live on c-span2 and then sunday night on c-span at 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. you can watch anytime at c- span.org, where you can find the video. >> next, a commencement speech from jon huntsman, the ambassador to china. then the farewell speech by john ensign. you can now access our programming any time all commercial free. you can also listen to our future in new programs -- ito

our signature interview programs. john hunt and gave a commencement address on saturday at the university of south carolina. he was invited to become the ambassador to china. he took the post in august 2019 he stepped down as ambassador last month and is considering a run for the presidency in 2012. this is just under 20 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> thank you. thank you. it makes me sound pretty cool. i am glad some family members were here. thank you for being here. two trustees, the faculty, the parents, the students, i am flattered and honored to be here

today, and i assume it is because i know a little bit about this out. you see, i spent the last 28 years of my life with the south it. my wife mary kay, who is sitting over there, you'd be pleased to note that i do not even need an interpreter now when i meet with my in-laws.

the real secret to diplomats is that we're trained to say something when there is nothing to say and to say nothing when there is something to save. i thought i would try to find a few honest words about choices ahead and, finding a successful path way to live because tomorrow, you will start finding your own pathways. but today, your closing an incredibly important and expensive chapter in your life. no matter what else i say today, i hope you remember this.

congratulations, graduates. we are very, very proud of you. [applause] you see, like this not a straight and narrow route. life is full of turns, hills, alleyways, sometimes even clips. lots of speed bumps and potholes, and some pathways are by design. others are more random. some stick to the script. others like to improvise. everyone of you sitting here today could tell a different story about how you arrived here at today's commencement exercise, and for most of you, you are just beginning the first chapter of your life, so what do you want your book of light to look like how do you want it to read? how many chapters will there be? will it be fiction?

or will it be non-fiction? heroics? need? or tragedy, and starting the minute you wake up tomorrow, it is totally up to you. one thing i have learned is that your life will never be complete until you find your most deep-rooted passion, and you'll never find your passion until you learn to follow your heart. the one thing that drives you and inspired you and motivates you, so promise me this. starting today, quit asking others what they think you should be. ask yourself and follow your heart. be. ask yourself and follow your heart. it will never let you down. my initial passion in life was to be a rock-and-roll musician. in my late teens, you would not recognize me. my hair was rod stewart shaggy.

i would not wear anything but supressed any genes. i ended up leaving high school short of graduation to play with a band called wizard. i thought it was my ticket to fame. we were old and ugly as to green ford econoline van you could ever imagine, with folded up chairs and the back. it was pretty awesome until those inconvenient intersections, curves, and stoplights caused those chairs to move around just a little bit, and seat belts were not exactly a force in those days. well, wizard did not make it, but i will never regret following my passion. sometimes, we take america for granted. sometimes, we forget that we have the freedom to pursue any passion while many in this world do not. i recently visited a very humble

a part of a chinese woman. miss -- is a petite and impoverished wife, mother, and lawyer, and chose a pathway of activism. she is calling for fairness in a system that lacks the basic human rights that we in america believe are fundamental. she has been repeatedly detained and tortured, so much so that i found her with her legs broken, her entire body immobilized, trapped in this disheveled one- room apartment, hardly even large enough to hold her wheelchair. on that cold winter day, her water, heat, and power had all been shut off. the only thing that worked now and again was internet connection on this old hand me down laptop, so here was the battle, one physically broken

woman with a passion and belief in her cause, up against a government with the most formidable security apparatus in the world determined to keep her silent, so who won? but just weeks ago, she was rounded up and once again forced into an unknown detention facility. charged with creating a public disturbance, this woman, unable to walk without assistance, was viewed as a public threat. she she follows her passion. to me, she wins. never take for granted your freedom to choose your own destiny. do not make the mistake of comparing your destiny to anyone else's. it is sure easy to look at somebody else's facebook walt

and think that there might the some of that much more put together, it but everyone has different battles to fight and surroundings in which to cope. you alone have the ability to be your best friend or your worst enemy. embrace who you are and make yourself unique. like all of us, i am a product of my place in history. my earliest memories were vietnam, civil-rights, the beatles on the ed sullivan show, and the assassinations of national leaders. it seemed to me like a time of great change, but it is not really that different from today. you see, your generation will have your own unique set of circumstances that make you feel that your future has somehow been derailed. wars, economic recessions, social upheaval, revolutions around the globe, and yet, in each case, we recover.

we learn lessons and become ever more resilience. i know there are many in china within their time has come, that america's best days are over, and there are probably some in this country who have lost confidence and think that china is the next best thing, but these people are not seeing things from my earlier vantage point of tens of miles away. the real test of a nation is not how well it does when times are good but how well it does when times are tough. the way i saw it from overseas, america's passions remain as strong today as ever. so log on to that sense of optimism, called on to that belief in your future. our free and open society that can respectfully and breeze

debate, coupled with a free- market system that rewards risk and innovation is still the envy of the world. we are still less full of potential as ever. just remember this. when the oppressed are fighting autocratic regimes, they look to america for inspiration. when overseas entrepreneurs build companies, they still look to the united states as the gold standard. when young people around the world want to attend the best colleges and universities, where do they go? they travel here. when playwrights, filmmakers, and the creative classes dream, their imaginations are fuelled so therica's example, world you step into tomorrow, regardless of where on this globe we come from should bring you the excitement, not fear, in

anticipation, not anxiety. the prospect for breakthroughs and conquering human disease, lifting the poor from desperation and bringing about greater world peace, those are challenges worth your efforts. our system needs new thinking. we need a fresh generation of innovators, leaders, risktakers, entrepreneurs, scientists, and activists. that is you, and you are not just taking ownership and responsibility for your own pathway but for all of our futures. one person is pathway i want to celebrate today is my daughter. who is also graduating from college this month and is here with me today. she makes life with easy with her contagious laugh and energetic personality, but few know she has faced great adversity. she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was just eight

years old, and she has spent every day sense giving herself numerous insulin shots. there were times when she wanted to give up, and call it quits, when life seemed so unfair. yes, her courage and determination kept her going. i want to dedicate my comments to her today. she is an inspiration and a hero to mean. [applause] so before you officially stepped foot in the real world, let me leave with you a few thoughts. number one, the year. find the genius that is uniquely your own. nurture it. it is your passion. and do not let anyone drown out your inner voice.

