. after 45 years of this program,

no one knows how much fraud is in medicare and have taken no steps to really analyze and find out. yet we have all the baby boomers coming or beginning to retire, the cost of medicare will explode, and the huden costs will increase. my committee will forward the material from the oversight and investigation hearing to the health subcommittee to start to develop legislation to address these problems of medicare fraud. we have a $1.5 trillion deficit in eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse is necessary to balance the budget and we should start now. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon, mr. blumenauer, for five minutes. mr. blumenauer: thank you, mr. speaker. i had the privilege this morning to participate in a fascinating in-depth discussion sponsored by the national journal and the regents foundation. living well at the end of life,

a national conversation. it was made possible by a group that -- insurance company headquartered in my hometown, portland, oregon, and the deep commitment that its president and c.e.o. has to be able to make sure that families have the information, the tools they have -- necessary to make sure that they understand their treatment choices and that they are respected. this is an issue that goes far beyond the so-called end of life. this is key to -- so that everybody knows their health care choices. they understand their choices. and they make their wishes known, their choices honored, and respected. it is a mistake as we have these conversations to mistake the high cost of end of life with concerns about health care reform.

when people are seriously ill, they have high health care spending. and there's nothing wrong with that. that is a natural consequence much what happens when people need more hospitalization, more intense activity. but too often the sickest and most vulnerable have negative experiences in our complex health care system which creates unnecessary strains on both the patients and the caregivers. and it's a mistake to somehow confuse this with people who are seriously terminally ill. 40% of all people who are hospitalized can't make decisions for them selves. -- themselves. this is a real stress on them, on families, and the ones who had been given the responsibility to try to guess what's in their best interest. i have heard countless stories about how our health care system has failed patients during these

medically and emotionally complex episodes. both colleagues on our ways and means committee, and we are dealing with health care reform, friends, witnesses, have come forward time and time again with how a parent, a spouse, a friend ended up on an auto pilot in the health care system, in and out of hospitals, could be fused -- confused by the specialists, decisions being made around them but not with them. we can do better. we know how to do better. thrur successful models of comprehensive patient centered care that leads to better quality and greater patient satisfaction. and it's interesting that the new polling by the national journal and the regents foundation makes this abundantly clear. these results affirm that health care is deeply personal and that people want to know their options, stay in control of their care, and be in a position to help their loved ones.

it was -- mr. speaker, i would ask unanimous consent to enter this survey research in the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. blumenauer: it indicates that 97% of americans polled believe that it is important that patients and their families be educated about pality care and care options available to them when they are seriously ill. over 80% of americans polled believe that discussions about palive care and other treatment options should be fully covered by health insurance, including medicare. by a more than 3-1 margin, people identified that their number one goal is more important to enhance the quality of life for someone who is seriously ill rather than just simply extend life. it pointed out that as a result of some of the, i would think,

bizarre conversation that has surrounded this issue, including the 2009 politifact lie of the year about death panels that elected officials and political candidates, according to this survey, are actually the worst source in people's minds for information. the good news is that they trust religious leaders, health care providers and doctors, insurance companies, and the most trusted is friends and family. which illustrates why we need to work aggressively in educating all americans about the choices that are available to them and how those choices are respected, and it's time to start now. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, for five minutes.

mr. poe: mr. speaker, the pirates are back. these are not the black beered, eye patched, hook for a hand, peg legged pirates from the hollywood movies. the modern day pirates are skilled, rich, violent, armed with automatic weapons, and driven by a business that is generating up to $7 billion a year. my constituents from texas, bill and his wife, have navigated the oceans for years and recently they and another group of international navigators and sailors decided that somalia and the smalian pirates had made the seas too dangerous to sail in that region, forcing them to transport their ships and boats by barges to safer ports.

bill said we cannot allow a one of thugs to take away a portion of the world. that is what these pirates are trying to do. they have taken control of parts of the ocean and trying to mock the most powerful nations on earth, including ours. days before the ill-fated american ship, quest, left for their journey, bill asked scott to join them in transporting their boats. adam, the skipper, said of the quest, the quest was circumventing the goal and it was a lifelong quest and they continued on their trip although it turned out to be doomed in the indian ocean. just a week after scott, adam, and three other americans were captured, they were executed pirate style after somali pirates captured the ship. pirates also hijacked and kidnapped a danish family, bill has also met with these people on this doomed ship. this family including small children is now in the somali mainland still held hostage. their captors have arrogantly

warned any military effort to save them will result in their immediate execution. bill has told me of other stories about the tight knitted community of people sailing in that region from all over the world, and they have been forced off the sea because of the pirates. there are not enough resources to respond to these constant threats. and these pirates not only kidnap, murder, and hold for ransom small boat owners but attack freighters and other commercial vessels as well. in just 2010 somali pirates hijacked 53 ships and held a total of 1,100 hostages for ransom. pirate attacks have increased dramatically in recent months. here's a drawing of the recent attacks of the pie lats in the -- pirates in the indian ocean. the red represents all of the pirate attacks between march of 2009 up until october of 2010. but the blue which you see just as much of represents the attacks by pirates in the indian ocean in just the last four

months. piracy is a growing business because nations pay the ransom. every dollar paid in ransom is helping this pirates of the seas finance their cause, expand their reach, and their thirst is even getting greater for more bounty and loot. . the pirates are getting bolder and they are getting more violent. america has been dealing with pirates since our founding fathers over 200 years ago. the states would blackmail american -- american ships in the united states by demanding money in return for the safety of u.s. ships that cross the mediterranean sea. for years the united states and european governments paid the humiliating tribute to protect the ships. but then in 1801 the pirates felt the wrath of the united states when thomas jefferson sent the united states navy and the united states marine corps

to take care of business with the barbary pirates. this was the most famous action of the marines at this time and the frays from the shores of tripoli has been memorialized in the hymn. he said don't mess with the united states and they didn't for 200 years. the somalian pirates should study a little american history if they would they would find out that there will be a day of reckoning that will eventually come to them and their evil ways. thomas jefferson destroyed them. we will see what happens now. our constitution gives us the authority in article 1 section 8 to, quote, define and punish piracy and felonies committed on the high seas. these ocean lines are essential to american commerce and travel, and we must do everything in our power to stop the pirates off the somalian coast. these pirates of the seas must find out that if they continue to mess with the united states they will find themselves in deja vu of 1801, and they, like

the pirates before them, will disappear in the ash heap of history. and that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from wisconsin, ms. moore, for five minutes. ms. moore: thank you, mr. speaker. i would ask -- would like to ask to be able to revise and extend my remarks and would place extraneous material in the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. moore: thank you so much, mr. speaker. i rise today as the democratic co-chair of the women's caucus to celebrate the 100th anniversary of international women's day. mr. speaker, i'm so pleased to join millions in our nation and around the world in commemorating this international women's day. we celebrate courageous women in places like afghanistan, iraq, egypt, sudan and

elsewhere who continue to fight the good fight at great risk to their own lives, in the face of being ostracized and persecuted by their families and communities for women's abilities to be included in the societies in which they live. we celebrate tremendous women here at home in the united states who have done much to advance the ability of women to work, to vote, to go to school and to run for and hold elected office. as a woman who is able to serve in congress today, i know that i stand on the showeders of these women giants who have sacrificed so much in the past. but we must also recognize that much needs to be done. right here in the united states, in our country women make only 77% of the paycheck that a male would make doing the same job. and we know that even after 100 years it is too soon to declare

mission accomplished. recent news reports in afghanistan shows efforts in afghanistan to pass legislation that would shut down domestic violence shelters, turning our attention closer to home, in haiti, we find that after the devastating earthquake, unicef has found that the rapes in haiti are at an all-time high. but we've also been fixated in recent weeks by the protest and push for democracy sweeping the middle east and women have been leading the charge. we must also acknowledge the shameful plight of hundreds of thousands of mothers to be around the clobe who die because of pregnancy or child-related complications. it's shameful that the simple act of childbirth remains a death sentence for hundreds of

thousands of women and girls around the world. we must recommit ourselves to the millennium development goal to reduce dying from pregnancy or childbirth. and last, i have the honor of attending the state department's women of courage ceremony and -- to honor 10 women. they were maria bashear, a prosecutor general in afghanistan. she handles cases on behalf of women, victims of domestic abuse. another who at age 20 has led a peaceful protest and called attention to the plight of families of political prisoners. henrietta from cameroon, a political activist and publisher. she spent a lifetime advancing freedom, human rights, good governance and gender equality.

from china, a female lawyer, founder of women's law center at the university helping them to defend public interest cases, especially affecting women and other vulnerable groups. from cuba, yao chin. she is the international followowowowth hwi blog to provide insight into the life of -- in cuba and to expand information regarding the flow and free expression throughout cuba. agnus, elected to the hungarian parliament in 2010, the only female woman member of parliament in hundred gary. jordan dedicated her career to advocating for vulnerable people of georgia, including women at risk of becoming victims of so-called honor

crimes. kirk stan, we have rosa -- kurdistan, we have rosa, first female head of state, in a majority muslim country. from mexico, the first woman to ever be appointed to assistant attorney general, marisela morales, in bringing justice. and certainly but not least from pakistan, gulam sugra, has become the village's first female graduate and first teacher at the first school for girls. thank you so much for these women and thanks for international women's day, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until 4:00 p.m. today. dcast.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: at the table now is former cia director, michael hayden.

fors extended conversation another minute on guantanamo. when you heard the news, what was your reaction? guest: i think it was the right decision. there has been a powerful continuity between the 42nd 43rd president of the united states when it comes to fighting the war on terror. both the fine as a war. once you define as a war, that leads to logical conclusions. yesterday's executive order is an example of a logical conclusion. >> senator leahy and other says this means it will probably never close. guest: never is a long time, but we do need a place to keep these folks. some of these cannot be tried. those that can be tried, we have options of military commissions for article 3 courts. i think the president is making

use of all of the tools the law gives him to deal with a very difficult problem. host: phone numbers on the bottom othe screen for michael hayden. wanted to get your reaction to a story that is really hard to figure out, but it comes from bya. cnn and othersre suggesting the opposition is saying that muammar gaddafi is working on a deal to step down. true or not true? guest: i can only imagine what is happening at my old agency. someone else is asking the same question, is it true or not true? when you of things likehings that are going on in libya, it is very difficult to get trthe truth. you need to be very careful about extending the report,

truthful as that might be coming to the entire circumstances in situation. my instinct is that is probably not true, but we will have to see. host: that being said, from your experience running the agency, how does it approached a place like libya where they might be breaking out into civil war? how is it organized and do the work to advise the president and others on what is going on? guest: we make use of all of the tools that are available from the intelligence disciplines. that includes human intelligence and public source information. i suspect right now imagery intelligence might be playing a very powerful role as we try to sort out who is where and what is going on and how intense the fighting is. i have read a lot of the dispatch is coming out of libya. but what is happening at that

