national weather service will be on tomorrow. labor day weekend is coming up. a lot going on on c-span and c- span2, which becomes a booktv on the weekends. three days of booktv this weekend. you can find the full schedule at booktv.org. thanks for being with us today. we will be back in the morning. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> in the 10 days leading up to september 11, one of a number of

events we are covering, looking at the lessons learned from 9/11. this one is toasted by the homeland security department and the national consortium for the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism. that is live now on c-span 2 and online at c-span.org. this panel talking about u.s.- based radicalization. president obama and his team were able to get agreement yesterday with the house speaker on the day the president could unveil his jobs plan before congress. if the white house had requested next wednesday, but it will be next thursday. no specific time. we will have live coverage here on c-span. we are likely to hear more about that speech coming up today with the white house briefing with jay carney. that is scheduled for 1:30 eastern. we will have that live on c- span. some other job-related events we are covering today. transportation secretary ray lahood is at southern methodist

university in dallas tx participating in a discussion with business and labor representatives about how to create jobs to make the nation more competitive. that is being put on by the president's council on jobs and competitiveness. in politics, republican presidential candidate roemer is scheduled to unveil his jobs plan this morning in front of the chinese embassy in washington. pennsylvania senator pat toomey, one of the 12 appointed to the deficit-reduction committee, is hosting a town hall in pennsylvania. we are covering both of those events and we will have them later in the program schedule. also, republican presidential candidate jon huntsman yesterday unveiled his jobs plan. this morning on nbc on the today show, he called the dustup over the president's speech nonsense. the jobs plan unveiled yesterday by jon huntsman includes wide- ranging tax changes. he unveiled the plan yesterday

at a metal fabricating plant in hudson, new hampshire. this is 40 minutes. [applause] >> welcome to jon huntsman. we have about 45 hardworking conscientious regular people employed. we support industries that affect all of our daily lives that i don't think we've and think about sometimes. some of them could be food- processing equipment, a deepwater drilling, tv broadcasting, and many others. i have beenonfess s a professional gambler around 35 years. my professional gambling is here at the company. we hire people, we purchase equipment based on what we think will happen, we pay 100% of our

employees' health care, dental, short-term and long-term disability. we have no guarantee of success or any business continuation. we have no safety net. since july of last year when we had a little accident in the gulf of mexico and there was a drilling moratorium, my company lost $50,000 per week of sales and revenue of a very good fabrication work for us. really nice stuff. since then there's been a lack of permits. they of lifting the moratorium, but they're not granting permits. government involvement in my work is a significant disincentive for me to take further risk. i am anxious to hear what the governor jon huntsman's plan is to improve the business climate in america. i turn you over to governor huntsman. >> thank you. [applause]

thanks, everyone. jack, is an honor to be with you and your colleagues and your friends. it is an honor to be in a manufacturing plant, a great one in new hampshire. i would like to outline my plan today to put america back to work and rebuild her economic engines stronger and more powerful than ever before. we have an economic crisis in this country. the marketplace is crying out for predictability, competitiveness, and signs of confidence. above all, people need jobs. as we gather this evening, 14 million of our fellow americans are unemployed. millions more are so dispirited that they have given up looking. our economy is often framed through such numbers, get behind

the numbers are human tragedies. families that are torn apart, relationships that are pushed to the brink, men and women struggling to maintain self- esteem, and the pride that comes with self-sufficiency. there's no more urgent priority at this point in our nation's history than creating jobs and strengthening our economic court. -- core. everything else revolves around that and is dependent on it. meeting our economic talent is will require serious solutions, but above all it will require serious leadership -- our economic challenge. it was just four weeks ago that i was the only candidate to stand up and support a

compromise to save our nation from the fault, which would have triggered calamitous consequences for our economy. president obama never even offered a plan of his own. all of my opponents supported default. even as far as attempting to undermine the deal at the 11th- hour. , especially in these trying times. the ideas i will discuss today are not radical or revolutionary. they are straightforward and common sense. many of you have heard them talk about before, maybe even four years, but therein lies the problem. washington has never suffered from a vacuum of ideas. it suffers from a vacuum of leadership. i am not running for president to promise solutions.

i am running to deliver solutions. some of my entitlement reforms come directly from the paul ryan plan. other solutions come from the simpson-bowles commission, a bipartisan group that last year put forth some very sensible tax reforms. my plan may be challenged by the special interest on the left and the right, but it represents a serious path forward toward fiscal discipline and economic growth. it also represents a very different vision for our country than the current occupier of the white house. the president believes that he can tax and spend and regulate our way to prosperity. we cannot. we must compete out way to prosperity -- we must compete our way.

manufacturing comprised 25% of our gdp when i was born. 10% today. this does not reflect a decline in american ingenuity or work ethic. it reflects our government's failure to adapt to the realities of the 21st century economy. we need american entrepreneurs not only thinking of products like the iphone or the segue, we need american workers building those products. it is time for made in america to mean something again. overseas i have heard our adversaries speak of america's decline as if it were predetermined. it is not. some say today's economy is the new normal, that all of us need to accept. i refuse to. it is time for america to compete again. here is how we are going to get

it done. first, on the debt, let me start by saying that that is a cancer. if left untreated, it will destroy our economy from within. i have been outspoken as a supporter of the rhine plan, which i believe begins to address the long-term problems that make our current course of spending absolutely unsustainable. ryan plan.n p i support a balanced budget plan. we cannot restore our nation's economic strength by cuts alone. we must compete. second, over the last few decades our tax code has devolved into a maze of special- interest carve out its, loopholes, and temporary provisions that cost taxpayers $400 billion a year to comply with. rather than tinker around the

edges of what is a broken system, i am going to drop a plan on the front steps of the capital that says we need to clean house, get rid of all tax expenditures, all polls, all deductions, all subsidies, all corporate welfare, use that to lower rates across the board and do it in a revenue-neutral fashion. [applause] thank you. for individual taxpayers, i propose a version of the plan crafted by the simpson-bowles commission known as the zero plant. w -- plan. we will have three dramatically lower rates. we will eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which is unfairly penalizing a growing

number of families and small businesses. we will also eliminate taxes on capital gains and dividends, which will lower the cost of capital and encourage investment in the economy. the united states cannot compete with the second-highest business tax rates in the developed world, so i propose lowering it from 35% to 25%, one point lower than the developed world average. a tax holiday for repatriation of corporate profits earned overseas should also be implemented immediately. making between $400,000,000,000.-1319835503 dollars available to companies to make capital investments right here at home. third, our creative and entrepreneurial class is being strangled by a complex and convoluted web of misguided and

overreaching regulations. one of the most indefensible examples is the national labor relations board's ongoing effort to prevent boeing from building a new plant in south carolina. in an effort to block investment in the right to work states. if elected, i will immediately instruct it to stop pursuing this politically motivated attack on free enterprise. if they fail to do so, i will replace them. equally telling regulation we must repeal -- and equally chilling regulation we must repeal is dodd-frank. a 1600 page monstrosity that gives unelected bureaucrats unprecedented power over our financial system. another fundamental problem with dodd-frank is that it perpetuates too big to fail.

taxpayers must be protected from more bailouts. [applause] thank you. -- yet we must reconsider whether increased competition between smaller entities is more efficient than a vast new regulatory apparatus that will almost certainly produce more bailouts. we also must repeal obamacare, a $1 trillion bomb dropped on the taxpayers that only hampers businesses and job creation. we must end the epa's serious regulatory overreach, exemplified by its current effort to pass a new ozone rule, which would effectively stop new construction. we must also reform the fda's ridiculous approval process that increases development costs and

unnecessary delays on new products, particularly those that have a potential to cure diseases and extend human life. fourth, to free ourselves from opec's's grasp and create american jobs. we must end our addiction to foreign oil. every year america sends more than $300 billion overseas for oil. this is unsustainable and it is largely on the way to an unfriendly regimes. we need to expand and open up new sources of domestic energy, thus lowering cost to businesses and improving our overall global competitiveness. [applause] thank you. we must start by expediting the approval process for a safe,

environmentally sound projects, including our oil and gas reserves in the gulf of mexico and alaska, and appropriate federal lands, along with supporting the keystone pipeline project in cooperation with canada. we must eliminate subsidies and regulations that discourage domestic energy sources such as natural gas, biofuels, and cold liquids. here's one example. the united states has more natural gas than saudi arabia's oil, yet the obama administration just issued fuel economy regulations that effectively bar heavy duty trucks from converted to natural gas. simply said, we can and must begin producing more energy right here at home. [applause] thank you. thank you.

as relates to free trade, as a former diplomat, a trade official, governor, and business executives, i have witnessed the tremendous economic opportunities of free trade. 95% of the world customers live outside our borders. with the u.s. party to only 17 of more than the 300 trade agreements worldwide, opening more markets for american businesses should be a common- sense tool to spark immediate growth. for two and a half years the president has failed to act on free trade agreements with south korea, colombia, and panama. i would make them a top priority. washington must also immediately start discussions with india to end in a bilateral free-trade agreement, strengthening our

relationship with a friend who will prove to be critical to america opposes success in the 21st century. -- america's success. i would refer all of you to our american jobs plan. president obama's jobs record has been marked by failure. as the obama administration has dithered, other nations are making the choices necessary to compete in the 21st century. i have seen that firsthand. the capital of brazil and in beijing and in new delhi and seoul, south korea, our competitors are making the tough choices that will help ensure their children a better life. if we fail to do the same, we are robbing our children of an inheritance every previous american generation has enjoyed. i am running for president

because i am prepared to lead the american people do that better and brighter future. we are the most optimistic, common sense, problem solvers on earth. we can turn this thing around. i seek your votes to reignite america's light. ladies and gentlemen, we have no choice. we must unite and look beyond politics for real solutions. it is time for america to start building things again. it is time for america to start drinking again. it is time for america to compete again. -- it is time for america to start working again. i believe with a new administration began do that. president obama won on hope in 2008. in 2012 we will been on real solutions. thank you all so very much for being here. -- we will win on real

solutions. [applause] thank you. thank you very much. thank you very much. thank you. jack, i guess we can take a couple of questions now. >> keep it clean. to ask know who wants what. anybody have a question? this is there going to block at&t takeover of t-mobile. at&t says we will bring back 5000 jobs to america. is at&t holding the people in this country and the government hostage by making that statement? >> this has nothing to do with

one company. this has something -- everything to do with a big picture approach to getting this country moving again. this is not about tweaks here and there. this is not about half measures around the tax code or individual company complaints or arguments about one company being in this country or another. we fundamentally have a problem with respect to competitiveness in this nation. we will not able to expand our manufacturing base. 25% when i was born in 1960, 10% today. you cannot live off services alone. as good as we are in the services sector, we have to get back to where we can make things in this country. we are not going to be doing it by one-of conversations on individuals or companies. we have to fundamentally we make the tax code and address the various and red tape that stand in the way, called excessive regulation. it will get to the heart of

dealing with the reality that we can create 500,000 jobs right here over five years. if we begin a transition tools like natural-gas that we have in abundance. it's clean and cheap and carries profound national security implications. instead of getting into an at&t discussion, i am here to tell you that we have no choice. we need a big picture approach to problem-solving in this country. we cannot afford to have mesa's aggie lager that will not do for the country what needs to be done. [applause] thank you. >> yes, sir? >> i was in the navy when you were born. i cannot find anything that you said to disagree with. i appreciate your enthusiasm. when you get elected and what into the capitol hill, 80% of the people there now will still be there.

