pioneer village as well, all of those who worked in the livestock barns, everybody loves cheri daniels, so to show our appreciation, we present to you your very own unofficial, in grade, indiana state fair -- embraced, indiana state fair milk [applause] you see how this does double duty. it is for her, looking contest. better yet, there is a surprise inside about it. we wanted you do have something a little more memorable and long-lasting. there is a very state of the

art, deluxe sports lodge here. you may not know that this woman practices what she preaches. sherri daniels has walked 10 miles a day and has done so for years. this supports laws will be great for you. all of her friends call her and file. -- call her fl. good luck to you, sherry. [applause] we certainly thank ever won for sharing this evening with us. as you can see, we are proud of the indiana story. we have no intention of slowing down. we have too much at stake. thanks for being here tonight. good night, everyone. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> coming up later today, remarks from newly announced presidential candidates nuking bridge. he will speaking -- be speaking -- newt gingrich. he will be speaking to the republican party and. live coverage here on c-span. tomorrow, john boehner will give a commencement address at catholic university here in washington. that will be live at 10:00 a.m. eastern. that will be followed by michelle obama's university address at northern iowa. this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, former

presidential candidate and gov. michael dukakis on how he evolved into a popular political figure. we will look back at jimmy carter and the energy crisis of the 1970's. and on sunday, american history -- sunday, may 22, american history tv will be live from mississippi. >> this weekend on both tv on c- span2, it talk about last year's deep water horizon explosion. and governor deval patrick recounts his life. and on afterwards, william cohen shares his insight on money and power, how goldman sachs came to

rule the world. look for the complete book tv schedule at booktv.org and get the complete schedule online. >> the house armed services committee wednesday passed a measure authorizing pentagon programs and policies for 2012. the vote on the house floor was nearly unanimous. only one member voted no. some of the issues debated, the repeal of the don't ask don't tell policy completed funding for a second engine for the joint strike fighter, and a modernization of the nuclear weapons systems. we will show you highlights beginning with the debate on the that the don't ask, don't tell repeal will not hurt the effectiveness of the military. >> thank you >> it's a long controversy lament but i'm sure.

>> we will have it done by 2200 tonight. mr. chairman as we all know how and when the repeal of lescol kuhl was passed last year with the lame-duck congress all this simply does is make the service chiefs the ones the men and women who are actually in charge it's all men that were actually in charge of the service branches the repeal of the mask "don't ask, don't tell" will not have any negative implications for their branch. so the speed,, dhaka, the chief of staff for the air force, i want them to sign this amendment to sign off on the repeal of thomas "don't ask, don't tell" for its implementation because right now as it stands, the only folks that have to sign off on this or the president who has never been to the war and ground combat, the admiral mullen call

to respect has never been in combat in iraq and afghanistan and secateurs rebates, a political appointee who is a fine gentleman that has never been in the ground combat in iraq or afghanistan. frankly i and others in this room have more, experience than the people who would sign off on the rick perlstein mask "don't ask, don't tell." all in asking for is to give the service chiefs the ones actually responsible for the men and women under their care and in the branches the opportunity to sign off on this to say this is not going to harm the marine corps. the marine corps is ready for this and the army is ready for this now. the navy is moving full speed ahead. i think i know where they stand and i won't try to play games i'm obviously against the repeal of a mask "don't ask, don't tell." this doesn't stop and ask "don't ask, don't tell" from being repealed. unfortunately in my opinion, but what it does to say the service chiefs are the ones responsible to sign off on some of the

marine corps commandant believes it's going to put his men's lives in jeopardy he won't sign off on it and in that case the marines will have some more work to do before it can be implemented, but i want to make sure the war fighters have a say in this that the war fighters, the men who know their men and women best know what they are doing and who they are fighting, with their emotional state is that they have the opportunity to sign off on this and required by aas in congress by law due to this amendment to sign off on the repeal of the last "don't ask, don't tell" when and if they think it's appropriate for their service to repeal the mask "don't ask, don't tell" and implement open homosexuality in the united states military. with that i yield back the balance of my time. >> mr. smith? >> thank you mr. transferree guy willoughby brief. we've debated this at great length and i want to make two points in opposition to this

amendment. first of all, we have secretary defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs as well as all the service chiefs say in the current system as it is setup with the secretary defended the chairman of the joint chiefs and the president signing off on this is acceptable. they don't need a separate authority. they are happy with the two people doing it and the second point i want to make is it is a very dangerous thing to say the president in the united states, a commander in chief, secretary defense and the chairman of joint chiefs of staff are somehow not quite qualified to make important military decisions and these are the same people that decide whether or not we go to war and made the decision whether or not to take out osama bin laden we do have civilian control in the military. there is a reason for that but i think it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that the reason we have to support mr. hunter's amendment is because we cannot trust the president, the psychiatry defense and the

chairman of the joint chiefs to make decisions about the military. if that's the case we have a lot bigger problems than "don't ask, don't tell." we should trust the decisions they are making and trust them this one and therefore i would oppose the amendment. >> with the gentleman yield back? >> i'm happy to deal. >> this body is responsible for going to the war, not the president. after 45 days or whenever the law says. this determines whether we should go to war. >> who makes the initial decision? >> the president does but this isn't a 45 decision. thank the gentleman for yielding. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from colorado for five minutes. >> and i speak in favor of this amendment for a couple of reasons. one is i always felt it was a little stacked, the deck was stacked with the three people supposed to sign off on it originally had all been on record ahead of time saying what

they would do, with the preference was, so same three people already on record must certify they want to do this have to certify they want to do this isn't fair and stacking the deck to service, so this broadens it and i think that's more of an activity to the whole matter and i think that it is a really good thing. so for that reason i think that is really should be adopted and so for that reason we should broaden the number of people all of whom have a serious responsibility for the men and the women under their command who they would be certifying that this does not affect their combat readiness and this doesn't say whether or not the policy will be rejected or accepted it just says they have a say in the matter.

for those reasons we should adopt this amendment. on the heels >> the gentle lady from san diego, ms. davis. 64 mr. chairman. one would think mr. hunter and i have all these discussions on the airplane flying around back-and-forth to san diego, but we certainly respect one another but we differ certainly on this issue and all i am concerned that while this may not be an attempt to change the decision that's been made it is an attempt to slow it down and i guess i look at this and quite honestly i'm trying to think what part of comments that were made by the commandant of the marine corps, i think at that time the deputy just of staff at the army and secretary gates, buy authors, by admiral roughead

did we not understand because they did sit here and say they were very comfortable that their ability to provide military and vice to secateurs dates and have it heard and respected. .. >> they wanted to be sure the joint chiefs would represent the views of the services.

the chairman of the joint chiefs is part of the certification process. i'm really kind of concerns that we would even bring up the measure, quite frankly. i yield back the balance of my time. >> gentlelady-year-olds -- yields back. mr. franks for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i know there's a lot of emotional aspects of this debate. when this was being debated last year, one the things i felt was left out quite often was the central issue here. does the policy of "don't ask, don't tell" does it increase or decrease the capability of our military? does it tend in favor of our national security? that should have been the central question. from my perspective, those best able to speak to that issue were those commanders that actually have to fight and win our wars. they only ask us for one thing.

they ask us for the time to study this and give us the report. unfortunately, those who control the congress last year were not willing to give them that time. mr. hunter's amendment would at least try to give them some even retroactive capability to speak to the issue. and in the final analysis, it seems to me that their voices should be heard. and if, indeed, the majority is correct here that their voices are all going to be in favor of this, then there's nothing to fear with the amendment. again, i know that there are a lot of emotions that are connected to this. and i know that sometimes people's motivations are questioned. but in reality, the real issue here is the national security of the country. and those who fight and win our wars should be given a voice in the discussion. with that, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. chair now recognized the gentleman from new jersey, mr. andrews were for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i believe were strongly and i think a majority of americans believe strongly if you love your country and you are willing to serve and sacrifice your life, then who you love in your private life is irrelevant and should have no bearing on whether you can serve your country. i know that there's an objection or a concern raised that the implementation will somehow affect the military readiness of the country. it will somehow jeopardize the military readiness for the country. so the law that was signed into law by the president last december said that the change won't take place until the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff sign off on it. the objection we raised tonight somehow is that the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs will somehow be oblivious to or not persuaded by the views of the service chief

if, in fact, they are different. but listen to what general cartwright said on the 28th of january of this year when asked about this question. as to whether the service chiefs are really going to have input into this. and i'm quoting. each of the service chief will have access to the joint chief of staff and to the secretary to say we just discovered something we didn't anticipate. it's going to necessitate a pause or something like that. that will all be considered in the so-called calculus of what we go to the secretary and the chairman to certify. and if there's an outstanding issue that we just didn't anticipate, we certainly would reserve the right for that service chief, one to have a voice in it, two, to potentially be deterrentive of delaying activity. now this comes down to a question of trust.

if you trust the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs to take into reasonable account the views of the service chiefs, then your vote on this amendment should be no. if you think there is reason to doubt their ability to handle something like this, i assume you'll reach a different conclusion. but i think the time for delays is over. i think the time for roadblocks is over. and i think the time for someone who loves their country and who wants to serve it should begin. i would urge people to vote no on this amendment. >> gentleman yields back. chair recognizes now the gentleman from georgia, mr. johnson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think i speak for many of my colleagues and the american people whether i express my frustration that we continue to relitigate this issue of "don't ask, don't tell" when we have

other pressing business that occupies our attention. my mind is taken back to the photograph inside the white house on the evening of the most spectacular joint operations mission that has ever happened in the american history. and that was the apprehension of osama bin laden. that picture -- i guess it's probably eight or nine people in there. the overwhelming majority of whom have never been in combat. never been on the ground in combat. but yet they were able to plan,

rehearse, and then effectuate this spectacular situation that has made us all proud. i want to speak to the issue of commanders and civilians having the authority, the civilian authority to make this decision. of course, having taken into consideration voices of those servicemen and women who are currently serving. now the military has said it can implement repeal of the provision without compromising readiness. the american people support repeal and let's get it done, let's move on, having openly gay americans serving in the military is not as fine of apocalypse. it's a sign of progress. so to my friends who continue to

raise this issue, i respectfully ask that we just move forward. we move on. we give this thing a chance. give our military leadership the opportunity to implement something that i believe all dutiful, lower ranking personnel in the military will follow. and i'll yield back. >> gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from mississippi, mr. palazzo, five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to speak on behalf of the amendment. i fully support it. i think it's a good amendment. i wish it would go on to say that unanimous concept of all of the chiefs are required before this is implemented. there's a lot of talk saying the american people want this. i've yet to find one american,

i've yet to find one member of the army national guard, air national guard, marine corps, numerous airmen and sailors who support repealing "don't ask, don't tell." you know, the same as debate there's a culture in the military that they are -- i thought this was a foregoing conclusion. it was hyped up. it's all political. the president said he was going to make it happen. then the secretary of defense and the chairman of joint chiefs, they just lined up and knew it was going to a foregoing conclusion. so they just followed in lock step. but that's also when you have your commanders and senior enlisted personnel see the right in on the wall, they are going to do the same thing. and, you know, there's been a perfect example, article this week, where a lieutenant general who retired after 35 years of

service basically i don't know if he was run out or if he saw the writing on the wall himself. he opposed implementation of dadt, he was publicly rebutte by the secretary of defense and the chairman of the chief of staff suggested that he resign. he was just wanting to have an honest conversation in trying to get the enlisted personnel in the armed services and offense -- office speak out. they saw the writing on the wall. like most military, they are going to do as they are told. they probably have their discipline, respectful, leadership, and many of them depend on their service as a way to support the families. i could go on for a while. i don't know if you would like to -- >> balance my time. >> thank you. >> answer your question. this does -- it requires the service chiefs to sign off on this for the repeal to be implemented. it does, in fact, set a

condition of approval by the four service chiefs forecast repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" to go into effect. thank you for yielding. >> would the gentleman yield? >> not at this time. i had -- today we had about 85 veterans from world war two up here, the greatest generation. i hate that, you know, hopefully they are not really following what's going on with our nation's military right now. but i do not think that they could look upon this as progress. i don't think they'd look at this as the sacrifices that they made for our families, for our country, and for our allies and future generations of americans to see their military go down in flames but implementing dadt policy. our men and women in uniform deserve better. we have to not only, you know, keep the memory of our armed services, you know, the people who served our country, protect that memory of their sacrifice

and their selfless service, we have to take care of our men and women that are currently serving. it is just not making sure they have the equipment and training, but it's also to foster a healthy atmosphere, as well as protecting the military for future generations who have yet to serve. i have a feeling this is just going to be a deterrent to future americans who would like to serve and need to serve. >> would the gentleman yield? would the gentleman yield? >> yes, i yield. >> thank you. just want to take us back to 1948. president harry truman made a decision to desegregate the military to allow blacks and whites to serve side by side. and i would imagine that back then there were quite a few personnel, military personnel, from general on down who found

it necessary to separate themselves from the military because they just could not follow that policy. but we've seen that the policy change was the right thing to do. i think it's similar situation here with "don't ask, don't tell." i believe that those who choose to remain in voluntary service in the military from generals on down will get over any queys writeness they may have. >> i agree with him, who you love in your private life is the

better policy. that was the one. we didn't care, as long as you kept it private. i thought it was much better policy than the current one, which drives that private issue into the public arena, either on purpose or whatever. this is the case. i do think though there's a big difference, first off, we want to be careful about how we characterize other people's votes and what the motivation might or might not be. i think there is a big process difference between having the secretary of defense, excuse me, who serves at the pleasure of the president listen to the chiefs, take into consideration what their positions are, and make his own decision which would be telegraphed as my colleague from colorado said before the decision and information was in. that's different than having the chiefs go on record and certify to this committee that, in fact,

it is their best professional military judgment that the policy either will or won't affect unit cohesionness, and all of the things that we talk about in terms of mission effectiveness within the services. so why we would be afraid to ask them to go on the record in this way, this amendment proports to do it is -- i get lost in that logic. so it is about you know, having them on it on the record. and in reference to our colleague from georgia, general colin powell, when asked about the analogy because blacks and military and "don't ask, don't tell" he gave an important answer on why he thought it was wrong. >> would the gentleman yield? >> no, sir, i won't. i'll yield back my time. >> would the gentleman yield one last time? >> i asked first.

>> gentleman yield back his time. gentleman from washington, mr. larsen, is recommended or -- is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'll wait until i'm officially recognized. just a few points just so we understand the process and the time frame of the vote last year. certainly didn't happen over night. took about 17 years, i think, from the time "don't ask, don't tell" was implemented to the time it was repealed. it was a debate that went on some time in the country. and so obviously take a while. the second point was there was some implication. this was political. and i would just hope that folks might also consider some people that thought it was the right thing

to do. not the political thing to do. i think sometimes, you know, i think one definition of progress is to let people who love their country also to let them serve their country. and that's what the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" does. with regards to something that ms. davis said, i'll just repeat it to go to a handout, well, there's been a handout given at least to me and perhaps to others, sort of outlining what the service chiefs have said about whether or not an amendment like this is needed. and what the service chiefs have said is that, no. we don't need an amendment like this. i know we debate whether or not service chiefs are being told what to say, whether they are speaking their mind, i can't really cast an asperges on the

motivation. all i know is what the service chief has said on an amendment like this, not this amendment, but an amendment like this. they said they don't need it. i'll be voting against the amendment. and i look forward to continued debate on this issue. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. gentleman now -- the chair now recognized gentleman from florida, mr. west. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i think on one of very few individuals on this committee that has ever commanded an army or marine or any type of unit in combat in recent time. one the reasons why i do support this amendment is because it is a commanders responsibility to certify his unit to make sure they are trained and prepared to go into combat and the responsibility that goes up that chain of command does go to the service chiefs to provide a certification that they are providing trained and ready units to a combating commander,

or to the secretary of defense with the chairman joint chiefs. i don't see any problem with this amendment. because it is their responsibility. you don't see the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff apted secretary of defense going out to the national training center out to 29 palms or any other certification aspect where we are making sure our forces are trained and ready. i think that we have an important responsibility to make sure that as we do implement this program which let's just go ahead and be very honest, the military will salute the flag and implement the program. we need to make sure that as we send these units into combat that they are the most trained and most prepared and most cohesive units going into combat. having been combat in 2003, the last thing i needed was a punch of disruption and the 700 men that i had to send out daily. i will support this amendment because i think it is in keeping

with the training certifications systems and processes that we do have established in the united states military. i and i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. chair recognized mrs. the congresswoman from maine. >> thank you. i will be opposing this amendment. and i do appreciate and respect my colleague mr. hunter. i had the opportunity to travel with him in iraq and afghanistan. i appreciate his service and his insights tremendously. but i do want to just say i oppose this. i feel we've done an enormous amount of work in the subcommittee and this committee and congress has a whole in coming to a decision to fully repeal "don't ask, don't tell."

we did so thanks to listening to the testimony by leaders of the military, and others have talked about them coming before the personnel subcommittee and talking about how well the training is going, how confident they feel about the ability of our armed services to work well together and how well they are already moving forward. and i want to remind us all that prior to the beginning of this change, they also surveyed the military, one the largest surveys ever done, which came out with very conclusive results that show the military was ready to make the change. in fact, statistics showed that the more likely -- if you served along someone who you believe was gay or lesbian soldier, you were more likely to believe you could go ahead and make this change and it could happen flawlessly. i also want to reiterate yes we are. over 13,000 members have been relieved of duty. they served the country, brought

tremendous skills, and in whom we invested money to train them. not only did we break to promise to them when they agreed to serve this country, but we've spent a lot of money in ways that we didn't need to by relieving them of their duty. i think that's immoral and wrong and i'm pleased that we are move ing forward with this. i would hate to see anything bring us back. we were told a unit could act more cohesively if every soldier could be more honest. that's what we're allowing them to do. operate under a honest frame of reference. that's important. mr. palazzo mentioned that the greatest generation was visiting us. we're proud of the soldiers from world war ii. some of them were gay as well. many of them took a long time to

admit or come out. they have all been courageous in going so. i think they can't be characterized as the generation that doesn't want to see the change. many of them are applauding it, leading it, and led us in the past. i hope that we do not test this amendment tonight and i hope we allow the military to move forward in the very thoughtful and courageous manner. i yield back the balance of my time. >> gentlelady yields back. dr. fleming for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in full disclosure, i opposed the feel of "don't ask, don't tell" before, however, i do support mr. hunter's amendment. i think this is all about unit cohesiveness and readiness. reflecting back to the survey that was done was quite flawed in many ways. the ones that is very remmable

is the fact that the survey surrounded the question of how to implement the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" not whether to. you know the study was done. with that, i yield to my friend, mr. harper. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i did not mean for the debate to repeat the debate that is we've had in the last congress. in fact, as i get better as being a congressman, i guess i'll learn how to put everything in the first five minutes as we got sucked into the debate of "don't ask, don't tell" i didn't mention this amendment makes them sign off only for their combat units, moss their own men, men only because there's no women, of men only in combat in theater, going over to theater, or getting ready or prepareing for deployment to a combat

theater. so it's only those that -- in fact, i'll reiterate it here. the air force will each submit the office's written certification that repeal of section 694 of 10 united states code will not degrade the readiness, cohesion, and personnel of the armed forces under the jurisdiction. one of three things, engaged in combat, deployed, or prepareing for deployment to a combat theater. we have seen what the navy is doing. they are moving with light speed. it almost seems like they have repealed "don't ask, don't tell" in the navy. look at that question there, that survey. you ask navy seals, bun the only combat arms group in the navy, and the ones that we applauded for killing osama bin laden, they are dramatically, dramatically against the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in

the numbers of 60 to 70%. not to repeat the argument and the debate that is we had last year. all it says is for our combat units, the one that is are shooters on the ground in theater right now or the ones that are going over there, the service chief has to sign off that this will not harm their effectiveness. with that, i yield back to the gentleman from louisiana. >> i yield back, mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. chair now recognizes gentleman from ohio, mr. ryan for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i just want to submit for the record a story of a world war ii veteran that sent me this story because it was brought up about the greatest generation and read just a paragraph or two from the letter. i've never forget the sounds of bullet bullets whizzing by my head. giving more significant and meaning.

for more than five minutes, i didn't talk about my experience. i wasn't active, i didn't show my -- i didn't get a star, and i have shared my story not to get recognition, but to make a point. in military, service matters, not sexual orientation. this is a gentleman that retired that lives in columbus, ohio. during the first firefight, my friend was evacuated because he nearly lost his mind. it didn't matter. he was straight. he couldn't stand the heat of battle. i'm proud to say i could. there are tens of thousands of americans who could stand up under fire who are gay. i yield my time. >> the chair recognizes the

gentleman from nevada. >> there have been lots of points made, i have concerned about the way this proceeding and i will be supporting this amendment, this asks for the service chiefs, those that are responsiblable for manning, training, and equipping our arms forces to certify it will not degrade readiness. there's been a lot of talk about the survey. the survey started after the decision was made to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." i know because we've kept getting e-mails to complete the survey. nobody was completing it. so the survey was flawed. as much as i want to see the service chiefs sign off on this, i believe it's unconscionable that we would take somebody who has dedicated their lives, gave 15 or 17 years, and drummed them

out, because it was learned that they were homosexual. i resented the fact as a commander, i had to initiate the proceedings when it was brought to my attention. even though the person had served honorably when their sexual orientation was unbeknownst to anybody else in the service. i'm conflicted. but i do feel it's important that the service chiefs, the ones that are responsible for making sure our forces are manned, trained, and equipped to perform have an ability to sign off and say that to the best of their ability, the training has worked. i can tell you right now we're in the midst of the training. i just completed the tier one training. we are now rolling it out who are then going to roll it out to everybody in the unit and our deadline is august 1 of this year to have everybody trained. we're not sure. we haven't been able to assess the impact of the training. i think it's important that those folks that are responsible for something in the training have the ability to weigh in on the most important issue. with that, i yield back.

>> gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. gibson. >> well, thanks, mr. chairman. and like my previous colleague and also my colleague allen west, i've commanded units. i took my battalion twice to iraq and brigade combat team, over 3700 men and women strong went to haiti as part of the relief. last year i opposed lifting the ban. i was concerned about quite frankly the friction that would be involved for unites moving forward. life in a combat zone is hard. and i believe our leadership can over come anything. includes this. but i wanted our leadership focused on winning. on winning the war and protecting our servicemen and women. now this vote has been taken.

and it was the vote of the american people as expressed by the representatives dually elected. and i will tell you that this amendment here tonight, i don't think that it's going to substantially change things. because the chain of command throughout the arms services are actively engaged on the issue. you just heard dr. heck moments ago. certainly the chiefs of staff are engaged on the issue. i saw it in a hearing not long ago, all of the chiefs were being asked within two months of the new congress about where they stood on this. and so i believe that they are already on the line for this on what their recommendation is going to be. so i don't see any substantialive gain in passing this amendment. and so i will be opposing it. i yield back.

>> i have questions on the opposite amendment by mr. hunter. so many in favor say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed, no. >> no. >> opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. >> mr. chairman, i ask for the roll call. >> the gentleman is recognized to explain his amendment. >> thank you mr. chairman. this specifically, the issue of whether or not non-u.s. citizens currently at guantánamo are held by the u.s. anywhere in the world w or in the future can ever be transferred to the united states to be held or to be tried in an article for a court. the legislation before us prohibs back, which means any

non-u.s. citizen crently in guantánamo are captured anywhere in the world, there will be no option that they could ever under any circumstances be tried in an article iii court. i think this has been captured and brought forward in part because the debate on whether not guantánamo bay should stay open and let me just say that regardss of how you feel about that, even if you believe guantánamo should stay open and continue to be utilized for the detention of terrorist suspects, you can still support this amendment. i concern is that in the legislation effort last session to find some way to stop the closing of guantánamo, that we took an extreme step and simply said we are going to prohibit you from transferring anybody out of guantánamo and i will absolutely admit that is stopped cold in its tracks in the effort to close guantánamo but i think it also went further than was legislatively necessary to compass that goal and also to continue tomake sure that our laws are in the best place to protect us and can prosecute the

war on terror. for take article iii courts off the table completely for everybody we are taking a vita tool away from the president in way too many circumstances. we are simply not giving him the options that are necessary and i want to remind everybody something i said earlier in my opening statement. there've been over 400 terrorists, people who have been tried and convicted of terrorist acts, non-s. citizens in exactly the situation would have been tried in this country and convict did in putting to prison. right now there are over 300 of them held in jail and the u.s.. it is beyond question or doubt that our department of justice and our federal courts can handle some of these cases. not all of them and the president would agree. the president, myself and others who wa to see guantánamo closed agree that military commissions are an option on the table msp use in certain

circumstances and in definite detention as an option that should be used but amongst those options should also be article iii courts held here in the united states. it has been a very successful tool in taking terrorists off the battlefield, putting them in jail and locking them up. i just want to close with a couple of wines. number one, the argument that somehow we can't do that safely within the u.s. -- i know it has developed a certain currency out their -- but it makes no sense when you look at the facts. when you look at the number of terrorist that are currently in prison and the united states and hack when you look at the number of mass murderers, child killers and on down the list of some of the worst people in the world, people who we certainly wouldn't want out in society being held in our prisons and yes in our communities, being held and held safely there is no question we can do this. it is a safety argument in the u.s. is a bogus argument. if the members of the majority party feel that way i'm surprised we don't have an amendment before us to take over those 300 terrorists who are

currently imprisoned in the u.s. and send them someplace else. before a offer up such suggestions i suppose, the point is they are here and they are being held safely. and that proves we can do that. and second, it is a legitimate point that how we look to the rest of the world and how we look in terms of whether or not we are living up to our own values as an imprtant part of the fight against al qaeda. i will defend the other part of that finding with al qaeda which was best represented by the raid that killed osama bin laden. i defend the notion that weave to strike out against terrorists anywhere in the world where they threaten us and where we can get them in that manner but i think we also need to spend the basis of our justice system and understando the extent we don't try people in the traditional way it does undermine our credibility. i could go through a laundry list of military leaders including general petraeus at the top who said the presence of guantánamo and what we are doing their best place is at greater risk, is a major recruitment

trover al qaeda and does undermine our national security. by showinghe rest of the world that we try them, convict them and lock them up forever giving them justice is a powerful tool in our arsenal. not one that should be mandated, but one that certainly shouldn't be completely taken off the table as it is in this legislation so i'm simply arguing that we give that option. in some instances as i've said over 400 have already been used, it will make sense to try these people in article iii courts so this legislation would completely prohibit that for any non-u.s. citizen captured outside of the u.s.. with that i will yell back and urged the court. >> the gentleman yield to. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. shilling. >> thank yu mr. chairman. you know i strongly oppose this amendment just for a very simple but serious reason. we must have protections in

place to make sure that the gitmo detains would not be transferred to u.s. soil. and it just kills me becaus constantly these folks that have to do with knocking over at the two towers, killing 3000 u.s. citizens continue to get compared to corner gas station robbers and molesters and things like that. these are the worst of the worst that are there, number one. this amendment seeks to loosen the prohibition of transfers om gitmo to the united states and i am will strongly disagree with this because number one and the last time they were looking at bringing these folks here was into illinois about dirty miles away from a nuclear facility in cordova of annoyed which is inside the 17th district, which i represent. is not about fear tactics. is about being a realist and you know a fear tactic would be back on september 9 of 2001 and

telling people that these people or going to knock over our two towers. this is a real situation and these aren't like i said earlier, your gas station guys. i have into gitmo personally. all i heard from the news media here in the united states of america is how bad these people have it. when i got there it was unbelievable how well treated they were and i give a lot of credit to our soldiers and all that they have put up with from his people and what they get dumped on them and how they are treated. it was pretty impressive to me. they have a library with 14,000 books in it. they get to go outside and run the soccer fields back and forth. i mean it would be a pretty nice place to spend a weekend i guess you might say. but i believe moving the detainees to begin a poses unnecessary risk and the qution we have to ask

ourselves here is that by bringing the detainees here to the united states, does that make the united states of america any safer? that is the question. you know, so i think we need to really proceed with caution with this. earlier this year i was a proud sponsor of the detainee security act along with chairman mckee on and several other members. the legislation would ensure that no detainees will be transferred to the united states of america. let's prohibit bringing detainees to the united states and oppose this amendment, please. i yield back my time. >> the gentleman yields back in the chair now recognizes the gentleman from new jersey mr. andrews. >> thank you mr. anders. the question my friend from illinois just raised his exact right. would a decision like this to try detainees in article iii courts made the country more or

less safe? that is exactly the right question. and for us to presuppose that in every instance, under any circumstance, e answer is no it would not make sense to bring them back and try them here is a mistake. mr. smith's amendment does not close guantánamo. it does not say that every prisoner must be moved to illinois or new jersey or tennessee or anywhere else in the united states. what it says is that in circumstances like the 400 times the terrorists were tried in ticle iii courts, that if the president, the secretary of defense, the attorney general, director of national intelligence, others involved in this decision, if they conclude that the best course is to y that detainee in an article iii courts, they are given the authority to do so. not to mandate that the

authority. you know, for us to pre-judge and for us to decide that under all circumstances in all contexts at all times it is never the right thing to try one of these people in an article iii courts i think is a significant mistake. if that prohibition had been put on the united states, according to our research, 400 times in the last 10 to 12 years would not have been able to try people in article iii courts. i think military commissions have a place. i think some if not many of these detainee should be tried in military commissions, but i think for us, based upon limited information and certainly within inability to see the future and all the circumstances that are coming in it for us to determine that under no circumstances can someone be tried in an article iii chord is a serious

mistake. we should support mr. smith's amendment and i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentlema from virginia, mr. forbes. >> thank you mr. chairman and mrchairman, good friend of mr. andrews just said at we shouldn't prejudge. it is not prejudging that concerns us, is judging at all and when you talk about the fact that the ranking member mentioned that there was some kind of argument that we could not drink them here and hold them here safely and try them safely, we have debated that issue over and over on this commite and i have made clear in the debates that we have had, none of this question that we can bring them here and keep them in jail and try them safely. what we say is that once you bring them here if they are international terrists and international reputations it is not them that we worry about. it is not even keeping the safely in jail but you may very well have put a target on the back of ever school, every

business person in that community where they may be held and where they may be tried and that is is the concern. >> would the gentleman yield for a quick second? >> when i'm finished i would be happy to. the second thing that shulman mentioned is that if we don't try people in a traditnal way it may be a bad example to the rest of the world. what our big concern is the bad example we have to the rest of the world and to the united states only don't try them at all. when you say that you are taking an option away from the president, you bet. the option is to continue to say we have got one foot and in one foot out and we don't know whether we will try them here or whether we are going to try them here because what we have to remember is this. in this president came into office, we have already had almost two years of prosecutions going on on the worst terrorist that ever hit the united states, the 9/11 defendants. this president without examining it, went in and stop that prosecution, broke up the prosecutorial teams completely,

took all of those motions they had over 56 motions they fought for and all that period of time and all that now was gone. and we have waited two and a half years for them to say okay we are going to come back and prosecute them. one thing we said last year when they pass this provision was we said we are specic a message, go ahead and prosecute them in the military tribunals. the third thing is thi the court has made it very clear and some can argue it here or not argue it hee, but once they hit u.s. soil, just the fact that they hit the u.s. soil could potentially get them constitutional rights that none of us totally know what they are or where they are. and why in the world we would want to do th to these terrorists who mr. shilling mentioned are the worst of the worst is beyond it. and the final thing is, when this was debated on the floor of the house, it was under a

democratic majorit and this is the law. this is the law of the land that they can't be brought here in the former chairman of this committee quite honestly stood up then and said, when it comes to terrorism, let there be no mistake that there is no light between the republicans and e democrats and supported the amendment to make sure that they weren't transferred to the united staes. i think we should hold without law. i think that it is important for us to try them but not to bring them to the united states and take the risk that would come from that and i woul be happy to yield. >> thank you. 1.1 question. you said the worst of the worst and i agree with you. i agree with you that i don't support the way the obama administration handled this for precisely the reasons you stated. i think there was too much decision on what to do. i think it didn't make sense to go back and undo what the military tribunals were doing but again you are not talking about the worst of the worst. you are talking about everybody.

everybody we picked up under no circumstances are tried in article iii so its not just the worst of the worse. the last point is double-stranded people i keep talking about international terrorists who are housed here in the u.s., among them are ramsey yusuf, the blind sheikh and others who have perpetrated the attacks on the twin towers in the first place. these are very dangerous people. they are held right here. without terrorist attacks around and. >> if i could reclaim my time. one of the concerns we have are not what the people being held there right now. we are concerned with when we bring people here who were not here and there in guantánamo bay, though by what they hit u.s. soil it is very clear that they will pick up certain constitutional rights. what is not clear is what those rights would be and how far they would go and i would just suggest to you why do we want to go down that path? why don't we go ahead and prosecute them? why we continue do we continue the law as it is and say mr. president time for us to go

ahead and prosecute them. let's don't give them these extraconstitutional rights and with that mr. chrman i hope we will defeat this amendment and i yield back the balance of my time. >> the gentleman yields back or coba chernow wreck nice as the gentleman from texas, is to raise. >> thank you mr. chairman. i will try to beat reef at this. i just want to make a few points. let's not forget we have over 400 defendants charged with crimes related to international terroris that have been successfully convied and the united states and incarcerated since 9/11 here already. second, over 300 individuals convicted of crimes lated to international terrorism are currently incarcerated as mr. smith said in federal prisons within the united states and i have to underscore withou a single escape. no concerns about our ability. >> would the gentleman yield? >> let me just finish making my

point and i would be glad to yield. the third i wanted to make is both former attorney general john ashcroft and general colin powell had gone on record as saying they have no problem with providing the kind of flexibility that in their opinion makes military commissions stronger, not weaker but stronger. it provides in their mind and appropriate and legitimate alternative which to me, that is really the bottom line. it is not about providing a more restrict the environment in which they go after these terrorists, te worst ofhe worst or least of the worst or whatever kinds of terrorist. a terrorist attack against this country is an attack against all of us and we need to have those kinds of options and that kind of flexibility.

that is why i hope that we support mr. smith's amendment and who was asking to yield? >> yes, please. we keep hearing the number of foreign to people who have been prosecuted, 300 our jails. this is apples andoranges we are talking about here. we did not have 700 people in jail, 400 convicted and 300 waiting in the united states who were captured outside of the united states and ought into the united states. if the gentleman would yield. >> i would be happy to yield. let me return my time in yield to mr. smith. >> perps they do have some of them. ramsey yousef. >> i will be happy to yield in a second. we do have some that were captured outside of the united states and brought in here. so okay maybe it is 25, 5100 whatever it is.

not 300. there are two points being made. one is that we can in fact convict international terrorists and two weekend house the men three we can bring them from the u.s. and from outside of the u.s.. finally on a constitutional point that mr. forbes brought up i don't really want is to appear to be desperately afraid of our constitution, and ramsey yousef and all these other people yes they have the onstitutional right. constutional rights do not stop people from being convicted and being locked up. >> would the gentleman yield? >> that ishat they did in this case. >> would the gentleman yield? >> let me yield to mr. turner and then i would the glad to yield. >> i was finished. i just wanted to make a point. >> mr. forbes. >> firstf all let me just say nobody in here saying we are afraid of the constitution of the united states. in fact, there were no raider supporters i hope of the constitution of the united states than all the members of this committee. what we are saying is that when you capture some of these

terrorists and especially some of them on the battlefield as many of these have been captured, we don't have the opportunity to go through the same kind of constitutional protection that you would have here. we don't always have the oppounity to get search warrants. we don't always have the opportunity to do proper wiretaps. sometimes with soldiers busting in to get these people on the battlefield. the key is this though, when you bring them here, my question is to you, why in the world would we want to a of ford them more constitutional rights and make it more difficult to get a prosecution, which is exactly what we are doing if bring them here. >> let me yield the rest of my time to mr. smith to answer your question. >> a two-part answer. number one, why? to show them our constitution and laws work and precisely the point you made that we are not afraid if the works and we lock them up. let's keep in mind he put us in

a very easy position on our side of the argument because you are all or nothing. i will grant you there are instances and we will pick someone up and it probably does not make sense but every single one? every single one? >> why would the gentleman say you would differentiate between one and not the other? howdy sit there and say? >> i will be happy to renew this on somebody else's time or gus be with that i yield back the lance of my time. >> jow recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. renny. >> thank you chu chairman. mr. forbes is dealing some of my thunder there but i will reiterate that mr. smith talks about the values of article iii. nobody here obviously saying that arctic you -- articleii courts are inadequate or our constitution is inadequate to prosecute these guys. it is not a matter of whether or not we bring somebody here and we get a conviction and put them in supermax and they are going to be detained frever and everybody will be safe. of course. the argument is with regard to

the 200 remaining detainees at gitmo which you are sort of boiling down by the way to the worst of the worst sooner rather than later. is a matter of jurisdiction and mr. forbes was touching on this. jurisdiction attaches when you bring them here and certainly you are right, the underwear bomber, the times square bomber. these guys that were captured in america may have jurisdiction attached to their afforded article iii rights but when you are talking about people that were detained in iraq and afghanistan or wherever brought to get moment then we are going to bring them here to have jurisdiction attached and give them our constitutional rights where they don't deserve it, i think runs afoul or stepsnto an area where you also mentioned mr. yousef who if you had asked the judge in the people that participated in that trial and the blind sheikh's trial d the circus that went on with

bringing those people to conviction and the amount of sources of intelligence we had to give up with providing the evidence wind they are allowed to face their accuser and face the evidence brought against them, the amount of people that we outed in the amount of sources we had to give up just to prosecute. >> would the gentleman yield? >> just a-minute. just a-minute. rather than having a military commission where that evidence could be brought up in a secure way and mr. reyes knows this as well, brought up in a secure way so we can gain conviction without vealing our sources abroad and this is well document. it is a matter of, and usa values, somehow the military commission doesn't rise to the level of the values of our constitution and the spirit of our country. why doesn't the military commission represent who weare

as well? just because we are trying to protect the sources and the intelligence that you know we might not want to give out to the rest of the world by. >> can i answer that question? >> i will yield. >> we have a 225 some odd history using our federal courts. the military commissions are barely being tried so they are not by history of nothing else and finally there was a very serious charge that it in a trial you said that we outed some peop, we revealed sources to people? i would love it not now if you don't have it available, it would love to get the specific instance of that because i've not heard that and i don't know you come back about. >> the evidence that had to be revealed through the disclosure of the evidence during both of those trials was such that i don't think anybody in this room, once they knew the specics, would be comfortable revealing. but we had to do it to gain a

conviction. and with regard to the matter that is at hand, i just want to get back to e fact that if we have an article iii court which i agree with you, i think it is just as capable as the military commission to try them at gitmo, but the matter results that to why wuld we give them jusdiction in the united states when the military commissions are just as useful and the justice they are at gitmo, why would we do that for the sake of usa values lacks that presupposes the values we have the military commissions are inadequate and with that i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back in the chir recognizes announcement from georgia, mr. johnson. >> thank you is your chairman. i cannot look past the mistaken impression that the obama administration stop the military

commission process and just sat around and did nothing for two years before announcing that it plans to try the high-value detainees and the article iii courts. i recall that the u.s. supreme court, a bush friendly u.s. supreme court, had some constitutional misgivings about the then military commission process, and so this body was called upon to make some revisions. once those were done, en the military commission set up continued. and i just wanted to correct that. also, i do want to weigh in

support of the ranking members amendment. the real question is who should make the decision as to whether or not a prosecution should be in the military commission system or in the article iii courts? >> i feel that the attorney general is in a much better position than a room fullf politicians who have never -- we have heard about folks who never had been on the ground in combat. i would venture to suspect that most folks in the congress had never been in combat in a court of law. so you have no appreciation of the niceties that go into an attorney general making that kind of a decision.

