what it is we want, and most people are more afraid of out- living their money than having a terrorist attack. guest: that is an interesting and complicated proposal. who pays for what is a very important discussion. i am a big fan of the pope in los -- poconos. we have an incredibly inefficient health care system. in this country, we spent two times per person other industrialized countries spend on health care for worse results

on average. we spend a lot more money and get worse results. how can we have a more efficient system that delivers better results for less money? how do we get people health care? how do we deal with the obesity crisis? how do we change the underlying model for doctors and hospitals? that will lead to more procedures over time if they get paid per procedure. we will be able to spend less time with the hard work of the lower income people, of who pays the bill if you have an efficient system.

host: the next call is from bob, a republican. caller: my question is pretty simple and straightforward. now that the government has their budget and has raised the debt ceiling, i would like to know if they are planning to extend the unemployment benefits because of the way the economy is today. guest: that is a very good question. this member of congress would support an extension of unemployment insurance for two reasons. it is the right thing to do as a matter of ethics and values. someone collecting unemployment insurance is using that money to put food on the table, feed their children, to keep their

apartment or home, it is the right thing to do. it is the smart thing to do economically. that individual will spend that money at the local grocery store. they will not save it. they will spend it. that money is circulating back into the economy. this congressman would vote in favor of extending unemployment insurance. i fear the majority in the house do not feel that way and are not likely to approve it. they would put that into a basket of more spending. it would be more spending, but it would be economically smart spending at a time when a lot of americans are hurting badly. host: there seems to be increasing discussion and calls for congress to come back in session given the state of the economy. should you be on break right now?

guest: i laugh because that is a tough question. if the leadership, the president, and others could give me some hope that we would go back to washington and pass a good jobs bill or make progress on balancing the national check book instead of the food fight of the last three weeks, i would be the first guy on a train. if we had a truly functional congress right now, we would be in session coming up with a jobs bill, figuring out how to invest in our highways and airports. i would be back in washington in a second. what i have witnessed the last three weeks with people saying it is not a big deal to default, that hurt the economy. i do not want more of that. if we can get constructive and start passing legislation to help the american people, i will

be right back in washington. host: we appreciate your time this morning. we're going to take a quick break. our final hour will be on jobs and the work force. the special focus will be women in the american work force today. our guest is robert gross, the head of the census bureau and an economist who has done a lot of work on women's employment. we will be right back. >> this weekend, he is remembered for designing the u.s. capitol grounds and new

york city central park. justin martin looks at his life as an abolitionist. we stopped by and large party for "the assault on honest debate." we go inside the world of open " the pirates of somalia." sign up for alerts and schedules in your inbox. >> as an aspiring journalist, i am preparing myself for the small salary i will be started out with. >> you have to put aside your bias and report the truth. >> the reason people love fox news and movies so much is because it is an experience. it is love and hate. >> from the conference at george

mason university, aspiring high school journalists on ethics, commentary, and where they get their news and information in today's multi-media environment. throughout this month, c-span radio will be featuring lbj tapes. you can hear him talk with hubert humphrey about vietnam, the paris peace talks, and the presidential race. >> by a conscientious fellow trying to do a job. i will get peace come how or high water. >> you can listen on radio or on line.

watch more video of the candidates. see what the political reporters are saying and track the latest campaign contributions. it is easy to use and helps you navigate the political landscape. includes biographies and the latest polling data. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back for the final installment of looking at jobs in america. on monday, it was work force training programs. wednesday was public-private partnerships. thursday was the federal jobs program. our focus today will be women in the workplace. robert gross is the director of the census bureau. he will give us a statistical

look how women are sharing in our society today. eileen appelbaum is a senior economist at the center for economic and policy research. she spent eight years as the head of the rutgers center for women in the workplace. let's start with the basic numbers. how many women are at work in our population today? guest: the number of women in the labor force has consistently increased over our lifetimes. i think we have a graph that shows from the late 1960's to 2009, it shows a steady increase. the numbers of voice trailed those of men in the workforce. this is a component of the labor force working full time year round. you can see a steady increase on

the 2009 figures. host: it looks as though proportionally, men and women were equally hit in the 2008 recession. guest: the effects of recession are fairly dramatic on full-time employment. at the right side of the chart, you can see that men suffered a little worse than women during the recession. most people relate that to the kinds of occupations and industries men are working in. construction and manufacturing were really hit during the recession, affecting more men than women. host: you wrote a piece about men being hit early the women feeling the effects more now. guest: women have made a lot of progress in terms of employment and moving into better paying occupations.

there's still a very strong gender division of labor in the country. manufacturing is overwhelmingly male. you can hardly find women employed in construction at all. women were employed in private education, health services, and the public sector more than men, especially of the state and local levels. during the recession, jobs were lost across the economy except for private education and health services. that is the only sector this of job growth throughout the recession. women were hit as well as men. the big impact in the recession was in manufacturing and construction. it was overwhelmingly in men's jobs that were lost. in the recovery, women have. much -- in the recovery, women have. less well than men.

there are two reasons for it. we are in an era or we are cutting services. state and local governments are in trouble because of the recession. they are having to cut services. these are largely women's jobs. we have seen k through 12 education take a huge hit. that is hard to understand when we know how important it is for the future to have good schools situations. that is not the whole story. as the economy has recovered, we have recovered jobs in manufacturing and construction. in those two sectors, women have continued to lose jobs. we have had even more growth in health care and private education services. men were less than 1/4 of the work force in those industries

and they have gotten more than 40% of the jobs in the recovery. ies that werer doing well, men are doing better than women. women are falling behind in the public and private sector. host: the phone numbers are divided into time zones. here are the numbers. if you are a woman calling in or have someone in your family who is a woman in the work force and have an interesting story to tell, tell us about it. we would like to see how the statistics play out in your lives. you can also send us a message by twitter or e-mail as well. i want to ask whether the statistics bear out what we have just heard. guest: the current statistics

often come from the bureau of labor statistics. we have a survey that gives us monthly estimates of employment and unemployment. it is a wonderful monitoring tool. she was citing those figures. that is from our sister agency. host: dr. groves, explain the statistics gathered by your agency. guest: it is those agencies whose mission is the production of statistical information. they are measuring the heartbeat of society. they are doing this consistently and continuously in all of the cabinet departments of the federal government. host: explains with these --