how will you get all these things done? >> i was born in 1960. the u.s. navy paid for my birth. forever grateful. now i have two sons and a navy in a small attempt to pay them back. there's nothing like the voice of the people when they speak out. that is the ultimate attention getter in this country. we are still elected officials at the consent of the government. it is the people who speak can get things done. 2012 is going to be about nothing beyond expanding this economy and creating jobs, plain and simple. there may be some ancillary issues, but it has to be about fixing our core, getting us back in the game, getting this country back on its feet, the economy and jobs. if the discussions leading up to 2012 will be a referendum on the things we discussed here.

what are you going to do about taxes and obamacare and dodd- frank and looming regulatory measures that are crushing enterprise and ingenuity in the free market system? when the people speak in 2012 it will be an attention getter. i can feel it's already. that attention getter will speak to congress and will speak to the bureaucracy and it will say the american people want to get things done and we want to follow a particular course of action that will ensure prosperity for the american people. reverting back to a system of beliefs in our capitalistic traditions, for markets, innovation, inspiring deon turner nor and allowing the marketplace to solve a lot of our problems, i believe that will be the message loud and clear. when that message is delivered, there will not be any. any any dithering. i believe congress will stay

focused on the task at hand. that is the message you get on election day. let me tell you the reality. i found this out as governor. you have about a two-year window in which to get things done. then it closes and you know longer have an opportunity. that's a problem with president obama today. he has not expanded economy or done anything to create jobs, so now people are looking for alternatives. i believe there will be an alternative in 2012. you have two years after the stamps of approval by the people to actually get things done. i am trying to narrow the priorities for the american -- because that is the cancer that will kill people. we have to grow like a business to get out of this. we have to pay the bills. you cannot do that until you reform taxes, until you get a

competitive tax rate. you cannot expand the economy until you deal with the regulatory environment. third is energy independence. that is an engine of growth so powerful all by itself that those are the things i will talk about aside from getting our position right in the world. that is out there, too. but those are the compelling issues that will drive this country forward and drive the discussion around 2012, i believe. you'll get the stamp of the people of this country and you go to it for the next two years. that is what will turn this country around. thank you for your service to this country in the navy. [applause] >> [inaudible] the loss of wealth in the american middle class has been disproportionate to the rise of wealth in the chinese middle- class. you are fluent speaker of

mandarin and someone who understands the political and economical and social culture in china. what message do you bring to americans that would give them hope for a brighter future? >> maybe i could say it in chinese at the proper time after i am elected, with great clarity. there is always a fear factor when you talk about china. economic difficulties, challenges, closed markets, problems with intellectual property protection, currency problems with a deeply discounted currency giving their exports an advantage. they are all bad. we have to keep hammering on those issues. if we also have to remember that on the other side there is an opportunity for the united states. you have the largest middle class in the history of the world, consumer class, i should

say, in the history of the world that will form in china. they are going to be inclined to want to buy our products. to my mind, that means exports from the united states. as governor, china was now well on our top list of export nations. within just a couple years it went right to the top five and then the top three. for every state in america, china is a marketplace that will emerge as a voracious consumer. that means jobs, that means opportunity, that means economic expansion right here at home. so you have to balance the yen yang.n -- the yin and you have to have them encouraged to do things that suggest that they play by the rules. it will continue to be a challenge. you have to hammer home at that. but i will not miss the

opportunity to see the reality of the growth in china. their growth will taper down as they transition from an export machine to more of a consumption machine. but as they move toward more of a consumption machine, they will be buying our stuff. i don't what the europeans to be as out or anyone else. i want to make sure we are on our feet and competing and ready to export and we have the wherewithal to penetrate the markets and make the cash registers ring right here at home. thank you. [applause] . -- thank you. >> final question?/ >> based on your familiarity with china, what are the implications of the one-child per family program over the long term for both trade and as a market for our debt instruments?

>> that is a sensitive one. i hate the one-child policy and so do a lot of people there. but i also have a daughter because of the one-child policy. i adopted a daughter from china. i have no doubt about her circumstances. her mother, forever reasoned, gave her life and decided to keep her, which is sometimes an uncommon thing in china. she was abandoned and put in an orphanage. then we took possession of her at a young age. now she's 12. every time i looked at her i think about china's one-child policy. it is robbing the chinese people of life and opportunity and creating a certain an equilibrium -- thisequilibrium. -- disequilibrium.

she is one of the love of my life. i wish you could see what a brilliant and beautiful and thoughtful gracias. i call her my senior political adviser, because usually travels with us. at the end of the day she says, dad, you screwed up on this and forgot to say this. i listened to every word that she says, because she is right on. thank you. [applause] thanks for being here.

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

>> is going to take awhile to get a balanced budget amendment. i think people have had enough of the large and unpredictable deficits today. >> one of the big problems is we have to ship jobs overseas because we don't have the technology. >> what about the visa program? we have the immigration abate. -- debate. there is a legal side, too. we need brainpower. we have always relied on brainpower in this country. good to see you. >> we need party unity more now than we have ever before. >> you got that right.

>> at all cost. >> we will do our part and hope you do, too. >> i will. >> you are navy brat? >> i am. >> i went to the naval academy. [inaudible] my grandson is in the merchant marine academy. >> --great to see you.

>> thank you for coming to new hampshire. i like your ideas on energy and commodities. >> [inaudible] >> i really liked your ideas. >> i have no doubt.

>> what will distinguish your record from the others? >> you are talking about their plans or their records? >> your jobs plan and their records? >> i don't know the specifics of what they are offering, we will wait and see. i don't believe you will find any other candidate with a tax reform program that hits the mark quite like ours, where we are willing to phase out all the loopholes, all the deductions, corporate welfare, clean out the cobwebs completely, so that you can pay down the rates. you have to raise revenue. i do believe that is quite significant, and we may be in candidates offering that. >> simpson-bowles talked about using -- >> i believe any extra

revenue, we have used to buy down the capital gains rate. if you look at our plan, it is a hybrid, more or less. you have one aspect of simpson- bowles and that it has our own additions. spending cuts and growing, the rhine plan for spending cuts and tax reform and regulatory reform. energy independence that will stimulate the economy and get a revenue flowed the old-fashioned way. you have to earn revenue so you can decrease the debt. our plan is comprehensive in the sense that we are hitting on trade, energy, for regulatory reform, tax policy. everything is included that i think really represents not long term but short-term

effectiveness in firing our engines of growth. >> you talk about taking away popular deductions like the first-time homebuyers. >> you have to start. i did the same thing as governor. we reform our tax code in a fairly revolutionary way. basically phasing out everything and moving toward a flatter, fairer, and more predictable tax, then the negotiations begin. people want their president to get things done. right now we are polarized. we have the extremes. no one is moving the agenda forward. a president needs to move the agenda for and get things done. what i have laid out today really represents our position going in. but there is the reality of the

two-party system and reality of negotiations. i would like to take us as close to this as possible. if we can achieve something like this that will -- that it would leave the country with predictability for entrepreneurs and the creative class in this nation suspect people will begin hiring again expenditures will be deployed into the marketplace. we are frozen right now. >> the simpson-bowles zero plan, did you look at what the effect of that plan would be and who would be paying more taxes? >> we looked at the scoring. we have not scored hours specifically. we can guesstimate roughly what the implications would be, but we have to do a little scoring. we are taking it off one aspect

of simpson-bowles. this proposal was the one that met my own view of good comprehensive tax reform. i believe the system works and we will continue looking at the numbers. >> with this lower the after-tax income of the wealthiest americans? >> it will provide three rates, as i mentioned. getting to a simpler, more predictable tax rate. you can deal with how you approach phasing things in and out. or one-er over night size-fits-all. you have to deal with the reality of different populations. all i'm saying is that this is my position going in. it's realistic and is a good place to start. i would like to stick to it as close as possible. thank you all very much.

it's a global business. like any other global business, you have to meet customer demand all over the world. shoring up our manufacturing base. >> the timing of the president's speaking before a joint session of congress? >> i think it is political theatrics. if you don't have a plan, sometimes you fall back on political theatrics. you look at when the debate is taking place, you put forward your own proposal? a lot of americans would find that as political theater? >> what about the message of

compromise that you have? you are saying that you are open to negotiation? >> i like the plan i put forward and i like the plan that i put forward as governor. you sit down and hammer out a deal. that's the way it goes. i will stick to it as closely as possible, just as i did as governor. if i think we got the best tax reform in the nation out of it. if you look at what some of the analytical organizations had to say about its. they do a pretty good of analyzing tax policy. we had the best tax policy in that particular year in the nation. i will let our track record speaks for itself. >> thank you. >> jon huntsman was on nbc's " today show" this morning. he called the debate over the timing of president obama's speech on jobs nonsense. he said "is what people need about politics."

the press secretary yesterday said, "this is why people are fed up with washington." we will hear more from jay carney today. is becoming a bad 1:30. he will likely talk about the change in schedule for the speech. it was requested for next wednesday. instead concessions speech will happen thursday, september 8. you'll hear from the press secretary at 1:30 on c-span. on c-span 2 today, a number of events we are covering in the lead up to the 10th anniversary of september 11, the homeland security department and the national consortium for the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism are having an all- day forum on lessons learned since 9/11. that is live now on c-span 2. >> machiavelli has become an adjective, many people in this town would have themselves described in that way.

many of them have it next to their bedside. >> his name is synonymous with cynical scheming and the selfish pursuit of power. sunday night, and author argues that machiavelli's theories may of been a response to the corruption around him. at 8:00 on c-span. over the congressional recess, c-span has covered town hall meetings around the country. next to los angeles where democratic representative xavier becerra met with constituents to talk about the economy, the deficit, and what's ahead when congress returns. he's the vice chairman of the house democratic caucus and is on the deficit reduction committee, the 12-member bipartisan congressional panel that responsible for trillions in cuts over the next years. this is one hour and 15 minutes. why don't i do this? as people are walking and, i

want to save as much time as possible for folks to ask questions. why don't i go through some of the mechanical stuff i usually go through. many of you have been to my town halls before. you'll be bored by it. it is always good for those who are new to hear it and those to they have seen or heard before to be reminded. i like to give this information out. i am not always hear and it helps for you to know my staff members and to know the process and the way this works. ok? can i ask someone to grab my jacket? ok. we begin by thanking our host, those to make it possible for us to be here. i think it is a treat to be here at this particular school. it is a cluster of schools. this is where the ambassador

hotel used to be. it is now a landmark as a result -- it has been here for a long time. bobby kennedy was assassinated at the ambassador hotel. it is great that some of the kids have the opportunity to learn some history. her of -- we want to say to the thank you so much for letting us use this school and this facility. [applause] i always try to make sure -- after we leave, she has to make sure this facility is ready for school. that means that folks are going to be working after we are done cleaning up. to all of the facility managers

and staff, we said thank you very much for being available after hours to be able to clean this room and have it ready for the kids tomorrow. i also tried to introduce my staff because they are the first point of contact most of the time. hopefully, you can start the process of seeking my assistance or my services as quickly as possible. let me go down the list. i want to begin by mentioning might field staff. she may be outside. she is one of my field deputies. brenda vargas is to my right, to your left. she is working with vespa she is finishing up her master's degree