particular scene is an intense combat. sometimes that is not true. i think imagery i get a sense as to where the forces are into is pushing him. host: you mentioned the tools. what are the major challenges here? guest: let me givhuman intelligence as a discipline. even wn they are reporting truthfully to you, the real question is do they really know? and this case, i think all of the participants reviews are so narrow that even when you think they're being very candid with you, you have to step back and actually judge how much are they actually aware of? that we havesume information coming from what is left of the libyan government. that is very useful in terms of what it is in terms of what they

think your debt that is quite different reflected reality. -- . . t it i in terms of what they think, but that is quite different from reality. based on my time in intelligence and as an air force officer, and if i were in their room right now in this were being discussed, clearly there may be elements of american policy that would require us to do this, but i think my role would be to keep striking cautionary notes. this is harder than it looks. when one sps into these takestions, one steps respon responsibility for the final outcome. host: from your perch, put the

pieces together when we step backor a second? tunisia, egypt, libya -- what does this all mean and where might it be going? guest: a couple points i would make. mber one, this was pdictable in the sense that we solve all of the conditions for this. what was not predictable were the precise timing spirited numb. number two, this will cause difficulties in practically every case. the egyptian service is a good partner of the united states. at a minimum the egyptian service is distracted in terms of what it is they can do on the counter-terrorism front. on the long run this is quite helpful. we have become quite good at what we are calling a close battle. folks committed to going after

people trying to do was great harm. what we have not done so well is to deal with the production rate of such people that causes generation of people to harm us. one of the challenges that we was the bottle was basically as ut islam -- battle we basically about islam. our ality to affect the deeper battle, the production rate of folks that want to do was harm was quite limited. now a new narrative has been thrust onto the scene. this is less about some macro islamic kind of question then it is about something we ow something about, democracy,

personal freedom, responsible government. it has changed the narrative. there is turbulence in the short-term, and even in the long-term success is by guaranteed. here is an opportunity that did not exist three months ago. host: first call for general michael hayden. democrat, good morning. caller: i wanted to ask about the cia and the history of the intelligence regarding the war in iraq. it seems to me tt the cia has practically no credibility because of their errors regarding the intelligence. for example, one of your main sources for the intelligence on iraq was this guy curve ball.

even the germans knew he was not credible source. your claim about iraan being shipped to iraq wa wrong. really i do not believe anything you say. guest: very familiar history. i was in the room when the national intelligence you're referring to on iraq was voted. i voted yes. we got it wrong. cleanup swing and miss -- a clear swing and a miss. every intelligence agency in the world believed that they have these programs, but we got it wrong. i teach a class at the george mason university, and we covered this last week. i put the key judgments on the screen for the students to read. what struck me was not so much that we got the wrong, and these are tough questions and most

intelligence agencies believe as we did, but what struck me was the false confidence in the conclusions. there were no hints of doubt or uncertainty. looking back on it, i think the real error was we did not tl the readers where we were more confident and where we were less confident. we have worked very hard to exchange that. -- we have worked very hard to change that. the inherent ambiguity on any kind of subject. host: you did suggest earlier that this is hard stuff. what can you tell us about the cia and how it has evolved in change forced -- and changed most recently under the new leadership? guest: the errors of tradecraft

were very evident in the 2002 national intelligence estimate. a great al of work has been done on that well before i arrived at the agency. the head of the analytic shot at that time went through a whole process to retin the work force in green bay analytic work tools into the mix -- and bring the analytic work tools into the mix. one of the bankers ask a question like the one you just asked me -- on a scale of 0 to 10 how would you rate cia analysis? let me tell you what i told him. i said first of all you have to know, 8, 9, and 10 are not on our scale. if you can get to 8, 9, or 10 there is o thing almost solutely certainnobody is asking as a question. we have the questions that are

very tough. we get the ones that are very ambiguous. i think the viewer needs to understand this is inherently difficult. this is about gathering information and making conclusions about things other nations are spending great treasure and effort to hide from us. maybe the most important judgment you can give to the policy maker is not just the facts of the particular case, but how competent or not confident you are and what your concluding. host: let's hear from baltimore. good morning. caller: from your days in the air force, why was it okay to have a no fly zone in parts of iraq and not ok to have a no-fly zone in this situation? guest: in terms of the military

view of it, i think the military would be as cautious about no- fly zones as they are about the no-fly zones during libya. one additional point. we are badly stretched out. he still have significant forces in iraq. i think everyone understands situation in afghanistan. that is an additional note in this cautionary tale.

host: there is an op-ed piece in "the wall street journal". let's hear from pontiac, michigan. caller: my question is concerning central intelligence agency's special activities division. i wanted to inquire about the former predent of northwestern university, concerning activities such as mail and death threat -- in amtrak's letters. -- anthrax letters. i was wondering if he knew this

individual was involved and if he knows northwestern university has a u.s. patent for sending such a weapon as an anthrax letter in the mail. i want to know if he knows a law professor bernadine and northwestern university being part of the cia. guest: any relationship between cia and index letters, i am not aware of. -- anthrax letters, i am not aware of. my instincts are absolutely not. host: john democrat, alabama. caller: i have a short question

after i recited the pledge allegiance of america. i know that all cabinetembers in our government has to take this pledge. when someone gets put into the cia, do you take thisledge? do you study would this pledge means? guest: thanks for the question in opportunity. i often get asked when talking to public groups, what kind of people comprise the central intelligence agency. they are like your friends and neighbors. if you work in virginia or maryland, they are your neighbors. these peoe are in the mainstream of american society. as we give you a memory that i have. once a year, we have a family

day at cia. we have over 20,000 people on our campus in virginia. that is the opportunity where we can bring our family members to cia to see where the office is and to meet other people in the agency. we cannot bring the press corps outside observers in. i will tell you, it feels like every state o county fair you have ever been a part of. these people are the heart and soul of america. a share of america's values just like anyone else. the more you know about them, the more certain you would be of the fact and would be proud of who they are and what they do. host:michael hayden became the

director of the center of the intelligence agency. he is currently with the chertoff group. remind us what that is. guest: it is a security consultant firm. we take the things we were concerned about in government and continue to work on those and similar problems. host: i want to get your take on one hearing that is drawing cle. some are calling muslim radicalization. it is happening in the american muslim community. we will hear about it in a short ip. what does that term mean to you? guest: what we have going on in our society. it has been pointed out by janet of paul lozano -- naplitano.

the new threat coming at us is less likely to be that complex, slow-moving, high casualty attack such as 9/11. it is more likely to be low threshold, conducted by someone either a citizen or legally inside of the united states. this is what the current administration is pointing out regarding our most present danger -- pressing danger. chairman king wants to hold hearings on that very subject. it is a logical consequence of what we are now defining as a threat. from the'hear congressman. >> the majority of muslims are outstanding americans.

but they are radicalizing some elements within the muslim community. they go into the russian community. this is not just me saying this, but eric holder stays awake at night thinking about the young muslim men being radicalized. gues it is a reality. we are trying to deal with it in a prudent way. we have two political branches of government. the legislative branch has a role in this. the way it ffills its responsibility is to hold hearings and as indicated, they have to determine if they will pass legislation. host: minnesota, a democrat, he will be testifying at this hearing.

here is a short piece from him. >> i think it is the right thing to do for the chairman of the homelandecurity committee to investigate a radicalization. to iestigate a particular religious minority is the wrong course of action. if we are going to talk about the game violence, it is not right to only talk about the irish community in one area host: one more thought? guest: the administration itself is defining the threat in these kinds of terms. i think it is a logical consequence that they are holding these hearings. let's see how the hearings go and the tone in which they are carried out. i think he will hold these hearings in a very fair and responsible and professional manner. we may learn something.

we need to better understand where the real dangers are and where they are not. host: live coverage of that hearing is on thursday on c- span3. next caller. caller: it has been fastening listening general haïtiyden. i wish the obama administration had found a place for you. my concern is about the politicization of what has been going on in foreign affairs. all of the demonstrations that i saw in the bush administration against iraq and afghanistan in guantanamo bay. now i see or hear a silence.

nothing from the left. no demonstrations on guantanamo bay. at it really tells me is that the demonstrations i saw during the previous years were not anti-war demonstrations but anti-bush demonstrations. guest: keeping with the characterization you gave me at the beginning of your comment as a professional as opposed to someone with political views, i am disheartened. i think what we did when i was in governmentas inappropriate response to what was a completely new set of problems. we struggled. coming up with the right formulas to deal with something that we had never had to face before. we were not in stages through out the bh administration where we changed and developed and adjusted as we move forward

and as a threat changed. our understanding of that threat changed. we had to determine what works and what did not. i am disheartened to see that a new administration with powerful continuity with what will was linked before. what we are doing is an american response to this problem, not confined to one political party or the other. that i think is very encouraging. host: independent caller from toronto. caller: i have a question and comment. i am very familiar with a region regarding muammar gaddafi.

$200 million in a ship. my comment, a no-fly zone will not work. he could massacre these people with the tanks and hire mercenaries and people from other countries. the u.s. should lead theay. the others will follow where the u.s. leads. i think the east -- libya is strategically located. the east is led by people educated in the u.s., europ mostly the uk. many have leadership in the east. 98% of the people in libya are highly educated.

they could be allies for the u.s. and the whole world. guest: you bring a variety of points, one out the ships of cash. i do not know. the no-fly zone and great harm can be done with forces on the ground with tanks reinforces the caution i was trying to suggest earlier. assuming no fly zone is in effect, but there is current on the ground created by artillery and armo what do we do regarding a no-fly zone? do we embrace a moral and operational responsibility to stop that kind of killing as well? i think many military professionals like myself need decide that question -- an answer to that question before you begin with what you think will be just a no-fly zone. with regard to the educated

population in the strategic position, i take your point. i think libya as a nation has less of a sense of a national entity as opposed to tunisia or egypt. it is far more regionally based in terms of personal loyalty. that enters into the question with regards to how the future of libya may involve. ho: here is a headline. what does this story mean to you from the cia lands? guest: it is a wonderful story. you cannot do it without exquisite intelligence. it is complementary of what all of our intelligence agencies are

doing in afghanistan. it is quite interesting. the public strategy and a significant element of the actual strategy is counter insurgcy. looking at the hearts and minds, and so on. that is going forward. underneath that, you have a counterterrorism strategy, in which we are working hard every night to decapitate the taliban leadership. that is also working very well. that is what you are seeing excepted. i believe it is that, which is forcing a significant faction of the taliban leadership to reconsider their options and decide if they want to continue this fight or not. host: civilian deaths, more of them in the paper. here is a shot of general petraeus.

an apology for the death of nine boys last week. [inaudible] he is very concerned about these kinds of things. war is a messy business. from time to time, bad things happen, try as you will. secretary gates has apologized. the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties in afghanistan and the latest numbers are nine of 10 are caused by our enemy, not by coalition forces. host: an "ap" story from pakistan, the intelligence people say five militants had been killed close to the afghan border. here is a call from pennsylvania. a democrat. caller: i would like to think c- span for taking my call.

