the george w. bush administration. i think he was easily the most influential vice-president of all time. running the white house, house,e driver's seat, he was far from that. host: how could he be in to win so and not at least one part of the show? guest: he did not personally make the decision that one thing in the book over and over again is, times the president took dick cheney's advice but did not follow what. host: what some critics argue it is what is not in the book are any admission of that mistake over 40 years. guest: know, there are not. -- no, they are not. his book is a defense. he does say he misjudged gorbachev. i am trying to figure out of the things he said. they certainly did not come to mind. host: he often says the decision was right or i made the right decision big -- decision.

guest: it was interesting when he said early in the book would be worked for gerald ford, a cut -- accommodation with the panamanians of the canal and dick cheney said he did not, he agreed with ronald reagan. host: republican line. a mobile, alabama. phonebill, you're on the with fred barnes. his take on dick cheney's new book. if you i'm wondering have read norman schwarzkopf's books, "it does not take a hero?" guest: , i have not. caller: he is not very kind to dick cheney. he seems to y that he wanted colin powell to get him off his back, that he was coming up with hairbrained ideas that we're going to get people killed.

this was written at a time when he was no longer defense secretary. he was in private business. i just never heard anyone say anything about that. host: i think i understand the comment. dick cheney was tough on the generals during the iraq war, the second and first war, specifically when he saw something they said publicly that did not sound right. he would take action. he had disagreements early on with colin powell, even though they had been very good friends. so, i can understand why norman schwarzkopf really did not want to be leaned on by a defense secretary that had never served in the military himself during wartime. i am surprised by it. it isnother one of the disagreements with president george w. bush -- whethe

president decided not to renominate the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. dick cheney actually thought he should have been renominated. it would have been difficult to get it through a democratic senate, but this was another disagreement with george bush. host: there is only one sentence about the vietnam war, saying he would have served if his number came up, but he did have five deferments. >guest: he did not serve. he could have been listed, but he did not. you could imagine the locker room talk about that. host: this past sunday colin powell responded to the book from cbs "sunday morning."

>> what caught my attention was that he said it w going to cause heads to explode. it is one of the kind of headlines you might s a supermarket tabloid. i would not expect that from a former vice-president of the united states of america. mr. cheney has had a long, distinguished career, and i hope that is what he will focus on, if not cheap shots is taken at me, and other members that served to the best of our ability. host: yo >> you labeled them cheap shots? >> they are cheap shots. he takes a shot for my resentment. president bush and i also -- always agreed. there is no news there. he says i went out of my way not to present my positions to the

president, but to take them outside of the administration. that is nonsense. the president knows that i told him what i thought about every issue of the day. mr. cheney says i'm not -- knows that i sent to president bush, if you break it, you own it, we have to be prepared for the whole war, not just for a phase. mr. cheney and many of his colleagues did not prepare for what happened after the fall of baghdad. host: why the schism between cuba will men served together? there is some praise -- between two men that serve together? there is some praise for colin powell in the book. guest: that has some great disagreements, and they were over the most important issues that could come up -- war and peace. cheney has put this in his book. as i mentioned earlier, with people who have retiredrom the state department, they did not

put all of the stuff in the book. i think we benefit from hearing about it. i appreciate that he put all of the disagreements, or at least many of them in his book, some in great detail. he pointed out those that he disagreed with what he thought he was rht, and that included the president, and especially colin powell. what do you want in a memoir from a guy that's had the experience that dick cheney has in washington? if you wanted him to sugarcoated, or say they all got along well, i do not want that. i think we benefit from the disagreements that argued from jamie's viewpoints. i'm glad he wrote the rich dick cheney's viewpoint. i'm glad he wrote the book. -- dick cheney's viewpoint.

i'm glad he wrote the book. host: george w. bush was interviewed, and said his book was fine, but points out that his book "decision points" and now this book, "in my time" will give historians a lot to think about. how? -- how do you think this will be judged? but guest: we still see what is happening in the middle east, and iraq stumbling toward a democratic country. we will see how that winds up. i will tell you. what helps our candid, -- are candid, frank memoirs written by dick cheney and others. the president has written one book, and there might be others. i think cheney might encourage

others to write books that could be revealing. host: which to you think is better? guest: they really are different. the president picks out some episodes that you writes about, and has done very well. it is more of a statement. i would say cheney is a little more slam bang. host: we will go to eric, in los angeles. good morning. caller: good morning. do you think in the points regarding libby, there was clearly an overall judgment where a talented diplomat had found information that was critical to national issue. he wrote it up. instead of respding to what he wrote, a campaign went on to

discredit him by spreading stories about his wife, and cheney wasn the middle of this. why it is somebody who was trying to help, being undermined by a vicious attack? don't you feel indignation by the way that developed? guest: i did not feel indignation. i do not think there was a campaign. there were certainly disagreement with joe wilson. he claimed the president wide, but he also came back and told the cia that there had been a mission to niger 04 trade. the only thing they had interesting to iraq was yellowcake cranium. i guess i disagree -- uranium.

i guess i disagree that i should have indignation that dick cheney was behind some campaign against joe williams -- joe wilson and his wife. host: with the news about general motors and chrysler, both of home received funding, he talks about gm -- host: i bring that up because he also talks about the tarp program, where he helped banks on washington. he supported that, so why financial institutions and not the automobile industry? guest: if you did not support the financial institutions, it faced economic collapse. he did not support gm and chrysler, you would have faced

bankruptcy by those companies, and it would not he been a financial collapse, or even lead to the city toll of those companies. -- end of those companies. athe end of his administration, the president did use money to keep gm and chrysler going. i think the obama administration will tell you that if that had not been done by president bush, there might have been a different condition they face when they came in office, and bankruptcy might have happened. obviously, obama follow the same thing president bush did, and dick cheney disagrees. the mistakes were not the same in october of 2008, as they were at the end of the bush administration. one was threatening a severe financial collapse, and the other the bankruptcy of a couple of important companies, but the stakes were not as high.

host: the book is called "in my me" by former vice president dick cheney. we're talking with fred barnes who has covered dick cheney over the yea, and you have said dick cheney was a true american hero who. more about this country that his proceed image. guest: he did not care about his image. by the end of his vice presidency, he had a fairly poor image, and this book will not help his image. i am glad he wrote it. i hope other officials, when they leave washington, can write a book equally -- books equally as candid. host: tony joins us. caller: the only blind eye --

the only lined i did not understand is what he said the white house is haunted right now, that there are four spooks living in it? host: i think that was a play on words. guest: but there was a lot of suspicion that dick cheney had engineered it so he would be picked as vice president. he says different in the book, but he obviously accepted the nod. look, and thus we find out exactly what was said between these two -- unless we find out exactly what was said by these two men, president bush, and dick cheney, and what it was dick cheney was giving him -- he was not try to take over the vice presidency himself he says, and i did not note evidence to

the contrary. host: one of our viewers -- scrubs, scrub, scrub. guest: i did not think is try to rub anything. he did not have to agree with him. i think its an honest account from his viewpoint of what happened not only in the eight years in the bush white house, but his entire life and career. ho: from this "new york times" review of the book -- know that they didn't

9/11 was coming? that -- well, that is ridiculous. i would not call that a cheap shot, but i guess that follows the editorial line that that paper has taken. h. the next is stephen, -- host: next is stephen, chattanooga, tenn.. caller: i am confused why you would drag on a man that obviously lied on a -- about a war. how would you be dragging on him because he is open about lying? i do not understand how you can brag. all these people died in this war. people are valuable. i'm talking about this fake war, the sly, and it is ok.

-- this lie, and it is ok. host: frank follows up and says 10 years, we cannot say we have won any of chaney put the war. guest: will certainly move the long way in iraq. host: on the caller's point? guest: i enjoyed reading the book. i learned a lot. it is a defense from the viewpoint of dick cheney. i do not think it is a defense of lies. i'm not defending lies. i do not think there are lies in there. i think there are disagreements that are very deep in washington over bohol iraq war, less so, but still very -- a hole in iraq war, if less so, but still very deep. just because you disagree, does not mean they're lying. host: with president obama

outling his job plan, dick cheney says the reason forhe financial crisis are likely to be long-debated. host: from his book, a deal understand to what led to the economic factors a process close to another great recession? guest: i think so, even though he does not dwell on that in the book. you have the big banks in new york, you had fannie mae and freddie mac in washington that were willing to buy up all of the sub-prime loans, and still owned millions of them. when you put all of these factors together, there were a lot of the villains there. they were in new york, washington, the regulators -- look, if you want an explanation of why we had this tremendous

economic and financial problem in 2008, the repercussions which we are still feeling, i would not go to dick cheney's book. there are a lot of books have come out on the subject that are very good, not just by conservatives and free market people, and defenders ofhose viewpoints, but from others. there is a lot to read there, but do not go to dick cheney's book for that. host: was there one thing that surprised you the most in reading this 527-page book? guest: knowing dick cheney over the years, i was surprised how many times he disagreed with his bosses. it was an awful lot. how many times the people -- the people who believed dick cheney was running the white house, need >> throughout this week on

"washington journal" we have been bringing you a series on the weather. today we spoke to the director of the national weather service about his organization role in forecasting and climatology. our series raised -- rears this evening at 7:25 p.m. eastern on c-span2. tonight it is book tv primetime. at 8:00 eastern the author jenny scott talks about her book, and untold story about barack obama's mother. at 1030 eastern, a discussion on washington, and life, which won the 2011 pulitzer prize for best viagra. you can see all of these tonight starting at 8:00 eastern on c- span2. tomorrow we will have live coverage and remarks from 2008 republican vice-presidential

nominee and former alaska gov. sarah palin, one of a number of speakers at a tea party america rally at the national balloon classic field in iowa begins at noon of -- noon eastern and will carry it on c-span radio and on our website, c-span.org. >> machiavelli has become an adjective i doubt very many people in this time -- town would like to be described as a machiavellian, but i think many of them. "the prince" secretly in the dark of night but not too many will call themselves machiavellian. >> his name is synonymous with cynical scheming and the selfish pursuit of power. sunday night author miles uger argues his theories may have been a response to the correction around him, at 8:00 on "q&a." >> republican presidential candidate announces his made in

america jobs plan which calls for ending unfair trade practices and renewing domestic manufacturing. yesterday outside the chinese embassy in washington. it is about an hour and a half. i am buddy roemer, republican candidate for president of the united states. the issue of jobs now and in the future. the issue has been growing for about a dozen years or longer. but no president or candidate for the office of president has addressed the real problem, in my opinion. it is like there is a meeting about jobs and there is a big bear in the meeting room. and the bear is eating the jobs but no one in the room acknowledges the bear is even there. they tried to ignore him.

to make matters worse, the bear only eats the really good jobs -- manufacturing jobs. the bear doesn't want the poor paying jobs anymore. he wants the best jobs only. everybody in the room talks about deregulation, technology, marginal tax rates, budget scrubbing, free trade, loophole closing, but these are the symptoms. the bear is the problem. get the bare out of the room and then we can deal with the symptoms. those few that remain. all my life i have built jobs. as a private citizen the last 20 years helping build and run two successful business banks, profitable with no bailouts. as a public servant working as congressmen with president reagan to pass tax reform, which

ignited jobs. and as governor of louisiana where we took the highest unemployment rate in american, at 12%-plus, and cut it in half in four years. i never retired from the jobs business. and i will get the befar -- bear out of the room. from others i hear a lot of temporary, in direct, band-aid talks, but the audience around the bear. meanwhile but there is fat with our jobs and the room is quiet. there is no action, no plan, no priority about jobs. i have reemerged from political retirement after 16 years in private life, private business, because our nation is in great danger. neither our president, nor our congress, nor any candidate for

president seems to understand the problem that is destroying our nation, and they have not presented any viable solutions. i am old enough to know what to do, and i m still young and enough to get it done. when i finish a short history review, you will know and understand what no other candidate or politician is daring to tell you. you will know the true problem that has caused america's crisis. finally, i should tell you, my cure for the disease, my unique solution to the problem, the solution i shall give you will create an instantaneous economic boom. you will see a dramatic surge in production similar to the changes that occurred after the attack on pearl harbor when americans left behind welfare and unemployment of the great

depression and went back to work. i seek to lead this country to an american rising. these are the symptoms of an america in decline. millions of americans are out of work. millions of americans are out of work. according to labor statistics, america has lost two-thirds of its manufacturing jobs in all states and all industries. some of these manufacturing jobs are replaced by lower paying services like waiters, distribution companies or unproductive jobs working for our bloated or inefficient government. i won't mention the post office. unemployment is destroying our feature and a sense of hope and community. what incentive is there to

attain a group -- degree of higher education when even university graduates cannot find work at their stated profession? when a family becomes unemployed it affects their marriage and their children's welfare and future. unemployment is silently but irretrievably tearing apart the fabric of our society. the despair does not this -- stop at the family's front door. they cannot pay their bills and with over 10% of a community unemployed, they are not being paid on the sales on credit for the business in the community. the businesses are shutting their doors, putting more employees out of work. round and round it goes. tax collections for local governments fall. local, state, and federal governments suffered a sharp decline in their tax income and debt expenses for providing welfare for the unemployed are steeply rising. the cloud of bankruptcy spreads

first from families to small businesses, to business in general, and then to the government. some may be unhurt in the first few years, but it is spreading. america's decline will continue to accelerate. let me say it again. america's decline will continue to accelerate. within five years the federal government's national debt will rise to be equal to the value of all goods and services produced in the economy annually. it might already been there in full accounting. the only way to pay off that debt in the form of u.s. treasury bonds is to allow the dollar to fall in value, creating enormous installation so that the national debt can be paid off with -- enormous inflation so that the national debt can be paid off with cheap dollars. it is already happening, america. the value of the american dollar is moving toward a catastrophic

collapse. if we do not reverse this decline, it will wipe out the value of your savings, your pensions, your banking system, and america's small businesses. when millions of americans in the middle class lose the value of their salaries, their savings, their pensions, the losses and despair will soon affect us all. eliminate the middle-class and america is gone. some people think that because they still have their jobs and their savings accounts and their homes, they are safe. but their sense of security is only a delusion. all americans depend one or another. when the bill turret -- tolls for other americans, it rings for you. knowing american history, i think, will help guide us out of the crisis. when our constitution was adopted in 1789, england was the

world's industrial leader, clear no. 1. it produced goods at low prices by exploiting the poverty of its low-paid workers who lived in slums as described in the dickens novels. america, on the other hand, was a nation of farmers. it had little, if any, manufacturing. our first people this treasury alexander hamilton argued that if we hope to do it -- to defend ourselves in the event of another war with england, we had to have our own industries to be economically independent of england. we had to be able to produce our own clothing and food, guns, cannons, and warship, he argued. but how can we develop american factories when our citizens who have come to america to escape the poverty of the english slum's would not work for the cheap labor wages of the

english factory? how could an american factory competes against the cheap labor prices of the english factory. toilton's answer was persuade the first congress to adopt a tariff duty on english products alone imported here. the tariff made all english products more expensive. it added to the cost of importing goods to make up for england that a competitive advantage from cheap labor. sound familiar? by pushing up the cost of importing goods, -- importing goods, the tariff allow americans to produce the same goods using american labor, and the cost to the consumer would be less than the cost of buying foreign goods. it costs -- cost as measured in the real cost. this would encourage americans to create factories and

industries to produce all of the goods that america might need, while paying a decent wage to our workers. establishing and maintaining a tariff system protected are merging factories from cheaper foreign competition that would have otherwise driven our industries out of business or prevented anyone from trying to start a factory in america. protective tariffs allowed our country to change from 13 colonies of farmers and small merchants to a country of thousands of factories and mills. protective tariffs allowed our nation to develop and become the industrial giants of the world, a clear no. 1, providing millions of jobs and good pay, and forming the economic base of the most affluent society in history of the earth. adopting protective tariffs was the most successful economic policy in the history of

america. during the 160 years, when america used tariffs to build and protect our manufacturing industries, we had the fact is necessary to supply our armed forces with everything they needed to fight a war, the war of 1812, the war of the north against the south, and america could not have won world war i and ii without industrial capability. from 1917 until the 1940's, 160 years of america arising from 13 small, agrarian colonies, to the most successful and powerful nation on earth, we had no income tax. zero. our federal government operated mainly on revenue from tariffs. it was not until 1913 that the constitution was amended to allow an income tax.

but it took 25 additional years until the late 1930's for congress to apply the income tax and make a significant part of the budget. when we use the protective tariff we had no need for an income tax because the tariffs raise all of the money that the federal government needed. as america emerged from world war ii at the height of its world economic and military leadership, however, and follow me closely, our political leadership decided to abandon the protected trade policies that has given america its prosperity and independence. at first it did not hurt us because our manufacturing industries were so dominant in the world that they did not need any protection or consideration. but in 1971, americas balance

sheet started to change. the resurgence of the japanese and european industrial economies and growing dependence on foreign oil caused our international balance of trade to change from a positive trade surplus to a negative trade deficit. first small, then it grew, and then china became a major producer in the late 1990's and the trade deficits grow astronomically. today we are spending $200 billion a month on foreign inputs. $200 billion a month. how did we allow it to happen? using tariffs to protect our in deceit -- industries made the united states great but tariffs were abandoned out of ignorance and greed. after world war ii, all the major industrial nations of the world were devastated or significantly damaged, except

the u.s. at that time we did not need tariffs to protect our industries from cheap foreign competition because there was no serious foreign competition. global free trade without tariffs was our idea -- not the chinese. that was our idea. economic experts talk global free trade without tariffs would benefit the entire world with the highest output of goods at the lowest possible price. they expected if we could persuade everyone to eliminate tariffs -- now listen to this -- if we could convince everyone to eliminate tariffs, american business would supply all the goods for the entire world. global free-trade became the sacred cow of american economists. its largest corporations.

global free-trade did not work because other countries did not accept it. they put barriers to our products while the u.s. allow foreign unfair competition to kill our industries. if we got out of balance. there were two major industrial nations that the not accept a global free trade. japan and germany. surprise. after world war ii they both adopted high trade barriers to protect their industries from u.s. competition. while we lowered our trade barriers, japan and germany, whose factories have been totally wiped out, increased their barriers for decades, and even today, it has been almost impossible to sell an american industrial product to japan or germany.

this policy is what brought the japanese economy from total collapse to become the second largest economy on earth. japan and germany applied the tried and true protected -- protective policies of alexander hamilton rather than the new untested idea of a global free trade. taking advantage of america's open trade policy, japan started eliminating our industries. and you can mark them all one by one. they wiped out most of america that a camera and optical industries. they had no special advantage. then our toll is and television and consumer electronics and in musical as germans and motorcycles, bicycles, steel,

and finally the dominant american automobile industry. and the usa allow japan to do it without any trade retaliation. we allow their products into america while the japanese would not allow our products into japan. like japan, germany imposed a broad spectrum of economic barriers to protect its reemerging industries. as a result of germany's protectionist trade policies, germany today has the highest wages and the highest trade surplus and the strongest economy in all of europe. while america has the worst trade deficit in the history of the world. protecting the industry's -- industries with tariffs and trade barriers worked for japan and germany with the same fantastic success it work for america. no surprise. it worked. by protecting the industry's

that were totally destroyed in world war ii germany and japan recovered world manufacturing dominance while the american manufacturing sector has been devastated. if you look now at the results of world war ii, it looks like japan and germany won the war and that america lost it. but our industrial sector was not just devastated through war. it was by our own misguided economic policies. japan and germany beat us economically and wiped out our factories without anyone firing a shot. blinded by greed, blinded by greed, we tried to exploit the party of china.

