>> last time you were before the committee, i was trying to determine what we need to do to secure the border, and if it was a problem with resources, what it would cost to secure the border. your answer was that we have enough resources. taking off from that, do you have in your mind at multiple step process? what are your priorities in terms of resources, what steps are you going to take to get the border secured? >> they will be different between the southern and northern borders. they are different areas to secure. it is a combination of manpower, technology, and infrastructure. we're constantly looking at a number of measures to adjudicate whether we are getting results from the investments we are making. when you ask if we have enough

resources, i realize and we all realize that we are in an era of depleted resources. i have to figure this out, recognizing in all likelihood there is not another $600 million that will come my way for the borders. how we make best use of what we have. we insist on accountability, producing results, and now i am assisting that the cdp develop a better way to measure those results. >> i am confused. do you have enough resources or don't you? >> i believe, senator, with the resources we have and the resources the president has requested, which is to sustain the record level of resources at the border -- we have never had this kind of level of resources. the key is not more, a sustainment. -- the key is not more, it is

sustainment. we will be able to continue our efforts of securing the border. the question and the challenge for the committee will be, and for the senate, making sure that we have a fy 2012 budget from which to work. if we have a continuing resolution, we will have a problem. >> there is an awful lot of numbers, a lot of data. turning that into real information, is the concept that we will have an overall single number index? will that be by region, for the entire country? what is the threat assessment and securing the border kind of index? >> i am waiting for acp. they are in this process, to come back to me. i believe it is conceivable that we would have two different indices, for the north and

south, because they are different. the index may be a range, which would reflect overall efforts at the border. what i know for sure, looking at apprehensions' alone does not cut it. using operational control also does not cut it. we need something more qualitative and quantitative that you can use allocating resources and we can use as well. >> the southern border, there is a vast difference in level of success, and would you not want to have a different indexes? >> we anticipate sector by sector. there is a big difference between the yuma sector, in which there is a lot of military land, and the tucson sector, which is the busiest and the one where we're putting the most resources.

even in one state, we see a difference. that is why i think any kind of index would probably have to reflect the range. >> ok, thank you. >> thank you very much, senator. just to come back to the threat level, and we are all getting accustomed to the new system -- although i think it is an improvement -- and a circumstance -- let me put it this way, we are always on alert. the question is, do we raise it to elevate it? right now, after bin laden was killed, it is elevated, but there is no specific and credible evidence of a threat, but you have taken additional steps. just for clarification, when you go to elevated, if you did, does it mean the government is taking

additional steps or that you are calling on the citizenry to be more alert, or both? >> both, and it also corresponds to the additional efforts by state unless local responders as well. in instituting the new system, one of the things we did was work of a lot with police departments around the country as to what elevated would mean. we're always at a state of alert. we are always calling of the citizens, and it is every easy to remember slogan, "if you see something, say something." our actions are predicated on the fact we are always on alert. i will also say that the decision to raise or not to raise is based on recommendations from the counter-terrorism advisory board, which is comprised of all of the intel community and is

constantly reviewing what is coming in. right now, given the material obtained from the compound, they are meeting at least once daily to go through everything to advise me if we should raise it. >> that is really important, both a clarification, but i come back to the fact that our system is really working seamlessly now so that you are getting real time information from the material seized at bin laden's compound in pakistan and you are evaluating it every day to determine whether you see anything in that information that would lead you to raise the threat level? >> more precisely, the counterterrorism advisory board is receiving that. other information as well. it constantly comes in. they're constantly analyzing it. but they are meeting, instead of

meeting sporadically, they are meeting regularly in an ongoing fashion in relation to what happened on sunday. and if they advise me that, secretary, this is what we have, and we think this means that you should elevate the alert system that are exists, then i will act. at the o.k., that is very good to hear. i think the system is working as we would want it to. that may go to the visa overstay question, issued by gao. i know that you have taken issue with one segment, the accuracy, the clarity of the information. the most troubling part, the report said the u.s. visa program has a backlog of 1.6 million potential overstays that were identified, but which have yet to be processed.

let me ask you to talk about that. to the best of your knowledge, is that accurate? and how are the potential overstays identified under the current system? >> let me, if i might, explain what is happening and what we are doing to improve the system. >> sure. >> these that overstays are another form of illegal immigration. once you overstay, your and the country illegally, and you have broken the law. just as we do with people who have crossed the border, and with a visa overstays, we appropriate enough money to remove about 400,000 people per year from the country. that is probably a small percentage of those who are in the country illegally, total. >> and that 400,000 is

specifically on the overstays? >> no, total. >> if you really look at what it costs to remove somebody in the country illegally, we get enough money between ourselves and the justice department to remove about 400,000 people. so we set priorities. who are the ones we really want to get? we want to get those who fall within our guidelines for been possible national-security threats. that is number 1. number 2, we want to remove those who are fighting criminal law, -- who are violating criminal law, in addition to the immigration laws, and we want to third deal with those who are fugitives. and then at the border, this is not so much a removal process, but deal more effectively with those we pick up right at the border who are gaming the system: back-and-forth.

-- who are gaming the system going back and forth. when we get a visa overstay, and there are systems now that revealed to us that somebody has not -- is a possible overstay, the first thing we look at is who of this fall within our guidelines of being a possible national security threat. i don't want to say in a non classified setting what those guidelines are, but all of those individuals, 100% of those individuals are set to another -- are sent to another unit within ice to be vetted and found. >> under the current system, what is the typical way that you find out, the department finds out that somebody has overstayed their visas? >> it can be a number of ways. one is if we have no record e of exit.

this all started because of air, not land crossings but air. we can now matched or no match about 80%. 89%, 90%. the question is the remaining 10%. if they fall within our national security guidelines, 100% of that category would go into the ice unit to be found and investigated. the second category are those who have filed a criminal law, or a danger to public safety, -- who are a danger to public safety, and we do a similar process. there we are identifying those who are in the country illegally to are also in jail. >> what can we do and what can

we do to help you reduce the backlog of those who are identified as potential overstays, but not processed? and also, of course, to more effectively identify people either prior to coming and who seem to be coming in with the attention of overstaying and do better at finding the people? this is a larger question, but if you take the 40% number, and you take the lower number that we hear of estimates of the legal immigrants and the country, 10 million, that means 4 million people are here because they came and illegally and overstayed their visas, and as you said, once you overstay your visa, you are as the legal as somebody who illegally crossed the border.

if somebody hires you, that is illegal. how can we deal, a better deal with this part of the legal immigration problem? >> -- how can we better deal with this part of the legal immigration problem? >> we have to set priorities. we get enough money to remove 400,000. now we have to go from 400,000 to 4 million. that is why setting prosecution priorities is key. the plain fact of the matter is most of the visa overstays are here illegally, but they are being drawn because they can work here. that is why border security and emigration reforms are so connected, because the plain fact of the matter is a number of these individuals, if they could get a different kind of visa or longer visa tied to implement, he would not put them in that 4 million

category. >> i think that is fair. i just have one more question. who are the people, but do we know, who are more likely to overstay their visas and become illegal immigrants? are they coming from different parts of the world, it even though their motivations may be similar? to work here or rejoin family or the like? >> that is a question i don't know the answer to. you are asking if the demographics are different. >> exactly. we assume that most of the illegal immigrants are coming across the southwest, coming in illegally. they have come across the southwest border, and probably a lot of reasons for that.

the interest in coming over is greater, by far, then the number of legal fees is that bring them and. >> the other thing -- it is by far greater than the number of legal visas that bring them in. >> the other thing is they're coming and for employment or they are related to somebody who has come into work. all of the systems are designed to really deal with the interior enforcement issues would help. e-verify helps. all of these things get put together. increasing the penalties on employers who consistently higher a legal labor -- who consistently hire illegal labor and adjusting the cases would be helpful. then you are dealing with the demand pool of illegal

immigration. as well as the supply. >> thank you. senator collins? >> madam secretary, i want to return to the issue of the threat level. as i listened to my colleagues questions about that and i thought about the comments of the director of the national counterterrorism center, that we can expect the temps to retaliate -- that we can expect the temps to retaliate, i am wondering why we did not raise the threat level? it seems to me that until a further assessment is done of the intelligence, including a full exploitation of the materials and data seized at the compound at which osama bin

laden was living that it would be prudent to increase the threat level, not to the highest level, but it has been revamped and a way that i believe makes sense, but to acknowledge that we are in a situation where we are at risk. i am curious why, given the comments, the public comments, given that we have yet to do a full exploitation of the materials from the compound, and given the fact that we are still doing an assessment of the reaction to osama bin laden's death, we are not taking timmy would be a prudent step of increasing the threat level. it -- we are not taking, to me,

what would be it. instead of increasing the threat level. >> we are providing additional intel products to the law- enforcement community in the private sector so they can take whatever actions they deemed prudent. we are constantly evaluating whether we should issue a special advisory and they are part of the group that makes that recommendation. on an ongoing basis, it may come to the point that we say in this area, and for this, we will issue an elevated alert. but i think we want to be careful. we don't want to say because we suspect, reasonably so, at some point there may be retaliation, that we go ahead and make the nation on an alert status without more information than we currently have. that could change. the change tonight, it could

change tomorrow, but the whole idea of the system is to say we are always on alert. the threat of terrorism is always with us. we're never going to be without it, even with the death of bin laden. we have other members of al qaeda, we have aqap, aqim, and that does not even count the homegrowns that we are concerned about from the lawn will stand point. that does not mean under the new criteria that we issue an elevated threat now. as intel comes in, as things are digested, and that is happening on a real-time basis, that may well be adjusted. but i think for the nation to keep paying attention to these alerts, we want to make sure they are tied to something that is specific. >> i appreciate your explanation

of the process. from my perspective, it still seems. to temporarily, at least, elevate the threat level -- from my perspective, it seems prudent to temporarily at least elevate the threat level. you just mentioned the lone wolf attack, and that is an issue this committee has devoted countless hearings to the past few years. as far as the fort hood investigation and report, we called upon the administration to create a strategy to ensure a unity of efforts among federal departments and agencies, and the development of a specific strategy to counter radicalization within our country. if you look at the plots over the past two years, they have

domestic plots by people inspired by out qaeda, but not, in most cases, directly linked to out qaeda. -- not directly linked to al qaeda. i would appreciate an update on this federal strategies to counter domestic radicalization and ensure a coordinated effort. >> yes, we have looked at what we do to prevent somebody who has been radicalized successfully carrying out an act of violence. we have concluded the best way for us to intervene is to support through grants and other programs local police, neighborhood policing strategies that we reach out to the community, in the same way that we dealt with gang violence during the crack epidemic, or we focused on

police on the streets that intimately knew the neighborhoods and the neighborhood's new them and the information was flowing because there was underlying trust. out of that, we said that we have to have a curriculum that focuses on the tactics, the techniques, the behaviors that indicate that somebody has become radicalized to the point of violence. working with police across the country, we have developed a curriculum. we have baited tested it already at fltse, and there is a training module that can be used at home city did not have to travel to fletse. we continue to look for other ways, but we really focus on what is allow local law, and

power in local law enforcement to prevent a lone wolf from being successful. >> thank you. i was very pleased to hear you mentioned the "see something, say something" campaign. the chairman and i have worked so hard to get that through when it came to the transportation sector, and without the chairman's willingness to stand up against many on the other side of the aisle, we never would have. i hope that means that you will endorse the broader bill that the chairman and i have introduced which would provide immunity from civil lawsuits to individuals who in good faith report suspicious activities to the authorities. it would not be protected if it was not in good faith, because

right now the law that we wrote only applies to the transportation sector. >> i would be happy to look at that, senator. >> thank you. >> i only supported senator collins' proposal because it happens to be right. [laughter] to beat a dead horse, but let me take one more stab at this. the purpose of an advisory is to signal that something has changed. if we are always on the same constant level of alert, that degrades over time. >> if i might, that was the problem with the color codes. we were always at orange and nobody paid attention. the purpose of the advisory, in my view, is to communicate facts and information so people know what to do. if we elevate the advisory, it will be accompanied by

information. what are the facts we can disclose, what people could do to protect themselves and their families, where people go to get updated information, how people can help us help them. we're always on alert. that is the elevated base. but now we will be providing additional facts based on intel we received that tells people what to do. >> okay, let's talk about the threat of terrorism intersecting border security. i read some relatively alarming statistics concerning apprehensions at the border. can you talk about the stats? >> we're looking at that right now. one of the things we have seen it is an increase in the category of other than mexican, o.t.m., illegal immigrant apprehensions.

in one of the texas sectors, it has gone as high as one in three recently. many are from east india, the country of india, and we are trying to get to the bottom of what is the trafficking route. what is the demand, what is happening there. and in this setting, i would just prefer to say that we have seen that trend over the past few months and we have devoted some additional resources to that trend and we're trying to get to the bottom of that. >> have we increased our alert level in light of recent events? >> no. >> do you think we should? >> senator, if i am advised by the advisory board on the intel side that we should, i will do that. >> ok, i did make a trip down to the tucson corridor, down by the border, and you talked about man power and infrastructure.

obviously, we want to protect the border and we put a lot of resources and the border patrol, but i'm mad little concerned about customs and border protection agents. we're building a lot of infrastructure in dallas. even with the current of the structure, i am concerned about the staffing levels there. can you speak about the staffing levels? >> the supplemental that was passed provided for several hundred more port officers to use on those additional lanes and so forth. they are in the process of being deployed right now. that is another reason why am concerned about our fiscal year 2012 budget. the president has asked those additional port officers beat annualized, that they become part of the base, and that is necessary because we need legal trade it to move, we need to wait times to be shortened.

we have been investing in major improvements and enlargements on some of these ports, and that leaves more lanes to cover. we want to keep some of them open more hours, that means more coverage. right now, we're watching that carefully. we have been hiring on the port officers side. we want to analyze that. >> i want to say i was impressed with the professionalism and dedication. it was comforting. >> that is great. it is a tough job. >> i was impressed. i was intrigued by senator lieberman's, it's about smart integration policy. could you speak to what your concept of that would be and how that would affect our a legal immigration problem? >> -- how that would affect our illegal immigration problem? >> one of the drawls is the

demand for illegal labor. the current sanctions don't give us a great deterrent on the investigation and prosecution side. i think this need to be looked at, as well as the elements that we're forced to demonstrate, that justice is forced to demonstrate. i think we should be looking at the different types of the visas that are offered and look at streamlining and enlarging the visa categories that we have, particularly on the temporary visa side. then we have to have some way to parse the population that is already in the country illegally, given we are only given the resources to remove about 400,000 people per year and we want to focus on those or security threats, criminals, fugitives, those kinds of priorities. once we fill those priorities, there are still millions of people left. what are we supposed to do?

that is where the tough part comes sen. i believe the president would support a program to get those people out of the shadows, identified, and for those who are there, if they can earn their way to citizenship by paying a fine, getting behind people who are attempting to use the system it legally, figure out a way to do that. that has been the hardest part of the issue because that is viewed as amnesty. >> let me go back to the process of securing the border. i assume the first that is measuring. >> that is an initial step, yes. >> what is the next that? >> -- what is the next step? >> i think we need to

concurrently be looking at the intersection between interior immigration enforcement and what is going on and immigration generally and what is happening at the border. the border is only one part of the problem. we need to be looking at the intersection of that and the border metric at the same time. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator johnson. senator mccain has just arrived. he was not able to be here because senate intelligence and home services were meeting with averell today. -- were meeting what admiral today. we will be asking for another briefing from adam role which oversaw -- from that role which oversaw the actions on sunday. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and

i apologize madame secretary, i was at this briefing. i apologize for being late. madam secretary, i am interested in your comments about the hardest part and the things we need to do. we have introduced legislation which we believe would be sufficient measures to secure our borders. we have never had on your part or the part of the administration serious sit down negotiations on this issue. now, i understand the president's view on immigration reform and yours, but as i have set up on numerous occasions, have seen this before. i saw it in 1986, when we gave amnesty to 2 million people and

said we would secure the borders and we have not. when there are still 171,000 people apprehended in one year crossing our tucson border, in the view of most observers, that is not a secure border. do you have a plan that can do that? and sometimes, my friends from other parts of the country and other people think that maybe senator kyl and i and a lot of our constituents, particularly in the southern part of arizona, are a bit intransigent. i received a briefing, two briefings that there are between 100-200 spotters on mountains in southern arizona inside the borders of the united states of america, spotting for drug cartels, and get the drugs to phoenix. then they distribute that. phoenix is the drug distribution

center for the nation, with the exception of some parts of the state of texas. now, i do not think that is an acceptable situation. perhaps you do. that was not my assessment, that was the assessment given to me, 100-200 spotters sitting on mountains inside the state of arizona, guiding the drug cartels as they bring drugs to phoenix and distribute them throughout the country. that, at least to the constituents i talk to of mine, is not an acceptable situation. and then, and enact i still do in an act ind, -- still cannot understand, i ask, how important is the will of the

national guard. "indispensable." that is the words they use. then we are supposed to believe the administration is serious about securing our borders. well, i don't think so. so i would hope that, one, we could understand that when any state has 100-200 spotters, members of drug cartels inside their borders, guiding drug cartels as they bring drugs to phoenix, ariz., and distribute them through the nation, with the exception of some parts of texas, but that is not a situation that i should expect my constituents to tolerate. so i guess it is more of a statement that i would seek your response. the border is not secure.

