something is wrong with the company. thank you. guest: interesting comment. this lawsuit may have accomplished a lot for women over the past 10 years. this is some evidence that when this lawsuit began there were much more severe problems at wal-mart and the company has improved on the promotion for women. for example, things have gone better while the walls -- lawsuit has been pending. host: we are out of time. we will close up with one more call. eric, independent. caller: i wanted to say i think this case is not about money- hungry lawyers and class action lawsuits, it is fundamentally how we conceptualize and justice in the united states. -- injustice in the united states. host: thank you. i apologize, but we have to leave it at that point.

mr. savage, thank you. we're going to take you live to our next event, which is jon announcement of his desire to seek the presidency. this is live from new jersey. you can see the family making their way to the podium. this is just across podium from new york harbor. the same location where ronald reagan kicked off his campaign in 1980. live coverage begins now. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ [applause]

[applause] ♪ >> when we are strong here at

home, [inaudible] help us build a global operation was there the first day. they were the hard days. they are there to learn from the good days and chose to give back. married forever and five great kids and adopted two more, and elected the utah governor, the ultimate conservative, forever pro-like, make business work for the state, cut government, cut taxes, cut waste, bold, meaningful cuts not just ones that look good. some say the state of the best financial management of any. >> the audience gathered here at liberty state park in new jersey are watching a pre-video before the announcement by jon huntsman, the former utah government -- governor, that he will seek the republican

nomination for president. up until april, he served as president obama's ambassador to china. excerpts of his announcement released by his campaign, he says he respects president obama but he says he and the president have a difference of opinion on how to help the country we both love. >> he speaks mandarin chinese. he never raises his voice and seldom saw take no for an answer. he is not an ad for the balloons. he is in a to use his god-given gifts and experience to help remind america how fortunate we truly are. america of 10,000 miles is a different perspective, strength here and strength overseas. this is the guy who can win. decent,,, wise -- decent, calm

, wise. >> john hulsman is joining form massachusetts governor mitt romney, former house speaker newt gingrich, michelle bachmann, former under bernard herman cain, texas representative ron paul, former governor tim pawlenti, and power pennsylvania governor rick santorum. there has been some speculation that texas governor rick perry will join the race. [applause] >> thank you. i am jon huntsman and i am humbled the. . i have been a governor of the great state of utah. i have been a businessman. i have been a diplomat. i am the husband of the love of my life, the greatest human

being i have ever known, mary kay, for 28 years. [applause] i am the father of seven terrific kids. i am the son of greek parents who are here with me today celebrating -- i am the son of great parents who are here with me today celebrating a birthday. i am from the american west where the view of america is limitless. = = lots of blue sky. i have lived overseas for tons -- four times with a view of america from 10,000 miles away. it is a picture of liberty, opportunity, and justice. people secure in their rights and in love with their liberty, people who have done more good for more people than any other nation on earth.

today, i am a candidate for the office of president of the united states of america. [applause] thank you, thank you. my kids cannot believe i just said that. [laughter] i am asking for the greatest privilege and american can bestow on a fellow citizen and you are entitled to know the reasons why. today, americans are experiencing, through no fault of their own, something that is totally alien to them, a sense that the deck is stacked against them by force is totally beyond their control. no matter how hard they work, save, and plan, the opportunities are not there for them that were present for

previous generations. perhaps saddest of all, we have lost faith in ourselves. for the first time in history, we are passing down to the next generation a country that is less powerful, less compassionate, less competitive, and less confident than the one we got. this, ladies and gentlemen, is totally unacceptable and it is totally american. [applause] -- it is totally un-american. it need not, must not, will not be our permanent condition. we will not be the first american generation that let down the next generation. we have the power. we have the means. we have the character to astonish the world again by

making from adversity a new and better country, this inexhaustible land of promise and opportunity. we have everything and nation could ever hope for. we have our freedom. law, theule bloof longest surviving constitution, and their personal belief in personal responsibility. we have freedom of speech, religion, and press. we produce 1/4 of the world's gdp and we are the most productive society on earth. we have the finest colleges and universities and the most skilled, powerful, and selfless armed forces. [applause] thank you. we have character.

we have character that made a new world from a well-, a character that made the desert bloom and the city's rise to the heavens, character that made the world safer, freer, and more prosperous. what we now need is leadership that trust in our strength. we need leadership that does not promise washington has all the solutions to our problems but rather looks to local solutions from our cities, towns, and states. leadership that knows we need more than hope. leadership that knows we need answers. [applause] we must make hard decisions that are necessary to avert disaster. if we don't, in less than a

decade, every dollar of federal revenue will go to covering the cost of medicare, social security, and interest payments on our debt. meanwhile, we will sink deeper into debt for everything else from national security to disaster relief. our country will fall behind the productivity of other countries. our influence in the world will weigh in. our security will grow ever more precarious than the 21st century will then be known as the end of the american century. we cannot accept this and we want. [applause] we won't. [applause] here is the challenge -- we must proceed at a time of weak economic growth and a very high unemployment.

we desperately need jobs and the opportunities they carry. must play to our strengths and give the most innovative society on earth the tools they need to succeed. we must make broad and bold changes to our tax code and regulatory policies, seized lost opportunity of energy independence, and a stamp -- and reestablish what it means to be a teacher in society. we must reignite the powerful job-creating engine of our economy, the industry, innovation, trail blazing genius of americans and their enterprises and restore confidence in our people. we can and will own the future. [applause] we did many of these things

immigrates did you tell when i was governor. we cut taxes. balance our budget, we worked very hard to maintain our aaa bond rating status which few states can come when the economic crisis hit, we were prepared. by many accounts, we became the best state in america for business. we also were named the best managed state in america. [applause] we proved that government does not have to choose between fiscal responsibility and economic growth. i learned something very important as governor. for most american families, there is nothing more important than a job. [applause] internationally, we will lead the world in a way that speaks

to pre-eminence and let us not forget that we are a nation at war. this came home to me as i spoke to the vfw convention recently in the state of new hampshire. i was joined by my good friend john chevalier, a marine. we looked at the greatest generation, all of whom were there in their output to and ribbons that had earned during a time of conflict. i saw in their eyes stories about which you could make great movies and i saw america's greatest generation. they lived through the depression. they lived through world war two and beyond and they delivered to this country in ways that protect and preserve our liberty and freedom. i am here to tell you that we have another of america's greatest generations coming up. they are ready to rebuild america just like earlier generations. [applause]

we are at war, ladies and gentleman, and we must manage the end of these conflicts without repeating past mistakes that made our engagement laundered and our sacrifices greater than they should have been. it is not that we wish to disengage from the world. don't get me wrong, but rather that we believe the best long- term national-security strategy is rebuilding our core here at home. [applause] let me say something about civility. for the sake of the younger generation, it concerns me that civility, humanity, and respect

are sometimes lost in our interactions as americans. our political debates today are corrosive and not reflective of the belief that a blanket has bounced back in his days that we are a great country because we are a good country. you know what i mean when i say that. we will conduct this campaign on the high road. i don't think you need to run down someone's reputation in order to run for the office of president. of course we will have our disagreements. that is what campaigns are all about. i want you to know that i respect my fellow republican candidates and the respect the president of the united states. he and i have a difference of opinion on how to help the country we both love. the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who

is the better american. [applause] behind me is our most famous symbol of the promise of america. president reagan launched the 1980 general election campaign from this very spot. it was a time of trouble, wary, and difficulty and he assured us that we could make america great again and through his leadership, he did. today, i stand in his shadow as well as the shadow of this magnificent monument to our liberty. for 125 years, three tramps and hardships of all kinds, her lamp has been a beacon reflecting america's highest aspirations and values, america's promises

have been kept. each generation in their turn has worked very hard to keep her lit. now it is our turn. our challenges are many and they are urgent but our problems are no bigger than our opportunities and they are not insurmountable for a people who have always used our freedom to make the future better than the past. we are a resourceful, ingenious, determined, problem solving people. we don't settle for less than our character and talent will achieve. we choose our destiny as. a as we always have and we always will. this is that moment. we're not just choosing new leaders, we are choosing whether we are to be yesterday's story

or tomorrow's. everything is at stake. this is the hour when we choose our future. i am jon huntsman and i am running for president of united states. thank you all. [applause] thank you, thank you. thank you. thank you. [applause]

thank you, everybody. ♪ ♪ ♪

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [no audio] >> we might have momentarily lost the audio but we will stay here live to know that john hulsman is headed to new hampshire after the disappearance for a town hall meeting at 1:00. cnn reports that after new hampshire, mr. huntsman will travel to south carolina on wednesday and florida on thursday and as you have heard,

he will be back in utah and nevada on friday. ♪ [no audio] [no audio]

[no audio] [no audio] [no audio] >> mr. huntsman is heading to

new hampshire for his first appearance as a candidate in a town hall meeting at exeter. other candidates include ron paul will be in iowa and will begin the day and council bluffs with supporters and then he travels to sergeant bluff in iowa for a meeting this afternoon. rick santorum is in iowa today for a meet and greet and in oskaloosa this morning. this afternoon, he is in creston. he will be at council bluffs this afternoon. we want to keep track of the candidates and follow the recent video including the recent video for the weekend for the republican leadership conference in new orleans. you can go to our campaign website, c-span.org/campaign 2012. [no audio] cspan has launched a new easy to navigate website for politics

and the 2012 presidential race with the latest events and bio information on the candidates and twitter feed send facebook updates. there are links to cspan media partners in the early primary caucus state 3 visit us at c- span.org/campaign 2012. on capitol hill today, the house meets at noon eastern for general speeches and legislative work starts at 2:00. the elimination of the election commission set up after the 2000 bush-court election to ensure updating of election machines is one bill. the senate debates that took a 15 on the nomination of leon panetta as defense secretary. that is set for four, 15 and you concede house coverage on c-span and senate coverage on c-span 2. president obama's commerce secretary nomination goes before the commerce committee this

afternoon. he is an environmental lawyer and helped found the natural resources defense council. watch the hearing live it to claude 30 eastern on cspan 3. back to politics met with a look at the influence of new media in campaign advertising. you'll hear from the former white house senior adviser david axelrod who is now heading up the reelection campaign for president obama and former rnc chairman ed gillespie. >> we want to reach people who might vote for us but we need to mobilize at the most -- in the most cost-effective way. when i started off in this

business a long, long time ago, the late bob squire was a media consultant. he is to save that all the media should get together and put lawrence welk back and the air so we can target senior citizens. now we have more tools including cable television to target. we spent the vast majority of our money last time on broadcast television. we spent about 12% or so on cable. i think we will spend a little more now. there are still some barriers on cable that we need to overcome. >> let me ask what the barriers are. >> you often have to buy in a day parts and you cannot target programming to the degree that you can on broadcast television. there are fewer slots available. if you are buying local cable,

in the past, you have not been able to get direct satellite television advertising. can do that at national level but not at the local level. sometimes it seems like when you buy small units on cable television that that would be more cost-effective but if you add those areas of, does not necessarily less expensive than to buy the whole market per viewer and for target. >> ed, there are so many places for a campaign to spend their money. where do get the most bang for your buck? >> the targeting is so important that is where cable television has an advantage. >> at this point, you know the republicans will vote for your guy a democrats will vote for your guide. you're looking were the most -- more independent-minded

political are? >> you also have to motivate your own voters. i suspect the democrats will be focusing more on fox and others on cnbc. it depends partly on how much money you have to spend. if the president has $1 billion to spend in the election, they will be buying "american idol" and our will be buying the cookie -- cooking channel. [laughter] but targeting that is available in the demographic and geographic aspect is helpful. >> they did a smart thing in 2004. i think they ran a 10-month buy on the golf channel. it was aimed at motivation and mobilization. they thought they would catch a lot of their supporters and in that sense, cable is very