but we allowed china to exploit us instead. let's look at it. the biggest disaster of the american economy grows out of our opening trade with china in the 1970's, when president nixon sent henry kissinger to china to normalize relations and open up trade, his idea was this would be an economic bonanza for our advanced industrial society. it china's 1 billion people, four times what the united states had. it lacks modern appliances like washing machines and toasters and automobiles and refrigerators, and they lack the wide variety of consumer goods that our department stores will -- were filled with. our politicians, our lead the economic experts -- remember that phrase, economic experts -- promised us that americano would

attain unprecedented wealth selling our products to the enormous untapped, deprived consumer market in china. american factories would work day and night, 7/24, to supply the chinese demand. remember those speeches? china had a different idea. china was smart, we were stupid. they set up trade barriers to prevent the importation of american products. what happened? the chinese government insisted if they wanted to sell on the chinese market we had to send in our technology. no harm. in fact, we have to send them our managerial skills. we had even to send them a prototypical factory, which they proceeded to copy and spread all

over the country. and they wanted us to produce not only products for the chinese market using cheap chinese labor, but they wanted us to supply products for the american market using cheap chinese labor. our economists, our corporations, our politicians, promised america -- i can remember the speeches -- that it was for our own good. they said we don't need to employ millions of americans of blue-collar jobs. instead, american labor would move up to higher pay, skilled jobs in the high-tech, in international finance. in corporate management. so there is where blue-collar is going to end up. let the chinese have those tedious, dirty factory jobs.

americans will prosper as we become the world's entrepreneurial engineers, economic managers, the professional innovators of the new world order. the old rules of trade and economics that made america the number one economy in the world were cast aside as being unnecessary and obsolete. why did they not understand not every american be an eli whitney or a thomas edison or a henry ford or bill gates or steve jobs? we need employment for those americans who want and need to work in factories. it is their best labor. we need to produce our own goods so we are not dependent on other countries and do not send our money to other countries whenever we show -- go shopping. our political and business leadership see that moving american factories overseas

would be a threat to our economy and to the security of our nation. indeed, some american corporations saw this as an opportunity to make fantastic profit by moving their factories to china, using cheap chinese labor. that two-thirds of the industrial workers of america would lose their jobs. that is of the number. two-thirds. they had no concern about what this would do to families, of unemployed factory workers. they had no concern about the effect on closing thousands of factories there what the united states and new hampshire, iowa. they didn't care about the billions of tax revenues that would be lost to this federal, state, and local government from

the lack of the booming economy and did not care about the burden on society to provide unemployment support to millions of workers who lost their only means of living. our politicians and economists looked the other way, when small businesses faced bankruptcy, their customers disappeared, and big box discount chain stores that set up manufacturing and export divisions in china, moved into town selling cheap chinese merchandise. the store fronts became vacant with for lease signs and main streets across america became ghost towns. the only concerns of the big businesses moving their factories to china was the huge profit that they can make working with the chinese. as they transformed america from inland of prosperous independent

producers to a declining nation of dependent consumers. they didn't care what this would do to the american economy, or our national defense. or to life in the industrial cities. that is not their job. their job is profit. the only concern of the politicians, by the way, were the huge campaign donations that they've received from these very same corporations, giving them the legislation that they so desperately wanted to make this happen. how convenient. how could a u.s. factory survive the unfair competition from china? let me describe it. been to china many times. our factories are subject to minimum wage laws and collective bargaining that ensures a high standard of living for blue- collar american workers.

chinese factories exploit the poverty of their own people, employing up to 50 workers for the same cost as one u.s. worker. chinese children work 60 hours a week and more, paid nothing but a room and board. chinese prisoners are forced to work for nothing. chinese factories operate with no rules and no expense to protect the health and safety of the workers or any penalty for polluting the environment. you can see china before you get there. if necessary to destroy our factories, the chinese government subsidizes its factories to dump goods on the american market at a price even lower than the chinese cost. currency manipulation, hidden

charade barriers, unfair trade tactics to which the chinese government's specializes. and what happened to our american factories that did not move their operations to china? but they couldn't compete with unfair competition. they disappeared. they went broke. they folded up. worshiping and untested ivory tower theory of global free trade. our political leaders abandoned the tried and true successful policy of tariffs. they failed to protect our factories from unfair competition. competition is one thing, but manipulative unfair government- run trade is something else. these political leaders betrayed and abandoned the millions of

american workers who paid taxes, who supported our small businesses, and who formed the foundation of a prosperous nation. now we find a growing on ending unemployment. are you surprised? that is how we got here. our factories and small businesses are closed and our commercial districts in many towns and cities are empty, or are in decay. now you know what the problem is. we have become the biggest fools in the world. adopting global free trade while other countries impose trade barriers against our products. we abandon the simple common sense of our founding fathers. they were so naive, those founding fathers. amazing how they wrote a constitution. we have abandoned a simple common sense of our founding fathers who knew that america could never achieve greatness

unless it protected our manufacturing industries from cheap foreign labor and of unfair competition. for 160 years -- now listen to this -- for 160 years we did not taxed our factories that use the american labor and produced goods here but we placed a heavy tariff, tax, on factories outside of america that tried to import their products into this market. now we do just the opposite. follow me. we place a heavy tax on factories operating in america, but we essentially have eliminated any tax on factories that produce goods abroad and import those goods into america, flooding america with products, and destroying our industries, and we allow them to do it for

free -- no income tax, no tariff. we will tax our guys did you come beat us to death. by doing this we not only allowed our manufacturing industries to move outside of the country, we have encouraged them to leave america and go overseas. it is cheaper and it is tax free. and now oversees where they can make more profit, then if they had stayed here and employ american labor and paid american taxes. this is not a mystery, folks. follow the numbers. now we have lost not only our factories and jobs, but we have lost our military independence. remember rosie the river -- riviter? when japan suffered their tsunami caterpillar could not

produce a tractor, not one, boeing could not produce an airplane, not one, and the few remaining american automobile factories could not produce a car because all of them did not have the parts or materials they needed from japan. alexander hamilton 200 years ago warned that this would happen if we did not protect our manufacturing sector. america today is dependent on china, on japan, and mexico, and other countries, to make the clothes and the parts that we need it to supply our armed forces. sadly, our president has no clue as to what the problem is. he looks at the symptoms and thinks they are the problem. he doesn't understand why throwing more and more stimulus money into the economy does not stimulate any improvements.

here's why. he thinks that we must spend hundreds of millions of dollars retraining unemployed workers. retraining them for what? there are no jobs. our jobs are in china. is he going to retrain americans to speak mandarin because vacant -- so they can move to try and work a 10-hour day for a wage of 50 cents an hour? i say, no thank you. to your jobs plan. when our president talks about increasing federal spending to stimulate the economy and create jobs, he doesn't understand that the people who receive the money use most of it to buy everyday consumer goods made in foreign countries. the money does not go to our people, the stimulus money flows

out to the foreign countries. where the consumer goods are made. when we rent -- went into recession three years ago and reduced their spending on consumer goods, china lost 40 million jobs. china did. by increasing our national debt and putting more stimulus money into the economy so our consumers can spend, the jobs mr. obama will create will be in china. the global free-trade experiment has been tried. it has proved to be a disaster to our economy. i am the only presidential candidate who is speaking the truth about global free trade -- only one. why the other politicians and economists at the major universities supporting this disastrous experiment that has caused so much suffering to the american people.

why is president obama pushing so hard with more free trade policies with colombia, panama, and south korea? does it create any new net jobs in america, mr. president? that is the question. i cannot pretend to tell you what is in the hearts and minds of others. they have to answer that themselves. but i will tell you the facts. and those facts you can make your own conclusions. but the fact is that this experiment with a global free trade has been tried and failed. contrary to what advocates of global free trade predicted when it was put into practice, he destroyed our positive trade balance, it destroyed our factories, destroyed the like -- livelihood of american workers, wiped out industrial cities -- visit detroit -- and it rented our nation dependent on china and other foreign nations for

the necessities of life. here is my paragraph. for some people and corporations, however, global free trade has been a bonanza. while our nation is in grave danger, certain corporations and a small group of people have profited fantastically from our failed policies. they moved their production out source -- offshore, free of our taxes, free of our wages, free of our standards, free of regulations. they made more profit moving factories to other countries than they ever made in america and they use their enormous wealth to finance political campaigns and gains influence over our government. they have bought our political system as they sell jobs out of

america. even our newspapers, television networks, pundits, and economic experts are totally blind to what is right in front of us. everywhere they look they see labels that say made in china, made in mexico, or made in some other asian country or some other latin american country, but they seem not to notice -- i did not notice that label. when they talk about the economy they complain about the little details. they make partisan criticisms about spending too much or too little. they speculate with elaborate charts about monetary policy. as if the fed were the problem. or about this policy, were then they blame america itself on the grounds that we should be more competitive, superhuman -- or we

should effect -- accept the fact that we are no more better or entitled to prosperity than any other country. can they see with the problem is? there is a big bear standing in the room eating our jobs using as his tool, is fork -- fork unfair trade practices. they complained there is no place to sit or stand in the meeting room but no one notices because there is a befar in there. in 1933 ross perot argued against nafta, contending it would eliminate american factories and jobs. al gore ridiculed him. most of the country cast him off as a crotchety old man.

now almost all ford automobiles have a label that says made in mexico. woefully few others bring it up -- pat buchanan, donald trump -- who argued the need to protect our industries by tariff if necessary. but they were ridiculed. not taken seriously. why is it i am the only presidential candidate who can see the bfear question -- bear. america desperately need a crotchety old man like me who has a clear vision of the facts and a wisdom to notice that there is a reason there is no room to sit safely in the meeting. there is a bear in the room up our jobs, eating our future. could it be i am the only one who has not sold himself out to the big corporations, pacs and

their campaign money? we need one candidate who is free to lead america back to prosperity. without using tariffs, we can bring american factories back home. remember when everything you bought was made in the usa? did you feel proud and secure that america had the factory and technology and efficiency to out-produce any nation on earth? how do you feel now? when almost everything you buy has a label that says made in china. that chinese label is a sad symbol of america's decline. are you not annoyed when you call a local business and the phone is answered by someone overseas who can only provide limited assistance, if any at all? why is there not an american technician on the other end of the phone?

does not break your heart to see once-thriving factories and businesses closed and nt with broken windows, defaced with the group but we do graffiti that mocks and insults their deaf. >> has your family been torn apart and scattered because you and your drill been or brothers or sisters had to move away to find a decent job or place to live on reduced income? let's bring our factories back home. let's be proud as americans again when you shop. when we buy electronic devices, they should all be labeled made in the usa. elect me president and we should bring back to america and the most productive, efficient, say factories at the world has ever

known. operated by skilled american labor, producing the highest quality goods at affordable prices. with each product proudly proclaiming, made in the usa. the way to restore jobs in america is by restoring america's industrial prominence. almost everything we buy in america must be produced by americans employed here, not only to provide jobs for americans but to prevent sending our wealth to foreign countries and evaluating our dollar. -- devaluating our dollar. the only way to do that is to establish reasonable economic barriers to unfair competition. from abroad. we must adopt protective

economic policy that will induce the factories to come back home, and more importantly, to induce new factories to emerge from the industrial ruins of our nation. give me the privilege to serve america. let us not only bring back the factories, but let's bring working families back to end the homes. we do not have a housing problem. we have a jobs problem. housing will follow. let me bring back the business is to empty buildings. let's restore the nation to the land of freedom, security, and prosperity. yes, i am in favor of an economic policy that protect our workers against unfair trade, and in times of scarcity and unemployment, our first duty should be to protect america. protecting american industry from unfair import is not a

radical or untested idea. has worked for 160 years to make america the industrial giant of the world. it worked for japan, germany, china, thailand, malaysia, to let them rise from poverty to prosperity. every nation that is significant has had -- [unintelligible] has become or main port. watch america. we must protect america from this road to ruin. special interest has corrupted our political system, and are profiting while america declines. we must not let the story of america ended this way. if the communist nation of china becomes the new economic world leader, the noble ideals

of american democracy will be delegated to the dust end of history. another nation that could not compete. now let me be specific about the three things we need to do. i am not a tariff by. -- guy. they were fantastic for 165 years but they were characterized by backroom political dealings with some congressmen are doing for unusually high tariffs to protect their district. paris protected america, but i wanted something better. i wanted a means to apply a means to protect our industry based on economic necessity to allow factories to survive with a small profit but to reward -- but not reward them with

undeserved profit. i wanted to protect our industries using economics. rather than politics. you was different. we created two simple methods to save and revive the economy. and to bring american industries and jobs back. each method has its own advantage. i want to emphasize that these solutions will not end foreign trade. we will still import billions of dollars of goods from china and other manufacturing nations, but it will allow our manufacturers to compete against unfair, for producers, and it will encourage foreign manufacturers to move their factories here, using american labor in order to compete more effectively. number one, i call this the tax

deduction solution. i would allow a tax deduction only when businesses employ and by american. section 162 and 212 of the internal revenue code to allow a deduction against income for ordinary and necessary business expenses. section 167 and 179 of the code allowed a depreciation deduction for business equipment purchase. clear law. my solution will amend those sections and the definition of cost of goods sold to state "any expenditure for any goods or services located, and or produced outside of the united states of america, shall not be deducted from your taxes." this simple amendment to the

internal revenue code that a business is free to buy and trade were ever he wants to, but if an employer contracts with anyone in manila, or new delhi to answer the telephone for technical support services, or higher is a radiologist in india to read x-rays, the expense would not be deductible. also, any business equipment such as a tractor, or a computer, or office furniture made in japan or china, would not be a deductible business expense and would not be depreciable. likewise, any materials, components, parts, or goods, purchased or were produced outside of america would not be allowed as cost of goods sold and would not be deducted from income under the internal revenue code. this would encourage american

businesses to buy american. even if it cost a little more so they can deduct the full expense. american retailers will want to fill their shelves with american products so that when they make a sale, they only pay tax on the profit, not the difference between the sale price and the wholesale cost. it will reverse the effect of the policy that china imposed on american up. it will encourage foreign manufacturers to move their factories here, using american labor, so they can enjoy a better chance to sell to american retailers or businesses and to obtain investors to buy their stock. two, i would eliminate the foreign tax credit. that is section 27a of the internal revenue code that gives

taxes to taxes paid to a foreign country. elimination of the foreign tax credit would close a major loophole. that allows large corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid u.s. income taxes by moving their businesses and investments out of the country. it is unfair to americans those who pay taxes, those who support the country. these wealthy corporations and individuals receive this tax credit. they receive all the benefits and protection of u.s. citizenship, but they do not pay their fair share to support the country that supports and protect them. i hate to use their names, but this solution would eliminate a major trick used by such corporations such as general electric -- always a good company. but it is a trick, using the tax

code. allowing it to escape paying any u.s. income tax on its net income of $14.2 billion. this tax deduction solution cannot be adopted immediately. i mean, it can be adopted immediately. it will require no federal bureaucracy, no government expense, because the provisions would be implemented and enforced by the same staff in place. the tax deduction solution which consists of adding one sentence to the irs code and deleting one paragraph will have an enormous effect. it will restore america's industrial sector. it alone will generate millions of new jobs. it is eloquently simple, yet profoundly effective.

no. 3, the final part of my solution, operates as follows. i call that the bear trade adjustment solution. a new way to level the playing field and protect american industry from unfair competition is to require importers to pay our government and adjustment equal to the unfair advantage they gained by using cheap, foreign labor and avoiding america's health, safety, and environmental standards. i shall ask congress to adopt a statute that no product may be imported into the united states of america unless it is accompanied by a fair trade adjustment form, completed and certified by foreign analysts who have been trained and authorized by the u.s. government, but would be paid by the importer.

the analyst would charge a fee to the importer to complete and certify the forms. when the goods arrive in the u.s., the importer must pay to our customs agent the total certified adjustment in order to obtain a release of the goods into our country. the bear trade adjustment form will contain a blank fields where the analyst will enter the calculation to bellevue the difference between labor cost here and labor cost in the foreign country of origin. showing differences between such costs such as osha and epa here, and the cost there. there will also be an adjustment for unequal tariffs and other cost of imports, and any import subsidies given by the foreign nation. the adjustment is simply an economic calculation. no politics involved. it will cost the u.s. government

nothing to implement it. all the administration cost the deadly are paid by the importers who paid a certified analyst to complete the form. for countries that have a wage structure in business regulations similar to ours such as canada, germany, england, there would be no adjustment. but for china, for the bear, the adjustment could be substantial. it would raise the cost of chinese imports to match the cost of producing the goods here. this will give our manufacturers a chance to compete. this fair trade adjustment will level the playing field. it will only reduce, it will not end the billions of dollars of imports from countries with a lower standard of living, such as china. trade will continue.

but it will be fair. the revenue generated by their trade adjustment and by the restoration of our industrial sector grows, will balance our budget, pay down our national debt, and still allow us to reduce income taxes. it will also allow our factories to compete fairly and will restore prosperity to america while eliminating our trade deficit and saving the value of the dollar. growth is the key element in solving our economic dilemma. this approach yields solid growth. let me close. we need a president to defend our jobs against unfair trade, to level the playing field. we need a president to get the bare out of the room -- bear out of the room.

takes guts, it takes the truth. you cannot be political. we will not stop trade. we will defend our jobs from unfair trade. it is the right thing to do. it is fair, it is necessary. i will be criticized by that giant corporations and their free trade chorus as they sell our jobs. i refuse to take their money, folks. that is why i have a $100 limit. you wonder why. that is why i except no pac money. you wonder why. that is why i have no super pac. and that is why i practice full disclosure. buddyroemer.com is where you can find me. i need 1 million families to stand with me. we need to stand against the

bear. i started it. but i need you to finish it. i need you to stand up against the bare and also up to those who stand up to their unchallenged. $100 limit. you will not be the first giver. people from all 50 states have done it. this is about you. buddyroemer.com is where you find me. there is a bear in the room. it is fat. it is eating our jobs. let us take action. thank you. i apologize for being so long, but i had to explain how you work to this point. because free-trade is so seductive, and it will be held from every rooftop, but it does not work, because many nations

do not trade that way. i will be glad to answer easy -- any questions. >> "washington examiner." when you were governor of louisiana, a number of factories were moving to your section of the country. a lot of the politicians in the rust belt that were leading in that area were making a lot of the same arguments that you are making as far as labor laws, things like that. i want to say there was a plant in shreveport. how do you feel about that, in retrospect? >> nothing in particular happened in my state, but your point is well made. there will be in the country normal and healthy differences of competition. i am not trying to and competition. but i am saying, within a broad range of the labor standards and

health standards, safety standards, that all american states fit there. there are some differences. your plant may be in louisiana or california because it is 15% less expensive, but the quality of living might be different in california. these are normal differences. what to me is not normal -- and it is a good question -- would be to have a state where there were no labor standards. have a state where a 11-year-old children would work 60 hours a week. to have a state where there was no safety at all. and the united states government and surrounding states allow that unfair competition to continue. that is where we are with a few

unfair traders in the global competition. so the difficulty in talking about competition is that, it is hard to draw fine distinctions, so i am not trying to. i am not saying idaho ought to be like pennsylvania. working conditions are different, pay is different. but they are in the same broad category of competition. china, india, japan are in another, the entire constellation of competition. particularly china of those i mentioned. there are no standards there. it is not a question of having weak standards, there are no standards. so i ask you, jonathan, if you lived in america, and had a say on what goods could be sold

here, would you allow a state to work children in unsafe conditions, unsanitary and garments, and because the cost is cheap, act like it was okay? i do not think he would and i do not think we should. >> two questions. one following up on that. the free traders would suggest that the option would be that they have no job. conditions would be even worse than the terrible conditions that exist. >> let me answer that. it is a strong man. -- strawman. there are going to be close, shoes made. manufacturing is not what it used to be, but a, anywhere. that is nonsense.

go to china. in the last eight years it has tripled manufacturing. somebody is making these cars. so it is a strong argument to say -- straw argument to say that the choice between fair trade is no trade at all. i disagree. free trade pretends that both sides came from it -- gain from it. on fair trade cuts that baby in half. it does not work. >> to the moral part of that, you were suggesting how can we live allowing people to work for little wages and unsanitary conditions. my question was the free traders would argue if you took away free trade and you did not have those jobs, the condition would be even worse for them.