-- she is working with us as she is finishing up her master's degree. you see a lot more about these days. my district director is outside. she will be walking in. we still have a lot of folks outside. deal greenberg is outside. she is my field and constituent outreach supervisor. greg -- to my right, a deputy press secretary and also in charge of my website. michael nelson is my case work supervisor and by a scheduler. michael is very important if you have a particular issue we need to address. amy lopez is one of might and

turns. she is a student at the university of pennsylvania. she is here with us and you have to really applaud for amy because she is working for free. [applause] daniel ortiz is our translator. let me introduce to use some of the folks over here from los angeles to police department. lapd has always been gracious to attend these forums that i do. if you have a question that relates to public safety, i am a member of congress and died deal -- and i deal with federal issues. if you have a question about safety in your neighborhood, drug dealing going on, i would not answer it as well as someone from the lapd.

let me introduce to you the folks that are here. sergeant? we have our senior lead officer chong.far right, james joh sometimes we have representatives from some of the other elected offices. if you ask a question that relates to the federal government, i am the guy that should be answering that. it is a city or county or a state issue, sometimes others can answer more directly. that is in their jurisdiction. thank you for being here. if you have any state issues, hopefully, he is available to answer them for us.

i typically then proceed now to give you a quick glimpse of what is going on in washington, d.c. we only have an hour. what i would like to do is really just reduce the amount of time i take and give you a sense of what is going on in d.c.'s so i can leave as much time as possible for questions. as we move into this session, let's try to get as much done. let's hear from as many of you as possible. we do not have enough time to address all the questions that might cost -- that he might have. we will run out of time. what we typically do is to ask -- is to write your name down on a piece of paper. i will randomly draw names. we will take those questions. as much time as we have, hopefully, we will get through as many of these as possible.

i guarantee you that we will not get through all of these this evening. perhaps the reason you are here is because you may have heard that i was recently appointed to serve on this deficit reductions committee, the super committee, because of the 535 members of congress. 12 of us have been appointed, to this committee -- appointed on to this committee, which has a short life span. we are tasked with trying to achieve deficit savings of $1.20 trillion. it is open to us to explore every avenue, try to come up with ways to reduce the deficit. it is a tough task with a short amount of time. 12 last -- 12 of us have been

charged with that responsibility. i hope you have a lot of good ideas and comments you would like to share. i hope to have opportunities as we move forward to talk to folks as often as possible about this particular assignment. i consider it a privilege. i did as much congratulations as condolence, so it works both ways. in the number of things we can talk about. we're going to go straight to questions. by the way, we have cameras. c-span requested an opportunity to be here. they have been gracious to try to accommodate the way i typically do these. we're going to allow c-span to film.

this is national cable station so we will be broadcast nationally. they are a public service station. we will try to go through as many questions as possible. i will draw them randomly. i will try to answer each question as succinctly as i can. i also ask you on behalf of everybody who is here to respect everybody, to try to ask your question as succinctly as you can. limit yourself to one question, please. i love it when you applause, i hate it when you boot. we will do neither and we will spend all that time taking more questions or comments.

when i call your name, but i will draw about four names. in the order that your name is drawn, please make sure you raise your hand. what we will ask you to do is go to the -- are we going to have folks on the outside of the aisle? inside. if you hear your name, raise your hand and walked to the center of the aisle. we will have a staffer with a microphone. that is -- that we everybody can hear it for comment. yet to hear your name, right away, just politely make your way to the center of the aisle. i'm going to call for names. this but, you are ready to go. -- in this way, you are ready to go. hopefully, in an orderly fashion, we will get through as much of this as possible. i will go right to it.

ok. stephanie taylor, are you here? i will call out three other names. patricia buenos? where are you? it will move faster. eric ares? and then -- is it carol lichens?

those are our four. why don't you begin, stephanie? thank you for coming. >> thank you for the opportunity. my name is stephanie taylor and i am representing thousands of members of the green la coliseum. we're here to speak to you about the land-water conservation fund. we already know that you support it. we really need someone to make sure that the fund does not get decimated and devastated. it is a very small percentage of the federal budget. it is a very bipartisan issue. it need not be used to correct

the budget deficit. it is very important, it saves and protect federal and state parks. thank you. >> stephanie, thank you very much. you know that i am a strong supporter of the program. i have been tasked with finding $1.20 trillion in savings. i believe that the 12 of us will be given this assignment, i do not believe we have the right to walk into this negotiation with preconditions. protecting any special interest or making special interest pledges that i will protect whatever i think is very important. i also think that nothing is a sacred cow and everything should be considered. even things i have fought for all of my life. having said that, i believe i have a right to fight for things i believe then, to try to come up with a mix that is good for america. i have to be ready to put,

whether it is conservation funds or whether it is a program for seniors or a program for children or something for companies or corporations, i have to be willing to put that on the table. take a look at my record. you know where i stand on these issues. you have a sense of what i will be fighting for. i cannot guarantee what will happen. it has to be part of the negotiation. hopefully, everybody goes into the negotiation putting their i hope the work of the 12 members are all public and transparent. thank you. who did i say was next? it will be patricia. i am going to draw out what other name before patricia begins. ann.

come on down. >> thank you for having this town hall meeting. i am very happy to be here. politicians talk about shared sacrifice. the people in our community have done the sacrifice already. what do you plan to do on the deficit committee on making sure the taxation it really goes to the wealthy and not the working poor? in addition to that, i want to know your stance on the free- trade of columbia panama, we run the risk of losing jobs in california. interdistrict a loan, it is 5247. i left at intermission with your staff. >> i love when you, with data. --i love when you come with data. i want to make it clear. i will not stand here and guaranteed that i will not let them touch -- you fill in the

blank. let me give you a quick example. i and the ranking democrat in the house of representatives when it comes to social security. i and the highest-ranking democrat. i do not believe social security should be on the table for cuts. why? because of social security -- please. tbd favor. why? because the social security in its 70 + years of life has never contributed one penny to these deficits that we have in every year or the debt. not one single cent in debt is due to social security. in fact, social security today has a surplus of over 200 trillion dollars. some people are saying, we should take money out of social security, raise the retirement age, all sorts of ideas to help with deficits. i do not think that is there.

i have to hope that i can argue well enough and windy day in that debate that everyone would agree with me that of the 12 of us, we should not go after social security benefits to solve this deficit and debt crisis. i cannot tell you that because i have a socials -- i have a strong belief of social security that i would close the door. i would be doing a disservice to all the americans in this country who believe the 12 of us have a sincere obligation to try to find common ground. if i see you cannot touch social security and somebody else says you cannot touch medicare or taxes for the rich or money for schools -- i think we have to be prepared to deal with what ever the majority in this committee comes up with. look at my voting record, he will see where i stand. i do not have a right to close the door on things that are my

sacred cows. on the trade deals, it is time in this country where our biggest export was not a american jobs. our biggest import was not will. we have to come up with a trade policy that recognizes that we must grow jobs in america. in fact, i will tell you right now that my belief is the biggest deficit in my country today is a jobs deficit. you put 15 billion americans to work and that they are paying taxes. they are paying taxes, the treasury has revenue. if the treasury has more revenue, the deficits go down. it is tough to imagine the

government will balance their budget is 15 million americans are out of work and when they get home they have a hard time determining how to balance theirs. we have to have a trade policy that generates jobs in america. not one that just opened supporters and we have to move businesses abroad. those trade agreements, while they are making progress, i think there is issues with some of them. we have to make sure that if we are going to open our doors to columbia, columbia is treating not just its capital properly, but is treating its people properly and not making it difficult for workers in colombia to be able to have rights. in colombia today, you are as likely to be assassinated for being a worker tried to help people organize as you are if you are a narco traffickers. there are some real issues there.

we have to get these right. next was erick. before you go, let me pick in other name. richard spicer. are you here? come downtho the center aisle. >> a good evening. i am a lifelong resident of your district. i appreciate the opportunities for conversation and your sincere effort to get the opinions and thoughts of your residence. i will push back a little bit because i know you have been put charged with a great task. i just want to make it clear to you and it to your staff that when you say things like special interests and sacred cows, i understand that. but the residents who are struggling are not sacred cows or special interests. they are everyday people who live off of social security,

medicaid, and food stamps. the you understand that we are not sacred cows that the way other people are, we're trying to live our lives. please do not see us as another special interest or sacred cow. if that is not clear enough, we are having an event in los angeles to try to portray that livelihood that we are living on september 22 at city hall. in by somebody from your staff to come here some more stories of folks who are struggling and why we need you as a leader, somebody we do respect, to take that to the table as well and make that a message. >> i appreciate your point. let me go right to it. let me say this. do me a favor. i can see that the cameraman behind you is trying to figure out how to fill a around your heads. why do we not all get to decide so they have a clear shot. and remember to smile.

you are right, but caution. what i consider a special interest -- somebody else might say, no. that is not a special interests. let me give you an example. how many here own a home? all of us who own a home, we have a special interests. every time it is time to file our taxes, we get to do something that people who do not own a home get to do. we get to write off the interest on our mortgage. if you grant, you get no such tax break. we also get a tax break because we pay property taxes on the home. we get to write down how much we have made and how much we will pay to the government because of the property taxes we pay on that home.

somebody who rents, they do not get to do that. they are helping to pay the property taxes and mortgage on the property owned by the person who gets to write off expenses. our homeowners special interests? my point to eric is this. what you may think of as just the people, someone might say, are you talking about the people getting medicare? are you talking about people getting homeowners' mortgage deduction? tell me what you mean. that is why the best way to approach this, i believe, is to say, "i will not come in protecting anything or anyone. but i will fight like the dickens for those things i believe in." i do not think i have to be coy about what i believe in. i have been in congress for 19 years. you can see what i believe in. that is why i say to folks, it

is pretty transparent what i will fight for. i just have to believe that i have done more training and prep and someone else. at the end of the day i will prevail in convincing my colleagues at something like social security should not be cut so we can pay for deficits. but thank you for the question. next person, we have carol. francis. c.g.r rodriguez. are you here? go ahead and make your way down there. we will go with stephen smith. are you here? right over here. go right ahead. >> i think special interests

most people think of as the people who are making, you know, the billionaires, the millionaires and people who cause the economic crisis. i really appreciate the whole idea of you going into the committee -- the super committee without a set agenda and willing to be flexible and try to persuade. but that only works of both sides to it. when the republicans begin by saying -- >> to me a favor. i want to make sure everybody has a chance to hear what is being said. i do not what somebody walking away misunderstanding what is being said. the more you applaud, the more i am going to have to say please hold, stopped for a second. at some point, somebody is going to feel like, you clapped.