explained what happens with the statistics when they are gathered. guest: the information comes from interviews and forms filled out by residents around the country. we rely on the people in the country to tell us how their life is going with the answers to our questions. reassembled those answers -- we assemble those answers into datasets. these statistics come from those answers. we cannot have these insights into society without the cooperation of people throughout the country. they go to everyone. there is a wonderful thing about the federal statistical system. we released to everyone at the same moment. we all see it in this democracy of the same time. host: i have a question for you about policy developments that

may affect women particularly. is there a committee in congress that specifically looks at women in the workforce? guest: both the house and senate have committees that look at the labor force and are concerned about issues that affect workers. we have access from the public has access -- and the public has access to bring their point of views to them. there are initiatives congress and the white house are considering and have initiated. it will not just the women workers. women have a lot of the responsibility for families. there will be especially helpful to women. the congress is considering something called the healthy families act. this would guarantee to every worker that they would have a

minimum of seven paid sick days a year. there are some jobs where you would not have any paid sick days at all. we have 40 million workers in this country, overwhelmingly women, because these are workers in food service, nursing homes, home health, child care centers. they have not even one paid sick day. if they get sick or a child gets sick, they lose the income for that day. they could even be threatened with disciplinary action or fired. we need to do something about that. i am pleased to say congress is considering such legislation. host: there's been a big discussion in this town about a difference of earning power

between men and women. you have several statistics on women's earning power compared to men. guest: the first one you have put up has to do with median earnings. that is the point where 50% of the people earn more or less than the midpoint. men are in the blue line. from 1960 to 2009, the pattern of movement is shown for men and women. women always trail men in the median earnings. there has been a gradual coming together of alliance -- the liones. if you drill into this, women are making 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.

part of the light of this is that women work in different occupations than men. this chart tells a story about how the percentage of women's earnings to men's median earnings differ by occupation. on the left are occupational groups that have low ratios of women's median salaries to men. thate right are those have higher or more equal rates. those on the right, the middle job is relatively new industry and occupation. women went in there and are getting more equal pay. host: the others were more women's jobs.

guest: they still are, more than 90%. where women predominate, men earn closer to women. host: our last guest was talking about the accomplishments of the administration. how has the labor law changed the landscape for women in the workforce? guest: it has put employers on notice that they had better be careful in terms of discriminating in wages against women. we always thought if an employer discriminated in pay, a woman would have the right to bring a case and be reimbursed. the lower courts ruled that way. when the ledbetter case got to the supreme court, she was the

only woman among 15 managers in her category at goodyear rubber. she did not find out until very late in the game that the men were being paid much more than she was. she was paid less than the lowest paid man, even though she had a lot of experience and was considered a good manager. she did not find out until late in the game. she brought the case. the supreme court said you only have a certain number of days from the time the first happens to bring the case. we moved to pass legislation to take care of that situation. it did not happen in time for her, unfortunately. in january of 2009, a law was passed that says every time an employer gives out a paycheck that discriminates against an employee on the basis of gender, that is a new act of discrimination. you will not run into a situation where you find out about it later and they say is too late.

host: this chart seems to indicate that there has been some progress made in the earnings ratio. guest: this chart is the ratio of women to men's earnings over time. there were times of. -- there were times of gains in times of flattening. the last 10 years is a relative flattening of the curve. it has not moved. most people make the observation that women work in different occupations. the second thing they note is the average numbers of hours worked per week varies by men and women with women intending to have fewer hours. then there is the interruption of careers for women more than men. host: there is the usual number

of hours worked per sex. guest: this is the reports of people in our survey of the number of hours they work usually. the male rate is generally flat. the female rate is slightly increasing. these are reports a full-time women. host: people are working fewer hours in full-time jobs. guest: the usual definition of full time is 35 hours or more. guest: people are being forced to work fewer hours. we have millions of men and women who have been put on short

hours by their employer or have part-time jobs when they wanted full-time jobs. host: these are the major occupation groups with mothers of preschoolers are opting out of the work force. guest: this is reporting the% of women who held a job in a particular occupation group. many of them dropped out of the labor force. the first thing to note is that 3/4 of the women who give birth remain employed. these are the rates of those who drop out. there are stark differences across occupational groups. one story of of this is that those jobs and occupations that require greater education have

lower rates of dropping out of the labor force. it is a rare phenomenon. only 1/4 of mothers drop out of the labor force. it varies by occupation. guest: one reason we see that professional and managerial women are not dropping out is that most of these women have the ability to have paid time off when they have the child. they work for employers who have insurance, or they have generous sick leave or vacation benefits. if women are able to take unpaid time off from work, they overwhelmingly return to work with the same employer. it is the women who lack the ability to keep their job out of the workforce -- if you can maintain your relationship with your employer, you are much more likely to come back to work with

the same employer. the cost of recruiting and training workers is very high. even in the lowest paid jobs, this is a major expense for the employer. when you drop out of the and come back in, you are not on the same step of the escalator that you were on. you are lower down. you never catch up. it is important we have policies that make it possible for women to draw a partial wage replacement while they're having a baby and return to the job that they had. we have that in california and new jersey. they are completely employer paid and have worked really well. host: we will start with kay on

twitter. she said that today, working full-time get your food and gas money. the first call is from nancy in pennsylvania. caller: i have a story to tell. i was working for an insurance adjuster. i was the only woman working. i was in a managerial position. i found out the men were getting paid more than the to do the same job. i asked my employer about it. he said he did not feel he needed to pay me as much as the man. this was in the 1990's. host: what did you do when you have that information? caller: i kept on working. however, the irs came in to the office. they were looking for this man.