>> i disagree. just the opposite is true. we are china's biggest customer. what are they going to do, get an 8% a year trade adjustment and quit trading? nonsense. you know what they will do? they will begin to look at certain parts of china as to how we can reach the american range of acceptable way to practice. the pressure will be to increase wages, not decrease. you are wrong. that moral argument works for the benefit of trade, yes. but fair trade first of all. anybody else. yes, ma'am. >> "national journal." i was wondering if your jobs package would increase oversight of american businesses to be sure that they are not avoiding

the minimum wage law, [inaudible] >> excellent question. i will not give another 31- minute speech, i promise. although this is a good subject for it. there are five or six things involved here. energy independence. our manufacturing plants need an adequate supply of affordable energy. it does not exist in a nation where the greenback's have said that we cannot drill safely for natural gas. they are wrong. we need a balance here. we need to afford our manufacturing plants and affordable source of environmentally safe lead- produced natural gas. this will happen. in addition, the whole question of immigration. this is a nation of laws. we need an immigration policy

that is healthy for immigrants, that encourages immigration, particularly those with skills that are not readily apparent in the marketplace, skills needed in the marketplace, but i do not see how we can avoid stealing our borders -- sealing our borders. we have a seal the border with england, the atlantic ocean. we do not have that with mexico, so we have to seal the border and begin a helping green card program, all the employers responsible for violations and we have to work out a sufficient -- a system of repatriation of those here illegally. this will be difficult, but illegal immigration hurts legitimate mexican citizens in america. let's just start there.

the person hurt most by this are those mexicans who have learned the language, social skills, came here legally, and became citizens. now in some towns a walk down the street and they are looked at with suspicion. the legal immigration hurts us all. -- illegal immigration hurts us all. we can have a system of green card sanctity and efficiency but we have to seal our borders and become a nation of legal immigrants. back to your specific question, i will hold, as part of my position, as i work with congress -- because it will not be done until i get there, i hate to say that. i will work with congress to honor all those involved but to make sure that our companies in america understand the rules,

consider them honest and efficient, and then abide by them. i will hold them accountable. i was upset with the u.s. chamber of commerce last month criticizing arizona for having a role that penalized arizona businesses for frequent violations of american law on immigration. shame on the u.s. chamber of commerce. we will have to get everyone together and do this right. excellent question. and i just touched the top. whatever we come up with, we will enforce it. >> cnn. the governor of louisiana, for someone that is running on his job record in texas, what the you think of his jobs platform, what are his weaknesses?

>> i have not seen his jobs platform. i know the record of texas. although the governor of texas is not nearly as powerful as louisiana -- you can check the law. i think texas had done a great job. i wish louisiana had done as well. we are trying. i have yet to see what his actions were in that. i would be interested to know what battles he lost. what more did he try to do and failed to get done? a person's defeat light that tells more than their victories. where did he reach to do a perfect job? i need to know the governor of texas better. i do not. when i am home late at night in my apartment in manchester, my tv only works half of the

screen, so i do not watch that much television. i get to see the top half of rick perry, and i have listened to two speeches. they are very general. he would never give a jobs speech like this, four specific things to do with the tax code. but it will come. i just have to give him some time to set his ground. seems like a decent guy, do not know him, glad he is in the race. we will see if he is worthy to be our president. that is what this campaign determined spirit that is why this is not just one day, one week, one state. it is a marathon. you see a man or woman fall down, get mud on their face, lord i have done it, and then you see them stand up and you say, that is my leader. it is too early to pick a winner. if the american public were

asked who the next president would be, it will be 20% the current president, 20% someone else, -- there is no winner yet because there is no election. the average american is worried about his job, not about his president. the focus on my campaign -- i have always run the same way. ltd. gives, full disclosure, no but i win when the public finally decides this is not about who has the most money. this is about who has the most courage, the most addition, the most hope, the most commitment and who is 32 lead. that will be me. yes, sir.

then i'll take you. >> you are not in the next debate. you think you should be in it. there are a lot of candidates in the race. which standards should there be to exclude candidates from the debates? >> i am the only person running who has been a candidate and a governor. i am the only louisiana governor who has never been in jail. these are things you add that are positive. i am a successful businessman. no bailouts. during the toughest banking time since pre-roosevelt. we are doing great. i think outside of the box at a time when america needs that. $100 limit. no p.a.c. money.

unfair trad is the bear in the room. we need surgery to remove the bear. it will happen. i know my campaign released a press release last week and they used a word that i have been known to use occasionally. i think b.s. was the word. that was a mistake. should notm they di have done that. i am patient. there are 10 more debates scheduled. i need to make one or two. i do not need 10. you know how i perform. i do not need 10. i will ask them where they got their money. i will ask them how many million dollars checks have bought them. i will ask them if they spend as much time growing jobs as they

p.a.c. money.p.a, i will turn the questions on jobs into a debate on free trade. i stand on fair trade. i will ask each of them to tell me where they stand. >> you mentioned you are a successful businessman and a governor. you come with more than someone like herman cain, who is just a businessman. >> here is my problem. he looked back 20 years, i am proud of my record. when i was elected governor of louisiana, i was 6 foot 3, light brown hair and i smiled a lot. i beat a man who spent $15 million against me. i spent 1.25 -- $1 million.

our students had the worst test scores in america. our bond rating was the worst of every state plus guam. we had the most toxic water and air emissions of any state in america. four years later, all of that had changed. we had our bond rating go up five times. we had ours upgraded five times. no state has done that. i like our record. remember, that is 20 years ago. politics is legitimately, what have you done for me lately? don't i know you from somewhere? some guy asked me, did you used to be newt gingrich?

my problem -- i do not think it is what i believe and my passion or might debating ability. my problem is that i am not known and it is easy to put me aside. i call myself a crisis the old man. - crotchety old man. it is easier to have a new face with no experience than an old face with more experience. i have tried to excite my age and my experience by talking about things others do not talk about. i think i will be on the debates. i do not think the other opponents wanted me there. i think i will make it the base. i will not make the next one. i think it is -- i do not think i will make the debates. i will not make the next one.

it is on october 7. i was invited and we accept it. they came up with new standards of higher name recognition. i do not meet those. i am working in new hampshire. i have limited money. i have paid all of my bills. i have money in the bank. i have raised enough money to buy one ticket to and about a fundraiser. fundraiser.ma t know what the difference is in this campaign? -- do you know what the difference is in this campaign? 1 ticket. i told my campaign manager, do not worry about the debate. they will be asking us to be on before it is over. yes, ma'am. >> you have not used your plans

to focus anywhere outside of new hampshire. >> good question. i know you from somewhere. no, i am joking. she was the first reporter to interview me. i miss south carolina. i do not have an ax and there. when i get up in a crowd in new hampshire -- there was an editorial room. the editor and 10 of his horses there. i introduced myself. i said, i am from southern new hampshire. they did not get my joke. i wanted to announce in front of the chinese embassy. people choose where to make their jobs speech. it is typical that the president will make his before congress. i think that is a mistake.

huntsman made his yesterday in new hampshire. romney made his in new hampshire. the problem is not in nevada. the problem is not in the congress. the crumbling -- the problem is in the bay air -- the bear den. everybody knows it is a problem. i am saying i will do something about it. i gave you three specific actions, first week, first year. i promise you -- did i pass you up? >> you answered my question. how it feels about having to qualify to be in a debate? >> you have to have some rules. it is a television world.

i am born in 1943. my parents that their first television set when i came back from college in 1964. i am an old guy. i am healthy. i love life. i can lead. that experience can be useful. i am not a television hit. television runs politics now. here is my problem as a candidate. i can i get on television. i get on the business shows. i am on one tonight. . will not mention neil's name i am a banker. i know this business. i have not yet earned the right to get on the national shows. i was not on the shows when i was building banks. i did not take television phone calls. that was not in my best interest building a bank.

now i am paid a price for that. i am having to reintroduce myself. i have to be available. what gives me peace is me and you talking. i like my opponents, but they are not talking about the issues. i like it. i have a free rein. there is no competition. anybody ever read a book called, ocean strategy." it is the best business book ever written. there are two kinds of motions. blue oceans and read oceans. i am in a blue ocean. there is no competition. nobody is talking about no p.a.c. money. nobody is talking about the bear.

they will mention china, but they will not get into details. i like this campaign so far. my campaign staff is ages. they want to be on top. it is too early -- my campaign staff is anxious. you cannot pick a winner. we are going to make a winner. we are going to go to south carolina. we will be in florida week after next. you will get my sketch will. i will try to move around. i forgot the next part of your -- you will get my schedule. i forgot the next part of your question. yes? >> it sounds like you are trying to give trade protection a good name. >> i am against unfair trade.

it is like chocolate cake. doctor says one piece will increase your life, your pleasure. eight pieces? that is what trade is like. i am a competitor. my bank travels the world helping american companies sell their products. i am proud of that. i am for trade. unfair trade is unforgivable. to let it continue 30 and 40 years is a crime. it is a moral crime. i want the bill clintons of the world and the droll -- and the george w. bushes and the barack obamas come with me -- to come with me and visit the families of america who are working not from free-trade or feared trade but from unfair trade.

it is -- not from free trade or fair traide, but unfair trade. and they tolerate it in china? shame on us. >> how did you get a program like that through congress? >> i started with the money. the first thing you heard about me in this race was $100 limit. everybody in the newsroom last. romer, he is not serious. yes i am. if you give me 100 families with $100 and i will have more money than mccain had. i am not opposed to money in politics. was i am opposed to is that it comes in the dark.

it comes with special interests attached. it comes in a p.a.c. we have superpacs that are supposedly independent of the can they. they are run by the campaign manager of the candidate. we have one candidate who went to a fund raiser for the superpac and wrote to the ftc saying they were independent. i was born, just not yesterday. the institution is corrupt. unfair trade is not the only system of a corrupt system. a tax code that you cannot read. a budget that was imploding with your marks. the battle in this country is against federal spending. that is the battle that has to be won. we need the government to be

strong to help people on the bottom to defend our shores, to prevent unfair trade, to protect america. i am not against the government. t, initainst sloppy, fac efficient government. these are the battles that have to be won -- fat, ineffecient government. these are the battles that have to be won. the money is in control. the special checks run washington. i have two pieces of evidence. i am a banker. i watched bank reform last year that did not kill too big to fail. it is still the law. i watched bank reform that did not reinstitute glass-steagall. it should be done. it is still dead.

i watched bank reform that did not required the mega-banks to increase their capital as their size went up. it is not in the law. the president is a lawyer. he is not a banker. i do not hold him to banking standards. i know where he was the two weeks after the bill pass. he was on wall street at a fund- raiser hosted by goldman sachs. they are a firm that lied and stole and cheated and not one person went to jail. he went to wall street and accepted tickets to his fundraiser at $35,000 a ticket. this system is corrupt. i do not hold president obama to a standard of moral high ground.

i told them all. i challenge any person running for president. at this late date, join with me. fight for american jobs and do not take the big money. join with me and you could be president of the united states. looking at this field, is the only way they will become president. thank you all. i have to quit doing this. >> this tuesday, mitt romney will announce his jobs plan at a trucking company. we will have live coverage at 3:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. his speech comes a couple days before president obama unveils his plan for job growth. we will have live coverage of that beginning at 7:00 p.m.

eastern on c-span. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> elizabeth duke called for more assistance for homeowners. she noted that the economy is hampered by low demand for homes. to reverse the trend, she said owners should be able to modify mortgage loans. she also called on fannie mae and freddie mac properties to be converted to rental units. >> thank you. i hope you all enjoyed the program so far this morning as much as i have. this helps us advance our policy dialogue and thank you all for being here. i want to thank the speakers this morning for their honesty and openness and comments. i want to thank our economy team for their foresight

and activity in organizing today's program. we have a staff of housing and community development experts in the division of community and community affairs that are committed to examining the concerns of disadvantaged communities. today's program is just the beginning of a fall lineup of many other programs that include small business entrepreneurships, the use of data, disposition strategies. so we'll be having many things throughout the fall so stay tuned. i'm looking forward to seeing many of you back again for those programs as we move forward. so i have the distinct pleasure today of introducing governor betsy duke. governor duke has helped lead us through some of the most dramatic changes that we've seen, i think, with the confidence of a seasoned leader and an eye towards really practical solutions.

what you may not know about her, though, is that from the beginning, many of us have aforgetly thought of her as the -- averagesly thought of her as the housing governor. but regulatory oversight. governor duke has helped us maintain a steadfast focus on restoring a functioning housing sector. she served on the board of neighbor works america through the first two years of her term, during which she developed a keane interest in neighborhood spablization efforts and went out to many communities around the country. in 2009 when everyone was talking about preventing foreclosures. she recognized then that r.o.e. was a critical issue and institutions needed to come up with good strategys

for efficient policies. governor duke, i had the pleasure of working with her and stabilizing neighborhood activities in areas designated by local communities by h.u.d. exactly one year ago she gave a speech in this very room, highlighting best practices from the field for the disposition of r.e.o. and vacant properties at a summit we held on that subject. she shared the perspective, neighborhood stabilization is not just sound economic policy. it is rooted in a vision of our shared future, our sense of community. today's forum is designed to challenge us to think beyond the conventions that we've known and look toward the future with fresh perspective. i can think of no one better to take us into the next phase of our dialogue today than governor

elizabeth duke. please join me in welcoming her. [applause] >> hey, there's nothing better than being introduced by someone whom you have oversight. good afternoon and i'd like to join my colleagues in welcoming you to the federal reserve board where lively viewpoints and discussion are a way of life. the housing market going forward, lessons learned from the recent crisis has been designed to connect the recent pass with policy that may affect the market for use to -- years to come. determining the issues and getting this connection right are important but perhaps not as easy as it might sound. i'd like to offer some suggestions that i think could help. i should clarify that the ideas that i'll be discussing do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my colleagues on the federal reserve board and these suggestions

should not be construed as policy of the board. as we saw in the last panel discussion, there are many interpret tages of the dee factors that led to the current state of affairs and there are a similar number of visions about what the future should look like. but while it's important to learn from and avoid the mistakes of the recent past, we should not forget what did work for many years in the housing and housing finance market. an important starting point is to carefully analyze what we're solving for. certainly we want a solution based on private cal -- capital but the role of government in housing markets will need to be defined. any policy solution will have to be evaluated on the context of its affect on both owner occupied and rental housing markets. and it will also be important to maintain a focus on the demand side of the market, which is to say all of us as consumers of

housing. finally, it should also serve the segments of our citizenry that has been long underserved. longer term solutions are critical but before we get to those we need to deal with the unprecedented number of foreclosures still entering the pipeline and the affect of a high percentage of distressed sales on house prices. regardless of how we got here, we as a nation currently ha have a housing market that is so severely out of balance that it's hampering our economic recovery. to many, the story of the recent financial crisis and its afteraffects of the housing market is one mainly atranscribe thed to sup prime lending.

today about 2/3 of underwater mortgages or loans in foreclosure are actually prime or f.a. -- f.h.a. mortgages. this suggests that previous issues are not sufficient. clearly the market is not functions as it should. despite near record low interest rates, credit remains tight. more over, the lack of sufficient buyers and sellers may limit price discovery, which heightens uncertainty about the right price for a given piece of real estate and further limits activity. in addition, the large number of foreclosures and the process has led to an unprecedented level of bank-owned homes, a level that is likely to persist for some time. so how do we move forward? these difficult circumstances? the economy has

self-correcting mechanisms. typically a drop in price stimulates demand and brings new byears into the market. in the case of houses, price declines often occur in broad based weakness in the overwhelm economy. in response, the federal reserve generally the -- can lower the federal funds rate, which can be expected to lower mortgage rates. the combination makes home purchases more affordable and helps revive the housing markets. indeed, most recent recoveries have been led by housing. for a variety of reasons, these mechanisms are not working in today's economy. it's helpful to look at areas where we can operate more productively. one way to reduce the flow of home foreclears is to ease the loans, which can

be accomplished by refinancing loans at lower rates. the federal reserve has already acted through the purchase of longer term treasury skirts, agency backed and agency mortgage backed scurlingts. in i guess so to enabling more byears to purchase homes, they act to reduce the debt service costs of existing household debt. while recent activity has picked up in response, it's been subdued compared with past low rate environments. that is, even though mortgage rates on many outstanding loans are above current market rates, many have not been able to take advantage because they have lower equity in their homes or other obstacles. to facilitate, the administration's home affordable refinance program provides streamline

refinancing if the borrower meets certain qualifications and if their existing mornings are already guaranteed by freddy may or freddie mac. so far more than 800,000 borrows have refinanced this way. one question is why more have not benefited from this program? four million borrowers appear to meet the requirements. given the potential savings to households, the relatively low take-up on the program warrants another look at the fricks that may be imprecede peeding these refinancing reactions. responses revealed four possible frictions. number one, loan level pricing adjustments. llpa's. they're up-front fees added to the refinancing costs of

loans such as higher loan to -- devalue ratios. the fees can raise the cost by thousands of dollars and discourage borrowers from participating in the program. when the lender or gaurn or already owns the credit risk, refinancing a low or no-equity loan can reduce risk because it reduces payments and thus makes default less likely. number two, limited competition -- competition due to lender concerns about putback risks from previous underwriting. that's the possibility that the loan originator will have to repuffs the loan because the underwriting violated guidelines. lenders who process harp refinancing have putback risks both from the

refinance and from the original underwriting. even if the understood writer did not underwrite the original loan. the risk may make lenders reluctant and limit participates in the program. programs participation cob increased have a minimum number of timely payments could be used as a proxy to relieve the liability for the mistakes of previous lenders. number three, junior lien hold,. in some cases, holders are refusing to let their liens remain subordinate and number four, some mortgage insurers are will not agree to underwrite their loan policies. the common theme in all these frictions is that in each case the parties tots tran db transaction are

applying standard tools that would normally apply to -- but they're applying them to risk. the existing risk skoshe of all credit risk holders decreases. to the extent that widespread refinancing reduces mortgages. it also leads to lower house prices. and finally, removal of barriers to refinancing would boost the impetus to recovery approvaled by lower long-term rates so thus finding different approachs would likely provide some support to the economic recovery while improving the circumstances of homeowners and reducing the overall limit of credit risks borne by the varies holds. -- various holders of property risks.