>> would the gentleman yield? >> yes. >> the gentleman was correcting something that didn't need to be corrected because i would ask the gentleman that he can cite any case of all -- when the administration came to office that stopped that prosecution? in fact what happened was this. we had a scial prosecutor th have been working on this. they had been working on it for over 18 months. the only thing that stopped that and the facts are clear about this, the only thing that stopped it was the moment the administration came into office, before they ever went down and made an inspection in guantánamo bay. >> i want to reclaim my time and i will say that i don't want to get us caught up this late at night on collateral matters but i simply wanted to correct the record and with that i would yield back. >> the gentleman yields back his time.

the gentleman -- the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. garamendi. >> mr. chairman perhaps it is late and i'm trying to fully understand the conversation. there seems to be two things. one, should be a federal court article i or should it be a military tribunal? apparently, the amendment before us allows that decision to be made by appropriate people to go one way or the other. the second matter appears to be where's the federal court if it is chosen to go that way? my question is to all the lawyers here. could reestablish guantánamo as an article iii court site and solve the problem of location? >> the gentleman yields tha. the chair recognizes the johnson from arizona, mr. frank's. >> mr. chairman i woullike to yield my time to mr. forbes. >> i thank the gentleman.

first of all my good friend from georgia said we shouldn't get in collateral issues but the very statement he raised was we need to correct the facts and the facts are these. we had an ongoing prosecution of these five defendants. the only thing that stopped that was the executive order that said you are disband, was in an executive order to stop the movement of that prosecution after all of the amendments and here is what was worse. that prosecutors said he had guilty pleas out of all of those defendants within six months. if he had been allow to continue. >> would the gentleman yield? >> not yet because you did not want to talk about collateral matters. the second thing is, after that happened the administration was two and a half years. we asked them over and over again when you are going to prosecute? when you are going to make a decision? they couldn't make that decision. i would ask the gentleman today, when are they going to prosecute them and where's that going to be held? tonswer the gentleman's

question about trials, this amendment is not about whether they are military tribunals or article iii courts. the gentleman from florida hit it right on the no's when he said this is all about whether we bring them to the united states because the moment we do that the courts have been very clear, they are going to pick up some constitutional rights that nobody in this room knws the extent of what they are. what we are saying is not something new. is what we said a year ago when there was in majority of democrats in here. do not bring them to the united states. try themhere you got them and mr. chairman with that, i yield back. i yield back to the gentleman. >> the gentleman yields back his time. the chairman now recognizes the gentlelady from california, ms. sanchez. >> thank you chairman mckeon.

i would like to say a couple of things. first of all probably out of anybody on this committee i've been watching this issue of the military commission for a long time. recall if you go back and look historically, i dropped a bill may be five years before we ever got around to military commission. in a lot of ways i have agreed with a lot of the things the republicans have said with respect to the commissio actually you know the supreme court ruled that people have certain rights that we haven't given them before. and, i have been very hesitant to be excited about bringing people into the united states to be tried under article iii. but, what i believe is important is for us to keep both sets of

tools available. the reasons why wehould try people under the military commission and there may be reasons why we should try somebody here in the united states under article iii. and to just blanket, eliminate that as a possibility, i just don't believe that is a smart way to proceed. and i do have -- i do have problems with who we bring in and what kinds of rights. and i think that is something that we don't really know but remember that actually the supreme court gave those people in gitmo rights that they didn't have before. if you go back and look at what they did two or three years ago in their decision. lastly i would like to say, you

are right. was very disappointed, and i told the president i thought he was wrong and just like it's saying that you know, that he would shut down gitmo and he did stop the process to try to understand a lot longer but i think he should sill reserve both systems, and i think that is important because in some cases we will pick up people that are not in war and should be tried under an article iii court. so i would hope that my colleagues on the other side would give this consideration, to have those systems. they are both probably needed and with that i will give up the rest -- i will you go rest of my time to ranking member smith. >> he i just want to hit up on a couple of arguments. first the idea that somehow we can try them in an article iii

court without releasing secret information. we have provisions with an article iii courts that are similar to the provisions within military commissions to make sure that information is aled and protected. we have done it and mock trials and terrace trials for quite some time and that is really not a legitimate issue to raise as a reason not to do article iii courts. and again, we simply want this option to be on the table. we have a very good idea what constitutional rightsttached and people are brought here and we believe, and we have inthe past, handle those rights, try people successfully and i want to also remind folks that we are not just talking about, think the 172 people now who are left out and get my. we are talking about anybody in the future. not talking about the worst of the worse. we are saying anyone picked up outside the u.s. from this point forward, it will never be an option to try them in an article precourt so it is not just the worst of the worst but it is much broader than that. i actually agree as i said that some of these people should be

tried in military commissions. i don't think obama administration handled that well but i think we are overreacng and taking the option completely off the table. >> would the gentlan yield? whose time? will the gentlelady yield? >> i yield to the chairman. >> i don't know whose time it is. i ju know it is late. but there is a lot of discussion back and forth and i have just one question. if you have the option of article iii or a military tribunal by attaching someone out of the country not anwr how would you make the decision to try them? who would make the decision? >> right now the attorney general and the department of justice and the president would make the decision. that is their job and that is their experience.

i just want to give them the option. >> based on how they have handled it up to this point, i am in solid opposition to the amendment. if there are no more discussions, the question is on the adoption of the amendment offered by mr. smith of washington. so many as are sr in favor will say aye. opposed will say no. the no's have it and the amendment does not agree to and we will have a >> gentleman is recognized to explain this amendment. >> thank you, mr. chai congress conaway and i to work together on looking at efficiement by thf defense. and our first project that we worked on was to look at major weapons systems.

together, we worked on that project and by unanimous vote, the members of the committee at that time passed out a piece of legislation, passed the house by unanimous vote and senate i believe by unanimous or near unanimous vote. the law was signed into law by president obama in may of 2009. the reason we embarked on that project is that, in the previous seven or eight-year preer yod, the gao had told us we had overextended our budget on major weapons systems by nearly $300 billion, $297 billion oiv a seven or eight-year period. had we saved that money, we could have compensated and trained and paid and supported a lot of troops for a lot of years. and so there was a very broad consensus, nearly unanimity, that we needed to change our major weapons systems acquisition strategy and the

keystone of that bill was competition, the idea that if you have only one vendor supplying a critical component of our forestructure, you are likely to have overruns, likely to have underperformance and likely not to get the best deal for the service member and for the taxpayer. in the spirit of that philosophy, with we've had a longstanding debate over whether we should fund the alternative engine for the joint strike fighter program. that's a debate we've had many times in the past and i'm sure we'll have again. this amendment's really not about that question, though, because although i believe that the proper use of our funds here is to fund the jsf second engine program, that's not what the bill does and that's not what this amendment does. instead, the vendor team that is developing the alternative engine for the jsf believes so much in the value of its product

and believes so much in the value of competition, it has done a very rare thing. it has put its own money where the taxpayers' money usually goes. that vendor team has such a belief in the merits of competition, the merits of their work, they have said that they will finance further development and testing in this fiscal year, fy 12, for the purposes of enhancing that competitive agenda. i think that is to be commended. i think that will yield the best product for our service members and the best value for our taxpayers. in order to be sure that we can achieve that result, my amendment says that any of the data, any of the equipment, any element necessary to encourage further testing and development of the alternative engine will not be prohibited or blocked by the department of defense.

in other words, it says that when this vendor team has stepped forward and said, we will put our own money and our own efforts into this enterprise, that those efforts are not blocked by any way that would block the use of property necessary for that testing. so i want to emphasize to my friends both on the republican and democratic side, we've all taken a position, some of us several positions, on the issue of whether or not there should be further public investment in the testing of this alternative engener engine and we feel strongly one way or another. i feel there should be. but that's not the question this amendment poses. the question is, when a vendor team is willing to put its own money and own efforts into enhancing that competitive agenda, should we permit them to do so or not? i think the answer is a resounding yes. i think the benefit from this

will be a better product for our service members, more options as our planners look at 95% of the aircraft stock of the american military, and a better deal for the u.s. taxpayers. so i would respectfully urge republicans and democrats, those who oppose funding for the alternative engine and those who support it, to join together in this effort, which i think furthers the agenda we did in the major weapons systems reform of 2009. i would urge a yes vote. yield back. >> i commend the gentleman for his work on this issue. you know, at a time when every dollar seems to be more important than ever, when a company steps up and is willing to fund the effort to keep competition as a viable alternative, i think that, to

me, this is a no-brainer, basically the company said, we will stand behind what we're saying. well put our own money in and the government will have no additional cost and yet it keeps alternatives open. it keeps competition open. and i think this is a good bipartisan amendment that the gentleman has offered. is there any further discussion on --? >> mr. chairman? >> yes, mr. mcintyre is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, sir. i'll be brief and to the point. i strongly support this offer from the f-136 fighter engine team to continue developing their joint strike fighter engine on their own dime. at no cost, at no risk to taxpayers. we can keep competition alive. isn't that the american spirit and the american way? and we can make sure that this competition on the largest subcomponent of the joint strike

fighter and on future programs can be there when we need it. this is a unique approach and gives us opportunity for change. this is good for the american taxpayer. it's good for competition. and it's ultimately and most importantly good for the safety and security of our nation. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. chair yields to mr. bartlett, five minutes. >> thank you. the chairman's mark currently includes a provision that requires the secretary of defense to develop and carry out a plan for the preservation and storage of property acquired under the f-136 propulsion system development contract. this amendment would require that such a plan at no cost to the u.s. government provide support and allow use of the property by the f-136 contractor to self-fund its research, development, testing, evaluation of the f-136 engine. mr. chairman, this could

conceivably save the taxpayers money because the mark requires the department to maintain this material, it is not maintained at no cost. there is an overhead for maintaining it. depending on how one keeps records, conceivably the use of this equipment by the contractor will actually save the taxpayers money. approximately 3 billion has been invested in research and development for the 136 alternative engine. the f-136 contract was recently canceled by the pentagon. the f-136 engine contractors believe strongly in their engine and stated their intent to continue at least through fiscal 2012 the development of the 136 engine at no cost to the u.s. government. for the 136 contractors to continue development of their engine, they need access to the test engines that have been developed and u.s. government engine test facilities, again at no cost to the government. this amendment would enable the f-136 engine contractors to have that access.

that's aall it does. it could actually save the taxpayers money. i strongly urge all members of this committee to support this amendment. thank you, and i yield back. >> any further discussion? >> mr. chairman? >> recognize the gentleman from georgia, mr. scott, for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, i don't want to object to the amendment. i do str a question, may be for the chair. the united states taxpayer has already invested tremendous sums in the development of this engine. who would own the technology, if this amendment passes, and it goes forward? would the united states -- >> wot gentleman yield? >> yes, sir. >> technology would be property of the united states department of defense. >> okay. all of the technology, including -- the gentleman i apologize -- the new technology moving forward, would all belong to the department of defense? >> if the gentleman would yield, yes, that is my understanding that this would be done and the

intellectual property would belong to the united states department of defense. >> mr. chairman, is that your understanding as well? >> i know of no information other than what the gentleman has stated, and if any member of staff has anything that would be contrary to that, then i would say mr. scott that that would be my understanding also. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back my time. >> thank you. mr. rooney from florida is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, the amendment as proposed for those of us that don't share the same opinion as the subcommittee chairman or those that believe that the second engine is necessary, even just weeks after the entire house voted, saying that it was not necessary for the sake of cost, when this amendment, if it

is truly to its core about cost, then i would have no objection. i don't see why anybody would. of course, it's, as the chairman says, seems like a no brainer. the problem i have is the insinuation by the subcommittee chairman that the members that believe that the cost of the second engine was not something we could afford in this day and age, that somehow we are all, as he put it, kwoet unkwoit, quote uninformed or miseducated or a number of words that i think is an insult to people who are representing constituents trying to save the taxpayer money and at the same time provide the best possible defense, those of us that served in the military and those of us that believe we should carry the biggest stick on the block, believe that what we did a couple of weeks ago by striking the second engine was the right thing to do. and regardless of whether or not

this bill advances, the second engine coming back to life or not, remains to be seen, and we shall see. but with regard to mr. andrews' amendment to store and have the proprietor of the second engine fund their own advancement, i have no objection. i yield back. >> any further discussion on the amendment? gentleman from texas, mr. conaway. >> mr. chairman, i, too, support the amendment, also support the issue of competition, which is not competing. i would remind my colleague from florida that the entire house didn't vote for striking the engine. a majority of the house did, but many of us on the floor -- it was not a u nonanimous vote. >> if the gentleman would yield, i apologize if i insinuated that. that's not what i meant. >> what this amendment does do

is protect the system from those who champion a particular idea, one way or the other, from taking advantage of their positions to have a self-fulfilling prophecy that the single engine works, that is by preventing the contractors to getting access to the unique test facilities that they need to get access to. so this amendment does that, it protects the system from folks taking advantage of the position who disagree with the continued development of the second engine. i support this amendment and urge my colleagues to support it as well. yield back. >> gentleman from new york, mr. gibson, is recognized for five minutes. >> thanks, mr. chairman. i speak today as somebody who voted to eliminate close to $500 million for the second engine of the joint strike fighter at a time that clearly we all need to do more with less. i think what's happening here today is quite remarkable, if you think about it. action that the congress took, a tough decision, something that

had been an issue for several years, certainly strong arguments on both sides, we can respect all those. but to the fact today that we have a private company that's coming forward to continue this research on their dime, the american people get competition at no cost. so we get savings and we'll see what happens at the end of this. but this is something i can support and i'm pleased to do so. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> gentleman from tennessee, mr. cooper, is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to ask the author of the amendment, my friend from new jersey, mr. andrews, this question -- "fr free sounds really good. but as the gentleman from texas just pointed out, it could involve access to unique testing facilities and there's no such thing as free in that context. for example, in tennessee we have some state-of-the-art wind tunnels, and allowing that engine to be tested there for free might actually impoese othr

overhead and other costs on the defense department and taxpayers that would not, in fact, be compensated. normally these facilities rent for vast sums of money. and at least one of the contractors involved in this, i think, paid no income tax last year on $15 billion worth of profits, in fact, made $4 billion in free money -- tax givebacks from the taxpayer. so this is kind of an amazing situation. if it's free, i want it to be free. that would include covering the overhead and other koflts and the opportunity costs of using these unique and vital u.s. test facilities. >> would the gentleman yield? >> i'd be delighted. >> i appreciate the question. i think it's very well founded. and there are two specific answers. in the first. in the second line, line two of the amendment, lines one and two, it points out these activities have to ensure that the secretary at no cost to the federal government, first of all -- and i clearly intend that

to mean overhead and any of the things the gentleman mentioned. and then secondly in lines five and six, the access to the property and the data is contingent with this language, quote, if such activities are self-funded by the contractor. so i intend this to mean that every cost direct or indirect, overhead or explicit, must be born by the contractor or else the access is not granted. >> if i could reclaim my time. how would the gentleman respond to the question of testing priority? which comes first, something that the pentagon favors or something that the pentagon has already cast doubt on? some of the comments from some of my friends on the committee, it almost seems like this is a resolution of no confidence in our own pentagon, if we so distrust their opinion on things. so if you have limited test facilities and there has to be an order of test, will this company be able to jump the line and be able to get ahead of

other testing priorities? >> if the gentleman will yield, there's nothing in this amendment or the base text that mr. bartlett has propounded that gives any priority in testing to anyone. so i would interpret that as means it's entirely within the discretion of the department of defense as to who's first in line and who goes first. >> so we still trust the pentagon to make those decisions. >> well, if the gentleman would yield, yes. i mean, i would think the question of what should be tested when is a decision the department has within its prerogative. >> i thank the gentleman. i yield back the balance of my time, mr. chairman. >> is there any further discussion on the amendment? if not, the question is on adoption of the amendment offered by mr. andrews. so many as are in favor will say aye. those opposed will say no.

>> mr. chairman? on that i would ask for roll call vote. >> the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. and a recorded vote has been requested. seems there's sufficient support for roll call vote. roll call voight vote is orderedment i stated earlier that we would hold all recorded votes until the end of this, but it looks like we have everybody hereme here. so we will proceed to the roll call vote at this time. >> chairman mckeen? >> aye. >> ranking member smith? >> aye. >> mr. bartlett? >> aye. >> mr. reyes. >> no. >> mr. thorn berry? >> aye. >> ms. sanchez.

>> aye. >> mr. jones. >> aye. >> mr. mcintyre. >> aye. >> mr. aiken. >> aye. >> mr. brady. >> aye. >> mr. forbes. >> aye. >> mr. andrews. >> aye. >> mr. miller. >> aye. >> mrs. davis. >> aye. >> mr. wilson. >> aye. >> mr. long avin. >> aye. >> mr. lobe yaund dough. >> aye. >> mr. larsen. >> aye. >> mr. turner. >> aye. >> mr. cooper. >> no. >> mr. cline. >> aye. >> ms. bore die yoe.

>> aye. >> mr. rogers? mr. rogers? mr. courtney? mr. courtney? mr. franks. >> aye. >> mr. lub sack. >> aye. >> mr. schuster. >> aye. >> ms. giffords? ms. giffords? mr. conaway. >> aye. >> ms. san gas. >> aye. >> mr. lamb born. >> aye. >> ms. pingry. >> no. >> mr. wittman. >> aye. >> mr. kissel. >> aye. >> mr. hunter. >> aye. >> mr. heyne rick. >> aye. >> dr. flemming. >> aye.

>> mr. owens. >> aye. >> mr. kaufman. >> aye. >> mr. gair mend di. >> aye. >> mr. rooney. >> aye. >> mr. critz. >> aye. >> mr. plats. >> aye. >> mr. ryan. >> aye. >> mr. ridge elle. >> aye. >> mr. rupers burger. >> aye. >> mr. gibson. >> aye. >> mr. johnson. >> aye. >> mrs. hartsler. >> aye. >> mrs. castor. >> aye. >> mr. heck. >> aye. >> ms. sutton. >> aye. >> mr. schilling. >> aye. >> mrs. han bus sa. >> aye.

>> mr. runyon. >> aye. >> mr. scott. >> aye. >> mr. griffin. >> aye. >> mr. pa lot sew. >> aye. >> mr. west. >> no. >> mrs. roby. >> aye. >> mr. brooks. >> aye. >> mr. young. >> aye. >> mr. rogers. mr. courtney. >> no. >> ms. giffords.

>> mr. chairman, on that vote, the ayes were 54, the nos were 5. >> the amendment is agreed to. the chair now recognizes mr. cooper for the purpose of an amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. amendment number 164, i would ask to be distributed. >> the clerk will please distribute the amendment. without objection, the reading of the amendment will be dispensed with.