i told them he was out in the field somewhere. they told me this man was not reporting any of my deductions and they thought i needed to leave the firm. i did leave. i was very hurt about it. i went to the unemployment office. they said because i walked off the job, i would probably not be receiving unemployment. i did get a letter from them. i did file a case. i did win. the employer did show up. he told the representative at the unemployment office that he wanted me back, that i was a good worker. the representative told him he was messing with my social

security and that in the future, it will hurt me. this man was paying me by check. he was paying the other people under the table. host: i am going to ask eileen appelbaum about how the courts have responded to cases like that. guest: every state and large city has a wage and hours board. i would hope someone will file a complete their. i am glad she was able to get unemployment compensation. this is clearly an employer of you would not want to work for. today we have lawyers in many states who will take these cases for women. we have been quite successful in litigating them and winning back

pay and social security for women. host: the next call is from california. john is on the line. caller: i would like to know what guidelines or agency goes by to hire disabled workers since the last census. guest: we had over 3.8 applicants for jobs. we probably hired over 1 million people in 2010. it was a massive effort. the process we used was as sensitive as possible for the hiring of those with physical and other ailments. the job of the numerator, the largest number of jobs we hard

for, requires people to drive to areas, walk the streets, and knock on doors. we have a lot of office jobs. tempted -- we attempted to reach out to various communities to make sure people working on the labor force reflected the communities they were working in as much as possible. host: los angeles, may, you are on the air. caller: i wanted to ask mr. groves about the surveys they send out. if a person is selected, what is the magic word to stop the "harassment"? they call at all hours of the day and night. they send letters by ups or federal express. this has been going on for months. you sit down for a nice dinner, the phone rings. they're calling you again.

this has been going on for months and months. i have lost them not to call and they do not listen. -- i have asked them not to call and they do not listen. guest: i would ask you to consider how we get information about our country and the things we're talking about today. we know these things only because people throughout the country to a few minutes to answer the survey is. this may not be interesting to you, but it is important for us at this time in our history to attract help people are getting how people are

getting jobs and how they are doing. it is important to have cooperation. if you take a few minutes, we would appreciate it and the country would benefit. host: this is a debate you often hear discussed around the family dinner tables. jim tweets that he was told that women working led to the necessity of to income households and the disintegration of families. is that true? can you answer that statistically in any way? guest: we can track the prevalence of dual career couples. it is unambiguous in the data. dual income households are quite common.

the lie of this is not a trivial question. what are the mechanisms that produce social change? that is something scholars have been studying for decades. host: what is your response? guest: women have been entering the work force since 1910. there are two main forces that pushed some women into the workforce. the first is education. as women have become better educated, the country needs their skills. women have wanted to use their skills. they have gotten this education. there are interesting jobs for you to do if you want to be part of it. that is one aspect. the second aspect has been the decline in wages of men without a college degree. we have had stagnant wages in

the middle and declining wages for people below the middle. even those with college degrees have not seen their wages rise recently. starting in the early 1970's, the wages for men began falling. working-class men resisted having their wives go to work. it was a badge of shame. the last group of women to enter the workforce in large numbers were those married to men without a college degree. i think the caller has the timing back woods. what happened was that it became so difficult to make ends meet on a man's salary as wages did not keep up with living expenses that women did begin to work. we have the increasing dual income earners. high-paying women earn high-

paying men. families become more unequal. host: you are beginning to see discussion of the high cost of college and the loans and whether it is worth it. guest: i will give you a quick answer to it. on average, college educated workers make more. people have to realize there is a widespread. many high school workers are making more than those who are college educated. if you were at the bottom of your class in high school, when you get through college, where will you be in the distribution after you graduate? one thing that is really unfortunate in this country is that we look down on people who pursue vocational education. the high schools in new jersey are rated on how many kids go on

to college. they do not ask for the graduate, only that they enter. they do not give any credit for men and women who go into apprenticeship programs. it may be much better and more practical for some to get a good paying job that way. host: we have about 22 minutes left. let's go to the societal change about women going to college. that is well-illustrated in two graphs you have. guest: these are my favorites. there is a massive social change we have seen. the first starts way back in 1940. it is tracking the percentage of adults with a bachelor's degree or more.

look at the difference between men and women. the trailing of women has been repaired. there is now a time at about 30%. if you drill into the data for younger women, this is a massive change. you can see a real crossing of the sexes. these younger women are achieving higher rates of college degrees. anyone who has been on a college campus these days have seen this over the last 10 years. this will change our society in future years in ways that we will all see.

host: i am going to try to decode this twitter message. it says that corporations controlled too much. steve is on the air from detroit. caller: women at work in industries represented by unions make the same pay for the same job as men. we need more union representation in this country. unions are not a bad thing. guest: i would endorse that view. we have large numbers of women in jobs in home health and home care. people come in and help disabled folks get ready for the day or

take care of the fragile elderly. these jobs are extremely low- paid. the only way we have been able to make any progress at all is when the workers have been able to organize. they are able to do that in california. that makes a huge difference in the dignity and pay of the job. immunized -- in unionized workplaces, women are paid the same as men. at women rising into management ranks and halt that has changed. guest: this is a fascinating movement. this reflects the percentage of managers who are women. you can see it's pretty massive jump -- you can see a pretty

massive jump between 1970 and 1990 and then a flattening. the jump coincided with a large jump in labor force participation by women. there is some slacking off of the rate of growth of labor force participation in the last 20 years. there is a flattening on the managerial ranks. host: what is the effect of more women managers on the work place? guest: women managers manage women. they are rarely found in the top ranks. some companies have made a huge effort to integrate women into the top ranks in financial- services and pharmaceuticals, but they are still the exception. host: fort wayne, indiana,

welcome to the conversation. caller: whenever anyone mentions women getting paid 78 cents to the dollar, he said no. some of us choose to do what we rather than going for the pay. i have been married almost 50 years. i love my job. i made a change about 25 years ago leaving a job that helped to send my children to college to go into something i really wanted to do know when it paid much less. but i made a choice. if i had been divorced or widowed and had to choose something to be paid more, and

may have worked more hours. but it was a choice. host: your family situation gave you the opportunity to make different choices. caller: when they throw these statistics are, everyone jumps on "same job and same pay." but when you throw out a blanket statistic that you only get paid 70 cents to the man's dollar, people interpret that differently. i do think women make choices. guest: the caller is right. the overall rate of 70 cents per dollar for women to men does not tell the whole story at all.