real estate owned or r.e.o. one million more properties will likely pass will you r.o.e. in 2011. r.o.e. properties are weighing heavily on the markets for owner occupied houses in at least three ways. first, they increase the total inventory of properties for sale. we estimate that in the second quarter of 2011, roughly 500,000 to 600,000 of the two million vacant homes for sale in the united states were r.e.o. properties. the extra supply is particularly problematic because demand is quite low. high up employment and stats are currently precluding many from buying homes and others may be staying out of the market due to uncertainty about their incomes. even due to the large backlog of diss tressed

loans, the current inventory of existing homes for sale represents approximately nine months compared with a norm of five to six months, suggesting additional pressure on house prices. second, the downward pressure on prices is compounded by the high proportion of sales considered to be distressed sales. currently around 40% of all sales transactions are considered to be distress sales and third, high vacancy rates and the low level of maintenance make a neighborhood a less desirable place to live and thus depress the value of surrounding homes. the market for rental housing has been strengthening of late. apartment rates have turned up in the past year and vacancy rates on multifamily properties have dropped noticeably. it shows increased demand

as families who are unwilling or unable to purchase homes are renting properties instead. it's also been supported by families who've lost their homes to flore closure. the majority of these people moved to rental housing. unfortunately these conditions supporting rental demand may persist for some time. the weak demand in the owner occupied housing market and the relatively high demand in the rental housing market, suggestions that transferring some rental properties to r.e.o. housing might benefit both markets. and it might be in the best interests of both lien holders and gaurn torreys. over time, as financing conditions ease and the number of r.e.o. properties for sale declines, it will adjust. small investors are already converting some foreclosed

properties to rental units on a larger same. slarger scale has been hindered by two factors. first, managing single family rental homes is expensive unless the properties are concentrated within a geographical area. second, regulatory guidance and standard servicing practices have encouraged servicors and financial institutions to consider rentals only as a short-term income generator while the properties are marketed. in august, the federal housing finance agency, working with the treasury department issued a request for information seeking ideas for the disposition of r.o. -- r.e.o., including ideas for terming these properties into rental housing. together, they may be able

to aggregate enough properties to facilitate a cost-effective rental program in many markets. i want to three highlight -- highlight three possible design considerations. first, achieving a cost-effective program may require obtaining a critical mass of properties. perhaps a couple hundred or more within a limited geographic area. in this respect, the comparative interest of government is in solving the aggregation problem. combined portfolios of the g.s.a. and f.h.a. are large enough to achieve the necessary scale in a number of markets. however, it might require the flexibility or a pooling entity to acquire wo properties from more than one seller or to contract for the acquisition of a minimum number of properties over time. the scale could be supplemented with properties from servicer or

financial institution portfolios. second, it's important to insure that -- ensure that such rental communities are in the best interests of renters and local communities. replacing the blight of a foreclosed home with the blight of a rental property would give little assistance. it is crucial that properties are well-maintained. better recoveries may result from renting properties rather than selling them. however, in other markets, converting r.o.e. properties to rentals may not be in the best interests of mortgage institutions but to local communities. it may be possible to consider the role of new incentives and what role they might take. while existing statutes and regulations do not prohibit financial institutions from renting r.e.o. properties,

supervisors encourage buying. in light of the rental market along with the potential for a g.s.a.-f.h.a. program to solve the problem of infivet scale in some markets, it might also make economic sense to clarify existing expectations to recognize that in some cases, converting a portion of residential r.e.o. to rental may be a reasonable option for financial institutions. i believe that it could allow for better outcomes for institutions. a spearier net present value compared with traditional approaches and at the same time contribute to market healing. however, to be effective such an approach would require supervisors to clarify current supervisory guidance or explain how it might apply compared to

rental. the fast ball institutions with large portfolios might be able to achieve scale in some marks on their own or possibly leverage the scale of a g.s.e.-f.h.a. program. they should be able to act in acorns with conditions in their local markets. in addition, there are steps that all r.e.o. holders can take today to ensure they're not contributing further to the problems. they should make sure they're adequately monitoring any third party vendors with which they contract to maintain market or sell r.e.o. properties. severe consequences can result from failing to monitor them. r.o.e. holders could also consider first-look types of programs, who enable

public entities and nonprofits windows of time to build on available properties. a number of institutions have used such programs with successful results. and r.e.o. holders who sell large numbers of properties to informsors should screen and monitor investors to recently assess their maintenance and disposition after acquiring the properties. so far i've talked only about r.o.e. as a solution but that's not going to work every. some property are too damaged sor too low valued for either. we estimate that about 5% of the properties in the r.e.o. inventory are appraised at less than $20,000 and in some markets the share is significantly higher. in many of these cases the cost to repair or demolish

existing structures exceeds market value. in recent jeers -- years, local governments and community based organizations have struggled to control the effects of foreclosure on neighborhoods. one tool to controlling is the use of a unique entity known as a land bank. they're typically created to deal with properties not dealt with adequately through the standard market. the notion of a land bank rather than a land trust is that properties are brought in and moved out of a land bank's portfolio rather than permanent lip preserved. a community can gain control of low-value properties that may otherwise sit vacant and cause problems for surrounding neighborhoods. options available include physical rehabilitation. some period of rental. fail to new owner occupants or investors or in some

cases demolition. such a strategy would help some communities deal with a short-term crisis and ultimately allow for the disposition of properties over the longer term. while few land banks surnl have the resources to operate at significant scale, the land bank model has shown some success and it could help many communities stabilize properties if used more extensively. however, the current infra structure for land banks is limited. first, not all states have passed legislation that will allow them. more technical assistance would be needed to scale these up to an adequate level. this approach appears to be an instance where relatively modest

investments have the potential to produce significant benefits, such as lower municipal costs. to provide services to neighborhoods that are largely vacant. higher property revenues and other benefits that may be realized. these are my thoughts on some of the things that be be done in the near term. an immediate priority is rebalancing supply and demand in a market overwhelmed by financially stressed homeowners, tight credit conditions and an unusually high number of foreclosed homes. it's an important part of rebuilding our market but it's only a part. in addition we must think carefully about longer term policy and market changes that may affect america's housing for years and even decades to come. this is an important mark and i appreciate your participation in the forum today.

thank you. [applause] and it looks like we do have time for a couple of questions and can day -- stay on schedule. please raise your hand to get the microphone. thank you. >> thank you for that. the two million houses that you talked about were r.e.o. for sale, meaning on the market. do you have an account for properties not on the market but already defaulted? you've given so many great ideas about how to deal with -- where do you see the housing market going assuming none of these great ideas that have been

instituted. [inaudible] >> to your first question, i'm not going to cite a statistic off the top of my ahead. the two i referred two for vacant homes for sale, not r.e.o. to your second question -- we've thought a lot about this and there's been an awful lot of attention paid to loan modifications and less attention to what happens to the loans that can't be modified for whatever reason. we're getting to the point where addressing that part of it is critically important to getting back to whatever the market is going to be going forward. there's nothing in here that would clear all of

that inventory but i think it's going to take a number of small things, all of which will help and complement each other in a strategic sense so they work together to get a little movement from i've looked for things that are not necessarily incentives but places where the market itself didn't seem to be working the way you would expect it too. >> governor duke? >> nice to see you again. i was pleased to hear you mention the disparate impacts the crisis had on lower wealth people, people of color and female-headed households and i wonder which of your policy

solutions that you discussed would most help those populations? >> i don't think there's anything in this group of policy solutions. i think there may be some other things that are specifically directed in that area, although i do think paying attention to both the needs of rent others and owner-occupants is going to be particularly important because there seems to be a growing demand for not justify rental properties that are multifamily properties but also those that are single property -- single family properties in the same neighborhoods are -- where foreclears are taking place. this would provide housing options again in the same neighborhoods. >> can we get a microphone over here?

>> thank you. governor, jarrett seaburg with m.f. global. you talked a lot about this refinancing program. one of the counter arguments is that if there is a mass refinancing that could cause m.b.s. investors to either flee the market going forward or to demand a higher risk premium that could raise housing finance costs across the board. how do you raise those potential risks against potential benefits? >> when i used to buy mortgage bake backed skirts i always knew this were subject to refinancing if rates fell below a certain level and i think that's been the case. prior to the last couple of weeks there had got on the be within the market a pricing of these fricks into those mortgage-backed skirts. in other words, on assumption that the

refinancings would not occur at the rate that might be expected. i don't view changing that dynamic as being harmful to the markets. >> thank you. >> one more? or maybe not. p/ >> why we could not elect him is why we went to war. >> i do not think it is in a way that adlai stevenson could have won. >> if he think of al smith, who lost to herbert hoover, he paved

the way to franklin roosevelt. there are many that the viewers may not have heard of, and all of them will find interesting to fascinating and certainly surprising. >> a history professor and a historian talk about the 14 men who ran for president and lost, tonight at 8:00 p.m. and pacific, a preview of "the contenders," beginning friday, september 9. tonight, it is a book tv prime time. "a singular woman," about barack

obama's mother. you can see all these tonight starting at 8:00 eastern on sees the into. ? on c-span to. >> sarah palin it will be the speaker in indiana, beginning live nin set -- noon saturday.

>> live sunday, ellis smith. >> ray lahood joined with business and labour representatives to discuss ideas for creating jobs for the nation's infrastructure. the meeting took place at southern mess of this university in dallas. i am honored to be here. we are holding what we call listening sessions on particular issues. the issue we're talking about today is infrastructure and its role in creating jobs and a competitive economy in the future. there is strong labor and business support for this.

we have tom donahue and the chamber is a supporter it infrastructure spending. i would like to think about the support. economists disagree on a lot of thing, but there is overwhelming support to the view that spending on infrastructure is a very efficient way to create jobs. and it also creates an infrastructure base for the competitiveness thfor the econoy going forward. we welcome youoday and we are here to say something about what we're thinking about. but our ideas are in development. we are set up as a council to give the advice. as we develop our advice, we will hear from you about your ideas about how we should be

basically addressing infrastructure. some of the issues we have talked about you will hear today. and what infrastructure investment we should be making. how shall we finance it? 3, related to that, the role of public-private partnerships. we just came from a pretty bad at love field, a wonderful example of partnership between government and the private sector. it was a fantastic example. we talk about how pjects should be chosen, the selection process by which projects should be chosen. financing, we talk about how we can move forward to get projects that are financed and permitted and on their way. these arthings you hear about toy. without further ado, let me introduce the panel. i have a very nice introduction for the president of smu.

we will start with secretary lahood. he did a fantastic discussion this morning at love field. >> thank you, laura. [applause] my first visit to your lovely campus, i was delighted that you had taken the time to be with us and to host to this and think you for your very warm welcome and to all of you who have an interest in putting americans back to work. my message is that, yesterday, we started off in the rose garden where president obama talked about the importance of congress when they come back next week, next wednesday, after the august work period, to come back and pass an extension of

the transportation bill and then pass a long-term bill. there is no dispute anywhere about the fact that, if congress were to pass the transportation bill, it would create jobs. the most lustrous way to say that is that the $48 billion that congress allocated over the last two years under the so- called economic stimulus program went to the department of transportation. in two years, we took $48 billion and we created 15,000 projects and 65,000 jobs -- in two years. last summer, we saw an uptick in employment in the construction industry and all of you were very frustrated as you drove around your communities to see the orange cones. every time you see an orange cones or an orange grove, you know that your friends and neighbors are working in good payinjobs.

congress needs to pass an extension. the current bill will run out on september 30 i. and the taxes to pay for it will run out on september 30. if that runs out, that means $100 million a day will be lost, never to be recouped, starting on october 1. what a tragedy. we just came from a project at love field. they have gone back to love field and invested millions of dollars along with strong leadership from the city and a little bit of federal dollars that are collected on airline tickets to redo love field and make it into a magnificent facility that will serve the people of this region. and it has created 400 to 500

jobs. we saw the workers out there today. if we really want to get america to work, there are politicians, congressmen and senators, over the last month, running around their districts and their state -- in the state talking about jobs. jobs is the party of president oba. jobs is the party of this administration. the way to create jobs is to come back to washington and do with these two gentlemen have done in a bipartisan way, setting aside politics, setting aside their own personal agendas, and saying to the american people that we will extend the current transportation bill and we will pass a five-year transportation bill with significant dlars that will put america back to work and create 1 million jobs in a very short time. can go into a lot more detail and i know we will about how to pay for it, how much debate, but

the simple solution to lowering unemployment and putting americans back to work is passing a transportation bill. next thursday, theresident will go before a joint session of congress because he feels strongly that that ishe best venue to tk to the american people by talking to their elected representativ and saying to them forget about the aisles, forget about the divisions, for get about political parties. let's do what is right for america. let's put our friends and neighbors back to work. how do we do it? extend the current surface transportation bill, extend the taxes, and then pass a fit vision for america. the way other congresses have passed a a vision for america -- i serve congress for 14 years. i served in transportation with my good friend bernice johnson. we served together in the committee.

the one thing has always been bipartisan in washington is infrastructure. it has always been bipartisan. i served on the committee when we passed two bills 380 votes in the house -- there were 80 votes in the senate what bernice said love field is that there are no republican roads and there are no democratic roads. there are no republican or democratic produce. these are american roads and american bridges built by american workers. that is what we have to get back to washington, d.c. i will get into the specifics of how much and h we will pay for it. but i wanted to leave you with the idea that congress -- but i to leave you with the idea that congress can get this done.

[applause] >> thank you. thank you. >> now what i want to turn over to the president of the afl-cio. rich, to you. >> thank you for the introduction i want to thank president turner and smu for hoing us today on this beautiful campus. i want to thank all of you for being here. it is good to see you again, mr. secretary. i would like to thank you on behalf of all americans for the leadership that you feel and the tenacity and determination you have shown in this issue. it is always good to see you again, tom. i think it is appropriate that you are on my far left today. [laughter] >> actually, from out there --

[laughter] >> for you, there probably is the right side. let me start off by saying two $0.20 trillion, that -- two $0.20 -- $2.2 trillion, that is what we need for our infrastructure. that is what is needed to maintain, to keep our 20th- century inheritance from falling apart. not to get ahead. we need another $2 trillion to enter the 21st centurynd to build a modern, clean energy infrastructure. we need to invest hundreds of billions of dollars a year every year for the foreseeable future in infrastructure. instead, the united states is investing a little more than $50

billion per year in transportation infrastructure. our trade partners like china have been pouring investments into infrastructure. we do about two 0.4% of our gdp for infrastructure europe does about 5% of their gdp for infrastructure. china does about 9% of their gdp f infrastructure. we are funding hours right now at the same level that we did in 1968 when our economy was one- third the size that it is today and we had 100 million fewer people than we have today. what we're talking about is america's ability to compete in the global marketplace. if we want jobs in america, we have to be moving ahead of our competitors globally in our transportation, energy, telecommunications systems, not falling behind. yet here we are, business,

labor, and government -- we all agree that there's no dispute about the need for infrastructure. and about the danger that it poses to our country if we do not do it. all we want to see is investment made yet this is not happening. we have a jobs crisis. there is massive work to be done to restore our competitiveness. and unemployment in the construction industry is at historic highs. congress haset to pass any major infrastructure builbill. key congressional leaders have made it clear that they are opposed to funding infrastructure. there is no profound -- there's no greater profound logjam in america than this right now the idea that the focal process to address our nation's fundamental needs is not just about our future competitiveness or about

the potential for job creation. the failure to repair our roads and bridges, our most basic infrastructure needs, is about to cost this country 630,000 jobs next year. ifhe surface transportation bill is not done, we will lose 630,000 jobs. that is how many hardworking americans will be unemployed if congress fails to reauthorize the surface transportation act at current levels of expenditure. that is 490,000 workers in highway infrastructure and 141,000 workers in public transportation. at the end of this month, congress has an opportunity to reauthorized the surface transportation act and the federal aviation administration. without these, whose work the airplanes will not fly.

we have to stop nickel-and- diming your country's public assets. the surface transportation reauthorization should be multi- year and the funding levels that are relevant to a $2.20 trillion infrastructu deficit that keeps growing. that is what the president has asked for and that is what the country needs. we appreciate very much the leadership, but it will not happen unless those of us in this room, business and labor, getting serious about overcoming the partisan political art obstacles -- political obstacles that are standing in the way.

that is why the afl-cio is committed to working with our pension funds, with project sponsors in the financial sector and the clinton global initiative to a list $10 billion in our nation's public infrastructure over the next five years. that is money we will invest and hopefully leverage with public- proprietorships thate saw at love field. the private efforts, quite frankly, cannot take the place of public leadership in infrastructure. the solutions we propose really must be on the same scale as the problems that will ultimately face. we can start by raising america's infrastructure grade point average from its current d gray, which i believe is a

national -- d grade, which believe is a national embarrassment. [applause] >> our last speaker of this panel is tom donahue, the president of the u.s. chamber of commce. i want to emphasize something about the presiden's council on jobs and competitiveness. it is a council that represents business and labor. there is a large number of very important leaders in the u.s. industry and u.s. labor involved in making these decisions. it is really wonderful today to have an opening panel where we have rich and tom coming together to talk about this very important issue. tom donohue, please. >> thank you very much. i'm very pleased tooin oths on this beautiful campus.