>> gentleman from tennessee is recognized to explain his amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this amendment has to do with the joint strike fighter but only the f-35b, the short takeoff and vertical landing variant of it. so in this vast program, this is a very small aspect. what the amendment would do is, the committee remembers that this year we have funded three of these and next year my amendment would propose that we fund four.

now, the committee work says we should go ahead and do six. i would like to cut that back by two for a reason. it would save $380 million in money that i think could be spent for other higher priorities. i do not do this lightly. secretary gates, among others, has been highly critical of the f-35b program. and to quote him, he says, the marines' short takeoff and vertical landing variant is experiencing significant testing problems. these issues may lead to a redesign of the aircraft structure and propulsion, changes that could add yet more weight and cost to an aircraft that has little capacity to absorb more of either. as a result, i am placing the stovl variant on the equivalent of a two-year probation. if we cannot fix this variant during this time frame and get it back on track in terms of performance, cost and schedule, then i believe it should be canceled. so instead of me being hard on

the f-35b program, i think we're being generous because we're actually increasing purchasing by 33%, just not the 100% that the committee had proposed. i'm dog thing this in response the secretary of defense's heartfelt plea that there is a fundamental problem with the vairnlt of the joint strike fighter. i would propose that the $380 million saved be spent primarily on aircraft parts and maintenance for the marines and the navy. so that it would be kept within their purview for very high priority, actively used aircraft, high up tempo aircraft that needs this help because this is an underfunded account. the navy and ma reenz have been begging for more money in this account and i think we should help them with this. and $63 million would be spent on improving the equipment for our national guard and reserve. every member on this committee

knows how heartfelt the pleas are from our guard and reserve back home to have more and better equipment. so, mr. chairman, this is an important amendment. it's a small amendment in this vast defense bill. it would only change the spending of $380 million, but it would help send a message to the contractor of the f-35b that we need to get this program back on track. it ups production, not only keep willing the production line warm, it keeps it hot, but it also helps fund other pressing needs of our navy, marines, national guard and reserve. i would ask my colleagues on the committee to accept this amendment. >> mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. >> i very much respect the gentleman's work on the committee and in the congress and ever since he's been here to

be a strong proponent of fiscal responsibility, and i respect that greatly. however, i must oppose this amendment on three grounds. first, reducing the request by two f-35bs would increase the cost of the remaining four f-35bs. secondly, it would reduce the department's top line, and i would remind members that secretary of defense already reduced the future years defense program by $78 billion, of which $4 billion came from the f-35 program. and, thirdly, i oppose this amendment because it could increase the navy and marine corps strike fighter shortfall. currently the shortfall is projected to be 52 in the department of the navy in 2018 and 37 our marine corps. if these care craft are not replaced in future years, this amendment would add two more

jets to the marine corps shortfall. i know the secretary put this program on a two-year probation and turned over complete responsibility to the commandant of the marines. and i had a visit with him, and he told me that he personally is engaged in this program and that they have made great progress. i would hate to see a bump in the production line at this point. for that reason, i would then reluctantly oppose the gentleman's amendment. >> would the chairman yield for -- >> i would. >> i thank the chair marn, appreciate your kind words. i knew there was going to be a "but" in there somewhere. we can disagree without being disagreeable. it was not the intention of this amendment to in any way cut the top line of dod. all the money, all the money,

every penny, is being returned to other accounts with, in my opinion, higher priorities. second, i respect the commandant very much, but it's going to take some pretty strong aeronautical engineering to correct the weight and propulsion problems of this craft, and with all due respect to the commandant, we need things that our troops can fly, things that work. the gentleman also made the point that the cost would increase if you only buy four instead of six. well, the gentleman knows that the cost of this is already increasing every year, unlike the cost of most weapons systems that we purchase. we do not seem to be able to get value for quantity here the way we have in other weapons programs. and i would just suggest until the mechanical and engineering difficulties are worked out here and we essentially we should fly these before we buy them, investing before we test them is a highly risky strategy. i would just urge the committee

to stick with the 33% increase in purchases instead of going with the 100% increase in purchases. i thank the gentleman for yielding. >> i thank the gentleman for correcting my statement. we have -- i know this has been kind of a moving target as we move through amendment so i appreciate that correction. chair recognizes mr. johnson from georgia for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i thank the gentleman mrshgs co mr. cooper for offering this amendment. but i would respectfully urge any colleagues to oppose it. the decision has already been made by secretary gates to slow purchases of the marine corps variant of the joint strike fighter, and i don't see the justification for further reducing the buy in fiscal year '12. the program has already been

dramatically cut and delayed. the more we chip away at the program, the more expensive per aircraft and less efficient the production and procurement process will become. the decision has been made that the jsf will be our front multiroll fig multirole fighter across the services, and that decision having been made, i think that we should do it right. and so i oppose t amendmehe ame for those reasons. and i yield back. >> any further discussion? recognize ranking member mr. smith. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i definitely see good arguments on both sides of this amendment. i just want to amplify a little bit some of the remarks that mr. cooper has made about the choice that we are facing on that program. because it's absolutely true that, as you slow down the

number that you purchase, you drive up the overall costs of each individual unit. it's basic -- the benefits of buying in quantity. i certainly understand that, and that's the balance we're trying to strike here. but unfortunately there's a risk on the other side that's not being i think fully understood here. the risk is, when the mechanics are not worked out, when you don't know exactly what it is that you are going to buy because they haven't figured out how to make it work yet to the degree that we want it to, there is the risk that you buy something and then, as they're working on it, they figure out that they need to fix something in it and then you've bought something that winds up being more expensive because you've got to go back and rework the whole thing. and this is not an academic issue. i didn't explain that quite as clearly as i would if you buy b it's ready and then it turns out it doesn't get ready as you would anticipate, you drive up costs. and that has happened in the f-35 program. it happened again just yesterday when we got estimates the

per-unit costs, i forgot on which varnt, were going to be up higher than expected, and the taxpayers were going to bear the brunt of that. regret plea, this program has not met its milestones. we have constantly been waiting further than we expected to to get the final aircraft that's going to fly and do exactly what we want. so if we make this decision now to buy more of them, and it turns out there's a problem, which, again, that's not a pure hypothetical. it has happened time and time again with this program and with others, and we'll wind up having bought something that's going to cost us money. so i want to ramp this up as quickly as possible so we can get the efficiencies of quantity. but there is no efficiency of quantity if what you're buying isn't actually what you're going to want in the end. and that's why i think mr. cooper raises a very legitimate issue. i'll support this amendment. i will continue to examine this issue as we get to the floor. but we really need to make sure. and it isn't just with the f-35. we went through this with future

combat systems in a number of areas. we in this committee procured money for a program that wasn't yet ready. and then it didn't get ready by when they told us it was going to. and all of a sudden, that money was left sloshing around the pentagon to be reprogrammed. i think this is an area this committee needs to carefully examine as we look for ways to both save money and do so in a way that still protects our national security. so i applaud mr. cooper for raising this issue. i think it's an important one to debate and think about, regardless of how you come down on it. in this instance, i will urge support. >> is there any other discussion on the amendment? i would also note, and correct me, mr. cooper, if i'm wrong on this. but the amendment directs the funds to the navy's unfunded requirement for aviation and spares the national guard and reserve equipment account. but it's important for members

to understand the navy's unfunded requirement was deemed to be less of a need for the navy than the two f-35 bs requested by the department. also, we've worked hard to fund the national guard and reserve equipment account. and we believe there are sufficient funds for fiscal year 2012 in that account now. any other discussion? if not, the question is on the amendment offered by mr. cooper of tennessee, so many as are in favor will say aye. those opposed, no. the nos have it. the amendment is not agreed to. mr. kauffman, the gentleman from colorado, is now recognized for the purpose of an amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

my amendment -- >> the clerk will please pass out the amendment. and without objection, the reading of the amendment will be dispensed with. if the gentlemen will suspend until they have a chance -- the gentleman is recognized to explain his amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my amendment is to the second

engine for the f-35. i'm concerned that existing language in the mark leaves the door open for a second engine. after the houseses already voted to strip funding from this program after significant debate. i believe that funding, wasteful program, such as the alternate engine takes away from programs that could better serve those in -- those who need it the most. the young war fighters on the front lines in afghanistan and iraq. i believe that the department of defense has made a good-faith effort to cut wasteful spending, identify efficiencies, and reprogram savings into higher priority programs. secretary of defense gates and the service chiefs are repeatedly told this committee in testimony they do not need and do not want the f-136 alternate engine. secretary gates estimates that funding this program to completion would cost nearly $3 billion. i would like to remind the

committee of testimony we received from the secretary of defense in this very room just three months ago. he emphasized his firm opposition to buying an extra engine for the f-35, a position by the air force, navy and marine corps leadership. as he stated, we company it a necessary extravagant -- during a period of fiscal contraction. unquote. he also said, quote, it would be a waste of nearly $3 billion in a time of economic distress, and the money is needed for higher priority defense efforts, unquote. i don't think we should allow a loophole for an alternate engine to the -- to the f-136. mr. chairman, i would ask unanimous concept to withdraw this amendment. i know that the votes aren't here in this committee to pass it. and i plan to offer it on the house floor.

>> i thank the gentleman and the amendment is withdrawn. are there any other amendments to the subcommittee report? is if there are no further amendments, the chair recognizes the gentleman from maryland for the purposes of offering a motion. >> i move to adopt a subcommittee report on tactical air and land forces as amended. the question is on the motion. the gentleman from maryland. of so many as are in favor will say aye. >> coming up later today, remarks from the announced presidential candidate newt gingrich. you can see that live on c-span.

>> in his new book, an investigative journalists looks at the architect of the 9/11 attacks. >> understanding him is understanding the future of the war on terror. this is what we have to fear. >> inside the mind of the terrorist, sunday night on c- span's q&a. you can also download the podcast of this signature program online at c-span.org. >> this weekend on book-tv, a discussion about the deepwater oil rig -- deepwater horizon oil rig explosion. and on afterwards, william

cullen shares his insight on money and power, how goldman sachs came to rule the world. look for the full schedule at book-tv.org, and get our full schedule in your in box. >> the social security committee released their annual report today on the fiscal condition of the program, projecting a shorter life span due in part to the region and to -- to the recession. you will hear from secretary of the treasury timothy geithner, kathleen sebelius and hilda solis. this was held at the treasury department.

>> i went to begin by welcoming my fellow trustees, in particular our two new trustees. welcome. it is nice to have you with us. i also want to knowledge the chief actuary is -- acknowledge the chief actuaries. today's report makes clear that while both social security and medicare have the resources to meet their obligations for the next decade, it is important that we put in place reforms to strengthen these programs. benefits are secure today, but reforms will be needed so that they will be there for current and future retirees. the social security program has dedicated resources that will cover benefits for the next 25 years. in the year 2036, one year

earlier than was projected in last year's report, the social security trust fund will exhaust revenuests and incoming will be insufficient to maintain full payment of benefits. du to technical changes in the economic assumptions underlying the projections, the medicare hospital insurance trust fund will exhaust its assets in 2024, five years earlier than was projected in last year's report. the medical report -- medicare report illustrates once again the importance of the reforms in the affordable care act, which will significantly strengthen medicare's finances and extend the life of the medicare trust fund. the trustee report underscores the need to act sooner rather than later to make reforms to these entitlement programs. last year, the president and congress took a timely first step by enacting the most

significant entitlement reforms in decades, but we have to go beyond the affordable care act and identify additional reforms. americans are living longer and health care costs are continuing to rise. if we do not do more to contain the rate of growth, our commitments will become unsustainable. in light of these realities, the president has proposed a balanced, comprehensive framework for deficit reduction. this framework includes health care reforms that will generate substantial additional savings on top of those that will be generated by the affordable care act. of course, we should not wait for the trust funds to be exhausted to make the reforms necessary to protect our current and future retirees. larger, more difficult adjustments will be necessary if we delay reform. by making reforms soon that are phased in over time, we will help reduce uncertainty about

future benefits. as the president said, social security and medicare define and reflect the values of america. they are commitments that make our society more fair and more just. we have kept those commitments for generations, but our responsibility is to make the reforms necessary to allow us to maintain those commitments for the future. in a separate note, on monday, may 16th, just three days from now, the united states will reach the debt limit set by congress, and because congress has not yet acted to raise the limit, we have now set in motion a series of extraordinary measures that will give congress some additional time to raise the debt limit. i want to again encourage congress to move as quickly as possible so that all americans will remain confident that the united states of america will meet all of its obligations, not

just our interest payments, but also our commitments to our seniors. i want to return the floor now to my colleague and fellow trustees secretary kathleen sebelius. >> thank you, secretary geithner and i think that, we have heard in today's medicare trustee report that there's no question we have strengthened medicare but there is still work to be done as the secretary has already said. from day one the obama administration has made protecting seniors for today and tomorrow a top priority. and that's why we implemented a series of reforms over the last two years including those in the affordable care act signed into law just a little over a year ago which have already produced significant savings for the medicare hospital insurance program. now without these important steps the hospital insurance trust fund would have been

exhausted in 2016, just five years from now. instead, today's report found that the hospital insurance trust fund will remain solvent until 2024. over the next 75 years, medicare costs on average are projected to be 25% lower due to the new law. this is happening even as we're adding important new benefits to help people with medicare stay healthy and to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. this year the projected exhaustion date of the medicare hospital insurance trust fund did move forward from last year's projections. this is due in large part to lower payroll tax revenues as a result of the slower th expected economic recovery. it's important to note this is exactly what we've seen in previous recessions. and that, having the affordable care act in place is the main reason that those projecons are not

worse. indeed what the trustee's report shows that the affordable care act has put medicare on a much more sustainable path. because of the law, medicare costs per enrollee are now expected to grow more slowly than gdp per capit, through 2019 after growing much faster than gdp per capita for the last fur decades. still the report shows we have work left to do. every day, nearly 48 million people ourparents, grandparents, neighbors and friends rely on medicare for the medical treatments and prescription drugs they need to stay healthy. to keep medicare strong for them and for their children and grandchildren we need to continue to look for opportunity to slow medicare costs by improving care and reducing waste and fraud. we recently launched the partnership for patients, an existing effort that has brought together hospitals, doctors, nurses employers,

patient advocates and others, to improve the quality and safety of care for all americans. if reach the goals we have set for just this one program medicare will save another $10 billion over the next three years and as much as $50 billion over the next 10 years, as well as saving 60,000 lives. and the president's fiscal framework would build on the affordable care act to save medicare another $200 billion over the next 10 years. whate can't do is follow the republican plan to turn medicare into a voucher program and shift the cost to seniors. underhat plan a typical 65-year-old who becomes eligible for medicare, would pay an extra $6400 a year out of their own pockets for health care. even worse, the plan does nothing to address the main factor driving up medicare spending and other health care spending, are which is the underlying growth in

health care costs. medicare is a promise to all americans that if you work hard, you can retire knowing that your medical bills won't force you into bankruptcy. while our work is not finished, today's report shows that the steps we've taken in the last two years have put medicare on a more ten sustainable course for the future. i would like to now turn over the podium to our colleague, secretary hilda solis. >> good afternoon and thank you for being here today. today we've heard much about the long-term financial outlook of social security and medicare. undotedly challenges remain that threaten both the solvency of these programs and the retirement security of many american workers and beneficiaries who depend on these benefits. program costs are projected to increase significantly through 2035 for mainly two reasons, the rapid increase in reirrelevant toos of the

baby boomer generations and lower birthrates of more recent generations that result in slower growth of the labor force and gdp. furthermore, people are living longer, so while costs of these programsare rising it's critical to recognize contributions of demographic. in addition slowing the growth in projected long range cost of medicare will depend largely on program changes under the affordable care act which will take effect in the coming years. this highlights the importance of making every efrt to ensure that the affordab care act is successfully implemented. the affordable care act extend health care coverage for tens of millions of people who would otherwise not have access to health insurance. and to create a more efficient health care system, the legislation will rein in costs even as we expand and promote quality, not just for medicare beneficiaries but for everyone. while trust fund income and earnings are projected to

cover costs for a few year the trust fund assets will ultimately be used to pay for benefits, benefits like the social security disability insurance, the di trust funds, whh are projected to be exhausted in 2018. this is especially important as the unemployment rate remains unacceptably high. ss of wage income has and continues to be devastating for working families across this country but it also erodes the payroll tax base, the revenues from which are needed to pay current program benefits. the department of labor is playing a critical role in getting the country back to work and has put in place many policies and programs that are providing opportunities for americans to succeed, keeping our workers safe and making sure that working families keep what they earn. these efforts aren't only critical it revitalizing the middle class, they create more revenue for social security and medicare. for instance, we vrl a program called job corps. it is a free education and

training program that helps young people earn a high school diploma or ged to find or keep a good job. the job corps program provides low income youth with skills they need to succeed in career and in life. there is no question that young workers who join the labor market through job rps and other training initiatives fundamentally strengthen social security and medicare programs. we're also working hard to tackle worker misclassification. when workers are properly classified they receive the pay they earn and deserve and for the work that they do and social security and medicare services receive the appropriate taxes that are paid on their behalf. additionally we're also creating opportunities for our workforce development system to partner with state and community-based organizations, businesses serving associations and economic development agencies to expand employment oppornities for people with disabilities. let me be clear. people with disabilities can

and want to work. there's a growing body of evidence that proves that workers with disabilities meet and exceed the job performance of coworkers without them. yet the talent, those with disabilities bring to the workplace, continues to be undervalued. thus, their labor force participation remains lower and their unemployment rate remains very high. increasing the employment of people with disabilities is not only good for them, it's good for social security and for medicare and it's critical to the economic prosperity of our country. the social security and medicare programs provide an important safety net for millions of retired workers and beneficiaries, many of which are lower income and who depend on these benefits to survive. we must act and we must act swiftly to provide smart, viable solutions that will fill the gap between income and costs of these programs. the well-being of our people in the future and prosperity of our country depend on it. thank you again for being

here today. and i'd like to next introduce commissioner esther. >> like to begin by saying that in my opinion this year's report is a better document because of the collegial work of our new public trustees, dr. rieschour and dr. blah house. we went three years without public trustees and we need perspective that we bring. public debate about social security has focused on retirement benefits. from a technical point of view as president oma has mentioned many times, legislative change is relatively straight forward. if congress has the will to make meaningful changes they can do so with high degree of confidence that the program will perform as predicted decades into the future. this year's report is typical. there are no big swings

relating to the oasdi fund. our disability programs are far more complex though than our rerement programs. there is a long history of well intended reforms cause unintended consequences. and i think the risk of that results greater than in the past. congress has allowed ssa's demonstration authority to lapse. it has not asked gao to do the type of research that would support serious reforms. disability legislation predicated on anecdotes or sound bites would be a disservice to beneficiaries and taxpayers. one area that desperately needs reform and want to echo secretary solis here whereby partisan support has been very possible in t past is area of work incentives for the disabled. historically congress has been frustrated by low numbers of people who return to work but it has layered new legislation on top of

old without revisiting the old and made the problem worse rather than better. the complexity of the statutes, deters many beneficiaries who are inclined to try work. one and indicator of this problem is a congress in recent years has appropriated up to $23 million annually just for contractors to explain these complexities to our beneficiaries. it is time for congress to review all statutory work incentives from scratch and ask the simple question, is this the best we can do? we need clear, significant incentives if we want those people who can return to work to do so. the president this year in his budget sent to congress our work incentive simplificati prorofl or wisp, with which would be a good start for bipartisan progress. i urge the house and senate to review this proposed legislation quickly and

schedule hearings on this topic as soon as possible this year. thank you and i will turn now to dr. blahouse. >> well, i'dike to begin, first of all, by thanking secretary geithner for the outstanding work that his team at treasury did in managing this process. adding my thanks to the terrific actuaries at cms and ssa for the outstanding work that they do. thanking secretary sebelius, secretary solis and commissioner astrue as well for terrific work their staffs did throughout the process. i want to most of all thank, dr. riesch 135is er fellow trustee ideal partner in very pressureable experience for me. we report each year on. two programs, social security and medicare. medicare is by far the most

complex, difficult to project of the two programs. social security is a much easier challenge to grasp intellectually. so i will speak about social security and leave medicare for dr. rieschuor. the story in social security, is pretty straightforward. costs are growing in the program at a pretty rap pace and will do so until 2030s as consequence of baby boomers entering retirement. by our projections cost of paying benefits in 2035 will be 17% of the taxable wages that workers earn and total costs will amount to 6.2% of national gdp. before the baby boomers enter retirement in 2007 report, the last one before the boomers began to hit the rolls, these figures were 11 1/2% of taxable payroll and 4.2% of gdp respectfully. you could see we'll have