useful. new technologies are going to be helpful. if we have the ability not just to send that people would have an interactive experience and we can sign them up, that is a feature that the internet offers. if cable can do that for us and the technology is becoming available, that will be an attractive feature. >> so the interaction is most important. do you see something out there now? i am still getting text messages from the obama campaign. now it is the obama reelect campaign and i get those messages on a daily basis about house parties or what the president said and that kind of thing. is there any new technology out there now -- twitter was not a huge forest that i can recall in the last election. is there something out there now free or otherwise that tells you

to go there? >> the obama campaign in 2004 deserve credit. they blazed a trail capturing as many names as they did for these text messages and getting people to forward from there on hand- held devices and there's more funds and targeted states. we will try to build on that. every campaign cycle you learn from what the other side. on the republican side, we have become more sophisticated and that interaction in capturing names and building lists for social media. twitter was not as big a of a factor as it is today. probably between now and next november, there will be something new. >> facebook has become hugely important. with targeting, you can identify people by their interests and speak to them about things that concern them. the technology is on furling at

such a pace. from one cycle to the next, things are much different. i think about the marx brothers movie "duck soup," where he is the dictator of the country and head of the treasury and says here is the finance report, do you need me to explain it to you? he says a 4-year-old child can explain it. he says to get him a 4-year-old child to explain it. it reminds me of us talking to 20-year olds and ask -- has been to explain what the next new thing will be. >> you all foresee a time -- if i want to pitch an interview, i can amortize this interview across the 10:00 show and the morning show and i could put something on dot com and i will tweet out of the most quotable things. are there multibuys?

>> yes, that will be more important in the future. how do you communicate the bridge across different platforms with one-shot that multiplies your exposure and it's your target in an efficient way? >> content must be provided is the way i put it. you have to constantly be putting content out there across the platforms. you have to parcel it out and time and sequence it and provide fresh content. a campaign faces the same demand that cable companies face which is that people want fresh content and you have to have somebody who is constantly putting that out there and keeping up pressure on those platforms. >> the key is to make sure you are getting the right content to people and you are getting the messages that are going to be meaningful to them. in that sense, cable is very

useful. >> it has become a lot of money spent in a lot of little ways. >> yes, i still think broadcast will get the lion's share. >> why is that? nobody targets better than across the cable channel. why isn't more money being spent? >> one of the big targets is geographic. local television is where -- 68% of our media dollars of 2008 when two local television stations in battleground areas. it is not always efficient but to have a lot of people in that market and that market may be pivotal to the election. it is sort of a nuclear weapon. >> a presidential contest is a national campaign. most of the discussion is national in nature.

you need to target specific segments of the electorate but when you talk to the independent voters, they are making decisions based on national issues. the national advertising campaign is still going to be the most resonant. there is only so much time in the day. you come because so many commercials and manage some money messages. >> is a national campaign but it is delivered locally. there is no point in delivering messages -- it is a national campaign but it is also 50 different statewide campaigns and there are probably 20 in which this election will be decided and they will get the lion's share of the media dollars. anybody from i would hear is probably did -- anyone from iowa here is probably doing very well. >> let me talk to the role of cable news and the election. you have a boss that has frequently expressed -- may be

content is too strong -- >> mild chastisement. >> he has chastised cable knows a lot. how does it affect --? >> i think it is valuable and important to be able to get news and information when you want it. the fact that cable affords that is very valuable. what he has spoken to is two things -- one is because you have to provide programming, the challenge to have as you have to provide programming all the time. there is a tendency to treat -- every day as election day on cable television. every event is delivered breathlessly and every event is decisive in a presidential campaign. there are very few decisive things, really.

the other more disturbing element is that not just because of cable and the internet but we have vulcanize the media where people tend to gravitate toward those outlets that reaffirm their point of view a lot of the folks who ed hangs with goes right to fox and they hear what they want to hear. people on my side make it to msnbc. i'm sure some of them go to cnn. people go to different places and get an affirmation of their point of view. what we don't get is a sense of what the other guys are saying and some sort of balance of who is really right or at least what the facts are. there is less of an emphasis on that. that is unhealthy. the president may space at the university of michigan last year, a graduation speech, in which he urged the young people not to just watch msnbc. watch fox.

don't just read "the wall street journal," read " the new york times." the targeting benefit of cable is that people self-select in the dump the other points of view. >> would help to in paid advertising you think works against you on some stations in freed as? >> and for you as well. there's a cost and narrative you have to play into endicott to seven try to manage. -- play into and you have to try to manage. if you are created in a campaign, releasing videos that get play across the cable channels because there is a demand for content, providing free content to the cable stations is a pretty easy way to help shape the narrative. it works against you and it works for you. >> the issue is less whether --

you have to manage what is the kind of frenetic environment every day. that is challenging but the question really isn't whether it impacts negatively on us for the candidates. it is whether it is good for the country as a whole if people are hundred down in their own camps and getting information filtered through that perspective and not getting a variety of viewpoints. i think that is the larger concern. >> let me bring you to 2012 and the sheer politics of it. who do you think is looking strong right now in terms of the republican field? >> it is so early and the field is wide open. it is exciting the fact is, you could not wager a bed today on who the republican will be. it will be a longer process than

in the past. probably it will be before this time next year but it will public into may. whoever emerges, will be a very strong candidate for the presidency because by virtue of having emerged. when president obama in march from a top democratic primary was a strong candidate going to general electric. election. i will let the candidates running let them demonstrate that. i think there is a very good chance that the simple issue is what is the unemployment rate in november of 2012. that could be the biggest factor in the election. that is probably as deciding factor. >> traditionally, this is a real lack so it is an election about president obama. >> for the first 3.5 years of re-elect, the campaign is about the incumbent.

it becomes a choice between two candidates. many ways, george w. bush would not have been favored to win the election of 2004. he was handling a difficult war and there were factors working against him. when he got into a comparative situation, people made a choice between two candidates and he won that race. i disagree with you but let me say this about the republican field. the history of the republican party has been that until now, it has been a very orderly process. generally, you knew going in who the likely would be. it was also someone who had run before and the party would gather around them. that was true john mccain and george w. bush and bob dole. what is different this year is the introduction of the tea party and had has added an element of uncertainty in the nomination process. there are roles that will make it a more wide open process. ed says that the candidate will

emerge stronger from that process. i think if the candidate gets drawn for to the right to win that nomination and response to the more shrill voices and a republican party, that candidate will not be a stronger candidate because this country once -- want people to work together to solve problems. i watched the debate the other night and there seem to be broad agreement that the president was destroying the country and was responsible for all manner of ills. i don't think that is really what most americans believe. that is not the debate that one. but if their candidate emerges strong or not will depend in part upon the candidate's ability to resist the pull to the right, to stay in the mainstream and get through the process doing it. >> let me spin off the tea

party a little bit. many republicans have said that the tea party is another name for the conservative wing of our party. the democrats have a problem when they get pulled to the left and their primary. the republicans have a problem because the poll to the right and have to run back to the metal. is the tea party making this year significantly different? >> no, we have 4 million more people vote in republican primaries in 2010 than in democratic primaries. that is the first time since 1952 that republican primary voters outnumbered democratic primary voters and a lot of them were in the tea party. they are involved in the process which is a good thing. president bush, in a close election, 51-48, won by 3 million votes 4 million voters into the process by what could likely be a close election in 2012 is a big deal and very

helpful to the republican party. they care about the same things that people who have been republican party for decades care about, taxes, economic growth, strong national security, family values, they are very consistent they are just new to the process and energized. that is a positive thing for the republican party. >> to be continued, thank you all very much. [applause] >> cspan has launched an easy to navigate website for politics in the 2012 presidential race. we have bio information on the candidates, twitter fees and eight facebook updates from candidates and political reporters and links to cspan media partners. visit us and c-span.org/campaign 2012. the u.s. house comes in today at noon eastern for general speeches. legislative work starts at 2:00 eastern and among the five bills

being considered today, elimination of the election assistance commission set up after the 2000 bush-core campaign to ensure state election officials have updated voting machines and training. and the senate, they will start debate at 2:15 on the nomination of leon panetta to be defense secretary. a vote is scheduled at 4: 15 and you can follow the house live on c-span and the senate on cspan tiberi on cspan 3 today, president obama's commerce secretary goes before the commerce committee. he is a former ceo of edison international and is an environmental lawyer and helped found the national resources defense council. that hearing is set to close 30 eastern on cspan 3. you are watching c-span, bringing you politics and public affairs. every morning in this "washington journal." connecting you with elected officials, policy makers, and journalists and weekdays what live coverage of the house and each night congressional forms

and supreme court oral arguments for it on the weekends, you could see our signature interview programs. on saturday,"the communicators" and on some "q &a." you can watch our programming any time and c-span.org and it is all searchable on our video library. cspan, washington your way, the service provided by america's cable companies. >> housing secretary sean donovan is on your skin and says it will be difficult for his agency to fund grants for cities this year. he is calling on mayor's to fight to prevent cuts to those programs in congress party spoke last week of the annual u.s. conference of mayors meeting in baltimore and his comments are about 50 minutes. [no audio]

[no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] >> ok, thank -

welcome to the council for the new american city and good morning and this has been a great council. have done a great fabulous work for the cities and the country and for the u.s. congress of mayors. -- conference of mayors. we continue as counsel to work on several initiatives. include the metropolitan economy reports that we all look to that provide the analysis as to the forecast of job creation and other things as it relates to our metropolitan areas. our counsel continues to perform research on innovative strategies. today, we will announce a joint

research initiative building off the work of michael porter and an initiative will be with the initiative for the competitive inner city group. topics will include capital formation for inner-city businesses and the role of banker institutions in economic development. we'll continue to expand our national dollarwise campaign. many of us have been the recipients of checks to our communities to help out in that regard with financial literacy. we are also expanding our employer-assisted housing programs. we are very focused on one of the biggest issues our cities have encountered in a long time and that is to address the vacant and abandoned housing problems that blight our cities

all across the nation. we work very, very hard at that and we will have a conversation about that as well today. we are glad that everybody is here. my name is michael colman. i am the mayor of the city of columbus. we are so pleased to have here the hud secretary sean donovan this morning. before we get into the comments of mr. secretary, we have to my left, the president of the conference, mayor cowts who will provide us with words of wisdom today and comments. she has a lot to do today with respect to the council and meetings and committees and i turn it over to madame president. thank >> you very much.

yes, welcome. i am so glad to be with you here today in this committee because when i took office as president of the u.s. conference of mayors, it was and is still the agenda for our organization. that is our economies. i have focused on jobs. secretary donovan was at the meeting at the white house when the administration first took office and we were all there to meet with them and one of the things that we said and i said before the president was that .obs was priority one v we have never detracted from the masses. it is about jobs. it is about our economy.

we were so pleased in that conversation with secretary donovan and secretary law would andchu and secretary duncan and mr. holder that we said one of the things that was a challenge for all of us were the silos and the federal government. ladies and gentlemen, one of the things that the administration has done and thank you, secretary donovan, is that you collapsed the silos between transportation and energy and hud and we thank you for that because it facilitates our work to help you help our citizens. ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because cdbg is a very, very important program for all of us. it is the only program that

sends dollars directly to cities. it is the program that we have used to help retain jobs, create jobs, and in cities, what cdbg has done is helpless craig about 150,000 jobs. think about the programs in your cities. and how it helps your citizens. , our citizens. the other thing that cdbg has done is that it has produced about $13 billion in gdp. think about that. you're looking at revenue that comes into the state treasury and to the federal government treasury because of this program that we are privileged to have from the federal government. we have a lot of work to do.