i am a little nervous. we have two wars going on right now. one in iraq and one in afghanistan. we do not need a third war. this government is broke. they want to start cutting things in this government, not sending our troops in harm's way again and spending money we do not have. i understand that the oil coming out of oil goes -- libya goes to china. let china pay for this or do it. let's back off and alleged that civil war take place. host: not an uncommon thing, the financial part of it. guest: not my expertise, financially. the people at the capitol have

to decide how to spend the nation's resources. michael is right. we are involved in two wars. we are involved in a global war against al qaeda. the president has made it very clear that we continue to fight that, which requires a great deal of resources. we are stretched pretty thin when it comes to our own forces. need to be very careful before we make any kind of commitment. host: i was going to the cia -- cia budget with this. how did it devolve while you were the, where is it now, and is it enough? guest: the actual budget number is classified. when i was the director, for every dollar dollar and george

had on september, i had a two. that is a powerful investment into america's espionage agency. if there was a new need that required resources -- we needed another 45 million. i would go to congress in say, i need to do this, but my heart is not in it. we have been blessed by the american people with resources. i am embarrassed to go ask for more. i wanted -- it is not generally recognized, the intense operations tempo that the american security establishment is under right now. we have 1% of the country defending the other 99%. that 1% is working very hard,

en though the rest of the polation may not since the tempo. i was quite pleased with the resources we had. i am not enthusiastic, given the circumstances that michael described, of nosing that over significantly. host: baltimore, a republican. caller: in light of recent christmas -- criticisms of intel gathering, what is your idea on pay for performance? guest: i was in favor of it. we were trying to implement it. it became a very difficult proposition. we got some opposition from the hill on this.

cia was doing it in parallel. that was dead on arrival at capitol hill. it is difficult, but i think it is the right thing to do. as the dust settles, and we have another opportunity when the budget settles, it could be an opportunity to reward people that are performing exceptionally and reward other people that are doing their best but may not be in the top 20%. i do think pay for performance is a good thing. we need to work hard to try to implement it. host: oahoma, independent line. caller: the stuff i am hearing is kind of radical. i remember in 1994 or 1995, he beat director at the seattle -- the director at the cia came to a college campus proposing a

course in the line of work they did. [unintelligible] this current state we are living in right now is horrible living conditions. you see a certain enemy, but i have a hard time seeing the enemy. this program, the scores of egyptians and others -- are these radicals that we are seeing or hearing about? guest: thanks. i guess we are an immigrant the

the nation. a lot of people want to come here for education and business opportunities. it makes us who we are. it represents challges to organizations like my old one that is responsible for our security. we have to make sure that when we conder those in the united states, not those that come here to do us harm. host:ne of the early callers mentioned iran. can you talk from the cia perspective, the unique challenges in a place like iran versus the other places you spoke of? guest: iran was the second most discussed topic in the oval office while i was the director of the cia. it was not that far behind terrorism. president bush asked me how i would describe it.

what is going on in the nuclear program? comedy central fusions do they have? the second -- homany central fsions do they have? as tough as they were, i welcome to the questions in theirst basket about the nuclear program. this is one of the most opaque government in the world when it comes to these decisions. i think the obama administration is struggling with these kinds of things. 18 months of engagement to be open did not work. now we are looking at sanctions to start a new course of behavior. the iranians may be so ideologically committed that no amount of sanctions will get them to change their mind. that is where we are.

the real intelligence question we have is about nuclear development. the rl questions we had is how does the government function and how do we influence their behavior. that is very hard to determine. host: your take on cyber wars. the christian monitor says there is a new kind of global conflict. tomorrow's wars will be fought with software and the click of a mouse. your thoughts? wars butt tomorrow's today's wars. to enable america to fight in this new domain of combat, the american forces think of of fighting in operating in

domains. land, sea, air, space, but not cyber. we need to be prepared to defend america and to do what we need to do in cyberspace as much as we are able to do in those other domains. it is a tough question as to where we are now. the technology is generally available. theost is less than building a navy. with a few tens of thousands of dollars in computers in a basement or garrote, someone gets to play in this new domain. it is very challenging. what i think is the most serious challenge right now is policy. we he not yet arrived at a national consensus as to what kinds of activity is a legitimate act of self-defense.

we have capability. we are hesitant to use it, because we are not yet sure of what kind of presidents we will be estabshing if we go ahead and conduct this operation. host: to the budget question we spoke of earlier, here is a comment from twittered. -- twitter. guest: president bush directed the agency. it was to increase the number of case officers by a certain percentage. the last year i was at the agency, we had 160,000 applicants for work at cia. we are getting the very best that america has to offer.

i think america would be very pleased in what today are paying for. on theet's go to steve republican line. caller: i called regarding a couple of things. theeferendum in sioux don past that it would be split in two different countries. can i do business in sued john -- sudan? the largest embassy in the world is going cartoon. how can the chinese have a strong influence in sudan? i do not understand why is it that americans -- cannot do as much business in sudan? guest: very good points.

scott is a former air force officer and a major general and works for the obama administration. he is working hard on this problem. it is very difficult. if we can make this referendum stick, the separation of two new countries bng peaceful, it will represent a tremendous accomplishment. i assume you are talking about the chinese embassy and the investment in the university there. i do not know the facts, but i have no reason to challenge them. something is quite important. china wants to be a great power. if china wants to be in that category, it has to begin to act like a great power. it cannot define its policy makers with regard to sudan simply with the availability of

cheap oil. china has to take some sense of responsibility for the smooth function of the international system. american relations are shaped not just by economic situations, but also by the proper course of what was happening in sudan and southern sudan and in door for -- darfur. it is hard to get them to change their behavior. as the least we were trying. the chinese took advantage, and the west was not willing to do to get economic advantage. over the long term, it is destructive of the long-term chinese interests. i wld expect them to go into this new role and act in ways that contribute to the smooth functioning of the international system, not a nearly defined a short-term position.

host: next caller, washington. caller: my son is a bronze star recipient who served three tours in iraq. i was wanting to promote and sell solicit -- and solicit your comments on the idea rather than subsidizing and supporting corporations like black water, we take that money and give incentives to people to step up and boost our recruiting efforts so that we can have the defense is necessary to defend

our country in the light of things like libya and egy. guest: thank you and your son for your service. you hit the nail right on the head as to why we do have security contractors like this and other firms. we have a cap on the number of forces important. it is a broad policy decision as to how many we want to have in uniform as opposed to relying on contractors for certain things. what has shaped my decision on this is really increase government personnel, they are kind of permanent. that number is a bit hard to change.

there is some measure of flexibility. where the number is and where the balance is between uniform and government folks, always an area of contention. you describe the problem correctly. host: kelly, a republican line, greensboro, north carolina. caller: i appreciate your service and all of our military and civil service employees. having had some exposure years ago to some of the things that the cia and other intelligence agencies are involved in, when i was in service many years ago with a lot of stars around this building that i worked in.

i was exposed to a lot of different things. something that bothers me. i know when it came with that cia fellow was responsible for over 100 deaths, covert in clandestine operations in various countries. heas not gone in public quarterly, which i would have happily participated in. a number of security glitches that occurred and slips or leaks during the bush administration astounded me. the plane the thing really upset me. secondly, before that, i was upset that somebody, either the department of defense, cia, nsa, actually told the public that we were tracking osama bin laden

because of his cell telephone. was anyone ever convicted, or scolded, or did they find out who actually leaked that to the press? guest: ieel your pain and understand what you are saying. we belve in information over which we have some responsibility, appearing in the press and we believe it is to be secret, we follow a crime report. that information you read in the newspaper or heard on a news broadcast is classified, and it suggests that someone in an unauthorized way leaks that information. one of the great frustrations in my public time in the light is very few of those ever did get to a courtroom or to a conviction. we have seen the pace of that pick up.

it may be surprising to some that it has picked up in the current administration, which goes to the great deal about threats and tear -- transparency. someone pointed out that reality. in government, we suffer, we have capabilities taken away. we actually see loss of life, because of the leak of classified information and of plotting government of being war aggressive in pursuing this. host: last call is from indiana on the independent line. caller: have they asked for three months to continue to look in iraq, before the invasion. they were not in deadly [unintelligible]

people kept bringing up the people that were completely wrong, causing the biggest mess ever. why were they ignored? guest: there were a range of views. we did the best we could with the information we had. we made a judgment. it was not so much the judgments were wrong, they were, but they were shared by probably every intelligence service in the world. i think our biggest problem was an air of false confidence that we gave to our policy makers. when i met with director leon panetta, i pointed out that i wanted him to know that we got this wrong. this was a clean swing and a ss on our part. it was not the politicize nation of intelligence. we got it wrong. we were very hard to correct the mistakes that we made then.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> the u.s. house will gavel in. tomorrow congress hears from the australian prime minister in a joint meeting. we'll have live corge of that at 11:00 a.m. eastern. meanwhile, british prime minister fields questions from the house of commons tomorrow morning. you can see live coverage of prime minister's questions at 7:00 a.m. eastern and that's on c-span 2. white house chief economist says the economy is transitioning to a growth phase. he was the key note speaker at today's national association of business economics policy conference. the event focuses on economic policies and trends currently

impacting the global economy and economic challenges ahead. this is 45 minutes. >> thank you for taking a little time this morning and thanks to nate for everything you do, for six years i was on the census advisory commission and they are basically the only two bodies in the united states strongly and totally voting issue is quality of our economic data. and i remember that -- [applause] the september 11, 2001, the meeting was in new york and alan greenspan at that meeting filmed a series of videotapes calling for improvement of the economic data and that it needed to be -- they were destroyed in the september 11 attack. but thank you again for your efforts on that.

i thought what i would do is go through a little bit of where i see the state of the economy, where i see us going, talk a little bit about some of the deficit issues, i was somewhat surprised to find that there wasn't more in your executive summary discussion about growth and the importance of growth in getting us onto a stronger growth path. but clearly the deficit reduction is one of the two most important things we've got to confront. and a little bit on what the areas of weakness are and see whether you guys agree with those or not. i start by saying, when i look at the -- am i buzzing or is it the -- ok. see if we can fix this.