the euna sector is secure, -- the umana sector is secure, but there are other areas. we saw a film about three nights before. vehicles with flashing lights, right next to the border, right next to the fence, left turn, stop, she is a law that -- some bullets, and some of those fly across the border. and these mass graves are something that has shocked the nation. all that has to do with drugs that are moving into the united states of america. iagain, i would hope that we could have some serious conversations rather than at meetings with various interested groups and see if we cannot sit

down and take the necessary measures that are clearly, and our view, that could assure the citizens of our country at the border there is a reasonable level of security and maybe move forward in order to achieve that. i would be interested in your response. >> thank you, senator, and your constituency used to be mine. i have spent a lot of my life on the border-related issues and i think we share a lot of the same values and goals. let me take on four of the points you have made and provide some information. at first, with respect to the national guard, they have not been withdrawn. they are at the current force levels that have always been, the administration has not made a final decision about whether to continue to deploy them.

one of the issues is who pays for the guard. i have asked our appropriators twice to allow us to reprogram funds to pay for the guard and continued to pay for the guard at the border. that reprogramming has been denied. this committee may want to look at that issue. it would be very helpful for sustaining the presence of the guard. again, i asked our appropriators, and it was denied last year. we would not renew that request. on the 10-point plan, many of those things we have been doing. there is a fiscal cost to it. i think your own numbers show it to be over $4 billion. the issue is whether some of the atoms there are the most cost-effective way to reach the common goals that we share.

i am going to have that discussion with you and work with you on that. on the spotters, i speak as the former chair in arizona, the former u.s. attorney and attorney-general, i know the valley very well. i have asked the border patrol, because i have been down there myself several times in the past few months, where are the spotters i keep hearing about? the answer i receive is dark are a couple of hundred tops from which espada could act -- a receive is there are a couple hundred tops from which espada could act, but they're not there. we are deploying our technology in that area to allow us to pick out more of the individuals involved in the drug trade than we already are.

i would be interested in seeing if we could clarify that particular point. last, on the number of illegals coming across the tucson sector, i agree, i don't like that number, either. it is dramatically down from what it was. it is down 35% from where it was when i started as secretary, but we're going to continue to put resources into that sector until we drive that number down even further. the part of this hearing that he missed, and that will be happy to set up a private meeting with you about, is developing a real border metric that takes into account apprehensions, typical crime stats, and other measures that give us a better overall sense of what is happening at the border. i think there is a general consensus that the apprehension number coming in and of itself, is not a complete measurement.

>> well, thank you, and i am fascinated by your comment that they could not tell you where the spotters are at. they probably cannot tell you exactly where they are because otherwise they would get them, but the fact is it that is factually correct. look, it is crazy format -- well, they are there and everybody knows they are there. it for you and your staff to deny they are there is sort of symptomatic to me of the recognition or appreciation of the problems that exist along our border. >> senator, with respect, there is no one who has spent more time working on this error is an issue that i have over the past few years -- - >> there is no one who has spent more time on this arizona issue than i have, madam secretary, and from sheriff's up to the

u.s. attorney, there are between 100-200 spotters sitting on mountains in arizona. for you to dispute that is a big problem you have between yourself and them. and that needs to be clarified. if that is not true, that is fine with me, but it happens to be true and it is a huge problem, and it also happens to be that phoenix, ariz., in their view and others view it is the distribution center for drugs around this country. maybe you want to deny that, but the fact is that it is, and so, again, if you want to change the matrix, change the matrix, but on the ground in arizona, on the border, we see people still living in an environment that they're not living secure lives. we had witnesses before this committee testified to exactly that, ranchers and shares of the

counties along the border. to get, if we're going into this, senator -- >> see, you may not trust the word of the sheriffs, and that is fine. but we in arizona trust them because they are the elected law enforcement officials that are there dealing with these issues every single day. again, the facts on the ground, and i know the facts on the ground, and i agree, there have been improvements, and i am grateful for those improvements, but i would argue they have not kept up with the escalation of violence on the other side of the border. and i go back to my original point that i made at the beginning of my comments. i think that it would be at least once for the

administration to sit down with us at the border states, not just arizona, but new mexico, texas, california, and see if there is a way to work out a way to get our border secured. and maybe then it would be some benefit to all of our constituents. please respond. >> well, senator, look, the she was a lot more complicated. you cannot just -- the issue is a lot more complicated. in my judgment, what we need to do at the border is exactly what we are doing, and more so. it is more manpower, or technology, more infrastructure. it is adding air cover, which we now have across arizona that we did not have before. it is also related to interior enforcement. it is the ability to identify

who is in our jails in our country illegally, and being able to remove those. the ability to have consequences for all who cross illegally, that is important, i grant you that. the yuma sector may not be the best way to achieve that, but that is a discussion we ought to have. i look forward to sitting down with you, going through the plan. we have some options i would want you to consider, as i mentioned to you before. your challenge to me last meeting was what is a border metric. you ask me that question. i said, look, we need to create a metric that makes sense and measures all of these things, and we can include, and probably will, all of the drug activity and so forth. i must say, however, let's not

get into a debate because some sheriffs say it is better and some say it is not. we have to look at the entire border and create a safe and secure border region. it said that the damage trade and travel can use it. it -- so that safe and secure trade and travel can take place. we have some differences on how we measure and get theire. >> i look forward to sitting down with you on this issue before the election season gets too polarizing, because i think it is important. i think we are on the right track, and i clearly stated there have been improvements, but i think we have more to go. would you indulge me one other comment? >> sure. >> >> and subject, i continue to

get complaints from people about this physical pat down. we ought to really kind of work on some type of technology that that would not be necessary for our inspectors to go through. it is very invasive, and i have heard all of the reasons for it, but it seems to me in a country like ours we could develop some type of technology that could make something like that unnecessary. some people feel it is really embarrassing and humiliating, and i certainly understand their complaints. >> senator, i understand them as well, and i receive them as well. three things. one, we are working on research and technology. the research cycle is not an immediate cycle, but we are working with national lab and others on better technology. two, i have asked ann tsa is

moving to a more risk-based approach on how we screen. part of that will lead to the third point, which is that we want to enlarge a traveler program, where they have a biometric card, like we use with pilots, and we're looking at ways to scale that up. >> thank you, madam secretary, and i am looking forward to continuing our spirited dialogue. am i enjoy that, too. -- >> i enjoy that, too. >> i want to thank both of you for the exchange. you both agree that things are better along the border and you both agree they are not good enough, and i think your announcement today that you have directed cbp to develop a new index for judging and reaching

conclusions of whether the border is secure and how to make it more secure is very important. beyond your official announcement, in typical napolitano style, he said, and i paraphrase, the existing system of judging what security by the number of apprehensions "does not cut it," and the existing definition of operational control at the border does not cut it, either. i agree with you, and i think you have the opportunity now to develop a new standard of border security that is much more accurate and effective and can be a basis for a meeting of minds between people from different perspectives, both on the question of border security and a related question of

immigration reform, and i urge you forward. i hope you will engage senator mccain and other members of congress, and the governors, for that matter, from the border states, and if you have room in any of those meetings for a guy from connecticut, i would be honored to be invited. >> we will work on that, senator. >> this is a really important question, and it ties directly to other important questions of immigration reform that senator mccain has raised. we still, in my opinion, have a chance in this session to try to achieve some significant improvement of border security and at smart immigration reform. and i hope we try every opportunity to do that.

the two of you are critical and that, and i think you both. >> as joe biden would say, from your lips, to god's ears. madam secretary, thank you for your commitment and hard work. we're focusing on deficit reduction and cutting spending, looking at raising taxes, i focus more on it a third and fourth idea, and it the third is increasing growth, smart investments that can be commercialized with research and development and create products and innovations we can sell around the world. my other focus is on creating a culture of thrift in the federal government that would replace a culture of what some might say spendthrift.

i like to say that everything i do i know i can do better. i think the same is true of most of us. i think we need to look in every nook and cranny of the federal government, to ask the question of discretionary or entitlement, is there a better way to get results or maybe it better results for not much more money. in the spirit of that thought, i like to ask about the department of homeland security secure border initiative. it was created to bolster the southern border, with a variety of high-tech technologies, physical infrastructure, and border enforcement officers. the program was designed to secure 700 miles of the southern border by i think the year 2005, at a cost of close to $900 million.

i think this included the new metal fists -- the new metal fencing and various surveillance technologies. i am told of the 700 promised miles of various surveillance equipment, we have deployed it 50 or so miles of the anticipated 700, at a price of about $750 million. at least this is what i have been told perry i understand that you have frozen that program, the secure border initiative, to try to identify and more cost-effective way forward. i want you to discuss with us how we can get a better bang from the taxpayer's pocket and what we ought to do going forward. >> the so-called sbi-net program

i froze. it was presumed to death one fixed technology to use across the border at tremendous cost. we stopped at one small sector, and we have done it is said let's purchase off the shelf mobile technologies that are available now that we can equip our people with now you will have different types of geography, different populations, and so forth. every sector has to develop their technology plan for how they will use the funds freed up by not investing in the system. i cast for the technology plan from arizona because it had the greatest need. we are making those procurements now and then we are moving over

the course of the year. >> how will you measure success? >> it is the question that has dominated the hearing today. a number of ways, one of which is apprehensions of individuals and drug traffickers. one is the ability to increase, to be a force multiplier so that we are able once we spot somebody to immediately go out and pick them up. those are the kinds of things that would be added to the max. >> ok. about every day, we see more violence along the border with mexico. i think we are partly to blame for that. it is the exchange of drugs for a balanced -- guns.

i was down there a little over a year ago. in california and i talked to a number of the folks who were working down there at. we are having patrol agents being shot at more frequently, patrolling some of the harshest terrains on our continent. i think it is a new trend, which is that agents being killed by drug-traffickers and by cartel members. it is also beginning to become less safe for americans traveling to some of these cities across the border. in your opinion, could you describe for us your assessment of the escalating violence along the border? has this violence officially

spilled over into the united states? >> the states of northern mexico have been experiencing a serious increase in violent crimes, especially homicides, over the last several years related to the determination by the president to take on the cartels. cartel on cartel violence as they fight over limited territory. it has resulted -- it has spread to other states. when i say a safe and secure border region, that border on our side, we have about 7

million people live along the border, we have a much higher number that live in mexico along the border. we are really working with mexico. we met with their leadership last friday. our men and women in the border patrol have very dangerous work and we are supporting them, making sure they are well- equipped and well trained. you have given us the resources to help do that and that is very, very important break while we have had isolated incidences of violence from northern mexico, if you take a step back and look at everything, the police reports, the numbers, they did not indicate that we have a plague of spillover violence. >> thank you. can i ask you for one more minute?

would you take a man and to give me some good takeaways from what you -- would take a minute to give me some good takeaways? >> a summation of your argument. >> it is a great job. >> would you say that is the greatest job you've had so far? >> i would say that i have always had great jobs. >> so have the rest of us. >> we talked about osama bin laden and we have current and seamless exchange of intel right now and if i am so advised, i will raise the advisory level, but i've not been so biased. -- have not been so advised.

we have different strategies at both borders, but they continue to be works in progress. we cannot deal with border security without dealing with interior enforcement and immigration reform. they are related. >> good. thank you so much. >> thank you, senator prate madam secretary, thank you for your testimony. my confidence in you continues to rise. >> thank you. >> i will keep the record of the hearing opened for 15 days for additional questions and statements. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> we will have a look at some of the events live on c-span. at 2:00 p.m. eastern, research from the congressional research service, a nonpartisan government agency that analyzes policy and legal issues for members of congress.

a panel will look at the expertise of the group into the accuracy and relevancy of its report. and the ways to improve public access to its research during a discussion hosted by the sunlight foundation. tonight at 7:00 p.m., the future of telecommunications with current sec chairman julius genachowski and a former chairman. their discussion comes on the 50th anniversary of mr. minnow's historic speech to the national association of broadcasters, when he famously remarked that television was a vast wasteland. we will sue both chairman think of telecommunications today and the impact of that 1961 speech. >> for me, when sony says we were protecting the consumers, again, the consumer might want to know, wait a minute, i, too, have the right to protect myself. all i am saying as a policy maker is, should in no sooner? >> the california representative on the theft of millions of consumers personal data from

sony's playstation network. that is tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> you cannot access our programming any time with the c- span radio iphone application, offering four network audios dreams of our public affairs programming, all commercial- free. you can listen to our signature interview programs each way. download it free from the app store. >> next, discussion about al qaeda after osama bin laden's death and how information taking from the bin laden compound might be able to help prevent future attacks on u.s., and recommendations for future relations between the obama administration and pakistan's government. host: juan zarate joins us talk about homeland security in the post-bin laden era. he is a former security adviser

for counterterrorism for the bush the administration. currently with the center of strategic and international studies. welcome to the program. "washingtoning's times" we have this had deadline -- guest: the fact that we got so much information, an intel bonanza, unlike anything we have seen since 9/11 -- in volume and in terms of quality. we have the electronic media files, all sorts of things that will not only lead us to al qaeda leaders, but also understanding the network, at large. historically, currently, and where it is going. it i a treasure trove of documents. for the most part, the administration will not want to

talk about the details. we will be curious, asking a lot of questions, but the administration will be careful to talk about anything sensitive. we see the bin laden story as the end of a story, that in many ways, given this was such a fruitful site exploitation, with all of these leads coming from it, in man ways, it is the start of a new phase of care terrorism operations. -- counterterrorism operations. but i do not think it is bad to signal to their leadershiphat we have a lot of this stuff. many of them did not have direct communication with osama bin laden. it is a good terrible to throat -- a variable to throw into their thinking. it may force arab that we can take advantage of. at some point, we may want to

constrain what we are saying publicly so that we can take action on the information we are getting. host: how much information that they got from the compound do you think the average person will benefit from, in terms of, how safe is it for me to get on a plane, train, travel across the country or overseas? guest: the first priority for officials is to see if there is any information about plots or activities target in the west. one of the things they are doing is looking for information of operatives who have been deployed to north america or europe. oking for information on attack planning. we saw a threat morning last week with respect to surface transportation. that relates to some of the memos found at the compound. it is not likely that you will

see every day information coming out that will give us specific information about threats, but, periodically, information that will signal that analysts have found things that are troubling and american public should be aware of. host: former secretary of defense donald rumsfeld says -- how do they fight that urge? they found all of this information. everyone wants to know about it. how do they fight that urge to say that this is what we have got, this is what we will tell you? guest: it is tough because there is such an insatiable appetite for the information that came out of that raid.

the public has a right to know, in many ways, what is coming. that said, what you will see happen is the counterterrorism community will start to take ownership of what happened down, in terms of the analysis and what is said. the more the analysis that comes out of this leads to counter-terrorism activities, the less it will be talked about. the problem for the white house is, how do they stop being the active voice of these updat? how do they stop being the fact witness? part of that challenge, to the extent that they have briefings, have the pentagon and intelligence community do it. host: juan zarate is our guest forhe next 40 minutes, talking about homeland security in the

post-bin laden era. you want to get involved in the conversation, democrats, 202-737-0002. republicans, 202-737-0001. independents, 202-628-0205. you can also reach us by e-mail and twitter. first call comes from michigan. mattie on the line for independents. caller: there was a story last week in "the washington post" about oma bin laden, and they said that they had found the guy that knew the guy that led to the guy. did they find that the merc of careers? that is what it seems to imply. -- network of couriers? guest: is a great question. part of the intrigue of this case is how we discover the

breadcrumbs that led us back into bin laden's lair. this started back in 2004 when we got news of a trusted courier network that he was relying on. one of the theories was, if we got enough information on it, these corridors could ultimately the bread crumbs that would lead us back to his lawyer. over time we get bits of pieces of data, more granular day about what that and work looks like. -- network looked like. experts then honed in on that individual to find the compound. once they found a compound, concentrating heavily on what was going on there. however, at no point did anyone have visual confirmation that bin laden was there.