as you see, last year, we had to fight very hard to even retain a little bit more of cdbg because the proposed cuts, if you remember, was 65%. that would have been devastating. but we were able to work hard -- with secretary donovan and congress and the administration to at least only have that cut the 11%. ladies and gentlemen, we have a long way to go because the president's budget for 2012 has a 7.5% cut in cdbg. the base that we have includes the 11% from last time. it will be even more drastic for us. we have a lot of work to do.

it is so vitally important that we keep our eye on jobs. let us not detract from jobs and our metro economies because that is the engine that makes our country run. ladies and gentlemen, it is jobs because those companies are located in our cities. those nonprofits are in our cities. we contract with them to deliver some of the services that we have cdbg dollars to help us so it is not always coming out of the property tax. remember, all of us, with the company's inner cities and all of our people, we sent income tax money to the federal treasury. and this is the only program that sends money back directly to us. don't you think your citizens

need cdbg? don't you think it is important? is it not important for the programs for those who need our help? i think so. we need to continue to fight the fight. we need to remember our citizens and we need to remember that it is important to preserve these jobs that deliver the services for those people that we serve. they are the people who elected us to office. and so, ladies and gentleman, i implore you -- keep our eye on the ball. do not detract from our agenda. stay focused on jobs and grow the economy. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much.

we have cspan here today. after secretary donovan makes his comments, we will open it up for questions. i ask that each buyer first introduced themselves upon his question and then also speak directly into the microphone so that our audience can hear. again, secretary donovan has been a friend of cities and a friend of communities all over the country. he has spoken with us on several occasions and was very acceptable. mr. secretary, we appreciate their relationship that you have with us that we have developed together all over the country. as you know, we live in very challenging times, very, very challenging economic times and budgetary times. as our president just indicated, there are many critical programs that have been

under attack and there has been tremendous change, those things that help build our cities and neighborhoods and create jobs. we look forward to the ongoing collaboration that you have always had with us. we thank you in advance for all the work you have done with cities all over the nation. secretary donovan, welcome to the council for new american cities and thanks for being here. [applause] >> >> thank you,. it's wonderful to be back with you. i want to start with mayor coleman. you have been such an innovator. we had a program that has been

critical. we came to columbus, to announce nationally, the competitive round of neighborhood stabilization funds because of the innovative work you have been doing in columbus. i think, the mayor, has almost four given me. is done such great works on for -- homelessness that we stole the person who ran those efforts. just in so many other ways, your work on sustainability and building columbus into a sustainable community -- all of that, you are a real begin to all of us try to help you do this work of the -- at the federal level. thank you for having me here today. i also have to say thank you to their costs, less than a wonderful job to -- to mayor elizabeth kuatz, who was the

wonderful job as president, and to her successor. i want to congratulate him, and i look forward to working with him, and all of your leadership as we go into what will be a challenging year for us. i want to talk a little bit about that. i also have to think mayor warren for his very, very important leadership on the housing committee. whether it is out on the street, doing press conferences around the importance of cdbg and homes, he has been a terrific, terrific partners to us, and a leader. thank you to him as well. i also want to give a personal welcome to two new members of the your organs -- your organization. alvin brown, why just ran into on the way here, who worked

closely with may at hud in during the clinton administration, and he will be a terrific, terrific addition to your ranks as the new mayor of jacksonville. i also have to welcome rahm emanuel, who i think you all now held a position at the white house as well, and will also be a terrific addition to your efforts to try to make sure that everything that we do is valued and protected in washington. so, congratulations, and welcome to the conference. i want to take a few minutes and immediatehe challenges we are facing, but put this in context. this is the council of the new american city. there is no question that we have made real progress from the

enormous, enormous challenges that we and headed. 2.5 years in, it is easy to forget that we were losing over 800,000 jobs a month on the day that the president walked into office. whether you measure the progress by the more than two million private-sector jobs that have been created over the last 15 months, and despite a disappointing report last month, the acceleration of jobs -- 1 million private-sector jobs created in the last six months. so, we do have real progress. i want to take a moment and recognize the incredible work that you all do on the ground. you are the closest to those that are struggling in this economy. you have the most direct ability

to effect the lives of people in your communities and connect people to jobs in this economy. i have seen no role that you play very personally -- the role you played very personally, and the wayhud funding, which has always been critical, in this crisis, it has been more critical than at any time since it was created in 1965. i want to take a moment to recognize the work of mayors in the midst of this crisis. i have spent time over just the last few months walking the streets of tuscaloosa, alabama, with mayor maddox, to try to help. hud has a critical role to play in recovery from a man-made disasters that we faced, and the natural disasters that we face in so many parts of the country

recently -- in tuscaloosa, joplin, all places that we are working hard to help you recover from. i was just in atlanta, georgia, with mayor read, and i spoke at a conference on the foreclosure crisis, and it was called piece by piece, and that meant not on the house-by-house, block-by- block approach that so many of you are taking to help your community is recover, but it also meant the way that mayor reed, like so many of you, have brought together the private sector, the nonprofit sector, all of the players in need at the tables to help recover. one of the things that i heard loud and clear was the importance of housing counseling -- neighborhood

stabilization funds, fha, which was 40% of the financing used last year, but i also heard loud and clear that without counseling, you can not be successful. those that had counseling are 50% more likely to stay in their homes. yet, the congress, in particular the republicans in the house, are very focused on cutting housing counseling, and eliminated housing counseling from hud's budget. we're going to need -- need your help to fight for that funding in next year's budget. i've also seen a remarkable, remarkable work that you all have done to help those that have been most worked by the economic crisis -- those that end up on our streets. whether it is veterans -- this

is tragic, they are 50% more likely to be homeless than the average american's. despite these challenges, we released our latest findings on what is happened to homelessness in america. we have seen a 1% increase -- only a 1% increase, given the enormous economic challenges we face, that is an enormous accomplishment, and it would not have happened without your support. one of the tools we have used is the homeless prevention and rapid rehousing program. this summer, we will not reach 1 million people who have been able to -- we will be able to reach 1 million people where been able to stay off of the street, who would have been homeless but for the program that was part of the recovery act. that money went directly to you, as mayors, to be able to change the way you respond to homelessness, to prevent

homelessness before it happens. that was remarkable work. i was just in salt lake, with mayor becker, and think about this -- the state of utah has reduced chronic homeless by 69% -- 69% thanks to the remarkable work mayor becker has done with his partners at the state, and all of the nonprofits and other organizations that have come together to do just remarkable, remarkable work. that is why we have been able to ensure that a flood of folks have not ended up on our streets around this country. and, you heard merrill was the colts' talk about it, biasing the work that our -- mary elizabeth kuatz talk about it, i have seen the work that our block programs do, and these are not just urban programs. a large share of our cdbg funding -- hundreds of millions

of dollars goes to rural communities. i was in north dakota recently. i saw how the flexibility of cdbg funds, combined with our home funds, are helping them meet the desperate housing need they have. they have a shortage of people for the jobs that they have because of what has happened to the energy industry there, and they're desperately trying to build affordable housing, and they have been able to use our block grant funds in rural communities to be able to do that. we have to remind folks in congress that these funds reach every part of the country -- every district, red, blue, everything in between. i've seen that as well. finally, i have seen the way he will all have been innovators in connecting the funding we provide on housing to all of the other pieces that make your community work. our sustainable communities

grants -- $170 million would provide a last year for the first time, and as elizabeth kuatz said, it is helps you connect house into transportation in ways that make an enormous difference -- housing and transportation in ways to make enormous differences. i was with the merit in l.a. who was successful, and i visited with mayor to bloom in santa monica, california, was using a grant to rezone an entire neighborhood around a transit stop. there will be 8000 new jobs just surrounding that one transit stop tanks to the work we are doing to our sustainable communities on initiative to help rezone, create new density, new jobs, new commercial space, and housing. so, those are just a few examples of the ways that we of

worked with so many of you that here today and your colleagues around the country to make this recovery real to use hud's tools. as we sit here, and think about the new american city, i'd reflect on my own interest in cities, and how i started down the path to become hud secretary. i grew up in new york city at a time when frankly many were questioning whether there would be an american city. the south bronx lost 75% of their population in just one decade, and there was an exodus from so many of our cities around the country. we sit here today, almost 50 years after hud was founded, literally, when our cities were burning, and i can celebrate the success that so many of you have

had in making the american city something that we all can believe in again, that many people are moving back to, and what you need to help you support that new american city is a hud that brings new flexibility, new tools, and, in many ways, what i inherited was a hawed that was stopped in the model of the 20th century, when you are trying to build the new american city of the 21st century. i want to talk about the work we need to do to reform hud, continue to make progress with you, but also to demonstrate that the funding that will be a real challenge for us to bring to hud, to your communities this year, that we can put that funding to work in his innovative, efficient, effective ways. -- funding to werke and

innovative, efficient, effective ways. let me touch on a few of the ways we tried to transform hud into a better partner for you. one of the things we have heard loud and clear is that you need a partner to help you transform public housing and all of your affordable housing into housing that is an asset in your community, that creates jobs through renovation. we know there is $20 billion to $30 billion of construction work that can be done around the country, yet rules and regulations are standing in the way of allowing it to move forward. it is not just the funding, but the old, and flexible way that public housing is operating. we have brought new tools. we have seen hopes six transform units around the country, and we have also heard that many other kinds of affordable housing, a

privately-owned affordable housing, the not have access to the same tools, so we created a program that allows it to transform that housing as well. the other thing we heard from you was that we are tired of having to go to six different agencies, apply for different funding, and not have the federal government work in a coordinated, comprehensive way, so we brought together at arnie duncan and his team, and we will bring promised neighborhood funding to help transform schools at the same way you are transforming public housing. we heard that if folks did not feel safe, and it cannot walk the streets, if kids can not be out on the playground, we cannot be successful in those communities, so we brought the department of justice and their criminal justice initiative and the funding there together with

our public housing and choice neighborhoods funding. we have heard that healthcare is a critical need, so we brought him hhs to the table to make critical investments. all of those pieces are now being brought together in our choice neighborhoods initiative. the truth is we will not transform 1 million units of public housing with half of a dozen, or one dozen grants each year, and those grants will be under attack. we'll have a tough time finding those this year. we are working in our budget to give you the flexibility to bring private capital into public housing. we believe there's $25 billion of public capital sitting on the sidelines that could be invested in public housing, and total over 300,000 construction jobs around the country. so, we have an initiative, a demonstration, that would allow

one-quarter of 1 million units to convert to project-based contracts that would allow them to bring private capital tax credits to the table, put people back to work, and helped transform the community. that is it an example of the work we are trying to do. we also have the voucher reform act, which would simplify the rules and regulations of the voucher program and save $1 billion over five years while serving the same number of people. that is the kind of more efficient, smarter program we will need to help get done. we need your support in congress to help get that done. finally, let me touch on cdbg. as mayor elizabeth koch -- elizabeth kuatz said, there is perhaps no more single important tool to you, as are most flexible, and most critical

tool. in my prior life, as a local housing official, i was the biggest beneficiary of cdbg funding in the country, so i know how important it is to the work you are all doing, whether it is building housing, supporting a boys and girls club, or all of the various services, infrastructure, and all the things it could help support. what i want to say is that we are going to need to show that cdbg works, and, frankly, the very flexibility that you all love so much, and we loved so much at hud about cdbg, makes it hard for us, oftentimes, to demonstrate the results, show the difference is making in communities because it does so many different things in so many different places. when will need your help to do three things. first is to show that cdbg got