take that leap of faith, and trust your instincts. your uniqueness can change the world. do not stand in front of a near and try to look like everybody else. b u. number two. remember others. the greatest exercise for the human heart is not jogging or aerobics or weight lifting. it is reaching down and lifting another up. find a cause larger than yourself, and then speak out and take action. never let it be said that you were too timid or too weak to stand by your cause. learn what it feels like to give 100% to others. it would change your life. no. 3. embrace failure. some of you probably have not landed the job you wanted. i am sure many of you have faced hardships. i have. failure only herds if you cannot

turn it into a learning experience that makes you stronger and wiser. sometimes that momentary setback, that failure, seems by the end of the world. my heart was broken more than once. when friends of my kids, in moments of despair, have taken their own lives. please remember, when you encounter an obstacle in life, four of the most powerful words in english language are this too shall pass. number four. find somebody to love. you see, it is lies most powerful emotion. i first saw my wife across the courtyard in high school. i tried to get attention by running for class president. i lost. it did not work. but when it unexpectedly found

ourselves working together at a pie shop, i had a little more luck. this dishwasher caught the eye of the salad girl. i have a lot more loves now, too. seven kids, including two adopted daughters, one from india, the other from china. we got to visit their orphanages and meet many of the women who cared for them while they were there. we saw how love can transcend race, geography, religion, and class. some people need friends. others need hope. and you will find some that just need love. reach out your hand and give them your heart. fit and finally. giveback. as much as you are able. work to keep america great. serve her, if asked.

i was. but a president of a different political party, but in the end, while we might not be all of one party, we are all part of one nation, a nation that needs your generational get of energy and confidence. never forget how lucky you are to be sitting here in america today, even with student loans and maybe even a little uncertainty about your future. we live in the greatest most freedom loving place on earth. embrace it. you might not succeed the first time. and you might feel a few times, but it will be the pathway you choose. no one else will force it on you. one of my favorite musicians, and love this lyric. i do not get many things right the first time. you know the song. in fact, i am told that a lot.

now, i know all of the wrong terms, the stumbles, and fraud brought me here, and i know that i am the luckiest. be you. remember others. embrace failure, find someone to love, give back, never forget to rock-and-roll, and in closing, i want to leave you with my favorite chinese aphorism. i think it was from a dynasty long ago. it is one of those that does not translate directly, but let me get as close as i can. speaking chinese now, in english, it translates roughly into, and you may have to help me on this one, go, fight, when. best of luck, graduates. thank you very much. [applause]

thank you. thank you. >> thank you, john hun sen. let me assure you, your words were neither a cliche or indiscrete. they were powerful, and we thank you for them, and we will remember them. i can assure you as well that a millisecond abbas commencement ceremony is over, there'll be thousands of google searches with two words, "huntsman" and "wizard." let's think jon huntsman one more time.

>> on monday, a farewell speech on the senate floor. the senator has been under investigation by the senate ethics committee over whether he violated senate rules with an affair with a former campaign aide. her husband was the deputy chief of staff during most of the extra marital relationship. the resignation was effective may 3. his remarks are about 12 minutes. objection. mr. ensign: mr. president, i rise today to deliver a very difficult speech. this will be my farewell speech to the united states senate. serving as nevada's 24th united states senator has truly been the greatest professional privilege of my life. growing up with a single mom and very humble surroundings, i simply never imagined that one day i would end up as a member of such an august body as this.

unfortunately the experiences that extend from the more than 10 years of my senate service cannot be summed up in one single speech. i owe a humble thank you to many people who helped to get me here and served me effectively. from campaign volunteers, staff, donors, to some of the best people i have ever worked with, my senate staff. i cannot thank you enough for the honor of the past many years. each of you has helped me to achieve more than any individual talents alone could have accomplished. when i look back over my time here and in the united states house of representatives, i'm very proud of the many accomplishment that's we, together, that we have been able to achieve. i would like to take a moment to mention just a few. the beauty of the state of nevada has been greatly enhanced and protected for the enjoyment for future generations because of the public lands management

act and several other important lands bill. because of these lands bills, nevada has been able to keep over $3 billion that has been raised from land sales in southern nevada. this money that did not have to come out of the united states treasury. in the past, balimland was exchanged for sensitive land around the state. as a result of the lands bill that we worked on, we were able to instead auction this b.l.m. land, raising far more money for the stat of nevada than the land exchanges ever were able to do. this land revenue has been used to purchase sensitive land to protect it for future generationsings but also to construct 100 beautiful parks and trails in southern nevada. i cannot tell you how proud i am when i drive around las vegas and i see these family enjoying

these beautiful areas. this has made the great quality of life that much better. additionally for northern nevada, my love for lake tahoe has been evident throughout the years. i worked hard to ensure that the beauty of those waters an surroundings are just as beautiful decades from now as they are today. in our lands bills helped to achieve this goal. through this legislation hundreds of millions of dollars have been devoted to preserve its echosystem and important fuel reduction projects around our state to help prevent catastrophic wildfires that so threaten the future of our state and its breathtaking landscape. additionally, i have been a passionate add row cat for education reform. our lands bills have directed millions and millions of dollars to nevada schools as an endowment that our state will reap the benefits from for many years yet to come. i want to thank senators reid

and bryant for their cooperation in drafting these great pieces of legislations that our states benefit from so greatly. i want to thank the folks on my staff, especially john lopez who worked so hard to turn these pieces of legislation into law. speaking of legislation that became law, i would also like to highlight another accomplishment of which i'm so proud. as the only bipartisan provision in the so-called obamacare bill, senator tom carper and i worked against some powerful interest groups to get the healthy behaviors act added to the health reform bill. our provision was modeled after efforts by safeway in the private sector to both improve health care quality and to reduce the costs of health care. essentially our provision rewards people in the form of lower health care premiums for

making healthy choices such as quitting smoking. if we, as americans, continue to eat too much, exercise too little, and to smoke, it really doesn't matter what kind of health care reform we enact in this country. costs will continue to escalate. i hope that this provision will highlight the individual contribution that we can all make to reduce our health care costs, and certainly this legislation would not have become law if it were not for the spectacular job that michelle spence from my office did. as i mentioned earlier, i simply cannot list the number of things or the number of people on my staff who have helped me with legislation. we have accomplished a lot. i wish i could do it in just one speech, but it's not possible. i could speak at length about my fight for lower taxes and individual freedoms, protection of constitutional rights, the dignity of our service men and women, education reform and so much more, but there is not