does it buzz if i don't say anything? i said nothing, she said, better. look, as i look out in the circumstance -- there it was again. well, we're going to just live with it. it strikes me we're going from phase one to phase two. i mean, phase one was really rescue phase, i believe it's inherently more controversial, the rescue phase, because there wasn't any alternative to the heavy government direct involvement in the economy. for anybody who believes that in phase one we should have just not done anything and just let it take care of itself, i would suggest respectfully that you weren't paying attention. i mean, we were very close to being in a depression, the depression was financial crisis

plus deep recession leading to collapse of the entire financial sector which erased essentially all the self-correcting mechanisms of the business cycle and we went down a hole that we couldn't get out of for 10 years. we had a financial shock bigger than 1929, the impact on the household balance sheets was larger net worth of the household sector went down more than 1929, worst recession since 1929 and the financial system this close to coming unraveled. i also believe it could have been worse than the depression in that financial sector is far more integrated in the rest of the economy now than it was in 1929. so, phase one i can understand is inherently controversial. but as i'll go through in the data, feels to me like phase one is over. we're now transitioning to a growth phase which is phase two

and as we shift, as the conditions change, and the private sector and the financial system both show clear signs of life standing up, the policy shift of what is the appropriate response also changes. incentives replace direct government involvement, a focus on growth, on competitiveness, on longer run investments becomes totally appropriate, emphasizing partnership between the public sector and the private sector, where we can do things to rely on the private sector to stand up and drive growth become totally appropriate. though i do think there's a bit of an element of if you have just gone through a period where you're running into the burning hotel and taking children and throwing them down into the pool to save their

lives, it's not right to evaluate them as if it was the olympic diving contest and we have a little bit of that. look, when the president came into office we're losing 800,000 jobs a month. and people, we the fed, congress, other governments, were trying to save the lives of the economy. and that we got from phase one to phase two is a testament to a lot of people's work in the private sector and the public sector, at the fed and the administration. i do think that we tend to have a bias toward the present in our -- if only in our expectations, it's kind of a -- i used to drive the carpool for our -- a bunch of kids down at school in chicago and one of the kids in the carpool got the

guitar hero video game and he had guitar hero 1980's addition and he had the manual. i said, let me see. that i said, i remember all these songs. yeah, you were alive in the 1980's? and the thing is, when i start listening to people analyzing the economy, i kind of get the sense they've got total forgetting any previous business cycle, forgetting what it was like in the beginning, in the 2008, beginning of 2009. if you had said in march of 2009, when we had just lost almost 800,000 jobs a month and g.d.p. is in the steepest decline in more than a half century, that by march of 2011 we're going to have grown for six straight quarters, we're

going to have added jobs for 12 straight months, spreads are going to be back to lower than they were before the financial crisis -- i would have given you a kiss. i would have been really -- oh, my god, please, from your lips to god's ears, that's what, you know, that's what we need to be doing. and i do feel like we have turned a very serious corner. now, partly i base that just on the business cycle data that you guys observe every day. the g.d.p. has turned around, the nber declared the recession was over actually even before that. the blue chip survey keeps going up. in november of 2010, not five months ago, the blue chip for 2011 was going to be 2.9% and by this february that's raised to 3.5%. if you look at the purchasing

managers, you've got strong indicators that manufacturing is coming back, on the expectations of jobs it's the highest in really decades that business confidence appears to be coming back by any of the measures consumer confidence, the highest in at least three or four years. separate from the data coming in on the stronger side, anecdotally, if you talk to business people, the closer those business people are to the cycle, the stronger are their he can -- expectations for the coming 2011 and 2012. so big durable goods manufacturers, business equipment, high-tech sectors that are historically cyclical, they have the strongest expectations. as you move toward the less cyclical industries, they're

positive but milder. that feels like anecdotal evidence backing up what's coming in from the business cycle data. and the one exception i will say, which i'll return to in a moment, is small business, which is historically quite cyclical, one of the first to go down and one of the first to come back, small business has tended to lag this recovery, not drive it. and so that's why that's been a policy area focus for us. ok, so i think the data suggests transition from phase one to phase two. if you look at the labor market which is obviously top of mind for a lot of folks, as bad as the economy was, something happens that is still under dispute as to why, but makes a lot of difference and that is the law breaks down. as bad as the g.d.p. is doing, unemployment rises

substantially more than anybody predicts. it wasn't just my predecessor predicting that the baseline unemployment rate was going to be lower than it ended up being. all of you made the same predictions and the private sector mistook what the baseline was going to be for unemployment and the relationship of unemployment to g.d.p. broke down from its historical basis. so we got 1 1/2 to two extra points of unemployment than anyone would have predicted from how output was doing at the end of 2008. there's a major question as to why that happened but the fundamentally, those questions center around, are we going to get it back? are we going to see, on the other side, better unemployment performance than the g.d.p. would suggest? and with some of the dropping of the unemployment rate in the last three months, i think there's a fair question is, is

this the law residual starting to come back? i do think we have one dynamic that was heavily -- again, heavily toot negative in the recession -- heavily to the negative in the recession which is turning to be heavily in the positive which is, as you know, in most recessions productivity growth drops, sometimes even goes negative. this downturn, the exact opposite occurred. so through direct cost cutting or for whatever other means, productivity growth was growing in astounding levels through the downturn. at some points we had annual lies productivity growth rates of 5% or 6%. with outputs growing 1.5% and productivity growing 5.5%, that is a recipe for a lot of people losing their jobs. and we were on the down side that have trend for some substantial period. that has almost entirely

flipped. so you've got expectations of output at 3.5%, 4%, and you've got productivity back down to a more normal 2% to 2.5% rate. if that persists that is a recipe for a lot of people getting their jobs back or at least a lot of people currently at work working substantially longer hours. so that is certainly a trend in the labor market that we are continuing to monitor but is suggestive of something positive developing and i think that is largely why you've seen modest at first but continuing to strengthen labor market performance. when i hear some people say, jobless recovery, the way the last two recoveries were jobless recoveries, in the early period, i really kind of

object to that because it's not in fact accurate. so the 2001 recession ends and there is job loss for 22 months after the declared end of the recession, that is a jobless recovery. in this recession, job growth commences nine months after the end of the recession. which is much more like a traditional recovery. it's just that the depth of this hole, i have to invert this in my mind, this goes down , the job loss from this recession is very much on the order, magnitude of the last three recessions combined. that's how deep it is. but it goes deep and we've now started coming back, that's very different from going down somewhat and then just not generating any jobs for a long period. i think our most pressing problem, as we transition to

phase two, is getting the growth rate established and sustained. that is our most pressing problem. that will be, as i will indicate in a second, also quite critical for getting the deficit down and dealing with our long run fiscal challenges. which we have known about for 30 years, have not gotten materially worse in the last two years. what got worse is the business cycle went down the tubes and that ran the deficit up to record amounts. that's what happens when you get in a business cycle, obviously. the long run fiscal situation facing the country is oriented around the aging of the population, the acceleration of health care costs and thinking about things like the share of income paid by high income americans. which is at extremely low levels. partly from the business cycle, but partly from major tax cuts that took place over the last decade.

if you ask where will the growth be located so there is an argument made by some that if we can't restore consumer spending and if we can't get construction back, where will the growth come from? i believe, and i should have brought a copy of our economic report of the president, i don't want you guys to feel lonely, i didn't realize we had this table over here, the economic report of the president, chapter one, the very first graph lays out what i think is wrong with that reasoning and that is, if you compare the boom of the 2000's to previous recoveries, it's highly unusual, it's highly unusual in two ways. number one, it's massively weighted to consumer spending and residential construction. those are the two drivers of the 2000's boom.

way more than in previous booms of the united states. the second way it's different, it's way undersized for export growth and business investment. exports and business investment are traditionally drivers of recoveries but not in the 2000's. so when people say, if we don't have a rapid increase in consumer spending and a big upturn in residential construction, we cabinet have a recovery, they're leaving out the -- can't have a recovery, they're leaving out the phrase, like the one we had in the 2000's. but the one in the 2000's was not sustainable. consumption growth faster than income growth that brings the savings rate of the nation down to zero is not sustainable. residential construction fueled by a housing bubble is not sustainable. that's not where we're trying to get back to. so in my view the growth is going to be located, business

investment, exports, traditional business cycle recoveries and we wanted to be like an -- like in a traditional recovery, business expansion. entrepreneurialship, new businesses, that part has been relatively weak. now, exports are up 17% over the last year. that's fantastic. that's well on the way to meet the president's goal, it's actually faster than -- on a one-year basis for the president's goal to double exports over five years. in the export initiative. business investment has been up strongly in various quarters and we continue monitoring that, the one industrial production number and durable goods number for january wasn't as strong, but that's following several very strong months. feels like exports, investment, hopefully small business, why we passed the small business credit bill, have put this

focus on startup america, which is a public-private partnership to do things to encourage entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses. things that in the old solo growth equation are k, h and cambings. that's what we want to if he cuss -- a. that's what we want to focus on. physical, capital and innovation. as i said, nobody in the white house wants to hear about human capital accumulation, fiscal capital accumulation and productivity enhancement, but when the president says, outeducate, outinnovate and outbuild the rest of the world, it has an economic foundation. it's coming straight out of the solo growth model. so i think a growth agenda is what's warranted when we're talking about when the future,

it's routed in this, let's have a business cycle that's driven by investment, by exports, by raising the skill level of our work force and to me that's the private sector sustainable kind of growth. now, let us talk about the deficit and the issues of debt facing the economy. as all of you know, what matters is what is our debt to g.d.p. level, and what matters is, as the bowles-simpson commission observed, not the 2011 deficit level, that's not what's important. the con flating of long-run fiscal challenges with the deficit is big this year is very dangerous because it leads you to do things that are not correct. so we signed a tax deal in december in a bipartisan manner which was important, which gives incentives for investment, which gives a

payroll tax cut to encourage workers and to encourage hiring that give incentives for education, all of those are important and everyone knew when they signed it with 80-plus senators signing that deal, they knew it would increase the deficit in 2011. but the whole point was to try to get us on the full growth path so that we could be in a position to confront longer run fiscal issues. to come back and say, but, look, the 2011 deficit is high, therefore we need to cut is in some sense running into this problem president of conflating of what the medium and long run problems are with what is the short run driven by the business cycle? now, the president in the state of the union outlines that he's going to release a budget that cuts discretionary spending down to a share of the economy that it has not been since

dwight eisenhower was the president. and then he said, look, once we do that, let us all look at one another and agree, that's only 12% of the budget. that's not what the problem is. if we want to hold hands and together in a bipartisan way think about the aging of the population and the acceleration of health care costs, think about the tax rates on high income people over the long run, let's do that in a bipartisan way. but let us not continue saying that the problem is runaway discretionary spending because that's 12% of the budget and that is high and we're running a deficit in 2010 and 2011 because of the business cycle. now, growth is going to be a key component of getting the deficit down. so if you say, in the 2000's, before the financial crisis,

the deficits may be 2%, 3% of g.d.p. it goes up to something like 11% of g.d.p.. most of that 11% is from the business cycle. getting the business cycle reversed and also on a growth path is critical to getting it down to, you know, let's say 4%, 5%, and then getting from that to primary surplus has to come from cutting. but getting to growth going is fundamentally important. remember that from 1947 to something like 1979 the united states cuts the debt to g.d.p. ratio by 85 percentage points. and it runs a surplus only three or four times in that entire period. the main things that -- thing that gets our debt to g.d.p. ratio down is that g.d.p. grew at a sustained basis and made a big difference. so we've got to live within our means.