-- cdbg dollars create jobs in innovative ways, and we have begun to show that through the recovery act. of all the programs we funded through the recovery act, cdbg, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, creed and the most amount of jobs. we have that data. we need your help. we need you to tell the stories, give us the information to show how cdbg is creating jobs, and we need you to focus as much as you possibly can as mayors on directing cdbg to things that will create the maximum number of jobs possible. second, we need cdbg to leverage every private dollar it possibly can. many of you might be aware of the section 1 await program under cdbg. many may not care 108 allows you

to raise private capital. large-scaled, catalytic, economic progress -- project. that is a tool that we have the ability to use the name much wider basis. it would allow us to decelerate investment in these large-scale, catalytic projects, and show that cdbg is not just about public dollars, but it leverages a large number of private dollars as well. private sector leveraged is going to be more important as we go forward in challenging budget times. finally, we need to have transparency. we need to have as much information as we possibly can from you about where cdbg is

going, how it is being effected. i know it is not easy sometimes to report. the recovery act, for example, require you to report in ways you never have before, and put your teams and your staff into challenges that they had never had to do before. i will tell you, the difference, the transparency and the data has head, it has been remarkable. we can show where jobs are created, and it has made an enormous, enormous difference. we need to show that to folks on capitol hill, to show where it makes a difference, how we have created jobs, and we need that data, that transparency from you to be able to do that. finally, let me just close by saying we need to do all those things -- we need to be smarter, more innovative.

we need to reform our programs. we need to continue to do work at hud to make hud the partner that you need us to be. even after we do all of those things, we are also going to need to fight this year. you all probably saw that "the washington post" published a series on the home program over recent months that attacked the effectiveness of that program. we are fighting back. "the washington post" got the story wrong. they claimed there were 700 projects around the country that wasted money, and we of looked at every one of those projects and found that more than 50% of those projects were complete and occupied. so, we're fighting back on that story, but we need your help, and my team will be coming to

all of you. we need to not only have the data that shows these projects are complete, but we need the photographs, the personal stories of the folks that it moves into those buildings, because, let's be clear, this is going to be a question not about whether the goals that we have are the right goals, but whether the programs we have our meeting those goals, and we have to be able to demonstrate in compelling terms the story of the people and the places that are benefiting from these programs. we have to be clear about the challenges that we face. there is a real chance that there is a proposal from the house republicans that would 0 out home and cdbg. that is a real possibility. the president has proposed a 7.5% reduction in cdbg.

given where we ended up in 2011, that would actually be an increase. he proposed a small reduction in home. given what we faced in 2011, that would be an increase as well. the real choice that we are facing is the future of these programs -- whether they will continue at all, so fighting for home and cdbg, fighting for restoring our housing funds, and fighting to show these programs can make a difference is what we need to do this year, and we will need your help, support, and your partnership. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> thank you, mr. secretary. i would like to present to you this study that is called the community development block grant impact on metropolitan economies. will provide this as well to members of congress, but this

study reflects that in just 10 cities here, in the united states, cdbg has created over 9000 jobs, over $800 million in gross metropolitan product for those communities, and over $550 million in labor income, and over $65 million in state and local tax revenue annually. this effort, this cdbg, has been a great benefit to cities all over the country. this is a study that we prepared, and we would like to present this to you and your staff. we will also presented to congress as well. when i will do is open it up to members -- what i will do is open it up to members of the committee for questions. i would like for you to raise your hand, i will call on you, tell us who you are, what city

you are from, and ask a question, because the secretary has to get moving. i will start over here. yes. if you talking to the microphone, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm from the city of a chickadee, mass., and secretary donovan, thank you for being with us and for your cooperation in removing some of the red tape in getting these programs moving. that has been helpful. come to our city, and we will show you 100 brand new first- time home buyers that were financed with home funds. it has been very helpful in working on our foreclosure issues and getting some new people with skin to in the game. i want to reiterate our comments before about the stimulus. i think the cities and the mayors have shown that we manage

stimulus and federal funds better than any state ever could -- we get programs on the ground, shovels in the ground, and jobs for people, a lot better, a lot quicker than the states have, and that leaves me to suggest you might want to consider bundling some of these federal programs where you talk about cooperating, and create a program that will cut the bureaucracy and get some of that money on the ground to the cities and towns. if there are enough oversight mechanisms that we could fulfilled objectives, -- fulfil the objectives, but i think there is a way to get to the republicans and congress by removing the red tape, and going to the local level. finally, i want to talk a little bit about the foreclosure issue. hi would invite you to do what i did when a constituent came to me, because i did not believe

how horribly the banks and their servicers are treating people. so i basically took all of the information and acted as if i was the bar were in trouble, and i tried to get through to somebody who had authority to look at the paper work asking for a loan modification, and i was flabbergasted. i started in mass of thick -- massachusetts. we went to troy, mich., and then we wound up in florida. my last conversation was with a gentleman in india who had no idea what i was talking about. i can only imagines what the frustration is for homeowners that are actually working and trying to make some kind of a deal to stay in their homes. if there needs to be some enforcement. all you are getting is what service from the banks, and i would hope you look further at that. -- lip service from the banks, and i would hope you look further at that.

thank you, mr. secretary. >> but me address the last point directly. many of you may have seen press reports about the work we are dealing with the state attorneys general, 10 different federal agencies, to correct -- correct the problems, the rubble- signing, but also more broadly the way is with the servicer -- the ways the servicers have been treating customers. i, personally, and the president are very focused on holding those banks accountable for those practices in two ways. one is to create real servicing standards that would require, for example, a single point of contact, if that would require that when you are talking to somebody about a modification, you can not be foreclosing on them at the same time, to create real standards for how quickly you have to respond, and a whole

series of other things. frankly, annulus in the attacks on the consumer protection bureau, but because we were able to create the consumer financial protection to the peril, we now, for the first time ever, has the ability to create service in standards that cover every type of institution, not just the banks. the non-bank institutions were a big part of the issue. we have the ability and the authority now, which is under attack, to create national service in standards, so we're going to do that, and we're also willing to push the banks into this settlement to help existing homeowners stay in their homes, to a accelerate what they're doing around modifications and principal reductions, so we could really get some teeth into not just helping future folks, but current folks that have been wronged by the practices that we

found. we are very focused on that, and i hope in the coming weeks we have an announcement on it. >> thank you. we'll go over here. >> thank you. good morning. i'm from salt lake city. thank you for joining us, and for coming to salt lake city and looking at our work on homelessness and housing, as well as the grant we were successful in receiving for our region to look. -- to the future development, and the quality of life that we know will allow us to take a giant step forward. thank you for that. i appreciate that all of us in communities are facing very challenging times. we have seen that reflected obviously very directly for us in terms of reductions in community development block grant programs and other programs that really enable our

residents and our communities to have opportunities for housing, jobs, for the infrastructure and transit in our communities that are vital to our present and future opportunities. i also appreciate -- we have never seen in this country the kind of bridging of federal agencies to allow us as committees to work with the federal government, rather than in individual areas. i know in my community that we have may be taken for granted the federal partnership, and our residents are not fully aware of the enormous difference that it makes a year in and year out in our community. i know from my own discussions with and our neighborhoods with residences and businesses, that the appreciation is starting to

grow, but i'm wondering how we can on behalf of our residents in working with congress in these difficult economic and political times, how we can improve our understanding within our communities and for congress particularly about the approach that is benefiting all of us in our cities. >> so, it is an important question in normal times. is a particularly important question right now. to be very clear, this is not a long-term question, either. this is, literally, over the next three-to-four months, how do we tell the story, and connected to citizens, and to their representatives? because if we are not able to, we are going to have a very difficult time continuing the work that i am so proud of that

we have been able to do. so, part of it is this -- been able to tell the story effectively. let me give you an example. there is one area of funding that actually increased in hud's budget in 2011 -- only one, and that was in homelessness. why is that? we now, over a decade, have been able to build the case that not only has the program been effective in reducing homelessness, which is down by about one-third nationally, but have been able to show that these investments save money because the cost of being homeless is actually higher than been housed, particularly for the chronically homeless. so, i do believe that if we could tell the story through this kind of approach, in saying not just what are we paying, but

what are we getting for the investments that we are making, and do it in ways that our scientific and use hard numbers, that is incredibly important. we also have to tell the story very directly, whether it is the events that we did what was in salt lake, which told that story very directly, or it is the kinds of events that you as mayors have begun to do. those are absolutely critical in telling the story. there is nothing like the face of a real person who may have benefited from being a new homeowners through the home program. if there is nothing like those stories. i remember being told when i first came to washington during the clinton administration from a senior staffer that politics is felt in need. there could be huge needs, but

if they're not felt, if they are not seen, they're not going to be met. this is the time, if there has ever been a time to tell the story, now is the time to tell that story. >> we're running out of time. time for two more questions appeared >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm the mayor of the city in florida. i'm so glad you received that document, and i am so glad you're here, as you always are, supporting us. we had a meeting in washington, where one of the president's advisers did not think cdbg was such a good idea. i gave him my thoughts, and told them how important it was, as you just espoused. the question i have, is in our city, we just passed our allocation for $800,000 from the cdbg block grants to go ahead and to our program for senior

housing, to get seniors are around our city to doctors' appointments through public transportation, under 570, and all of those documents that we satisfy ourselves on there. you talk about veterans. we had a veteran that fell out of the tree trimming his tree. i heard about it in the newspaper. i went to see him. the only thing he wanted was to be able to get around his wheelchair in this house i went to a private entity, they gave him wheels, and we used a block grant to help and renovate his home so he could get around, this great a veteran of loss -- of our seven know where to go except us and our government. -- and veteran of ours who had nowhere to go except us and our government. if you want to come to the cities we can show you what we are doing to be the nexus and

the engines to make this country strong. so our question is, we just want to help you, how can we help you? >> telling that story helps, and that is my point. each of you has to figure out how to tell the story. i often hear from members of congress -- "folks in my community to none of this is federal funding." you all care so much about cdbg and home because you feel so much ownership about it, it is flexible, and you get to decide how to use it. sometimes, i think, and i was guilty of this at the local level, sometimes we treat this as our money, and that -- and that it is not federal money because it works in a way that it does. each of you making the

commitment to go back and do something to tell the story, and to let members of congress now that it does connect to the federal -- know that it does connect to the federal level, and without federal support we could not do those things, that is where you could do to help that. and, as i talked about earlier, the more we could do to direct cdbg steve jobs -- it is enormously flexible. we want to keep it flexible, but if there were ever a time that we could pick and choose, and direct cdbg to jobs, now was a time to do that. we have to be innovative. we have to bring in as much private capital as possible. the more we say you take $1 away from cdbg, that means $5 of private capital are not coming

into your community, and then the transparency of been able to say here is what we have done with the. being -- this. been able to collect the data will help us help you by being able to collect the facts to make the case. >> mr. secretary, thank you for spending time with us today. it is very clear you are a friend of cities, and we are all on the same page. we need others to get on the same page that we are on, and we will all work in partnership to improve housing opportunities and economic development opportunities for those in our communities, and we will work together on that. thank you very much, mr. secretary. i know you have to go. >> great to see. [applause] -- great to see you. [applause] >> the u.s. house comes in and about 20 minutes, meeting for general speeches, with

legislative work and getting under way at 2:00 p.m.. among the bills considered, elimination of the election assistance program, set up to insure state officials have equipment at two o'clock 15 in the senate, they will start on a common it -- nomination vote on leon panetta. on c-span 3 today, president obama's nominee to be the new commerce secretary, john bryson, will be before the commerce committee. he is an environmental lawyer who helped found the national resources defense council. and, some booktv coverage for you this evening, the scene the director during hurricane katrina when it hit new orleans, michael brown has written a book about his experience. he will talk about it today at

the national press club. you can see it live, beginning at 6:30 p.m. eastern. >> this weekend, booktv and american history tv with the history of literary life of savannah, ga., which the events on c-span 2, including the child could home of a novelist and short story writing -- writer, a conversation with the sister of jim williams, and also 84 of urban slavery slights, with civil war savannah's author. and, travel to the founding days of savannah as we visit the sites of plantations. c-span compelled local content vehicle in savannah georgia, this week -- this weekend on c- span two and three. >> the republican leadership council -- conference met over the weekend, and heard from the

nephew of former president george w. bush, the son of former florida governor judd bullish. spoke on the bush family legacy for about 20 minutes. >> based on the size of this crowd, i hope you were not expecting one of the other george bush. there are a lot of firsts within the bush family. i'm the first george bush to be on facebook, so i escape, if you can, to like me on facebook, so i can keep in touch with you with respect to maverick pack which helps to engage young

americans in the political system. [applause] assince i'm here, i might well give the bush family opted for what it is worth. my grandfather, former president george w. bush, recently turned 87, but my grandmother, barbara bush, the silver fox, also known as the enforcer, executed her video in -- herve caller: in jumping out of a plane again. he will jump out again when he is 90. last week he received an honorary law degree from dartmouth, along with conan o'brien, making him the third lawyer in the family join my wife and i. so much for tort reform. he received the presidential medal of freedom, which is considered the highest honor.