enough time. and i hope that my voting record and legislative record here in the united states senate will continue to speak for me longer -- long after i have left this chamber. i would like to speak, though, about a few observations that i have made through the course of my time here. when i first ran for office back in 1994, i was rather naive. i was also very idealistic. i simply wanted to make a difference in this great country. throughout the years, i may have lost my naivete, but i never lost my idealism. i still strongly believe that the united states is the greatest country in the history of the world, and it is worth fighting for and worth protecting. i will leave this place knowing that there are some really outstanding people here who are just as idealistic or maybe more so than i ever was, and they're willing to take the tough

political votes that are necessary to save this country from total bankruptcy. my prayer is that more people will join them in that courage. our children and our grandchildren deserve to have the same country that we enjoy, and it is up to the house, the senate and the white house to stand together with the american people to save the future of the united states from self-destruction. when i first arrived in the senate, i observed several people who were so caught up in their own self-importance and business that arrogance literally dripped from them. unfortunately, they were blind to it, and everyone could see it but them. when one takes a position of leadership, this is a very real danger of getting caught up in the hype surrounding that status. oftentimes, the more power and prestige a person achieves, the more arrogant a person can become. as easy as it was for me to view this in other people,

unfortunately, i was blind to how arrogant and self-centered that i had become. i did not recognize that -- that i thought mostly of myself. the worst part about this is i even tried not to become caught up in my own self-importance. unfortunately, the urge to believe in it was stronger than the power to fight it. this is how dangerous the feeling of power and adulation can be. my caution to all of my colleagues is to surround yourself with people who will be honest with you about how you really are and what you are becoming, and then make them promise to not hold back, no matter how much you may try to prevent them, from telling you the truth. i wish that i had done this sooner, but this is one of the hardest lessons that i've had to learn. i believe that if i had learned this lesson earlier, i would have prevented myself from

judging two of my colleagues when i had no place to do so. when i was chairman of the national republican senate committee, i was confronted with the personal issues facing senator larry craig and senator ted stevens. following larry's admission and ted's guilty verdict, i, too, believed in the power of my leadership position and i called on both of them to resign. i sincerely struggled with these decisions afterward, so much so that i went to each of them a few weeks afterward and admitted what i did was wrong and i asked both of them for forgiveness. each of these men were gracious enough to forgive me, even though publicly i did not show them the same grace. i'm very grateful to both of these men. when i announced my personal failure two years ago, larry craig was one of the first to call and to express his support. i truly cannot tell you what

that meant then and what it means to me today. the purpose of me speaking about this is to humbly show that in life, a person understands mercy a lot more when they need it and when it is shown to them. again, this is a hard lesson that i have had to learn, but i hope that i can now show mercy to people who come into my life who truly need it. as i conclude, i have a few others that i want to thank. my colleague from the state of nevada, senator reid. i ran against senator reid in 1998. he beat me by just a little over 400 votes. afterward, when i -- two years later, when i was fortunate enough to win the election, senator reid and i sat down and we kind of made a pact between us that we were going to get along even though we are of different parties, we were going to put the past behind us and we were going to work together for the people of the state of

nevada. a funny thing happened along the way over these last 10-plus years. senator reid and i developed a friendship. two people with opposite voting records, opposite views on major national issues, but we work together on a lot of issues that affected our states. friendships formed between our staffs and a true friendship formed between senator reid and myself, and for that, i want to thank him. to my senate colleagues, i would like to take a moment to apologize for what you have had to go through as a result of my actions. i know that many of you were put in difficult situations because of me, and for that i sincerely apologize. to my wife darlene who has been through so much with me and who has fought through so many struggles, is owed more than i could ever repay. i do not deserve a woman like her, but i love her and i'm so grateful that the lord has put

her in my life. our children trevor, ciena, michael, have never known anything other than their dad leaving each week to come back to washington, d.c., for my work. all three of them are incredible, and it's been a blessing and a privilege just to be their dad. i have also been very blessed with a great set of parents who have stood by me through thick and thin, and also the rest of my extended family. i also have wonderful friends who have been there with me and my family through the highs and the lows. and lastly, most importantly, i want to thank god for allowing me to be here. i have been encouraged by some not to mention god because it looks hypocritical because of my own personal failings, but i would argue that i have not mentioned him enough. i'm glad that the lord not only forgives, but he actually likes it when we give him thanks. so, lord, thank you for all that you've done in my life.

i hope that i can do better in the future. i hope that i can learn to love you with all of my heart, soul and strength and to love others as myself. my colleagues, i bid you farewell. know that you will all be in >> the senate gavels in at 2:00 p.m. eastern. at 4:30, the debate on the nomination of james cole to be deputy attorney general. live coverage of the senate on c-span -2. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> on thursday, house budget committee chairman paul ryan says he thinks that negotiations with the vice-president of lead to an agreement on raising the nation's a debt ceiling, but medicare would have to wait until the 2012 election.

this is just over 45 minutes. >> chairman ryan just arrived. he is going to get some coffee. let me welcome you to our special for with chairmen ryan. on behalf of our chief economist, we are pleased you could join us. you got some coffee? let me get the preliminaries out of the way, because obviously, we are here to hear paul ryan. it is a pleasure to welcome chairman ryan. i welcome him with trep-dat ion, fear. i was taught to have respect for

the office. i have respect for the office, but those people who hold the office have some influence over you. one of the remarkable things about chairman rayn. he does not want to be called a chairman or congressman. and deference to that, i welcome paul ryan. i just want to say, paul, it is not the critic who counts. rather, it is a man who is a in the arena. he fails while daring greatly. so this place would not be with those cold or timid souls that new neither victory and defeat. welcome, and we are grateful you took the tyime. >> i will put that quote

alongside that quote i have on my wall of that quote corpora. i have had that quote on my wall for years. i could always use another one. thank you. you like me to talk for a little bit and answer questions? the sets of like a good use of everybody's time? why don't we do that -- does that look like a good use of ever but his time? let's start with where we are right now. we have a soft economy. fee typically in this country, and we come out with a big recovery. usually the deeper the drop the bigger the balance. that is not the case today. so why is that not the case today? why is our economy fledgling? why did we just have a gdp quarter with a one on the front of it? i would argue it's because of our policy, our government policy. there is a growing body of evidence that the government activism and our economy is what