coming out of washington, it sort of soothes the savage beach for a short time. yesterday, the president, with a rich and the chief operating officer of the chamber, began his push for getting the highway bill reauthorized. at the same time, he announced after a little bit of jockeying around, that on the eighth of this month, he will bring out his jobs plan. a number presidential candidates in the other party are bringing out their plans. people that are not even running for ofce are bringing out their plans. yesterday, the chamber sort of began to show that jobs plan that we will bring out on labor day. by the way, there are six things we can do that any federal increase in federal funds that

will immediately start putting things to work. that is what we need. right now, if you connected some momentum on this, we are in real trouble. so all the people that have put out their comments and their suggestions and all that will have as a part of that infrastructure. and that is because, when you look at the unemployment rate in this country, we know that it is higher than 9.1% because you have as partially employed and those who have stopped looking. but the people who are really hurting in this country are people who were building houses, building infrastructure, and doing that. they are 30% unemployment. if we're going to do something, that is exactlwhere we have to start. the real question is whether the benefits? the benefits are clear. we put people to work. we make ourselves and far more competitive. we have to be careful of comparing the numbers. we started this was dwight eisenhower. the chinese started only a

couple of years ago. they're moving really quickly. but we need to fix what we have. the only difference we will have -- and i will make a point about this in a moment -- image -- where will we get the money. there are five things we ought to do. first, we need to pass the surface transportation reauthorization. i am concerned about doing a short term and then doing a long term. if you look at what will happen between now and the first of the year, we will have this whole deficit and debt group out doing theirhing. everybody will be involved in that process. it will be very hard to get air time in the congress. this will not happen. but the right thing to do next week is pass a long-term bill. we ought to just do it because that will send the message. when you send a message to the states and to the local community that we just passed a

three-month bill and we want 25% from the money from the states and 25% of the money from the local communities, they're not sure they're putting up their money until they know the federal is in it for the long time. we also need to lock opportunities of global capital investment in this whole system. i think the secretary has ntioned that. rich and i talk about it all the time. reduce support and infrastructure bank. but that is a year or two years in the making. by the time everybody figures out how they will fund and what the rules are, what we need to do is right now. if we ever had the courage to go out and do this immediately, -- i even get in trouble on this -- we have not increased the federal fuel tax 18.5 years. we're getting a little bit more miles to the gallon than we used to. we ought to do it because that will put incremental money into

the set -- into the system. you went down to love field. that is a great place. aviation is important. we put 88,000 people out of work when we could not get that bill taken care. and there are some issues in that bill which you and i would argue about. but we want to put those people back to work and get some more people to work and stop letting that money go down the street because we failed to collect it. we're big on that. another place where there's a lot of money and there's all kinds of technology -- is there and it is cheaper -- we have to modernize the air traffic control system and that is more bs. something the people do not talk about in the infrastructure system is water. we need to renew the water resours development act. it is unbelievably critical to this country. new york city, in some cases, not many, but it makes retelling, are still running on wooden pipes.

we need to get under this water thing because it is a serious problem all run the country. although, now we have a lot more water than we did before following the events of last week. and we need to fully use our harbor manus trust fund and leverage private activity bonds water is a great thing for this country and will create a lot of jobs. people talk about rearail. the freight rail system in this country is run by the private sector and they run it very, ry well. they spend unbelievable amounts of capital every year keeping it . there is an opportunity to get them -- in many places -- we have to build another railroad right next to the one we have. there are some tax things we can do over time to get that done sooner. i would say one other thing. broadband, everything i have

learned about it is thait is a very important thing to do, but we ought to let the private sector do it. i am making all these comments so i can get to the real issue. for us to create jobs and do something critical in this country is to expand the electrical grid and to approve the keystone pipeline project. that will put two hundred 50,000 people to work right away. to move forward -- you probably do not know this -- rich and i do -- there are 351 stalled energy projects in this country that have been held up by permitting and "not in my yard" and "not in my town" and "not in my country. process ising insane. if you want to create a lot of things in this country, build the buildings, building the roads, you could spend six years to seven years permitting. for what? we're willing to give up the few

jobs and getour permits to do less things but me and by saying that we have been working on a project at the chamber and it is a transportation performance index. it looks at all of these issues of infrastructure and transportation, energy, and so on. it can calculate, based on the health of our system, what will happen to our gdp. woulwill it go up or down? if it goes up, we hire more people. if it goes down, we hire fewer people. thank you very much. i look forward to the discussion. [applause] >> let me say a few things before i opened it to discussion turned there are -- to discussion. there are many things in the

subgroups. when the president w speaking, he also noticed the cncil engagement on this issue. the administration is now working on identifying priority projects that have already been financed. the financing is available but held up somewhere in the permitting process. we will expedite -- the administration will be expediting the projects and also introducing a dashboard for interested individuals to actually follow the permitting process. th administration els that the council hasade a recommendation that can be actionable and have some of the emitted a fax that tom was talking about. so permittg is an important thing to discuss here. financing is an important thing to discuss here. public-private partnerships and how they were, how they can be formed is an important thing to discuss here.

and i think i want to start with that set of ideas, opening it up for questions. remember that these are meant to be listening sessions. you have heard from us. you have listened to this group could by the way, one other thing. infrastructure is more than transportation. right now, we have the surface transportation bill that is imminent. but broadband, energy, aviation, water, school construction, building and safety -- there are aot of important areas in infrastructure. the next panel will be looking at more detail in some of these specific areas. let me open for questions. i will start right over here. this is becky mueller. >> i am the president of the texas afl-cio. welcome to our state, those of you who came from out of town. i would not be surprised to find

that the field trip would be to love field. we have had a long time relationship with southwest airlines. i am not surprised the that is where we were this morning. but i am pleased to see you three up there. businessnd the obama administration working together tha. in texas, our unemployment situation is not as good as you see on the national tv. we do have 30% folks out of work in some industries. we have some folks, aslways, who have fallen off the road. our numbers sound good if you look, but when you look deeper, we have families that are hurting turn we have families -- that are hurting. we are families who have difficulty feeding and clothing their children going back to school. it makes my heart feel good that

we're seriously talking about this bipartisanship. but i have one question. how do we do it quickly? we talk about these families were school is started and they cannot fight -- cannot buy food and clothing. how do we break the logjam in washington, d.c. how do we work together all up and down? you can come from b.c. and say that you three are walking, but how do we get to bernice johnson talking to the other folks who do not care about infrastructure? how do we get that to happen? what is the magic answer? i would like to ask each of you? how can we help you make it happen? what can we do to help you? >> i happen to agree that we should separate the things we can do very quily. we get some motion and some momentum and things will happen. i think we should take -- particularly on the infrastructure side -- the things that we can do and do the right now. i agree.

listen to the people in the affected committees on both sides of their talking about how soon they could move this and whathey have to do. i did not hear a great sense of urncy. the plan that we will put out on labor day with a lot of ads around the country will suggest that the 3 million companies in america that can beeached my want to call their congressman and tell them that may have noticed -- not noticed -- that this is very iortant. i think the hard thing for people is to separate what they can do in a big hurry and go do it. it is only a portion. if you put that on the blocks and start moving and bring everything along behind it. >> thank you, tom. i appreciate that. i to -- i tru agree with that. the country has a 25 million

people either unemployed or underemployed. those 25 million people need services. they are not contributing right now. they have to take right now. we have stagnant wages. we have a lot of people who have lost faith in washington, d.c. as a solution. we have one in five of our children living in poverty. and that figure is growing. if you're in the african- american community, it is three times that level. if you're in the latino community, it is three times that level. so there is a crisis out there. for the last 20 some years,hen it came to infrastructure, there has never en a bipartisan fight over it becau it is a no-brainer. it is absolutely essential for the country. it is absolutely essential for us to remain competitive.

and by not fixing it this year, you make it more difficult and more costly to fix it next year. and if you do not fix it next year, it gets more costly the year after that. and the figures go up until they boggle the mind. i say $2.2 trillion and people say, oh, my god, that is a lot of money. it is a lot of money. and if we do not tackle it next year, it will be even more expensive. and we will be less competitive. talk to your representatives. state, local, federal representatives, and tell them, for the good of the country, me together an create jobs. but the infrastructure. there is no business that can compete with infrastructure falling down. tom's members get further and further behind every year if we do not fix this stuff.

so it is up to us to come together and say enough. let's attack the real problem that we have. it is a jobs crisis. if we do infrastructure, we do theaa, we do the stuff about water that tom talked about -- we lose hundreds of millions of gallons of clean water every day because the systems that they're traveling over right now let em go. so taxpayers pay to clean the water and then it trysts back out and gets lost. if we do not something with infrastructure in the next 15 years, it will cost taxpayers about $3.10 trillion in increased cost. we can do better than this. talk to your representatives. tell them that the time is past talking.

come back and do what has been done for the past 30 years. with surfaceransportation, with a a, with cle water, and others, -- with faa, with clean water, and others, we will be much better off. >> is there a chance of getting a long term bill right away? on the transportation side? >> i think that the president will stick to what he was saying yesterday for the congress to pass a short-term extension. the current bill runs out and the taxes to pay for it run out on september 30. as was mentioned, senator boxer and another senator had a two- year bill. congressman mike the, the chairman of the transportation committee in theouse, has a

bill pending, which has not been considered by the house. given the fact that there is so little time in september when congress will be in session due to the number of days that they will be working, it will be more realistic to pass a short-term extension and wk on the long term bill through the months that the extension is going on. i would not add anything in answer to the question. thank you for the questio i really cannot add anything to what rich and tom said. >> i would add a point to what was said before. working with a number -- working with the jobs council, the administration has really focused on the issue of expediting what is already there. i do think that we will make

some real progress on taking some very important projects that have been judgeds priority for creating jobs, creating competitiveness, and have financing in place and expediting them through the permitting process. i agree that we have to do everything as quickly as we can. it is the immediate issuand then there will be $2.2 trillion that we are under investing. we have to do two things of the same time. back there. >> i live here in dallas. mr. secretary, thank you for your leadership. mr. donahue, i agree with you could i think it isime to look at the gas tax. when people were voting, they have agreed to tax themselves

for transportation. th is day 3000 company industry. it is about jobs. it is ironic. no, it is tragic. at a time when we have a lot of people unemployed, they need mass transit to get to work. tax drives companies away from this industry. we have invested more toward growth outside the u.s. than in the u.s. simply because the unpredictability of the short- term funding mechanisms that we are working with. again, i would like to ask the question -- i do not think washington hears us. i do not think washington is listening. use a talk to our elected representatives. what more can we do to get attention?

>> i served in congress for 14 years. i believe that your elected representatives have -- i do not believe they have all been back in their districts during the month of augt. i know many of them have had town meetings and many have been listening to their constituents. i believe that most people are concerned about jobs. i think it is uppermost in the minds of people all over america. everybody in america knows somebody that is out of work. everybody in america has a friend, a neighbor, or a lative that is out of work. that is why it is such a serious issue. that is why i do think that, when members of congress come back, they will be paying attention to the idea that they have the opportunity to help create jobs in america. that is why the president wanted

to talk directly to the members of congress ne thursday night, a week from tonight. about the issue of jobs and what his proposal is and what his vision is. and then let congress have the debate, as they have always done, and pass a bill that will put americans back to work. on the issue of the gas tax, i will tell you this. the president has said, from the first day i started this job, which was january 23, two days after the president was sworn in, there was a very bad economy and unemployment and 9%. it is very difficult for the president to be proposing an increase in the gas tax when people are really hurting. that is what the president has taken the position that he is not in favor of raising the gas tax. but he is willing to work with congress on finding ways to fund the things that we need to do, the big things, the big

projects the president has proposed an infrastructure bank, which is a mechanism where you can have a pot of money that leverages a lot of other money, doing what they are doing at love field, leveraging private money against public money. doing what they're doing in denver, where was yesterday at the inauguration of a $3 billion transit program with six lines that connect six suburban areas into grand central station in denver and also >> people from the airport which is all the way at in kingman that -- in kingdom come all the way into denver. this is a classic example of a public-private partnership. again, public-private partnership. the idea that the president is in -- is against increasing the gas tax, which he has been very

consistent about, is also coupled with the idea that he has put out some ideas about how we leverage some of our federal dollars against private dollars against state dollars and against municipal dollars. this is a very bad time to be talking to people, many of whom who have been unemployed for way too long, about raising the gas tax. that is why the administration has taken that position. >> we thought also that people in washington were not listening. so the afl-cio arranged over 500 events out in the field during the recess where our members and townsfolk came together, union and non-union people came together, and talked about jobs, jobs, jobs to our elected representatives. is there a town hall meetings or at other events that they were having -- either at town hall

meetings or at other events that they were having, we met up and said, look, while you are fiddling aroun people are turning. we ought to do better than this. this was at home while they were back at their constituents. we hope it will have some positive effect and have some small contribution and break in the logjam in getting some of these things done that will benefit the country. and put people back to work very quickly. >> i just want to make one point. we're talking about jobs and infrastructure. many cities have been done on cost effectiveness in spending a dollar per job created. it is a very cost-effective way of creating jobs. it is important for us to focus on jobs, no doubt. but we have to focus also on the efficiency of the measures are used to create them. this is a measure that

economists have lots of lots of studies to support it. you get a big bang for your infrastructure balk. -- infrastructure buck. u heard about spending more on the onset of the u.s. than inside. this leads to the desirability of creating an infrastructure bank. there are big pool of foreign money out ere that would like an opportunity to invest in u.s. infrastructure. we do not have the modality to allow that right now. we are missing out on a great opportunity. you hear about that in the next session. >> my name is bernard weinstein. i am an economist with the

mcgwire energy group. of all the things i have heard mentioned today, i want to endorse mr. don hughes idea abouthe keystone pipeline. this is a keep peace of mr. structure -- key piece of infrastructure. i do not believe it requires any taxpayer money. it will supply of oil from alberta, a friendly nation, to refineries along the gulf cot. economic secity and energy security will be much better off buying our oil from alberta rather than buying it from venezuela. last week, one hurdle was jumped. i believe the state department approved it, but there are other permitting issues.

i want to emphasize that is absolutely critical and needs to go forward as soon as possible. >> thank you. thank you for that. yes, right over there. he is bringing a microphone down. could you introduce yourself? >> my name is rob frank. i am chair of the coalition. we he a 28-mile section that is part of the highway program. we have $192 million of locally generated money to fund this project -- no state money and no federal money. we are pursuing this as a public-private partnership. what is the policy and the perspective regarding low- interest loans to help close the gap in advance in projects like this that is five to 10 years of construction jobs? >> if this is a perfect

project, -- this is a perfect project for the infrastructure bank. it reay is. it is perfect when there is a surface transportation bill for bed and bernice to make it known. it is the kind of investment locall necessary. i have no doubt that, if there is a transportation bill, this project will become a high priority and you will be able to leverage federal dollars. right now, you cannot do it because we are operating on these short-term extensions. but once we have a bigger vision, a big plan, and other surfaceransportation program, a project like this will go forward. that is the reason we need them i think there will be a number of ways for you to leverage federal dollars to make this project happen, which i know is very important. toiously, you do not need

lobby your own congressman. she is once -- in such a great position on the transportation committee and has worked so hard already this year to persuade her chairman to move the bill. once the bill is passed, you will be in a good position. you will be well positioned to leverage some federal dollars. >> yes, back there. >> my name is breadbox. -- my name is greg bachs. can you tell us what the chances are of high-speed rail in texas and would avert possible new positions that might create? >> high-speed rail is coming to america. there is no stopping it. we have made $10 billion plus worth of investments in high-

speed intercity rail. all federal money. that is $10 billion plus more than has ever been invested in high-speed intercity rail ever in the history of our country. it is thank you to the vision of president obama pick this is something that he -- vision of president obama. this is something that he feels very strongly about. the lion's share of the money, over $3 billion, has been invested in california, where they will really have high-speed rail. it will connect the state and the trains will go over 200 miles an hour. we have made investments in the midwest, a train from detroit to chicago to st. louis. those investments are fixing up tracks along an amtrak quarter. we have made huge investments in the northeast corridor. i am very happy that the ate of texas recently accepted high- speed rail money. there was not a big announcement

about it, which is fine with us. we are glad texas is in the ball game, one of the largest states in the country ought to get into the high-speed rail business, connecting houston and dallas. it is a great project. we could not have done what we have done in america without our friends in thereight rail business. matt and others in the freight rail business have been great partners and will continue to be great partners. we do not have enough money in this country to build all new infrastructure. we need our friends in the freight rail business we can make investments to fix of tracks, to use those tracks, so that trains can go faster because we do not have the money. we are being out-competed by europe and asia and tho of you who go to europe and asia and come back and ask why we do not have passenger trains in america. because we have never made the investment. this is the president's vision. it is a vision that has never

been articulated in america before, except on the northeast corridor. people love to ride trains there. the day after the storm hit, you could not buy a seat on amtrak on the northeast corridor. people love to ride trains. texas is getting into the passenger rail business. that is thanks to rail enthusiast in this state and i want to congratulate. we want to be your partners and passenger raiis coming to texas. >> the last question is over here. >> i am mike davis. i am on the faculty here. i appreciate your comments about bipartisan roads. but i have to observe that bipartisan roads need to be built inlaces like west virginia and other places where congressman are very powerful. this is not to make a starkey comment.

i believe you all are very sincere in wanting infrastructure money to be spent wisely. but what assurances can you give us about what moneysill be spent and that they will be spent on projects that really need funding and not on projects that support a particular congressmen or sound really sexy like high-speed rail? >> because we are in the era of no earmarks in washiton, d.c. we are. there are no more earmarks. when the next transportatn bill is written, it will not have emarks. the president is not for earmarks. congress -- most members of congress are not for your marks. senator byrd is no lonr serving in the senate, in case you have not heard that. [laughter] and we are in a new era in america. note iraq's -- no earmarks in

appropriations bills or infrastructure bills. they will be approved on their merit, not because they have a powerful congressman. >> if you look at the figures, texas got the largest share of the stimulus money. this state that more money than anybody else. i do not know if that is because of your present the tips or because bobby is no longer with us. but i think that is a good thing. a large portion of the texas economy is pumped by federal dollars with defense and forts and all the military bases that are here, pumping money from the to the government into the state economy, making it grow and allowing it to survive. i do tip my hat off to you for one very important thing. a number of years ago, you decided to do some very stringent regulation of mortgages for consumers, may be

the strongest in the country. that helpedou weather the storm. you did not take the hit from the bad mortgages that a lot of other states did because of the strong regulation you had. and i really take my hat off to you for that. >> let me just make oneomment. i do think the secretary is right. i do not know what congress will do without earmarks. they will call it something else. [laughter] >> spoken as a true washington senate. [laughter] -- a true washington cynic. [laughter] >> we will see. but i think there is a real serious issue and i think rich and i agree on this. we have toake the right decisions on where we need to put infrastructure for a totally interconnected countrywide transportation system. at the same time, there are massive pockets of unemployment.

the question is, as -- we all started our comments on jobs. if i have five things i can do with whatever money i have available and i have i'm for free, will i sta in a place where the greatest number of jobs are needed? in this industry. that will be a real challenge. >> i think we're about to shift to the next panel. we have time for continuing questions there. i ask everyone to give a round of applause for our panelists. [applause] and now i will invite up to moderate robert wolfe, my colleague on the president's council. he is president of the investment bank of ubs in the united states. i have worked with him for the past few years.