i can do. before you know it, it will escalate. let us focus on the q and a on the commentary. >> what the republicans have said, we will make sure that nobody who believes in raising taxes on anybody, on the top 10% or the top 1% or anything that are going to be on the committee. if they already have that preconceived and you come in as saying -- it is only the democrats who want to be flexible and republican said, no, we will go with this agenda. we know that we need to cut the war in libya and iraq and afghanistan. quit funding at israel for no matter what it does. we need to do these things. >> let me go ahead -- i need to keep going.

i get your point. i am not stupid. i am not going to walk in saying, i have no preconditions. and by the way, i see you have 30 of them. let us continue to play in the sandbox. when i say i believe we should walk in with no preconditions making no special interest pledges that i sign on the dotted line i will not do this or i will do that, i am that if we saying th want to be serious and honest with all of our constituents, i cannot have in my back pocket this "get out of jail free"pass for one constituency. everybody is going to look for those passes.

i have to believe that if i walked and earnestly sank to my colleagues, "you just heard what i said about social security," but it is on the table. before we leave it on the table to find savings, prove to me why. i believe i can win that argument. but i have to test that theory. that is why i think it is important for this to be a transparent process. social security has never contributed a dime to these deficits or the national debt. if somebody votes to keep it on, i want to see -- to me, social security is one of the greatest inventions america has ever given us. i understand your point. you may still have issues with my position. if i walk in sang, so when so, i

know you have always taken this position and you will never do this and now you are on this committee. because i know you have always taken a particular position, i will take a particular position. this will break a part. i do not think failure is an option for us on this. if we do not do something, the 12th of us, the consequence is there will be an automatic trigger for the same amount of cuts. that is like having it all guillotine come down and decide where the cuts will be. it is better to have 12 americans who at least profess to wanting to do the best for their country come up with a solution and it just take a guillotine with our eyes closed and say, we need to top off all this money and let it come down. that is not the way you legislate. i do not believe. i understand your point. please understand my predicament

in trying to get this done. i hear what you are saying. do me a favor. we cannot proceed if anyone wants to interject. please, sir. we will just ask that you all try to cooperate. please be respectful. as i said, it will escalate. this is what i ask. please respect your neighbors who have taken the time to come. please respect the rules. please respected the law. this is a public forum. if you break up this form and make it impossible for us to continue, you are committing a misdemeanor. we would ask that everybody respect your neighbors if nothing else. at least respect your neighbors who have taken the time to be

here. >> you know my issue. the museum has been closed since 2006. they have no intention of operating a museum there again. there will not let the southwest museum name be used again. the buildings and the land. do we have any options? anne, we have discussed this many times. never to a resolution. i do not know the answer to your

question. it is not an issue that i deal with on a day to day basis in washington. this is a local issue having to deal with an important site over in the northeast area of l.a. that has been closed for many years. they have control of the site and the collection. it is the very precious collection of native american artifacts, one of the best collections in the united states. the concern of many local residents is what will happen to what is a treasure in the community? a museum in an area not to void of a lot of treasures and historic sites and opportunities for people who want to come into the community. as i said as always, i understand the passion.

it is a treasure we want to continue. at the same time, they will say it was a museum that was on the verge of closing, its attendance was very low. it was having financial difficulty. somebody had to come in and where it would close permanently. it is a city issue. i know city council members to have jurisdiction over the issue have been talking quite a bit a about it. i know the mayor has been involved as well. suffice to say this -- i agree with the residence who want to keep the museum there. i do not know if i agree with the residents who say we must keep it there at all costs. somebody has to bear those costs. somehow you have to be able to prove to those who will run the museum and own at that they can bear the cost.

museums are very expensive to operate. if you have to keep everything in our climate condition, and you have to make sure you have security. that is what makes it tough. i wish i could give you a better response, and the last time we spoke about this was a couple of years, i do not know what has transpired since then. i have not dealt with that at the federal level. i am always welcome to work with you to make sure that that site has every opportunity to remain the southwest museum. thank you. ok. who was next? i think richard, you are next. then we have c.g. and stephen and one more. judy. you will be next -- fourth. >> thank you very much for having this forum.

in your role on the committee, i would appreciate if you would share some of your ideas about how to make it work in the manner you have suggested -- either conduct, transparency, perhaps ways in which the members of the committee could share and education on some of these complicated subject matters, and to do with any matter that keeps everything on the table including revenue reform, increases as well as shared cuts across the board -- not across the board. smart choices on ways to make cuts. >> i think you're going to the heart of this without asking me to comment on something. let me let you probe my brain a little bit more, which i think you have a right to. i am voting for you. you gave me that privilege. first, i said it earlier.

i believe it has to be a transparent process. if not, it is too easy to gain the system. wink wink, not not, you come out with something like the smoke of the vatican north dakota try to figure out why was he chose an for the vote. transparency -- as open as possible. i think that is crucial. secondly, i think we have to have an initial opportunity to talk about how we are going to -- what can be put on the table? what is really in the next? what i think is extremely critical -- i do not know if all of my colleagues would agree. the whodunit? what happened? just the facts. how did we go from 2001 when we

had the largest federal budget surplus in our history and we were being told by the fiscal referee for these things, the cfo, that we would have budget surpluses so large that over the next 10 years we would likely see budget surpluses totaling 5.6 trillion dollars. surpluses. so much so that we were going to be able to wipe out all of our national debt within that 10 years and have extra. we would be free and clear of any debt. that is what the congressional budget office was telling us. that is the most neutral referee that we use to determine costs, revenue, those kinds of things. in fact, we would use them for this committee. all of a sudden, 10 years later, we went from that projection of record surpluses to now, record

deficits. a turnaround of 12.7 trillion dollars in 10 years. $12.7 trillion. go home, right out the number $ 12 trillion. breakdown. you are probably going back to before the caveman days in time. 12 trillion is an astronomical sum. what happened in 10 years? we all watched. i believe we have to answer the "whodunit" question. otherwise, we are going to say chop this year, change medicare here, change taxes here. what caused us to get into this mess? now, we have a general sense of what did, but we need to probe

further. the biggest contributor, i do not say this but the congressional budget office's numbers, the biggest man-made contributor -- the bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 which over the next 10 years will cost us over four trillion dollars. in the first 10 years, the cost about $three trillion. second largest contributor, likely, the wars and iraq and afghanistan. why? we have never paid a single cent of the cost of the two boards. it is all borrowed money. over $one trillion dollars and growing. we never paid for that. you could start to add up these sounds and see where we went awry. if nobody says, we should do something about those bush tax

cuts, which went mostly to very wealthy folks. nebraska there are some millionaires in this room. your tax break for this year was probably a about $120,000. if you are somebody making the average income of $45,000, you probably got enough of a tax break to give you to tanks of gas. we need to figure out what caused us to get there. once we do that, we can target better what we do to come up with 1.5 trillion dollars in savings. if we blindly say, we have to cut the schools because we have no choice. i do not know any child who spent any of the money in iraq or afghanistan. i know no child who got that tax break. i think we have to go and figure out the sources, the drivers of the deficits. that way you can answer every american plainly what we have to do to get this right.

the bottom line, my bottom line what we do, will it create a job or kill a job? i will not be any -- very favorable if it is going to kill a job. i believe the quickest way we get america back on track is to put america back to work. there are too many americans who are not working and paying their taxes and feeling good a outworking. maybe not great, could it not paying taxes. long answer, i apologize. i have to keep them briefer. but as go to the next one. >> i want to thank you for your support of educational programs that you provided in the past.

can you share ideas as to how you can promote those kinds of programs, protect those programs? i am very concerned that it is going to be on the chopping block and it will be a blind cut. >> what i love about these sessions is, you all tell me through your passion with you care about the most. invariably, it is something very important to the family and neighborhood. in this case, the program to help kids, a lot of children who are mostly disadvantage and modest income families, it helps them make sure they catch up so they do not fall further behind and to drag some of their peers with them because the teacher has to teach to everyone. the program has been very successful getting a lot of these kids a lot closer to where we want to see them.

can i guarantee that something like trio would be cut? nope. i cannot guarantee that. have i been a supporter? i have been more than a supporter. when i served on the education committee, i was one of the principal advocates for gear up and trio. i have fought to expand those programs because of the work they have done. i guarantee we get a lot of those resources for gear up and trio here because we have a lot of kids who come from modern income -- modest income families and they are trying to survive. it is tough. you can talk to any principal in the unified los angeles school district and they will tell you how gut-wrenching it is to send out pink slips every spring and summer to teachers because they have to be sure they can meet their budget come september and hope they can pull back some of those pink slips by the time school will start. not a way to educate kids.

that is the way things have gone. it is tough. we have to figure out where the sacrifice will come. as i said before, if you can find me a gear up kid who told us to go to war and i iraq border got $120,000 tax break, i am willing to talk to that kid and say there is something we have to do about that. thank you. let me give you two other names. next is too deep. after judy, we will have been. ben, are you here? go ahead and get in line over there. after that will be donald. we will not have that march more time. richard, are you here? we may only get to these last

four depending on how quickly they are. and i am sorry, steven is next and then judy. by the way, i hope you do not mind, steven, we are friends because we ran against each other when you're a go for congress. he was my worthy opponent last year for congress. >> we actually had a very interesting debate. >> we did. "i would like to make a comment on education since it is brought up. what is happening in los angeles is a tragedy. what i am looking at numbers that we on the have 50% of our students graduating high school and in nebraska los angeles arkansas congressional district respect -- especially the hispanic community is running 30%, the fact that that is not front page headlines is very upsetting to me. i am very upset about that. you would not have your job on that tour person committee if

congress, the senate, and the president had not failed putting together a budget. that is very sad. i hope we can be successful in that. i would like to comment in terms of taxation as well. if we were to take that $250,000 a year wage earner and above and take 100% of their income, my understanding is that would only cover about six months' worth of our current budget. the numbers are huge. just a huge in terms of how far we are behind. that is very disturbing to me. the question or comment i have for you, you have a remarkable act -- opportunity right now. i hope you take advantage of this. that is to say, there are some areas where there are common ground. we know where of there will not be. you know republicans will be a little hard-nosed about taxing.