is holding the economy back. so not only do we have differences of opinion with the president on his domestic policy with respect to health care and things like that, we have a big differences with the president on economic policy, what it's going to get jobs created in this country and i would say there's basically four foundations for economic growth that are not only being ignored before being turned upside down. and the four foundations, and i am simplifying, are what are the necessary basic building block condition ingredients to get the economy growing again to beat number one, and this is a bigger threat is our debt, our spending is out of control. there were spending has been growing at an unsustainable rates. our spending is about to take off based upon the current law and there's no sign this is getting under control. so, when you take a look at the facts but today's big deficit means nothing more than tomorrow's big tax increase or

interest rate increase and inflation problem, that injects a lot of uncertainty in the economy. the threat of a debt crisis and of a bond problem is holding back investment. number two, the regulatory state is just pittard to reality. so much more regulation, with its financial service regulation with thousands of pages of new regulatory agency dictates we don't even know what you're going to do is also putting a chilling effect on investments, on capitol. the environmental protection agency didn't get the law they wanted the last two years so they will try to do it through the regulatory body. these are putting a chilling effect on investments. and so we have regulatory agencies the are out there really not looking at a cost benefit analysis. going don't have political corporate welfare capitalism picking winners and losers in the marketplace making everybody guess who's going to be the winner and loser, we need a

regulatory system that is transparent, fair to everybody that doesn't take winners and losers and that is predictable and reasonable and we don't have that. for reduced taxes. yes, this is an area we have enormous uncertainty. remember the word on certainty. enormous government activism and uncertainty. the president has given a budget and he did get a budget in february. the criticism he didn't do anything is he did give a budgeted just didn't tackle the problems we had, was spending problems come it didn't address our unsustainable entitlements. but it did something on taxes. the president on taxes said he wants the top individual tax rates to go up to 44.8%. then he gave a speech a couple of few weeks ago that said he wants to do more tax increases on top of that. and so we are getting from the administration, the signal sent to investors to job creators,

families is you're going to pay more in. as i would say if you take a look at our tax issues, the idea we can tax a few other people that we don't know they're disconnected from us and that will take care of all of our problems is this a false concept is not an accurate idea. we can confiscate commit tax all the problems of the fortune 500 run the government suffers something like 40 days so we have to look at the fact even if the president's tax rates ochre and go up in his budget, the ten year revenue we would get from that would help us get 50% of this year's deficit down. the point is spending is on a tear. a growing at an unsustainable path if we tax our way of the problem we will shut down our economy. so what we have is a signal sent to the marketplace is that there's going to be tax increase after tax increase and here's

the problem. this is in the 20th century anymore. america is not just the undisputed economic superpower of the world. we have to compete and be competitive. i did my 18 town hall meetings and i was at a small town in southern wisconsin and western kenosha county. only myself, and michael barone know where this is. [laughter] and ensure you know where the leak is, michael. excuse me, i did john might know where it is as well. that's right. so this gentleman was talking to me. he has a small business, he has a small business. he just paid his taxes and paid 35%. but his competitors are in canada. what is canada doing crew? his competitive fer pays about 16% on their taxes. and they are lowering their taxes.

the vindicated this approach with the last election. we can't compete when we tax our producers, our job creators a whole lot more than our foreign competitor tax payers so it's not just the large companies in the global competition. every eddy is and global competition. so we have to be mindful of the tuck fact when we tax more than the tax there's we can't do anything about that. so we are talking about it's not necessarily cutting taxes we're talking about reforming the tax system, not dropping tax revenue would reforming the code to raise the revenue coming into the government more efficiently, more effectively, fairly and with an eye towards economic growth. if we are going to get ourselves might have to prosperity it is because we get spending under control and grow the economy. we create prosperity. the way we create prosperity is we don't pick of the phone and call somebody at a bureaucrat downtown and say regulate more

jobs. we create prosperity by unleashing the entrepreneur by getting american businesses more competitive so that they can go out and create jobs. and when we tax the capitol more, we get less capital. when we tax capital more we extinguish the see corn that creates a, japan or abandonment. we want more production, more achievement and when we penalize those with our tax policies, however we do it, whether it is through the class warfare or just some innocuous revenue raising exercise we get less job creation. so fundamental tax reform is critical. that's why in the budget we say let's clean up the tax system and lower the tax rate across the board to make ourselves more internationally competitive to get jobs created. a lot of people tell me that is a tax cut for the rich when you clean up the tax code and look at the fact people in the highest income brackets, the largest corporations enjoy the tax deductions.

they are the ones that itemize deductions and in the tax shelters. for every dollar in a tax shelter that is at zero. if we clean up the tax code and will work in everybody's tax rate more of that income is subject to taxation but it's subject to taxation that is more internationally competitive. so it isn't washington sitting in the ways and means committee at the irs and the treasury department picking who wins and loses and gets extra benefit and who doesn't. it's the entrepreneur deciding that, the economy deciding that. so we need to make the economy more competitive and our tax code is one of the ways right now we have a system that is basically designed to penalize all the qualities that make us a great. saving, investing, thrift, investment, those are the things that make us grow and i would simply say that preying on people's emotions of fear, envy, anxiety, that might make for good polis six but it's partly

inspirational. it's hard the whole and it makes for really bad economics. so the fourth foundation i think it is essential to growing a stable economy is sound money. we want our money to maintain a reliable store of value. it is nothing more in city is the government can do to its people and to decrease its currency. i said in the 19 taha meetings i carry this around because i had some constituents come up to me one leedy in burlington, one over in twin lakes and devine sure michael barone knows where this is. i've received these over the years and it is astounding to me. this is a -- i asked because we can't accept gifts and a lady tried to give me this note and i said i can't accept anything of value. she said this is a from the volume of the republic. it has no value. so i accepted it. [laughter] when you keep printing money whether it's a 50 billion-dollar

note, $100 million zimbabwe not given by constituents or 100 trillion-dollar zimbabwe note or something from the republic that came from somebody's wheel barrow back in the day talks we have to be mindful. we are a world reserve currency and we should act like we're the keeper of the world reserve and we are not acting like we are the keeper of the world reserve policy. what do i mean by that? yes, we had a shock and federal reserve needed to intervene to stop the panic. the need to intervene in credit facilities to make things work, the paper market work, money markets work. those happen, those things needed to happen. but i think we've gone down the path of excessively losing money which i fear will end up being a big problem and that means we ought to have our one institution of government in charge of making the money to focus on sound money so focusing on stable prices.