he got it was cool because he got to meet bill russell and stan musial. this culminated in a tribute to his foundation, which we are all able to win join with him. -- enjoy with him. a lot of folks have also asked about my dad, former governor of the state of florida, jeb bush, about his political plans, and i do not have any breaking news for you, but i can say that is currently for passing on their reform nation of our government, more pectic early on -- more particularly on the charter school effort. what he has accomplished since leaving office is an amazing testament to how you did not necessarily have to run for public office to make a change. with respect to my uncle george

and aunt laura, i'm here to make a plug. much to the chagrin of "the new york times" the book "decision points" said at the top of the best-seller lists for 28 weeks. recently, there completing the plans for the presidential library in dallas, texas. we afford to welcoming you all. as dick cheney recently joked, it is about the only shovel- ready project right now. [laughter] [applause] >> it goes without saying that my generation 9/11 was really the defining moment for many young americans. whether it was the numerous deployments pursuant to military service, volunteering to teaching inner-city schools, where getting involved in politics for the first time, young americans of answer the call in dramatic fashion. after having returned from

afghanistan myself very recently, i learned about the painful realities for a government yearning for altruistic public citizen's to get involved and created better tomorrow. i know my generation faces another challenge. the greatness of our country has been compromised. throughout our country's history, it is than an on written rule the day leadership tries to keep a country more prosperous and rich with opportunity than the one they inherited. this is no longer the case. my generation will be the first to not have as much opportunity as those that came before us, and instead of being offered an opportunity or a handout, we are being handed a big, fat invoice. one generation ago, if an economist was able to analyze sovereign risk, it would be unlikely that this country would be on top of that list. fast forward to this year, the same economist would probably be

fired if he did not pinpoint the u.s. as a country that is subject to sovereign risk. this dramatic transportation -- transformation, happened in small, tiny increments over the years, if that is until the economic crisis, which demonstrated the underlying problems stemming from our public policy -- a dysfunctional health-care system, state and local government, on find pension liabilities, -- unfunded pension liabilities, and are unsustainable debt and deficit are a few of the reasons why. they, along with other challenges, explain why rating agencies have the united states on its watch list for downgrades status from investment-grade. i am not here to be known the current fiscal crisis we face, nor do i think the average person my age presiding themselves to inaction, as this is not an irreversible

situation. i know my generation and the republican party will lead a turnaround of our country's decline with significant policy changes that focus on long-term economic growth, and corresponding job creation. given our penchant for taking on great challenges, and our entrepreneurialism nature as young americans, and are willing? -- our willingness to serve cause is greater than ourselves, we will have profound changes. i would like to talk briefly about three of the issues republicans are currently leading in the halls of congress and statehouses throughout the country. really, the essentially involved the use of common sense more than anything else, and that is in connection with energy, tax and regulation, and education policy. make no mistake, the biggest political fight of my generation will be to undertake the loan in national debt that we face, current deficit spending levels, and the size and scope of

government. this is definitely worth fighting. that should not stop us from the beginning to create energy security policy, on shackle individuals from over-regulation and taxation, and terrance forming how we educate our children. -- transforming how we educate our children. if great countries cannot depend on foreign sources of oil. status 20 years ago, off 28% was imported in the united states, and today, over 60% is imported from other countries, even though our country has many natural resources available to us. 10 of the countries around the state department put the travel warning was. we spend approximately $1 billion a day purchasing overseas oil instead of investment dollars that could be used organically within our own borders. this is essentially a destructive tax on the american consumer. the good news is that we have gone from predictions of

imminent declines to current projections of having the least 100 years of current supply. however, the current administration is embarking on new rules to restrict this new development, imposing new taxes, new regulations, elimination's of new deductions on the industry, and also supporting special interest groups that attempts to strike fear in the hearts of those are currently developing in urban areas. if we are to grow 84% gdp rate, which is what the white house projects -- at a 4% gdp rate, which is what the white house projects, and what we need to afford to service the current debt and be within striking distance of reducing the national deficit, we need to exploit our own forms of natural energy, particularly natural gas, oil, coal, nuclear, and long-term renewable spread the president should create a long- term strategy around this

crisis. certainly, the senate amendment that was recently passed curtailing almost all ethanol subsidies is a step in the right direction te. [applause] >> throughout history, and in our country, we are taught that to generate meaningful revenue we have to do it through lowering taxes, not increasing taxes, to encourage production we need to do exactly that. taxes on corporations are way too high, the second highest in the industrialized world. to remain competitive, we need to reduce the current tax rate, because just doing so by 1%, investment falls by 3.7%. price waterhouse cooper conducted a study that showed a reduction to 30% of corporate income tax with three or 50

basis points of gdp growth. more importantly, all republicans brought the country are focusing on what government actions are doing for small businesses, the lifeblood of our economy. people did not realize that 99.7% of all business entities are small businesses, that currently employ over half of all employees and provide two out of three first jobs for young americans. they create over half of all intellectual property generated in our country. since most received taxes and a corresponding rate, we discourage capital outlays, prevent hiring of new workers, and stagnate wages for existing workers precisely at a time when we need our country to get back on track. larger businesses can typically access the too big to sell stimulus programs that are available, but small-business

owners typically pay the price. with all of the czars in washington d.c., there should be a small business czar, fighting those that stifle small business and innovation. [applause] >> finally, our education system is being transformed based on the good work of republicans to route our country. in order to match the needs of the 21st century, we need to change the current education system. regretfully, we still have a school year based on fee time on whether students -- students advance. our curriculum is not germane to the jobs are in the future, and our results, by all measures, indicate that we are behind other countries like korea, singapore, and most of europe. to be competitive in the 21st

century, republicans are continuing efforts to revamp our system, starting with the ending of social promotion. [applause] >> still does that have not mastered how to read by fourth grade, and need to do so before their promoted to middle school. standards need to be raised so that a high-school degree matters, and they do not have to take remedial class is to get by in college. we need to emphasize math and science, so we do not have to import scientists and engineers from other countries, and encourage younger americans to take on careers in these fields. we need more career-learning alternatives as kids' progress their education system to find subjects that are more tangible and interesting to them. we need to pay teachers for student performance as opposed to longevity of service. [applause] >> we need more school choice, both private and public, to get

students and parents alternatives and to create competition in our inner cities. we spend more per student than any other country in the world, but our outcomes need to get dramatically better. we accountability in our education system now. [applause] >> having said all of this, where one need only turn on the television this week to see the compelling images from greece to become more aware of the burdens of debt, deficit, and the weakening of our currency -- the consequences of the nation when their debt surpasses the size of their gdp, and one rating agencies placed a country's credit on watch lists, and when interests exceed normal levels of a percentage of gdp. we, as young americans, face the excruciating choice of either extraordinarily higher tax rates, or significant austerity measures is clear, concise

measures are not taken now. this year, entitlements spending alone will exceed total federal revenue. think about that. we could not spend $1 on defense or other discretionary programs, and we still would not be able to balance the budget. the president's response has been to propose a budget that calls to spend a little over 40 cents for every dollar that we take in. ladies and gentlemen, this is not leadership, nor is it meaningful entitlement reform. we should examine a slow, gradual increase for benefits, a -- age increase for benefits, while holding our commitment to seniors that are currently at or over the age of retirement. for younger americans, we are more likely to seek a u.s. fall than a social security check -- a ufo and a social security check, but implementing reforms

right now gives us a fighting chance this is especially the -- chance. currently, regretfully, the ratio is 3-to-one. with medicare and medicaid expected to go bankrupt in the coming years, we have to reform government-mandated health care, and the provision of care for our seniors and our disabled to provide more flexibility to the end user. if the president and our adversaries were not already talking about the 2012 campaign cycle, and were serious about reforming entitlements and containing our looming debt problem, they would provide either proposals of their own, or utilize our proposals as a basis to begin negotiations. just as my generation has stepped up to our country's challenges presently, i know we are on board with some of these

painful decisions that we will make, even if it is to our own detriment. the 9/11 generation cannot go down as the bankrupt generation. we have to reform entitlements now. [applause] >> in business meetings and political events that i've had the pleasure of engaging in, i sense that many believe america's days are behind us. i disagree with that assessment. i believe republicans are capable of leading a turnaround. [applause] >> we need to support republican leaders they're willing to put aside short-term focus, and willing to risk their political careers. we to support leaders to speak clearly about the challenges that my generation faces, and about the opportunities if we do act upon these challenges. whinney to encourage leadership that demonstrates the determination, courage, creativity, and integrity to make it happen. [applause]

>> with that, let me leave you with the words of a remarkable american, my grandfather, george h. w. bush. [applause] >> these words were delivered in his swearing-in as the 41st president of the united states -- "let future generations oferstand the burdens freedom, let them know that together, we are from america and the world as a committee of conscious. in our rebound, let us heed those words. as i look around this room, i rest assured that we, as americans, truly understand the burdens and blessings of freedom, that historians will say that we stood where duty required us to stand. thank you very much. [applause]