no one had audio confirmation. so there was no cerinty. but it was all the markers to suggest that it was a vy high- qaedatarget in the al universe, and it was likely bin laden, given the compound, the number of individuals, the fact was travelingidocourier back and forth. they did not know for sure if it was bin laden in the compound. even though we did so much good work to get to that point, still, at the end of the day, it was not clear until we executed the target, that it was bin laden in the house. host: mike in new york, new york. caller: what happens if we find

out pakistani intelligence was involved in harboring bin laden? what kind ofctions could we actually take? it is a great question. one of the stratic aftershocks of this question is the deepening question between the relationships of the u.s. and pakistan. the whole thing with raymond davis enflamed relations with the u.s. and pakistan the president did not pre-notify the pakistanis, demonstrating a lack of trust in terms of the operational safety. but if we find there were elements of the pakistani intelligence service, or

military -- and i think the evidence suggests that we may find some degree of that. this will be a crisis moment for the relationship. that said, the administration is doing two things. they are providing breathing space for pakistan to sav face publicly. they are not being overly harsh. they are aowing some wiggle room for the pakistanis to address this. but behind the scenes, you become extremely tough in your lines, and demands, delivering on other al qaeda leaders, taliban leaders in pakistan. frankly, holding the money that we have allocated for pakistan over theireads. we have to be real allies here, but if we continue to find these egregious cases of complicity,

we are going to not only have to cut off funding, but some other harsh thing that you may not like. at some point, we need to have that conversation. no doubt, the administration is preparing for that. host: t pakistani president to address parliament on the bin laden raid. this being reported by the bbc. in this address to the pakistani parliament, what does the prime minister have to say in order to reassure his people that his folks did not know that bin

laden was there? and what does he say in this thing that reassures the united states that they did not know and were not cooperating with bin laden? guest: this is a tricky high wire act for psident colodngill. ani. first of all, they failed to control american overreach, which is ever sent there. -- sacrosanct over there. military services are held in pretty high esteem, considered a pillar of the state. in particular, with respect to india. one of the consideration for pakistan is, not only does it show a lack of ability to defend ourselves, not just from the

u.s., potentially india, but also demonstrates a failure of intelligence. bin laden was at the compound, but you could imagine iian intelligence officers of the compound during the fairest things, from a pakistani standpoint. so galani will have to assure the public that they will fix whatever went wrong. he will also have to demonstrate that there is resolved against the united states. these kinds of incursions' will not be allowed again. we heard this from the military last week. finally, he will have to measure his tone. to the extent that he comes out too bellicose or nationalistic against the united states, it will not play outell against the capital. it appears that the pakistanis

were either completed or atantly incompetent in terms of discovering bin laden in their midst, for five years. host: the pakistani ambassador was on abc this week. this is what he had to say about bin laden's whereabouts. >> if any member of the intelligence service near where he was, we would have taken action. presence inen's pakistan was not to pakistan's advantage. guest: i respe the ambassador quite a bit. i have dealt with him before certainly, tha is the tape that seor leaders in pakistan have. the trouble is, the isi have longstanding ties to the taliban. they have longstanding ties to

groups that are tied to al qaeda. so the elements of the intelligence service, both current and retired, have relations with al qaeda. so in some ways they play a double game that hurts the u.s. and the pakistani people. there is a pakistani calculus of needing to hedge their bets, u.s., india. the key question here is wheer ere is some element within pakistani intelligence or military that knew about this, that established a network to support bin laden for five years. host: juan zarate is our guest. former national security adviser for counterterrorism in the bush

administration. currently, the traditional threats project senior adviser at the center for strategic and international studies. brooklyn, new york. eileen. caller: i just have a few comments. fromed not too far kennedy airport. i remember around 9/11, as airplanes were going up and down, there was the feeling, is this just a normal airplane? after a while, things got better. have never, i understand that this happened during the obama presidency, but i am so proud of everyo in the surface, everyone who put this together in counterintelligence. this also goes back to george bush, whom i greatly admire.

these are two fears that i have. i know we had to take him out, but i get upset that the public and, particularl the print media wants to -- so much the formation. were not safe, we are far from safe. to just be enthusiaic about the death of this enthusiastic leader is very foolish. i think we have to watch out. there are others right below him who are getting ready. i saw the riots and protests in london, screaming about getting rid of america and killing us all. i think very highly of the counter-terrorism people. yes, we have to know some things -- but for example, two of the hdlines in the new york

papers. i never thought i would be saying this kind of thing, but it is horrific make fun of something like this. he is a horrific person. i am glad that we caught him, but we have to be totally on our guard and be careful about how much informaon gets released which could aid our enemies. host: before mr. zarate responds, as the airplanes are going in and out of kennedy, do you feel more comfortable? caller: yes, i do. when i look out at night, i see them in the sky and i think of them as satellites, things that are protecting the shoreline. i love our country.

i have our old value i want the country to continue to do well, get rid of this horrific debt, start bringing things back to america. guest: great comments. i think one of the interesting things about this situation is it has demonstrating an element of continuity between both administrations in a way that you have noseen before. the obama administration came in wanting to change a counter- terrorism policy, but i had been edicting more continuity. a l of the key officials that they have relied on were bush administration and key officials. a lot of my friend were a part of this and i am proud of them. we demonstrated our persistence on this problem, the

intelligence members, and they stayed on it and finally got it. incredible pride, i think, in the special operations community. all of those special forces that have done remarkable work, not just in this cas but in iraq, afghanistan. a community that is extraordinarily valuable to us. i used to be a counter-terrorism official, but now i am on the other side. one the thing that the administration is trying to do with what they are putting out -- we are getting some this weekend, maybe more. they are trying to undercut the image of the bin laden as a warrior. they are trying to undercut his image, in part, to go after the ideology of al qaeda. for counterterrorism officials, this is the start of a campaign to break the back of al qaeda

leadership. we heard the president talked about this last night. some of the messaging coming out is not to fulfill the needs of the media and for all of us to know more, but also a message campaign to say this is not the man you thought he was. this is not a move that was once as dangerous as it was. we are going to destroy it. by the way, we have more and we are -- we have more in the back pocket and we're coming after you. host: in his interview on abc sunday morning, tom donovan talks about going after ayman al-zawahri, but in doing that we still may not tell pakistan we have targeted him and may have to come again, across theorder to get him. guest: if it is the most interesting, immediate problem

regarding pakistani relations. if we have intelligence on the air apparent, the egyptian doctor, or others, do we tell the pakistanis? or do we do it in a way that allows them to save face and repair the relationship? i would expect the latter. allow a beginning of the repairing of the relationship. e challenge thes, do we trust them fully? this is sensitive information. for example, we send special forces across the border again. are they going to be put in harm's way? all of that is part of the calculus. host: we want to let our viewers and listeners know that we are monitoring the speech of the

prime minister that we mentioned earlier, prime minister galani. we are showing some of that now, courtesy of al jazeera. if he makes any news, we will bring it to you. back to the phones -- actually, let's ke a look at twitter. guest: i think this is the challenge for pakistan. frankly, the pakistani leadership uses this with the u.s. to say you do not want instability in pakistan. you do not want what is coming behind us, which could be a more extreme element in the pakistani government'. the challenge for the united

states is, you have to have a relationship with pakistan. at the same time, you have to be demanding of and pakistanlly which has received billions in u.s.id over the years. there is a challenge their but we need to see a stable pakistan. without that, you have to instability in afghanistan, india, southeast asia. host: actually saying that we may go after ayman al-zawahri, does that make things more dangerous, for us at home, or does that further separate him from his al qaeda membership? guest: they already know it. if there is an attack under way, they are training for it. as we are starting to seen

some of these documents, they were starting to gear certain attacks on anniversaries. generally, they launch attacks when they are ready. so i do not think it creates danger. i think it plays into the psychology of the war on terror. you are tried to mess with the mind of the enemy. putting out bits and pieces of information that may make them nervous, may force them into making mistakes. ultimately, we will find these guys if they make a mistake inadverteny. host: we are moving into vacation season. do you expect al qaeda will be puttin out stock to mess with u.s. minds? guest: first, i think they need to worry about succession. they have not yet announced who the successor is. usually, you see that when they put out the eulogy for the person who died.

presumably, it would be ayman al-zawahri. interestingly, they did not say that. that suggests to me that there are still internal divisions within the senior leadership. ayman al-zawahri is not well- liked, is not charismatic, and has an alienated some of the other leaders. second, they may not have had a chance to get together to communicate. part of the challenge is getting the remaining leadership together and communicate to make a decision. they may be having a hard time doing just that. al qaeda will be worried about its survival, a succession in the first instance. what we have to worr about our reprisals from those who are already in the field, perhaps ongoing plots. of second, lone wolves. people that are angry, take

matters into their own hands. homeland host: our next call comes from vienna, va., just outside of washington, d.c. thank you for reading. caller: i served 30 years in the military and in vietnam. i do follow security matters. my giro question -- my general question, and i have a few points to substantiated, is how many have interest in following up on osama bin laden followed upon the failure of bora bora? me like this guest to tell if there is anything wrong with these facts.

bora bora, we did not follow him. then i think it was in late 2002 when bush was interviewed and he said he did not know where bin laden was in the did not care. in 2005, he disbanded the cia intelligence unit hunting for bin laden. when he left the presidency in te 2007-2008, he did not seem to care about not finding of some of bin laden. host: we believe it there. i want to answer this report that says their intelligence services have insisted the shared a confirmation about bin laden's compound two years ago wi their american character parts. guest: i did not know if pakistan shared information. they may have shared information ancillary to the compound, but i

am not aware of anything they shared that would have pointing -- would have pointed to this compound be and where bin laden was. i can neither confirm nor deny that. his question is an important one. what was it revealed in this operation in understanding how this came about is a revelation that we did not lose sight of bin laden as a goal. this administration points to the work done in the prior administration toet to th point. i was in the white house from 2005-2009 and this was a top priority for me dealing with this issue. i will tell you we did not lose sight of this. this was a key goal of ours, not just because of the symbolism but because we knew that he was still operationally relevant, which is now coming down given the documents that have been found. he was an important figure for the global movement.

bora ba was a big mistake. if we had a do over there, the leaders would have put more troops on the ground to assure that we had killed bin laden and a sure he did not escape. we allowed him to escape which led to a lot of years of frustrated hunting. i but not take the lack of progress as a symbol that we were not trying. a t of the starts and stops during the time between 2002- 2007 there about one of started to get more leads was really a dry hole. we were falling all sorts of leads possible. the unit at the cia was disbanded and that did not mean that we did not have enormous resources looking at this. as you read some of the reporting out in "the new york times" and other publications, the cia was involved in the other opportunities to get more intelligence on the ground in pakistan to the dust of the point where he was found,

captured, or killed. host: juan zarate is the transitional threats senior adviser. that is a mouthful. what do you do? guest: it is one of the main think tanks in town. i hope that the transnational threat project which looks out of the three strands nationally that are a concern, organized crime -- which looks at all the transnational concerns. right now, one of the things we are working on, and this is a fascinating time to be doing this, but it is a steady that will come out on the future about qaeda and its related movements. -- the future of the al qaeda and its related movements. is a very different organization in 2011 than it was after 9/11.

and has metastasized, the rise of affiliates in places like yemen and africa, unaffiliated individuals that are radicalized but not necessarily trained by al qaeda. i call it the al qaeda hydra. we emphasize the core elements of the bin laden and al- zawahiri, as it remains critical to the cohesiveness of this movement, and to the extent that we can get rid of bin laden and al-zawahiri, you are doing a great service in this tantalizing this. -- in dismantling this. we can start imagining that now. host: last week in "the baltimore sun, they had this story by brian bennett. what is the shelf life of the

information that the navy seal team was able to extract from the compound? how long before some of the things that they come back actually changing and we will not be able to act on them? guest: great question. there will be categories of data, some information that is actionable now and will only be used in the next couple of weeks. addresses, phone numbers that will likely to not be relevant because al qaeda members will relocate. there is a shelf life to some of the data. some of the data will tell you more about ongoing operations that are still being in the training, network building, financing, other elements that will be usefulor a longer period of time. then there will be an entire suite of information, an encyclopedia, that will tell us a lot about the organization in the past, in the recent present, and in the future as bin laden was conceiving it. that information will be valuable for years to come

because will fill a lot of the gaps that we had, and lack of understanding as to why they were doing certain things, how they operated, where their network is. this treasure trove will service not only in the weeks and months to come but in the years to come in understanding this number can ultimately dismantling it. host: gainesville, va., youre on with juan zarate. caller: are in a first-time caller. just to disclose, i have spent a lot of my life in the subcontinent in this specifically, my comments and qutions may be a little biased. after all this happened, and i hate to say this because i am sure you have heard this 8 million times, but when everything was going on, even up until the cargo wars, people on the subcontinent had been screaming and shorting and

saying a lot of the terrorism was originating from pakistan. even in the mumbai attacks and all of the casualties are happening, and a former terrorism, whether it is one death for thousands of debt is horrible and terrible. in terms of foreign policy, i find it a bit hypocritical in terms of if it happens in a different country, it happened somewhere else that their device is to have strengthened because, but what happens to the citizens of the united states, it ends up that we will go to war with this country and we will do whatever it takes. in that rion, which is very unstable because of the dynamics of the power sharing, i would like to think that india would be a very, very strong ally in the terms of having a sense of

stability, economic stability. i would really like a comment as to why that has been ignored for such a long period of time. host: sorry to cut you off, gainesville, virginia and. guest: we appreciate the differences in perspectivef terrorism and how it affects different countries. that is something to always keep in mind. the concept of india, one of the challenges with pakistan is that they have grown weary of the growing strategic relationship that the united states has built with india. many foreign policy experts will tell you that one of the achievements of the bush administration in the international realm had been to reconsider their relationship with india, build that up not only on the nuclear side, but also with counter-terrorism. something that i wanted to see when i was in the white house

were those deeper ties with the world's largest democracy, to have those relationships. month and will know is that i wrote a piece in "the washington post" is that one thing many to be concerned about the fact that terrorism can serve as a flash point for a greater conflict. between india and pakistan, we have been on the verge of war because of two terror strikes in 2002 and in mumbai. if another attack were to happen significant enough on indian territory, the killing of indian vilians, and there is enough of the sense that the pakistan citizens have not done enough, that could have served as a flash point. we will see a trial in chicago, david hedley, inlved with one of the groups in pakistan, that trial will start shortly. part of the trial will involve

the pakistanis involvement. this will be seen as aggravating in the context of india validating their views of what has been happening in islamabad. host: our next call comes from bergen county, new jersey for juan zarate. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, military mday. you e very, very informed. i would like to know but what is going on wit this pilot. he was started in 2005 near an airport base. two witnesses spotted him and got his license plate. i believe that he is in charge right now. he was the second or thirin line. i do not hear anyone talking

about him. we need to know what is going on with these terrorists. i believe that osama bin laden has been dead for a long time. i do not bieve he was killed just recently. i believe that this pilot has been ruling their roost for the last couple of years. i would like to know where the intelligence is on hand. host: what is your evidence that bin laden was not killed when the administration said he was? caller: i can tell that is the same person when i watch t video is. i am no longer naive. read everything. not many people not evennow about this pilot. you might even find his name anywhere unless you read a world that daily. no one knows about the people in california who spotted him near the military base which is where the weapons taste -- weapons testing.

two times they spotted and reported him. you'll never find that. you have to read about it. the townspeople in pakistani both said that osama bin laden was not living there. host: we will have to leave it there. guest: i could notgree more. there was no interest in the bush administration on this one to make something like this up. it would be to any administration's political benefit, as we are seeing now, to have announced the death of bin laden. one of the things i walked away from the white house with was a deep, deep sadness -- deep dissatisfaction that we had not been able to find and kill bin laden. that was a failure for me as a senior counter-terrorism official. i would not have loved anything more than to have been able to lp the president help the country declared that we had killed bin laden. it would have been strategically

important so we would not have seen a metastasizing of the moveme under his leadership and the symbol of his leadership. i could not disagree more. i encourage you to keep reading, but i would be careful of what you believe on the internet. it was completely in our interests to announce his death sooner than later. any notion that he was kept in a closet or killed a long time ago is not true. i believe the administration when they talk about not onl the dna evidence but the facial recognition, i witnessed testimony of his wives who were there, and the al qaeda announcement tking that has that's just recently. you do not have to believe us. you can believe al qaeda. i would encourage you to look at some of the other evidence. ok. host: we are showing some video right now of bin laden. there are no dates on this or anything, but the color of his beard seems to change every tim we go to a different pictur

that may be where some of this is coming from. is it just that he was a vain that type of guy and wanted to darken his beard? guest: that is what we are finding with some of the documents. before he had a really dark beard and people were laughing because it looked funny. it looked like he would die this before -- dye before his various statements. the last video we had seen was 2007. he had put out audio messages, but not nvidia. the address -- audio but not video. that may address the caller's question. the pilot is now part of al qaeda in the middle circle. he will be an important with

kashmiri. there are still senior leaders on the bench including those in an iranian custody that will be a part of the next stages of what i think the administration will do to go after al qaeda. host: a quick comment on this headline. his voter wi not be released. they would not in sight additional violence if the images emerged of others kill. your thoughts on whether or not the pictures should be released. guest: i think it is a good decision but a hard decision. and in the age of wikileaks, it is hard to keep this data confined for too long. part of the problem, too, is you will still have people with down's, like the previous caller. without seeing some evidence, you have trouble. the administration wants to control the narrative. they do not want gory images

tainting the moral high ground in terms of killing the world's most notorious terrorist leader. host: in the terms of safety, does it make us safer and in the u.s.? guest: i thi it does come especially right in the wake of the killing. it makes sense not to put something out that what inside the people to use as a tipping point for those who are emotionally engaged to actually take violent actions on to themselv. host: scottn our line for independents, you are on with juan zarate. caller: if the navy seals had gone into the compound and bin laden not have been there, what would that have done it with our relationship to pakistan? guest: a great question. i think it would have been incredibly damaging to the relationship if we had gone in and it was just an innocent party.