we've got to cut, we've got to think about the entitlements, but that is an issue that we have known about for 30 years and that cannot be done in a partisan way. so if the argument was, why doesn't president obama just come forward and say, here's my partisan plan to just go ahead and change entitlements, change the formula, we went through a period in the health care bill in which it wasn't -- it was a cut to private subsidies, the medicare advantage program was not even medicare and that was transformed into the president wants to kill your grandma. in an environment like that we are not having an adult conversation about the aging of the population and accelerating -- acceleration of health care costs. we can't be in that environment. now, there are heartening things. in the fiscal commission you had sitting senators from both parties say, look, let's hold

hands, let's confront these issues, let's confront them in the future, it's not about right now, but you also had sitting members of the house saying, absolutely not, we won't have anything to do with it. so in some sense we've got to see how this one plays out, but the president's committed to a strong budget tight on the discretionary side which, if enacted, would get discretionary spending levels down to somewhere they have not been for many decades. there are two ways to mortgage the future. one is by running up deficits that you leave the bills to your kids, the other is by not investing in the things that our children will need to have productive careers and good-paying salaries in the future. such as education, investing in

r&d, investing -- business investment and physical capital, both of those are important and we've got to preserve -- we've got to live within our means and we've got to make the investments that we need to make. there are such things as bad cuts to make. cutting the things that are critical for our growth are -- that is not a good idea. if you're going to go, you pull away the financial aid of nine million college students in the middle of the school year so that thousands of them drop out, that is not a good idea. that doesn't pay for itself. that is a cut which costs you money. if you're talking about cutting things like the $30 billion of terminations and reductions, which are things that the president's already said we can afford to do without these, or you're cutting things that are duplicative, wasteful spending, when you're not in phase one rescue mode anymore, you can afford to get rid of a lot of things, what matters is not

just some aggregate number of what should the aggregate spending of the number be, that's the kind of a phase one argument. as you move to growth phase, i think you got to be judicious about it. lastly there are clearly concerns we aren't in -- we are in a recovery, we're shifting to phase two but we're not in -- we are not yet recovered and we still have some fears on the horizon that we can monitor. most obvious, the price of oil. so, a lot of people have in their mind the 1970's where when the price of oil goes up, it sends the economy into recession. there is good news on that front, number one, if you look at energy intensity for dollar of d.d.p., it's some 40%, 50% lower than it was in the 1970's.

so most economists believe that the sensitivity of our growth rate to oil prices, up or down, is lower than it was at that time. number two, you saw announced overnight and today that they are willing to use difference going to say there is capacity among other oil prow producers in a way that at previous timeses the price went up, there wasn't. you saw them announce this morning that nigeria, saudi arabia, the u.a.e. and somebody else are going to each increase their production to replace the supply disruption coming from libya. so the fact that there is capacity to address that is also a relative positive. but we -- there's clearly a risk premium on top of stronger world fundamentals. there's world demand for oil going up as world industrial production rises, that's partly driving up the price and then there's a risk premium on top

of that. and the question is, how much comes from the fundamentals? remember, there is one upside to the fundamentals part which is, if massive world demand is driving the price of oil up, those countries tend to buy a lot of stuff from the united states. that is unlike the supply -- prices are going up because of supply disruptions, that's not good for anybody. if it's because in china they're expanding their output, china's become a large export market for u.s. products, so there is -- so it's not all in the negative in that case. and i would emphasize the importance of a long-run energy policy so that we're not having this conversation every summer. we know in the summer demand goes up, gas prices go up, we're having the same conversation again and again year after year. and so whether it's energy efficiency, domestic production or other energy policies to alternative fuels, it's

important that we think those through. so the price of fuel is one risk. financial system in europe remains a concern. a year-plus ago it felt like we were starting to get some momentum, the events in greece and some of these spooked financial markets, much like this buzz is kind of spooking me, it's cut back -- come back, so we continue to monitor the events in europe. third, the housing market remains in the dumps. there's maybe five million vacant homes so i think it seems unlikely that with a reserve army of unemployed homes that prices are going to come rebounding rapidly in the near future. that said, the impact of the housing sector on g.d.p. growth, which was a major negative drag in 2008 and 2009,

its impact on g.d.p. growth in a negative way has lensed if only because construction is at such a low level that even if it remains depressed that's not adding negative numbers, it's just adding zero, it's not driving recovery as opposed to pulling us down. i would say from our perspective, those three are the most -- are the areas that we continue to look at. on the job market it's clear state and local governments lag the aggregate economy six to 12 months and they're going to continue to be a drag on the employment prospects, not enough to outweigh the private sector, but over the last year the private sector's added 1.5 million jobs, the government side, primarily driven by state and local, subtracted 300,000. those kind of numbers are negative, but of approximately

that magnitude. i would close by saying, i think there's a source of great -- we've made a transition, a scary one, i think there is a somewhat obvious transition that we want to make to growth based on more traditional investment, exports, proportional, consumption proportional to income, keeping the savings rate at 5%. that's the kind of a boom that is sustainable and broad based, unlike the one that we have just gone through. that we put a focus on deficit reduction where it ought to be, which is in the medium and long-term, that we not mortgage the future while doing that by cutting exactly the wrong things that we focus the cuts where they need to be. and that we obviously be mindful of those concerns coming. but the optimistic note is this, warren buffett i got to

know a little bit in the campaign, was a supporter of the president, and warren buffett says, in 1900's, the dow was at 50. and if you asked in 1900's, what do you think will happen if over the next 110 years we have two world wars, we have a great depression, we have a flu pandemic, we have a series of things you list, all the things that went wrong, all the challenges, people would say, oh, my god, the dow might be down to 0, but meanwhile -- 20, but meanwhile it's 2011, we're hovering around, you know, 11,000, 12,000. now, of course, c.e.a. people being what they are, that's not corrected for inflation, ok, fine. [laughter] the dow was corrected inflation something like 1,000. our standard of living is up by a factor of eight or 10 since

that time. because the productive, innovative capacity of the american economy is virtually unbounded. and also in the economic report of the president there's a plot of per capita income in the united states from 1820. and basically it's a straight line upward. and there's little, you know, there's a downturn, even the depression, you can see it, it goes down, comes back to that line. the thing keeps going. and you can see the downturn of 2008-2009 on that chart, but it's down and we're getting back on that line and we're growing. for all the hype about china, we're 12 times richer than china. ok? they can double their income, we're still going to be more than five times richer than them. our workers are the most productive in the world. of course the c.e.a. people say, you can't say that because on the p.p.p. adjusted basis,

luxembourg is higher than the united states. ok, except for luxembourg, we are the most productive workers in the world. and the thing is, anybody would trade places with us. everybody would like, people are coming, if you compute the ratio, i'm going to give you, this is the best kind of statistic. untrackble, uncheckble, but i'm going to -- [laughter] if you can use a ratio of number of people who want to come to your country divided by number of people who are wanting to move somewhere else and leave your country, the u.s. got the highest ratio by far. you can look that up in the almanac, it's a statistic. but, so, i think overall, very positive prospects for the economy and we just got -- we got to grow our way out of this spot that we're in now. do we have -- what is our time

frame? we have time for a couple of questions. so i'm happy to take them. >> use the microphone. >> i owe you a paper because you signed off on my dissertation. >> yeah. [laughter] >> i had a serious question. getting back to what you said about this breakdown of the link between g.d.p. and employment, you know, we all know that g.d.p.'s supposed to be a measure of the output of the economy, but for sectors where we don't have a good measure of the output, we proxy it by the input, by measuring how much we put into that sector which is not a perfect measure and that's the issue with health care, with education, with a lot of it, with government spending. and as a result of the stimulus and the subsidies to state and local governments, that

accounts for a larger share of d. -- g.d.p. than it did a few years ago. is it to be that because of that g.d.p. is a less meaningful measure of our economic health than it was even two years ago and perhaps that could explain part of the disconnect between g.d.p. and unemployment? >> that's interesting, i haven't looked at the data so i don't know the answer. i would just need to try to figure out the magnitude of the shift sufficient to explain it. i wouldn't think that the magnitudes of what share of the economy is, say, education, would have changed that dramatically over two-year period, that it would break down the law so significantly. but it might. it's worth looking at that. >> outside of this room, are we

going to have an endorsement by the president of the president's own commission on productivity and growth chaired by simpson and bowles? the state of the union in particular, absolutely quiet. >> i don't agree with that. it absolutely was not quiet. >> maybe not absolutely. but -- [laughter] are we going to have a more vigorous endorsement of a really broad program of both revenue increasing and cutting of entitlements? >> look -- >> been a little cautious. >> this is what i tried to address in section c of my remarks. and what i said was, as the president stated in the state of the union, he said, ok, on the budget i'm going to put forward a budget that brings us down to -- he didn't say it in

these words, but to something like primary surplus, with lowest discretionary spending since eisenhower to stabilize debt to g.d.p. and that's a small share of the budget, he applauds the simpson-bowles fiscal commission and says in the state of the union, all this is in the state of the union, that's why i objected to saying it was exactly silent, we're not going to do this in a bipartisan way -- partisan way. that won't work. we have to do this together. we have to see whether people are going to want to hold hands and do this together or whether we're going to back to the pulling the plug on grandma mode. >> thank you. in the economic assumptions to budget 2012, you're forecasting real growth -- you're forecasting real growth, 2012

to 2014, something in the neighborhood of 4% to 4.5%. you've stated that growth is very important to dealing with the deficit. as i imagine you're aware of the consensus forecasts are somewhat lower for those years and in particular the i.m.f. is more pessimistic than most and they're at the view that there will be lasting effects of demand and supply of credit from the financial crisis as has been the case, i guess, in several countries that have been through financial crises. could you explain why you expect the u.s. to be different? >> yeah. look, you -- there's the forecast in three part, one is the short-term, 2011-2012, one at the medium term, 2013, 2014, 2015, and one is the long-term. the long-term growth rate, our forecast is almost exactly what others is. our short-term forecast has to

be locked in november so we're actually lower than the private forecast for the next two years and then we're higher for the three years following that. so i don't think that for anybody who says, ah, rosie scenario, we're low and then high, they're high and then low and then after the whole period we're all kind of on what the trend rate is and our fundamental, the fundamental disagreement is, do you think that potential output is lower in the u.s. because we've gone through a depreef session or do you think potential output remains the same. our read of the evidence is, there are a lot of people who agree with us, but is that potential output is not destroyed and as i say, if you go look at the graft that's in the e.r.p. of income from 1820 to the present, it's a straight line and the depression goes down and it comes back and they get on that same line again. and that's why we have a medium term rebound.