he is no me passionate advocate for public-private partnerships. thank you so much for your time. [applause] >> we will keep moving right into the next panel. my name is don graves. while robert is making his way up to the lectern and as they get the stage prepared, i thought it would be useful for folks to understand what this jobs council is doing and why we're actually here. the jobs council was created because the president saw there was a need in this country. we have all seen where the economy has gone. he believes clearly th we need to focus all of our time and attention on job creation and get people back to work all across the country. the president has said this before and he is convinced and i think all of us who work in the administration are convinced that we will not be satisfied until every american that wants to work is able to get a job

somewhere across the country. so the jobs council was created to provide direct guidance by some of the leaders from labor, from business, for macadamia on ideas that will -- from academia and ideas that will help us continue to be the leader across the world. we have a wonderful group of folks who will be on the next panel led by robert wolfe, a good friend and leader in his own the bright -- in his own right. he is chairman of ubs americas. he is one of, if not the, for most leader in infrastructure investments and the financing of infrastructure in the country. we appreciate all that you have done and that ups has done to make sure that this is an issue

that is in the forefront of everything we do. thank you, robert. [applause] >> maybe i could ask everyone to come up. obviously, we had quite a passionate panel. if that group was set the smu game, there is no question who would win that. but i want to thank lohr, who has been my colleague on this for many years. i want to thank you for opening of this great session could dr. turner, we want to actlly thank you for hosting us at peaceful smu. and we also want to thank the staff from both bmsf and southwest airlines for doing the day-to-day work in putting this together. thank you all. over the past three years, the

president's council on johnson competitiveness, as well as the president's -- on jobs and competitiveness, as well as the economic council, we have received a d grading. over $2 trillion in investment is needed over the next five years. that just begins to address this problem. as laura stated, economic models indicate that a dollar spent on infrastructure actually boost spending of gdp by 1.6 times. it is one of the larger multipliers on gdp and unemployment than any of the kind of spending we do in this country. in fact, the milton institute estimates that, for every dollar spent, every billion dollars

spent on infrastructure actually leads to approximately 25,000 jo. it may not be -- there may not be an industry that surpasses that. we know that the recent market volatility and budgetary pressures we face today has forced us to seek alternatives in financing to address this oblem. many believe, myself included, that the creation of a national infrastructure bank or a financing authority would greatly improve our nation's ability to attract private- sector debt and equity capital to help raise these important private capital is willing to fill the infrastructure gap where other funding sources. e burden cannot be on federal funds. actually, many industry consultants prict there is almost $150 billion of equity

capital targeted for infrastructure and over $100 -plus billion has been raised to date. it is important to align with long-term private investment that we have with a workable, regulatory structure. the u.s. could takeritical first steps towards attraing this capital to rebuild our infrastructure. while the details of a national infrastructure bank or financing authority continue to be worked out and debated, i think we can all agree that we should have a broad approach and funding projects in areas such as transportation, energy, electricity, water and wastewater and telecommunications and broadband. these would have national significance. decisions would have to be

merit-based using a cost-benefit analysis conducted by experts in the industry, not by politicians. to achieve these goals, it's crucial that a national infrastructure bank be chartered with a clear mission, strict operational guidelines and frps via regulatory reporting. it would be complementary to funding programs to infrastructure. we aren't looking to take anything away, but looking to alleviate the burdens we have today and add to this growth. it would have to be policy-driven and aims would be such as releaving congestion, improving mobility, improving transportation networks or increasing national and regional and national competitiveness and add to jobs. the aim of thi panel discussion that we are about to start is

really to hear from key decision makers and trst about the state of our country's infrastructure and their views on how to address it. the first group will be the aviation sector and maybe i can -- [laughter] >> i have a few quees for each panel and open it up afterwards. first with aviation, we have gary, gary serves as the chairman of the board, president and c.e.o. at southwest airlines. southwest airlines is celebrating 38 years of consecutive profitability. i may be off, maybe 39nd was named number one for customer satisfaction by the deparent of transportation. next to gary is the first chief

federal tech nick call officer for thenited states and promoting technical innovation to help our country meet its goals and make government more efficient, and transparent. a few questions. the u.s. aviation industry has struggled for several reasons, including an inefficient air traffic control system and insufficient progress with modernization. gary, to start with you. could you give us background on next-generation air traffic control system and why is it so important? >> i would love to. [laughter] >> i have to chase down mr. secretary and tell him i can get him from dallas to houston in an hour. [laughter] >> first of all, it's a pleasure to be here and thanks for

moderating our session here. our council is on jobs and competitiveness. i would turn that around. i think if we, as americans and as business, if we want to generate jobs, we need to start with competitiveness and every y that's what we do when we come to work. at southwest, we are competing to customers, what is our competitive advantage and how are we going to make that happen all of this discussion, i think, is framed around that and that's the way we should be thinking about it. infrtructure, obviously, is worth while in generating jobs while we are building a new terminal at love field. if nobody flies out of love field, it is wasted. we need to benvesting in infrastructure that will be used and generate a return. and in the case of the air traffic control system, i'm sure

you all know the air traffic control system in the united states of america has fallen behind. we are using 1950's technologies and techniques to route aircraft, aircraft zigzags through the sky. it wastes a tremendous amount of time. it burns a tremmedous -- tremendous of jet fuel and modernization is long past. our best estimates are that we could improve the efficiency of the system by at least 15%. and er the last 15 years you have seen air travel decline in large part because energy prices have gone up, which, in turn, have caused air fares to go up and if there is a discretionary product or service, i can assure you it is travel. as costs have gone up, fewer

people are flying than they were a decade ago. if we want to create jobs, our best idea to offer the jobs council is to modernize the air traffic control system because, number one be, it will reduce energy consumption, which is certainly good. that is good for not only the economy, but it's good for the environment and all of that will lead to better employment. so it's hard to find a reason why we should not modernize the air traffic control system. the other thing i would say is that while we need to do and make the investments for surface transportation that were being discussed previously, you're talking about a massive amount of money. hundreds of billions of dollars. you don't need that to modernize the air traffic control system. in fact, most commercial

airliners are equipped today to take advantage of next generation air traffic control. the f.a.a. has what it needs in terms of gadgets and software to take advantage of the next generation of air traffic control. we simply need to get it done. so a focus, almost like the pipeline discussion, exct better, because you don't need to make much more investment, as we need to get through all of the roadblocks and all of the hurdles that exist in implementing new flight profiles and approaches into airports. safety is paramount. there are noise questions and ere is the complexity of rewriting the highways in the sky, if you will. but it's something that needs to take place and something that

would be extremely cost effective. travel and tourism probably contributes about $1.3 trillion a year in the united states of america. and aviation, of course, is a significant component of that. it is less than it was a decade ago. and it's time to lower those costs by having a more efficient air traffic control system that makeus more competitive. all the ideas on the jobs council to create jobs in other ways -- i thought lawyer aver made the point earlier -- laura made the point earlier, all businesses need infrastructure. travel is going to be one of the enablers of growing jobs in every single industry that is out there. it needs to be one of the top 10 priorities of this country and especially if we want our country to be number one when it comes to competitiveness.

>> i want to ask you, because i was very surprised by this, g.p.s., it's the only way i get around today. it's used in cars, used in all types of modes of transportation and used in all types of industries, why is it taking so long to transition from our ground-based radar system to a satellite g.p. system? >> i thank you for the question and i echo all the comments that gary made. part of the reason that the president has asked us is that our infrastructure and other aspects of government are injected with information technologies as an important component of the work that it does. you'll hear about that in energy, with the smart grid and impact on broadband and affecting health care. next generation of air traffic controllers is an capital of

this. it is not the problem of having a g.p.s. chip in the plane. the challenge is building the level of procedures that sit on top of that information so we can ensure we achieve the safety, the reliability and efficiencies of the routing. and what seems to be frustrating looking whack backwards but going forward, where the airline industry has made significant investments elements of this program that allows them to run these modernized procedures. as gary said, the air traffic control system has its capability. we have the socket and we have to stick them together and make them a priority. gary was one of our hosts. we had nearly every c.e.o. that said let's collaborate with the f.a.a. to make this the proirt

the president has declared it a priority for american innovation and take advantage of the win-win-win. and glide airlinesnto the runways with less fuel and we can be much more reliable and in how we go about doing this. we made commitments to do this. we can do that because as gary said, investments have been made, let's put them to use and that'she commitment and secretary lahood has made this as made a commitment. is this a bummer we haven't made g.p.s., of course and we will see a focus because we have the building blocks in place. >> going back to next gen, everybody talks about it and according to the f.a.a.,

something like $1.3 trillion of economic activity is driven off aviation. 5%, 6% of the total economy. so pretty big amount. how can us -- waste the case nor next-gen for job creation? >> it's huge. i think aviation is a relatively interesting a small component of travel and tourism. the number you have theres more related to aviation specifically and includes all the aerospace manufacturing companies and those jobs. you look at airline jobs, airline jobs 10 years ago were around 800,000 jobs in the united states. and there are probably 500,000 today. so just the airline piece of

this has the opportunity to restart its growth, get more -- yet more people need to travel. and it is very sensitive to price. so this is simply a matter o making travel more affordable. it is amazing to me how much travel is simply driven by the price of the airline ticket. and people seem to focus less on the hotel, car, restaurants and other things i'm going to enjoy when io, which is the consumer side. and coumers make up more than half of travel. business travel has actually wained. so we need to make it more affordable. there is a tremendous potential to grow that entire complex. but this is one of these investments you make for the future. it's not so much having a

projt to quote modernize air traffic control, it's not going to create one million jobs. that's not the point. you want to make an investment that creates economic growth and vitality and that's the opportunity that you have here. look at how many jobs we had 10 years ago. where did they go? we need to make the case more forcefully to modernize air traffic control. and the focus needs to be on aviation. we have a high-speed rail system. 's already in existence and be redirected oveight. you don't have to havehysical tracks. so there is a via strong case to be made that you don't need to make $10 billion worth of investments. you can take advantage of what has been invested. >> i'm going to have you put yo government hat on. >> i am. >> and you just talked about

yesterday's meeting and the futurend the need to accelerate, modernize next-gen but given the lean budget environment, what can the federal government do to make this a priority? >> that's the beauty -- the government was about convening and my colleagues call it a government is an i am patient convener. when you say we ha no new money and we have some limits on whate can do in terms of changing the legal environment we are in, engineers can optimize and i'm pretty confident thathere is enough, already invested capital that can be put to work if you think about making the plug in the socket come together in a more effective way. so part of that is the haven't's commitment to more open and

collaborative government which means as we make decisions about specific activities we become transparent so the american people can hold us accountable. that happened yesterday. we are going to put up a proje dashboard. you will see each and every one of them, click on them, get your input and see the progress, you can have that information at your fingertips because you are going to hold us accountable. that doesn't cost us money to hold us accountable. we will do the work we can in the convening role and that needs to happen, to make sure that the questions are answered, do this in a safe way, be energy efficient. and the answers are yes and yes and it's about getting the job done and i'm pretty excited that we will get the leadership excited. >> you have how many jobs.

there are about 14 million jobs according to the u.s. travel association in travel and tourism. travel did not keep pace with the rate of inflation over the past decade. its probably below 30%. if you increase travel by 35 percent, it is a gigantic part of the overall economy. >> last question, you brought up noise and i don't want to make this about the environment but just -- will next-gen have an impact? >> it's hard to find something wrong with it. it will be different. and you have to rewrite the lanes in the sky where the planes are going to fly. one of the very fundamental

aspects of next generation procedures, it's not necessarily technology as you put the aircraft in idle, which is the quietist mode and you gradually and descend to the aireld >> i'm feeling that right now. >> i get that. >> getting one of the simulateors. it's cool. >> you told to descend and go to 10,000 feet and hold, you have to power forward and maintain that same altitude, it is noise year. >> i was on vacation next to a glider airport base and you didn't hear anything. so you could hear that gliding. >> all the way around. energy, economy, environment and employment. >> we are going to move on to surface transportation and there will be questions at the end. matt is the chairman and c.e.o.

of burlington-northern railway. he helvarious positions in trucking and rail and member of the national surface transportation policy and revenue study commission. to his left is michael walton, who is a professor of civil engineering and holds a chair in engineering athe university of texas at austin and holds a joint academic appointment in public affairs for more than 35 years and has pursued a career in engineering analysis. we heard a lot from the first panel about surface transportation, so we are going to get into a little more detail with this group. matt, you have always accompanied any conversation about re-authorization about surface transportation programs with the discussion of reforms.

and obvious wli the panel prior to us were cheerleaders for passing the re-authorization. what kind of reforms do you thinare the most important? >> let me start with when the commission i served on, we looked at the national infrastructure and broke it down to three r's, reform, rebuild was the second and revenue was the third. the commission got it on the reform. the american public has become jaded in terms of how we are spending ouroney and we can look back at whether it's the bridge to knowwhere or the projects that were put across these entities for political reasons and there is a real reluctance for the americans to raise the gas tax. i can reduce my commute time

by 10 minutes, would i pay more for that, it polls very well. you have to reform the federal programs. in the transportation bill, there is 107 federal programs and i would tell you, you can't do anything well with 107 federal programs. i believe we are going to go into a period of time. i don't think there is going to be a lot of money that comes to bear and the federal programs have to be specific in casng the federal vision and driving performance and identifying what the future economy looks like. our economy has changed so much from a domestic economy to a global economy. the president has an export goal to double exports by 2015. we don't have a transportation vision of how we're going to do that and do this with very limited money. so reform is going to be very important. permitting reform, a subject

that i know a lot about. i visited the mayor of l.a., and we we have trying to permit a mode alpha silt for 10 years. it was not shovel ready in the stimulus monies because we don't have project reform. so my pot is we are going to have limited money. and you will ar people talking about the thing, the thing is to raise the gas tax, the thing is to toll everything. it's not going to be the thing. we are going to need money. we have a lot of projects and programs that are out there in terms of financing out there already that i always overlooked . private activity bonds. and i think we are going to have to get our heads around as a country how to lay this federal vision out to allow the states

and local municipalities to do what they need to do and do it best. >> dr. walton, to follow on from matt's comments, you worked closely with a l of states. how would you view his idea of reforms? >> well, first, let me say i appreciate being here and discussion began with the president talking about football. i want everyone to know who cares. texas is emphasizing academics this year. [laughter] >> let me make that clear. having gotte that out of the way. matt is absolutely on target and i think the comments that were made by the earlier panel on infrastructure correct. i do have the privilege and opportunity to work with 30-plus states and they are all unique and very special, but you hear themes over and over again and one is just as we were talking

out project delivery, how do you expedite the delivery of programs. and could we not set a time for example where these decisions on personaling or approval process must be made, are there opportunities to push some of the decision process down to the states and perhaps the local level, not giving up any of the responsibilities or the end results or outcome that we need to have, but could some of those decisions be made more locally than not? so that's one area or a couple of areas. expanded funding options. you hear that a lot. just as you were talking about infrastructure and we can talk about that, too. but the fact is that more funding options are desperately needed and flexibility in the funding options that are there. and matt is swlull right.

all the various categories, couldn't it be simplified. i was reminded when we talked about this, a statement almost 100 years ago, ladies and gentlemen we have run out of money and time to start thinking and that's where we are. there are wonderful opportunities of how we structure opportunities. particularly in the funding areas. mentioned one, that is a good example. there are refinements that could be made there. and in build america bonds and so forth, and of course, the private activity. all of those offer opportunities and have been useful but the public-private partnerships are an example. certain states have beenble to leverage that. we can discuss whether that's a major source or not.

some would say it's been about 4.5%, 5%, could be upo 9%. perhaps we could squeeze it to 14%. it'sot the answer, but it's part of the menu that matt was talking about. and clearly, there is more that can be done with public-private partnerships and we have wonderful examples out the. if it takes an infrastructure to leverage some of that off-shore equity, fine. but we are leveraging that now. that money is coming from off-shore for the most part and not domestically. more clearly defined goals and performance measures. we heard about that. and clearly, that will continue to be a theme. but strengthening those partnerships, expediting delivery, keeping our eye on the ball and gettinghe job done. those are the things that i

routinely hear. >> not to sound defensive, but when we think of a national infrastructure bank or financing authority, it would obviously be complementary to that existing menu. build america bonds, we think should come back and there is a halt, but it's in addition to, but take away the burden from the government. >> the devil is in the detail. we have a lot of detail for you. are you going to be in the audience asking questions? [laughter] >> matt, if we listened to the first panel, the re-authorization bill, it was quite a cheleading -- and i think c-span is going to have something great to go into the president's speech, but -- so we know the program needs to be

re-authorized. we know additional funding is needed. but, the big if. there isn't any additional funding, whether re-authorization gets a mere extension. what next? >> i think a large part of the problem weave today, if you were to go into these classrooms or maybe ask these audience how do we pay for our infrastructure, we have done a crumby job of explaining to the american public. and we have a great infrastructure system. every time you go to the gas pu, you pay. and it has worked pretty well. but part of the problem has been our success. we have a dependency on foreign oil and clean up the standards. we are getting much better mileage. that hurts the receipts coming into the highway trust fund. think about electric cars. thri if you had 25% lick cars

running down the highway, what it would do to the highway trust fund. this isn't going to work long-term. and we have to communicate that we aren't paying for it out of our federal income taxes like a lot of people think wer it's been a good system but has to be reformed and refined. if i was faced with no more f, i would stand up and say, i'm going to be more aggressive on tolling, somethi that everybody hates, but you have to have revenue coming in to fund it. i'm going to swoop up $100 million. if i was the president, i'm going to put it in and find $100 million and put it in private activity bonds and do a project streamlining until unemployment gets dn ol all projects and

relieve nepa -- i said it, until unemployment gets down to 6%. i would take this stuff and find every bit of leverage because that's what it's gng to take. the money, you know -- nobody is going to agree to a tax increase. it's not there and we need to desperately. theighway trust fund -- it was not indexed for inflation. so the 18.5 tax, because the cost of steel and concrete. we are going to have a longer term vision how we are going to replace this providing every ounce of leverage to get leverage for every dollar that goes into this thing is what i would do. >> can i just add a quick thing.

there is something about the story that i haven't told very well. when you travelbroad and talk to administrators of other countries, they come around to the fact about how they fund their transportation system and how they envy us because we have a dedicated source of transportation improvements and programs. and that stable dedicated source that has worked so well. the trust fund has turned out to be a marvelous invention, pay-as-you-go works extremely well for us and other countries envy. it was never intended to be the last word. it was intended to be the mechanism to allow us to get started and worked well because of the technology at that particular point in time. as you well know, with

technology changing, it's not the right instrument to move forward. but user-fee policy is still a good policy and still holds. so, i think having the trust fund, having user pay and the fact that tolls are a form of direct user fees is also more -- >> that actually allows me to go into t next question and topic. but very interesting that we have matt and jim talking about increasing the gas tax and the administration saying no to the tax. that's for a different debate. i think what you both talked about user fees and you bot brought up tolls, but and matt, you have been in front of raising the gacks tax where it is versus where it started. what are your views how surface programs should be paid for.

is it totaling are other ideas that come to the fofere front? >> it's a user-based system. and if we get away from that. i think we are going to be in real trouble and will be subto the political process. we need a long view, transparent stream of money and it has worked well. we just -- we haven't done a good job of educating the traveling public. >> i know you have been one of the ideas is to move the money and move it into the account as a way to get more money. >> i find every available dollar unspent in washington, d.c., and put it into tifia. >> you brought up user fees as well. do you see it the same way?