that was part of the risk involved. not only did we not know for sure whether or not he was there, but we were not sure if the operation would have been successful. if the pakistani troops in the region reacted and we had got into a firefight with them, that could have been, ultimately, -- it could have destroyed the relationship. now there is a very tense relationsh, but it is made much less so by the fact that bin laden was there. great justification on all parts. the president said he would send troops across the border if we found him. it is very possible the pakistanis can get too upset about having the world's most wanted man found 35 miles from their capital. the fact that he was their tempers the reaction a bit. if he had not been there or if it had been an innocent party and we sent navavy seals that fr into

>> coming up, we will have a live discussion about the congressional research service. it is a nonpartisan government agency that analyzes policy and legal issues for members of congress. a panel will look at the expertise of the crs. the accuracy and relevancy of its report, and ways to improve public access to its research. that discussion will be hosted by the sunlight foundation. but first, we will listen to some of today's calls and comments from "washington journal." "the washington times" has the story this morning.

host: just above the fold, "u.s. raises pressure on pakistan in the wake of the raid."

host: we will be talking for the first 45 minutes about the future of u.s. pakistan relations. again, the numbers, if you want to get involved, for democrats, 202-737-0002. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for independents, 202-628-0205. you can also send us messages through e-mail and twitter. our first call comes from clearwater, florida, on the line for republicans. caller: how was it going? thank you for taking my call. host: what you think about the future of u.s. pakistan relations? caller: troubled waters. politicians are really pushing pakistan to give some kind of

public apology. i do not understand how we went in without informing pakistan of our intentions. i think it was their misfortune that he was there. i do not think steps and he had any direct relation to. on television it would appear to be a bad area. host: the president said that if he had actionable intelligence, he would go and get him. the pakistanis must have known that if he had actionable intelligence, they like the day visit. caller: i am waiting with a backlash to really hit. i do not know who was thinking about this. why did they not take it to

trial? our officers on the ground should have thought about taking this man hostage. failing in his greatest endeavor, no one thought about taking him hostage. it is beyond me. host: george, brooklyn, democratic line. your thoughts on the future of u.s. pakistan relations? george? your thoughts about the future of u.s. pakistan relations? caller: yes, good morning. thank you for taking my call. i think that -- host: george? caller: yes? host: george seems to be having a problem this morning. we will take a short break from the calls right now to show you what the president had to say last night on "60 minutes."

>> since 9/11, pakistan has been a strong counter-terrorism partner with us. there are times when we've had disagreements. there have been times where we wanted to push harder and for various concerns may have hesitated. those differences are real and may continue. but the fact of the matter is that we have been able to kill more terrorists and pakistani soil than anywhere else. we could not have done that without pakistani cooperation. this will be an important moment in which pakistan and the united states get together and say -- all right, we have got bin laden. but we have got more to do. are there ways for us to work more effectively together than we have in the past? it will be important for our

national security. host: the president and his thoughts on the future of u.s.- pakistan relations, last night on "60 minutes." roberta, you are on "washington journal." caller: they have been lying from day one. we need to figure out the money that pakistan oppose us, give us back the money, and pakistan becomes our top enemy of all time. they knew that bin laden was there. a man with that much money? he is a millionaire. he is not going to live in caves. host: let me ask you this. if pakistan knew that he was there, what was their motivation for not telling the

united states? caller: for the millions of dollars that they have been getting from the u.s. for their infrastructure. host: had they told the u.s. officials, would that not have gotten them more money? made them bitter allies? caller: then we would have been in and out. if they had been better allies, yes, we could have trusted them, but by deceiving us like they did, killing your own people, my goodness, this is a new jihad. host: let's go to martha in charleston, south carolina.

caller: good morning. thank you for your fine work on c-span. i am concerned about the story of the lives -- wives. there was an interview with the author of "growing up bin laden." i think that c-span should air that again. the third wife and the fourth son left osama bin laden before 9/11. host: we will take that under consideration. what do you think about the future of u.s. pakistan relations? caller: i think that it needs to be questioned. the people in pakistan are concerned. i am so glad. are you still there? host: i am still here. caller: by m so glad that obama

did not bomb. london, that with the citizens were preserved. -- buying am so glad that obama did not bomb osama bin laden, that by the citizens were preserved. host: we have this twitter message from [unintelligible] who writes this morning -- host: back to the phones, baltimore, md., kenneth, your thoughts on the future of u.s.- pakistan relations this morning? caller: i think that the united should dates -- united states should hold back the money and let pakistan know that we need them to do most of the work.

place -- they should hand over the wives of osama bin laden to the united states and if not, we will hold back the money. thank you. host: more from "the new york times" article on the jump page. this is talking about the request by our administration for more information on what was left over in the compound, as well as access to bin laden's former wives.

host: back to the phones. san antonio, texas, richard, you are on "washington journal." caller: there are about 200 countries in the world, give or take. they are all sovereign. they make their own laws.

they have their own borders. these countries have to learn to give along with each other. how will our relations be similar to those of pakistan in the past? strange, but it is necessary to continue working on them. the point is that we cannot put these issues aside. we have to discuss the issues. the things that we did right. the things that they did right. working on security, we have to continue to work at it. host: richard, san antonio, texas. this from the associated press this morning, "a loud explosion heard in the town where osama bin laden killed."

>> we will leave the discussion now, but you can find an online. we dug in the capital for a discussion about the future of the congressional research service. >> is administrative unit of the library of congress and it has often played a public role including legislative summaries, updating the legal treatise constitution and interpretation known as conan. and, of course, writing reports the become publicly available. the library of congress is one of several government support agencies including the gao. this helps bring public debate on in fortin issues.

-- on important issues. we have had 65 mentions in court in new york times. crs reports have been mentioned 130 times in the supreme court. april 2nd saw the retirement of the longtime director after 17 years at his post. his departure has brought to the surface questions about the future and many of the current concerns that have been beneath the surface for years. mentioned,nts, as comes from a 18-member strong organization that shares ideas with the caucus and wilbur to educate on transparency her from related issues. and is organized as a part of the sunlight foundation is more

is available on-line. i would like to think the cochairs of the transparency caucus, representatives there licet and mike quigley -- darrell issa and mike quigley. first, we will have a brief history of crs and we will have one or two questions. i will ask the first questions, then all of you will love the opportunity to engage in conversation. there are a number of open questions that i hope will be met today. as the and a little expertise eroded over time? our products and reports as relevant, accurate, and as understandable as they need to be? should the reports be available to the general public? they are coming to some extent

now, but should day customarily been? my organization has called for public access to the general distribution reports, and finally what is the 21st century congressional research service look like. when they go to cornell to look at the constitution and see it annotated, when they search youtube for legal briefings and when they tried to get a links to support? with that, i will engage in a very brief history. as we come up on almost 100 the birthday, it was first organizer budget appropriations in 1914, but it did not achieve permanent status until 1946. it was not, at that time, the legislative reif rigid reference

service. -- it was the legislative reference service. almost simultaneously with the reorganization have been concerns reiterated. one concern were the ties between crs and the larger research community. we will talk about peer assistance from outside of the committee and also changing views on the roles of the senior specialists that did much of the workover its history. and new era emerged with two particular directors in the response to this criticism. they reached down to members of the knowledge community and the one to engage with their peers.

they made our products available to those outside of the crs. the publication lasted for one decade and it contained original and yellow particles, summaries highlighting research projects, and more. it was available by subscription to the public. in 1994, the most recent and recently retired director -- and by recently departed i mean he left his position, i do not imply otherwise becoming engaged in a number of changes to crs. i will paraphrase them. one is that he limited the staff's ability to speak and write outside of crs. he interpreted the statutory requirement that helped to create the crs to also require staff to be neutral and i hope that we will discuss with that change means. he worked to limit public access

to general distribution products, created a more hierarchical bureaucratic structure, and eliminated a number of departments. hopefully, a very brief overview, and i am pleased to have these experts on both congress and crs. i will actually start with a nice stevens. duffy director of the government and finance -- deputy director of the government and finance services. q grievously at the jail for 1988-2000 and was the director of special projects at the one before 1997 -- 1977-1992. another of his youthful appearance deceive you. mike stern was senior counsel

to the house of representatives until 2004 and currently serves as co-chair of for the administrative law and practice session and encourages everyone to check out his blog at pointoforder.com. rep quickly introduced the transparency in government act, h.r. 493 which would have made reports publicly available. all the way on my right is steve aftergood. director of the federation of american scientists among the many, many other things and maintains crs reports. with that, i will turn to nye. >> thank you, daniel, for asking me to appear.

daniels said that women like me to speak a little bit about the role that i had a congressional research services. the world that i had at the congressional research service, house crs is organized, and to draw out some comparisons between that and some of the other support services i have worked for. i accepted a position as the deputy director at the government and finance provision and i spent six years there. i retired in 2006 and i think that is an important qualification because i want to qualify i do not speak for the institution in any way and i understand from daniel that they were invited to participate and declined to do so which is probably the only reason that i am here. i speak only for myself and not

for anyone else. the government and finance division is one of karcher program divisions at crs which basically divides the government into four pieces because it oversees all of the activities of the government. there are three other divisions, human-resources which deals with questions of health, welfare, education, that sort of thing. another is the international securities affairs division and the third is called resources, conservation, and economic development which has a lot of functions like transportation, housing, that sort of thing. within the government and finance division, which was probably the most desperate, there were six sections dividing the work. two of them or basic economy-

focus to dealt with taxes, public finances, and also a financial institutions and market issues. a third section dealt with the executive branch and the government-wide issues such as regulation, civil service, appointments, that sort of thing. two of the sections now deal with the legislative process, parliamentary questions, questions of congressional organization, and then a final one in government and finance dealt with relationships with the state's, federalism, programs with a heavy component of the state code ministration. government and finance had about 80 analysts and most of them at the g s-15 level, for those of you who have never been in government, that is the top of

the regular civil service and the pay scale runs from $125,000 at the lowest level up to $155,000 for people who have been very few dealers -- have been there a few years. i think that is the majority of those at the crs. if you are hired at the junior level, you could expect to become ags-15 in five-seven years, i believe. these are very good jobs by government standards. they pay much better, for example, than the congressional staff to which crs reports. it is interesting and to see the crs analyst represented by a union, which is unusual for professionals, and as a former manager, we may get into the implications of that as well. now, let me draw some contrasts

with the gao, although both congressional support agencies, they really have quite a profound crisis between them. one major difference is that the crs sees itself only as a congressional support agency and there is a difference between crs and its customers on the hill. the gao actively seeks to promote their research products to the public and have their own press office. it has a user-friendly website. it is designed to get their products out as publicly as possible, they do tv appearances, public presentations, and they're very conscious of their image with the public as opposed to crs which is totally oriented towards the congress. another difference is that gao products are institutional with lots of participation with reporting and a very levirate reviews. there is a fact checking process

which takes months. while crs products on the other hand, almost all individual and have the analyst's name on them. the review process, of which was a major part at the government finance division, is cursory at best but often limited to one hour or so. in total contrast with the gao in that respect. there is a responsiveness which is another major difference. the crs aims to meet short deadlines to come to them with something you need within one hour or two and a wilson -- and they will succeed. the ge a typically takes over one year to reply to a request. a lot of the work is done behind the scenes, and it goes well beyond what is publicly reported and in the gao, that is not the case. agassi in the report is what

they're limited to telling the public. not one weakness, i think, is that it does not have any access to the executive branch agencies, like the jail. they can go in flash credentials, and demand records. the usually succeed. the crs is limited to a personal context and that the congressional liaison office and as a result, i think their role in the oversight of the congressional branch is pretty little compared to the gao. there is less training of the staff in public policy analysis. most of them are subject matter experts. they're good at analysis but they're not well trained in the public policy analysis, which i think limits their engagement in the legislative process. in spite of the fact that crs

people have a primarily academic credentials, at the gao, they did not have the same academic credentials. they have smart people, but they are trained in the public policy analysis. finally i would point out that jail works with individual members of their staff and doing everything they can to defer and deflect contact between individual members and staff with the gao, the crs response to individuals on the hill, seeks them out, and i think that is its primary occupation, and a factor. while crs aspires to be influential in the legislative process, the staff is almost more informed and knowledgeable about legislative nuances, statices about different legislation. i do not think that many serious people are active at the committee level, in part because of the neutrality because you

mentioned. therefore, a lot of these very high paid crs analyst rules for dealing with those on the hill who do not know anything about this subject at hand. legislative assistants will call asking for information and often to inform constituents, but it is not the experts there: but primarily those people in need of a briefing. they are not the ones writing laws, which is important. there are a number of other differences, but i will not kick a ball of your time. >> thank you very much -- i will not take up all of your time. >> i do want to confirm something he said. i did invite crs to come and participate today, both by phone and e-mail and they declined. on that happy note, i would like

to introduce mike stern. >> thank you, danielle. i guess i should start off by mentioning that i am not stan brand even though i play him on tv. i spent a number of years in the house general counsel office, though in a different time than he did where, among other things, we dealt with subpoenas and other requests for information from legislative support agencies like the gao, crs, cbo, things like that. although, as i will mention, in the vast majority of them, they were jailed. only one occasion that i can think of is where there was ever a request for information related to the crs. that is somewhat important the is what i have been asked to address has to do with the legal

issues relating to putting crs reports out into the public domain and whether there would be the goal risks involved in that. various people let crs and elsewhere have raised basically three different issues related to the widespread publication of crs products. the first i would describe as a general burdensome argument. that is to say that if crs products, the general issue reports, are placed in the public domain, the thought is that more people will be aware of them, more people will therefore be interested in finding out more about them and lead against will be tempted to get the underlying for those reports and perhaps even seuss'

crs if they are happy with something in the report. regardless of the merits of the claims that may be made, there will be averted in responding to them. i have a few observations in response to that. i think this is really a pre- internet mindset that has that concern. the fact is, as daniel mentioned, most crs reports at some point, usually not long after their published, do make their way out into the public domain and you can find most of them. the fact is that while crs men and one time been an anonymous agency that most people did not know about, not anyone can google crs and find many of

their reports. the ship has sailed to the extent that it was a serious concern. it is also the case that i am not sure, even apart from that, how much of a bird in it really is likely to be. i mentioned that during my time in the house counsel office that we, not infrequently, got a subpoena or gao receipt underlying their investigation and they would then come to the house counsel's office and ask for the committee that had sponsored the particular report or wanted to assert a speech debate privilege with respect to that, but it really did not arise at the respect them crs. the only occasion that it ever did had to do with the facto

companies. there is a major lawsuit by the united states government against the tobacco companies and they issued a very sweeping request for documents that basically asked for everything that the u.s. government, including the legislative branch, every agency, had ever known about the dangers of tobacco. that is the only occasion that we have never had, that i can recall, to ever have to go to crs to see if they had documents, and we did not, by the way, produce anything for anyone, as far as i recall. the nature of crs's reports are usually policy-focused and they are not fact-intensive like gao reports. they do not involve investigations, and as i mentioned, the crs does not have the authority to go to the executive branch to start taking people's testimony or getting documents. the chances of a litigant's being interested in the

underlying materials is fairly remote. and it could happen, but it is not likely to be a substantial burden to crs. finally, from the perspective of someone were to in the house counsel office, i can tell the members of congress or the house have a higher profile than a crs does and does, on occasion, receive a nuisance lawsuits, new says subpoenas and the like, but the burden is not major with respect to the institution as a whole, and even for the house counsel's office, it does not take the time of a single lawyer to deal with over the course of one year. i just do not think it is that big a burden. the second issue that people raise with respect to crs

publications would be the idea of that if the publisher particular crs report that it would expose all of the underlying materials. i mentioned that as occasionally happens with respect to the gao. in the gao reports, which are published, as i mentioned, and they will send, "we won the underlying work product. the fact is, as a legislative agency, both the crs in the jail have the right to assert the speech debate which is the privilege that covers legislative activity under the u.s. constitution. the idea that somehow publishing the report will expose the underlying work product is not an accurate understanding of how the speech debate privilege works. unlike other privileges, this week debate privileges not based

on whether or not something is confidential. in member has a speech debate privilege with respect to statements made on the floor, with respect to published congressional reports come and it does not matter of the the public already knows about it. they simply cannot be questioned about those materials. as long as the material in question are within the legislative sphere, than bob legislative activity, then the material should remain protected by speech or debate. i think it perhaps slightly more realistic aspect of the concern there is that if crs routinely publishes their reports in the general public comes to understand that they can go to a member of congress and asked for crs to do a study of anything that they may be interested in and those reports would then be

publicly available, it might encourage people to think of crs less as a support for congress, which is clearly their mission, and more of a general research agency for the public at large. the concern then goes over time that it could lead to an erosion of the speech debate privilege because there were no longer be this connection between the crs and the congress. there is a reason they are entitled to speak third of a privilege is because it supports the legislative branch in its work. i think that is a somewhat more serious concern, but i do not think it is either necessary or sufficient to keep crs reports by the public domain in order to deal with that. first of all, it is not necessary is the fact is that as

long as suggesting that crs is going to stop being legislative branch agency or that they're going to stop responding to members of congress, that the only thing that crs will do will remain responding to requests made by members of congress and presumably the members will be asking for things that are relevant to the legislative process. now, it is possible that numbers coming even today may, on some occasion, ask for reports, not so much because they want to use them, but some constituent you're interested groups once that report. that certainly, and i am sure, does happen from time to time. to the extent that it is a concern, i think seeress needs to deal with that independently of the issue of publishing their reports. the fact is that if a particular

report did not, in fact, appear within the legislative sphere, it would not be entitled to protection regardless of whether it is published not. i do not really known, maybe nye, could speak to what mechanisms they use now, but they can certainly, i assume they do, and could make sure that they are only responding to issues on the legislative process. to the extent that they do provide a member-specific reports, and we talk about making things public and the issue brief that are gone into general circulation in congress.