there are a variety of drivers. the first is occupational choice. the caller was noting that sometimes choices are made better not income-maximizing. this chart points out that what occupation you have chosen also affects the ratio or is related to it. certain occupations have a bigger disparity between the sexes than others. people sometimes make choices about how many hours they work within an occupation. sometimes they are told how many hours to work. that affects these ratios as well. host: the next call is from california, david. caller: of like to comment on the statistics when women began entering the workforce. the way i see it, we have a

higher rate of divorce in america. in 1975, i believe that is when it all began. men left families and forced women to go to work. it was unfair. that was when it started. as more women into the workforce, it made sense for women to manage women. women work very hard. they go to work and come home and manage the home, cook, clean, and take care of the children. that is a burden that is unfair. major steel companies began shutting down. an entire work force the sustained generations of families was completely gone. people were laid off.

one gentleman could not find another job. he wound up hanging himself because of depression. an entire family was wiped out. when men do leave their families based on economic reasons -- the number one cause of divorce in america now is financial situations. guest: the caller makes a very good point. we have lost a big part of our manufacturing base in this country. the latest figures show our trade deficit being up again. there is nothing wrong with trade or importing goods provided you are also exporting goods. one thing we have had happened in this country is that our dollar has become overvalued. we hear about wanting to have a strong dollar. that is not good for manufacturing or the kinds of jobs the caller was talking about.

if we had a dollar that reflected imports and exports, manufacturing jobs would increase again and we would be able to have a strong manufacturing base. hopefully, a lot of those jobs will go to women as well as men toward gender equality in the workplace. i do agree we have lost a lot of good paying jobs because of our trade policies. host: these statistics are all on the census department website. you can find the women in the work force statistics we are using this morning. you have a number of statistics about women as small-business owners. we keep hearing that small

business has been the engine of economic recovery and job growth. florida, louise is up next. caller: i wanted to ask the florida governor this earlier. i am 65 and recently went on social security. for many years, i worked as a housekeeper at a large hotel resort chain on the beach. i never made more than $20,000, if i was lucky. after the bush tax cuts to defect, our employer made one housekeeper do the work of two or three workers. if you did not perform to their demands from the hotel manager would threaten to give your job to an illegal at a lower wage. i know of many hotels to pay illegals under the table. how come florida can get away with giving our jobs away to the illegals? guest: i think the bigger

question is how can the employers do away with driving down wages and speeding up work? this is a disgrace. it is true in the hotel industry throughout this country. we have done studies on it. i edited a book that took a look of this. as an earlier caller said, the only thing standing the twin employees and that kind of thing is a union. unionized hotels, workers were not able to speed up the workers in the same way and drive down the wages. it is outrageous that hotel housekeepers in our fanciest hotels are paid the same as housekeepers at a motel 6. those fancy hotels can afford to pay decent wages and benefits and should be doing it. caller: i am the first time

caller. i wanted to add to the comment about many companies cutting talented people because of their high pay. i have been involved in companies that have gone under because it looked good to get rid of the high salaries, but all the talent walked out of the shop. i have worked as a supervisor and engineer in the automotive industry, aerospace, and military contracting. i am having a difficult time finding a job. the main thing is you have to have a degree. i could not afford to go to school. i have more experience than someone coming right out of college. they are not hiring people to be in a schoolroom environment. they will be working. i have the majority of that

experience, but i am not considered. guest: there is the benefit of the college degree. it is unfortunate. we know that there are more than four unemployed workers for every job opening. a person like our caller facing a decent labor market would definitely be hired. employers have their choice right now. lots of people who could be doing a good job and making an important contribution to our economy are cut out in an economy with such high unemployment. host: cynthia is calling from colorado. caller: i am aware we have become primarily a consumer spending and consumer based work force in the country while our manufacturing is almost disintegrated -- has almost

disintegrated. i am curious as to why we cannot make more things and import less. guest: this is a very good question. i think it is because we have not paid attention to the importance of maintaining the strong manufacturing base. if the country wants to have higher productivity growth, decent wages and good jobs, be able to balance trade, it has to be producing. it is not a question of wages being too hard. among the industrialized countries, with one of the lowest paid manufacturing work forces. it is because they're committed to having a strong manufacturing base. they have policies that make it possible. they have business development policies that make it possible.

we do not want to do that. the result is what we have seen. that is a hollowing out of manufacturing in the disappearance of those jobs. host: let's go to women-owned businesses. guest: this slide we will look at describes the percentage of businesses owned by women. this includes those that have employees and those that do not. it may be a travel agent working out of her home by herself providing travel services, all sorts of service-related professions or businesses themselves even though they are small. the vast majority of businesses

are very small. this chart tells us that women are entrepreneurial and increasing in those activities. the growth of women-owned businesses between 1997 and 2007 was about 47%. it roughly doubled the rate of growth of men-owned businesses. host: these are pre-recession numbers? do you have any idea what happened after the recession? guest: this comes from 2007. our budget allows us to do these every five years. we hope there will be an update on this and what happened over that time. the latest figures here are pre- recession. that is fair to say. the next slide looks at the percentage of all employees who

working women-owned firms. that is much smaller. only 15% of the employees work in those. that tells us indirectly that these tend to be smaller businesses that women own. another look at this asks the question about what kind of sales and receives these businesses have. from left to right, we move from very small businesses with less than $5,000 of sales and a year to those with up to $1 million or more. we're looking at the percentage of all firms. host: more women-owned businesses have smaller receipts. guest: german-owned businesses,

the equivalent number is probably about 18% or so. host: this one is industries with high and low women ownership. guest: this is related to the occupational differences we saw at the individual level. you can see on the left are the industries where there are higher rates of female ownership of businesses. on the right are the industries with low numbers. host: could you explain what these are? guest: the first bar has about 62% women ownership. these are businesses in health care and social assistance. all of the service-oriented industry classifications tend to have hired women ownership.

host: educational services is the next. that harkens back to our earlier discussion about the industries that attract women employees and owners. guest: they go to where they have an opening. host: the next call is from ohio, rich. are you there? caller: there seems to be a graph missing of men who are supporting families. a lot of times, a woman as they're able to take care of the kids. there is no charge keeping track of that. it is a handicap.