>> i do. both of the congressional commissions came out with a whole host of ideas and opportunities and i know they are being explored. some are relatively simple to do and others are more complex. we need to look at the short-term. we have a short-term need and continuing investmt. but there are longer terms options, we need to be looking now of how we transition of what we have in place now to the longer term and tknoling plays a huge role. there are a number of options out there on the table but staying close to the user pay option, it serves us well now and will serve us well in the future. >> i'm going to end this segment with you. although fraggete railroads pay for their own networks new york

city -- networks, but why is it so poo to ve a national freight strategy and in the idea of how railroads fit into this national strategy when they are private based? >> if you look at our economy in the last 0 years, 40% of our economy driven by trade. if you go out to the west coast, these ports, in 2006, when the economy was stl moving forward, these ports were choking because of all the volumes and now we want to double exports. if we don't have national freight vision we won't conct the highways to the ports and the railroads. ifou look at the top 30 cities in our country, it equates for 70% of the commerce and if you look at the costs that are

studied around the world, it's in these top cities. that's where the congestive costs e going to the economy and a lot of it is freight-driven. we did these listening sessions and what we have heard, we don't have a commuter problem but a eight issue in this country that is causing a commuter issue. we have to have a national vision that i think, lays out what the economic future of how we are going to sell, who we are going to sell, those types of things. >> to stay with the idea that when we think of infrastructure for us, it's very broad-based, not just surface-related but aviation and transmission and broadband. we have lou who is the chairman and c.e.o. of a leading clean energy company with 2002

revenues of more than $15 billion, 43 mega what thes of generating capacity and 15,000 employees in 28 states as well as canada. next to matt -- lou is lora, senior adviser to the u.s. secretary of energy, secretary chu. she regulated electricity, natural gas and water industries. thank you both for coming. lou, i'm going to start with you. we hear a lotbout transmission and frarke. but i don't think we really understand the problems that the infrastructure is facing today. >> i want to start by acknowledging what tom said in the earlier panel and pleased to hear it and one of the biggest

opportunities for new jobs is in electric transmission and unlike everything we talked about today, one thing that is different, we don't need a penny of government money to make this happen most people can relate to airlines and roads but don't think about electric transmission and our industry has challenged a lot. we had a vertically-integrated system where electric utilities were all local and built their power plants close t where the electricity was consumed and we didn't need a lot of electricity transmission. there are two things that have changed. one is, many states, it has been opened up to competition and we don't have that vercally integrate the structure and if you owned a power plant, you could sell it anywhere you want. and the second thing is the

advent of renewable energy and there has been renewable energy investments made over e years and renewable whether it's wind, solar or geotherl and you have to build it where the wind below zero or sun shines and not necessarily where the people live. we need to get that clean, economical power to our customers. the transmission system hasn't kept up with that and so we have a lot of constraints in the system. any time you have a constraint that is imposing a tax on consumers because it means the lowest cost electrity can't get to those markets and therefore, higher goss costs, less efficient end up running and there are a lot of benefits transmission investment in terms of reliket in the grid and also using the most efficient

generation resources and all of that will save customers money. our industry wants to invest in new transmission. we have the means by which to do it. but the big challenge has been the way we sighted and paid for transmission. was all based on local community-typed structure. and it doesn't really work for building longer transmissi lines, particularly when you have to cross state lines. so it's a very slow, very rdensome process. and to give you an example, and that's about the same amount of generation that our entire coal fleet in america today has applied for and is waiting for transmission for access to the transmission system and we need more transmission built in order to support that.

very fundamental issues that we are deang with. one is planning, which is where do we put the transmission lines. there is financing. how does it get paid for. and not that the utilities aren't willing to get invested. even thee there is an economic investment and the third is how do you sight these transmission lines. and we at the jobs croum are working on proposals for all three of those and the federal energy regulatory commission is working on these along with the department of energy. >> we are going to come back to questions on the smart grid. but lauren, the federal energy regulatory commission, ferc, i'm hearing about this order called 1,000, about transmission planning and cost allocation. why is this so important? why are we hearing about it? >> what is it and why is it so

pour? >> it accomplishes three things. it helps with the regional planning aspect of transmission. and as lou just mentioned, history keafl with regards to the transmission, everyone was looking and we are the united states and essentially the states were looking only within their own state. and order 1,000 helps put united back into the united states to develop a system that is more integrated, to allow the kind of transfer of electrons that lou is talking about to transform our economy. so the regional planning aspect of it, it helps put guidelines on that and to enforce to design the system and design it in a much more regional manner. it requires the same entities to figure out how to pay for it.

so it doesn't mandate how the grid is going to be paid for but says look, guys, once you develop and pick lines that have to be built to reduce congestion and help power all of these gadgets that you have in your bags right now, you have to figure out how to pay for you and the person who built it pays for it and gets paid back through the ratesr anybody who benefits from a line that is being built with chip-in and they would get paid back, so there are a variety of ways to do it but ferc said you have to get it done. you ha to figure out how to pay for it and match up with the lines that you have identified that need to be built. and it opens up the development of transmission by historically the guys that were building transmission were the incumbent

utilities and what this does is allow and allow them to come in and build and prevents the incumbent utilities from blocking merchant transmission developers from coming in. >> we heard from two business c.e.o.'s about permitting and regulatory hurdles. besides the cost allocations that you mentioned, what are the other reforms that are needed to spark investment in this new transmission smart grid? what are the hurdles you are finding and what are we needing to do? >> the biggest hurdles we find today is sighting and permitting and finding where you are gng to put those lines. nobody wants transmission lines in their back yards. any time you are talking about a new prospect, there are a lot of

people to weigh in. and the system that we use today for sighting transmission lines was developed back in 1935. the world has changed a lot since then and especially as i mentioned forward-building lines that are longer, you start crossing the many state boundaries, so you have many municipalities involved, you have the states, if you cross any federal property, you also have federal government involved. so we need a lot more coordination. and we really need permitting reform. to give you an example of how burdensome the process is. a.e.p., was trying to build a 90-mile transmission line. that's not a long line. to them 13 years to get it sighted and permitted. another example is a.t.c. corporation trying to build a

220-mile line and took six years. i want to contrast that with gas hype lines and i could give you examples, it took 11 months, eight months to build. we know how to do it. we have a great mechanism in place in terms of how we sight this kind of infrastructure. we need to apply the same framework to electric transmission and away we go. we can generate efficiency for customers and follow that model. and there was legislation passed in 2005 as part of the energy poll sill act that really -- that the intent was to provide the federal government more of a role and without you supering the states and called it federal backstop fighting, that law was actually written, we believe we

can really redesign the implementation of it and get a lot more transmission built very, very quickly without changes to the law, without federal money and that sort of thing. >> lauren, i hit it with your government hat on, not to be surprised there is a follow-up. we know the administration has announced the formation of renewable response team. i guess we aren't going to use the acronym. but it's to improve federal coordination and ensure timely review and i meantimely review. how is this initiative going to work and intended to move the process forward? >> let me thank lou because i was one of the attorneys that represented them in sighting that line over the seven years

it took. so i lived through that nightmare and secretary chu brought me on 75 days ago to comment on and figure out how to build things quickly. we actually have a rapid response team for transmission and that's the r.r.t.t. and how that works is a couple of things. we are going to get all of the federal agencies that are dealing with a large transmission project together and we rg going to have a number of projects we are focusing on. we take our federal agencies and sit them down and we get a coordinated schedule amongst all of the agencies and put that schedulep on a dashboard and so the public is going to be able to see when the deadlines are and the immediate milestones are. within each agency there is

rmitting and consulting. there will be specific designated staff that is going to be essentially held accountable for meeting those deadlines and milestones. th staff is going to be trained in transmission shugs specifically. and ing to be trained in transmission technologies and transmission economics and transmission developnt. from my perspective. having them understand is very important so when they are looking at a variety of solutions for a specific prosecute problem, they'll understand the business impacts of picking a specific solution. they are going to have to comply with the statutory requirements and doesn't mean every program is going to be approved but will help with the communication and get things done much more quickly. that is a snapshot and i know the president issued a memo yesterday with regards to

streamlining and making sure we expedite the permitting processes among the agencies which will help a lot. >> lou, my advertisement fee is going to be my last question. we are in texas and next ter after is developing a transmission line in texas as part of the initiative. you might as well tell us about it. >> i'm delighted to be here in texas and texas is a state that has been doing a lot of things right in terms of energy policy. there has been more wind generation built in texas in the last five years than anywhere else in the united states, just as one example. it's all being built in west texas. it is window and there is so much built and we have constraints going from west texas and northern parts of the

state and you see price differentials and wind developers would love to build wind generation and they can't. we, the state figured this out several years ago and they started a process called the competitive renewable energy process and made it a competitive process. my company happened to win a piece of that business. we are building a 300-mile long line from west texas to the northeast part of texas. that's going to involve an investment of $800 million on our part but the entire process represents investments of almost really over $5 billion in new transmission, not requiring any state money, no federal money. it will generate -- these assets will be paying hundreds of millions of taxes into the state.

but most importantly, it's going to- the state of texas is determined it's going to lower electricity prices for people who live in texas on average between $150 and $350 less per customer per year. the environment is going to benefit and the state of texas is going to create jobs in the meantime. >> i'm not going to tell you i gave you that lay-up. [laughter] >> not a lay-up for me but for the state of texas. >> go s.m.u. >> broadband. before we open it to q and a, we want to talk about broadband which people would not necessarily define broadband as infrastructure. david cohen is the executive vice president of a corporation

and serves as a senior council, the acquirer of nbc. his experience extends beyond the corporate suite. many of you are familiar with his tenure as chief of staff to then philadelphia mayor ed rendell he is one of the three, alongside mayor bloomberg and governor schwarzenegger of building america. david, great to have you. and next to david is john donovan, chief technology officer for at&t. thank you for coming, john. and his role, he oversees the global technology and product development, network and engineeringperations, at&t labs and the securitand intellectual property of the

organization. so thank you both for coming. david, i'm going to on up with you. i guess from a macro perspective, talk to us about the role of broadband and economic development in terms of investment in broadband infrastructure and what is your experience will be the most effective in terms of stimulating economic growth? >> thanks, bob great to be here and carrying through on the football theme, one of my other part-time jobs is i'm chair of the trustees of the university of pennsylvania and i wanted dr. walton to know we are also going to be focused on academics. [laughter] >> i have to finish, as a guy who played football at the university of pennsylvania and only way i could get in -- [laughter] >> so, and i think that question really helps to tee up the

question of why broad broadband is part of annfrastructure panel and it plays a unique role, because -- broadband is infrastructure. the broadband plant, wire line or wireless represents investment and jobs and real, physical plant that is layered through the -- layered throughout the entire country. you have the direct impact from building broadband plant and there have been numerous studies done. you could pick your study done. within study which the f.c. cites is a national broadband plan, for every $10 billion that is invested in additional broadband infrastructure in the united states, you create or

retain almost00,000 jobs. real direct connection by investing in broadband. broadband has a longer term economic and jobs impact. that comes on the a doppings side and comes in empowering everything that we talked about today in the sense of if you went back and asked every person who you have talked to how they would conduct their business, how you would run aviation and run an business and surface transportation business, how you would run small businesses that are the vendors of all these businesses, without broadband, they would tell you it is impossible. you get a spinoff eect and there has been recent work done around that question andhat work has concluded that for every one percentage point increase in broadband adoption, you create or retain another 300,000 jobs. so these are investments that

really do produce jobs and really do power the economy both directly and indirectly in terms of long-term investments in the country's future. >> great. john, i think something like 90% of this country, broadband reaches patrol 90%-plus of this country and we are going on those who are declining to participate and getting that type of service, but in the rural areas, in the less populated areas, what role can wireless satellite technology play in lowering the cost of deployment to these currently unserved areas. >> let me underscore what most of the panel has talked about and that is direct connection between infrastructure, jobs and competitiveness. anbefore i jump into the wireless, i would transition by saying that like most of the

infrastructure that has been represented at this table with air and ground and energy, roads and so on, broadband is just a little bitifferent, as david pointed out, because broadband has the added effect of not only the effective development but the wireless broadband is becoming an engine in the economy that is allowing us to get aglobal advantage and one of the most important industries out there and i'll highlight that i don't need to reiterate the velocity of money that discussions most have talked about, but i'll only highlight the fact that nth alone that is spent $75 billion in capital in the last four years in this industry and thendustry itself right through the recession continued to invest for the demand that was out there.

wireless and satellite is economical and i think that there is a lot that is dependent upon the terrain and what is already installed out there, but it is more economical for us and one of the big benefits for the at&t t-mobile merger we stated, it affords us the ability to extend our network from at&t% -% to 87%, so adding 55 million additional membersf the population to adapt broadband. >> we currently have about 35% of our populion that could be

served not taking it up. it is mainly in the low ince households, which is needed the most to furer education, for the job opportunities. what can the private sector and the public sector do to increase the user? >> i really appreciate being asked that question. we are a hvily urban cable company, so we hav more than 99% of the household saddled for broadband, and this is really not a criticism. if you only spend time in washington, you would think of broadband problem was all about

building and constructing broadband. you hear very little about it, yet there are three times the fo times as many who do not subscribe to broadband as there are who do not subscribe to broadband because they have no access. i personally have a passion about urban adoption of a broad band, which is income-based, and the good news is w have some very good research on what the broad jokes region was the projects are, and in preparing the plan, they actually did the country a great service by collecting that research and putting a spotlight on it, and we have identified three major barriers. the first and most important is of bucket of digital literacy

issues. people do not understand what the internet is. they are afraid of it. people think the government will spy on them if they have broad band in their homes. they do not know how to use the computer. they do not know how to use the internet. the second factor is thebsence of computer equipment. to researchers did a study, whichs almost a quarter of the households in america do not own a computer. since i am not sure i know anyone who does not own a computer, i will guarantee i upper income communiti, you are talking about 2% or 3% who not on a computer, and in low income you are talking about 60% or 70% who did not own a computer. if you do not own a computer,

why would you sign up for broadband access the third is the cost of broadbent. it now costs $30 to $40 a month. you can get it cheaper in of promotion or a bundle, but it is an expensive service, so the way the government and private sector has to attach this -- has attack this is through a program that addresses each and every one of these barriers. almost all of them are public- private partnerships with local government, state government, and private sector to try to figure out a way to break down those barriers and to make affordable broadband with affordable equipment and digital literacy available.

we are rolling out a program to recall internet a essentials, which within our footprint we will offer to eligible families of three-part program, broadband service for $9.99 a month. we are going to give them a voucher that will entitle them to buy a computer for $149.95, and we will give them a suite of materials in print online and in person i the communities. we are rolling it out in 4000 school districts in 39 states and the district of columbia. >> that is great. >> we all get our softball.

>> i am waiting for it. we just talked about infrastructure deployment mmon -- so clement, and how do we get there. can tax incentives broadband? what works best and is most fair? tax credits, accelerated depreciation, other options? i know you do not want to put your current political hat on, but if you are putting on your current political hat, what can we do in this economic climate with avoiding this infrastructure? >> i do not own of political cap, but i think asking questions is always a dangerous place to start.

tom donahue mentioned earlier that the broadband is an area that can attract its own investment. i think it has shown a propensity to be an in festival area. henry j. tv and -- has shown a propensity to be an investibal area. projects that are providing stability are much more important than those trying to manage the building of infrastructure, so i would highlight a couple of points. look for things that now gives service providers and no way to maximize. not be overly prescriptive. ke the requirements from being rigid, and focus on the demand

and stimulating demand side of the equations, because we have a side of the segment that just needs a light touch and consistency from the regulatory environment that would allow it to continue to build. >> we are running of a little behind schedule. the idea of repurchasing for broadband only services -- is that sufficient? is that something you would recommend. >> certain public policy more than technology. the fcc has teamed up on universal service reform. at&t has played a leading role in putting a proposed

restructuring, and i think there is widespread in reconstruction. number one, it shoulde repurchased, exclusively for broadband deployment purposes. no. 2, it should be limited to the building of our broadband in underserved locations. no. 3, it should be expanded on a technology bases. there should be some form of cap to limit the consumer expansion to find it, and i am very optimistic that theommission is going to act on this this fall and we are going to create a real appropriate funding stream to be able to address the

deployment side of the broadband issue. >> do not enter data. i have a better question to end with. -- do not answer that. how can funding for government- sponsored institutions demand infrastructure deployment and basically -- you think there is a winning strategy to go forward? >> there are several longstding programs, so today at&t serves several of those anchor institutions, and i think there have been some states that have some creative things, like where you aggregate demand and get something planning that allows you to get sustainable planning in place, so i think a

lot of those programs are out there, and to continue those, about role of stimulating demand, adopting new services, helps accelerate the deployment cycle, so i think continuing those programs are in the barrel and can be executed much more quickly. >> we want to open it up to questions from the audience. we are going to get you a microphone. >> i am the president and ceo. i have officers he -- i have offices here and in dallas. i am fortunate enough to work in the field. did i hear you correctly? did i say -- did i hear you say the high school is here? >> i am not trying to be facetious or cynical.

i thought i heard you say that. >> i think matt mentioned, and matt and i agreed that we need a national transportation policy that sensibly lays out what roadways you need and has to be answered for anything that we do, and i thought that his leadership on that was outstanding. there is a place for rail, air, mara thurman, and -- their return region -- rail, air, matime, and passenger trains. you already have 45 or 50 daily round-trips.

what possible purpose could spending billions of dollars adding passenger trains that will only get you there slower -- what purpose does that serve? but as the question we have to ask ourselves. thank you for dishing me the soft ball, too. we are in business to win customers, and if we are lucky, and we have cents. -- fans. we are in the transportation business. if we thought people really wanted to travel between dallas and houston on a tin, we would do that, but in taking a more holistic picture, you can put a ain in, and what are you going to do? you are going to take people off airplanes -- not everybody and

not very many people, but you are going to diminish one mode that is already built. new york to washington and is different. it plays a valuable re, and it is the. one reason you do not have high- speed rail in many cities in the united states of america and now i would argue is because you have southwest airlines, and europe did not. lastly, there is no rail system in the world that makes a profit. not one, so if we wt to change the user fee system we have with rows or air to a subsidized system, i do not think that is

the right direction, but we can vote on that. >> in this corner. next question. >> i am an american merchant mariner, and we have not heard a lot about maritime today, and i want to follow up on a comment that our courts are congested. i wanted to mention that texas has more maritime activity, and we are looking at that to expand in the near future, particularly with not the panama canal, and we are probably going to be dealing

with a lot more infrastructure requirements. we think the term has come to build a marine highway network, and that would be to get some of the cess cargo of the railway is -- of the railway. this would be better for the environment. it would be better for safety and relief where andear on our bridges and roads. how do you see that plan working out? is that on the radar screen? we think it potentially could be a public-private partnerships, and i would like to hear your i eighth -- to hear your ideas. >> higher agree about traffic safety. i think the water system is not unlike the infrastructure. it is in real trouble.