those silly ones it would be available to the public and by and large, those should be legislative in nature and they should be entitled to privilege with respect to anything underlying those reports. the final concern that has been raised has to do with the possibility in that crs could face direct liability in for reports that they could not to the public. the argument there is that the act the publication itself, not the preparation of their report, not the work that underlies it, but the actual cutting it out to the public is, in itself come in activity in that is protected by the speech or debate clause. with respect to that, but one question you might ask is what kind of liability could the crs possibly have with respect to

publishing reports? basically, as far as i know, and two have been identified, one would have to do with the defamation or libel which could conceivably be in a crs report. with respect to that, i would just make a couple of observations, first of all anyone who is familiar and all the people in this remark familiar with crs reports, knows that there are not a lot of things in them that is likely to lead to a defamation or libel suit. there's a fundamental difference between the kind of reports that crs normally does, the more academic, policy-oriented report than a gao report which may be very fact intensive and could involve statements, witnesses come and could possibly lead to someone suing for defamation. that is not a very likely thing in the case of the crs report.

even considering the possibility that it might happen, i think it is conceivable and there is an argument as to whether or not the speaker cause would protect that activity and i will not get into the details of the legal issue, but i would just point out that in congressional reports, there are also made available to the public and, clearly, there is not a wave of lawsuits against congressional committees for the order of libeler defamation. one of the reasons for that is that even a speech or debate does not apply, members of the congress, employees, they are all protected by federal tort claims act which makes it almost impossible to sue anyone in the government for defamation. i do not think then again, it is

a very serious risk. let me just finish with the last liability and the people of mentioned, but the potential liability dealing with copyright infringement. i'm not an expert on copyright infringement, i have to say. i will say that it did come out from time to time in the house counsel's office because members of congress, like crs, occasionally have questions about using a particular copywriting material, what the risks are, and the fact is that if you use some basic common sense, the risks are not too great. again, the house counsel, counsel, would not allow members of congress to put reports and everything on their web site if they thought that they were

taking some huge illegal risk in doing so. i do not think that crs to be doing so if they thought that, either. crs doesi'm sure that not make a haven't of wholesale copying of copyrighted materials, but if they do, they should stop. with that, i will stop. >> thanks, like a. we can come back to this if people are interested, but almost everyone in the service familiar with the process by which crs creates their report. it is not some loan ranger, but there is a very structured review process. with that, robin? >> thank you, daniel, and thank you come everyone, for coming out. i will keep my comments brief. i am here to give a different

perspective. i work for congressman quickly from chicago -- congressman mike quigley from chicago. we had a whole big long list of pro-transparency elements and one of them was to make a crs reports public. first, thank you crs, thank you everyone here who works at crs as a staffer. i find the information you provided valuable and our purpose is to share that with the public. our logic is fairly simple. it is that u.s. tax dollars pay for crs and they should have access to the reports. the language in the bill is crafted very carefully because we're not arguing for the public to have all the same rights or same access the members of congress have. i think that we think the relationship with crs has with congress and the staff is hugely

important and it would not allow members of the public to request reports, have access to personal information, any of that. it would strictly be reports that already exist, nothing confidential available to the public. like we have already established here today, most of them are already, as we know. oftentimes, there are websites such as lexus nexus for the target being charged instead of accessing them for free. again, to us, this is about the evolution of the process. when crs originally came about, it may have been significantly more difficult to get those reports out to the public. it is not anymore. everything is on line. the fact that crs reports are not available to the public for free from crs, to me, and this is low hanging fruit. this is a long time coming.

i know that there are concerns from leadership within crs. as someone working on legislation, again, i want to offer to work with you guys if there are any additional changes or things that you think need to be addressed to make sure that crs continues to the great job that it does now, but that is where we stand. daniel asked me to touch briefly on how we use crs reports and use them with our constituents. i use crs almost every other day, i would say. he there citing a report, referencing your report, since they are huge in helpful. i also do crs for some very specific constituents questions. i did not refer constituents to crs, but on health care policy, it is extremely large, extremely complex, and sometimes we get

questions that are murky from constituents who will call and will have crs respond back, but it is great to be built upon those constituents to a website where they could get briefed on the bill themselves. yes, the information is out there, but again, i think crs provides a unique perspective in that it is not biased. it is not partisan, and it could breathe some fresh air into the information get from constituents who often feel like the websites that we refer them to i suspect. perhaps, maybe they do not trust the information on the white house information you cannot make people trust facts, constituents will think what they think, but be able to say that this is not run by the administration or anything, you can see all the benefits of the health-care bill come see how it is implemented, you can see, i

think that would be useful. that is one example from my perspective of how would be helpful to our office. i will answer the questions that you guys might have. >> thank you. steve? >> let me step back imminent and the asking why would a member of the public such as myself even care about crs in the first place? i think the answer is that just as we've of wine to the executive, we want congress to be as competent in the fulfilment of its constitutional functions as the top -- as the possibly can be. it is alarming to some people that congress has become passive with respect to the executive branch on the issues, for example, like the issue to good of war in the libya.

congress has been largely silent. on questions of executive-branch authority over detainees in the war on terrorism, and those rights, congress has refused to engage. the crs cannot solve those problems, but a deeply competent, resourceful, well- managed congressional research service can endow congress with the confidence and back to bonn that it needs in the performance of its duties. speaking for myself, it is not a question of what i want crs to do for me, but a question of how canada crs best serve congress and thereby best serve the political process? with the retirement of muslim -- of mr. mulholland, several

strategic forces that he made in the management of crs are up for a re-examination and rethinking. one of them is the question of expertise. the legislative reorganization act from 1970, as we have learned from former crs scholar and the fisher, it specifically mandated that crs a point specialists and senior specialists, individuals of particular expertise in their subject matter area in areas such as american government, foreign policy, economics, and others. they're supposed to be the cream of the crop, the best that there is in their field. that echelon of expertise, under

mr. mulholland's tenure, had atrophied significantly. and a senior specialist has not been hired since 1989 -- note senior specialist have been hired. it has struck down to four or so. the number of specialists has dropped down to five. basically, there has been a wholesale loss on the deepest level of subject matter expertise. that, i think, is something that ought to be rethought and reconsidered. it is fine for basically any competent professional to write a report on this that this of the, i do not know, the current foreign policy legislation, but if you want a really deep understanding of an urgent and complicated policy issue, then

you want the best expertise that you can find. that expertise has migrated away from crs in recent years. a second policy choice that ought to be a reconsideration is the question of neutrality. if you look at a typical crs report, you'll see a lot of information, but very little judgment or decision. you will see a standard formats, "will some people say this, but other people say that the guy that used to drive me up the wall. i'm interested in advancing a particular agenda, so i'm not interested in that. i found it disingenuous and artificial. as i get older, i am more tolerant of it, and i think there is a place for neutrality, especially in high and the partisan and highly partisan political environments.

i think crs report strip public service by establishing a consensual, factual background where everyone can begin. robyn mention the health-care bill. i do not think you want to a carsten version of an analysis of the health care bill. you want a very neutral matter of fact, and even handed account. on the other hand, neutrality is not the only way to approach the truth. i think that there is a place for opinion, for evaluation, for personal judgment, particularly on the part of the most senior experienced and well informed crs staffers. to ask someone who knows more about this subject than anyone else in congress not to express

his/her opinion on that subject is ludicrous. it is a waste. that should not be the mandatory approach, in my opinion. there is room for neutrality, room for opinion, and different reports, different products that can be structured to meet both kinds of approaches. as most of us have discussed, there's a question of public access to crs reports. years ago, it could have been possible to argue in the abstract of whether it is a good or bad idea. the fact of the matter is that we have been carrying out a real world experiment and whether it is good or bad because more than 10,000 crs reports are already in the public domain and more of them are entering the public domain and going online every day.

we are now in a position to ask if it is a good thing or a bad thing and i think the answer is clear that it is a net plus. not only come as daniel mentioned, are crs reports routinely making news and informing the news, but they are also cited in judicial opinions and have become an integral part of the public conversation on policy and there are no downsides to speak of. i think it is really only a matter of time and good sense until the final barrier to public access is removed. i have that we can all do our little part to make it come sooner. >> thank you, steve. i was going to follow this up with some questions of my own, but i think it maybe good to get some questions by the audience. i see some people who may be tempted to say something, but since everyone who looks

interested in looking from side to side, i will last. and number of observers have noted that crs reports seem to be changing. they used to be more analytic. they would do less of it, "on he one hand, the other hand" arguments but bringing the range of experience to reach a reasoned opinion on something that is useful the congress. one thing that i learned when i work that crs briefly was that the way you can find out what an analyst this thinking is to read the footnotes. that is where the good stuff is. there is no reasonable way to ever expect a member of congress or their staff to read that kind of article, that kind of document, in that kind of way. the question becomes is "one

hand, other hand" serving congress or is it obfuscating some of the importance that can come from the report in helping to inform the debate? this is useful. i want to go over to nye. this is useful in the review process. this is not some random staffer reaching an opinion and that is the end of it. there is more of a review process, and would divide talking about it? >> through the process is usually very quick. typically the reviewer has one hour or two to review it. the principal thing that the reviewer is looking for is an expression of a point of view and a recommendation. the very specific reason for this is that cirrus expects their alice to be speaking to proponents of both sides of the contentious issues.

at the same time. -- the crs expects there analysts to be speaking to the opponents on both sides. if you say, "my opinion," or i am on the side of this or that, immediately the other side will regard you as part of the other camp and they will not call you up and asking for confidential advice and information. that is the principal worry and i guess there is some reason for that. i used to be all for the postal analyst. there was the time of the postal reform bill and there were very sharp divisions between mailers communions, the executive branch, executive -- legislative branch, and it is a challenge to steer between them, but i do not think anyone was available to

say that i was on one side or another, and therefore i have much more credibility in the debate. >> does anyone else want to address this? in that case, i have a different one, as well. we have seen the retirement and a moving on the number of senior staff. when i was there, i found working with morgan, johnny, and others to be invaluable. the expertise, the breadth of knowledge that they brought to these issues was tremendously useful, but what we're seeing now, and we mentioned this earlier, but what we're seeing now is that these types of positions are being filled by administrative people as opposed to and local people. those running the offices as opposed to those better during

the high-level policy work. can you touch on this a little and expand on this, steve, the effect that seems to be how -- seems to be having? >> to me, the fundamental question is what does congress want to? does congress just want ammunition? ammunition in support of positions that have already selected? are they looking for debating points? is it looking for a new understanding? are they looking for no alternatives, new conceptions, and a path forward? depending on what congress wants, that will determine what crs decides to give. ideally, if i were a member of congress, i would want to say, "this is my starting point.

give me your strongest argument against it." tell me why i am wrong. i want to know. am i wrong about crs? the idea that members only want to know stuff that supports their pre-existing position is a pretty dismal kind of view of how congress functions and i hope it is not entirely accurate. that is why this is such an important moment with the selection of a new director. it will be an opportunity for congress to give new direction, new instruction, and a guidance and to into the question what kind of crs do they want? do we want a crs that will enrich and challenge us? or someone that will just do our legwork and stay out of the way? i hope it is the former, but i fear it is the latter.

my interest is in the best possible crs, even if it does not coincide with my own personal opinions on subjects a, b, or c. what i want is an invigorated political process which will serve everyone's interest in the long run. >> i think this calls for internal response. do you want to address the question as well in terms of what type role or respond to like to see from serous when you are working on issues? >> again, i come to this really advocating for transparency and for access to the reports, not so much to comment on the quality. personally, i do often find the balanced "this side, that side"

to be frustrating. you're looking for an opinion. there are some things where a neutral report is great and there are other things where there is a clear one side that is just more convincing information on and more convincing argument. i think they can be a little bit more honest. they are so careful when you call and say, could you have given me both sides, but really, what do you think? they are very careful not to say anything to the point of frustration. as far as what members of congress want, i think members of congress are diverse. you cannot paint everyone with the same brush. someone to think critically and right thoughtful policy. there are other members to caceres to get talking flies to support with have already decided and are writing something that is simply about the message. we know there are too many bills for all of them to be good.

i would hope that crs would hold themselves to a higher standard and push us to be better. i would disagree a little bit about us leaving. we do not make the internal decisions about how many experts they have or the quality of work, but that is an internal crs issue that i think you can decide on. >> bear in mind that it is a very, very high degraded agency. the executive branch, the agency with 40% gs-15's would be absurd. you should expect the kind of analysis and authoritative mess out of the vast majority of these senior people at crs and

that the prospect of having another 10 or 12 very specialized experts in a few subject will not make much difference. it then became open, then everyone would expect that to be their due. >> can you touch on staff turnover or the absence of turnover at crs? >> there is a lot of turnover, but it is all retirees like me and some of the people in this room. i do not perceive that there is very much, or at all, people who leave crs for another position, either in academia, the executive branch, at a think tank, but it is very uncommon presently because the pay is quite good for people who are operating with brains on the 9:00-5:00 schedule. >> with the opportunity to take

questions and have a conversation with it the audience. we are walking around with a microphone, so if you have questions, we will start in the middle. >> or the gentleman in the red shirt. >> is this coming through? [inaudible] >> i just wanted to develop what they spoke about, about the senior specialist and the specialists. dan mentioned at the end of his remarks that there was a shift from those specialists to people who are administrators. that is a fact. i think the first time we saw something like that coming was around 1995 when we learned that

three administrators and without any education, training, or skills to do research were seen as "specialists." for us to be seen as specialists, you had to have a nationally recognized expert and compete with other nationally recognized experts, said that is the way it was done. we learned in 1995 that freedom and traders did not compete for and were just given the title, salary, and all the benefits. since no senior specialists have been selected since 1989 and there are only four left, and they are all close to retirement, and specialists, there used to be 38 and down to four which will go down to zero with retirements. crs has decided to zero out the

two top levels that congress fasted for by statute, in the substantial and areas. congress asked for high-level experts, but thank you for the titles and we will give them to diminish traders. that is the lay of the land. >> any other questions? >> thank you very much. my name is laura kelly. i have worked here for almost a decade. and one of the things i found, i am doing and information audit on public interest with congressional staff and have basically asked them what are you hearing about the global issues that are planned across jurisdiction all issues of congress? i work at the national

committee. they are not able to integrate information in this much broader alliance. there are ideological problems, but also institutional problems. i am wondering if there it -- is a waiver some of the expertise can be outsourced at the state and district level? you have all of these knowledge entities that have all of this expertise, but they're also boaters and friends and members of congress -- voters and friends and members of congress. it is not an information problem. it is an incentive to use evidence. i think that is a much larger problem for all of us as citizens in a democracy is that there is no high-profile influential consistency r knowledge.e purita

so i have even found it a bit alarming how congressional budget office will talk in town halls and other public meetings across the country. is there an effort under way to differentiate in blind knowledge and expertise so that has more firepower of the state and district level and a renewed crs? even as visible data that makes legislation interoperable at the state level would be amazingly helpful? even maps of the united states with the strikedistricts. like who needs to be more interested in southeast asia right now because your member might be tennessee or texas? does that make sense? this is where we're going with

technology. >> i would say that is true, crs is not doing much to keep up with that. if it does have a driving focus, it is to stay away from constituents. a congressional staff member will be smart to say i have a constituent who wants to say something. i think crs is very unlikely to reach out to other institutions and the alliance sources. >> there is also a question here of crs helps generate product matter for thomas and other service lines. there is a statutory

requirement, which is basically the constitution explained section by section that is published once in a whole a decade on line even though it is update on a daily or weekly basis. so when you have questions of the moment that are very important, there is this tremendous resources that is a book that you can buy for $240. that is 10 years out of date. or you go online through the congressional internet and get access to it. when you have this type of information, how do you make it available so that others can we use it in creative and clever kinds of ways? for example, we helped build open congress, which is -- we call it thomas on steroids. it is all of the information that is available and thomas and

information and put it all in one place together so you can see the latest news, stories, combined with the press releases and movement on the hills. so you have a more informed constituency and more informed the american people so they can ask better questions of their government. i think the questions that you raise your very interesting ones off. we're in an era where the previous director started before thomas existed. he started before there was -- at the senator kennedy was the first website. there was no on-line presence. even now it is an employment page where every year they take down the annual report and place it -- replace it with the current one. that is the state of the art. with that, i know there are other questions.