>> george p. bush, speaking over the weekend. coming up next, the u.s. house gavels in for morning hour. time is set aside for 5 minute general speeches. the legislative work will start at 5:30 p.m. eastern, and among the five bills being considered is elimination of the election assistance commission, said the death of the 2000 bush-gore campaign. the senate will come in at two o'clock 3:00 p.m. eastern, back from their party caucuses, and you can follow the senate on c- span to. now, live to the u.s. house. uts of the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. june 21, 2011. i hereby appoint the honorable michael k. simpson to act as speaker pro tempore on this day . signed, john a. boehner,

speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 5, 2011, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate, the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip limited to five minutes. each. but in no event shall debate continue beyond 1:50 p.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia, mr. connolly, for five minutes. mr. connolly: mr. speaker, while it's imperative we reduce the federal deficit, balancing the budgets on the backs of our nation's disadvantaged children and senior citizens is not a responsible nor equitable. i believe in an america that protects the young and elderly. but the republican budget attacks the important safeguards for children and the disadvantaged replacing medicaid with vastly limited

monetary grants to the states, forcing them to either reduce benefits to lower income families or reduce the number of eligible families. currently 34 million children receive health care through medicaid. from 1997 to 2009, the percentage of children without health insurance as a result dropped from 13.9% to 8.2%. the republican budget's attacks on medicaid will imperil the health insurance for 21,100 children and reduce the benefits for 6,100 seniors in my district, the 11th of virginia. unfortunately the republican attacks don't end with medicaid. imagine a world where half of all seniors lack health insurance. imagine a world which the rising costs of health care threaten retirees' ability essential medicine. imagine a world where more than one out of every three soonors lives in poverty and the choice for the day is between food and

drugs. this isn't a nighter mare, it was the united states in 1965, before we passed medicare. seniors suffering from arthritis, hypertension, coronary disease and other ailments lacked coverage and far too often fell to financial distress. but thanks to medicare we changed all of that. providing compared health insurance coverage to our nation's seniors. as a result the senior poverty rate decreased by 75%. but our retirees once again face that scenario as the republican budget plan seeks to eliminate medicare for everyone 54 years and younger and forces future retirees in funding insurance in the 2349 private market. the private market which could choose not to offer them coverage at all. many seniors will be forced to pay more for health insurance. many seniors won't find any coverage. under the republican plan for medicare, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, retirees in 2022

will pay 6,400 more per year than they otherwise would under traditional medicare coverage. in addition the republican budget reopens medicare part d prescription drug coverage gap or the doughnut hole which will cost seniors thousands of dollars each year for prescription medication. prescription drugs can be expensive and many of the medications seniors take are long-term. people take medication daily to control their arthritis pain or lower their cholesterol and reduce the risk of stroke. these lifesaving medications come at a price. the implementation of medicare part d in 2005 left many seniors with a gap in coverage. the doughnut hole. this gap, the initial coverage limit, and catastrophic coverage amount costs many seniors thousands of dollars a year. i was proud to vote to eliminate that doughnut hole in 2009 with the health care reform bill. unfortunately just two years later the republican attack on medicare reinstates the doughnut hole once again threatening seniors with thousands of dollars in

medication costs. mr. speaker, i know our constituents want the congress to get our fiscal house in order and they are right. but americans don't want us to eviscerate medicare and attack retiree health insurance as part of that process. i recently held ale it phone town hall meeting and i conducted a poll, 1,700 people participated. 73% said do not gut medicare. true fiscal responsibility requires a firm commitment and shared sacrifice. it involves long-term focus to rein in and reduce spending in a responsible, sustained manner. real fiscal discipline retires us to look at every area of the budget, including revenues, saving, efficiencies and cuts where necessary. ultimately the budget represents our nation's priorities. reducing deficits is a significant priority. and as my constituents in the 11th district of virginia have made clear, protecting seniors and their medicare is equally significant. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the

chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, for five minutes. mr. poe: request permission to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. poe: mr. speaker, it's turn out the lights, the party is almost over for the incandesceant light bulb. four years ago a law went into place which mandated every light bull shall across america must be 25% more efficient by 2014. what this meant was that the incandesceant light bulbs, thomas edison's greatest invention, is being banned and americans will be forced to buy the government selected replacement, the compact floor restant light bulb. there are health risk problems with the c.f.l. the national institute of health states that floor restant bulbs contain mercury. isn't that lovely. further, another federal agent, agency, the e.p.a. warns that the broken bulb contains mercury and will continue to release it until it is cleaned up and removed from the room. end of quote. mr. speaker, i thought we were trying to get rid of mercury in

our products in this country. so in case we happen to break one of these new class fragile light bulbs, and i have one here and i'm being careful not to drop it on the house floor because if i do we'll have to evacuate the house floor because ears here's what the e.p.a. says and advises to do to clean up the debris in this light bulb. i'm reading from the e.p.a.'s verbatim website. have and pets leave the room. air out the room for five to 10 minutes by opening the window. or a door to the outdoors. now, how do you do that in a high rise, mr. speaker? you shut off the central heating and air conditioning system. collect materials needed to clean up the broken bulb. i guess we have to use glove and duct tape. and place the cleaned up materials in a sealable container. promptly place all bulb debris and clean up materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly.

avoid leaving any bulb fragments or clean up materials inside the room. it goes on. continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating and air conditioning system shut off for several hours. i might note this is just a condensed instructions. the e.p.a. has provided more detailed instructions on its website and i ask unanimous consent to submit this three-page ink single spaced typed over 1,000 words on how to clean up one of these light bulbs if it's broken into the record, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. poe: recently the french have noted that c.f.l. bulbs can harm a child's vision because they contain arsenic among other poisons. and the german scientists have found that these c.f.l. bulbs can also cause cancer. now, isn't that an odd idea these bulbs mandated by the federal government actually are harmful to our health. we should forget school lunches, mr. speaker, we now need to worry about our

children's eyesight because of the lighting they sit under every day in the classroom thanks to the blind federal government. the federal government's anti-energy, anti-consumer choice regulation leaves americans no other option but to purchase and use a harmful poisonous product. if that's not reason enough to get rid of these bulbs, here's another one. none of these bulbs are made in the u.s.a. you look very carefully on every one ever these bulbs, they will say made in china. that's right. our good buddies the chinese make all of these bulbs. the last major factory in the united states that made incandesceant light bulbs closed down september 14, 2010. this ended a manufacturing industry that began all the way back to thomas edison. so these job-producing light bulb factories have been shipped to china and now to mexico leaving more americans out of work. in fact the lyle bulb that i just read off of says it is made in china. and it's in several languages, of course.

the federal government imposed a burdensome harlful to your health regulation, an american factory closed, jobs moved overseas, resort of heard this story before. but there's a bright spot to this sad tale. just yesterday the state of texas passed a law that protects texans from this absurd abuse of power. it will allow texans to continue to buy incandesceant bulbs made in the state of texas. keeping the government out of people's lives and keeping jobs in america, even if it is texas. let's not forget this regulation is unconstitutional. the federal government doesn't have the authority to force anybody to buy anything. from health care insurance to a box of doughnuts or a light bulb, especially if it is hazardous to america's health no. where in the constitution does the federal government have such abusive power. so it's time we repeal the unconstitutional, job-killing, bad for your health light bulb mandate, otherwise it looks like we'll be singing the party's over for the

incandesceant light bulb because they say all good things must end. call it a night. the party's over. and tomorrow starts the same old thing again. that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon, mr. defazio, for five minutes. mr. defazio: seen some pretty miserable employment numbers reclently, but the real unemployment rate is actual bye about twice what we read in the paper. we have discouraged workers and people who are underemployed. now, can we look to washington for solutions? on the republican side of the aisle the answer's simple, more tax cuts. that will put people back to work. let's see for 10 years now been living under the bush tax cuts. we have had the worst job creation for the last decade since world war ii. now, it doesn't seem to be working too well, but it's all based on the theory of

trickle-down. i think at this point the american people have been trickled on so much, particularly those unemployed and looking for work, they would like an umbrella and a little shelter from these nonsensical policies. can we look to the white house? unfortunately, things aren't a lot better down at the white house. they went along with the republicans on quite a bit of these tax cuts. 40% of the so-called spluss was tax cuts. -- stimulus was tax cuts. 1/6 of that was invested in infrastructure, and guess what? that investment at 1/6 the cost of the tax cuts put a heck of a lot more people back to work. investment in building things and in the future of our country as opposed to debt driven consumption driven tax cuts. last december the president caved, went along with extending the bush tax cuts. we still have miserable job creation. oh, wow. that's a surprise. now, this loaded a balloon.

white house has a great new idea, let's continue the social security tax holiday. that was a part of the bush -- added to the bush tax cuts in december. that's created a lot of jobs. sure, working families can use an extra 15 bucks a week, but what about the 20 million people unemployed. they don't get any of that. and how much of that $15 a week, how many jobs does that create? the white house thinks we should extend that and maybe we should give it on the employers' side, too. here's the way it will work. we don't have the money. we are going to cut the social security tax again. we have to make the trust fund whole, so we'll borrow $200 billion from china that we'll put into the social security trust fund and that's going to put america back to work. what a great idea. wait a minute. how about we take that $200 billion the white house wants to borrow, to extend the social security tax holiday, and we invest it in real things, the

nation's crumbling infrastructure. we have 20% unemployment in the construction industry, and it isn't just construction workers who go to work when we rebuild our infrastructure. we have buy america requirements. they are all american jobs and everything that goes into every job is made in america. the transit system, engineers, software, high tech manufacturing. if it's a bridge you got steel, concrete, engineering design, construction workers. if it's a highway, the same thing. take that money, take that $200 billion you want to borrow and give us a social security tax holiday. instead invest it in the future of this country and things that will serve our country for 100 years because more productive, more efficient, and you can look your grandkids in the eye 15, 20, 30 years from today and say, yeah, that's right. we borrowed that money and you are still paying the bill. if you give it for a social security tax holiday, you'll say granddad what did you spend

that on? how about he can say we built that bridge, that transit system, we rebuilt our national transportation system. we put millions to work, and guess what? that system will serve you for another 100 years. that's an investment versus consumption. everybody around here is just into consumption. we need to invest in the future of our country. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from new mexico, mr. pearce, for five minutes. mr. pearce: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. . mr. pearce: thank you, mr. speaker. this past weekend i had the opportunity in hobbs, new mexico, to attend two services, two recognition ceremonies for people from hobbs. first of all, we were able to attend the retirement for dr. dean mathis who pastored taylor memorial baptist church for 30 years. just not heard of these days in america. all teachers are required to do

two very difficult things. they're required to push our knowledge base to the extreme limits of what we're able to now but simultaneously of that they have to stay grounded in truth. in other words, you can't just teach everyday things. dr. mathis did this with extreme care and with a del cassie that i found always attractive. he was able to bring biblical lessons to life in our personal lives to give us relevance to those teachings. i think that also he perfected the community participation in all levels. from his one small congregation there in hobbs, new mexico, we had city councilmembers, judges, two state representatives, the state senator and a u.s. congressman. now, that says a lot coming from one small corner of the state of new mexico.