>> we got two questions. >> it's an honor. people like king steriley and yesterday doug, he said that the subsidies under reform are unworkable. and so i want you to comment on that. >> subsidies on what -- sn >> the subs does under health reform are unworkable and i would like to you comment more generally on implementation of the form. >> implementation of the health care act is obviously not c.e.a.'s main focus but i don't think that the notion of pooling risk into exchanges, subsidizing people on a scale based on income is workable at all. that has been worked at state levels and things like that have been worked internationally quite frequently. i think the fundamental problem

of a purely -- of a purely private system where you allow cream skimming is of course what we have gotten to where you get adverse selection in a bunch of groups, a bunch of people get dropped as soon as they get sick, we don't combine risk and so you have major cost problems. in conception it's not unworkable at all and obviously we got to make sure the details are right, but i think it's a good idea overall. >> nice to see you. thanks for coming. i'll end with a real easy one for you. a couple days ago the president talked about strategic petroleum reserve considering releasing, you mentioned earlier that the will-be supply coming from opec, can you give us a little thought about, you know, what some of the criteria might be about releasing the reserve to maybe think about this rather -- >> strategic petroleum reserve

exists to deal with large international supply disruptions, that's why we created it. that's mainly the criteria that we use for thinking about whether we should use it. now obviously the c.e.a. chair is not the person who decides that. but that's one in our tool kit of things and as i say, we're monitoring the situation and it's nice to be able to -- strategic petroleum reserve is completely full, it's in salt mines or something in different places, but it's not depleted, it's been accumulated a lot. so that is an option that we have and it's usually tied just to this issue of the supply disruption. >> thank you. >> thanks, everybody, for your -- [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2011] >> next up on c-span we take you live over to the u.s. house as they take up pieces of legislation dealing with the emergency responders. us a powerful call destined in our journey of life to find eternal happiness in your presence. each day we hope to draw closer to you, and at the same time accomplish great deeds for the good of this nation and for the world community. by your guidance and of our judgments and decisions, may we respond to your commands and holy inspirations to build your kingdom of peace and justice. in so doing may we give you glory now and forever. amen. the speaker: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval throff. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. the pledge today will be led by

the gentlelady from north carolina, ms. foxx. ms. foxx: please join us in the pledge to our wonderful flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker: the chair will entertain one-minute requests. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker: without objection. mr. poe: mr. speaker, the lone survivor, the last dough boy of world war i, frank buck it's, has died at the age of 110.

frank buckles in this photograph was taken when he was 16 years of age. he lied to numerous recruiters so he could join the u.s. army. he served with other dough boys who was wounded in europe. he was in the merchant marines, the merchant seamen, and he was captured in the philippines and was held as prisoner of war for three years. he came to west virginia and drove his tractor until he was well in his 100's. this was a photograph when he was taken at 109 years of age. it's taken not far from here at the d.c. mall. see, it was frank wish's toward the end of his life that we, members of congress, authorized the building of a memorial to all of the dough boys that served in world war i, all four million of them who have all died. 116,000 of them were killed in

world war i. we have memorials for vietnam, world war ii, and korea on the mall and we don't have a memorial for all of those that served in world war i. we have a memorial and this is a photograph of it for the folks that died or lived here in d.c. and served in world war i, but we don't have a memorial for all of those. so i file today legislation on behalf of frank buckles and all those other dough boys, that we authorize a memorial building on the mall. it's time that congress do something for those young men and women that served and that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from arkansas rise? >> request permission to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, rise today to remember an arkansas legend, a former mayor, ray baker.

who died march 4, 2011, following a lengthy illness. womb womb for 20 years -- mr. womack: for 20 years he presided over our second largest city. he was remembered this week not only for his outstanding si civic leadership but for his 44 years of teaching american history at fort smith southside high school, lessons taught to thousands of students on many of the very issues debated in this hallowed chamber. he was an institution in civic and academic accomplishment, including the prestigious milk and family national educator award. mr. speaker, it warmed the soul to have listened to his colleagues, former students, family and friends,ual jies him for his contributions -- eulogize him for his contributions to human kind. his devotion to his school, church and community unmistakable. thanks to mayor baker in his own immortal words, life's worth living in fort smith, arkansas. i yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlelady from texas rise? the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. jackson lee: mr. speaker, just a few minutes ago i had the privilege of listening to janice k. bobholtz, a deputy sheriff from wisconsin. courtney johnson, a teacher from ohio. ryan phagg, an electrician from indiana, lynn rat cliff, a school support staff from ohio. and tom geier, a u.s. army veteran and a parole officer from ohio. all of them pleading with this congress to intervene or to see the nonsense of their governors who are union busting and breaking the backs of middle class americans. they all explained how the unions were eager to work with these states on health and

pension benefits. but yet, because of special interests and large corporate donors and private conversations of the governor of wisconsin talking about breaking the backs of the special 14 who are trying to stay out to help the working middle class, they are in trouble. rather than creating jobs, rather than creating jobs as we're trying to do, the democratic caucus, working on behalf of the american people -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. ms. jackson lee: what we have is frankly a horrible undermining of rights in this country. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from north carolina rise? >> permission to address the house for one minute, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. with gas prices going through the roof it's time to ask the question, is this administration's energy policy working? after all, gas prices have sored by 30% over the past year -- soared by 30% over the past year.

we can help protect ourselves from these sky-high prices and create jobs by actively producing american-made energy. that's why i support an all-of-the-above energy policy that includes more american-produced energy like oil and nuclear, along with alternatives like wind and solar. this will lower prices and create good, american jobs while reducing our dependency on foreign oil. unfortunately the obama administration doesn't seem to get this. its de facto drilling moratorium in the gulf has already cost 12,000 jobs and 300,000 barrels a day of energy production. mr. speaker, we need to increase production, not decrease it. or american families are going to be stuck with ridiculous gas prices that line the pockets of unsavory regimes in the middle east. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania

rise? >> permission to address the house for one minute, revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, yesterday we learned that the federal deficit for the month of february was $223 billion. more than the total yearly deficit in 2007. yet republicans have been labeled as irresponsible for looking to cut a mere $61 billion from the rest of this year's budget. our cuts only amount to 30% of the monthly deficit. additionally, these cuts are only made in the discretionary portion of our budget. tomorrow in the energy and commerce subcommittee, we're going to look at new obamacare programs that have been locked away in the mandatory budget. mr. pitts: one of these programs allows the h.h.s. secretary to spend unlimited sums of money. we have given the secretary a credit card with no limit, even though our national debt threatens the economic health of our nation. it's time that we cut up the credit card rerks store to congress the power to set fiscal

priorities, slush funds and unlimited spending are just two more reasons why obamacare needs to be repealed. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? >> permission to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, "the washington post", quote, obama allows indefinite detention, citing, quote, guantanamo bay orders, march 5. as the quote, u.s. also plans to resume trials by military commissions, end of quote. i would like to commend the president for stating the administration will resume trials by military commissions for detainees that pose a threat to national security. civilian courts were never the proper venue to try these enemy combatants. in the future i hope the president will work with congress in creating a comprehensive plan for the detention and prosecution of the detainees at guantanamo bay as

we face the global war on terrorism. as a member of the house armed services committee, i know firsthand of the professionalism of our dedicated military personnel at guantanamo. i recently visited the facilities in january, led by chairman mckeon, and in july, 2005, with former chairman duncan hunter. guantanamo bay is a world class detention facility to protect american families. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> rise and address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. burgess: thank you. mr. speaker, we're coming up on the one-year anniversary of the passage of the patient protection and affordable care act, affectionately known as obamacare. mr. speaker, what has that year wrought? many of us will remember the speaker of the house a year ago, speaker pelosi, saying, we have to pass this bill so we can

understand what's in it. well, it's been a year to. we -- do we understand what's in it? the answer is we do and people don't like what they see. what about the claim, if you like what you have, you can keep it? turns out that is incorrect. what about the waivers that have been issued since october? now well over 1,000 wambers have been issued by h.h.s. why have those waivers been issued? they've been issued because this policy doesn't work. and worse than not working it costs a ton of money. now, mr. pitts just mentioned that february, the deficit in this country was $223 billion for one month. the shortest month of the year. this is as good as it's going to get. what happen when is you have those subsidies in the exchanges that subsidize middle class purchase of health insurance in this country for the first time? that's a high pressure tap into the federal treasury. it's really wrong and has to stop. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair lays before the house a communication.

the clerk: the honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, sir, this is to notify you formally, pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the house of representatives, that i have been served with a civil subpoena issued before the evidentry panel for the state bar of texas for documents. after consultation with the office of general counsel, i have determined that the compliance for the subpoena is inconsistent with the precedence and privileges of the house. signed sincerely, robert reider, arc visit. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, i have accepted the nomination of micah cuss to serve on the committee of energy and commerce in the 112 congress. i hereby submit my resignation to the committee on national resources and homeland security. signed, sincerely, donna mcchristensen, member of congress. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the resignation is accepted.

pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the chair will postpone further proceedings on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote on the yeas and nays are ordered. or on which the vote incurs objection under clause 60 of rule 20. recorded votes on postponed questions will be taken until after 6:30 today. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i move the house suspend the rules and pass the dental emergency responder act. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 12, h.r. 570, a bill to amend a public health service act to enhance the roles of dentists and allied dental personnel in the nation's disaster response framework and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from texas, mr. burgess, and the gentleman from

new jersey, mr. pallone, will each control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks, include extraneous material on h.r. 570 currently under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker, currently federal statutes -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. so the chair can receive a message. the messenger: mr. speaker, a message from the president of the united states. the secretary: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: madam secretary. the secretary: i'm directed by the president of the united states to deliver the house of representatives a message in writing. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas may proceed. mr. burgess: thank you, mr. speaker. again, i yield myself such time as i may consume. currently -- currently federal statute deters dental professionals and dental schools into emergency response plans. h.r. 570 would remedy this

omission by incorporating dentistry by name into the federal disaster response framework. this legislation is endorsed by the american dental association, the academy of general dentistry and it passed the house last year on a voice vote. it recently passed the committee on energy and commerce, the health subcommittee and the full committee on a voice vote and 19 members of the energy and commerce committee are currently co-sponsors. in the aftermath of a natural disaster, terrorist attack or public health emergency, traditional medical delivery systems can become overwhelmed. in the situations it is vital that states work with all qualified and licensed providers to ensure a volunteer work force to assist in the mitigation of that tragedy. dentists receive sound medical background and are equipped to take patient medical histories, administer injections andtoryage patients. this legislation calls for no new federal money and imposes

no new moneys on restrictions being spent. it asks for states to incorporate dentists and dental facilities into their planning. i believe this bill will allow us to strategicallyualityize all resources and help deploy the maximum amount of aid and i urge support of this bill. i want to thank mr. towns for introducing the legislation with me. i will reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey. mr. pallone: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. pallone: mr. speaker, i rise today in strong support of h.r. 570, the dental emergency responder act of 2011. this was a bill we passed on the floor last fall with strong bipartisan support. the bill amends the public health service act to include dentists in the national

security strategy, which is a strategy that h.h.s. developed to help public emergencies. it includes programs to include dental facilities. it will amend the homeland security act to include dental personnel in the definition of emergency response providers and will amend the postkatrina management reform act of 2006 to require federal response plans to include dental resources. this bill will help shore up the nation's preparedness for sdasters, including natural sdasters like hurricanes and man-made sdasters like a terrorist atact. i want to thank representative burgess and representtive towns for their outstanding work on this issue and our former colleague, representative stupak, who worked so hard on this bill in the last congress. i ask my colleagues to support the bill, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i want to take just a moment to

thank candice miller from michigan, who was involved in this legislation throughout its course last year and has been very instrumental this year. with that i'll reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from new jersey. mr. pallone: you have no additional speakers. ok. i would then also yield back the balance of my time at this time and ask for support of the bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: again, mr. speaker, i also want to thank chairman upton and chairman pitts and ranking member waxman and pallone for their work in passing this bill so quickly through the subcommittee and full committee. i want to also thank mr. stupak for his hard work on the legislation in the last congress. again, i want to acknowledge the work of candice miller last congress and this congress in getting this bill passed.