maintaining the value of the currency and not often all these other tensions. i think the federal reserve has a schizophrenic agenda or schizophrenic charter. on the one hand they have an employment mandate and the other hand a price stability mandate. we should focus on price stability alone. they should govern themselves by a transparent rule that takes all the guessing game out so that we know that the focus on the federal reserve is transparency. it is price stability, sound money. we can't mess this up. deval said being the keeper of the world reserve currency is an exorbitant privilege. it is. it gives tremendous of dandridge. let's make sure we can keep that. and let's make sure that as we conduct ourselves, our money, that we don't play with people's retirement funds. the person that takes it worse is the person that needs help the most people retire and live on fixed incomes, people living

on the social safety net who was off their dollars we don't want to wipe out their purchasing power and i fear the way the fed measures these things using this output model they will see inflation after it set itself in stone and the over compensation correct and will be even more severe. in the credit crunch since the late on the banks on the money velocity and interest rates on what it will shut us down and will be all for naught because we were not focusing on the price and the foundations of economic growth are to get spending under control so you can do your borrowing under control and live within our means and stop spending money we don't have. have a regulatory state that is fair, transparent, stop trying to pick winners and losers from this reasonable and predictable. having tax systems that raises the proper amount of revenue for the federal government as efficiently as possible so we can maximize economic growth and job creation and prosperity. and have a monitoring system

that honors our place as the world's reserve currency, doesn't the base the value, doesn't try to create a new big fine neighbor standard by which we all lose at the end of the day but keeps and manages the currency as a reliable store of value so that we can take all the guessing out of the investment so that we can be sure and sound with our investment. there's a growing body of evidence of this economic or government activism is hurting sidey economy. greenspan put out interesting paper with a vigorous regression analysis. others have done the same. government activism is injecting so much uncertainty we are getting with what people call meal investment. we don't grow the economy organically by reflecting a new bubble. we grow the economy by helping the entrepreneur is become entrepreneurs and we have a society characterized by equal opportunity, upward mobility and

prosperity and those characteristics are here because we have been true to the country's principles, founding principles and they will be just as true tomorrow. i'm quite optimistic because i do believe from having just done all of these town hall meetings and talking to the constituents i did a telephone town hall at the kenosha county yesterday. people get this. the country knows we are in trouble. and they know our government is not being strict. they know that politicians from the republican party and democratic party have been making legions and decades of unfunded promises to them and things are changing for the better and they're going to stop rewarding the politician he keeps making the promise to the voter to get reelected and stop reporting the political leader who tells what is going on in this country and what it's going to take to get us back on track in fix our problems.

i'm a huge fan of winston churchill. he said two things i saw were pretty interesting. number one was democracy the worst possible form of government except for all other forms of government? its sloppy. we have lots of head lines that go this way or that we at the end of the day it works pretty well. the second thing he said was the americans can be counted upon to do the right thing only after they've exhausted all other possibilities. [laughter] i think we're kind of getting to that point right now. there is nothing that can stop us from growing this economy from getting getting property back and leading world to the goal of limited government and economic freedom to be the role of government is to promote equal opportunity and upward mobility not to equalize the result our allies. and so an agenda that is hopeful, inspirational, that helps people get back on their feet instead of being on a path to dependency is the american past, the american idea that can be restored. and i have every reason to

believe we will do that and that is exactly what we are trying to do in the house of representatives. thank you very much. i would be happy to take your questions. [applause] [inaudible] [laughter] >> there was a little confusion over night about where things stand with negotiations over reducing spending and where the entitlements are in the equation. and if you would come a related question you made certain assumptions about how in the future we would hold down cost so that under your plan for medicare things wouldn't get of control and people wouldn't dare to much of a burden. what has been discussed this is the assumption the president made about how to hold down the cost would you compare the assumptions hold down the cost?

>> i'd be glad to. stan garate kantor and i spoke about this last night. our starting point of the house budget the house passed a budget and actual budget and the budget certified by the congressional budget office now only get our deficit under control but it's our deficit on the path of balance and we paid on the debt and to get economic growth restored. sweep it out a plan to fix the problem, and the only way to fix the problem is to address and time of reform, particularly health care and health reforms. the president put out a budget in february that didn't do this. he gave a speech a couple of weeks ago that gave us one additional not a new idea which is to double the cutting targets and i will get into that in the second but it doesn't come close to fixing the problem or getting the deficit ever paid off. we have yet to see anything from the senate, so our starting point is the house budget. knowing that we are very far apart between the president, the

senate and where we are, we are not under any delusion we are going to get a grand slam of agreement. for instance we don't like the president's health care law. big difference of opinion there. so, our goal and our hope as we go through this summer because the debt limit is something that is going to move through the house and senate in the white house is we may not get the grand slam the agreement but let's get a single or double, let's get down payment on spending and actually cutting spending in discretionary or what we call mandatory spending and let's get some really good tough fiscal discipline and stuff like that to lock spending control to get the debt under control. and we are under no illusion we are going to get everything we've always wanted in this one bill but let's get a good down payment and let's get this spending situation headed in the right direction. that's all that is happening right now. to the second point is medicare. medicare is in the biggest program today but it is

tomorrow. and medicare is growing at enormous rates for a few reasons. beavers when it was created, they are now retiring so we go from 40 million down to 77 million. the are living longer than was ever measure were anticipated. it is a good thing. [laughter] health inflation is growing so much faster than the economy or the regular inflation. so under anybody's plan to address medicare and the president does have one thing that addresses medicare is slow the rate of growth because the current is currently unsustainable and has trillions of dollars of unfunded liability going bankrupt. so we say don't change the benefit for the current seniors or people ten years away from retiring 55 and above, but to keep the promise made of people who already retired and organize their lives are not of the promises you have to reform the next generation. those of us under 54 and we want more a personal best medicare system that does work like the plan we have in congress or federal land we used it would