but his life didn't end there. he also had two missionaries check in from very difficult parts of the world. they were on skype and checked in on the ceremony saying if it hadn't been for his teachings they would not have been there. dr. mathis and his wife, betty sue, directed their lives to the spiritual caution. without those spiritual teachings in our society today we find our society is drifting towards moral chaos. we're dealing with those problems here in this congress as we deal with teen pregnancies, with hunger, with people who are wasting their lives on drugs and taking extraordinary amounts of medicaid. so we deal with the problems of a society that is becoming all too secular and forgetting that no matter what we pass as laws here that there is a moral component to every nation and that if we ignore that we ignore it at our peril. i would like to give my

congratulationses to dr. dean mathis and his wife, betty sue, for their years of service. then on the same day we were able to recognize carl mackey. he was a few years younger than me. passed away too early in age last year. carl mackey was a community leader. he was one of the friends, one of the many people that my mom had in class. she used to talk about carl and said carl's really mobile. that meant carl is walking up and down in classes. carl was one of her favorite students. i know mom and carl both personally and they probably did not agree on one philosophical issue. carl was a hard-core democrat, community activist, black leader. mom just was conservative, raised a conservative family. but they identified each other across that chasm of philosophy to recognize that there aren't many differences in us when we accept the human nature that says that everyone should have access to justice, to mercy, to

kindness. and so it was in that that this young junior high student and mom formed a relationship that continued until he passed away. was able to visit with mom about their relationship this last weekend and she still remembers it with a smile. when i was elected and carl mackey was serving, carl and i again overcame all the supposed difficulties, the things that we did not see eye to eye on in our philosophies. but we did eye to eye in having him represent a piece of the community that is often forgotten. that was the community that i grew in, the southern part of hobbs, the part of hobbs that did not get its fair share of funding, fair share of justice. so carl was a constant voice, reminding all of us that we need to stop, slow down just a bit and pay attention to the small guys in society. he'll be greatly missed. dr. mathis and his wife will be greatly missed. i think the community of hobbs, taking the time to honor two different people, completely

different backgrounds, completely different lives, who weren't so different after all. in the end we're all americans and we're here for a better america. i salute them both. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from alabama, ms. sewell, for five minutes. ms. sule: mr. speaker, i rise rise to honor mr. james armstrong of birmingham, alabama, and the documentary of his wife called "the barbour of birmingham: foot soldier for life." it was part of the sundance film festival and later won best documentary short at the ashland independent film festival. in march the city of birmingham hosted a red carpet screening of this wonderful movie and it was attended by over 2,000 alabamians. it was featured at the alabama theater a venue that once

refused admission to african-americans. tonight, we will celebrate the "barbour of birmingham" with its -- "barber of birmingham" and will be screened at civil dots festival in silver springs, maryland. mr. speaker, the screening of this film and its historic accounts are deserving of tribute. i commend the independent filmmakers and co-directors, robin friday, and the late gail dolgen for their collaborative vision and capturing mr. james armstrong's life. a birm --ingham legend, it told the thousands of foot soldiers that were not written in the history books. i applaud the directors for their wonderful ren dention of mr. james armstrong's life. i applaud gail dolgen for her

steadfast determination while battling breast cancer and co-directing through her hospice bed in order to submit the film for the sundance festival. she died two weeks prior. i pay homage to ms. amelia boynton of selma who provided hiss tore account accounts for the film. the story visited and revisited the news of the beating of ms. amelia boynton and others that endured beatings on edmund pettis bridge on bloody sunday during their march for voting rights acts. though she is ill, she was determined to travel the distance, to be part of tonight's premiere. i am inspired by the courage and determination displayed by ms. boynton who at 99 years old would not be deterred and will be here tonight at the premiere "the barber of birmingham"

right tercompe capitol's visitor center. james armstrong, who died at age 81 in 2009, lived to see the fulfillment of his dream when our nation elected the first african-american president. i recognize him for a symbol of everything that is good and right and great in this nation. for over 50 years, mr. armstrong opened a barbershop in birmingham, beament. it served as a community hub for discussions of civil rights issues. mr. james armstrong was a world war ii army veteran and he made his mark on the civil rights movement as a foot soldier who carried the american flag at the head of the 1965 selma to montgomery march, bloody sunday as it's known. when authorities turned on the marchers that day, mr. armstrong dropped to his knees but he never let go of that

flag. proudly james armstrong carried that flag until the day he died on 2009 for every commemoration of bloody sunday march. as many in this agust body will note, our colleague, the honorable john lewis of georgia, was among the foot soldiers of this historic march. i salute mr. armstrong and his sons, dwight and floyd, for fulfilling the destiny meant for them. you know, he and his sons filed a discrimination lawsuit that encouraged blacks to actually attend elementary schools in the deep south. breaking barriers in public education in birmingham and throughout the south. they filed a desegregation lawsuit in 1963. the armstrongs lived close to where civil rights activist, the reverend fred shulsworth's house was bomb and where the four little black girls were killed in the baptist church

just five days after they integrated graymont elementary school. dwight and floyd needed a federal escort to school for two years and was guarded at the night by shotguns by members of the alabama christian movement for human rights. now, these selfless acts by james, floyd and dwight armstrong added significantly to the quality of life of all citizens in alabama and in birmingham. that is why i stand before you today to recognize mr. james armstrong, a proud american, a proud alabamian, for his unrelenting dedication to the civil rights movement. mr. speaker, i would like to take a point of personal privilege by saying to all of you assembled that i grew up in selma, alabama, and i take great proud -- may i have one more minute? i take great proud in paying tribute to -- the speaker pro tempore: the

chair cannot entertain requests for time. ms. sewell: i encourage all to see it when it comes to a theater near you. the speaker pro tempore: members are reminded to address their remarks to the chair. the chair recognizes the gentleman from 'em texas, mr. gohmert, for five minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. as always, it's an honor to speak here in the house of representatives. i heard democratic friends earlier what we need to do to get the economy going is start spending on infrastructure. but because our grandchildren will really appreciate the dollars that they have to pay years from now that we spent on infrastructure. the only thing is that's exactly what our friends across the aisle were saying in january of 2009 when they wanted an $800 billion stimulus package that turned out to be maybe $900 billion or a

trillion, it was supposed to be for infrastructure. many people in the public said, that would be a good idea. turned out only 6% or so, 6% to 7% may have been for infrastructure. ok. fool us once, shame on you. fool us twice, shame on us. the thing is we weren't fooled back then. we were seeing things that were not done. i voted against that so-called pork luss stimulus, whatever you want -- porkulous stimulus, whatever you want to call it. i voted against turp. we are not supposed to give one man $700 billion and say, go, do whatever you want with money. we don't care. just fix things. because he certainly didn't fix things although he did engorge his buddies at goldman sachs. nevertheless, we do face economic difficulties and within the last two weeks there were six of us, bipartisan

group in turkey. their economy seems to be going very well. we were seeing things growing and doing well in istanbul and they don't understand sarcasm very well but i nonetheless said to some of the economic leaders, business leaders, so you must have had many huge stimulus packages to get the economy going. they looked at me like i was crazy because they don't understand sarcasm very well in another language, i guess, but they spoke good english. nevertheless, they didn't use stimulus packages, but they did say they had dropped their corporate tax rate that was much too high down to 20% and now businesses have been coming in. gee, that works. it works whenever it's been tried. but let me get to another point. credibility is always relevant and my days as a judge and

chief justice, that was one of the rules of court. credibility is always an issue. it's always relevant. so when this country makes promises to people and doesn't keep them or they're stupid promises to people who will not keep their word to us, we lose credibility. we found out now that this administration is negotiating with the taliban. basically, you know, just let us out. we're negotiating with the taliban? did hoover negotiate with dillinger, bonnie and clyde? you know, robert kennedy as attorney general negotiate with the mob? people involved and they're murderers and criminals and engaged in criminal activity and they never keeped a promise, do you really want to be making that deal? now i know we should have learned the lesson from the

clinton administration when north korea was trying to build nukes, the administration sends in madeleine albright and said, hey, we'll build you a nuclear power plant if you build -- build a nuclear power plant if we tell you we won't pursue it? sure. we'll tell you all day long. that has been used to develop nuclear weapons just like anybody should have figured it would. when you deal with criminals, with lying thugs, you can't trust that agreement. . for us to be negotiating with the taliban there is a blight on those who have given their lives there. i attended a funeral this weekend of brad who went down in a helicopter accident june 5. we owe those people who have given their lives fighting against those who want to destroy our way of life better

than cutting a deal. let's rearm the northern alliance for people who originally defeated the taliban, give them the advisors, trainers, all they need, and let them with the taliban -- let's don't negotiate with dill linger. it makes no sense. and we lose credibility. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following enrolled bills. the clerk: senate joint resolution 9, providing for the reappointment of robert p. cogat as a citizen recent of the board of regents of the smithsonian institution. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until 2:00 p.m. today.

>> president obama's secretary nominee, john briceon, goes before the senate commerce committee. he's an environmental lawyer and he helped find the natural resources and defense council.

watch that hearing live at 2:30 eastern. the director at the time of hurricane katrina six years ago, michael brown, has written a book about his experience called diagnosis deadly indifference: the perfect political storm." he'll talk about that book this evening at the national press club and we'll have it online at booktv.org and that's at 6:30 eastern tonight. >> next month on "book tv's" "in depth," linda hogan. her book focuses on nate tif american and women's issues including the woman who watches over the world. dwellings. and her latest, rounding the human corners. we'll take your phone calls, emails and tweets for linda hogan sunday, july 3 at noon eastern on c-span2. >> the now chairman talked

about broadband for the f.c.c. he's interviewed by michael powell there on your screen. the head of the national cable and telecommunications association. >> to meeting the kind of things that broadband brings. not only is he a gifted attorney, having served on the supreme court of the united states, he has a vast array of experience, as an entrepreneur and he has previous experience at the federal communications commission. we couldn't have asked for beater individual to serve in this extraordinary office. i'm proud to call him a friend. our chairman of the federal communications commission, ladies and gentlemen, julius genachowski. >> welcome, mr. chairman.

i'm used to sitting in that seat. >> you can have it back. [laughter] >> never. been there, done that. thank you. look, you and i have known each other a long time. approaching 20 years. we sat together like this in a coffee shop sometime back in 1993 and we shared a passion about the future and i couldn't have been happier when i saw you go -- appointed to the f.c.c. one of the first things you did at the heart of the economic crisis, the country was able to galvanize its focus on broadband and you really picked that up now. i want to ask you right off the bat, how do you think about the recent thing about communication through broadband? if i were to lay all your speeches here, it's rarely all about cable, just about powerless, just about broadband. it tends to be a converged message. tell us a little bit about the purpose of that focus and how you govern differently with that focus.

>> sure. first of all, it's great to have you in that seat and it is a terrific thing that neither of us have changedality all in the last 20 years -- changed at all in the last 20 years. >> really? >> not at all. not at all. you said yesterday that broadband powers the american dream and i think you captured it perfectly. and that i think we probably talked about that a version 20 years ago. we may not have used broadband. we may have talked about technology powers so much of what's great about america and how we're going to march into the future. but there's no question now in this period of our economic history, of our technology history that broadband, that high-speed internet is the platform for economic activity, growth in the 21st century, central platform for innovation, platform for addressing hard national

challenges like education and health care and energy and public safety, platform for civic engagement. and so it was an absolute priority of mine when i got to the f.c.c. as chairman to focus the agency on the opportunities and challenges of broadband. >> uh-huh. it's extraordinary. one of the things that's challenging at the agency, of course, and i'm sure you live with this every day, there is this common appreciation for broadband and a business to bit market. at the same time we are continued to be governed by statutes that has heavily galvanized thing. if you use copper you are a telecom provider. how do you work through that? how do you deal with that and sort of reconciling the separate buckets with a market reality that converges? >> well, i completely agree on

the convergence. the way that we do our work is focusing on what our goals are, what our goals for the country are, trying to be concrete of what the challenges are. and figuring out what needs to happen. sometimes it's government action. often it's not. the statute is imperfect. it does give the f.c.c., i think, ample flexibility to deal with the issues for us to look across the landscape and say, listen, here's how we need to maximize innovation across the landscape in a way that promotes competition fairly. and at some point the telecommunications act will be updated. i said it would make sense to update it. the challenges we have now are so pressing that our focus is on identifying them, tackling them one at a time. as we do that i do want to say one thing about the cable industry that's become very clear to me in this job.

the fact that we have a cable infrastructure that reaches over 90% of the country. 9 %. >> 93%. >> 93% of the country. in that infrastructure is now almost entirely available for broadband, used for broadband. it's an extraordinary thing. and when you look at the history of the cable industry, which really is one of the great american success stories, right? bunch of pioneers saying, hey, let's string some wires on telephone poles and see if we can offer a brand new kind of television platform to americans and then to actually pull that off and then to turn that infrastructure into something that provides high-speed internet access is an incredible thing. broadband is really important to the u.s. now because it's important to the rest of the world. so it's a fundamental issue of global competitiveness for us. and the fact that we start with

this fat pipe that reaches 93% of the country gives the u.s. a competitive advantage in the global economy. >> it's interesting, right, because in contrast to many countries, cable has often been the leading infrastructure in the united states. leading the availability of broadband whereas a good chunk of the world it really is an incumbent telephone story, right? it sounds like you're saying, we have potentially an advantage in the united states if we can harness it properly on having these multiple infrastructures to work with. >> we have to harness it. we have a number of advantages in the united states. that's one. the fact that we're moving faster than most of the rest of the -- more than most of the rest of the world on 4-g wireless is another advantage that we have. we, you know, have in the u.s. the most extraordinary innovative culture and results anywhere in the world and we're

seeing that now in both the wire and the wireless platform. we see it when it comes to video programming for years. this is very exciting. of course, we got some challenges ahead of us. >> yeah. you made -- you talk about broadband a lot and sort of the subtext and subset of that is different infrastructures both for competitive reasons and for more creative tools in the toolbox in solving problems. you've been very articulate about the critcalt of wireless. i want you to say how you see that problem? whether you see 4-g is just a viable broadband, not just competitor but alternative that helps with the country's challenges and then mabel a little bit of, you know, the cable industry has its varying views about wireless. we have companies that provide ter terrestrial services. how do you think of the cable industry in the context of wireless?