we're kind of fighting men versus women on these jobs. a lot of women are getting hammered on this. if we reduce our dollar, we will get more bids -- goods shipped. that will hurt us. guest: on your first point, we did not bring those kinds of statistics. there is a rich set of data on this that can be seen on our website. the bureau of labor statistics had a wonderful series looking at how households entered the labor force and the proportions that are dual or single earners. guest: i do not think we're

talking about men versus women. i think we're talking about an economy that is not creating jobs sufficient to employ all the men and women who would like to have jobs. what we are considering is how we have a labor market that is better able to serve working families, that makes it possible for men and women to be good parents as well as good employees. i do not think this is a male versus female issue. host: ethel is calling from tennessee. caller: everybody is -- host: let me interrupt you. we have one minute left. caller: i want to talk about the

women of higher salary. the men make a higher salary than the women. i was at the post office from 1980 to 2000. i did have a husband. host: i am so sorry. we are out of time for the program. the last question is about wage disparity. guest: an earlier caller pointed out that people should be able to choose the occupations they like. we know a lot of women enjoy care occupations. there is no reason why these occupations should pay wages solo. they're taking care of the most vulnerable members of society.

these jobs should pay to send -- decent wages and have decent benefits. since there overwhelmingly female, that would make a huge difference. host: thank you both for being here this morning. have a good weekend. thank you for being with us. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., august 12, 2011. i hereby appoint the honorable jeff landry to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, monsignor steven rosetti, associate

professor at the catholic university, washington, d.c. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, we are living in uncertain days. sometimes they fill us with fear. we cannot see the future. it is clouded. we are uncertain of the way. in the midst of these days, we turn to you, you are the only certainty. you are the rock that anchors us. your steadfast and presence is with us. we view as your rock inside us, our fears are quieted, our hearts become calm. thank you for being our sure anchor. thank you for your eternal love. thank you for guiding our steps. and we say amen. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 5 of house resolution 375, the journal of the last day's proceedings is

approved. the chair will leading the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. pursuant to section 4 of the house resolution 375, legislative business is not dispensed with on this day. pursuant to section 401-b-4-b-3 of the budget control act of 2011 and the order of the house of january 5, 2011, the chair announces that the speaker has appointed the following members of the house to the joint select committee on deficit reduction. the clerk: mr. hensarling of

texas, co-chair. mr. upton of michigan and mr. camp of michigan. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces that pursuant to section 401-b-4-b-4 of the budget control act of 2011 and the previous order of the house of january 5, 2011, the minority leader has appointed the following members to serve on the joint select committee on deficit reduction. the clerk: mr. clyburn of south carolina. mr. becerra of california. and mr. van hollen of maryland. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3 and 4 of house resolution 375, the house stands adjourned until 11:30 a.m. on august 16, >> the house is back on

september 7 with live coverage here on c-span. the appointment of the republican and democratic members of the joint committee on deficit. these are the members. the senate members were named the other day. you can find out more information on our web site, c- span.org/deficit. that is alice rivlin on your screen. she is a former white house budget director. they are discussing the deficit reduction deal. its front to around 11:30.

our live coverage from i what will get under way at 11:30 eastern. >> if you are familiar with plan, andn bowls le the other plan, those plants were balanced plans which did three things, which i think are things you have to do if you have a long-term deficit problem. they reduced the growth of entitlement spending in different ways -- medicare, medicaid, social security. they got more tax revenues by reforming the tax code in slightly different ways. they capped discretionary spending. those are the three things you

have to do. this deal has done the first one. step two is the creation of an extremely powerful 12-member committee, a joint select committee, have republicans, have democrats with extraordinary powers. they get to look at either the spending side, especially they should look at the entitlement side because that has not been done yet, and the tax side, and recommend additional deficit reduction specified as $1.2 trillion over 10 years minimum. they should do more than that over the 10-year period.

this is so powerful because if they can get a majority of the committee, seven out of the 12, around a plan, and it would have to be a balanced plan to get seven out of 12, the ticket to the floor and it is subject to or down vote, and it is law. that is as powerful as a mandate as any committee has ever had. so, the question is, what happens if they do not? if they do not, we have what is wasn as a sequester, which

designed to be unacceptable to both sides, a substantial cut in defense spending, and the substantial additional cut in domestic spending including some entitlements, but exempting programs for low-income groups, and limiting the cut in medicare 2%. to that means other things would have to be cut substantially. if this committee does not succeed, what you get is additional discretionary spending cuts, and these would be cuts, not caps, because the numbers are big enough because they would reduce them below

what happened otherwise. it would not fix the problem. the problem is because of the demographics and the pressure on entitlements coming from longevity, the retirement of the baby boomers, and the increased cost of medicare. so that's where we are. >> on the issue of what happens if there is no deal or if it is refused by the congress, and i know this gets into complex issues, but when we look to next year, the tax cuts that have been in effect since the bush presidency are expected to expire. if those tax cuts were to expire and not be renewed at all, is it true that even more than $1.2 trillion -- that the targets

would be accomplished? we would get that much deficit reduction simply by not extending the tax cuts? >> i do not think so, although i think this is still up for discussion. it is not the extensions of the bush tax cuts -- the non extension of the bush tax cuts would not be a very large number exceeding the $1.2 trillion, but it is a question of where you start from. the baseline is current law. you would have to cut the $1.2 trillion below what happens if current law was followed, which

means the bush tax cut would expire. >> thank you. >> may be some dispute about that. >> there are materials on the front table and you can go to brookings.edu and we will feature alice's report as was things that peter and i have written. the broad question -- you did a report, a very good report a year ago. you were concerned about the milder efforts towards deficit reduction. you and bill called for an increase in the size of the navy among other policy recommendations and in the size of the defense budget.