work like the prescription drug benefit to the senior would look like medicare and and khator like your supplemental insurance, so it's not -- we aren't used to have increases in medicare but we want a choice system where the power goes to seniors and they choose among competing providers for their benefit choice and competition is our half towards getting price competition and lowering prices. the president disagrees with that. he wants to do my seniors choices, and for the current generation of seniors, he has selected a different path in its path many countries have taken. it's to create a board of 15 people he will appoint next year. the board is called the independent payment advisory board. it's in the law, part of the health care law and he gives arbitrary targets to cut spending in medicare. they've already got target's over half a trillion from the presidents wall in the speech he basically had another half a trillion. i think 480 billion. and he is board of people, go

cut medicare prices, cut medicare reimbursement. price control medicare which leads to rationing. and this board makes the decisions and it doesn't go through congress to read it just goes in the action, goes into the wall. if congress doesn't like it they have to replace them somewhere else and medicare to meet this week basically given this unelected board of bureaucrats no matter how smart they are, the power to basically decide how medicare spending will be lowered and this starts now with the current senior population and it is my opinion backed up from the analysis of the medicare chief actuary that this would lead to more and more providers dropping medicare. this will lead to medicare reimbursement providers lower than a decade. and we're on a come from, more and more doctors won't even take medicare because for every person that walks in the door the just lose money and what its ends up doing is it actually tools health inflation because providers that get under reimbursed by medicare and medicaid on the one hand have to

go overcharge everybody else with private insurance under 65 on the other hand and that tools health inflation so not only do one thing this is going to fail to reduce the inflation i think a will exacerbate and dramatically lower the quality of medicare for the current seniors and i don't think it's necessary to do that to create some kind of price control board. i think the choice and competition wherever it's been applied has worked very well and there are many areas we can improve the bill deals with this issue for the under 65 population. i think that's the way to go. we believe don't break the promise of the current seniors, fix it for the next generation and don't have a board of an elected bureaucrats make these decisions. and that is the big difference in our approach and philosophy. the point we are making here is also we are not a debt crisis stage yet, we are and where europe is where the bond market turned and we have to do surgery right away we are cutting across the board and raising taxes.

shared sacrifice is what you do after the debt crisis has hit and it's nothing more than shared scarcity in my opinion. well we are trying to do is preempt that so by going now fixing the problems today, you can keep that promise to those who already retired and organized their lives and prevent that kind of thing from happening. but if we keep kicking the can down the road will be able to keep that promise. we won't be able to have the debt consolidation plan done on our own terms and now for a long way and there will be the ugly across-the-board disruptive thing. the point of the budget is the government has to reorient its policies so the citizens don't have to dramatically reorganize their lives. and if we have a debt crisis because we don't do anything to fix the problem now, they have to reorganize their lives and will be short, swift and sudden and people will not have time to repair. i promise i won't give as long an answer on of these. how about the dalia the classes. tell us who you are if you don't

mind. islamic and eisel and with reuters news. this is an idea that is circulating around the capitol hill. that you might not be able to agree on the specifics of how to overall but that of congress commits to certain deficit targets and we don't reach the targets in the coming years ago that the, automatic trigger is what can and stop spending or raise tax revenue. would this be enough republicans as -- >> i don't think so, no. as i mentioned before, our -- what we are working off of is our budget and what our budget is cut $6.2 trillion of the president's budget or 5.8 baseline so we have lots to choose from because we think actual spending cuts right up front or important but we do three kinds of what i call budget process reforms or budget caps. we propose what we call statutory caps in law and

discretionary spending, we propose corker mccaskill in the senate, the cap on the overall government spending as a share of gdp than a week of the debt cap which is we kept the debt as a percentage of the economy which is the course we put in the budget and reinforced with triggers so it sequesters what we use in the past so we put out three kinds of spending caps in the budget so we see the budget as a option for which to select from to try to advance the dialogue in an agreement but in and of themselves alone i don't think the conference would accept >> you talked about the budget caps. some of the press accounts talked about triggers that would trigger tax increases.

>> spending is our problem, michael. look, even keeping the bush tax cut permanent, our revenue still go back to where the stokely have been. we go back to where the historical revenue linus spending goes from 20% of the economy of to 40% of the economy and then it goes up from there. spending is a problem and we want to keep focused on spending. the other thing is if we say we're going to keep raising tax rates you're going to slow down the economy and don't get more revenue to slide on the economy. i'm not saying every tax cut as before. that's not the case. i am saying tax increases slow down economic growth and it is essential and critical to getting revenue. so i don't want to get into the my menus of what we are for and aren't for because i don't think it is constructive to negotiate to the media, no offense -- [laughter] , but at the same time we don't think, just to give clarity i don't think the tax increase triggers work and i think the

offering called out for politicians to not cut spending because they get an automatic tax increase. and that, i think, was like a leader among the four foundations of growth which is predictable that the uncertainty tax rates are going to be low and stable so you can make your investment. ..

>> we put a dozen or so the fiscal commission, which was supported by a majority of democrats -- lower tax rates to get economic growth international competitiveness. the president isn't saying that. he is saying broaden the tax base, raise tax rates which i think hurts economic growth, so even though we have democrats who agree with us on the general nature of tax reforms, the president doesn't, and so i have a hard time seeing a really good tax reform agreement. we're still pushing forward nonetheless. i'm not sure what he exactly means and he's being extremely vague. the problem we have is we're negotiating with ourselves right now. the president put out a budget in february that didn't do anything to fix the problem and gave us $13 trillion in more debt. we put out a budget to fix the

problem and literally pay off the date, and then he gave a speech, and you can't score speeches, we tried. cbo can't do it. [laughter] we don't have an offer. there's no other plan p on the table. people in the media say the president has a plan, but he doesn't. the numbers he gave aren't close to what we proposed, so there's a fiscal commission plan that achieves fiscal metrics similar to ours. we exceed the metrics, but we have seen nothing that meets the moment from the white house or from the senate. maybe we will see something from the senate, and that can be done any day now. now, we're out there alone with a plan to fix the problem, so it's tough to see where this is all going to go on the other issues outside the debt limit like tax reformment i think at the end of the day hopefully what we'll do, and i use baseball analogies because we're in the season, wait until the

fall, and i'll use football terms relating to the green bay packers. [laughter] let's get a single or a double, let's get a down payment and spending controls as a part of that. at the end of the day, 2012 makes the decision. if we do our job right, which i think so far we have, we will give the country a choice of two futures, and, you know, the way we see it is do we want to reignite the american idea and have the prosperous society with a safety net designed to get people on their feet, or go down the path of debt laiden manage decline, of having more and more people dependent upon the government for their livelihoods, cradle the grave welfare state, shared scarcity, and that is how i see the fork in the road we're at right now. that's the trajectory we're on right now, and if we do our job right, we owe our fellow