in an emergency, all hands ondeck. dentists are willing to support the response to a disaster and this legislation will allow states the option to incorporate them into their sdaster response framework. our surge capacity will never be optimal until we capitalize on the personnel resources of the entire health care work force. i urge full support of this important legislation, h.r. 570, to ensure our national disaster responses have the maximum amount available resources. i also want to thank two of my staff members, rebecca west, and j.p., for their hard work in getting this bill to the floor in what appears to be record time. thank you, mr. speaker. i'll yield back the balance of my time. mr. pallone: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition? mr. pallone: could i ask unanimous consent to give ms. sheila jackson lee, three

minutes. i didn't know she was on her way back. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection? mr. burgess: no objection. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. pallone: thank you. can i yield to her at this time? mr. burgess: yes. mr. pallone: i now yield three minutes to the gentlewoman from texas. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from texas is recognized for three minutes. ms. jackson lee: i come from the gulf region. i thank the distinguished gentleman from new jersey, mr. pallone, for yielding, and i thank dr. burgess for his courtesies, and also mr. towns. i rise in support of h.r. 570, because coming from the gulf coast and going through hurricane katrina, rita and ike , seeing the devastation of communities and knowing that a holeistic approach to health care is vital. we have a vibrant dental community in houston, texas. in particular, i want to note that senior dr. poindexter, has

served on the american dental board and is an enthusiastic supporter of accessing dental care services to the poor. well, mr. speaker, when there's a hurricane or natural sdaster of some form, everybody -- disaster of some form, everybody falls into the same boat, and seeing a medical professional come to assist them or even to provide specific dental care after the devastation, again, of an earthquake, a tornado, obviously we have been very fortunate with earthquakes, but hurricanes, the tragedy of the incident that occurred this past weekend in louisiana, individuals who are facing needs, having the dental community be a part of this disaster response team is an excellent idea, and i join my colleagues in recognizing the importance of access to dental care for those individuals facing the -- disaster but also

increasing opportunity for poor americans who likewise need access to dental care. dental care can impact one's health, and we have seen that in the past. we've seen that with children. so i believe this legislation is in the right direction, and i add my support to it. i know that the gulf region will participate or appreciate -- participate in and appreciate the fact that dental personnel and professionals are added to our disaster relief and our first responders. thank you. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: again, i urge support of legislation and passage of the bill. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. does the gentleman from new jersey yield back? mr. pallone: yes, and i urge support of the bill. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 570. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative -- mr. burgess: mr. speaker.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. burgess: i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 and the chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 525, the veterinary public health amendment of 2011. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 10. h.r. 525. a bill to amend the public health service act to enhance and increase the number of veterinarians trained in veterinary public health. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from texas, mr. burgess, and the gentleman from new jersey, mr. pallone, each will control 20 minutes. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, again, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and

include extraneous material on h.r. 525, currently under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. burgess: and i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker, h.r. -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. burgess: h.r. 525 would take important steps to increase the number of public health veterinarians. veterinarians have a vital role in our public health and experts have informed us that there is in fact a shortage. this could affect our nation's public health, including the safety of our nation's food. we expect that this legislation will help greatly in solving that problem. h.r. 525 would enable individuals seeking veterinary public health degrees to be eligible for public health work force loan repayment programs. this legislation also would allow the secretary of health and human services to award existing training grants to increase the veterinary public health work force. i want to thank all the members who worked on this issue, including my physician

colleague on the issue, dr. phil gingrey from georgia, also tammy baldwin from wisconsin, for authoring the bill. i ask my colleagues to support the bill, and i will reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey. mr. pallone: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. pallone: mr. speaker, i rise today in strong support of h.r. 525, the veterinary public health amendments of 2011. this is an important bipartisan bill that we passed on the floor in the last congress. veterinary medicine is an important component of our human public health system. from h 1 n 1 to sars, to food safety, veterinarians are important to our public health. this makes sure that they are available for two important work force programs. but only to the extent that the work of these veterinarians have an impact on our health. i want to thank congresswoman baldwin for her work on this

legislation. she has been working on this for a long time, and i was pleased to work with her and also to thank chairman pitts, chairman upton and representative shimkus for their support. i ask my colleagues to support this important bill. and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: i'll reserve the balance of my time. i have no further speakers on my side. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new jersey. mr. pallone: thank you, mr. speaker. i would yield now three minutes to the sponsor of the legislation, the gentlewoman from wisconsin, ms. baldwin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wisconsin is recognized for three minutes. ms. baldwin: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in strong support of h.r. 525, the veterinary public health amendments act. although we may not know it, our health depends in part on a small army of veterinarians working in public health. their role was never clearer than during the h1n1 outbreak.

public health veterinarians are our frontline of defense against another outbreak. they inspect our slaughterhouses, prevent foot and mouth disease from outbreaking and devastating our economy and our agricultural industry, and they protect our citizens against the threat of bioterrorism. unfortunately, our current work force cannot meet these public health challenges. in the next 20 years, experts predict a shortage of 15,000 veterinarians. between 2006 and 2016, the bureau of labor statistics predicts that the demand for veterinary services will increase by 35%. something must be done to protect our national health by preventing and controlling infectious diseases, ensuring the safety and security of our food supply, promoting healthy

environments and providing health care for animals. h.r. 525 will help ensure that we have a more robust veterinary public health work force. the bill has two main components, loan repayments for veterinarians who teach in public health and a new fellowship program for public health veterinarians. i want to thank the association of veterinary colleges and the american veterinarian association for their tireless work on behalf of public health veterinarians. i also would like to thank chairman pitts and ranking member pallone for their support on this very important legislation. this bill is identical to the veterinary public health amendments act that passed the house by a voice vote in the last congress. this bill also passed the energy and commerce committee unanimously. i urge my colleagues to support this critical bill to ensure that our veterinary work force is prepared to meet our public health needs, and i yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wisconsin yields back the balance of her time. the gentleman from new jersey. mr. pallone: i have no additional speakers, mr. speaker. i would certainly urge support for this important legislation and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to insert into the record a letter from the american farm bureau federation urging support of this legislation. would also like to point out that this legislation enjoyed unanimous support from both the republican and democratic sides in the full committee of energy and commerce. i urge support of the legislation. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 525. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative -- mr. burgess: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i respectfully request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: all

those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: to the congress of the united states, section 202-d of the national emergency act, 50 u.s.c. 1622-d provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency elect prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the president publishes in the federal register and transmits to the congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. in accordance with this provision, i have sent the enclosed notice to the federal register for publication stating that the national emergency with respect to iran that was declared on march 16, 1995, is to continue in effect beyond

march 15, 2011. the crisis between the united states and iran resulting from the actions and policies of the government of iran has not been resolved. the actions and policies of the government of iran are contrary to the interests of the united states and the region and continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the united states. for these reasons i have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to iran and maintain and enforce comprehensive sanctions against iran to respond to this threat. signed, sincerely, barack obama, the white house, march 8, 2011. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the committee on foreign affairs and ordered printed. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule one 1, the chair declares the house

track daily timelines, find a full video archive for every member. see what others have said during their joint meetings at c-span.org/congress. >> there is a new way to get a concise review of the day's events. it's "washington today" on c-span radio. every day we'll take you to capitol hill, the white house and anywhere news is happening. we'll also talk to the experts, the politicians and journalists as we put the day's events into perspective. the stories that matters to you the most every week-day from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. you can listen --

>> president obama has been in boston this afternoon talking about the education agenda. he talked about the advanced research project for education that aims to use technology to improve u.s. education. he gave those comments at tech boston academy. we'll show them later to you in our program schedule. the president flies back to washington later this evening. meanwhile, back in washington today with congress still working on the federal budget for last year, the senate budget committee heard today from the president commission of fiscal responsibility and reform, the so-called debt commission, the co-chairman said that senators need the, quote, fiscal path we are on today is simply not sustainable. he was joined by his co-chairman, allen simpson, at -- alan simpson, and here is a portion of it from this

morning. >> i am not going to use any notes today. i am just going to talk to you, and i'm really concerned. i think we face the most predictable economic crisis in history. a lot of us sitting in this room didn't see this last crisis as it came upon us, but this one is really easy to see. the fiscal path we are on today is simply not sustainable. this debt and these deficits that we are incurring on an annual basis are like a cancer, and they are truly going to destroy this country from within unless we have the common sense to do something about it. i was with former senator kerry, bob kerry, about a year ago exactly, and he said,

erskine, look at the nation's current income statement, and let me tell you what you'll see. you'll see that 100% of the revenues that this nation produces today are being consumed by our mandatory spending and the interest on the debt. that means that every single dollar that we spend today on these two wars, on our military, on national security, on homeland security, on education, on infrastructure, on high-value added research is borrowed, and half of that is borrowed from foreign countries. that is a formula for failure, and if we do nothing, if we just take the area of this room, then we'll be spending $1 trillion a year in interest costs alone by the year 2020. think about that.

that's $1 trillion that won't educate our children. it's $1 trillion that won't build a highway or won't bring broadband infrastructure to rule south carolina. that's $1 trillion that won't create the next new thing in this country. it's $1 trillion that's going to create the next new thing somewhere over there from the people we're borrowing money from. it's crazy. and this is not a problem we can grow our way out of. you could have double-digit growth for the next two decades and not solve this problem. so don't think we can grow our way out of it. and this is not a problem we can tax our way out of. raising taxes doesn't do a darn thing to slow the rate of growth of health care or to change the demographics of the country. and in fact, if he want to try to solve this with just taxes,

you have to raise the highest marginal rate to about 70%. the corporate rate to 80%. the capital gains and dividends rate to 50%. and what kind of country will we have? you are not going to have any businesses started or businesses growing with that kind of tax structure. so we can't simply tax our way out. and we can't simply cut our way out of this problem. you know, when i see people go on the sunday shows and they say, oh, look, we're going to cut our way out of this problem but we're not going to touch medicare and we're not going to deal with medicaid and we're not going to mess with social security and for sure we got to stay safe and secure, so we are not taking a dollar out of defense, and oh, by the way, we have to pay the interest on the debt, you know, if we exclude all those things, you know, you got to cut everything else by 65% to 75%. that's not going to happen. that's not a realistic world.

so what alan and i tried to do was to present a realistic plan, a balanced plan, a plan that turned out to be a bipartisan plan, and it's based on six basic principles. the first is we didn't want to do anything that would disrupt a very fragile economic recovery. and the economy is in a recovery. this growth is real today. but, boy, we can lose it and lose it quickly. so when we looked to cutting spending, as senator crapo knows, most of our spending comes in 2013. that's where we get back to 2008 levels in real terms to a precrisis level, which i believe we can do. now, i expect that the republicans will be getting to