well beyond what would be needed to keep up with inflation. you are a bit concerned about some of the numbers you are hearing now. how do you square the recommendation that you made with bill perry 8 your boat with the current options? >> i want to thank you for convening this panel. i want to thank all of you for coming out in the middle of august. the report that michael referred to was an independent panel review of the quadrennial defense review. this was dod's own review. it was mandated by statute. we were told to look at the threat environment over the next 20 years and then try to describe the requirements we have for defense capability and defense spending and to work in

a financially unconstrained environment. that is what we did, looking only at defense. we propose a lot of measures to reduce cost. even if you do all the things we recommend to reduce costs, we felt the threat in varmint was such that we might actually still have to increase the top line even as we harvest savings from other things. that was then, this is now. the focus of the american people on the deficit problem has riveted washington's attention. by largely agree with animal mollen -- i largely agree with admiral mollen -- mullen. a strong economy underpins everything we do internationally. it is the basis for a strong

military and diplomacy. it gives us economic and financial influence overseas. it is the undergirding of our national power. if we address this number one challenge in terms of the budget deficit, then everybody is going to have to contribute. i think we need to look at defense spending in that context. if we address this problem in a comprehensive way -- liberal democrats say cut the defense budget and everything will be fine. conservative republicans say we will cut non-defense discretionary spending and everything will be fine. if you do both of those things, it will not be enough. it is about intolerance. the budget deficit is driven by

entitlements -- social security, medicare, medicaid. if the country is serious and if those programs are on the table and if we're going to make those and taba programs fiscally sound and we are that serious about it, then dod will have to do its part. that is the context. we can talk about the kinds of things you have in mind. i worry about it because our adversaries do not all have our budgetary crisis. they are not taking a vacation or a holiday from the threat they posed to us. as you think about defense spending cuts, it has to be careful and it has to be prioritized. we can talk about that. >> if we are not serious, we don't have a country to defend, which is what admiral mullen

was saying. >> we have to talk about social security, medicare, and medicaid. if we do not, we will not solve the problem. it is that simple. >> you mentioned diplomacy and the other things that you worked on. these include accounts for the state department, security assistance. the bush administration and to some extent the clinton administration and the obama administration have succeeded in rectifying some of the shortfalls that a lot of people have identified in our diplomacy and the strength of our state department. and of course in some of the international assistance budgets. are you concerned about those being at risk?

that maybe we can apply some financial discipline in a few cutbacks. do you have a sense on how far that process can go? are you worried it would target the state department and foreign aid? >> there are some risks there. everything is a two-edged sword. they have grouped a lot of the accounts into a national security account. they have put in a grouping defense homeland security, intelligence, diplomacy, and foreign aid and assistance. on the one hand, i think that is good. foreign aid is critical in achieving our national security objectives. this is a good idea as a

planning tool. if you're under budgetary pressure, we need to preserve defense spending so let's cut diplomacy, development, democracy promotion and the like. as our defense spending comes down as we get out of places like iraq and afghanistan over time, and as we face other challenges, a lot of that non- defense and national security spending becomes even more important. it is el lot cheaper to do things through that sector then it is deploying american combat troops. sustaining combat troops overseas is the most expensive thing we do. there's a tradeoff that needs between defense spending and non-defense and national

security spending. bob gates was all over this. he said, i'm willing to send money to the defense department because they are critical in supporting the defense mission. i hope leon panetta will have the same attitude and we start making trade-offs between defense and non-defense security spending. i would hope that in some instances we may cut defense and add some money on the non-defense side. >> not just the numbers of how much we should cut and how we can take a knife or a scalpel or an axe to the defense budget, but the process by which we should think about the cuts and

to make sure in this rapid-fire process of cutting quickly we do not cut on wisely. can you say some words on some guidelines that the community keep in mind? >> many echo your comments about the honor of being up on stage with two american leaders. the numbers we are talking about are of such a scale that they're almost shocking. we have to figure out how to cut between $400 billion and %1.15 trillion, most of which will come out of the defense. there are different ways to think about those numbers. empire state buildings they equal.

two chinese military annual budgets or seven chinese military annual budgets. when you look around the discourse in washington, there are two types of questions. one is the whether to cut or not, and that ignores the fact that the first $400 billion, that train has already left the station. the only thing standing between another $750 billion in cuts is the slender thread of first the super committee showing the intelligence and maturity to come up with a package that hits all of these other areas like intelligence and tax reforms that would have a real effect. the rest of the congress and the

various political parties showing the maturity to vote yes for that. that is the slender thread. -- that is the slender threat. i do not think that is something we can count on. then we jump into the "what" question, what to cut. coalitions are lining up saying, this is a wasteful program that we must cut. it is a battle of everybody identifying their pet rocks or pet peeves in going after them. what are the principles by which we might go about it smartly proved that is the paper goes into and i hope we can talk about that. it looks at issues like how you go about making trade-offs smartly?

how you identify real savings? how you start to mitigate strategic risks? what are capacitors that you can bring back quickly if the environment changes, and what are cuts that you're not going to be able to restore in a matter of decades? that's the tough thinking that washington often veers away from. we're more comfortable playing the blame game or protecting pet rocks. >> one question comes out of that. it is $40 billion -- $400 billion, and i'm not sure how you count it.

if it will cause $40 billion for 10 years. if you cut that program in year one, you get credit for the fall $400 billion over the 10- year period. if you do, the impact is a lot less draconian. if you see what i mean. >> you get credit for the whole thing. it is going to cost $400 billion over 10 years and you get rid of it, that is $400 billion. then the reinforced the seven that happens only if the

committee fails. the committee by itself may be a slender read. it will work only if the president and speaker boehner and the rest of the leadership wants it to work, and then it is a slam dunk. >> there is an interesting point . we have to do contingency planning. this is one that i would not put in the extremely unlikely, based on the past events. i put it in the potential are likely category. steve brought a principle that we need to think about. inre only talking about this terms of cuts right now. we're talking about a 10-year period.

sometimes you have to spend money to save money in the long term. as an example, the department of defense's energy -- if you say i'm cutting efforts to increase energy efficiency where you're spending the start of it, you lose those savings. that has been the way we have gone about it. >> it doesn't have to be. that is the benefit of the 10- year horizon. the big amounts that would be cut if the committee fails, it was designed to make it unpleasant to both sides. cause of the magnitude you are talking about would be unacceptable to most republicans and many democrats.

it is not a sure thing that they will happen, even if the committee fails, because they can be overridden. it is 8 law - - it is a law. >> peter is talking about the $350 billion that will come out of the defense budget that is already agreed to. >> caping defense and domestic discretionary spending at the rate of inflation rather than at the rate of gdp growth, which is what the baseline assumes. >> they are allowed to go up with inflation but no more than that. >> that is my understanding. using the word "cut," --