>> i'll give you some headline answers. the first thing about wireless is that the wireless world has changed more dramatically in the last 2 1/2 years than anyone could have predicted. to go from the feature phones that we had a couple years ago to smartphones and tablets we have today is, you know, much more than just a little bit of an upgrade. the new devices are obviously creating extraordinary opportunities for innovation. we all know it. almost everyone here has a smartphone or tablet that they're using and i know the cable industry is looking in very innovative ways at those platforms as a way to reach customers where they are. so all of this is exciting. it's creating a ton of jobs. not just in silicon valley but all over the country. it's empowering small businesses to reach new markets, reach more customers,

increase their revenue, lower their costs. all of this is great. here's the problem. the demand that these new devices place on our spectrum capacity is not just a little bit more than the old feature phones. it's not just 10% more, 20% more, 50% more, 100%. it's not just 00% more. a smartphone puts a demand on the spectrum capacity that's 25 times more. 2,500% more than the old feature phone. the tablet's demand on spectrum is 140 times. so demand is increasing exponentially. we have to do something about this. if we really want to harness the opportunities of mobile in the u.s., you know, mike, we introduced a market-oriented incentive auction idea as a way to free up a tremendous amount of spectrum and reallocate it

from older, inefficient uses to newer forward-looking ways. it will free up the treasury. the cable industry has been innovative when it comes to unland. -- unlicensed. how does cable fit into this? i do know that when i speak to people here as you do, the creativity of the thinking is really impressive. and whether it's thinking about something like unlicense and the kind of innovations and experiments that cable vision and time warner are finding with time warner cable. whether it's on the programming side, you know, hbo to go or other ideas on how to use these platforms, the comcast app, all of these are great signs of innovation and the cable industry understanding that the mobile platform is a very real thing. we also heard a lot in different proceedings from

cable companies that have become direct providers of mobile services like cox, like braco, bright star. and we recognize that -- sorry. and they were very effective in convincing us that cable has a positive role to play in the wireless competition landscape and there are some basic smart things we need to do like broadband data roaming that would help unleash private investment in competitive wireless services and we were happy to do that a couple months ago. >> given the way that consumers are thinking about -- this is about your investment experience -- do you think over the next decade that any serious communication company has to have a mobile wireless play of some sort? i don't mean just terrestrial handsets. >> i thought that five years

ago, although i remember when i was in the private sector i remember the debates going from , hey, maybe there's something going strig in mobile that's relevant to us to, wow, mobile really needs to be a part of our core strategic game plan. so i think that's been true for sometime. that's going to get more true, not less true. >> let's just quickly talk a little bit about the economy. >> one thing that was interesting in yesterday's panel was the stark recognition that the biggest drag on the industry, if any, is the extraordinary driving prices. at the end of the day no business pride -- thrive if you don't have an economy to thrive. i know that broadband and cable companies gets the economy out of the hole. do you want to say a word about that? >> absolutely. i think you just said it. i think broadband is an be a slout key to helping us recover

from the terrible economic situation of the last few years. and also making sure that we have sustainable economic growth in the united states. you know, our broadband platform is what will make sure that the next generation of new products that consumers are buying are developed here, launched here, marketed here and then afforded to the rest of the world. i'll give you two perspectives. for a small business, most -- the number one growth path for a small business in america today involves broadband. being able to sell goods in the next city, the next state, the

next country is a huge opportunity. the opportunity to take advantage of broadband to use cloud-based services that lower costs and also to use new broadband-based marketing techniques. groupon is a great example in town which has created 8,000 jobs here in chicago in the last few years. all these opportunities are incredible for small businesses . and we're seeing more and more small businesses take advantage of this. more revenue, lower costs, more jobs. think about it also from the perspective of -- and someone looking for a job. a few years ago if you were looking for a job, you get a newspaper, you look in the classifieds, you call up a company and fax in an application. it doesn't work like that today. 80% of fortune 500 companies do all of their job postings online.

if you don't have access to the internet, you can't even find out that the jobs exist and you can't apply for a job. and more and more -- i hear from c.e.o.'s of small, medium and large businesses if people don't have basic digital skills they are a candidate for fewer and fewer jobs. those are examples of the ways in which broadband can power economic success but also they start to identify some of the issues and the things we face to make sure that broadband plays its role empowering the american dream. >> yes, absolutely. quick question about regulatory philosophy. i've always thought that the power of the f.c.c. chairman cuts in two directions. what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. i want to focus on the latter. your urge by lots of people to do lots of things. sometimes taking business

advantage. sometimes looking for solutions around issues that they think are regulatory in nature. how do you think about sorting through what you shouldn't do? and where you make your own decisions about the appropriate lines or the way you interact with business from the standpoint of the negative option? this is something we shouldn't do and clearly signal to the investor you shouldn't do? >> i think it's a couple of things. i think, one, it's focusing and making sure that the staff of the agency is focusing as they want to do in a dispassionate way in asking what exactly our goals are, what the obstacles and challenges to meeting those goals, what are the best way of achieving those goals being neutral if government action is the way to do this? i know you did this. step one is making sure that everyone on the staff is asking themselves all of these questions. step number two is preserving

the kind of dispassion that i think an agency like the f.c.c. really needs to have. recognizing that there really aren't any precooked answers to any hard problems and the job of the agency is to work through issues, to think about costs to think -- costs, to think about benefits and come up with solutions to the problems that -- again, to borrow one of your phrases -- has the appropriate humidity about what government can -- humility about what government can accomplish. one example of this is a report that we issued a couple days ago on the future of information needs of communities. the report looked at the changing media landscape. it was triggered by things that everyone saw, newspapers shutting down, local television stations cutting back on their

news reporters and it asked the -- it assessed the media landscape. and obviously a lot of people thought there are a whole series of government actions that need to be taken to save journalism. a lot of people thought we shouldn't be asking these questions. we thought these were important questions to ask. at the end of the day the report identified a lot about what's going right in news and information innovation. it also eye department find and very heavily documented a significant problem, a decline in local reporting, local news coverage, local journalism. and it explored creative ideas on how to tackle them. some of them involving government action like greater emphasis on putting more

information online to help reporters to help the public. in some cases streamlining government rules. shift it to things that make sense. one of the things that the report has, and i want to mention here because it's a really good one, one of the greatest accomplishments of the cable industry has been the launch of c-span. one of the many accomplishments but it's a really important one. it's given people an insight into congress. everyone can judge for themselves what we learned over the years by watching c-span. there's no question that this kind of direct aspect has been very important. out of the 50 states in the country there are only four states that have state c-spans. i think they're pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin and california. reporters covering state governments has declined by about a third in the last few years.

and more state c-spans can help the local information landscape by giving the public more information about what their local governments are doing by making it easier and less costly for reporters. so i encourage this industry as the report did to look really hard at this and to take up the challenge of creating more state c-spans around the country. >> terrific. and we work well with steve on your staff who did a great job with that report and we'll continue to look ways to provide local community information. i think it's a helpful contribution. my last question is something i know you're passionate about. while i always heard it, i think you deserve some credit for highlighting the broadband challenge. not only in terms of reach, i think in some ways we're all mildly comfortable we're working hard to connect most of us and are in the 1990's and certainly that last component is tough. but the really interesting thing that came out of your broadband report was

significant number of americans who have it available but for various reasons were not choosing to subscribe of what we call the adoption problem. i know this is something you conceptualize well. i want to give you some minutes on adoption and how we can help you on that. >> this is a really big topic. when we look at the broadband landscape and where we need to go to accomplish our goals around brought to you by, we see three big gaps. and we talked about two of them. one of them is the deployment gap. there are still about 25 million americans who live in americans that don't have broadband infrastructure. we have to get there. with the cable industry's help we're deep into transforming the universal service and we're going to try very hard to get there. the mobile broadband gap, the spectrum gap is another one. we talked about that. then, there's the broadband

adoption gap. so among people who could be online, who could subscribe to broadband, 67% of americans do. one-third don't. it's 100 million americans who could have broadband but don't sign up. 67% adoption compares, for example, to the 90% adoption rate in singapore. and if you think, as i do, that broadband, and you do, is what empowers the american dream. it's what necessary to create jobs and find jobs, to get the full advantages of education, to help transform health care. 67% is so far from good enough that he with can't be satisfied with slow step-by-step incremental change. now, there are very, very good, creative things happening in this industry. cox has been a leader in this one. one of the first things i learned as chairman is some of

the creative programming that cox has been doing to increase adoption. starting in santa barbara, comcast made a very significant commitment in this regard in connection with the comcast nbc transaction. and they're energetically putting it in place. even with that we need to step this up a few notches, and i'm calling on the cable industry, other industries in the broadband economy to step up and help close the broadband gap. it's a big deal. i'm looking forward to working on it with you and everyone in the broadband economy, all stakeholders. at the f.c.c. i'm going to work with my fellow commissioners to launch a new task force that's going to focus attention on what can be done through public-private partnerships and other creative ideas.

but i just don't think we can be satisfied with the pace of improvement on broadband adoption. we went from 65% to 67% in the last year. it's just not good enough. we have to step it up. >> mr. chairman, you can count on the cable industry to be your partner in that effort. we understand the importance of it. i encourage the audience to see the adoption event we're doing at the park later today. the chairman, i think, plans on being there. it's great to have you, ladies and gentlemen. the chairman of the f.c.c., juteyuss jen -- julius genachowski. thank you. >> u.s. house returns in about an hour for 2:00 for one-minute speeches. legislative work starts at 5:30 eastern. they'll consider five bills, four of which deals with naming post offices. the last one would eliminate the election assistance. votes will be at 6:30 eastern. watch it here on c-span.

they'll come back at 2:00 p.m. eastern. president obama's commerce secretary nominee, john bryson, is going before the senate commerce committee. that will be on c-span3. just a short while ago the white house announced that president obama will be making a speech to the nation about the reduction enforces of the surge forces in afghanistan. the associated press says that the president -- a senior defense official says the withdrawal announcement will include 10,000 troops by the end of this year. meanwhile, cnn reports that the president is expected to announce that 30,000 u.s. surge forces will be fully withdrawn from afghanistan by the end of 2012. that's according to an administration official speaking to cnn. that speech tomorrow night at 8:00 eastern. we'll have live coverage on the we'll have live coverage on the c-span networks.