2008 levels in 2012. we simply were afraid to do that because we didn't want to disrupt what is a very fragile economic recovery. we have real cuts in 2012, but we get back to 2008 levels in real terms in 2013. second principle, we didn't want to do anything that would harm the truly disadvantaged, and that's why if you look at the cuts we made in mandatory spending, we didn't touch things like food stamps or unemployment or s.s.i. we left that off the table, the income supplement plans. and when you look at medicare, we did a couple things that made our job more difficult. we increased the minimum payment up to 125% of poverty to protect the truly disadvantaged, and we gave that 1% bump up a year to what's

called the older old people between 81 and 86. both of those cost money, and in our plan we paid for that but we wanted to do the right thing. and when we raised the retirement age, we did put in a hardship provision to protect those people that had those back-breaking jobs, those manual labor jobs that really can't work as long as we raised the retirement age. so we really did try to protect the disadvantaged. third, we do want to keep this country safe and secure. now, i'm not personally one that believes we can afford to be the world's policeman, but i'll put it in more basic terms. i don't think this country can afford to spend more on national defense than the next 14 largest countries combined. and have enough money to invest

in education, infrastructure and high-value research, which we got to do in order to be competitive in a knowledge-based global economy that we all compete in today. fourthly, i do think we do need to make these investments in education, infrastructure and high-valued research. it doesn't mean we have to spend money willy-nilly. i just finished five years as president of the university of north carolina. it's a 17-university system. and so where i saw where some of your research dollars go. today we have 375,000 research projects that you all are funding on 3,000 separate university campuses. now, all of that is not great research. some of it keeps us from going down a lean, you know, and it ends up dying. it's good research because it prevents from you making a bad

decision, and some of it ends up great, but some of it is not high-value research. we have -- in a time of limited resource, we have to spend our money more wisely. fifth, for god sake, let's reform the tax code. the tax code is our cake. it was created when america dominated the world. we live in a global economy today. you saw it every day when you were at ustr. it is a fact. what we proposed was broadening the base, simplifying the code, eliminating or greatly reducing these tax expenditures, bringing down rates and using some money to reduce the deficit. if you -- we went to what's called a zero-based plan, and if you eliminate all of these

$1.1 trillion worth of tax expenditures -- i call them tax earmarks. you all have been so bold to get rid of the $16 billion of earmarks in the spending part of the budget, but we have $1.1 trillion that we're spending in the tax code, and it's just spending by another name. but if you eliminate those, you can actually take rates to 8% up to $70,000, $14,000 up to $210,000 and a maximum rate of 23%. you can take the corporate rates of 22% and go into a system that will bring all of those trillions of dollars or billions of dollars back to the country that are captured overseas and create jobs over here. so i hope we will reform the tax code. lastly, we do have to cut spending, and we have to cut spending wherever we find it. we can't just deal with domestic discretionary spending. you know, the democrats, as near as i can tell from reading

the newspaper, talk about cuts of $10.5 billion in discretionary spending. and the republicans are talking about $61 billion worth of cuts. i tell you what, $61 billion out of a $3.7 trillion budget is 1.6%. i can cut my budget 1.6% tonight, by tomorrow morning. i took $625 million out of a $3 billion budget at the university of north carolina. 1.6% is nothing. the problem is that you all are focusing on taking 1.6% out of a very narrow part of the budget, out of 12% of the budget, so some of the cuts are having a disproportionately adverse effect on certain groups of people. but you talk about the gross amount of $61 billion, hey, you

know, we take $1.7 trillion out of discretionary spending. we take $430 billion out of health care spending. you know, we take $215 billion out of other mandatory spending, and we get social security solvent for 75 years. our plan reduces the deficit by $4 trillion. it takes the debt to g.d.p. ratio, the 65% by 2020 and to 60% by 2023. it cuts the deficit in half by 2015 to 2.3% of g.d.p. the president asked us to get to 3% of g.d.p. it takes it to 1.2% of g.d.p. by 2020. and eventually to balance. i came here today simply to ask you to act. i know these cuts are

politically difficult, but this is not a decision we can propose -- postpone. we have got to act and we got to act now. and if we do, the future of this country has never been brighter. we can compete with anybody, but we have to get our fiscal house in order. thank you, mr. chairman, for allowing me to come. >> thank you. i think you've made the case about as clearly and persuasively as you can. i want to thank both, again, for the leadership you have provided. let me ask you this. what happens if this doesn't get done? in other words, erskine -- i didn't give all the -- erskine bowles, this is a man who was chief of staff of the united states, head of o.m.b., has been the administer for the

college system in north carolina. pretty good thing. and at every place he has served he has produced results. let me ask it again, so what happens in your judgment to the united states if we failed to get an agreement in the range of what the commission concluded was necessary? >> here's what he said about me reminds me of when my uncle sam died in north carolina and the obituary editor called up to ask about him and my aunt kind of went on and on about all the things he had done. and finally he said, ms. bowles, we do charge $5 a word for every word we put in the paper. she said, oh, no.

in that case she said, put, "sam died." >> look in the casket and see if that is your old man. >> you know, al said, and i used to say i got into this thing for my grandchildren. i have eight grandchildren under 5 years old. i have one more in a week. and my life is wonderful and it is wild. but this problem is going to happen long before my grandchildren grow up. this problem is going to happen like the former chairman of the fed said or moody's said. this is a problem we are going to have to face up to in maybe two years. you know, maybe a will illess, maybe a little more. but -- maybe a little less, maybe a little more.

but if the bankers over there in asia begin to believe that we are not going to be solid on our debt, if we're not going to be able to meet our obligations , just stop and think for a minute what happens if they just stopped buying our debt. what happens to interest rates? what happens to the u.s. economy? the markets will absolutely devastate us if we don't step up to this problem. the problem is real. the solutions are painful, and we have to act. >> alan, do you want to add to that? >> i just want to say, and i know it's repetitive, if you can understand here what the people of america, as we travel around and we do stuff. we go to the business council. we go to the conservative group in dallas, the policy

institute, the economic club of new york and wherever we go people get it. and then we tell them that if they just draw, pick, go to the internet and go to www.fiscalcommission.gov, it's 67 pages. if we leave that out they'll never read it. they said, oh, my god, they worked for a year. it must be as high as this box. it isn't. it wasn't written for politicians. it was written for the american people, and it uses terms like going broke and shared sacrifice. let me tell you what was stunning for us. there has never been any sacrifice required of the american people since world war ii except for our military, god bless them, and that's the sacrifice. and they chose to do it. they're volunteers. and so when you -- someone says, well, you can't use that

word. well, the american people are using that word. it's called shared sacrifice. and it's a puzzling thing. they don't -- and it's the right and the left. they're not involved in social issues deeply. they just -- now this has risen to number one. jobs. very important. and this number one or number two is the debt. they understand debt. because in their own home they have been wiped out by debt. the first thing anyone did during this crash that had any brains at all was gather their loved ones around and said we have to get out of debt. that's first. and you know my wife, ann, and lucy, she said, pay it off, al. you goes -- grateful we paid cash. said, ok.

it's a deal. i think it will come before two years. i think when the people that hold this paper look around and all you've done is cut waste, fraud and abuse, foreign aid, air force one, pelosi's aircraft, and all this and congress pay that you know you didn't get anywhere. you got the 5% or 6% of the hole and they said you didn't do it. then, of course, when the debt limit extension comes up, you got about 85 guys over there say, hey, i'm never voting for that under any circumstances. they said, wait a minute. then you'll hear the cracking of knuckles and elbows and they'll say, if you don't do that you'll impair the faith of the whole u.s. and might even have to shut the government. and some will say, that's why i came here. and at that point there will be a sound of bone against flesh. but at that point, too, if -- i can't imagine shutting the government. our party tried that once.

it was about the biggest disaster that i've ever seen. >> part of the budget hearing from earlier today. you see all of that online at the c-span video library at c-span.org. u.s. house today, fairly light legislative agenda. they have a couple of votes coming up at 6:30 eastern on bills designating dentists and veterinarians in emergency response situations. tomorrow, both the house and senate meet at 11:00 a.m. eastern for a joint meeting with australia's prime minister. we'll have live coverage here on c-span. over in the senate today, they continue in a period of general speeches, morning business through about 5:00 trying to wrap up work on federal patent law. off the floor they're working on negotiating a couple of votes -- possible votes, anyway, on temporary federal spending for fiscal year 2011. no word on when those votes might happen. we'll keep you posted. the senate life now on c-span2. >> president obama's f.y. budget for the department

allows us to continue to meet these evolving threats and challenges by prioritizing our essential operational requirements. >> as cabinet secretaries meet with members of congress over their department's budget request for next year, watch the hearings online at the c-span video library. search, watch, clip and share. it's washington your way. this weekend, book tv is live with two days of panel discussions and interviews from the tucson festival of books. authors include raul castro, joyce maynard, with panels on immigration, women and leadership and the look back at the 1960's. also this weekend on c-span2's "book tv," on after words," peter firstbrook talks about barack obama with president of the king's college. dinesh d'souza. for a list of this weekend's

complete events, go to booktv doirk. the subcommittee on africa held a hearing on the republic of congo after the war ended in 2003. among those problems, violence against women and children, health and humanitarian issues, upcoming elections. the committee had two panels. they heard from state and usaid officials. they heard from the wife of john mccain, and actor ben affleck. we are going to show you that testimony. that panel from earlier today. >> i'd like to now welcome our next panel, panel number two, beginning with mr. ben affleck, who is the founder of the eastern congo initiative. in addition to a successful career as an actor, writer and director, mr. affleck is a passionate advocate, philanthropist. in march of 2010, he founded the eastern congo initiative, or a.c.i., an advocacy and

grant making initiative with a mission of helping the people make good approaches that create a sustainable and successful society in the long troubled region. it is the first u.s.-based advocacy and grant-making initiative wholly focused on working with and for the people of the eastern congo. since 2007, mr. affleck has made multiple trips to africa with the focus on the eastern congo. he focuses on the conflict on the continent and learning about solutions to the problems affecting the d.r.c. we'll then hear from ms. francesca who was with the capitol police, spear heading the effort to incorporate sgbda in conflict and disasters.

ms. walsh has nearly a decade of refugee camp management with the u.n. working with displaced communities in the balkans, latin america and africa and has spent a considerable amount of time in the eastern congo helping c.r.s. designing effective responses to psycho, social and medical needs of survivors of sexual violence. we'll hear from john, a human rights activist and best-selling author who has worked for peace in africa for over 25 years. he's a co-founder of an initiative to work against crimes against humanity affiliated with the center of american progress. he's worked with the white house and president clinton, the state department, two members of congress national intelligence council, unicef, human rights watch, the international crisis group and the u.s. institute of peace. he's authored or co-authored 10 books and has appeared on

numerous tv programs and as i said, has been here frequently before this subcommittee. and i also would like to -- she would like to come to the witness table, sidney mccain, who, as i said earlier, has been a leader on issues dealing with health care for africa, including the volume tear, american volume tear medical team, leading several medical missions. she's the wife of the distinguished senator from arizona, john mccain, but she's also worked with care operation smile and the land removal group, the halo trust. mr. affleck, if you'll proceed. >> thank you very much. i'm very excited about this, and it's a great honor.