substantial continuing cost growth in the social security program to the point where mid 2030s, costs will be roughly 50% larger relative to the size of the economy compared to where they were before the baby boomers enter retirement. that much we have long-anticipated. we knew that was coming and we knew it would place financial strains on social security but unfortunately at the same time as the boomers began to enter the retirement rolls we experienced a economic downturn. and so some of these fiscal pressures have arrived earlier than previously anticipated. in 2010 for the first time since the mid 1980s incoming tax revenue began to fall behind outgoing benef obligations. in this year's report we project that these deficits in social security which began last year will be a permanent feature of program finances going forward unless and until legislative correct are enacted. now because of interest payments from the general fund to the trust funds, the

nominal value of the trust funds continues to rise and we project that will continue to be the case through the early 2020s. there are some important caveats to be made about that. one is that in terms of financing benefits, the mina value of a trust funts is probably not quite as importance as duration of benefits the trust funds can finance and presently the costs of paying annual benefits is rising at a more rapid rate than the nominal value of trust funds. so-called trust fund ratio which measures the amount of time full benefits can be paid by the trust funds peaked in 2008. is declining this year and will continue to decline going forward. the other caveat i issue echoes an important point made by secretary solis and commissioner astrue we have more pressing challenges on the disability side of the equation than we have on the retirement side of equation. disability fund is declining

in nominal terms and we project exhaustion of the disability fund by 2018. in this year's report we do not change our view of the long-term fundamentals after affecting social security. none of the long-term assumptions, basic economic or demographic assumptions have been changed relative last year's report. what we have done we updated data for more recent information about longevity trend, trends in immigration, and economic performance. of these the most important to the long-term projections is a change in longevity experience. we'll find th both in the years 2007 thrgh 2010 and going forward, we expect greater advances in longevity an we're anticipated in the 2010 trustees report. indeed much of this is already in the books and has already occurred. as commissioner astrue indicated we do not have a qualitative change this year in social security's long-term out look. at the same time you will see a significant change in

the 75-year acutarial balance f social security. last year this was measured at 1.92% of taxable payroll over 75 years. this year's report has 2.22% of taxable payroll. that is a 30 basis point change. we dot tend to have wild swings in social security finances as commissioner astrue said but this is actually the largest single year deterioration in the 75-year bance we've seen along with a comparable change in the 2009 report since the 1994 social security report. in the end i would just say to all of you, if, there are any of you who don't feel like struggling through the entirety of the medicare and social security trustees reports i would commend to you the messages written collectively by the six trustees and by the two public trustees. they echo the appointments that have been made earlier here today that the earlier we act to strengthen these programs the better off we will be. time is important in the sense that the longer we wait the more our options narrow. of course in the trustees

rert we presen the illustrative nightmare scenario which shows that at the point of trust fund exhaustion in social securitwe would be looking at either a 23% benefit reduction or an increase in the payroll tax rate to the 16.4%. but if we act earlier, we wi not have to face consequences of this magnude and indeed we'll be able to prefentially look after interest of vulnerable low income americans and those already in retirement. i've been heartened to see people on both sides of the aisle their intention to do just that. with that i will yield to my fellow trustee. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm pleased to be here and participate in this process with my fellow trustees. i want t begin by just

making a few comments about the process. as you've been told by several of the other speakers before dr. blah house and i -- blahouse. assumed our responsibility in september of this year, the two public trustee positions had been vacant for three years. so there was no public trustee input to the 2008, 2009, or 2010 report. as major responsibility of the public trustees is to assure that the american people that the financial and acutarial analyses th are contained in these reports are done in a subjective of a manner as possible using the best available data and estimates and employing the most appropriate methodologis. having been emersed in this process now for a bit over six months, dr. blahouse and i feel tha there is no doubt this is the case. one can not be impressed by

the dedication and expertise by the actuaries and their staff. the departmental staffs that support the ex officio trustees and the staffs of the soci security administration. we participated in what was an open, robust and vibrant discussion of the numerous issues that have to be resolved each year as these reports are developed as e-mails flown back and forth, sometimes late at night, we've seen all of the participants have been striving to produce the most accurate possible projections of what our inherently uncertain numbers. we've also been encouraged by the collective effort that has been made to make these reports more trsparent. and the thrust that was spearheaded by commissioner astrue to improve the

aspirational clarity of what tends to be rather dense material. i will turn and make a few comments that relate in a very broadway to the content of these reports. first, i add my voice to what already is a chorus that is emphasized that under current law these vitally important programs are on, are on unsustainable paths. the sooner policymakers address this problem, the less disruptive and, the unavoidable adjustments will be and the greater the possibility for adjusting in a way that is balanced, equitable and measured. well the bottom line message of the 2011 reports are no different from those of previous reports. one can not but be struck by the uncertainty that surrounds the environment in which both social security and medicare operate. while our economy is improving steadily, we live in a very unceain world,

one in which economic developments in europe, potical instability in the middle east, or changed national priorities in asia can have profound repercussions on our economy, our empyment, our growth, and these programs. within our borders we are in the midst of a period of unprecedented innovation in the capacity of medicine and unprecedented amount of experimentation in the way we deliver and pay for health care. the changes are being spurred by many efforts in the private sector and by profound changes in public policy, most notably the affordable care act. because of this turbulent environment, unavoidably there is wide confidence ban around around the estimates for medicare cost for the short and intermedie run,

not to mention the much longer time period. given this reality it is important that the central tendency projections we produce be ones that represent a sustainable future which under the current law is not the case. i want to close by saying that both, on my part and on dr. blahouse's part we look forward to working with the actuary, other trustees and their staffs on future reports and hopefully on policy changes that eventually will put these two programs on a sustainable path. thank you. >> thank you, dr. reischauer. we'll take a couple estion i ask you leave any technical questions to the background briefing we will do after the secretaries and trustees depart. we'll take a couple. up front? >> this is for secretary sebelius. you mentioned some affects

of the affordable care act on medicare. besides the 500 billion that was cut from medicare advantage, what other specific programs are affecting that long-term cost? if you could just explain some of them? >> first of all tere wasn't 500 billion cut from medicare advantage. that is a portion of the reduction in cost increases over time. certainly there are some significant delivery system reforms that are just getting underway, we anticipate significant savings. the accountable care organization structure, the new partnership for patients which i just mentioned which has some cost savings. weave new tools for going after fraud, waste and abuse last year alone produced about $4 billion back into the trust fund. we produced a report yesterday that is available in more detail which,

analyzes about $120 billion worth of savings over the next five years, which are part of the early implementation of the aca and that can give you considerably more detail. >> in the back. >> could you explain the distinction between social security being in deficit and the trust funds being exhausted? is it slightly deceptive to talk about social security running a deficit currently considering it takes in less than it pays out until 2036? >> [inaudible]. can you hear me? good. i'm glad you asked that question. actually in last year's press conference stressed the importance of the media understanding the term exhaustion which means something different to the

actuaries than it does to the average person and that what exhaustion in 2036 this year means that we'll have money to pay a little more than 3/4 of benefits with no other legislative changes. now that's not good. we need to have the congress step up and make changes so that that's not the outcome but that's radically different from, it is totally bankrupt, there's nothing there at all and, is a constant irritation for me picking up the news clips and seeing how often the media reports that exhaustion figure as if there would be no money left in the trust fund. so bless you for asking that question. in terms of the cash flow, i have somewhat similar response. we have moved to, from very slightly positive in several of the coming years to very slightly negative. it is a rounding error in

terms of its significance in my opinion and has no significance in terms of the long-term future of social security. again as i stressed last year, what matters in the long run is the exhaustion date and the percentage of benefits we can pay after exhaustion, whether we are, in terms of points of view of social security, and the stability of the system, there's really, these tiny swings in the grand scheme of things fromone year to another, from slightly cash flow positive to slightly cash flow negative, in my opinion, are not significant for the long-term future of the program. >> we'll go right here in the middle. yep. >> the disability trust fund is a much worse shape than the social security trust fund. both you and secretary solis talked about incentives for returning people to the workforce. in a time of chronic unemployment where a lot of people use the disability

system as pseudo unemploynt insurance system, what are some of thosencentives? >> i think the most important thing is to, to simpli it. if you work through what someone on the rolls who has to, decided to try to go back to work, has to try to master, what the ramificationsre, it's extremely complicated and we know from experience that the difficulty of doing it, and the fear that if they make a mistake that they might forfeit, usually not the cash benefits that matter. it is medicare and medicaid benefits that matter. that is very significant deterrent. simplifying the program and making it clear what happens when you try to go back to work, if you fail what happens and what happens to your medical benefits i think that's a enormously important. and i don't think you could take, certainly i couldn't sit down and explain it to you and get it exactly right in all the technical glory.

and it's not reasonable to expect the public to understand that. so i think the most important thing, go back from scratch. realize that a lot of these well-intentioned statutes from the past are the in conflict wh each other and they're detering people from going back to work. so what we've done in the wisp proposal is given congress a cost neutral example of how that might be done so that the significantly more simple and that the ramifications for health benefits in particular are going to be exponentially clearer to people. and i think particularly as the economy improves that will result in a significant amount of return to work. but let me add one qualification to that because i've had this conversation recently with several members of the media. a significant portion of the disability, disabled population is unreasonable to expect them to go back to work. that's why we have the program in the first place. it is significantly less

than half. for those who can go back to work, we should do it because, it promotes dignity. there are small savings to the public, but it will not significantly change the solvency of the disability fund even if we are successful at the high end of your reasonable expectations in and of itself. the work incentive prrams are not going to change the solvency picture for the fund. >> thanks very much, everybody. thanks to our trustees.

>> coming up later today, remarks from newly announced presidential candidate newt gingrich. that is starting at 7:15 p.m. eastern. you can see live coverage here on c-span. this weekend on american history television, former massachusetts governor and presidential candidate michael dukakis on calvin coolidge and how he involved -- evolves into a popular political figure. then we look at jimmy carter and the 1970's. on sunday, may 22nd, american history tv will be live from mississippi for the anniversary of the freedom riders. get the full schedule at c-

span.org. this c-span networks. we provide coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books and american history. it is all available to you on television, radio, online, and on social median net working sites. finder content online anytime that the c-span -- find our content online anytime at the c- span library. created by cable, provided as a public service. the u.s. navy chief of operations delivered remarks on the future of the u.s. navy earlier today. he spoke about investments in unmanned naval technology as well as structural and operational changes to the service branch. he is the highest-ranking officer in the u.s. navy and one of only two admirals' to have commanded both the atlantic and

the pacific fleets. this is part of an initiative at the brookings institute. it is about one hour. >> hello, i am the director of the 21st century initiative here at the brookings institute. it is my pleasure to welcome you today. the 21st century initiative wrestles with the changing forces acting on the age-old phenomenon of war. these forces ranged from changing technologies to new actors in war, to changing expectations we are placing on our warriors, to changing doctrines and budgets. a little over a year ago, we were honored to be joined by this gentleman, who set before us a vision of how he saw some of the key issues, policies and questions that surround an important new aspect around the discussion of what is changing in this war, the introduction of unmanned systems.

he discussed the navy poster use of new technologies and the development and integration of unmanned systems in the current and future navy force structure, especially on the information side. he also discussed major operational challenges and benefits of these new and rapidly evolving technologies. he dealt with the legal and ethical questions that are starting to come from all of this. it was a fascinating discussion, and what is interesting is that through the power of new technology, that discussion has, in a sense, become a living entity, spreading both geographically but also chronologically. that is, a year and a half later, we continued to get questions from people about that talk, everything from navy lieutenants on ships thousands of miles away to students at the naval war college, to journalists here in d.c. one of the challenges of technology, and i would argue of the water technology world

today, is the incredibly fast pace of change. for instance, in the short time since that discussion, we have seen technologies that were, for example, would be described in the dream stage, now start to take flight. we have several programs vying for a carrier deck unmanned system. the fires out, in the time since we had this discussion, the navy's unmans helicopter went from doing sea trials on the combat ship to a couple of weeks ago declined to afghanistan to support a coalition of folks there -- deploying to afghanistan to support a coalition of folks there. what we're seeing is that by putting this technology in a wider set of hands and uses. this will only continue. as an illustration, last week i

was involved in a war game set in the year 2025, the year a lot of our planning scenarios are heading toward. one thing i had to remind the team that was planning in terms of what the red and blue teams might have at their disposal, was the fact that in the year 2025, the 18-year-old sailor in that space will have been born in 2007, the same year that the iphone was born. the 18 year-old in 2025 will have a very different sense of technology, as well as a very different set of technologies in their hands than the 18-year-old of today. that is already rough for us to wrap our heads around. we were able to do something all too rare in washington, which was to pull back, reassess, reexamine where matters stand and where they're headed. in other words, to take a much needed look at a rapidly changing issue.

we're lucky today to have the 29th chief of naval operations rejoin us for that look. not only did he recess on that journey, but he brings to this discussion a wealth of operational and command experience in the service, including being one of only two officers ever to have commanded the fleets in both the atlantic and the pacific. he has a well-deserved reputation as a thinking leader, dedicated to mentoring the next generation of leaders, including having served as commandant of the naval academy, from which she graduated. finally, he -- from which he graduated. finally, he was the first officer to command both classes of ships. admiral, it is an honor for you to join us -- for us to have you join us here today.

>> i appreciate the opportunity to come back and talk. i apologize for my tardiness. i was in a budget meeting. it is good to be here. the last time we were in the middle of the tdr for 2010, we were putting together the budget for 2011. it seems as if only yesterday i was here, but if you think in the intervening time not only did we lap 2011, we wrapped 3.12, and now we are i 2012 time does fly when you're having a good time. the other change we can see on the horizon, and we can sense we're beginning to get the first buffet's, if you will, of what

is sure to be a very interesting and indeed challenging budget environment. that was the environment as we came together the last time. all of that really is now starting to come to pass. at the time that i was here, we had just kept off on really changing and recasting how the navy was approaching what i call the world of information. the advancing of information as the focal point where we wanted to bring our combat capability, our operational capability into focus in a different way than we had in the past because it was clear to me that we had moved

beyond what i called the primacy of the platforms. the airplane, the submarine, and the ship. and how we focused our budgetary thinking, how we thought about our operations, and indeed, how we even organized ourselves as we made fundamental and significant decisions for the navy. we were at the beginning of that. i am very pleased to say that we have stayed the course. not only have we stayed the course, but we have seen exactly what i had hoped to see, and the benefits that were to be derived from that change in direction. since that time, we changed our staff structure and moved into the director for information dominance by bringing together the director for intelligence and the director for command and control.

that has worked out extraordinarily well for us. we have now gone through two budget cycles, going into the third with that construct. first was rather formative period 2012 i could really see the difference -- first was rather formative. 2012 i could really see the difference in what those decisions cost and what that has produced. not only has the clock on by quickly, but the officer i had been waiting to move into that position for a couple of years as i thought about where i wanted to go has now completed his tour. he has done it brilliantly. the vice admiral, who was a plant owner -- plank owner, the first director of information dominance, is going to pass the

baton to his successor this summer. i cannot say enough about what jack has done to really put that organization in place. he will be relieved by kendall card, who has been his trusty right hand and work force throughout this entire effort. i am very pleased, and i will touch a bit more on the benefits of that. at the same time, we reactivated the u.s. 10th fleet, a feat that first came into being in world war ii after the threat of the boat in the atlantic. it did not have any forces, so to speak. it was taking on a new form of warfare in the way that germany was using the u-boat, and the tent fleet was able in a short time to overcome the threat. the vice admiral has accelerated

the tent fleet faster than i had hoped in my wildest dreams -- 10th fleet faster than i had hoped in my wildest dreams. as he has continued to refine that, we have made some additional changes. he now is the only numbered fleet commander in the navy that has budget authority. we also have put in the rest of our network warfare structure in underneath him, so that we can gain more efficiencies and greater effectiveness as we go forward. then, of course, i think one of the keys to it all is the creation of the information dominance scorer -- dominance corps. it is 45,000 people in the navy. we are beginning to see that we

have been running long enough to where we are now cross-detail in. so, you may have a script colleges commanding a unit that commandingpt apologiologist a unit. we're seeing cross-pollination and a better awareness of the total dynamic taking place. we put our unmanned systems and some of our man systems into a system to better manage the portfolio as an information domain as opposed to things that are done on ships, submarines, and airplanes, and in the course of a normal routine maybe you can integrate them together. there is no question about what we have been able to achieve than where we are now. it would not have been possible without better structuring ourselves, approaching

misinformation dominance concept comprehensively -- information dominance concept country hands of late, and then integrating into that the approaches we have with anti-access aerial denial capabilities. at the time we started down this path, air-sea battle as a concept had not really been fleshed out. it really is in how we have organized ourselves. when we got together with the air force and the marine corps to do air-sea battle, it was a natural fit in how we have organized ourselves, how we were able to look at anti-access aerial denial, because in the world we live in today, most of that is going to be in the information domain in one form or another. so, again, that has allowed us to move ahead. it has not been without challenge. in fact, peter may recall that i

used a favorite machiavelli quote that nothing is more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain of its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. that is just the nature of the beast. i would also say that as we look at where we are today, we have been able to move through that. that is not to say that there are still not areas where we have to do some additional work to better synchronize activity, but i also believe that we are to quote machiavelli again, the tardiness often robs us of possibility. it is going to be important to move in a time to solidify capability, solidified the decisions we of may, and make decisions about the path we want

to be on in the future. i think innovation in the navy is something that we are proud of. we have seen it transformed naval warfare in the past. the fact we are celebrating 100 years of naval aviation is one milestone of that innovation. i also go back in time and think that it was kind of a mix back then as well. i look back with andy on the first stirrings of the idea -- with envy on the first stirrings of the idea, and then flying an airplane off the ship, that we had in three months actually procure the airplane. i wish our procurement process worked that good today to be able to do it. but again, you hit this inertia and six years later there were only 38 aviators in the navy.

again, very slow climb out, but then when world war i came along, that is when you began to see things move. i think that is one case of naval innovation. the other i would submit its nuclear power. that's totally transformed where we can be as a navy, where we can be persistent, and indeed where we can exercise the ultimate stealth. i think the initiatives we are talking about today in information dominance and unmanned systems will fall into that category when we look back on this time. the process we have gone through as we have looked at putting our budget to gather in 2012 not only has it served to capitalize on what we are doing in information dominance, the the

other driving factor we in the navy have focused on is getting our arms around total ownership costs. i think the types of systems that we are acquiring today, if we are not thinking about the total ownership cost, that includes manpower as well, we could be delivering of force that is unaffordable. we have looked very hard at that as we have made our investment decisions, not just in the information dominance area, but across the board as well. i am also pleased that in the 2012 budget, and what we have been setting up over the last couple of years, is really to create some stability, some uniformity in how we're going forward, and if you look at the navy pose a force structure -- navy post a force structure -- navy's force structure, i am

very pleased that all the platform areas are no longer the dominant drivers that perhaps they used to be. the submarine community, for example, this year we moved to building two virginia-class submarines the year. we're now into the design of the replacement of the ballistic missile submarine, the ohio- class, that i consider to be the most survivable leg of the triad. our surface fleet, right before christmas getting the approval to go forward with a buy of 20 combat ships. that ship is going to be very well suited to the environment that i think we will be operating in in the future. restarting the 51 line. building a joint highspeed vessel. some of you may have seen where we have now, in cooperation with the army, we have now taken all of the joint high speed vessels

that had been in the army. now all will be in the navy and operated by the navy. we continue to build the lha and the lpd-17 to address the needs of the marine corps. i think amphibious capability and the ability to the offshore is going to be increasingly important in the years ahead when sovereignty concerns are going to weigh so heavily on countries as they deal with different situations. but i think in the aviation area is where we are a essentially renewing ourselves. joint strike fighter, in this case of the navy proceeding on with that. airplanes are not too far from here undergoing tests. we have continued to procure the super hornet, which is going

to be able to bridge us into the jsf quite nicely. we have tested maritime control aircraft that is the replacement for the p-3. that testing is going very well. in norfolk, we have the advance toch hawkeye, advances the battle space awareness. when coupled with other systems we have in the navy, it really gives us an awareness of the likes of which we have never had before. i might also point out that the e2d does not reside in the aviation portfolio, but rather reside in our information dominance portfolio. two new helicopter series that we have come at the romeo and the sierra. one of the most advanced anti- surface and anti-simmering helicopters on the planet.