>> i work for a small business that aggregate's business government information. we go to every member's web site and download new releases and other documents. then we go to every committee and subcommittee and download the federal testimony. we put that on factiva and lexus nexus. my first experience with wikileaks when all the sudden they showed up with a large quantity of reports, so i quickly demoted them, and i am glad, because they're not there anymore. >> [inaudible] >> so i downloaded them, and i

am interested in getting access. there is a business the retails reports. i understand they have access to a former member of congress. is that correct? how did they get those reports, and what was the ramifications of the individual but provided access to wikileaks? obviously they must have had a staff for that have access to it, and they just down loaded it all. was that individual apprehended? was there consequences to it? would it be possible for a member of congress to do that again? to go the congressional website

is open to about 10,000 people. you are there and you can type in and you get it and download any report. it happens all the time. there is no ramification about that. the worry is that it does not have been rigorously enough. they are updated with every change in the legislative status, and you will very often find six generations of something on the web site. that makes this book a little bad, because we're not up to date. even though the official policy is against distribution and happens all the time. all of my reports have appeared on postcom, which is the postal

service, the place where everyone goes for news every day. somehow it got there overnight. that is very common. if you are proud of your work, you want people in the field to know what you were doing. the fact that they have talked to you when made a difference, that there was some impact. i think they have tried to tighten it up somewhat since then. still, you have to be a little discreet. >> i downloaded by year's worth of reports and then went on to sell them for profit. would there be a consequence to you for that? >> i do not know about selling it. i do know we distribute them to anyone who wants one.

not in bulk and not for resale. >> somehow there is a business made out of selling them, and they claim to be rather current. cq sells them on their web site for a very high subscription. i am just serious -- curious what the secret is they have and how they did that. >> as far as i know no one has determined where the wikileaks bulk access came from they would be pleased to know how the reports are leaking out. they have taken serious steps to try to prevent that, the leaking out not through authorized means. the know anymore about this? >> as far as the people who market the reports, obviously

they have an inside source that was funneling them to the vendor. i can tell you that in the late internal webcrs site was still getting off the ground a colleague of mine discovered that the search engine for the web site was unsecured. so if you type in nuclear under search you get a current report that has the word nuclear, which were promptly down loaded and have had hours of the light from. then in a classic violation of good intelligence tradecraft i went on to write about this episode and say we've found is really neat hole in the search engine index.

within a day the whole was sealed. there are serious about it. you have to -- you astor really interesting question about the structure of knowledge and where that is going -- you asked a really interesting question about the structure of knowledge and where that is going. they are more an indication of the severity of the problem. because of the concept that they serve congress exclusively, the result is there are high walls between crs and the public including members of the public with subject matter expertise that could be of use. every once in awhile, not very often, but it happens from time to time, we find errors in the

reports, even though they are written by experts. they also make it worse. we pointed out, and they correct them. they make it hard. they make it hard to interact and share knowledge and make it hard to receive expertise from outside of their enclave. that is probably not the white way to structure -- not the right way to structure an enterprise like that. >> we assume difficulties -- we have seen difficulties with the information. also, to be promoted within crs, you need to be well- respected by your peers. you need to engage in the broader community. if you are prohibited from and broaderg in the community, that is a bit of a

catch-22. they are known to not look kindly upon those who are engaging in other areas of expertise that are unrelated to the work. there is a current lawsuit that is going on. this has been an ongoing issue as well. did you want to address this for a second? the real consequences for the hypothetical -- we will not call her robin. >> we certainly will not call her robin. if a staffer were -- we know that members to provide reports on a regular basis to constituents and things like that. i do not think there is anything inappropriate about that. if someone were downloading any difference reports and providing them to a 4-prop entity, at the very least they would have an ethics issue. -- for-profit entity, the very

least they would have an ethics issue. if there were just doing it for a favor as to someone who was making a profit, i think that would be viewed as an inappropriate use of your position. >> let me add on to that that for both the house and senate, crs says that there have been pilot projects with the house and senate to give members of senate -- individual members, i believe committees as well, to have the option of selecting a subset of the report to automatically be available. i have not seen an instance of this operating, but i know at

least the infrastructure claims -- there are claims it has been completed on the senate side as of two years ago, in the house side was a number of years ago. there is a theoretical possibility that a member could say we're going to embed the technology and make all the reports say. i have not seen that happen. there have been members every year in congress for the last 10 or 12 years where there is a bill to make reports publicly available. certainly it is a very interesting question as to what a member could also arise the public to have access to. >> in the blue suit.

>> i am a plaintiff in the lawsuit. i am no davis. -- mo davis. the change you are talking about has to start at the top down. crs is an incredible treasure in spite of the leadership, not because of the leadership. the change you are talking about has an effective leadership -- i have never seen a more acrimonious management union relationship from the top down. i think that is why there was little mention of the attrition of a senior specialist. the administrative positions are outside the bargaining unit and more controllable. i think there is real fear of having the subject matter experts that were not controllable by the leadership. the way to cure the problem was

to make the administrators controllable. it is an incredible treasure, and it would be a shame to see congress and the nation lose that, but there are people -- the fbi for instance. hoover loved the fbi, but now there is a term limit on being a director of the fbi. i think there is a real danger of having a lifetime appointment. there are real benefits of having fresh blood. you mentioned how long it has been since websites started up. getting fresh blood in new ideas and new leadership that encourages working with the organization and not against the organization. i think you would get a more robust acknowledgement. >> are there any other questions? second row. i apologize for the microphones.

we will do better next time. >> can you hear me now? [laughter] thank you. i am wondering if it may be more useful to include a conversation about funding, because you have talked about losing the senior specialist, but you have not talked about whether crs has lost funding. you have talked about are the analytical expertise eroded, but you have not talked about the measures of that. to be more fair, though you think you should discuss those issues? -- don't you think you should discuss those issues? to go absolutely. i have a report on line that looks at it over time. it is called keeping congress

competent. if you look at stop numbers over time, the number of staff in the last decade, it is pretty constant with the exception of 1983 and 1994 were you see a tremendous decrease. -- 1993 and 1994. we saw the office of technology assessment was eliminated entirely. a big decrease at g.a.o. crs took a relatively modest hit compare locally. even so, losing staff is a significant issue. they are at $100 million for funding. it did take a small hit in the recent budget cycle. fully year 011 pulled yea

budget. even within that context, there is also ships that are difficult to detail. for example, many fewer administrative staff than there to be. there are very consequence of doing that one is pushing the average pay higher up. it also changes the profile of the research that is done. there is a big difference between sending in the request and you get a printout versus having thoughtful responses put into it. i think there is a bigger question having to do with congressional expertise overall. the average legislative stop their 2.5 years. the average age in d.c. force that first 31 years old. there are serious and

unaddressed concerns with congress is an ability to handle all the issues. -- an inability to handle all the issues. i think the question of funding is a very important question. i think the question of funding of congressional staff is a very important question, but i do not think we should use that -- i think that is a parallel conversation that needs to take place. are they using the people they have to their best ability? >> if they're going on line to

get to the constitution entity, then we're doing something wrong. there are many questions here. i apologize for my soap opera is. the experienc c.r.s. for example is engaged in lawsuits. they are dealing with questions about how do they make reports of more difficult to obtain publicly? all of those activities cost time and money and expense. when there are public solutions to dealing with a lot of these things. there are people who can build a better web sites. googol build a better search engine than they do. there is a lot of wisdom in figuring out what you are good at in doing that and letting other folks take care of the things that are not your area of expertise. with that, i will get off the

soap box and see if any of my fellow panelists want to add on to that. >> i have to go. i want to say we won't be reenacting the transparency in governments -- governments bill at the end of the month. >> you heard it first. breaking news. good luck. >> other questions? >> i never had a problem getting my opinion across.

i assume one of my reasons was i was a not in the senior level -- was in a senior level position. the ability of crs to provide the services but i did diminished for a number of other reasons that have not been mentioned, in which could be changed, i think. someone mentioned that we have a lot of new people come academic types. people right out of law school. people with master's and ph.d. is to have not spend more than five minutes with the committee.

i had the fortune -- i was in the executive branch for seven or eight years. it was a remarkable experience in the sense of i worked the way a staffer would work. i was the only attorney on the committee. we had 26 hearings, and i did things that i never thought i would be able to do, starting from the cross-examination of witnesses, all that kind of thing. later on i had details like science office, the house general counsel for a total of a year and a half where i got a perspective of dealing with the

nitty gritty that came across that particular time. i killed the last detail apparently. that was back in 1991, 1992. part of the change in attitude with regard to the mindset was there were not more details. there were other peoples who had details during that time from the mid-1970's through 1991. they are an incredible- experience enhancing which help us to deal with effectively who are servicing over the years. those are the kinds of subtle changes that have occurred. the definition of the number, and your numbers are a little bit off. in 1991, they were about 25

specialists and 28 senior specialist. most of them were very much like me. there was a sense of when we wrote a report that it came to some sort of conclusion. i do not idea -- agree with mike with respect to the degree of debate issue. i think it works in the background and is very important. i am aware of at least five instances where debate was brought up. it was determined that materials, background were not covered, and that was a protected kind of thing. it was very helpful for

confidentiality relationships with the congressional committees. you talk about the 10,000 reports over the last few years, understand that with those 10,000 reports there were 150,000 confidential memos. my experience once again is not the reports that were most influential, it was the confidential memos and the follow-up, sitting down with staff and sometimes with the members to explain it to them. that was extraordinarily useful. those do not get out to the public and thus there put in reports are read on the floor of the congress.

not only mine, but others are extraordinarily inch for inch home and have been important in moving things in one direction or the other. and if there is one to be a transparency, if there is going to be a requirement of publication, i think the publication irresponsibility and accountability should be in the congress. it is some sign of congressional mechanism -- one decision that we want these reports to be public. that puts them for many reasons

into a difficult position. it is a great organization and still is. the potential for relaxing policies and understanding the role of the journeymen 15 who are now very good. it is good pay and benefits. there are very good people there that apparently some of my techniques which were long memos cannot be any possibility of misunderstanding what the law is on the subject. they do not like long memos anymore. there has to be other techniques to do it. >> you did write a 300 page memo. >> he raises a very good point about where to house any type

of disclosure mechanism. the legislation that i have seen over the last decade, they have all put that responsibility in the senate. we are at a time. not that means is we're finished, but we will let c-span go their merry way. for those who want to continue the conversation, i am sure the panelists will be doing -- willing to do so. please come up and we will have a conversation. i would like to thank the panel was both present and absent for a great discussion. as well as the folks in the room who have asked really useful questions and raise the interesting points. also, chairman i said and represented a quickly to have been kind enough to give as use

of the space. -- chairmas issa and rep resentative connoley. be sure to pencil in an accident in to your calendars. with that, thank you all very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> more live coverage coming up on c-span. at 7:00 eastern, the future of telecommunications with the current chairman. their discussion comes on the 50th anniversary of the historic speech to the national association of broadcasters when he famously remarked that television was a vast wasteland. we will see what what both chairman think of telecommunications today and the impact of the 1951 speech. >> for me, when sony says we were protecting the consumers, the consumer might want to know

i have the right to protect myself. all i am saying as a policy maker is should they no sooner? bono mack on the effect of consumer rights tonight on "the communicators." >> you are watching c-span. every morning it is " washington journal." weekdays watch live coverage of the u.s. house. also, supreme court oral arguments. on the weekends, you can see your signature interview programs. on saturday the communicators. on sunday prime minister's questions from the british house of commons. c-span, washington your web.

a public service created by america's cable companies. >> vice-president joe biden and hillary clinton directly expressed u.s. concerns about the human rights situation in china. timothy geithner this week will be urging china to allow its currency to increase in value, a move that makes u.s. exports cheaper and that country. this is 45 minutes. >> good morning.

we are welcome -- delighted to welcome you to this historic building that is appropriate for the third round of the strategic and economic dialogue. it is such an honor to host a vice premier wong, and the entire time is the obligation on behalf of secretary geithner and myself. i am very pleased we are joined by so many officials and experts from throughout both the united states government and the government of china. we are delighted that we will shortly be joined by vice president biden. i know president obama is looking forward to meeting with the leadership of our governmental teams a later today. the strategic and economic dialogue is the premier for rum and a bilateral relationship that is as important and complex as any in the world. since we first gathered in

washington back in 2009, the depth and breadth of our discussion and the participation across our governments have grown significantly. through these meetings and conversations that take place within them, both the informal conversations like the ones we had last night over dinner at the warehouse, and the formal meetings, we seek to build a stronger foundation of mutual trust and respect. this is an opportunity for each of us to form habits of cooperation that will help us work together more effectively to meet our shared regional and global challenges, and also to whether disagreements when they arise. it is a chance to expand the areas where we cooperate and to narrow their areas where we

diverge. while both of us holding firm to our values and interests. now more than ever, with two years of dialogue behind us, success depends on our ability to translate the words into concrete actions on the issues that matter most to our people. so as we begin this third round, we will keep that goal in clear focus. our work really begins with our commitment to better understanding one another, to building trust between each other, and to working to avoid misunderstanding in this calculation. we all know that fierce and misperceptions linger on both sides of the pacific. i will be very open about that.

some in our country see china's progress as a threat to the united states. some in china worried that america seeks to constrain china's growth. we reject both those views. we both have much more to gain from a cooperation than from conflict. the fact is that of bribing america is good for china, and a thriving china is good for america. but to work together we need to be able to understand each other's intentions and interest, and we must be mystified long-term plans and aspirations. that is why, for example, secretary of defense robert gates and i have spoken often about the importance of developing more sustained and a

substantive military to military and engagement that increases transparency and familiarity. so i am very pleased that for the first time senior military officials from both sides will participate in this dialogue. they will join civilian counterparts to discuss how we can reduce the dangerous risks of misunderstanding and miscalculation, in particular, i would like to thank deputy chief of the pla, general mau for being here for these important discussions. we are also working to build a greater understanding and trust between our citizens and foster greater ties between our students, businesses, and communities, expanding on the consultations that were held here in washington last month.