countrymen at least a choice. how we do with it going into it will completely determine what kind of country we are coming out of it for the 21st century. instead of having a back room deal cut by six people, this has to be a choice that is involved, transparent, that every citizen in this country gets to choose, and i think ultimately that choice is made in 2012. >> chairman ryan, i want to ask you a specific question with the debt limit. do you see the debt limit being raised, and if so, when and under what process? >> just give you michael's answer. we -- i don't think the votes are there. i wouldn't support a vote for a limit increase. the president 79 -- ments nothing but a increase. that would hurt the markets. that shows there's no will in

washington to do anything about the cows of the debt limit hit in the first place. secretary geithner's numbers are probably accurate. we have the tax receipt data in now. there's certain cash management things, and let's assume it's august 2 -- august 2, so i think that's probably pretty accurate. these numbers move a little bit every day, so i think that our point is we need something serious to address the debt in the future. the reason the debt limit is hit is because of spending in the past. we don't want to rubber stamp an increase, but get a down payment on fiscal control in the future. i think that's what ends up happening. that gentleman, sorry. try to get to you earlier. >> mr. chairman, do you have any information on the progress that the senate gang of six is making?

>> i don't, and i shouldn't even speculate. i talked to conrad at dinner about it. i don't know. i think they slowed down a little bit more. i don't know the answer to that. yeah. >> michael warn from the weekly standards. i want to ask about public support for the medicare part of the budget. i know there's been a bunch of polls all representing the medical part differently showing varying results. >> that's the key, how to phrase the questions. >> sure, sure. there was a poll that i think pretty welfarely represents the medicare part asking if you want to keep the status quo, a or b, or make the changes you talk about the seniors joining in 2022. it's a pretty fair representation of your plan, and 60% say they want to keep the status quo. what i want to know is, you know, is there a need for a national campaign to talk about

this? >> i think that underscores it is the status quo, it's gone. first of all, the president changed the status quo already with his health care law. you take $682 billion to spend on another entitlement, we don't do that. it goes towards medicare solvency. he puts this in charge of cutting the quo and reducing prices. a lot of people think the status quo can keep going. it can't. medicare, medicaid, and social security consume all, all federal revenues by the time my kids are my age. gosh, have interest on that, by 2025, they consume every federal revenue. there's a required federal education campaign as to how dire our fiscal situation is as to how unsustainable the programs are and how they are going bankrupt, and i mean, look, the fiscal gap, this gao calculation, in 2009 it was 62.9

trillion, and in 2010, it was $76.4 trillion. today, it's $99.4 trillion. what's the fiscal gap? this is the amount of unfunded promises the government is making to today's americans. promises that are made to seniors, workers, and their children that the government has no means of paying and goes up over $10 trillion a year. what this tells us is the sooner we act, the better off we are because every year we delay, we go that much deeper into the hole. there is a sense of urgency here. we call up bill gross and bond traders and economists and have them come into the committee and ask how much time we have. they all say 2-5 years. that's the answer i get from every one of the people who seem to be the ones monitoring the credit market. there is a sense of urgency.

it's not extremely immediate, but it's in the near future, and i think people just have to understand -- that's why i've done over 500 town hall meetings in southern wisconsin on this topic over my -- >> do you need to be doing more around the country? >> i've done 19 in southern wisconsin, so i think i did a pretty good job there. across the country -- we need to be doing more across the country. we just deployed 243 house republicans over the last two weeks who went out and did the town hall meetings. for our side of it, house republicans, and i talked to dozens of members yesterday who were excited about their town hall meetings, delivered the message to their constituents, came back energized like i did. the people are ahead of the political class, and i really believe that people, when think -- they see the circumstances and the numbers, they're ready to embrace the reforms we talk about because the alternative is

really quite ugly. jerry? >> vice president biden is convening today a small group to talk about -- >> the commission. >> exactly. what place does it have on the road to resolving the debt ceiling question, and mori browedly, -- more broadly, how do you explain the tenor of your dialogue with the administration through all of this right now in >> i'll take the easier question first. so the president as a condition of the debt ceiling in the last session created the fiscal commission, the fiscal commission by a majority of the democrats and then there was a budget that didn't do anything to fix the problem, and then he gave a speech that said more ipab and have the new commission figure this out. what i make is leader can't keep

delegates the decisions to other people. you know, leaders have to get in and fix the proke, and we if we keep delegating to others, nothing gets done. what is the biden commission? what are our hopes of the biden commission? i guess i would say the place in which discussions occur with respect to the debt limit. a budget agreement occurs between members of congress, between budget committees and leadership, in conferences after budget resolutions are passed. i don't know if we're going down that path or if senate can and will pass a budget resolution. i think the biden commission as i suppose the place in which the talks reinvolving around the debt limit occur. with respect to the administration, the one i talk to the most is secretary geithner. he's the one i talk to more often than anybody else. i like jack lou. i want a lot of respect for jack. we talk not very often, but we have mutual respect for one

another, but i pretty much talk to the fiscal people and that's it, and i suppose tim is probably the one i talk to the most. yeah? >> hi, from the financial times. >> oh, yeah. >> could you explain, perhaps remind us why house republicans also felt to support the comitionz proposals and why that -- commission proposes and why that is not a possible compromise or solution as to a way out? >> i don't think we failed to support it, but we just didn't support it. [laughter] i was on the simpson -- there was a lot of the parts of the plan i like, and the reason people like me didn't support it is because it didn't address the problem, and the problem is health care. i worry that we're giving the country is false sense of security if we put out a fiscal plan that addresses everything but the primary issue which is

the primary driver of our debt, and the primary driver of the debt are the health care programs. you cannot structurally address the debt crisis if you don't address health care entitlements, and so not only did it ignore medicare and medicaid, the -- i don't think it was the intention, duh it was the consequence to be accelerating obamacare, so what that commission does with respect to health care is more harm than good. it accelerates the imposition of obamacare. if you take away the tax exclusion for individuals, we believe that more and more employers dump their people into the health exchange and have subsidies go up far more than we estimated today. if you take away the tax exclusion, that exacerbates that effect. we believe that the sumpson makes it worse because it accelerates obamacare, increase