we always see it as being wasted. there are areas in terms of savings, major tax reform that we can deal with. i just want to encourage you to let go of some of the things and start to build piece by piece and find areas of commonality that we all have. >> i agree with pretty much everything you say about the part of 250 and above -- the amount to collect and revenues. it is much more than what you have indicated. otherwise, i think are absolutely right on education. that goes to the point of gear up. it is so important for our kids to have a chance to prosper. i say that because i in the first and my family to get a college degree. my wife and i, who also has a college degree, she is a doctor. her father and mother were carried little and education. we made it more in one year than my parents probably made in 20

years. nobody can ever take away my college education. i don't need to be a member of congress to be happy. i am a very proud that because i got myself educated, i had a chance to run and had a chance to serve. we need to make sure others have that opportunity. there is so much talent in this country. some people are saying, our best days are behind us. i do not believe that for a second. there is no country that has the vitality that we have. this diversity has helped us so much because there is always somebody coming in who can talk about the really tough story and life, but all of a sudden in america, they are making it. it reinvigorate you to see that folks believe in this country. what a shame if you cannot give to a kid a chance to show their parents that they can just do

some phenomenal things. my dad would tell me stories when as a young man he would walk on a street and he would see a sign outside a window that said no dogs or mexicans allowed. he could not go into a restaurant. guess what? my dad has met the president of the united states. only in america would a guy who could not walk to the doors of a restaurant get his kid a stanford education and introduce him to the president of the united states. our best days of -- our best days are ahead of us. we just have to believe it. let us focus on giving everyone the opportunity. if you do not want the opportunity, which should not be helping you. if you are willing to work hard, that is what we ought to be about. these decisions i have been privileged to be cast to make, i understand that i was given something that so many kids did

not have. i also know that it was hard work, parents went through to give me this chance. shame on me out if i fail in this committee, share on -- shame on me if i fill my parents to give me the chance to be on this committee. go right ahead. judy, you are next. and and and and donald. >> i am a mother of two boys who are going to the charter school across the street. we have been at the mercy of charter school lotteries for a lot of years. i will do a quick laundry list so please bear with me. republican colleagues that signed the allegiance to go with norquist instead of the constitution of the bill of rights should be shamed at every moment. it is a shame to swear allegiance to some guy in a piece of paper. the waste they are talking about is over 750 bases all over the world.

the military telling our young men without an education to go over 100 places around the world where they can serve. we need to get out of iraq and afghanistan immediately. we should not be advertising to see the world. where are the hundred bases? how would we feel if all of these other countries have military bases here? then we are paying these people $500 to have privatized the military. a bodyguard for a congressman fit -- visiting over there on are getting budget why are we not paying our own military people that? where are we wasting on contractors -- the good old but military industrial complex that eisenhower talked about. i am sorry, i am getting

emotional. >> wind down. >> my friends and belgium and work for the eu to solve the issues of poverty. she had six months off, her kids in childhood care, they have all these things in europe without any more taxes than we pay here. something is really wrong. something is basically really wrong. spending all of this money on military and privatizing it should all be going to our schools, our children, our roads, and infrastructure. sorry i went on. >> thank you very much. i hear again the passion and i appreciated very much. i will say one thing. first, i have seen a number of families who have lost their sons and daughters, sons and spouses over a number of years.

you give me this right to vote for you. i take it very seriously -- especially when it comes to the military. at some point, i may put your son or your daughter in harm's way. when i had to go visit a mother or a wife and provide them with a flag of the united states has a token of appreciation for their husbands or sons of service, it is tough. what more do you say to somebody who has given their all? i do not want to look back and say, i could have done more to make sure that soldier was better trained or equipped. i never want to have that kind of regret. i think we have an obligation -- and by the way, i am a very progressive democrat. i think we have an obligation to make sure somebody that puts on the uniform, the give them the

utmost to make sure they can do their work. their work is as precious as it comes. they are defending us. however, i do not think that means that the pentagon has license with my vote to spend $32,000 for a refrigerator. that does not give the pentagon the right to say, well, you cannot audit us to say how the pentagon keeps our books because we are too big and of audible. pentagon, we could not audit them, any firm could go in and give an idea of how dod spend their money because they are in such a shambles. they do too much importance stuff to not have their books in order. the more we get them in order, the more, i think, they will

make sure those contract overruns into the hundreds of billions of dollars do not occur. as i said, i am not interested in cutting a program that makes sure our soldiers are the best equipped and prepared to fight with whatever they need. by god, i am not interested in telling them they need a $32,000 refrigerator to help fight this country. that is what we have to go after. you make some very good points, but again, without telling you i'm going to go after this or that or protected this or that, there are areas where we can make some changes and find savings without having to go into the bone of what america cares about. letting the public sees so that the public knows why we did what we do. i have no doubt -- americans, i have no idea why. maybe it is the sense we can always do what can we go for the underdog, americans believe we can get this done.

we just have to prove it. let it be open so that at the end of the day we come out with a product. kasich, i know how we got this because i watched this. i can see the record. thank you for your comment. please do not stop having that passion. a lot of folks talk about the bases. >> when i heard you were on the super committee, i was very grateful and if very relieved. whenever i checked your votes, you are always voting what is at my heart. i am very proud to say you are my congressman. >> thank you. >> i will be a little specific into details, i do not know if this fits your radar, you know i care very deeply about arts and the endowment of arts. we have been operating on $161

million this year. the administration proposed $146 million. there were several motions to eliminate the endowment which you opposed and were joined by moderate republicans and all the democrats to defeat the elimination of the endowment and to defeat the defunding of the endowment. i am very grateful for that. we are going to need a champion in that committee. i know you are not making any promises, but the interior subcommittee approved a hundred $35 million. there was some very strong language in the appropriation to support core programs of the endowment. we were hoping it would go to the senate and and reconciliation be boosted up. i do not know if there will be any reconciliation anymore or if you guys are doing that. that is one of my questions. if you are doing it, and there will not be a reconciliation with the senate, i would implore

you to look inside and consider being our champion on that committee and at least supporting some sense of language with the preservation of core endowment programs with sufficient funding. you know the arts creates jobs, it inspires people, it enriches people's lives, and supports education. all of the things that make it worthwhile of being the american are supported through the arts and the endowment. >> thank you. again, my record will speak for itself on those issues about the arts. i will to say for those who may not know, i think the arts are important not because of the adults and the talents that the show. i think the arts are important because of our children. i think the arts give our kids to express themselves in ways that too often we do not give them a chance. financially, they do not have a

lot of resources so they are of limited in what they can do, or perhaps there are of limited in their capacities because they never had an opportunity to open their minds and learn. to me, the arts are a very fine way for a child to really explore the mind. that is where you find the talents. all of us can do one plus one. it is the kid who can take it and it turned one plus one into something we've never what have thought about. the creativity that i think creates patents and copyrights that make us the country we are today. the country that builds google and microsoft's of america. the more we give kids a chance to explore -- especially in ways that are affordable -- i think the more we will create an america that is strong because these kids will have used their mind from an early age.

to me, it is very distressing when you hear that a school says, we have to teach the core curriculum. arts, music, pe, we have to sacrifice those things. it is hard to say to them, how dare you. do we want them to sacrifice mad and science? know. but those are the decisions we are making. those are the options we are being is given. teach a kid math or let them also the music. to me, that is the wrong set of values that you have to give up that intellectual capacity a child would have if he or she had an opportunity to play that instrument or to do that art. because we want them to learn math or science or english or geography. i went to public schools when i was growing up. in fourth grade when we had a chance to get an instrument, i

was in line. the parents could not buy one for may. i ended up a little late so i got a mellophone. there are some people who know what a mellophone is. i wanted a trumpet but i got a mellophone. it is a smaller french horn. can you imagine a fourth great kid having to carry a french home -- a french horn every day? but then i got my trumpet. it was not my normal appearance but the schools. i played in a band. i got some great opportunities and got to meet some girls. it was a great opportunity to feel good about myself and have some esteem. my art is terrible, so i had to be able to play music. every kid should have that opportunity. then, when you talk about the arts, is indispensable. should we sacrifice some other core curriculum and our schools?

no. but we should not be talking about sacrificing size to get our or sacrificing our to get science. that is where i think america has gone wrong when those are the options. the option to me is do we need that base in the foreign country or do we need the parts? to many debates, ok good. but do we have to spend more on the military than the 18 largest powers behind us combined? no, i'm sorry. i do not need responses. let us move on. reconciliation. this super committee will drive much what is going on with the budget because it sets up the parameters of what we do over the next 10 years. that will give us the parameters. to some degree this law that created a super committee at christie's the automatic trigger is if a super committee does not come up with a solution will drive the budgets for the next

10 years and will see what kind of appropriation the arts will get. yes. so donald and then richard. that will close up. you have all been very patient. >> my is very simple. there is a program that is not being covered by the mainstream media. this is a program called the world global settlements. it has already funded in the tune of $47 trillion. that includes $10 trolling to refund the treasury to issue an asset backed currency to replace our fiat currency that has put us in debt. i have not heard anything about this in the news. it has been reported that this is being blocked by the present administration. this particular program would solve most of the ills that your committee has been tasked to take care of.

i am curious to know why it is being blocked. why is it being kept under the radar when it is already funded? >> donald, you're going to have to send me information on that. i cannot answer any of those questions because i do not know enough of what you're talking about to give you a straight answer. give me -- do me a favor. give us a citation or if you have anything with it, leave it with me. then we will have that conversation. if there is a solution that can be addressed or arrived at with the information and programs you're talking about. you keep have raised something that i cannot respond to well. world of global settlement. you can always look at up. you are free to give us whatever information you have. deborah is right next to you. actually, do not talk to her because she has a microphone. brenda, liz, somebody will make sure they are talking to donald before he leaves. thank you.

guess what, richard, you get to close us all. they get a good one. >> thank you for the opportunity, and it do not hate me for loving you. here it comes. >> you need to come to all of my town halls. >> sir, my questions are geared towards jobs and the financial situations were we are at right now. i have two career, and i have been without a job for 1.9 months. when it comes to jobs, politicians, talk is easy. remember, you do not bite the hand that feeds you. when it comes to jobs, it is easy to say, "we need to create the jobs." but the companies that actually treat the jobs, they took it

away from us and take it to the east. how going to basic binary logic can you create, i do not know, when hundred 50,000-200,000 jobs in california? you require these huge corporations, which by the way, all the time they keep on merging. when they merged these huge corporations, jobs need to be let go because of the double jobs that they get. on the other hand, as of today after 2.5 years with the debacle on wall street, as today nobody has been sent to jail because of the crimes they committed with our money. that money that saved them came from the taxpayers. they are printing money, printing machines can only go so far.