but i am also very pleased with what we have been able to do with unmanned. and in a short time span. we did a trial deployment of fire scott, the vertical takeoff uav. there were some exciting moments on the deployment, to be sure. but the thing i have come to thatout about uav's is they do it exactly as they're told, what they're told to do, unlike most naval aviators. [laughter] so all you have to do is make sure you have the code right and you know exactly what it is going to do. no offense to my good friends wearing wings. but since that time, we have pressed them up again on another deployment. it is in support of special operations forces in the middle east, amassing hours and

missions at a very steady rate, a very reliable rate. and, as has also been mentioned, because of the capability of that aircraft, we have deployed some of them into afghanistan to support ground troops. and as we put this unman the price together, the direction that i gave to my people is it has to be flexible. it has to be immovable. it has to be agile. and we are not going to be constrained by saying it is unable capability. it will operate of naval ships. we want to be flexible. if someone says i need a vtuav detachment, you pick it, we will provide that. and it may be on a ship. it may be a short. or it may be on some platform off the coast of some country, which i think gives tremendous the judge over maritime demand

awareness. we continue to fly the bams demonstrator, a broad area maritime surveillance system, in the middle east. it is worth its weight in gold. we deployed the first demonstrator there a couple years ago for a proof of concept. we are wondering where it is, because it has not come back. but i think that speaks to the value of it. and we are continuing that program in our budget, because i think that is going to give us what we need. i was extraordinarily pleased with the flights of the x47b, the carrier version of our uav. it is a flying wing. some of you may have seen the clip it off lights went very well. the airplane performed very well. the landing was dead-on, which

in carrier aviation is critically important. because you do not have a lot of real estate to work with. and we remain committed to getting a squadron of u-class aboard an aircraft carrier by 2018. and we're going to press to do that. so good focus there. the control system for the u- class is in a king air and hornet surrogate so it can continue to refine that process. what for us is a bit more challenging and environment than for most, because of the extraordinarily dense electromagnetic environment around our ships at sea. so that is the capability and a future of unmanned systems that we pay a great deal of attention to. i would also say that, you know, so, naval aviation, i think, is

a pretty exciting place. if you are a young sailor officer coming into naval aviation today, you're looking at an entirely new fleet. the point i make about everything that i have just listed, at a time when budgets are going to be very, very challenging, you can touch everything i talked about. you can physically put your hand on it. which i am pleased that when -- that we have been able to do, because those things that exist in powerpoint may have a problem crossing the valley of death. i think those of us who have been in the business can understand how challenging that can be beat up so, please do that. i am also very pleased that we have been able to keep the press on in unmanned underwater systems. in the session that i had here a couple of years ago and in different venues where i have had the opportunity to speak

about unmanned systems, i have challenged the technical community, the research community, the academic community to give us power. in unmanned underwater systems, a shade -- safe, shipboard, long duration power is the point of the realm. i have been extraordinarily pleased with the response that we have received and some of the directions that we're now beginning to see in that technology. i am also pleased with some of the tests that we have run with network unmanned underwater systems that i think will have the potential, if we do it right, of changing the underwater domain. so the fact that when we talk unmanned, we tend to look up at the sky. i looked under water, because that is an area where you can truly change naval warfare.

i would just say that some of the challenges that i think we face, and i talked about, you know, tardiness and how that could take away opportunity, the need to compress the cycle, compress the time line of being able to take concepts, to be able to take test vehicles, and get them out there, that compression is going to become increasingly important. i have worked over the last couple of years to make sure that we're not injecting more time in the process than we have to, particularly as we take it through what i think our link the developmental and operational tests and evaluation processes. i think we have to be able to do that. we have to have a very serious discussion, as we are in the navy, about what the band width

requirements are, what the network requirements are, and as new systems come on, it is great that we're designing a new system that can do x, y, or z, but if you're relying on existing networks to do that, existing data links, they're pretty well saturated. particularly when you're dealing with the maritime environment where our pikes going on and off ships are somewhat more restrictive than what you may find in terrestrial applications. so taking a good hard look at that, taking a look at the architectures that we want to have in place. also examining, in the navy, how we would be introducing these into our fleet. and we have not elected to develop separate organizations that will deal with our unmanned systems, particularly on the aviation side.

the original plan, as these were first envisioned, was to be able to put separate squadron's together of vtuav or u-class or the bams, for example. i cannot afford the overhead, and i think the overhead is excessive when we do that. so you'll see, in the navy, dtuav's becoming part of helicopterb squadrons ofams becoming a part of the p-8 squadrons. we are operating the mine that integrated way and to think of the battle space not as then unmanned mission or manned position, but how you bring the two together. the other thing that will be important as we go for, and this is sometimes more challenging than in may appear on the surface, is how can we fail well, how can we realize that we are writing something that is not paying off for us, divest of

it, and get out of it cleanly, and move on to something else without penalty? and this system in which we work, i think those who have worked during the system know that that can be one of the hardest things to do in washington. to admit that something is not working, that the money that was invested was invested with a due diligence, but that the technical leap we were trying to make did not deliver. and therefore, we knew for work, no harm, no foul. let's get on with it and do something else. i think if we want to be truly innovative, we have to get beyond the impediment that keeps us from being able to do it. some of the other work that we're doing, particularly with a group that i have chartered at our war college in newport that works for me, the strategic studies group, a group that

reconstitutes every year, about a dozen or so bright navy captains and an air force colonel, marine colonel, and a coast guard capt on there, is to look at different things that are of interest to me. i personally write the tasking letter, which consists of less than a page, to them. it is their work that delivered on our unmanned focus and delivered on the creation of n2- 6 and the tin fleet and the information dominance corps. last year, they did some work on directing energy. this year, they are working on new computing environment for the navy. because i was struck that when i pulled my droid out of my pocket and then i look at the big computer i have sitting on my desk, i can extract more and do more with that little thing i hold in my hand. so what i have a charter them to do is to talk to me about how we

can rethink how we move information and how we are able to tap into information in a very, very secure way. i will not go into the business of the navy today, because what i have been talking about is the future. but suffice it to say, we have been rather busy, and i think that what we have also done in the last couple of months is it reaffirmed the strategy that we issued with the coastguard and marine corps about three and a half years ago. i always get the question, you know, is the strategy going to be rewritten? if you recall, a strategy calls for six capabilities that we want to be able to field. we want to be global. we want to be a deterrent force with our nuclear deterrent, but

also with our conventional force structure. exercise sea control, project power, conduct maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster response. someone at a venue not unlike this asked me that question, when are you going to rewrite the strategy? that question happened to be asked when i knew what we were going to do in libya, but it had not been out in the public yet. so i thought about that question. i said, let's see, deterrent forces on patrol, as it has been for decades, two air carrier sitting in the north arabian sea. as you see changes sweeping off the middle is, not a bad conventional deterrent force down there. i knew what we would be doing in libya, projecting power, controlling the sea and the access to the ports there, sea control. further to the east, we were conducting a counter-piracy operations of the coast -- off

the coast of somalia, with a strange group of countries to include china, russia, and india. every once in awhile, iran comes down and spends a little bit of time there. that is a maritime security. then, at the same time, we had the ronald reagan strike group that was enroute to a combat deployment in centcom that hold off on one day's notice and provide humanitarian assistance into japan. and so if we question the relevance of the strategy, the capabilities that we continue to see employed around the world, that one snapshot in time kind of captured at all. the question for us now is how do we advance the capabilities, how do we anticipate the future? how do we properly develop the human capital that will operate these new systems? and then how do we control the total ownership costs? that is where i spent a lot of

time thinking. so with that, i will stop. i have spoken far too long. i look forward to your questions. [applause] >> why don't you join me here, ok? i am going to use the moderator as well by asking the first question. >> so you quoted perhaps the greatest italian philosopher of machiavelli. i am going to counter with the greatest american philosopher mark twain. >> by the way, i have him loaded on my droid. [applause] -- [laughter] >> he said that history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

i appreciated the way you referenced certain parallels in terms of technologies that had previously transformed naval warfare, such as plain and nuclear power. i wanted to be press you to dig a little bit deeper for us in terms of your views on two questions. one is, where, in the history of those parallel technologies and experiences, and you think we might be today? the second is, what are the lessons that you draw from those experiences, both in terms of may be positive choices they made back then or false pathways they went down into? one of the lesson to draw out of this, other than perhaps we need to find a great, great grandson of that navy contract officer back in 1911 who figured out how to get a new airplane out there in three months? what are the larger ones? >> i think when you ask the question, where do i think we

are -- if i could go to naval aviation, i would say that we're probably in 1938, 1937. we have the concepts. we have the tools, if you will. but the leaders in 1938 probably did not envision midway, which was really, in my mind, the real advent of carrier aviation, not just on the part of the u.s. navy but also on the part of the japanese imperial navy. so i think that we had the things we need, but how it all

comes together and how you use it in conflict really did not come to pass until then. so i think we are moving down that path. i believe we are putting some structures in place. we're developing the skills. we're now starting to begin to develop the numbers of people who are truly becoming quite expert in that. as i go around and visit our young operators in the information-dominance area, they're pretty good. but how does it all synchronize? so i think that we are, you know, kind of on the edge of jumping into that. i would it been like to go to the nuclear power analogy. i think that is one of the greatest stories of perseverance and bringing new technology,

quite frankly, very disruptive technology into an organization that ultimately transformed naval warfare. what i would like to be able to take away from that is the discipline with which we did then and continue to operate that capability, because i do believe that even though we want, in the world of information, to allow the innovation to flow because of the security issues, the same type of discipline and process. and as we train very high end operators, you know, what are the expectations, standards, and what are the steps we take those people through? i kind of blended the answer a little bit, but i think those are some of the things that we really need to think about. because it trudging back on that

the security piece, we have looked long and hard, for example, at how you use information -- some of the new medium's and applications, and you immediately are drawn into the security dimension. so how do you balance the benefit and the security? order the protocols? to i think that's we tend default very hard on the security side. i think that is part of the usage. when the navy have gone through that, we have become quite avid advocates for the use of social media in how we move things around. and does so i think that is an area where we have got to get the protocols, the security, the standards right, but not lose

sight of it. just as a current example, in the last days i have been getting up in the morning, and i get great reports from people in the field about, you know, we did this, and this is the status. i have been watching the water come down the mississippi. why do i watched that? we have a base last year that is all of our personal activity that flooded out. it shut the navy personnel system down. i am getting great reports from the commanders, but i go on the facebook page, and i can find out exactly what is going on in real time and what people are doing about it and how they feel about it. and the level of anxiety that exists. and i cannot pull the from a normal report. so how do we want to use that sort of idea or technology? it is pretty exciting, actually. thank you. >> we have lots of questions.

what i would like to ask is what for the microphone, please introduce yourself, and here, all questions in with a questionsmark. [laughter] >> i am from aviation week. there was a lot of concern about whether the technology you are investing in was very important during the libyan operation, and i think the cyber operations -- were there in that cyber and electronic attacks used there to validate your need for that against what many considered as the third great power? >> let me touch on the electronic attack first, if i could. i am going to fog the cyber business a little bit because of not wanting to get into areas that i should not.

but electronic attack -- i would submit that a story of the value of electronic attack but also the agility of it. my view is, when you talk about a third great power, i do not consider our aviators flying into an air defense system of the third great power in the less critical than going into an air defense system of a high-end power. i think it has to be taken very seriously. because of the proliferation of systems that we see around the world. my sense is that you're always going to have to go in and affect that system electronically before you do anything can medically to it. as you know, we, in the last couple years, have been directed, and we very much

wanted the mission to take up the broader electronic attack mission, and that led to the additional procurement of the growlers that the navy had. the first growler squadron deployment into iraq, the recover from a combat mission in iraq. 47 hours later, they launched a combat mission into libya from an airbase in italy. that is pretty extraordinary as far as the agility and the capability to do that. it would have been better to not have to move that squadron, but that is why we are investing in growlers. at the electronic attack is going to become increasingly important. it figures prominently into our information dominance portfolios, not just in electronic attack that is carried on board our airplanes, but also the electronic swedes

that we're continuing to advance on our surface ships and submarines i do, on the cyber side, i do believe that, whether it is a submarine or ship or airplane, but particularly a submarine, i think, can be an extraordinary system. in which to participate in this cyber operations, particularly the way we tend to rely more and more on mobile capability. so i think that those are areas that we have focused on, that we're putting significant investment into, and it is a major part of what we're doing. >> [inaudible] -- in libya, and they have improved -- proved themselves valuable. >> yes. [laughter] >> ok, right there. >> i am every tired navy

officer and consultant on chinese security affairs -- i am a retired navy officer. imagine machiavelli so often, but you said the tardiness robbed us of opportunity, yet you seem to be satisfied with 2018 for the carrier's. i kind of associate, may be incorrectly, some urgency someuks with the chinese asbm. is that the best we can do? is that what we should stick with? do you make that association? >> i think if i have any of my staff in here, when there is an ioc beyond 2013, they know i become pretty irate over that. no, but i think that what we're doing is, particularly moving on to u-class, i think that if we

can deploy a squadron of those on board an aircraft carrier in the next seven years, given where we are today, given the environment in which we will -- as i said, the electromagnetic environment of the carrier, the nature of everything else that is still going on on the aircraft carrier, where we are with uclasss, the fact that we're stipulating that we want a squadron on board, that is pretty rapid. i am not saying yes dissatisfied with it. but that type of technology, and the application of that technology is at a very good clip. at the same time, continuing to invest in the types of capabilities that we are with the jsf, the additional super hornet, and keeping all of

those investments balanced, i am satisfied with that. but if someone were to come in and say, i will give it to you in 2016 at the same price, i will take them up on it. >> some folks further in the back there. >> i am from the technology group. a couple decades ago, there was a concept of the arsenal ship. a combat vessel that would be largely unmanned and heavily weaponed. since then, the technology has advanced considerably. so is there any interest in revisiting the concept, to take another look at it? >> i would say that what you saw employed in libya is not a bad arsenal ship. it was the ssgn. it happened to be in the mediterranean at the time and was able to, you know, quite a

few missiles in toward libya. but to the point of a surface ship that would be an arsenal ship, no. again, you have to look at all of the capabilities that we have in place and the nature of the developmental costs that we are dealing with. the fact that we can now integrate our systems and such that, i think, the future is going to be very realistic for one ship to be shooting off of somebody else's information. so i think we will see the type of concept arsenal ship was envisioned to have, but at the present time, taking a blank sheet of paper and designing an arsenal ship is not in my plan

right now. >> i want to push a low bit further on the idea as you noted that we are getting to the ability to shoot off of someone else's knowledge. one of the keys with in the battle doctrine is not just that kind of exchange of information in terms of targeting, but also the inverse in terms of vulnerability, depending on someone else to guard your systems. particularly, such as an air defense, or the like. and a to go back to the prior question on ballistic missiles. are you satisfied right now with where we are ad in the exchange of information, not just with in the maritime environment, but perhaps across services within that air/sea battle doctrine and what it envisions? >> the air/sea battle process and integration was quite

remarkable. the openness that the services had -- the navy and marine corps are pretty open, because we're all working off the same budget. but in the case of the air force and the navy, our teams were integrated. we opened programs to one another that had never been opened for one another before. so the ability to go forward together and look at where there is a gap, where there is redundancy, where you want redundancy, where you think you have to have increased capacity, all of that has been a very, very openly that it -- vetted, and i believe we have been able to make far better decisions than we would have if we stayed on the old path. i was pleased with that.

>> right there. >> john harper. had you seen the evidence that the chinese are working on uav's, and are you concerned about the potential of that happening? >> there's no question in my mind that china, as well as many other countries, are working on uav visa -- uav's. they have captured the imagination. and not only are the countries that have the more technologically advanced military's working on them, but you can go and buy them from somebody else if you want to. so i think uav's are here tuesday and a to be advanced. i would also submit -- are here to stay and to be advanced. i would also submit that the key will not only be to get a good vehicle, but how do you move the

information, how do you send the information? and then, how does that information find its way into the operational decision making or entity kinetic result that you are seeking? so having -- the thing that i look at is, the fact that somebody has a uav is interesting. how is it being used and network? then, what are the capabilities? it is one thing to have it. it is another thing to use it effectively. so that is where my interest goes. as soon as i get a sense that somebody has a uav, i try to dig in deeper to see how it is being used. and quite frankly, what are the potential vulnerabilities? because that is part of the game as well. i think we tend to take a lot of weapons developments and think in terms of, you know, it exists, therefore i am at a

disadvantage as opposed to it exists, therefore how do i seek an advantage? that is part of how we have to look in naval warfare, particularly in the information world. there are a lot of benefits to be gained, but there are also vulnerabilities almost at every turn. >> as a writer, i cannot resist the other 44 other nations besides the u.s. that using robotics. so that historic parallel you laid out of naval aviation, in many ways, another part of that is the wrestling everyone is going through to try to figure out what the best doctor in is for utilizing the. i think we have time for one more question. right there. actually, we need to get an air force guy a chance. [laughter] >> colonel david with the office he of naval assessment. as we walked through couple transformations the navy has gone through as far as aviation,

through nuclear power. one significant one was part of the battleship. i was wondering if you'd comment on what may happen with the carriers, looking into the future, particularly if it is challenged by these range capabilities? were you see, particularly the super carrier, as we move into the future? >> one, it is how you look at the carrier. how do you look at how the carrier is employed and the totality of the systems, defensive systems, and offensive systems that it has? i know that there is a great deal of interest in the carrier vis-a-vie, the df21. that is the big question. and how the carrier now becomes vulnerable. the carrier is unmovable.

the carrier is maskable. and then there is a whole set of defensive systems that are able to be employed. i would submit, and you would expect it from somebody wearing this uniform, put me on that as opposed to a fixed land-based, where i can tell you exactly where the court and its art, and they're not going to change. and so, i think it is interesting that we have the questions about the carrier when the fixed plant sites -- fixed land sites, which are extraordinarily vulnerable, are not part of the question. it is not a question of either/or, it is how you maximize both of them. with regard to the carrier, and i will kind of step back and put a different spin on in, i think of carriers as movable sovereign

airfields that we do not have to have permission to move. we do not have to have basing rights. we do not always have to have over-flight rights, particularly coming from comingsea and the area we're interested in as the coastal area. the question to me becomes -- where does the nation want to have the ability to have these flexible air fields that we can put wherever we want them and can move them rather quickly? you can move from the arabian gulf and into the adriatic, because i have done it before, in seven days. and to be able to move that amount of power, that power projection, that quickly without any guilt -- without any negotiations having to take place, i would submit is an

aspect of the military that the nation may find helpful. even in -- as you look into the future and the challenges that may be posed against it. you know, we have been dealing with disabilities and systems that are a raid against an aircraft carrier really since the beginning of aircraft carrier aviation. they have moved from other ships, other aircraft carriers, submarines, air defense systems, cruise missiles, and that is all part of how warfare develops. development occurs, and you develop counters to it. i think we will be working our way through it. the fundamental question for me is, do you want to have the ability, as a nation, when sovereignty concerns will become more acute in my opinion in the future, do you want to have those sovereign airfields' that you can but were you need them

to be, where you can use them to deter or shirt? that is how i think of the aircraft carrier. >> we're getting to our closing time. their two thoughts that i have here. one is that when we talk about the determinants of success, the first -- and navigating these types of revolutions in that new technologies. the first is the ability to keep our eyes on the horizon. that is, to be aware of what is coming at us, but also to be able to mind the lessons of the past. i think we have seen that here today. the second is one of the major determinants of success is something that does not change, and that is good leadership. i am thinking of the historic parallel of moffett and the story of naval aviation. often, leaders that may not come from that particular background but have combination of ambition and drive to get things done

often determines whether we really achieve success. i think with those two things in mind, it is very lucky for us that we had you serving in our nation's service. but also that you have joined us here today to discuss these challenging issues with us. please join me in thanking him. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> coming up tonight, republican presidential candidate newt gingrich's speech to the georgia republican party convention. the former house speaker announced he is running for president on wednesday through twitter. tonight, he returns to his home state tuesday to the georgia gop. >> this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, former massachusetts governor and presidential candidate michael dukakis on calvin coolidge and how he evolves into a popular political figure. i look back at jimmy carter in his handling of the energy crisis of the 1970's. we'll talk about the long-term restoration of the treasury building. on sunday, may 22, american history tv will be live from mississippi for the 50th anniversary of the freedom riders. get the complete weekend schedule at c-span.org/history or have it e-mailed to you by pressing this c-span alert

button. >> next, congressman ron paul of texas and 2012 republican presidential candidate, the congressman formally announced his candidacy in new hampshire, site of the nation's first presidential primary held in february. [applause] ♪ [cheers and applause] >> thank you. we're on the schedule. that was very nice. jim, thank you. i am pleased to call jim senator. thank you for your efforts. i want to acknowledge all our

special guest behind me. thank you for attending. and thank you all for coming. i am so delighted to see you involved in our revolution. [cheers and applause] i have one update about the revolution. the revolution is spreading and the momentum is a building. [applause] our time has come. it has been around for a long time, but the momentum is here today, not because of what i have done. i happened to have been in an important place and energy raised some. but it is necessary that the grass roots people understand what the issues are. a generation of people need to know, and i am delighted that the young people are with us in this revolutionary spirit that we have.