>> one more point of clarification. the expected production in war cost is not something you can point to as the big savings -- that is already assumed. i mentioned for the crowd that the peak of war cost was around $180 billion a year. now we're down in the 2012 fiscal year where we're down to combine costs together -- right now the rocket mission is supposed to entirely and in calendar year 2011. -- theiraq cost

afghanistan cost is expected to come down. the numbers we're talking about, the savings are not double counting those benefits. they have been factored into the baseline. >> should we talk about the issue of defense spending i think there are four or five things that people need to have in mind. i would hope that people who are charged to do this will recognize that our defense spending needs to be threat- based. it needs to be prioritized. we should think about cutting lower priority things. the most foolish way to do this would be a 10% across-the-board cut or a 5% cut. that does not allow you to fit your military to the case.

sometimes you need to invest in order to cut costs. i would allow right by saying three things. there are things that if -- you can't cut them in a way that forces you to reform and come up with a force that makes a lot more sense. in the personnel area, you can do some cutting that will force you to reexamine the personnel system in ways that make a better forced but also one that will cost you less money. you can do reforms that are going to drive the process and reduce costs. it will give us military equipment that is better sooner but it can be less costly. as we do these costs, we have to recognize we are looking over 10 years, we need to cut things that we do not need enough so we

have money that we can invest in some of those capabilities that we know we are going to need. we have cyber threats. we need more money for special forces and some of these other things. we should try to do and i hope the folks responsible for this have seven or eight principles along these lines on the blackboard that guide them in this process so this can be an intelligent process that drives reform and can lead to a more appropriate and maybe even a better force them we have now when you look at the threats that we are going to face. >> let me make one more point about the defense budget. steve mentioned the importance of entitlements and health-care growth in the budget generally. that is also true of the defense

budget. the fastest-growing major category in the defense categoric is health care and has been for some time. now we are not talking about threats or weapons, we are talking about promises made to retirees over a long period, a very powerful political group. the try can for life is an extremely generous and costly health care program and i was at a meeting with a distinguished military retiree recently who was recovering from a kidney

transplants which had not gone well at first. he is fine now. he said the total bill was half a million dollars, of which he paid 500. he was outraged by this, and he should have been outraged by this. the basic story is there is no contribution or deductible under try care for life. we are paying a big price for it. >> this is one thing we looked at in the independent panel report. i was speaking to george casey who was the army chief of staff about this issue as well as some retired military on our panel and i found that they focused on this problem and set it is not fair to the active force that the retired force has as good a deal as it has.

george casey -- it is up to congress right now. george casey said, it is time to do that. it is time for retirees to pay more. they asked to phase it in so people are not surprised and try to means test bit. i thought it was heartening that a retired community began to say we need to make a contribution to this process. we have led people retire after 20 years. many times they are fairly young and they get other jobs and still get military retirement. we suggested in our report, let's lighten the point of service. thus extend the military career. let's have people in 30 or 40

years. if people are good and a job, let them stay at the job. we are paying people but we're getting something in terms of a contribution to our military. a longer point of time allows military officers and the enlisted to get the educational exposure that will make them more effective in dealing with the kind of challenges they face in places like afghanistan and iraq. there is an interaction and a set of reforms that can make the military better and more effective and less costly. we call for the establishment of a military commission on the military personnel system, to look at all these issues and to try to make the kind of reforms that adapt the military to the situation there will face and to get a lot of the cost out of it.

>> one more question of peter. on the military retirement issue, there is an aging study coming out that you may be intrigued by which is very much in the spirit of what steve just mentioned. while full military retirement benefits might be delayed, there might be a change to would allow people to stay in the military for five or 10 years to get some kind of military benefit and a more modest level, some kind of a contribution by employers to 401(k) plan. if you do stay 20, you get a lot. i think one broad question a lot of people have on their minds,

especially people who think big cuts can and should come out of defense, is under bill clinton, we were spending about $40 $400 billion a year in 2011 dollars. the overall number was not going to increase of lot according to the original bush plan. 9/11 changed that. $700 billionoser to . $400 billin in 2001. how could that possibly be true, an annual increase of $300

billion. there is 300 trillion dollars right there -- $3 trillion. let me explain the arithmetic. i do think we can make some substantial reductions. let me give you a sense of why. $300 billion increase. in the annual budget, i am comparing a certain year to a subsequent year that we're in today. about $175 billion isin wa in wr costs. that number will be coming down. that is a big chunk of it right there. a lot of the changes in personnel have been costly.

i agree with the point that some of them have been inefficient. as a nation at war with two conflicts simultaneously in an all-volunteer force, we have to take care of our men and women in uniform and be attentive to those who are deployed, injured, and so forth. a fair amount of that increase -is understandable. some of it does require a re- examination, but let's understand where that came from. lot of normal defense costs goes up faster than inflation because they are part of our economy, too. health care cost the department of defense $50 billion a year. whether it is in varmint the

cleanup or pay to try to entice good people into the military at a time when you need to have competitive wages to do that, some of these costs just got faster than inflation. explains some of thait. we made a sound strategic decision not to buy a lot of weaponry during the clinton years because we had bought some much during the reagan years. cut the procurement budget by more than half. i think it was the right strategic call. some would argue it went too far. we have never managed to repeat anything like the 1980's reagan buildup. we do not have equipment that is

young and reliable today. we have been treading water for the past few years. you have to bear these things in mind. that procurement issue explains another $50 billion increase in the $400 billion growth. the increase, you probably have $50 billion that is within the reasonable realm of policy debate. that is a lot of money. to say half of that will get this to the $350 billion target, that is a lot of work. explain the whole situation, but i wanted to lay that out.

>> go to peter but i have one more point. >> you can respond. peter, my question would be about any ideas that should be thrown into the mix on reduction. you go ahead. >> why are we having this conversation at all about defense or about domestic discretionary? it is because we face eight really big, catastrophic problem of our debt rising faster than our economy can grow. when you sit down in a bipartisan group, as i have twice and say, what are we going to do about this, then you start with entitlements, as steve did , and you to various things that

will be politically unpopular. then you realize we have not done anything in the near term. talking about retirement programs, you cannot change them right away. they need to be changed in slowly. you are driven to discretionary spending. some of this is not being done as efficiently as it might be, and we need to take this fiscal imperative to do some things that committees and commissions recommended for a long time. i do not know whether we need a new committee on military personnel. these things aren't lots of reports. the acquisition process -- everybody knows that it is not

very efficient that the congress weighs in. they say every weapons system needs to be built in a congressional district, and then if you try to cut anything including an additional engine for a plane you may not need, then there is a congressional in.eigh and then after you have done all that, you're driven to the revenue side. even if we do drastic were privatization on the domestic and defense and entitlements, we are not wrong to accommodate a larger population of all the people that need medicare -- that need medical care.