thank you. >> richard, you hit it out of the park. let me see if i can try to catch it. first, i think you are absolutely right. it is easy for this guy who has a job to talk about how we need to create jobs. let me give you some ideas about how the federal government can help america -- most of the private sector, create good jobs. there is a program here and los angeles called the 3010 transportation program were the transportation agency is trying to use the money we all voted for -- we have taxed ourselves to these initiatives, to create a fund of money here in the county of los angeles to help us build transportation infrastructure. the city of los angeles has said to the federal government, we are going to build these things. typically, you help pay for part

of this. what if we do this? what if we tell you, federal government, we will dedicate a larger portion of the money we have already taxed ourselves onto this particular project which you would typically support to a matching grants, you give us that money up front quickly. that way we can accelerate the completion of those transportation programs whether it is freeways, mass-transit. essentially, we leverage the money that we have committed to produce through our own taxes locally to guarantee the federal government that we will come through with the money so that the federal government will have the confidence to give us more money up front. instead of giving us -- i am making up numbers -- $10 billion over 10 years, they will give this $10 billion in year one. we can then start moving on all

of these projects right away. we have a ton of projects here locally that we can get moving on. nobody needs to be told an los angeles that we need to improve the ability for mobility. it is a great idea. we are essentially saying, you want confidence that we will come through. if you give us more money up front than you would give us but no more than you would give us over the long term, we will pomp and the money to show you how we are going to make this happen. $15 billion investment by the federal government -- which is a ton of money -- i am talking $1.5 trillion treaty know what 15 billion can give us? about 1 million american jobs. that transportation project cannot be done from somebody in another country. you have to build that road here. you have to put up the real system here. the federal government is going

to give any help, you are doing it up front early. 2, there is a program some have proposed a called fast. fix america's schools today. this is a great group, but it also just opened. there are a lot of schools to it that are not looking like this. kids are having to learn with kids who are here and in a lot nicer schools. we are going to fix the schools at some point. at some point they will lead to the roof, then they will go in and fix the roof. why wait until the water starts damaging the roof more? if you know the roof is old and you will have to replace it, why not replace it now? there are a whole lot of construction workers in l.a. and america who are out of work. you know what you get out of it? to get to feel better about going to school because they are going to school and a nice place instead of waiting until all the rain is a shining down on that

because the bridge is leaking. that would also create good at paying it jobs for americans. he said to often american corporations are sending jobs abroad -- they are. by the way, the majority of americans who are put to work are not put to work by large corporations. three out of every four jobs are created by small businessmen and women. just sit -- just a you know, they are treated by small businessmen and women. not the big guys. in the whole scheme of things, out of the hundred 60 million americans that are working, most of them are working for small firms. to your point, today if a corporation in a america decides to open a factory abroad or open 8 from abroad or a particular business abroad and therefore

says i do not need you working here anymore and jane or joe, i will let you go, many of those firms are getting tax breaks for having treated the job somewhere else. why do we not get rid of the tax break that a company is getting to send a job overseas and instead give companies to say, it is tough. i am not sure to do. if your federal government is willing to partner with me and you say you will give me a little bit of a tax break for treating a job in america, let us do it. instead of giving tax breaks to companies that send jobs abroad, but this tell those companies will induce a in america, we will help you out a bit. it will cost us money because it is a tax break and coming out of our pocket, i would rather give an incentive to a company to create a job here and be giving a tax break to a company sending a job overseas. there are ways we can do this,

and i hope was this committee will explore and be smart, reduced deficit by trading more jobs so america will feel proud that they are working and will not feel bad that they have to do their volunteer part and pay taxes. richard, it was a great question. things have to be done. i appreciate you all have come. i have an important tax -- a task in front of me. ' please feel free to look at my website, please feel free to communicate with me. share your thoughts like the gentleman donald who mentioned this program. i will look into that. please feel free to share your thoughts. we have t - three months to try to get something done. i hope you will participate with me. you are my constituents. i owe you the opportunity to speak to me and give you my thoughts. and for you to receive my feedback. i hope we stay in touch. thank you for being so

corporative and courteous. i look forward to speaking with you again. have a good night. [applause] >> coming up in about 90 minutes we will take you live to the white house press briefing. we are likely to hear more about the president's plan speech to a joint session of congress next thursday. and politico reporting this hour that john boehner will counter the president's speech with lunchtime remarks to the economic club of washington september 15. the white house briefing at 1:30 p.m. eastern. on c-span2, they have been bringing you all day coverage of a forum on lessons learned from the 9/11 attacks. they are waiting to hear from senator joe lieberman, chairman of the senate homeland security committee -- committee. that should be coming up in a couple of moments and you can catch it on c-span2 live when it

happens. >> he is a partisan guy who wants to unite people. all of the problems of the air right you could get from this guy, and why we couldn't elect him it's the same reason we eventually went to war -- they couldn't be resolved. >> he has this misfortune of running against a great military hero dwight eisenhower , and so i don't really think there was any way adlai stevenson could have won. >> you think of smith in 1928 lost overwhelmingly to herbert hoover but paved the way for franklin roosevelt. >> there are 14 people in this series, many of you i guaranty viewers never would have heard of. all of them i'd pretty much guarantee they will find interesting, it's a fascinating, and certainly surprising.

>> history professor gene baker, real clear politics editor, and presidential historian richard norton smith talked about the 40 men who ran for president and lost. friday, 8:00 p.m. -- "the contenders," a 14-week program beginning friday, september 9. >> next week congress is back from their summer recess, returning after a month-long break to meet and speak with constituents in a home state and c-span covered a number of town hall meetings. utah freshman republican senator and tea party cox is co-founder mike lee met with committee members during a town hall -- talk about the economy, jobs, and the congressional agenda. earlier this year he introduced a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget as part of a debt -- the debt

ceiling compromise. it will get an up or down vote, two-thirds of both state -- chambers, before moving to the states. he spoke to voters in the fairview, utah, for just under an hour and half. [applause] this is an important part of our state and probably the most beautiful part of the state and i did not say this everywhere i go. we do have a beautiful state. most of it is beautiful. some of it less than others. we've got a lot of people here who have made this day possible. i wanted to think a few. senator oakland for introducing me and helping to set it up. all the citizens of the county, who have been supportive of this. the mayor of fairview. dave taylor, city manager. brian nelson, sheriff, bob

bingham, police chief, and i would like to thank channel 10 and i am also grateful to c-span for being here tonight. it was nice of them to join us. a good event to be concerned about you talk politics and make sure what -- they are aware of what we are concerned about. it is a real pleasure to be here at the peterson dance hall. the floors go back to 1896. the year that we became a state. it was a significant year. in that year we went through a transformation. we left the stage of being a territory of the united states, where the laws were subject to congress -- everything we did, even our territorial legislature had to act with permission of congress and it was always subject to veto by congress at any moment. when we became a state, it became different. all of a sudden we were on sovereign entity. we had our own rights as a

sovereign just like congress has its own rights. the difference between the state power and federal power was spelled out the van, and it is still spelled out today in this 224-year old document. this document that has fostered the development of the greatest of late -- civilization the world has ever known. it tells us where state power comes in and where federal power comes and but i have a feeling we may talk about some of that tonight. 1896 was an important year because that is when we became a state. in many respects, we are still cleaning the benefits of statehood. some of which have yet to be fully realized. what i would like to do, if it is ok, i will talk for just a few minutes about some of the things we have been dealing with in congress and then we'll open up the floor for questions. the most important thing we did tonight -- you will see me doing a lot of listening, taking notes from time to time. i want to know what is on your mind and what is of concern to

you so that we can know how best to respond in congress so i can serve you well as your u.s. senator. senator. shortly shortly before we left washington a few weeks ago when the members of congress went back to their home states to meet with constituents, we dealt with the debt limit issue. have heard about that in the news. we voted to raise the debt limit, to authorize a new amount of money that congress can borrow, to an unprecedented degree, about $2.50 trillion. that is a lot of money. some people here in utah do not make that in a whole year. [laughter] that is the amount of money congress is ab to borrow, in addition to the amount it has already borrowed.

it has borrowed almost $15 trillion. by the end of the year, our accumulated national debt will be about $15 trillion. we do not use the word trillion in our day to dayocabulary. to put it in perspective, if you divide 15 trillion by 300 million americans, it works out to $50 -- to $50,000 a head. that includes people who are retired, infants, students, in addition to those who are working and paying taxes. if you measure it according to taxpayers, it could be everywhere -- anywhere to $160,000 per taxpayer. that is a lot of money. at some point, that becomes a problem. i voted against the debt limit increase because i did not think the legislation that authorized it did enough to take care of

the underlying problem. it did not do enough to make sure we were not back in the same position a few months from now, or a year or two from now. it did not solve the underlying problem members of congress have. members of congress want to please their constituents. but it will do is approved a lot of spending, sometimes spending a lot more money than congress has. we have been bringing in about $2.20 trillion a year in tax revenue. we have been spending about $3.70 trillion a year. that difference is all made up for in borrowing. the reason that is such a problem is that at some point we will reach the limit not of our statutory borrowing power, not the limit of what congress says it will allow itself to borrow. we will reach, at some point, the natural limits of our mathematical borrowing power. people will stop lending us

money, at least not without charging us much higher interest rates. as that starts to happen, we will accelerate dramatically the rate at which we are moving to the day that has been acknowledged by the white house as something we are likely to hit in the next decade or so, spending a trillion dollars every year just in interest on national debt. we are spending rightow a little over $200 billion in interest. that is a lot of money. a trillion dollars is five times that amount. that is more money than we spend on national defense and a year. it is more than we spend in social security in a year. it is more than we spend on medicare and medicaid combined. the closer we get to that moment, the more we potentially place in jeopardy everything. that money will have to come from somewhere. we will have to make up the difference somewhere.