that includes the 100,000 strong programs. this is a program to boost educational exchanges and to create new links between on trepan yours and investors. i am looking forward to working with bees nest leaders from both of our countries. we are also wanting a new initiative, and of course, we want to continue our strong people to people diplomacy. building mutual trust and respect will help us to solve share of problems. we both have a great stake in curbing climate change and charting a clean and secure energy future. we both care about promoting irresponsible and sustainable development around the world, and we both are committed to stopping the dangerous spread of

nuclear weapons. china and the united states faced a wide range of common regional and global challenges. how our country's work together to meet those challenges will help define the trajectory not only of our relationship going forward, but the future peace, prosperity, and progress of the world. whether it is the global financial crisis or the other people in the middle east, recent history has underscored the link between the economies and global security and stability. that intersection is at the heart of our dialogue, so we will be discussing the need to work together to rebalance the global economy and assure strong, sustained future growth. there are some very important international security issues we will be discussing. as permanent members of the united nations security council the united states and china came together to enact tough

sanctions on iran, and now we are working to implement them. our country's share of vital interest in maintaining peace and stability on the korean peninsula, and that includes the complete denuclearization of the peninsula. we continue to urge north korea to take concrete actions to improve relations with south korea and refrain from future provocation, and we want to see north korea take irreversible steps to put build the international obligation towards it denuclearization. like any great nations, and in fact i would argue like any two people, we have our differences. like friends we discussed those differences honestly and forthrightly. we will continue the discussion of the recent u.s./china human- rights dialogue just held in

beijing. we have made very clear publicly and privately our concern about human rights. we worry about the impact on our domestic politics and on the politics instability in china and the region. we see reports people, including public interest lawyers and writers and others to have been detained or disappeared, and we know are the long arc of history, that societies that work towards respecting human rights are going to be more prosperous, stable, and successful. that has certainly been proven time and time again, but most particularly in the last month. this dialogue offers of the forum to have these candid discussions, while continuing to focus on where we will cooperate effectively. as my friend, the state councilor knows i am fond of

chinese gangs and robbers, and i one that has for median -- chinese sayings and provers, the statesnd the united are like people in the same boat and we have to grow together to get anywhere. we are here to keep building those bridges. we are not doing this alone. we are part of a web of institutions and relationships across the asia pacific and the world. the united states is practicing what we call forward diplomacy. we have renewed our bonds with our allies. we have brought in the environment with multilateral

institution. president obama will purchase the in the east asia summit for the first time ever. and we have a lot of work ahead of us bilaterally, regionally, and globally, and a lot to cover in the short time. i am delighted to welcome all of you here to express my confidence in this relationship and in the importance of this dialogue. it is now my great honor to tovite vice premier waong address you. [applause] >> secretary clinton and geithner, colleagues. we are gathered here today for

the third round of strategic and economic dialogs. i would like to express sincere thanks for the arrangements. the president asks me and state council of advisers to convey his greetings to president obama, vice president biden, secretary clinton, secretary geithner, and all of those who work on the u.s. side. the present highly appreciate the deepening understanding, strengthening mutual trust and cooperation between two countries. he hopes that both the chinese and u.s. sides will make the most of this round of dialogue, perhaps in debt exchange of views on ways to further enhance

pacific mutual trust and corporations. we look forward to the implementation of the agreement he reached with president obama of the china/u.s. cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and benefits. dear colleagues, last january the president paid a visit to the united states. it was a historic visit that achieved great success with vision and foresight, the president opened a new page in china/u.s. relations. china/u.s. relations have kept moving forward, despite twists and turns. we are hardly interdependence and mutually interdependent. the united states is china's

second-largest export market. china is the largest export market for the united states. together they account for one- third of the world's gdp and one-fifth of global trade. china/u.s. relations have far exceeded the bilateral scope and have acquired growing global significance. we are witnessing profound and complex changes in the world economic landscape, changes that are driven by globalization. at present, we still face many uncertainties well we are thriving to topple the global economic recession and sustained local economic recovery. -- global economic recovery. in there are both complementaries end clashes in the prospective policies geared to ensure economic recovery. we have far more shared

interests then differences and competition. both sides make better use as a no vote -- overarching framework for the nation of long-term issues as steps towards the chinapment of u.s./economic economic relationships. we have confidence in that. our confidence comes from a common theme between the two countries, the shared aspirations of our people, as well as from historical and philosophical reflections. and one lesson is better than 1000 words. let us use opportunities brought by the current plan to earnestly

implement the agreements between the president and deepen our cooperation in economic country, investment, infrastructure and all that way by contributing to the small balanced growth of not only our economies, and also the world economy. i wish the first round great success. thank you. [applause]

i want to start by joining secretary clinton and my colleagues by a welcoming the chinese delegation. when the strategic and economic dialogue first met in washington two years ago, president obama said the united states and china share a mutual interest. if we advance those interests through cooperation, our people will benefit in the world will be better off. because our ability to partner with each other is a prerequisite for conch -- progress on many of the most pressing global challenges. we have worked carefully and deliberately since then to demonstrate a basic proof, and our economies are stronger today

because of the commitment of president obama and president hu to deepen the economic relationship, even as we each confront significant economic challenges at home. i want to complement the premier for his leadership in this joint effort. he is a tough and forceful the thunder of china's interests. he focuses on the practical and achievable and recognizes that china's economic success depends on the growing world economy and strong relationship with the united states. when president obama and president hu once this in london in april of 2009, the world economy was in the grip of the worst financial crisis since the great depression. today, thanks in no small part to the actions of the united states in congress, we have put

out the worst of the financial fires and the world economy is growing again. because of the success of the cooperative strategy we've launched together with the g- 20 world trade is expanding rapidly. countries are investing in hiring and fears of inflation had receded. of course we still face a very significant, though very different, economic challenges at home. in the united states, even after a year-and-a-half of positive economic growth and more than 2 million private-sector jobs created, unemployment is still very high and we still have a lot of work to do here in repairing the damage caused by our crisis. our challenge in the united states is to strengthen the foundation for future economic growth, and this requires a sustained effort to improve education, strengthen incentives for innovation and investment, even as we put in place the

long-term fiscal reforms that will force us once again to live within our means as a nation. in china, building on the remarkable reforms of the past 30 years, the challenges to lay a foundation for andrew -- for a new growth model driven more by domestic demand that a flexible exchange rate that moves with market forces and a more open based economy and more developed and diversified financial system. the reforms we must both pursuit to meet these very different challenges are not in conflict, and the strength of our economy are still largely complementary. we each recognize that our ability to work together is important to the overall health and stability of the global economy. as president obama said, no one nation can meet the challenges of the 21st century on its own, nor effectively advance its interest in isolation.

there is a chinese saying that reflects the same vision. in chinese it reads [speaking chinese] in english, for shared fortunes together meet challenges together. we are making progress, and i am confident we will continue to do so. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. so that i can stand taller. dear friends, just now i heard from my colleagues that said all

i have to say, so i will be brief. secretary of state hillary clinton, secretary of the treasury, timothy geithner, vice premier, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, it is a great pleasure for me to join you at the third round of the strategic and economic dialogue here in washington. we meet at a unique point in u.s./china relations as this marks the 40th anniversary of dr. kissinger's secret visit to china. 40 years ago the desire of the chinese and american people were pulled together with the decisiveness and political leaders produced an unstoppable force of history. it has pushed open the door of engagements between our countries that has remained shut for over 20 years. since then no force in the world has ever had the power to expose the door again. today, as we review the past and

look ahead, we look ahead to a better future of china/u.s. relations, we cannot pay but high tribute to those icebreakers, pioneers, and builders of china/u.s. relations more importantly, we shall learn from their foresight and the pioneering spirit, because we have to bring china/u.s. relations forward. the china/u.s. relationship, too, is an extremely point in important point in history. the president and president obama met in washington this last january, at a time when we had just entered the second decade of the 21st century. together the president decided to build a cooperative partnership based on mutual

respect and mutual benefit. this charted a clear course for the future of china/u.s. relations. history will show that the decision they made is a historic one that serves the benefit of the people of china, the united states and the world. states, and the world. admittedly, it is no easy task to make this major decision and live in reality and turn commitment into real action. as we may face all sorts of difficulties, obstacles, and interference on the way ahead, i am confident however that so long as both sides stick to the

directions of our presidents with resolutions and never wavered in our determination to overcome, we will blaze a new path, featuring mutual respect, corroboration, so that our people and future generations will live on in peace and a spirit of cooperation. i am standing here addressing you. -- i am standing here addressing you as a 17--- as a 70-year-old man. i may not look that old. i just turned 70. when i should have gone home and enjoy the company of my family

-- why then, to live fly across the pacific to sit through round after round of candid dialogues with my american partners? i am doing this to implement the consensus of our presidents to achieve one lasting goal, to make our two countries forever good friends and good partners and to enable our children and children's children to live in peace and happiness. could we ever let them down? the answer is no. a definite no. if we do, we would be failing our duty, and that would be unforgivable. dear friends, the people of china and the united states live

on in the same global village -- you on the west side, and be on the east. i want to invite more american friends to visit china, to see for yourselves the importance of china-u.s. relations. you may also learn firsthand the enormous progress china has made in a variety of fronts, including human rights. and it's to know what is the real china to conclude, i wish success for this round of dialogue. thank you. [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, the vice president of the united states. [applause] [unintelligible] >> good morning. thank you, thank you, all. it is an honor to be welcomed back to washington for the third meeting of the strategic and ultimate dialogue for the u.s. and china, two good friends. let me acknowledge the code- share -- co-chairs. vice premier wang and councilor dai, welcome back. i got to spend some time with you. we had a chance to spend some time together. the united states co-chairs are

our a-team, our superstars, secretary clinton and secretary geithner, two of the best america has to offer. we expect great things to happen with the four of you. ladies and gentlemen, we have a great task in the days ahead, all designed to guide our relationship to what even better place. i would also like to recognize, by the way, secretary gary locke, the president's choice to be our next ambassador to china. he has served with distinction in the cabinet and before that as the governor of washington. once he is confirmed, and i expect that to be quickly, he will do an outstanding job in beijing. [applause] there he is. i am not going to mention the trade representative sitting next to you, because i told him if he could deliver a deal with

korea, i would nominate him for the nobel peace prize. he did and i have to. at any rate, and i hate to acknowledge this gentleman, but i made my first trip to china as a young man in 1979, in april 1979. i was privileged to be with of group of very senior senators at that time. i believe we were the first delegation to meet after normalization. senators like frank church and the number of other prominent members. we met with then-vice premier and acknowledged a number of issues in china's remarkable --

absolutely remarkable transformation. even back then, there were great things happening. there was also debate. there was debate in the united states and the west as to whether or rising china was in the interest of the united states and the wider world. as a young man, i wrote and said what i believe now -- are rising china is a positive, positive development. not only for china, but for the americas -- but for america and the world at large. when we took office, we understood our relationship with china would be a key priority. the president and i are determined to set the relationship on a stable course that could be sustained for decades. our two countries, the two largest economies in the world, we're bound by the rising tide of commerce and investment.

we in the united states export $110 billion of american goods and services to china last year. we are bound by more than commerce. our people have become increasingly linked through education, work, and travel. last year, 130,000 chinese who were studying in the united states. they are really good. we are going to try to keep some of them. i am only joking. [laughter] but they are. [laughter] we cannot claim the same number of americans in china, but our 100,000-strong initiative will dramatically increase the number of young americans living and studying in china. as a matter of fact, my niece -- excuse me for saying this. it is a point of personal privilege. she graduated from harvard not too long ago, works for secretary geithner.

she does what we know another 100,000 will do. she studied chinese and went to live in china is -- and is devoted to making sure the relationship is better and better and better. and we are linked by are shared responsibilities. we both serve as permanent members of united nations security council. we're both pacific powers. for many of the world's pressing challenges, it is a simple fact that when the united states and china are not at the table, the solution to the problem is less possible them when we are at the table. it is no exaggeration to say our relationship and how we manage it will help shape the 21st century. our commitment starts at the top. our presidents have met face-to- face nine times in two and a half years. nine times. president hu was just here in

january for what all with it knowledge was a very successful state visit. i will go back to china this summer at the invitation of the vice president, and i am looking forward to a reciprocal visit later this year. even these frequent visits and summits, as you all know, are not enough on the rhone to sustain and build a relationship across -- on their own to sustain and build a relationship across all agencies. it is not merely our mills to mill or economic issues. we want to break -- that is why we have lost to all to come together for these dialogues. when president obama launched the first strategic economic dialogue in 2009, he issued a challenge to all of los, to work together to -- to all of us, to work together to solve some of the most pressing, defining problems of our time.

how we cooperate will define a significant part of how we deal with the challenges the world faces in the beginning of the 21st century. this is at the heart of our efforts to build a cooperative partnership. we seek to cooperate to advance our mutual interests, not only promoting economic growth, but trade that is free and as fair. -- and is fair. we seek cooperation to events our mutual interests in a prosperous future that will come from an energy supply that is clean and secure and addresses climate change, and we seek to cooperate to advance our mutual interests in our range of pressing and global security challenges. this includes our work to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and specifically the proliferation of those weapons and technologies to iran and north korea. where do we stand divide years

after the president issued his challenge -- to five years after the president issued his challenge? -- 2 years after the president issued his challenge that there is more to do. that is why we are here. we have worked to sustain the global economic recovery along with their partners in the g-20. last year, our trade with china supported over 500,000 jobs here in united states. we made tangible progress during president hu's visit, especially in the areas of innovation, intellectual property, and export. all of which we're following up on. we need to build on this, and make sure our commitments are aggressively diplomatic. so we can continue to move.

there is a debate in this nation as to how to best secure america's long-term fiscal future. we know our challenges begin at home. we in the united states have to restore financial stability, and we need to make the investments necessary as well to win the future. we need to maintain our commitments. i know that you are adjusting to the world situation as well. i know you're working to balance your economy and the growth more sustainable. none of this is easy. but success in reorienting growth will not only be good for china, but it will be good for the united states and the rest of the world. united states and china are the

world's largest producers and consumers of energy, and we share the common challenges. this creates not only a problem, but great opportunity. great opportunity for common efforts to find clean energy solutions. secretary chu likes to say " science is not a zero sum game." that is can be -- that is illustrated by the remarkable cooperation we forth in this area. one example -- our joint clean energy research center is finding better energy efficiency, clean coal, and clean vehicles. we need to build upon and expand our efforts in this area, and i

know we will be having much discussion in the next two days, and it seems to me is an area where there is potential for great progress. on global security challenges, we have also made progress. president hu joined as a nuclear security summit. in january, we signed a memorandum of understanding to build a center for excellence to promote nuclear security in china. we have cooperated in halting nuclear proliferation in iran and north korea, including preventing technologies from being exported to the countries. the dialogue is important to both of our countries. just look at the agenda you have for the next two days. it is also some agenda. that is just a few of the topics on the agenda -- it illustrates the sheer breadth of our relationship. climate change, clear energy,

mill to mill operations, military relationships. our goal in part is to enhance the communication and understanding that we believe -- and i believe you believe -- will build trust and confidence. we have to be honest with each other. we are not going to agree on everything. we will clearly find areas where there will still be disagreements. as we work to advance our respective national interests, we have to move on what we seek in common, find common ground, and i would argue much of our mutual national interests will find common ground. but only by discussing a diverse range of topics including sensitive ones can we help mitigate the risk of misperception and miscalculation. my father used to say, "the only disagreement were someone that

is intended is one that is unintended." that is why is so important to talk to each other honestly. we should be realistic we will not always be able to work together. in some areas we have vigorous disagreement. in others, we have a vigorous competition. but i believe in balance we have much more to agree on than disagree on, and so does the president. a healthy competition in our view is good for both of us. competition is not that. competition that is healthy is good. this is the reason why i have held the view for some many years and continue to hold the view that are rising china is a positive development -- a rise in china is a positive development. i of overwhelming confidence in the capability of the american people this capabilities are

enhanced when there is genuine competition from equally-capable people. i welcome this healthy and fair competition, because i believe it will spur as both to innovate. both will benefit from it. as i said earlier, it is important to be straightforward with one another. there is one area where we have vigorous disagreement. i know and i understand that this agreement when we voice it is upsetting for wrinkles -- i do not know how that translates into chinese. it concerns some of our friends in china. we of vigorous disagreement in the area of human rights. we have noted are concerns over the recent crackdown in china, including her rests in the disappearance of journalists and artists -- including our breasts and this person -- including

arrests and the disappearance of journalists and artists. we will continue to dispute these issues as we did in beijing two weeks ago. look, i know that some in china sea advocacy of human rights as an intrusion and lord only knows what else. but president obama and i believe in protecting freedom such as those enshrined in china's own constitution is the best way to promote long-term stability and prosperity of any society. the transformation of china's government and society since my first trip as a young man in 1979 has truly been breathtaking. i doubt whether it has occurred at any other period in history, it has been so rapid. the immense talent of the chinese people. the incredible hard work and perseverance of the chinese people and their leaders have

literally lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty and build an economy that now helps fuel the world's prosperity. during the same time, the relationship between the united states and china has also seen a remarkable transformation. again through the talent, hard work, and respective -- and respect of political leaders to of gov. countries for the last three decades. the bonds between our countries come about through intense engagement from the moment of normalization. events like this month. we have already done much to make our relationship possible, cooperative, comprehensive. and i am absolutely confident we can do more for ourselves and for generations of americans and chinese as well. and as i said, presumptuous

latest davis, if that occurs, it will benefit the whole world. now it is time to get to work. in the end, welcome, gentlemen. welcome to your delegations. i think you all for the honor of being able to address you. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> we will have more live coverage coming up tonight on c- span at 7:00 p.m. eastern, the future of telecommunications with the sec chairman julius

genachowski. this comes on the 50th anniversary of the famous remark "television is a vast wasteland." >> for me, when sony says, we were protecting the consumers, the consumer might say, wait a minute. i to have the right to check myself. >> california rep mary bono mack on the theft of consumer data from sony's place station network. tonight at 8:00 p.m. on the communicators. >> a group of tea party activists held a news conference to criticize house republican speaker john boehner for not doing enough about the debt and

deficit and repealing the over -- repealing the health care overhaul law. this includes the founder and if ceo of world net daily. this event is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> i am a volunteer and supporter of the freedom jamboree, coming up october 1 and second in kansas city. i am going to take the opportunity to introduce to you each speaker, and i will remind you of who they are when they step to the podium. after that, i will read a statement from congresswoman michele bachman. thank you for your time today. our first speaker will be william temple, the chairman of the tea party founders.

he will be at the tambourine in october. he was "time" magazine's face of the party. he is a veteran of the secret service, the pentagon, and a vietnam combat veteran of the u.s. army. the second speaker will be the editor and founder and chief executive officer of wnd.com and is a nationally-syndicated columnist with creators news service and author of "the tea party manifesto" and other books. our third speaker is the chief economist for first trust advisers. he is a former chief economist for joint economic committee of

the u.s. congress and a member of the academic advisory council for the federal reserve bank of chicago. our fourth speaker is dr. daniel j. mitchell, a former economist for the u.s. senate finance committee. then we have rev. c.l. bryant. is a member of the red river tea party. he is a documentary producer, and you can find out more about that at www.runawayslavemovie.com. he is a baptist minister and founder baptistonenationback

togod.com. finally, we have the 2010 candidate for governor in the state of iowa, the ceo and president of an iowa-based organization called upon " the family leader." i'm going to read a statement we were given by michele bachman in lieu of her absence. "the tea party is everyday americans, and every day americans want congress to stop frittering around the edges of our spending crisis with small cuts. they do not want the debt ceiling raised and they're demanding that washington live within its means. i am not able to be with you today. if i were, i would tell you that i hear you and i agree. it is time to reject the debt ceiling scare tactics and address the truly frightening reality that our debt is at 14 trillion dollars and growing --

$14 trillion and growing. even as you gather in washington today, democrats are spending to plant the roots of obamacare and make it nearly impossible for us to stop this massive job- busting entitlement. to do less is to ensure the next debt ceiling will be the 75th increase will not be the last and that is unacceptable. thank you to the tea party for not giving up the fight. your determination gives me great concern -- great hope for conservative accomplishments and victories in 2012." that was congressman michel bachman. now i will turn it over to william temple.