[cheers and applause] but a lot of other work has been done. it has been the intellectual world. i am convinced that a nation does not change just for partisan political reasons. what has to happen is there has to be an intellectual revolution to energize people and get people to understand the problems, from economic and political terms, as well as foreign policy. that is what has been happening now for quite a few decades. there is quite a bit of difference about attitudes about economics and foreign policy today, as it was in 1976 when i was first elected. there is a big difference, and it involves a lot of work from a lot of people, and now that so many people in this country have come to understand that government, so far, its pretense that it can take care of us from cradle to grave and police the

world, it is so evident to this growing number of people that government is not the solution. government really has created a problem. [cheers and applause] now our opponents often like to say, oh, you people do not want any government. but, you know, in our society, with our constitution, there is a role for government. if the constitution was written explicitly not to restrain your behavior and your life and the way you spend your money. it was written to restrain the federal government. [cheers and applause] but because of the educational effort and the work that so many have done, but also the strong evidence that there is a failure

out there, especially since we saw what happened with the housing bubble, and that was predictable that the housing bubble would burst, and it did as the free-market economist predicted. because of all this, they have come together, and people are now listening to this revolutionary spirit that is spreading across this country. [applause] it is great that i am able to announce in this state, a very special state, because there is such high respect for the spirit of liberty here, so i am very, very pleased that i am once again able to say that i am a candidate for the presidency. [cheers and applause]

>> there are many who would like to belittle this effort, but let me tell you, there is an old saying, 3 is a charm. [laughs] [applause] the conditions have certainly changed, even from four years ago. when i think back to the first year that i came up here, and must have been like the end of 2006, 2007, and the atmosphere was a lot their friend. there was a 2006 election and the 2008 election, and it did not make all of us who believe

in liberty all that happy. but i will tell you what, there has been a significant change. the people have awoken, and they have sent a message, elected a lot of new people to your state legislature. and i will tell you what, i am contends that the spirit of liberty is alive and well in new hampshire. -- i am convinced that the spirit of liberty is alive and well in new hampshire. [applause] you know, there's a lot of talk about what you should seek in the president. and i am not one that is prone to talk about i do this -- i will do this -- but i can talk generically about what i think the president should be able to do and should do. one thing the american people want, and i agree with them, they want a strong president. there is no doubt about that. but the question you should ask -- where should those strengths be directed? should the strength of a

president be directed towards building the tsa and a homeland security at a policing the world? no, the strength and the character of the individual should be directed toward standing up for freedom, standing up for liberty, and a restraining government. that is where the strength should be. [cheers and applause] there has been a lot of challenges already today and yesterday and this last week because of certain positions. i find one very fascinating and sending other candidates may well deserve. that has to do with the drug issue. because it is so symbolic of understanding what liberty is all about. when you think of my position, my position is that you have a right, our freedom of choice with your bodies. that, i believe, is the basic principle of liberty.

what does that mean? if you have a civil liberties and a right to your life and write your property -- well, it means you can make very, very important choices. and for most of these, most americans agree with. they say, yes, the most important thing in my personal life is that i and my family and others, we make our decisions about our spiritual lives. and about our salvation, which cannot be done by government. and we have to provide the maximum amount of freedom for individuals to make the decisions. so the government should always butt out of our spiritual lives. [applause] also, intellectually, we're fairly good at that. the political correctness movement has tried to undermine it, but basically, most americans believe in the first amendment and say that we have a right to talk about controversial issues. as i have often said, the first

amendment was not written for us to be able to talk about the weather. [applause] it is written so that we can discuss controversial issues and actually read very controversial and very dangerous literature, especially the literature that promotes big government and welfareism and socialism and all of that. we recognize that to be the case. but all of a sudden, people have lost the respect for liberty, the understanding of liberty, and we have conceded way too much to the government to decide what we put into our own bodies. if we can control what goes into our spiritual life, what goes into our intellectual life, why should we concede to the government that they decide everything that we do with our own bodies? [applause]

i take a strict constitutional position, and the government as a very little authority to get involved in our economic or our personal lives. so that excludes the federal government from being involved if and when we become straight constitutionalists. but that does not prohibit the states from doing some of the things that they do. even though we might disagree with it at the national level, under the national law, states have more prerogatives and more choices. but if we look at education as an example, the constitution gives no authority for the federal government to run our educational systems, and they shall not be doing it. [cheers and applause]

but at the state and federal level, what we should be guaranteeing is the protection of freedom of choice. we should always be aware of the fact that if it is very important that individuals who want to opt out, , whether it is obamacare or the educational system, we have to protect the rights of individuals to home school and go to private schools as well. [applause] now this freedom of choice should lead to other choices about what we put into our bodies. for instance, your right to take things into your body such as nutritional substances should never be regulated by the federal government and absolutely never regulated by the united nations. [applause]

and i do not know what is so bad about getting the federal government out of the business of regulating unpasteurized milk. that is a real radical thing. so why should we be so intimidated? if they want to use the issue of somebody using hard drugs as the reason we have to give up all our freedoms, it is wrong. it is better to defend the position that says you do have freedom of choice and what you do with your body, but you also have to have responsibility for what you do. and if you do harm to yourself, you can then go crawling to the government to penalize your neighbor to take care of it. [applause] i see this position of the government controlling all those decisions as detrimental to progress in medicine. so often there are alternative treatments for cancer and other diseases that are not approved for years and years because we

have to have the fda, which is controlled too often by other drug companies, designing -- deciding when and what we can do. we, as individuals, making decisions with our own physician, should be allowed to decide about our alternative care as long as people are up front and tell you the truth and tell you the risks and cannot defraud you. [applause] so in all i just explained about personal choices and everything i have done in politics, i have never introduced a bill in washington, d.c., to emphasize heroin. [laughter] so they take all of what i said and turn it around and say he would legalize heroin. well, you know, the plain truth is that heroin at one time was legalized and there was essentially no abuse of it. it is only in our recent history. the was a long time in our

history that marijuana was legalized. i happened to have a personal real disgust with the abuse of drugs, but it is all drugs. i think physicians prescribe way too much medication and get too many people addicted. [cheers and applause] now the line that caught a little bit of attention down in south carolina was when this came up and the wanted to paint me as this monster about heroin, and i did not get a chance to say, well, i have never mention that word. i talk about liberty and freedom. but the interpretation is correct that i do want people to make choices. so in my less than 30 seconds left to make my point, i said, all right, if it would happen to become legal, how many of you would all of a sudden be using

heroin? he would all become heroin addicts. no, people make decisions, and they make good decisions for the most part. what i do not like is when the government makes the decision and it violates the principles of liberty. it is a blanket decision and affects everything that we do to the point where you do not even know if you are allowed to drink the milk that you can buy from your neighbor farmer. [applause] so when they challenge you and say that -- and want to paint a negative picture, stick to your guns, defend liberty, defend the free choice is, defend our constitution, the fend states rights to the regulations, if necessary, as they are. alcohol, there are a few regulations on alcohol. it is different in different states, but a at least there are devastates that handle this.

and children are generally protected. and alcohol, you know, the kids in high school today can get hold of marijuana easier than they can get hold of alcohol. it is not like you just turn it loose and a dump it into the streets. ultimately, even that does not solve the problem. what really solves the problem is good family relationships. families that teach their kids what is right and wrong. [applause] now because of my understanding of the constitution and economic and moral policy, i have taken a position for as long as i can remember, since i have been in congress since 1976, so it is nothing new, and that is that i do not like the federal agencies breathing down our neck and regulating our property, even under the guise that they're there to take care of us and help us. for this reason, i had opposed

the federal government insurance programs, because they cause moral hazard. and the one they quizzed me on today was the insurance is that take care of everybody in the midst of an natural disaster. well, natural disasters are very, very bad and very damaging. and i believe that they can be taken care of without the federal government going further into debt. but through the system of liberty and separate governments and state government -- because, the pointabout flood insurance u cannot buy private insurance because it is dangerously too expensive. they have to tax you in north carolina so someone can have a beach house in texas. they want to turn that into saying he did not care about people suffering from a natural disaster. free-market economics and law

helps us sort these problems out. if you want to build a house on the beach and you love it, buy insurance. you cannot prove that is giving you an important economic lesson by saying it is dangerous to live on the beach. the people that do not live on the beach should not have to pay for those of us who live there and get a guarantee from the government. another worry -- in other ways, our society and country has been great. we have been generous. people get hurt -- in this country we help people, but around the world. when there are earthquakes, we have been very generous. that is going to end because our economic policies are destroying our wealth. we will not have any money to take care of ourselves, let alone help the world.

i am convinced if you think these things through, if you figure out how the free market, sound economic policy, the constitution will help us. does that mean no government? the government should be providing sound currency. they should not be destroying your property rights. they should be protecting your property rights. obviously, one of the most important property rights we should always defend is the right tone a weapon to defend ourselves. other questions that have come up have to do with foreign

policies, and it should be expected, because i am so radical, i want to go back to the constitution and heavy foreign policy which is a pro- american foreign policy and not do things that were not authorized to do. because the status quo, including many republicans in the past, have drifted over the assumption that we have to be the policeman of the world. i cannot think the american people would fully endorse the idea, because in recent history are candidate in the year 2000, he ran on a hubble for policy, not going into nation-building. of course, that is what i am running on, but i believe it and we should do it. a lot of people would like to label us who believe in that, you are a bunch of isolationists. if you believe in freedom of

choice, he believed in trading with other people, leaving you have the right to buy goods from anybody you want, it is your money, why can you buy the cheap goods? you do not have to be an isolationist. it means we stay out of the internal affairs and conflicts and civil wars and the religious civil wars, especially going on in the middle east. i do not believe we have to believe -- i do not believe we have to be involved in that. it brings us down financially. we have to reassess it and have a new foreign policy. a little trick here, when that policy brings bad events to ourselves, like 9/11, it is the will to say if we would not have had that for a policy that we had, we would not be under such

attack. you cannot handle that easily, because we have been attacked. there are limits. no matter how many mistakes we have made, when a country is attacked, a president and a congress should respond. for that reason, i responded by voting for the authority in 2001 to go after the individuals involved and responsible and go and get the al qaeda. what happened was the authority was abused. it was abused and ignored. the authority to go after osama bin lawton was ignored at tora bora. we thought maybe they are out cut back -- they are al qaeda and there are nuclear weapons aimed at us, so we have to fight this war in iraq. we end up with 10 years and

thousands of our people being killed. tens of thousands have been wounded with serious injuries. there is information coming out that the persian gulf war syndrome, with the first persian gulf war, is going to have massive numbers of people with those conditions coming back. head injuries. we have a big, big problem on our . trillions of dollars, and to go after a group of people who deserve to be gone after, the cost as far as i'm concerned is way too high. although i supported that authority, i had deep reservations and fear when it would be misused. i was looking around for another option, and that is when i

reviewed what i have learned about the constitution, and they have a provision in the constitution that we can have a narrow defined war. since we cannot declare war against a government when they are a band of criminals attacking us, that is when they provided the principal of a letter of marque and reprisal. that is targeting enemies cannot go after them come and get them. the good example of how this might work is what ross perot did. when he had some of his employees taken into hostage in iran, he did not go to the federal government and say, go in, attack, to declare war. he got special forces, he got his people in there, and got them out and brought them out. if this principle had been and greinke in our system and we used it, we could have a well-

paid $500 million or $1 billion to capture the individuals responsible, and yet of course we did not do that. that would have been cheap compared to the trillions of dollars that we are involved in now. only do i see some of that in the conflict and not doing well, every time we occupy a country, every time we killed a civilian, and it continues. when we lot these bombs the pakistan, civilians get killed. the ticket angry at us -- we -- they get angry at us. the taliban is not al qaeda. they are a group of people who are determined that they do not want any foreign occupation. that is their religious and political belief. we joined them when they were so annoyed with the soviets occupying afghanistan, but we were on the side of those who said no occupation. it should not be so unusual for us to come to the conclusion

that if we are involved over there, that they would not turn on us, and that is what happened. if you want to demonstrate the futility of our foreign policy, the about pakistan. we are lobbing bombs, innocent people are getting killed, maybe a taliban person is getting killed, arguing he wants his country back, and be given billions of dollars. we give them money. i used to say our problems in this country is we have only two for policies -- one give them money if they do what we wanted to do. the other, we bomb them if they do not. this time we are doing both. it goes back to the constitution. not only is this a detriment to us militarily and for our national security. it is a great detriment to us economically. he cannot ignore these dollars

that we're spending. i see politically the real opportunity is cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of the military industrial complex that does not help our national defense. [cheers and applause] then we do not have to take this politically unpopular stand that many have on our side and say what we need to do is cut medical care for the children. that is not a good point to make. it is more difficult. i think all programs should be cut. i do not vote for them because they are once the constitution, but i think emphasizing because of overseas, you could alleviate these problems and a political way that would be more and more acceptable. this is going to be worked out in congress today. they're trying to figure out whether we should raise the national debt. they are arguing if we do not, like if we did not come to the rescue and bail out all the rich

guys in 2008, it will be a depression. it would have been a depression for wall street, but the depression was dumped on the people instead. [applause] instead of making the correct economic policy changes, lower taxes, a sound currency, a property taxes, what do we do. we have all these problems from too much spending and taxing and regulation and bar wing, too much printing money, and we are in trouble now. the bubble has burst. we now have to work harder. more money, spend, regulate more, and for the more money, and guess what -- we are not out of the recession. we are still in the recession and it is going to get worse. the foreign policy is related

because it is a significant part of it. inflation this year. it is very important that we define inflation way the free- market economists do. inflation is when they print money to increase the money supply. the consequence of inflating a monetary system will be higher prices. unpredictable, where the money goes, when it happens, to what degree, because there's a lot of elements built in. inevitably, when you devalue the currency, the prizes will allow and we are at the beginning of a big siege on inflation. they say we have to vote for that that increase. by the way, i am not going to vote for the debt increase. their argument is it would be a disaster if we default.

it is a disaster if we default. but we are in the midst of a default, and we have done it before. we defaulted the with the continental press, the greenbacks, in the 1930's when the people were denied their gold from the gold bonds and the gold was confiscated. in 1971, the promise -- we said we were broke and we cannot do it in a war. they are talking about the defaulting and will not be enough cash. they're brought to print the money, the debt will be raised, it will continue to print the money which means they are going to devalue your dollar and if you have a savings account or a treasury bill, if you have $1,000 in debt this year, and right now prices are going up

near 10% a year, in one year, you could lose $100 out of $1,000 bracket it will be a lot worse than that. that is a default. they do not count it that way. that is just price adjustment. it is a the laws of red policy of the federal reserve to depreciate the currency. that is why our dollar since 1913 has lost 90% of its bite. that is dishonest, immoral, unconstitutional, and a reason why we should get rid of the federal reserve. [cheers] there is a lot of reasons why we should not have a central bank. it is not authorized in the

constitution. bad economic policy. one issue that really is dangerous to our cause of liberty is that it allows the expansion of government. if we did not have a fed to buy the debt, we do not have to be responsible because ultimately the federal reserve will keep the interest rates from going up even when we cannot tax and borrow. the reserve will print the money and keep the rate slow. is there to do that. that facilitates the growth of government, whether it is a government to fight wars we should not be in war fighting and providing cradle to grave and the natomas systems. the fed is a call for and we have to address that. we cannot solve our problems without looking at the monetary issue. the great thing about what has happened in the last four years,

all of a sudden the federal reserve and monetary policy has become an issue out on the table. that is a great victory and i the many of you who have helped. -- and i thank the many of you who have help. we did not fed bill passed, although we got it passed the house, not in the senate. but a lot has happened. we got a partial audit, and court cases have been beneficial. it is astounding, as much as i have anticipated it would be very bad, more than one-third of these trillions of dollars that they have 1/3 of it went to overseas banks. one bank bailed out, and guess who was 1/3 owner -- gaddaffi. weis is the reason why

should direct our interest in the preservation of our country. we cannot spend our goodness with a gun, and using a gun violates our goodness. liberty should be our costs. i believe all political activity is for the promotion of activity, with the conviction that liberty and freedom is not her for it. it will not serve all -- it will not solve all our problems. conservative, to retain an -- libertarian, i like the word intervention. i do not like a government that intervenes, tells you what to do with your life, tell you what to

do with your money, and we do not tell other countries what to do with the problems, either. in many ways i believe a good president will work in the direction of saying i want to do less, but i want to firmly and courageous stand up to those who want to do more. they use an authoritarian approach, and when they do, everything that they do undermines your personal liberty. it undermines everything that was good and great about america. we were never a perfect mission. we do not have a perfect document, but we have the best, we are the most prosperous ever, and there is still a lot of spirit in this country. we are now in a struggle. we are in a struggle against those who are angry. our crew is saying we have had

enough. we want our freedom back. the reason i worked so hard for personal liberty is a very important reason. it is for my self, family, friends, neighbors, and country, because i believe we did have hired liberties, we would have more prosperity. it is a humanitarian argument. it gives us this time and wealth to release more creative energies. it is in these eddies that we can deal with our problems, whether it is personal habits, economic conditions and helping other people, or whether it is dealing with other countries. we will have the wealth.

this effort then we can work on our own imperfections to prove ourselves. to work on becoming more virtuous and compassionate, and this is the society that i want to live in. regardless and from the very beginning, it was regardless of what happened, that goal is the very important goal, and i am so pleased to see what is happening in the country, not only the interest in the federal reserve and foreign policy, but the interest and understanding of liberty. where i go, the numbers are growing, and where i really get excited is when i go to the university and talk to the young people. they understand what they are getting. they understand that something different has to be done. they also understand that whether they are in high school or college, the burden will be falling on them. no matter what happens in the next election, this cannot be changed immediately. if theonly be changed

people endorse the changes at our representatives that it said the legislature's understand it and do it. that is where i think we are making great progress. when i first started, i have difficulty finding the literature. i had an inclination to study and read, but it took a long time. there's no internet. boxwood hard to find. today it is so great. or think tanks than ever before. also, if i need a book now i can get it in five seconds or 10 seconds off the amazon and it is in my house the next day. the things are happening. we have to take that and use it for a just cause, and that just cause is promoting the greatness of america and promoting individual liberty in our country. thank you very much.