it will end up having to come from every federal program. we cannot borrow more at that moment. if we do that, our interest rates will jump so high we will not be able to borrow any more. we will find ourselves in a worse position. our x system has proven pable of producing only about 18.5% of the money that moves through the economy every year. raising taxes might make some difference in the short run. in the long run, it is not point to make a difference and may damage us. we would have to make more severe and chromatic cuts and we would prefer to make. if we start the process now, and put in place the balanced budget amendment that will require congress to put itself on a sustainable course toward balancing its budget, the cuts we will have to make will be more manageable. there will be more compassionate. they will be less likely to have adverse impacts on the most

vulnerable members of society. those are some of the reasons why i voted no on the debt limit deal. i believe we should have had a balanced budget amendment. it should have been submitted to the states. with that introduction, let's open up the floor to questions. i am going to take off my jacket, if nobody expects. it is kind of hot, even here. i kissed the back from being on the -i just got back from meeting with the county commissioners. a beautiful place. the resources up there are phenomenal. i found it easy to igine what

it might look like with a reservoir there. i appreciate the county commissioners letting me see it. i saw a hand up. do we have a microphone? >> i am a long time libertarian. in has been a while i have been much in this mess come abt. we are currently living in a welfare state, as far as i am concerned. we have five unconstitutional wars going on. i cannot keep track. we apparently had troops on the ground in libya before we said we did. we are involved in all kind of stuff. we have 170 countries we are currently occupying with our military. when are we going to bring these

people home, reinforced these borders with our people if we have to, and stop the bleeding of this nation and quit exporting our jobs? because of what obama has done, i would expect you to start the impeachment process on him for what he has done. that is important. >> thank you. [applause] addressed quite a few issues. let me scribble some of this down as we're talking. i want to start on one of the final points you made that ties a lot of it gether. you referred to jobs. a lot of what we deal with in washington, a lot of the most important things we deal with, relate to job creation and job preservation. a lot of the things we do could

make the job market worse than it already is. the cannot afford that. we needed to get better as quickly as we possibly can. we made it worse rather than better when we pretend to the federal government that we can take your money, send it to washington, work through our own process, take our cut -- exactly. when we try, it makes it worse. that is a problem. i agree with you there. your comments directed to our presence overseas -- i think part of the natural process that will occur as we move in the direction of a balanced budget will be a waddling down of some of the things we do through our military. people have asked in the past what of the sacred cows, what cannot be cut. people assume because of the political party i am a member of that i would say defense is a sacred cow that cannot be

touched under any circumstance. we have to look for efficiency in every corne of government. in order for our system of government to survive, we have to make it more efficient. we cannot afford to be fighting other people's wars. we cannot afford to be fighting a war for which there has never been in military justification expressed, much less a proper constitutional declaration of war. [applause] >> you say that y are for a balanced budget amendment. don't you think that is dangerous? wouldn't it be better if we just follow the constitution and stop spending money on things for whic the federal government has no mandate, and get rid of a lot of things like the fda, the

usda, the department of education? you could get rid of a lot of stuff that is not constitutional, and stop foreign ai subsidies -- foreign a, subsidies to farmers and businesses. we could keep a lot of money in our pockets of that happened. we would be spending a lot less money. [applause] >> thank you. that is an excellent point. what is your name? but he makes an excellent point here. i do not know how well you could hear in the back. betting makes the point -- why do we need a balanced budget amendment when we have a constitution already and the constitution, if followed, would put congress on a course that would stay focused on the few responsibilities given in the constitution, like weightand measures, regulating trade between the states, trademarks,

copyrights and patents, and so forth? you raise a valid point. here is why i nevertheless think we need to amend the constitution. that document, and particularly that part of the document that tells congress its jobs are limited and its responsibility exists within a limited sphere has been so overlooked over such a prolonged time that we have almost forgotten as a society -- some of us feel passionate about these things. but we have lost sight of it. we have assumed there is no job that is too big or too small for congress to handle. members of congress do not like to balance the budget because it makes them less powerful. it makes it more difficult for them to look constituents in the eye and say that looks like a good project that would benefit a lot of peoe, and we cannot do it. they do not like to say no. until we restrict their authority to engage in deficit

spending, they will not. we know that based on a side track record in which they have dollar by dollar mortgaged the future of our unborn children and grandchildren. they have spent money they do not have and buried our prosperity under a mountain of debt. it is a form of taxation without representation. the last time i checked, we fought and won that war. we need to win that victory by restricting congress's ability to borrow. [applause] >> mike weber. -- laid webster -- glade webster. can you elaborate on the narrows project? we have been trying to get it here for over 80 years. it makes too much sense.

>> i hesitate to answer the question from the same promise you started with. i do not think there is anything i can do to force it through. it is not quite the sort of thing that is amenable to being forced. it is something that is important to the residents of this county, and something the residents have waited pretty patiently for over the last 80 years, as you mentioned. it is something you waited for even in 1944, when the residents here were ready forhat to be completed. but they put that off in order for some work to be done in schofield so that schofield would not fail, which would jeopardize a rail line going through there. as i understand it, the environmental impact statement will be up. we expect a record of decision

could be issued by sometime early next year. when that happens, the process will move forward. there may be some litigation. there is nothing i can do to force it through beyond that process. if there is litigation, that will have toork its way to court. we have to have a couple of things happen. the record of decision has to be issued. litigation, if any -- litigation, if any, will have to be complete. i hope we are able to get that done promptly. we have had an aul lot of litigation. as i understand it, the water rights are not in dispute. they have been settled. they have been deemed to belg to the residents ofhe county. i am optimistic that this will come to a resolution. a lot of that will depend on how the litigation goes. i will get to people in the back

of the room. i just realized. >> i only have six or seven things here. [laughter] the president has agreed that the [unintelligible] he is going to ppose a value added tax. however, he wants it on top of the income tax. is there anything you could do? [unintelligible] can you stop him from doing that? [unintelligible] >> it is not the super committee. this is a top-level administration official. i know who you are talking about.

i cannot remember his name at the moment, but i know who you mean. this is a presidential appointee who has been an outspoken advocate of what is referred to as the value added tax. think of that kind of like a sales tax placed on items that you buy in the store, whether as a consumer or as a business, if you are buying a business in put and adding value to a product befo you resell it. you are taxed on it, and a tax is imposed on it before the next person. value-added taxes are common throughout europe. they are frequently placed on top of income taxes. i refer to this sometimes as burning the candle at both ends. they want to get more revenue than they can get through an income tax. they create the illusion that people are taxed less than they actually are.

people who are paying income tax are paying a value added tax. the product has gone to sever of these cycles where people have had a value added at different stages of the business input cycle. the product might be a lot more expensive. a lot of the expenses related to government. i oppose that. i think we need to pick a horse and ride ias a country. [applause] what i mean is we either need to stick with an income tax system, which needs to be simplified so it does not occupy tens of thousands of pages. nobody has ever read that thing. if they did, they would probably die. on the other hand, we need to go to a national sales tax model, the faitax, as they're referred to it. i would forcibly oppose that.

i will likely oppose the confirmation of people who a in a position to bring about policy changes like that if they support those. that said, i looked at each nominee on his or her own merits. i have yet to that this nominee, whose name i cannot remember at the moment. i share your concern about a value added tax. [applause] >> was your hand up back there? we had a hand up. yes? >> senator, thanks for being here. i have three questions. >> you are the mayor? >> a balanced tax -- do you see it coming forward again? the fair tax, you mentioned a little bit about it. but we do not tax 51% of the

people in the country. the third thing is immigration. what are we going to do to protect the borders? it is two parts, protecting the borders, but then figuring out what to do with the people who live here. i am more concerned about protecting the borders. but with a dictation from washington this last week, we are not going to take action on those people who are already here, unless they break some felony law, or something like that. >> i want to make sure i have got all of this. >> spending taxes instead of bill and rising a particular group. >> these are all good questions. first, your question on the cup -- the cut, cap, and balance act

-- this is a bill i introduced in the senate a couple of months ago. what it said was we will raise the debt limit to the degree the president has asked, because he is the president. much as some people may or may not want somebody else in there, he is the president. but we wl raise it only under the right conditions, that will address the underlying problem and make sure we are not always accruing more debt, make sure we do not reach the point where we cannot find anything, from entitlements to defense, from social security, medicare, and medicaid, to the celeries of marines. those conditions are we need to propose a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, adopt a statutory spending caps to put us on a smooth path toward a balanced budget, and

make immediate cuts. it almost does not matter how large they are. but we need a down payment right now, cuts that are real, and not smoke and mirrors. your question related to whether or not we will bring that back up -- it was disappointing. i introduced it in the senate. a week later, a friend of mine from utah's third decade -- third district introduced it in the house of representatives. the house of representatives passed it. it then went or to the senate. the senate tabled it, meaning they pushed itside so they did not even have to vote on it. there were members of the senate who did not want the pressure associated with it. they knew it would be popular. according to cnn, three out of four americans believe we should have a balanced budget amendmen a comparable number of americans

believe we should not have raised the debt limit. i continue to insist it is this approach that could have saved us, would have saved us, from a credit downgrade. i will continue to push for that very same approach. i do not know whether we will be able to get teed up for a straight up or down vote in the senate. i will continue to sound the message so it cannot be ignored, as it was a few weeks ago. as to taxes, making our tax system fair, it is difficult when you have a tax system in ich only about half of americans are paying anything. at that point, and you have a situation in which it becomes too easy for some americans to be tricked into thinking that government is free. it is especially worrisome from the andpoint of those who are at the middle and low end of the economic spectrum. we worry about tax increases and

rising top marginal tax rates, not because we are worried about the ability of the rich to survive and thrive. they will find a way to do that, one way or another. we are worried about the impact on the people who end up paying the higher tax rates, either in terms of increased costs of food and services, or on unemployment or underemployment or lower wages. it is the way it ends up happening. we trick people into thinking big government is free, when it is not. it ends up having an aggressive -- having a regressive effect, a tax on middle income earners. that is one reason why we have to reform our tax system, make it simpler, and make it more equitable, so everybody has an opportunity to participate. finally, as to immigration, i sometimes say that problems

arise in government not just with federal government ignores the fact that there are certain things it is not supposed to do, things that are supposed to be left to the state rather than being done at the federal level. that can also happen when the federal government get so busy doing things it is not supposed to do that it forgets to do the things it is supposed to do, like protect our national security interests and our border. we've not been doing that. here is the problem. here is one reason you have not seen and likely will not see anything we could describe as a comprehensive immigration reform package. this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of members of congress. a few years ago, they tried to do comprehensive immigration reform. some have described it as an amnesty or backdoor amnesty. you referred to another form of amnesty the president is proposing through his policyf

the people who may be here illegally, but we may leave them here anyway unless they have committed a violent act. peopleave such a bad taste in their mouth, based on all these forms of back door amnesty, but they do not want to do any of that. what i am trying to do is look for surgical strikes into the problem so we can figure out where the problem areas are. we need to fix legal immigration, make it more possible. i will be introducing legislation soon. i think we will call it the dairy and sheepherder act. it was the best acronym we could think of over the circumstances. it would make it easier for migrant labor to come in to do certain jobs, recognizing this

is cyclical, seasonal labor. i will have a few other bills that try to fix legal immigration. i also co-sponsoring the legislation that would end the automatic birthright citizenship practice we have adopted in this country. [applause] in the red. yes, sir. >> it goes along with what he said and you are saying. you said you want surgical strikes on immigration and things like this, focus on how you can it. if you feed a cougar out your back door, he is going to keep coming. if you keep feeding him, he is going to bring his friends. that is one of the problems we have. right now, according to the congressional budget office, we are spending their $500 billion

to feed, clothe, take care of housing, take care of all this for non-documented residents in is country. isn't that a place where we can say if you are not legal you do not get social assistance? i know they say they do not get it out of social security. if you look to the back door, the refugee account is paid out of the social security administration. one non-documented residt can get $2,400 of social security. i see a lot of seniors here. most of them are tapped out at $1,100. is that a place we can look at? the second part to what was said here -- with the flat tax relve st of our issues in this country? [applause]

>>our seco question is easy. the answer is yes. flat taxes would make a lot of things better. the first part of your question. back to immigration. you are absolutely right. if we incentivize illegal immigration -- we have been this incentivizing legal immigration, which is what we want. i hope will always be a country of immigrants. most of us in this room, including myself, are descendants of immigrants or immigrants ourselves. one of my ancestors came across from europe's, one of the original settlers of the county. we want always to be a nation of immigran. we want them to come to the front door, not the back door. we incentivize them to come to the back door wn we make it difficult to come to the front door, and then we reward them for coming through the back door, which we do not want.