exchange subsidies, driving up the deficit. i got a letter from the cbo two months ago saying they under more realistic assumptions they believe that the president's health care law will exacerbate the debt and deficit, actually add to it under more realistic assumptions they believe are more likely to occur, and it didn't do anything to address medicare or medicaid. it added a third to the eligibility standards, and it didn't really do anything fundamentally to fix medicare, and i don't see it as the fix to medicare. i think that's more shared scarcity, price controlling. price controlling doesn't work. it was a good bipartisan agreement, but it was a price agreement. what happened? congress in two successive agreements pulled back those savings, restored those savings except for the sdr, and then we pass that every single year, and so i don't think those things hold, and so what was aless --

less son taken from that is take it out of the hands of congress and have a board do it to stand political scrutiny and just do it. that, to me, is not the path to take, and that's why people like me didn't support it. >> does that mean in your view no compromise is going to work that does not dismantle health care reform? >> this is why i think 2012 is the ultimate decider of these things. there are other things that can be done to make improve. -- improvements. it's on other areas of government spending in both the discretionary and mandatory side, there's a lot of things we can do to save money and put controls on debt and spending to commit us to spending down, but i don't think you can fundamentally fix the problem unless you fundamentally fix health care, and that is where

we have a gulf that separates us, and that gulf, i think, will be largely determined, the outcome of which will be determined in 2012 in my opinion. it is what it is. >> final point. >> okay, sure. this is your watch? >> this is my watch. i'm high-tech. as you know, one of our big missions is tax reform, and what's interesting about your proposal, it not only lowers the rate, but it doesn't pay for it by increasing taxes on savings investments. >> that's right. >> that's unique about the ryan program, and i want to commend you for that. >> the house republican program. >> yes, with some bipartisan support, and we commend you for that. secondly, i'll continue to give you the man in the arena as long as you are the man in the arena. thank you for joining us, paul ryan. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. [applause]

c-span3 c-span [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> next, indiana gov. mitt stengel's on his education program. after that, a senate hearing on afghanistan. the house hearing on europe and eurasia. >> the senate gavels in tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. eastern. first up will be the swearing-in of dean heller of nevada to replace john ensign. at 430, the nomination -- at

4:30 p.m., the nomination of james cole. that is on c-span 2. >> next, a discussion with gov. mitch daniels on indiana on his efforts to improve education options in his home state. the legislature voted in favor of his changes in indiana's education system. among them, a bill supporting teacher merit pay, collective bargaining restrictions, and the advancement of charter schools. gov. daniels is considering a 2012 presidential run. he says he will announce his plans within weeks. this is about 50 minutes.

one of the most important thing is that great leaders do is remind us of urgency. in the midst of political chaos about fiscal issues, but the budget, for stop and ask ourselves what the most important policy issues that we think about in our private lives, they're not always revolving directly around the federal budget. they are related to them, to be sure, but i can tell you that, in my own home, the most important public policy issue that we discussed day today is education. the reason is that i have a house full of little kids. by wife and i talking about education constantly, about what is going on with education, and must have my children are not performing in a way that we would like them to. [laughter] while governor mitch daniels has dealt with fiscal issues during

the recession and has turned his state into a fiscal exemplar, a real hero to the citizens of this state, he is not forgotten the importance of education. that is what he is here to discuss today. mitch daniels is a longtime friend of aei. he has put his politics where his mouth as for the benefit of indiana and come in the future, perhaps for the benefit of our nation as well. mitch has many of myers and fans here, starting with me. gov. daniels. [applause] >> arthur, many thank you. friends at aei. the first thing you should know

is that you're here under false pretenses. i came here for a meal. [laughter] literally. i have an invitation for this evening which i decided to .xcepaccept calvin coolidge once said that a man a street somewhere. so i came to aei. we said yes and 24 hours later, some pajama-clad blogger turned into a major policy address. [laughter] so that maybe what you'll get. we will see. [laughter] do not come to town that often. it took me a moment to realize when i saw all the flags at half staff. then it hit me. the inventor of the teleprompter

died last week. i know that president obama is grief-stricken by the news. [laughter] when i innocently said, as i always do, i would love to drop by aei, i will learn more than anyone in the audience. someone asked, so what will you talk about? hell, i do not know. the best guess would be education. that they will be just three days after the close of the indiana general assembly. profound -- we had proposed profound changes in k-12 education in our state and i knew that i would be here either to report on our failure or arthur. but that -- on our failure or

breakthrough. as it has happened, there were some breakthroughs, at least by our rights. i will share them with you. i would be glad to take your questions on that or any other topic for that matter. the oldest education joke i know has to do with the mother who yells out one morning -- billy, get up for school. i do not want to get. >> billy get up, it is time. finally, billy hills, give me three good reasons. mother says, it is monday morning, the first day of the new semester, and you are the principal. [laughter] the reason that came to mind is that -- i will illustrate this, i hope, before we're done -- those who try and make changes

in this particular area, public policy and public life, do have to be prepared for some mornings for you rather not give up and would rather not go to school, figuratively speaking. it can be difficult process. after years of working on it and making only partial progress, many of us in indiana are very uplifted this week. we believe that we have done some things that will make a profound difference in the lives of children in our state, will make a significant difference in the economic prospects of our state, if we can implement them well. i would like, with your permission, just to do what leads the men do and show you a slide show in lieu of that major address that someone mislead you into expecting. but we see if i can -- media

should summon some help to do this. can i do this? isn't it-proof? [laughter] those things that -- is it idiot-proof? [laughter] those things have been considered landmark, but they organize themselves more less into three buckets -- teacher quality, freedom to lead described here as administrative, slipped ability, options for families, options for children, a teacher quality. the experts have taught me your the years not merely the leading variable in a divisional outcome, but the dominant verbal. some have quantified it 29

times more important. things like cluster size is trivial compared to this. so we worked on this as our first goal. in indiana, until now, 99% of our teachers were rated, if at all -- many have not had a review -- 99% were rated effective. this was interesting. only one-third of our students can pass the national standard exam. from now on, there will be handled teacher evaluations, at least a significant portion of it based on whether the children learn. did the children grow? i stress "grow," what we will measure and ask every district to measure is improvement. the teacher we see