>> you may want to respond to this debate. you have written some extremely intellectually books including maybe the two definitive books on private military contracts and military robotics. you have encouraged us not to jump to have our detailed proposal the day after the target is announced and to set up a process. do you have some instinct about the kinds of options we might study further and consider them my spring from either of your books, either the with the private work force has grown or the way in which robotics may offer possibilities to do certain things more inexpensively? >> it goes back to this question of what principles are going to guide us in this process.

there are a couple of principles that i think matter and i will get some heads nodding and some heads disagreeing. we had ash carter a couple of weeks ago and he liked to use the phrase that will lease sudden -- willy sutton, w hho said that he liked to robbed banks because that's where the money is. 30 cents of every dollar goes toward buying the weapon. 7 cents goes towards maintaining its -- 70 cents. the pentagon spends 55 cents on services that are billable hours versus 45 cents on buying

goods. one look at these commissions, it is about cut this program. that's not where the money is. it is like robin the drug store right beside the bank -- it is like robbing the drug store. this leads to the second principle, which is, we have to be willing to question 20 century assumptions about 21st does centric national security. one of those assumptions is the personnel and benefits system. it is designed for the generation madman. it is expensive and it is antiquated. it is 1960's model. question assumptions goes into other areas.

we have to admit there are certain areas within pentagon spending where the emperor has no clothes and we have to stop spending on his wardrobe. presently, the success rate for the ground intercept system is eight out of 15 in limited test. a man on the moon obverses eight not that reassuring success rate. if it does become successful. it is a system that is inadequate to stop the missiles that can reach us from russia or china, and may be big enough to reach the missiles that do not yet reached us. the budget is supposed to increase.

our nuclear weapons complex. we looked at through the lens of negotiations with the nation that lost the cold war. we need to look at nuclear- weapons not just her what we can give up in negotiations -- if you cut 200 or five larger warheads, what is the trade-off -- if you cut 200 or 500 warheads, what is the trade-off? where could you spend that money on actual military value? these are the kind of trade-off we have to make. we have to be willing to look at how we organize ourselves presently and maybe be willing to cut certain pet rocks.

the army has over 5700 tanks. we used 1900 tanks in the gulf war. if we were to get into three large wars, we don't have the logistics to get the tanks there. the cost value of 13 f-35's. four reapers, the current generation of unmanned strike systems, and a global clochawk. you will still have an extra

$180 million. what are alternatives that might give you a better option and a wider array of the contingencies? that is why we have always done it. >> i think this is exactly the kind of debate we need to have. i do think we need to adapt to the 21st century. we're not going to do and iraq or and afghanistan again. i did not think we need to do them again to keep this country say from the terrorist threat. i think we will use a different model in yemen and somalia. maybe using our manned aircraft or predator aircraft or occasionally special forces. i think that is the model of how

we will wage the war on terror in the next 10 years. what does it mean for our military and ground forces? i would argue if we'll have that model, we will need civilian capacity to help these states better perform for the people. strategic forces. arms control has been one of the great forces for preventing countries to do smart things with their military because they wait to have a negotiation where they can get some credit for it. i like to see us not have a next strategic arms negotiations with the russians. i would like the planners to sit down and see how we can streamline the effective forces so that we can move much more quickly. it missile defense, we can have

that conversation. it is not directed at china or russia. it is directed at north korea and iran. i can cite at the last time we have a missile test, we get two major task by north korea. it is a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile. on both occasions -- this is and perform -- the systems perform better than peer would suggest. we put our national defense system in alaska on alert so that we could protect against that misslile. we use those systems to take up a satellite that was headed toward earth that was not making a controlled re-entry.

it has been a big investment for a limited system that is directed at north korea and iran. those are very unstable powers. my point is not to dispute peter. this is a kind of conversation we should have, to say, what are the real threats out there? we need to have the courage to cut some things. >> with that, let's go to you. please identify yourself and pose a question. we start with you. we have a microphone coming. >> i like to asked the reaction to the composition of the super

committee. are you encouraged? do you have concerns? >> would you like to start? >> i do not want to comment on the individuals. i think it is a group of people appointed by leadership. that was the point. it does not -- it strikes me as a pretty good group representing the congress and no real extremists, with one possible exception. >> i thought it was a good group. there are a number of people who know how the legislative process works and knows how to reach a deal. there are clearly some members who reflect fairly extreme

positions within their party. i think it will be a question of leadership. i think the leadership of the co-chairs. if you do these groups, they really are most effective if they can be unanimous in their views. >> they are, but they do not need to be. a lot depends on the leadership but not just of the co-chairs. it is the leaders hopefully out front. the speaker and the president. >> that is why i think it is important that the leadership of this group tried to put pressure on the group to reach something that has a fairly broad consensus. i think it will make it more powerful politically with the american people. you need seven out of trouble to

get the streamline consideration. >> it cannot break on party- line. >> we have this problem with a group that bill perry and i did. we had a fairly wide ranging group and we had a good consensus recommendation. our sense was rather than go for the lowest common denominator, we found if you work bold and could make your recommendations a vehicle for proposal for a wide range of people, you were more likely to get consensus by being bald rather than being the lowest common denominator. i would hope they would be bold and see if they can go even beyond the $1.5 trillion. >> far beyond it. >> be bold and get something that would say to the international community and to our own people, this government can perform and make tough

decisions and take on this problem. that is what the american people want to see. >> aside from the question of a composition, there is a principal with people in the pentagon that have to deal with the potential implications. the first thing we need to cut is the chatter. they will not be able to be bold if they are constantly running to press conferences and the lighke. secretary gates require staffers to sign agreements. my fear is that we will see options being floated out there in the press which will shut down the kind of bold thinking that is needed. lobby groups will pop up. if the group and if these other