we need to be vigilant about not giving entitlement benefits that are intended for american citizens to people who are not legally in this country. if you listed some of the reasons why that can be circumvented. it is also true that because we grant automatic birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are going here in the united states, that is another way illegal immigrants can end up receiving a entitlement benefits intended for citizens. i cann emphasize enough the need for us to close this loophole with automatic birthright citizenship. i am not aware of any other developed nation that has the same policy we do. it is not a constitutional imperative. it c be fixed by statute. i failed to mention another issue we need to focus on, which

is border enforcement. one of the reasons we have a border that is as porous as it is -- if you look at the southern border of the united states with mexico, and you look at where most of the illegal immigrion crossings are taking place, people walking across the bord, most of them happen to coincide in those areas where most of the borderland is federally owned. within federally owned border areas, a majority of that land, or nearly a majority, is environmentally protected in one way or another, such that border patrol agents have restrictions on their ability to enforce the law there. they can do anything they want on private property. if you on land adjacent to the border, they can come onto your land, no matter how much you value your petunias and daisies you have carefully planted.

they can stop all over them to enforce the border. but if it is federally owned and there is an endangered or threatened species, the cannot do anything. they are restricted to a tiny corridor where there is a little path. that is one of the main reasons our border is so porous. we have to fix the problem. i am workingo try to close that loophole. [applause] >> senator, good to see you here. we have met. a couple of years ago. it is good to see you standing here as the first u.s. senator to ever visit fairview, i think. i will just turn in on this. the border -- i doubt it could be enforced as long as there is a demand within the country. you would have to set up machine-gun nests and things

like that to stop it. it cannot be stopped. i notice you are" sponsoring one of the -- are co-s ponsoring one of the e-verifys. i hope you will explain that. are you proposing that legal immigration -- that we increase the numbers? what i am asking is would we be using legal and illegal immigration to coinue to depress wages? that is what is being done. wages are depressed because of immigration. what do you think is going to happen concerning the national e-verify? are you going to get that move along? >> first, is the idea to enhance

legal and menace -- legal immigration to depress wages, to intentionally bring in more people. the objective is not to increase the total number of immigrants, as much as it is to identify those we are going to admit, to have a transparent policy that can be evenhandedly applied in a way that we are not making it so difficult and time-consuming and impossible for people to get a visa. when we do that, we incentivize illegal immigration. that does not necessarily mean we are bringing in more people. it has nothing to do with a desire to depress wages. it is a desire to enforcehe rule of law and bring people in through the front door. as to the partf your question that relates to e-verify, i am sponsoring legislation that would make compliance with that program mandatory. what that means in essence is

that most employers -- i think there probably should be, at the end of the day, a safe harbor for release small employers. employers, as they do now, continue to gather information, and can find out whether the person they are hiring is entitled to work in the united states. that would need to be cross- checked on this database. employers would be held harmless ones they had taken the step to do that. that is another step we need to take to make sure we are complying with the law, enforcing existing laws. i agree there is a lot we can do by enforcing the border. as long as there is tremendous demand for illegal paper, -- illegal liquor, and people feel it can be overlooked because it always has been in the past, in the case of some employers who have had that experience, we will continue to have this

problem. yes, sir. >> i want to apologize. one of this up a minute ago, i did not commend you on the work u are doing. you're making us proud. >> thank you. [applause] >> i have two things that are related. the small arms trade treaty -- what is going on there? >> i am against it. >> good deal. and what can you do to get these ople to confess about fast and furious and how high it went? thank you. >> let us pretend that one of us does not know what fast and furious is. [laughter] would that be you?

>> yes, sir. [laughter] >> vatfe was instrumental in allowing firearms dealers on the border states to sell guns, knowing that they were illegal, and these guns walked across the border. a border patrol agent was killed with one of those guns. >> thank you for pointing that out. i did not know it by that name. i know that set of circumstances. it is awful. it is being investigated. i fully believe those who violated the law will be brought to justice. it is inexcusable.

>> he got traferred. >> he got reassigned. >> that was awful. it just goes to showha government, when it runs amok, can be the source of an untold amount of grief and pain. this is awful and inexcusable. i will do everything i can to follow up on that and bring those people to justice. i oppose and will vote against the small arms treaty. this young lady has been waiting patiently. i have to make sure i get to her. my name is suzanne bean. i own a small business, a newspaper. >> i had better be nice to you, then. >> lots of people here have already vilified me. it's fine. would you absolutely foreclose the option of increasing

revenue by making the tax system a little more progressive, more like he used to be 20, 30 years ago, and using that as part of the strategy to balance the budget? i have heard, and they do not have the verification of this, that if social security, the social security tax, was applied against all income, and not just the first $75,000, that the additional revenue would be enough to make the system solvent. i am 62. i am planning to work another five to seven years. the time is going to ce when i will need to collect that. i am worried about whether it is going to be there for me. if it is not, i do not know any

more about how i and when to manage than the illegal immigrant who is here and cannot work and hasn't got the money to go back and has nowhere else to go. that is my first question. my second is about the american dream act. we have some extraordinarily talented young people in our country. some of them are at our local college. they did not come here of their own accord. many of them were brought here as children. they have gone through our school system. they have skls to contribute. yet they cannot, even with a bachelor's, master's, ph.d. -- the cannot legalize. as a journalist, i am appalled of the situation of the pulitzer prize winner who did not know until he was an adult

that he was an illegal immigrant. now he cannot really function legally in the united states. what is your response on that? >> you have three questions. no additional charge for efficiency. on the first point it the question is, am i opposed to anhing that would enhance revenue, the answer is i am not opposed to anything just because it would enhance revenue, in the sense that itould stabilize our revenue base and thereby bring in a more steady, consistent flow of revenue, bring in more than we have got now. we are in a valley. our tax system has peaks and valleys. some years, we will bring in 14.5% of all the money that flows through the economy. the most we ever get is about

19.5% of gdp. it averages 18 to 18.5%. we tendo n be able to get any more than that. we could, if we flatten the rate, making it more stable. we could if we simplified it. if we kept marginal rates constant but close loopholes, we could bring in more revenue without having to raise anyone's rate. that would make it more stable. it would make it so this 18.5% would be more reliable. it would not be so likely to fluctuate. if the question is what i make it more progressive, meaning raise top marginal rates, and accentuate the disparity between what different people on different ends of the spectrum pay in terms of the interest rate, the answer is unconditionally know. [applause]

evan mentioned a few minutes ago, it has everything to do with protecting middle and low income wage earners. those are the people i believe are most affected by raising income tax raises -- tax rates. they are concealed taxes. they end up getting passed downstream economically. all of us and up paying for those income tax hikes in terms of increased prices for goods and services, and in terms of fewer and fewer job opportunities. on social security, i share your concern the we have to do something about social security, in part because congress has rated the social security trust fund over a prolonged time. what was supposed to be a lock box, a trust fund, has been used irresponsibly ov the last

the decades as a slush fund. it was supposed to be set aside for the time we knew was approaching, which has now reached us. the social security program would be drawn out more than it was taking in, because the demographics have changed. in the 30's, we have roughly 60 wage earners for every retiree. now it is more like 3 too 1. 60 to one vs three to one. americans lived on average back then to about 60. now live more like to 80. that is wonderful. and that poses additional challenges. in light of those challenges, i have done my best to find ways that make it solvent that do not involve tax increases that would further chill job creation at a time when we can least afford it. i have introduced legislation that would make social security solvent perpetually.

it has proven its solvency over a 25 year time frame. we have made modest adjustments made on the testing said the ealthy would that rea -- not receive the same benefits if they were a low income level and making adjtments to the retirementge. it would not aect anyone who was retired. anyone who is now retired would be on touch. if you want to find out more, i have staff members here who can help me. they can help me make reference. i had my state director dan. he is here to answer any questions. coy is here. to about 2/3 of

the state because of the bill. it as about the dream act. i not support it. i cannot support it. [applause] let's see. we need to go to the back of the room. we will come back in the front later. yes, sir. then i have to get representative painter after that. we have a couple of members. >> i apologize for back stepping. back on this border -- >> did i already colony a? -- call on you? >> no. >> good. >> would it be possible to have the national guard work on the

border? everyone puts in a two tour and they go down and work on the border. they're going to be paid anyway. all the federal government would have to do would be to buy the materials. >> its certainly could work. i'm not opposed to using it. i want to talk more to my friend who is here with me tonight. is a very good friend of mine. he is the former sergeant major of the national guard. he retired. in as everything there is to know. -- he knows everything there is to know. i want to touch base with you after. my initial reaction to if is that it would be fine. i do not know if we need to do

that on a long-term basis. the national guard has jobs to do. whenever you have an unusually high volume of illegal immigrants, the national guard certainly could be deployed. we have to lead the border control -- let them do their job here i. >> thank you. >> thank you. we are pleased to have you here in the senate. t's f this is all the foolish things

he did. it is getting close to a trillion dollars. i know bush was on board with all of this. we have so many energy assets. wewe'd just go get them would have all kinds of folks with a lot less trade deficit. i want to say everyone that can get their parents. is there anything you can think of to get things going? we have the answer to a whole lot of our state problems.

about picasso's $100 million a year. ything you have their frigid we can get close to $100 million a -- anything close to $100 million a year. anything you can we get close to appear quite thank you. >> there is the single issue that is more important for our prosperity than the one you have just raised. we have a problem. we are spending between a trillionn and $1 trillion every year just to buy oil. every single year. that money does not come back in the form we would like it to come back. a lotf those people whore getting very wealthy do not like this very much. some of them are using some of that money to fund act of terrorism against us.

those who do not want this to produce in this country, many cite environmental reasons as reass we havshould not be exporting our own reasons. many is here in utah. we have the legal structure that allows us to produce energy more efficiently and in a manner that is more environmentally responsible and what you can find anywhere in the world. does produce it here. produce it here. most of the energy resources are found on federal land. i consider it an absolute shame and gross negligence that we allow those resources to go undeveloped. that is why i am holding secretary salazar and everything

i can so we can reclaim that which is rightfully ours. >> [inaudible] >> what hapned to the mandate that was just put out this week? >> from what i can tell, there is an effort on the part of many washington to try to shut down the backbone of our nation's energy production grid. the bulk of our energy nationall and here in utah comes from coal. i can walk into a room, turn of a switch, and the light comes

on. i do not know that we fully appreciate how wonderful that is. my father did not always have that going up. he was on sawmill camps. he did not have that growing up. it is fordable. we derive the lot of it from coal. we figed out how to make it generate electricity cheaply and in a manner that is really environmentally friendly. we have to keep that going. if we do not, we're all going to be poorer as a result. this will impact middle and lower income earners more than anyone else. they're doing it through regulatory measures. we have to gethe ball is back in the hands of congress. in the hands of congress.