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

>> d you have -- one quick question -- >> thank you for coming. [unintelligible]

>> thank you, thank you. [unintelligible]

>> we need to get keyed to manhattan and a fund raiser. [unintelligible]

thank you very much for everything you are doing. [unintelligible]

[siren] >> thank you so much. [unintelligible] >> it is the freedom that we want. good job. >> thank you so much.

[unintelligible] >> thank you very much, dr. paul. >> can i get a picture with you?

>> here you go. here you go. >> thank you. thank you. >> thank you. >> glad you're here. >> i wouldn't do it if it weren't for people like you. >> thank you.

>> anywhere. >> here? >> that would be awesome. thank you very much. [unintelligible] >> thank you very much. [unintelligible]

>> thank you very much. >> i wanted to shake your hand. thank you. [unintelligible] thank you very much.

>> i have answered it throoughly many times. >>thank you so much. i voted for you last time. >> hi. >> ok, ready? [unintelligible]

>> i don't want to have to answer questions here. >> ever since i saw you in the debate in 2008 -- ok, thank you. >> how ar eyou?

>> hi. >> hello. >> thank you. >> how are you? >> good to see you.

>> turn around, face the camera. wonderful. what country is he from? >> guatamala. >> thank you.

[unintelligible] >> i think the effort was decent. they need to understand why terrorism occurs. [unintelligible] that is my argument.

[unintelligible] >> would you have authorize the mission? >> i voted for it. [unintelligible] it could have been done differently. [unintelligible] >> how do you feel about the big

crowd today? >> i feel pretty good. way beyond my expectations. [unintelligible] in the interim, we have the tea party movement, we have a change in congress. [unintelligible] >> what do you think of the

health care plan that mitt rom ney defended yesterday? >> i cannot really -- i have not paid enough attention. [unintelligible]

>> at 7:15, we will bring you live coverage of newt gingrich as he addresses the juror republican party convention. the former house speaker announced he is running for president on wednesday, and tonight he returns to his home state to speak to the georgia gop. >> let me be as clear as i can be. without a significant spending cut and changes in the bow wave we spent the american people cost money, there will be no increase in the debt limit. >> all the debate as lawmakers continued to work on economic issues, including government spending, taxes, and the set, online at the seized and the library.

you can search and share every event we have covered. it is washington your way. >> what choices do they make to become terrorists to kill hundreds of thousands of people they had killed. >> this is the guy that really matter, and understand him you understand the future of the war on terror. this is the future we have to fear. >> inside the mind of a terrorist, son tonight -- sunday night. you can also download a podcast available online. >> is weekend, -- this weekend, last year's deepwater horizon

oil rig explosion. in a reason to believe, deval patrick recalls his life from the south side to the massachusetts governor's office. came todman ssachs rule the world. sign up for black tv commerce. -- alterts. >> the obama administration faced its first challenge to its health care law on tuesday. every university is a religious college in lynchburg, virginia. it argued mandating individuals is buy health care insureance a violation of the commerce clause. this is an hour and 25 minutes.

>> good morning. we respect this court to find that the mandates are unconstitutional for two reasons. first, the commerce clause. the settlement, the mandates by late constitutional rights. this reid is viewed as well to promote an ideal that is humanitarian in nature. the act goes far beyond the outer limits of the constitution by seeking to regulate non economic activity.

>> [unintelligible] >> noneconomic inactivity. first, the commerce clause. >> like your brief, and the first couple minutes, you have said two different things. is it to your contention that congress lacks the authority to enact a statute, which is one we have put the, or is it your contention that congress lacks the authority and that the mandates approved, our challenge is to the mandate,. >> so you did not question the authority of congress to address the challenge of health care

delivery and costs facing the country? >> we do not concede -- for example, the guaranteed issue or the community rating system. that is a pervasive regulation that has never before been enacted. we did not challenge that. >> [unintelligible] >> our challenge has been to the individual mandate. that is our focus. this act as a relief to the mandate forces in at the bystanders into the stream of commerce. the act does not regulate either the -- or the activities that

substantially affect commerce. >> [unintelligible] >> and every single case, even the outer edges, regarding the growing of marijuana, there is some time kind of active participation on the part of the individual. in a case, he could have avoided the regulation 50 had not planted and grown and harvested and consumed - >> i thank you for that transition. [unintelligible]

what are your definitions? >> it would be a standard definition that you have to be producing something. as it relates the commerce, you have to be involved in some kind of production. >> [unintelligible] >> i am talking about as it relates to the activity. >> [unintelligible] >> if it is an act, that is correct. what we had here, individuals who want to remain out of the stream of commerce. they do not want to act at all. >> that is not what your complaint says. she does in fact use health care, but she made a personal choice she does not want to be insured. it does not like she has a lot activity about it.

[unintelligible] she does in fact part take in a mental health care. >> she does not necessary partakes in the insurance market. but you're quite right. she does not want to do it for insurance, but she does want to use health care. >> managing your own physical being like eating properly is not an activity that would be regulable under the commerce clause. >> what i am trying to do is find the dividing line because it is crucial to your argument. >> it is critical to the argument, but the fact of the matter is, when you have someone who is outside of the stream of commerce chooses not to put herself into that strength,

which is what plaintiffs done in this particular case, they want to be left alone -- >> that is an interesting point you make. the choice here is not put yourself in the interstate commerce stream. how different is that from -- [unintelligible] the choice has been made not to put that -- into the interstate market, but have it at home. and it was has been made in the -- why is ituana not different here that choice is different here not to put your money into an insurance premium city did not have to be put into the interstate

commerce? but it is different because in other cases, they could have remained outside the reach of the commerce clause had they chosen to do nothing, had they chosen not to grow wheat. [unintelligible] certainly. >> if a person delivers marijuana to their neighbor, has not even ask for it, but is now in possession of it in violation of federal law, has there been activity by then a neighbor who thought that neighbor would have made a conscious choice to retain a particular commodity. [unintelligible] in this particular -- >> the question is, is a

demarcation. we have plant is on one side of the divide, morrison, lopez on the other side. if i understand your submission here, what identifies that the fight is solely activity -- and get on the race site of the divide, there seems to be a lot of inactivity that is subject to congressional regulation. we are inviting you to help us think this through. >> there is clearly a commonality, and that is there are individuals, although intrastate, and having less commercial nature to it, it is still activity. they are engaged in production, growing, and consumption of

what they have actually grown. >> the neighbor has not grown anything, produced anything, she has not asked for anything. she is now in possession what congress has prohibited. >> she made the choice to retain something that is otherwise regulable. >> process of making a choice is -- >> clearly it is not. certainly, if you are choosing to -- >> when a person has insurance and makes a decision, you either keep the insurance or not keep the insurance. >> that may be a choice, certainly not the fact of the state's -- >> we are trying to get help for from you.

the requirement they think is so important as activity, does that have a constitutional basis? the commerce clause would require an activity. >> every single case that has been cited by the united states supreme court has required some kind of physical activity, production, some kind of manufacturing, whether interstate or interstate. >> [unintelligible] they did not talk about activity at all. the constitution and does not talk about activity. [unintelligible] >> i think it is inherent when you talk about regulating

commerce, and commerce cannot be entitlement. >> from the very history, congress is some kind of activity inherent in that very nature. congress has never been extended for regulation. to avoid health insurance or choosing to avoid an economic transaction. >> it was choosing not to go in the market, but it includes more than the secretary of ever culture states. >> there is a critical difference there. he could have avoided regulations if he had simply said, i don't want to do anything. >> in your opinion, is from your perspective.

>> even though -- >> justice scalia is trying to determine if there is a part of the scheme. i think you started out by saying he overall, is a regulatory scheme. it is an essential part of a scheme that ultimately, the aggregate population will have to participate in. >> even if you had an otherwise valid comprehensive regulation, the difference is that they conceded that the overall statute, and they wanted to be exempt out of it themselves. even if you had an otherwise regulable scheme, you need at least three components.

even if this is going to regulate something overall, it will have less noncommercial activity. first, it means the have activity. second, it needs to be evolved in the producing and distributing, or of another commodity. and at least have established interstate market. in this particular case, it doesn't meet those criteria on the edges that would otherwise be a comprehensive, constitutional scheme. they're not involved in distributing, producing or consuming the product. this is clearly the insurance market. >> it appears on the eighteenth or nineteenth. it is something the you can literally see, touch, or understand that there is an

activity taking place to reduce commerce, to have intercourse, to have trade. >> it looks like a commodity cause rather than the commerce clause. caution that is the commerce clause in terms of the fact that congress has never -- the revenue cannot point at any single case a choice to not engage in an economic transaction has been found reachable. a represents the outer edges of the commerce clause. but in this case, our clients cannot choose to be unregulated. >> explain this statement to me. the regulation of an interstate activity may be essential to a comprehensive regulation of interstate commerce even though the interstate activity does not

itself substantially affect interstate commerce. >> if you have an act here, it is not looking a substantial effect. nonetheless, it is essential to the proper regulation. is that not the issue here as to whether this inactivity or what ever you say about it is essential? >> no, your honor. you have a limit. first of all, you have to have a comprehensive scheme of. >> what you mean by limits? that is far as the supreme court has decided. that is what i mean by the outer limit. in this particular case, it is

certainly beyond it. and when we come back. >> the comprehensive list of regulations. >> pardon me? >> there is a comprehensive scheme here? >> there is not a comprehensive statutes. we are focusing on the individual mandates. >> it goes back to when there was not a comprehensive act there. >> it required economic activity, and also required of limiting the jurisdictions. >> in our presence, if those were factors that the court says should be looked into, i remember one of the things of

legislative history, it was no longer a very critical factor. so we have masses of hearings. there are all kinds of congressional hearings about this legislation. >> there was a lot of history in the other cases well. >> that is what i said. >> that is correct. as i am reaching the time for my rebuttal >> there you go. >> let me go back to your question. i think this is critical. that is nothing new. we go back there. >> hi don't agree that that is what he said in a concurring statement. but if you go back to pages 18

and 19, the majority opinion says that when you go to those extensions, when you regulate intrastate activity that has less of a commercial nature and might not be regulable outside of this country, it has to have at least a qualifying perimeter. an activity that produces, distributes, or consumes a tangible commodity, and that there is an established interstate market for that. absolutely, flatly, without question, is not economic in the non-commercial. do you agree or disagree? >> i agree. >> the difference your honor, is that they were on the edge of being able to get into the stream of commerce at any time and it would have been inconceivable to keep marijuana

outside of the regular schema. but it also says that it has to be an activity. they are active participation by the marijuana growers and consumers. if they had not done so, they would not regulable and would be outside the reach of the commerce clause. let us something different, something unique. something that they said in '94 and 2009, that they could mandate and have a federal extension to require every individual to purchase health care insurance or pay the penalty. beyond the outer edges, that is the nearest active. >> i am surprised you haven't brought up the broccoli question. there is not talking in the papers about it. if congress can do this and

require people to buy broccoli -- >> that is the court in this phase of virginia. gosh, congress prohibited people from buying them? or to make it more real world, to prohibit people from buying trans fat because of it? because of its bad effect? >> according to someone that testified in the hearing, congress could pose -- a post people. >> if it was already there, there would be a shortage. >> not to prohibit the production of it, but to force the consumption of it is completely different. >> why is that? >> because you allow the

purchase of health insurance in the private market and you therefore have to allow congress to regulate the food industry to force certain kinds of things to be consumed and because it would help our economy. >> is there any constitutional problem preventing people from purchasing its or purchasing whole trans fat? >> prohibiting them and taking it off the market is different. i would suggest it is not forcing consumption. >> is there a constitutional problem with that? why is that there. >> the entities involved in regulating or producing are engaged activities. -- no, it's not.

the difference is that someone may choose not eat broccoli and the government would say that you must eat broccoli. it is the same that he says i don't want to be regulated. >> but if you want to eat broccoli, the government says that you can't. the fact is the same. >> stimulation and prohibition equally are available to congress oppose the regulatory authority. >> i would say that that is congress forcing a halt workers to consume week. congress forcing anyone to consume a particular product because it is good for the market and is more healthy and relieves stress on health care, that is an unprecedented and breach of the commerce clause where congress can force

individuals to purchase or consume a particular product. >> there is a lot more about due process before we ever heard anything about commerce clauses. >> we have not heard about that because it is beyond the outer reaches of the constitution. >> i want to be sure i understand what you're saying. the knowledge that a prohibition on trans fat does not violate the law? >> perhaps in a certain situation, they are regulating the producers and the distributors to take it off of the market. but two for sen -- perhaps it would violate the commerce clause. but someone is sitting idly in their home, and therefore, because of a federal law, there are required to consume broccoli

that they don't want to consume the. they want to consume for growth. >> can i ask you a question? again, this is my farm. i could not understand why you did not qualify for the religious exemption. explain that. >> the argument is that it violates the process. the reason why we don't qualify for that is because the particular language is basically focused on the on-. >> doesn't it say the established tenants of teaching? you say christians, people where the effect has been had. that would seem to fit right in. >> the history of the language

has never been used. perhaps it is plain language, but it will not fit into the reason why it was actually put here. i would submit there is a critical difference between the relieving the burden to our religious person or entity verses hang a penalty because they don't belong to the recognized secretary. >> of the plan language, it might be under because of the history of it. >> of the way that the language is, i would say that is true, your honor. it is used in a very narrow perspective. even one who has attempted to be in that has not been successful except the old reporter.

outside of that, there are very limited extensions. we don't belong to a recognized religious sect. >> he stated -- i have been trying to find out where in the thesis that that is used. you call ed activity being used, and as far as my understanding, it is understanding -- and necessary [unintelligible]

>> what about the other clauses on that? >> that day, >> and those people around when the constitution was written. >> i would say we go back to them when we go back to article 1. and the very definition of this hearing. absolutely, those cases are inherent in the discussion of what was that issue there. it is an active, voluntary choice that affects commerce in some way. it may be interstate in the early cases and intrastate in some of the later cases, but it is still an activity. if you remove those factual situations and transfer them, someone just sitting there doing nothing, cannot even be at the united states supreme court.

they were in california, where the beam out. >> is that going up and down the extraction ladder? >> they all emphasized subtlety. >> be practical character of congress's power, and the requirement of the courts to defer the inappropriate to the extent of congress's power on that, they emphasized there is no formula. there is no mathematical precision. again, if you address the extraction, and activity is unreachable. >> it is critical to having some kind of definable and or

understanding of the reach of the commerce clause. i would say that the essence, there have to be some kind of activity that would be involved. if you remove activity as a requirement or as a significant component, there would be no definable limits. it would turn the federal government into a police power. and there would literally be no reach for an end or let his to what congress can do under article 1. >> i need you to turn back to this activity question. as i understand it, when you look at the problem that is substantial, it really is congress you're talking about.

the way you get there, as i understand it, it is the necessary and proper clause. we then extrapolate that it is enough if it is a national problem, that congress -- given that basis, it doesn't matter if it is an activity or at an activity. when we look at it in retrospect. >> i think it does matter, the feet of the necessary and proper clause, it does not give a grant of authority. if the clause is not say the necessary and proper clause, it cannot salvage the other was constitutional reached. it gives congress the authority to regulate anything that is necessary to the underlying constitutional regulation.

it is five components. several of those components fail here. one of them is the federal and involvement has been limited. it is an interesting application of the necessary and proper clause. it will determine that it was there. and in that case, the fax. we talk about the rights in a comprehensive scheme. in this scheme, [unintelligible] >> you have to look at justice kennedy's concurrence that there was the designated or enumerated powers. others with regard to the act,

that allowed the federal government to retain it to be on the term of incarceration. congress has been involved in the federal prison industry for a long time. there is mental health of the congress was involved in. because of the postal service, have to be able to prosecute crimes. the have to be able to house them. they have a prisoner and have come to the end. they are still dangerous. they have a choice to make. they deferred to the states. the states -- they are in prison. >> once they are coming to the end of their term, they are now ready to be removed. >> one of the factors in that

particular case was that they did not override of the power or the involvement of the state. they gave notice to the states to see if they want to take that person. if they did not take it, they would want to retain it. ability five factors that several of which are here. one of the things here was that they had a long-term rebuttal and the prisons. there is no such thing. >> there is an enormous amount of federal activity. >> we have a supreme court case followed by the 1945 act. health insurance with even be later. >> there is an enormous amount of involvement by the federal government in health care.

>> there is involvement in the health-care industry. but ferguson says that congress will primarily allows states to regulate and to defer essentially to the states, that is what we have done since 1945. >> hope we recognize that is in poor taste. they have been already regulating insurance. you don't challenge that, do you? >> not otherwise with congress related insurance. but back to the points -- >> congress has the authority to regulate? >> chicken regulate those that voluntarily participate in health insurance, and not to force people to be in health insurance.

there are other matters that i think can stick with the difference. they had a reasonable extension of an otherwise pre-existing practice. in view of those prisoners change that fear. i think contrary, it was a police stock. he of unprecedented states across the country making that claim. the power is brought within the limits. there is no extension of a pre- existing power. this is a very broad application and expansion, even if there is federal involvement. >> if we move past the commerce clause, sexually with the necessary and proper clause, this case clearly is a slam-dunk for the government, isn't it? there is no question that the individual mandate is necessary.

the achievement of congressional? >> i would say it is not necessarily. >> assuming that the corporate will conclude that necessary is easily satisfied here. it really comes down, doesn't it, to whether the individual mandate is proper under the analysis? would you agree with that conditional subject to your earlier disagreement? >> i would say that if it is congress's authority, it would be legitimate. >> they tell us that the commerce clause, it is to permit congress to exercise that

authority unfettered by anything other van provisions of the constitution that it might limit. it is right there. a million of that. the you agree that we come down to it? if this court authorized it, the congress had a rational basis for concluding the exercise of its authority, under the commerce clause and secretary, that the individual mandate was a proper element of this comprehensive regulation of the assurance -- insurance and health-care market? >> if we get there, we can look at whether there is a rational fit in. that looks more towards those

things that saved the rational basis as a relates to, is caused or necessary and proper is a more rigorous review that a typical test. working here in virginia, having graduated from college and saving some money, they decide to take a summer weekend in ocean city, maryland. they are on their way to the beach. and the unthinkable happens. the maryland state police bring in four. they are all taken to shock, with the health care professional that does a wonderful, miraculous job of bringing them not just back to life, but to a full and complete life. the bill is hundreds of thousands of dollars.

is it your submission that congress has no power to address in aggregate what we know happens every day in this country? >> that is a compelling emotional story has something that happens on a regular basis. congress, to reach that case, to not do so by these individual mandates, looking at it from this rational review, it doesn't accomplish what congress says it will accomplish. the idea is the you're going to have the guarantee issue and the accelerating. several states have tried it in several states have realized that is a fourth individual mandates to increase its.

>> i would say that is not even not wise, it is not even related to the overall goal. for example, hundreds of particular acts the penalty they don't have insurance, and you can be in the hospital and buy insurance while your there on an operating table. >> the additional revenues, whether they are tax revenues or penalties, i understand that is an issue. but what about the federal treasury helped to offset the baseline cost? i think it pays 35% of the cost for health care in this country. >> $95 in 2014 spun out going to offset that cost. what you also have is this mandate that is put in place. >> you have gotten of the other

side. [unintelligible] >> let me put that up with one other thing. let me say one thing on this. if the government did not appeal an adverse ruling in the district of columbia. they have days to appeal that. they have allowed the taxing and spending caused her to come to a final order in the district of columbia and now they are raising it here. they also dropped the antisense injunction act. there is also the fact that this is not a tax. >> if that was tax return or secretary of the treasury? >>