>> good morning. i play the part of gwinett, the first one on the left in the first one the british would have hung. i wear this colonial though -- this colonial of the to remind the government of the first revolution. when our movement started, i'd those to took up the fight for freedom over and over again the founder of our local tea party group -- i eventually had the honor of literally leading the 2009 march on washington. with a fife and drum corps.

1.9 million who marched on obamacare and tyranny. last summer, i was elected by my fellow leaders to share the tea party national convention. in that capacity, i am in touch with virtually every one of the thousands of tea party leaders across the country. i know how they think and feel since they are the real grass- roots folks there ride the bus as 10 hours up here to d.c. and with their last pay check to do it. the right now we are very upset about those who would sit here in 2010, this last november, to service in the u.s. house. during the fall of 2010, the

house republican minority promised us $100 billion in cuts from the 2011 budget. most of the gop freshman class also promised us they would not raise the national debt ceiling past the current cap $14.294 trillion. the tea party sweat house republicans into power and everyone knows this. and john boehner is the speaker. yet, we have been deeply disappointed. instead of a fighter for u.s. taxpayers, he has slipped into surrenderance, if that is a word, but for the battle is even joined. mr. boehner opened his bidding at $35 billion, and yet actually

obtained just $20 billion, spent in the election, folks. worth about five days worth of u.s. borrowing. it seems that house speaker john boehner and his fellow republicans in name only love to spend other people's money just as much as the democrats. last year, the house republican minority joined with the two- party device -- to fight furiously against obamacare. but after a hollow, purely symbolic repeal vote, they adamantly refuse to use their genuine power to six obamacare, medicare, medicaid, or any of the other out of control entitlements that threaten to bankrupt our nation and destroy our currency. not even a question. washington is far wing 40 cents

per dollar of federal spending -- barring 40 cents per dollar of federal spending every day, to bury our children beneath the smothering national debt. yet, these house wino's refused to hide -- rhino's refused to hide president obama's mastercard. we have all heard of rep. paul ryan's for a budget. it does not get balanced until 2063. i am old enough already, but i will never see that happen. house republicans hold a weapon of mass discipline, if they would use it. all they have to do is lock arms and say, "mr. president, we are not even going to call a vote on raising the debt ceiling, until you have joined us in

enacting bipartisan entitlement reform." that is what they should do. to will this awesome weapon of mass discipline, house republicans do not need to pass anything. they do not need the cooperation of harry reid, the senate democrats, or the president. all they need to do is nothing. within that bill lovely? to have congress do nothing. just sit on their hands and refuse of vote, refused to allow more borrowing past the current debt limit. if you vote to raise the debt ceiling, you get a zero for the year from the tea party. if you do not vote to increase the debt 70 -- debt ceiling, you get a one. everything else on that subject

is just smoke and mirrors. this is your accounts. we will be judging house republicans and democrats colleagues on one issue only -- did you vote for more debt? that is it. pink slips, just like for all the rest of us out there. while the president bears the brunt of the collapse. i wish our tearful house speaker would show compassion for american taxpayers and the children, but he and mr. ryan of already surrendered to president obama. it is a cowardly act of treason, and we may be able to give mr. boehner something real to cry about in 2012.

i brought my musket, but you will notice there is a flower in it. we are not the ones he did $7 million of damage in wisconsin, by the way. to all voters, we say, stop these rhinos with phone calls and picketing of their district offices. obamacare must go. that is what the house is filled with republicans now. but please, not the pretty flowers in the barrel of my musket. we are calling our kansas event, the tea party would stop festival -- woodstock festival. we are urging peaceful -- did that -- get this, peaceful --of

the edition. we oppose any house gop action on the debt ceiling, and we oppose more debt. the tea party. because i know our people well. i have marched with them. i have rallied for them. i think it is safe to say the tea party movements might possibly forgive john boehner and the house republicans a small bump in the debt ceiling. heck, we might forget to get our legislative score cards printed. how does that happen? if obamacare is repealed before hand. we might make a deal. think tanks including heritage, kato, and the american center for policy analysis agreed on

the top things house republicans need to fix, including obamacare. another if. we might be in a forgiving mood if the entitlements get fixed beforehand. everyone agrees that fixes are necessary. duh. so why does paul ryan's budget deny these outflow fixes for a decade. $100 billion. were we supposed to get that this year? that is the amount the house leadership and later denied to the tea party in fiscal year 2011. if the president does not like it, let him figure out what to

prioritize -- and there is a lot he can prioritize -- and want to cut when behalf have stops running out. that figure also approaches the ball park of a month of u.s. car when. $1 billion. -- a month of u.s. borrowing. after $100 billion cut, we will meet with them again and talk about the next $100 billion. if at least half of discretionary spending gets caught, most of it either unconstitutional, and spain -- unsustainable, silly, or evil. how can we tell future generations we saddled them with debt for fannie mae and freddie mac, hud, planned parenthood, national public radio -- which is paid for by government

funds, tobacco subsidies that cause cancer, and epa co2 regulation of human exhale. we will tell our grandchildren. how will we tell them we doubled the deaf rates to hold washington harmless from the kind of layoffs that the private sector has experience in a recession caused by congress's banking policies. and yet none of them are going home. in order to buy a third of u.s. corn crop to subsidize the world's poor. if dinner stops misleading -- it dawned in a sauce misleading all of america -- if john maynard

stops misleading all of america -- it is a lie, folks. it is alive. -- a lie. there is plenty of tax revenue to pay interest on t-bills, and geithner is in charge of paying that interest. what he really means, no more borrowed cash will be available for every kind of spending authorized by republicrat polls who can' no.y -- who can't say if social security and its unfunded liabilities, including anti-marriage policies -- too much rum last night.

and another if. if the house armed services stop injecting females and homosexual s into the military. when their own research shows that this may have an extremely expensive impact on retention rates. why would john boehner's house republicans the cave in to political correctness? why would house republicans, who know better, by fostering inappropriate interactions in the intimacy of tents, barracks, latrines, showers, toilets, and locker rooms -- as a combat

veteran, i know. we do not have time to worry about the guy behind us. if a balanced budget amendment passes the house and senate ratification by the state -- and we will not hold our breath on that, but we would like to see it. and finally, if rhino house leadership follows the voices of leaders like michele bachman, the republican study committee chair jim jordan, senators vitter, demint, and others -- the tea party not be in a forgiving mood this fall at the

national convention in kansas city. we are going to k.c., not d.c. this year. if they cave to obama, we will find replacements for them this fall. thank you. >> thank you. i have a brief statement. when republicans took over the house of representatives last november, i immediately began thinking what the new gop majority could accomplish with control of only half of the congress. obviously, passing any meaningful legislation objectionable to the administration for senate democrats was out of the question. house republicans could propose cutting the budgets, but could

never hope to persuade their counterparts to go along with them, let alone the man in the white house. they could wrangle with democrats and take the symbolic actions to demonstrate to the public there were real differences between the two parties, but at the end of the day, i did think of only two actions house republicans could say -- take to allow them to assert themselves and impose their governing philosophy on the senate and the white house, and those actions are -- saying no to any proposed tax increase because without their a sense, there is no chance for democrats to raise taxes, at least until 2013. -- because without their assent. secondly, no to raising the debt

limit. in fact, it would require something republicans have been calling for four decades -- dramatic cuts in the budget that would require washington to return to something resembling a limited constitutional governments. by january, only days after the republican majority took over the house, as you have heard, the leadership began issuing statements regarding the second of those two actions as being off the table. john boehner stated time and again that the debt limit had to be race. had to be. -- the debt limit had to be raised. after spending a significant time looking at the options of house republicans, i was initially mystified by his position. in effect, he was capitulating to business as usual in washington.

i was -- niavely, i think -- sure he had not thought this through properly. did he not understand the power in his hands? so i mounted a high-tech grass- roots lobbying effort directed exclusively at house republicans to persuade them to vote no on raising the debt limit. as some many of them have promised to do while campaigning for the fall election. and that is the no more red ink campaign. nomoreredink.com. it has delivered about 1 million hard copy records -- letters to house republicans to have all the power they need to say no to more borrowing and spending. i know this campaign has galvanized a lot of support among house republicans because we have been doing head counts.

i am sure john boehner has been doing head counts as well. we've been doing them for several months to see the changing of votes. when we started the campaign in the beginning of february, i could only count about a half- dozen house republicans fully supported on a no vote on increasing the debt limit. today, the vast majority of those house republicans do, and we are approaching the necessary 218 votes to stop a cold. that is why i am here today with my tea party friends, to remind republicans what they were sent to washington last november and to warn them of the consequences of betraying their promises and their read it -- and the rhetoric. if republicans provide the votes necessary to continue borrowing and spending madness eocene,

they will be telling americans -- we have seen, they will be telling americans there is no alternative to the democratic party irresponsibility. they will be telling americans representative government is dead. they will be telling americans republicans are all talk and no action. and they will be telling americans there is virtually no difference between the two parties. and they will be feeling their own -- it will be stealing their own states in the 2012 elections. -- sealing their own fate. >> i work with a money- management firm out of wieden, illinois. in a way, my day job is to think about how to protect people's assets and grow them over time. as a result, i get very worried

about the size of the government, the growth trajectory, tax rates, the intersection of public policy with the economy. also back in 1995, i was the chief economist for the joint economic committee, so i was here when the government shut down in 1995 and 1996. part of that was over a debt limit vote. i want to remind you that the deficit was about 4% of gdp. we use the phrase $200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see. $1ay, we're talking about trillion-plus deficits as far as the eye can see. 11% of gdp, compared to 4% of gdp. when i look at 1995, 1996, i do this for a reason. the government will shut down.

it was a major political brouhaha, if you will. we can decide who won, lost. in the end, but the late 1990's, early 2000's, we had a surplus in the federal budget. it was just 10 years ago when the federal budget was in surplus. i remember alan greenspan saying he was worried about the surplus because it was going to get rid of all the government bonds in existence and he did not run monetary policy if there were not government bonds. that was just 10 years ago. we now have a $1.5 trillion deficit, and that is why i am year. i support -- as an economist -- the use of the debt limit as a tool to get spending down and the budget under control.

not allowing the debt limit to increase, if we were to hold it steady, is not a default on u.s. government debt. never once in the past 65 years on a monthly basis of revenues in less than the interest owed on the debt. in other words, as long as we decide to pay the interest, we can pay it every single month from now to infinite a, basically. without a tax hike. without changing anything of the budget today. by the way, any principle that comes due, we can roll it over. we can just issue more debt. the bottom line is, we will not default on our debt to foreigners, ruining the united states credit rating if we do

not raise the debt limit. number two, standard and poor's reduced the outlook for the american bond markets to a negative outlook. this was reported by some to be because people were worried the debt limit would not increase. anyone who believes that has to go read the statement put out by standard and poor's. it was very clear. it said the obama administration has proposed $4 trillion in deficit reduction. rep ryan has done the same thing. if they were to get together and move in something like this direction, cutting trillions, before the election of 2012, we would not put the country on negative outlook. however, we judge -- this was standard and poor's and i am paraphrasing -- we just the the

sides are so far apart they will be unable to come together before 2014. in our opinion -- again, this is standard and poor's -- this means the budget is at risk and they were putting us on negative outlook because of the political environment, not on reaching consensus about cutting spending, not because someone like the tea party is talking about not raising the debt ceiling. finally, i was looking at the bible last night and i read about solomon. solomon was considered wise, wisdom from god. he was presented with the dilemma. two women, one baby. they both claimed it was their baby, and he said, "cut in half -- cut it in half the average there was little doubt of the real mother because she was

willing to give up the baby. i looked at the debt ceiling has that kind of story. that we have to be serious enough about cutting spending and using the debt ceiling as a tool. it is logical. it is not extreme my final point is the global financial markets -- they are smart enough to figure this out. they are smart enough to understand the nuances of the political debate. and if the debt ceiling is used as a tool, a weapon of mass discipline, i believe the financial markets will not only handle it, but move through it, and if it works, and spending is actually cut, we will leave the other side of this debate in very good shape. i want to remind you liukin. the early -- i want to remind

you again. the early 1990's was one of the great booms in history. this is because spending was reduced at the federal level. we kept tax rates lower. the private sector exploded upward. this is a very important battle. i believe the financial markets can handle it just fine. what they are asking for is spending reduction, and if the tool of the debt ceiling is used, they will be a ok with that. thank you. >> my name is dan mitchell of the cato institute the federal government is expected to collect more than $2.2 trillion. the interest on the debt is supposed to be $2.7 billion.

there is obviously more than enough money to spend every single penny of interest on the debt. the fed chairman is being misleading. the fault is not the issue. the issue is whether we get government spending under control. i want to make one important point about this. the underlying problems are the government that is too big and it is a bipartisan problem. during the bush administration, government spending exploded. obama promised change. he grabbed a baton and rushed to the same direction with fake fiscal stimulus. the question is, how do we get out of the mess? if you look of the budget forecast, it is simple. according to the congressional budget office, revenues will increase by an average of 7% a

year over the next 10 years, and that is assuming the tax cuts are permanent. revenues are growing. it does not take a math genius to say you will reduce red ink if you spend less than 7% a year. if we from spending of the current level, but the canadians did in the 1990's, if we did what the canadians did, we would balance the budget by 2017. even if you let government spending growth by 2% a year, you will balance hit by 2071. i wish we would cut spending. we have to look at grove to get to that balanced budget. unfortunately, there is very few beverage points for the debt limit is one of them. the debt limit those forward without the measures to impose fiscal discipline to undo the mistakes of bush and obama, we will have done a great

disservice to our children and grandchildren. thank you. >> the morning. i have been with the tea party movement since 20009, where i joined william temple in washington -- since 2009, where i joined with me -- william temple in washington. i was proud to be a tea partier then. i am proud to be a tea partier now. the truce was true then, and the truth about what we're talking about and have been talking about these two years is true now. we do not want a fundamental change in the health of this country and what has made a great -- made it great. the reason we stand together is to make sure the core values of

this country remain intact. we see that there is a coordinated effort, both by democrats and republicans, to fundamentally destroyed the core values of this country on which its financial health has rested and has prospered. we send this message to john boehner and every rhino on capitol hill. we did not give you the gavel of the house of representatives to play nice with the liberal democrats. we did not give you that gavel and the great bully pulpit that you have and the big stick that you have so that he would not use it. what is the point in having the stick that we gave to you if your not going to use it