the trust fund is not working. there is a lot of money we cannot get spent, and we go through the same stuff. as far as european trade, it is going to come down to a permit issued. you cannot permit a new and who water court in california. we are doing them in texas. we are expanding. it is an industrial oil refinery location. you go out there, and you go, this is notuts. you would never build the national transportation highway system we have today, because some of the views we have

allowed to say stop. a lot of freight is going to go to canada, because they are welcoming it. they have a government initiative to build more support capacity. you are going to see more trade go to mexico, because they have a government initiative to build more jobs. we are the only country i know of that we shun its, so at some point the american public now is going to say, a enough is enough. putting of court since the facility and spending half a billion dollars to green it ought not is a pretty good deal -- sue green it is a pretty good deal, but we are not there yet. >> any other questions? >> i am thinking about the job studies i ha seen by

economistsn the broadbent new issue, and a lot of the emphasis is on the construction -- on the constraint, so it seems to me if there is an issue of the money may be there, but there is a partially a scarce resources, so i thought maybe david might want to say something about that. >> this is a technical question. >> we have a good dision of responsibility. >> that is certainly paramount. as you looked at the assets necessary, it is dramatically different. there has been a challenge of a policy that has been 25 years

and going on and on, but underneath that, the demand that exists today is causing a spectrum crisis in america, and one thing is that our focus on with t-mobilis to find the spectrum, and that continues to be a dark cloud on the jobs and innovation donohue that looms, maybe not for every market in the next six months but for some markets in the next six months, so for the next 12 months there are going to be some the start to run out, and that is gog to be bad for jobs and bad for growth. not only is this about providing

a service for users. it is also about providing a catalyst in an industry where we have a global leadership. >> another difference between a lot of infrastructure issues, and i do not say this to be an apologist in any way for the administration, but the administration has laid out a series of specific plans to be able to address the broad band infrastructure needs and adoption needs of the country. they are not controversial. they do not cost theovernment money. they actually make money, so

whether it is the broad band plans, the president's wireless initiatives, the national broadbent plans initiative on wireless, this has been laid out in a very clear way in this environment. this tells me how ta boil all this is in a relatively short term. >> you forgot merger approval. >> i just wanted to say one thing for our texans. senator hutchison deserves credit for her leadership. she joined hands with rockefeller in a truly bipartisan piece of legislation. it passed 21 voice in favor. a majority of republicans and a

majority of democrats. it does three things, and delivers $10 blion in deficit reduction, puts us on a path that opens the capacity for innovation we are seeing. our smart phones consume 25 times more than which than voice phones. cabalists -- tablets consume more than phones, so this industry is incredibly dynamic, extremely enthusiastic, and it is going to run up against his capacity crunch if we do not get our long term plan. we are 10 years today from one of the biggest tragedies in our nation's histo. we have not given our first

responders access to the tools r kids he. my fourth grader has a better schools than our first responders do. it is high time we give them the infrastructure and services they need. we can make this happen. it is bipartisan. >> we want to thank this panel. i was also going to thank senator hutchison, a she formed the energy financing bill, which is similar to what we have been talking about, and something are council has been looking at in a positive light and something we are going to continue to speak

about. fore we end, i would like to see if i can ask laura to come back top. >> i have been given the task of closing remarks. my job is zero -- it is an enviable -- un-enviable because he is so wonderful. i would like to thank everyone for coming and the panel. [applause] thanking smu, and i just want to reiterate that the council is an ongoing process. it is dedicated to an ongoing discussion of issues. i think you have heard clearly

that the council does not always agree. i think the discussion of the railroad illustrates that a little bit, so i think what we are trying to do is get as much employment as weekend. we have common with recommendations from the president. an illustration that he is taking this seriously was his announcement yesterday. these are things that came off of the focus, of trying to say, let's get some things done we agree upon. we are discussing recommendations. the president is listening. following this, anyone listening on c-span, if anyone wants to senddeas, we suggest they go rights to don.

he is our coordinator inside the treasury. you can tell we have a lot of technically sophisticated people who do things like pay attention to e-mail and stuff like that, sir your ideas will be heard. thank you forthcoming. thank you for being involved. we will do our best to make sure good ideas get to the president and that the a administration act upon it. thank you for a much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> all the problems of the time, you could get from this guy. why we could not elect them was the same reason we went to war. >> he had the misfortune of

running against the great military hero, dwight eisenhower. i do not think there was anyway adlai stevenson could have won. >> you think of at least the linsin in 1928. he paved the way for franklin roosevelt. there are 14 people in this series. all of whom they will find interesting and fascinating and surprising. >> a history professor and a presidential historian talk about the 14 men who ran for president and lost tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. it is a preview for "the

contenders," a series beginning friday, september 9. >> we will have remarks from sarah palin. she will be one of the speakers at the tea party america rally. live coverage begins at noon eastern. we will be carrying the event on c-span radio and at our web site, c-span.org. up next on c-span, pennsylvania republican senator pat toomey holds a town meeting. he was selected as a member of the deficit reduction committee. it is a 12 member bipartisan panel charged with cutting spending by things given. this is about one hour, 10 minutes. [applause]

>> i have the pleasure of introducing pat toomey. he was elected on a platform of restoring fiscal responsibility. since joining the senate, he has distinguished himself as a leader on economic and into services and budgetary issues, trying to restore fiscal discipline to washington and economic opportunities for all americans. he has introduced a team here balanced budget proposal that received more votes in the senate than any other budget plan this year. he has successfully cut the red tape for local communities and job creators in pennsylvania. he serves on the budget,

banking, commerce, and joint select committee on deficit- reduction and the joint economic committee. he is also the ranking member on the consumer protection products safety and insurance committee. he previously served in congress as a member of the house of representatives from pennsylvania's 15 congressional districts. in the fulfilment of his preterm pledge, he retired from the house in 2004. in addition to his public service, he has also served as president of the club for growth, owned and operated a small restaurant chain in lehigh valley and work in the financial-services industry. a graduate of harvard university, he lives with his wife chris and their three children. please welcome senator pat toomey. [applause]

>> i ask that you all join us for the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the lack of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> thank you, kim. i would like to thank our host for providing a terrific forum. this is a great spot and a great place to do this. i thank everybody for taking the time to be here today. these series of round table discussions and town hall meetings i have been having have been helpful to me, helpful in bringing me up to speed about some of the challenges we face in getting this economy moving.

i am grateful for them. just yesterday, we had a town hall meeting. i see a couple low folks who are back with us again. -- of folks who are back with us again. a wide range of opinions were presented. that is what we should be having, a free and open debate about the challenges we face as a country. it is great for me to be back in this county. my family was here last weekend. my daughter is a girl scout. her troupe had a white water rafting expedition. we decided to make its eighth family outing. we left our 16 month old with -- make it a family outing. we left our 16 month old with a babysitter. it was a great afternoon. such a great resource to have in

this part of pennsylvania. i am will give a quick overview of the two big agenda items that i have been focusing on since i have been in the senate for a months. -- 8 months. i will use a few charts so that i will not wander off of my train of thought. i would like to have your comments and observations and thoughts. the two big items for me have been trying to move washington policy in a direction that will encourage economic growth rather than discourage it. i believe a lot of the policies being pursued in the last few years are costing us jobs, not helping us to create jobs. i am tried to move us in a direction where we will be able to -- i am trying to move us in a direction where we can have job growth and have a strong and

viable economy and create job opportunities for people who need them. that is focused number one. the second is to try to restore fiscal sanity in a place that has lost its. i am not overstating the case when you consider the budget disaster we have going on. i will speak more about that at the end of my comments. we have a chart. these are some of the town told me -- town hall meetings i have been having all over the commonwealth. let's look at the next one. what i have been hearing from constituents is remarkably similar at these meetings. i think everybody gets that we need to get our fiscal house in order in washington. it should be a high priority. it is created -- it is related to creating jobs. as long as washington is running excessive deficits, that

has an effect on our ability to grow in the private-sector. i have heard about how existing regulations, newly proposed regulations and the threat of new regulations are blocking job growth, business creation, business expansion. i will tell you the one that appears to be the worst offender from the pennsylvania and i have spoken to. the epa. what they are doing and what they are threatening to do -- i will give you some examples of how it is absolutely costing us jobs. i have been working hard to push back on the regulatory excesse'' of the epa. the obamacare, the big health care bill, a huge problem for employers, a huge problem for job growth. i want to talk about its impact for pennsylvania, which disturbs me a great deal. lastly, even local governments are being adversely affected by some of these new regulations.

we have some good news on that front. it is also a problem. if we could go to the next chart. if we ask the question, where have the jobs gone, part of the answer is, the jobs have gone here. the excessive regulation and this wave of new rule-making and controls exceeds that of the bush administration and the clinton administration's. it is starting to add up. -- bush administration and the clinton administrations. you have heard of this act for them, mact. it is a way the epa uses to impose more stringent regulations on industrial america. power companies and manufacturers of all kinds. i am in favor of moving in the direction of cleaner air.

we have cleaner air today than we did 20 or 40 years ago. that progress is good. i hope we can continue to make progress. we have to be careful how we do it. the new proposals that the epa has put out that would require all industrial companies -- all companies -- to replace the boilers they use is devastating to huge segments of industrial pennsylvania. when example, in particular. a paper manufacturer. they are the biggest in player in their county. the millions of dollars it would cost them to replace their boilers could jeopardize their ability to keep everybody that they have working working. it is an example of the kind of problem that is caused by these regulations. the chesapeake bay regulations. runoff rules that put a huge portion of the burden of further

improving the water quality of the chesapeake on agriculture when it is not entirely clear that agriculture is the source of the problem. i am concerned about the impact that is having on pennsylvania firms. new ozone standards. we have made progress on reducing the level of ozone. the epa wants another generation of rules to come out. if they have their way and their rule becomes effective, most of pennsylvania will be not in compliance. most of pennsylvania will be out of compliance. what that means is, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to open up a new facility that they perceive might contribute to the level of ozone. that is baffling to our ability to create new jobs. -- that is stifling to our ability to create new jobs.

i talked to a company where they employ hundreds of people at good paying jobs. they decided they are going to grow and build a new plant. they will hire part of the reason is the new ozone rules would put in a burdensome set of costs on them if they were to expand in pennsylvania. so they're going to grow. they're going to hire new workers. it's just not going to be here. that's the kind of regulation that really disturbs me. yesterday, i was -- i started the day in mckeon county and went to a fascinating company. the north america's oldest continuously operating oil refinery. it's a small oil refinery. they are -- occupy a little niche. and they take pennsylvania oil, exclusively, and then they refine it to a series of niche products. they don't make their money competing with the big guys and making gasoline and diesel. their business is making

lubricants. and waxes and other things that you can make from oil. well, the e.p.a. has a new set of regulations they want to apply to refineries in general. there are huge fixed costs in complying with these regulations. if you're exxonmobil, or you're conoco, you can probably absorb those costs because you can spread them out over the millions of barrels of oil that they refine. but if you're an american refining group, one of the biggest employers in mckeon county, you only do 10,000 barrels a day. they will not be able to afford these costs. this is what i nene when i talk about these consecutive regulations. i think we all want to have a clean environment and continue to make progress on clean air and clean water. but we've got to do it in a sensible way. and i think some of these regulatory agencies are not. the next one is specific to -- you went backward. go to the next chart. i just -- i'm moving along

quickly here. the health care bill, i think, is profoundly problematic at many levels. but just a couple that are specific to pennsylvania, we've got a big successful relatively young life sciences industry. these are medical devices, some of them are in the pharmaceutical field. the discoveries and inventions are breathtaking. the job growth has been impressive. but it's threatened by this new tax, not on their profits, but on their total sales. a lot of these companies are small and they're startups and they don't have profits yet. they will nevertheless be forced to pay taxes on their sales and we have some quotes here from some of the folks who have been hiring regularly including fujirobo in suburban philadelphia and bo surgical. and they're saying this tax could be enough -- actually it's already stopped them from further hiring. it could have even worse consequences. this is a problem. we've got a tax on orphan drug

makers that's a huge problem. let me touch quickly on some of the things that i'm trying to do to push back on these regulations. i've introduced a bill that will affect the e.p.a. i was shocked to discover that they are not required to consider the impact, adverse impact on jobs that their regulations could have. i don't think that's very reasonable. i think they have to make that consideration. because that's part of the costs they need to weigh against any perceived benefit. my bill would require that for any future regulations, the e.p.a. would have to weigh the costs of jobs lost and publicize that so that the public and congress and the various states affected would be able to weigh in and hopefully push back. i mentioned the orphan drug act. i'm looking to repeal the medical device act. and we have some broad support for that. i don't know if we've got enough but we're going to keep working on it. some of the unfunded mandates. this came to my attention earlier this year. that we had a transportation department rule that was going

to require every municipality in america to replace all their street signs. anybody hear about this? replace all your street signs. talk about a solution in search of a problem. this costs millions of dollars for your average municipality. how many municipalities in pennsylvania are sitting on millions of dollars of excess cash? i don't know of any. right? and so that means property taxes would necessarily go up to pay for this, totally unnecessary mandate. now, to the credit of the administration, ray lahood is the secretary of transportation. is former member of congress. i served with him in the house and got to know ray. and reached tout him early on. and requested a waiver for one particular municipality that had a good argument they wanted to preserve the historic and unusual character of their street signs. and he immediately granted the waiver. much to his credit. and we continued the discussion. we've joined a group of other legislators and municipal leaders from across the country. and they have decided to

suspend that regulation altogether. it's not going to go into effect. so every once in a while you have a win here and that's important. and that's part of why i'm here today. if you have a specific example of a regulation, a mandate, a cost that is not reasonable, that is consecutive, that is preventing you -- that is competitive, that is preventing you from getting a job, creating a job, that's what i would like to hear the most. let me wrap up. one other success in terms of job creation for pennsylvania that i was delighted to have a modest role in but the shipyard tkoup in philadelphia -- down in philadelphia, and very little work for a long time. but they just won a big contract. to build two tankers for exxonmobil. it's hundreds of millions of dollars and will allow them to bring several hundred, maybe more, skilled workers back to work in building these tankers. i was delighted to be involved in that. let's go to the last one. and i'll just sum up here. these are the things that i

think we ought to be doing to maximize job growth and economic growth. one, we need fiscal balance. i personally would like to see a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. i introduced a budget that balances over 10 years. i don't think it's realistic to balance the budget overnight but over time. it's a very reasonable goal. and i think we ought to get there. i think we need to have stable tax rates. i will tell you right now i'm not in the camp that believes it's a good idea to raise taxes. i think that will do more harm to our economy than good. and we're not undertaxed although i will say we have an absurd tax code that has so much -- so many ridiculous features that are there because special interests carved them out. i'm all in favor of reforming it. so that we can get rid of those kind of features. as i mentioned we certainly need to reduce regulations. we need sound money. we could talk about this if anyone would like to. but i've been a critic. fed's policy. and we need open markets. i was just at a farm in lehigh

county where the farmer exports hay. and i didn't realize this but a substantial portion of the hay that's grown in pennsylvania is exported. he believes that our exports to south korea will double if we pass the free trade agreement with korea. because it lowers the tariff on american sales into south korea very, very constructive. last thing i want to mention is the joint select committee that i've been put on to address this fiscal challenge. i said earlier, i don't think you can overstate how bad a mess we're in. we're running 1 1/2, almost $1.5 trillion deficits each year. we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that we spend as a government. does anybody think that that's -- that's sustainable? it's totally not sustainable. we've racked up a level of debt that's unprecedented. and in my view, the threat of higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher taxes, that that poses, is already having a chilling effect on our economy.

i think it's desperately important that we get this under control. i'm looking forward to working with the other 11 members of this committee. it's bipartisan. it's bicameral. six republicans and six democrats. house members and senate equally balanced. and we have an extraordinary opportunity because if we can agree on a package to reduce this deficit, then both the house and the senate are required to have up or down votes in a very short time frame. it is not subject to obstruction. it cannot be amended. it cannot be filibustered. if we can pass this in congress, i feel quite confident the president will feel compelled to sign it. and if we can -- if we can use this opportunity to put ourselves on a sustainable fiscal path to just moving in that direction, i know we're not going to solve all of these problems by any means, but if we can move the direction it can be very constructive for the sake of job growth for our economy and for our future. so thanks very much for being here. and i welcome your questions, comment, observations. -- comments, observations.

>> good morning, senator. >> good to see you again. >> good to see you again. my name is dan from philadelphia. unemployed worker. >> yeah. >> laid off from express script with 650 other people due to corporate greed and outsourcing of jobs. so yesterday, up in countersport, myself and a gentleman from tayoga county asked a direct question we feel was not answered. so we want to know why you will not support taxing corporations and millionaires to bring more revenue instead of asking the working folks and the working poor to bear all the burden of taxes. the tax breaks they have now from the bush era, all of that done -- all they've done is create a big deficit. the job losses that we have now started during the bush era. so we need to get those folks that are not paying their taxes

to start paying their taxes, you know, they get tax breaks. and also get a federal refund every year. and i'm paying my taxes still on unemployment. i know yesterday you said you didn't -- you didn't know that unemployment you have to pay taxes on. but yeah, i am paying taxes on my unemployment. and i still have to pay federal taxes. i may get a refund at the end of the year but still got to pay it now and i'm hurting now. and so are 14 million other people in this crinlt. and especially pennsylvania. -- in this country. and especially pennsylvania. bringing jobs to pennsylvania, it hasn't happened. all we hear is you going to lobbyists and business people. to meet with them. but nothing has happened. when are we going to have jobs? when are you going to support us? >> i thought i answered it yesterday. but i'm happy to answer the question again for you today. and i will say i'm really not going to apologize for meeting

regularly with groups of small business owners, chambers of commerce, when they invite me there. and let's face it. those are the people that are going to hire unemployed workers and sthare going to crailt the -- and they're going to create the jobs that we need. [applause] mitch, if could you bring up chart number 24, let me make a few observations. and this gentleman brings up a point of view that is -- is fairly widely held. he's not in a tiny minority here. i don't share his point of view but it's understandable. the question is whether we should raise taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. my own view is the problem is not that we're undertaxed. the problem is that we overspend. and the federal government has grown its spending as a percentage of our economy by 25% in two years. that is a staggering expansion in the size of government. and that itself has a huge cost on our ability to create jobs to grow an economy because the

more the government consumes of our -- the results of our hard work, the less growth we're going to have. this is well documented. this is historical. it's around the world. it's an american history. politicians don't allocate resources as wisely as markets do. as wisely appearance individuals do sitting around -- as individuals do sitting around the kitchen table. that's what it comes down to. who will allocate the results of hard work of productive people, politicians or the people who produced it? i'm in favor of the hands that produced it rather than in the hands of government. there's also an important point about competitiveness. because it's not the case that corporations and millionaires don't pay taxes. you can believe that they don't pay enough, but you can't argue that we don't have corporate taxes. i would argue that the american corporate tax rate is too high. and here's why. this is a chart, it's not my data, by the way, this is the peterson foundation that produces this. they're a nonpartisan, actually most people think they lean slightly center-left. but be that as it may their data is certainly credible.

it shows something that's widely known. the united states is here. we have the second highest not only marginal corporate tax rate in the entire industrial world, but the second highest effective tax rate. in other words, after you take into account the deductions and the fact that some corporations pay little or nothing in taxes, on average, our businesses, and therefore our workers, are at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world. i don't think that makes sense. and that's the case. but that's why i don't want to raise this burden and make us even less competitive and encourage multinationals to leave the united states and go somewhere where the tax burden will be less. having said that, the gentleman makes a very valid point when he refers to corporations that pay no taxings. when one of the biggest most successful and famous corporations in the world pays no income taxes, that's outrageous. and it's wrong.

[applause] totally indefensible. but let's also consider some of the reasons why. they're complying with the tax code. they're not breaking any laws. this is congress' fault. and part of it is because there is such huge tax giveaways for so-called green energy projects that you have the tail wagging the dog. they're making decisions based on the tax code. they're choosing to produce things that are not economically competitive. but they get a huge tax break and so they do it. and at the end of the day, they pay nothing in taxes. that's an outrage. and i am in favor of dramatically reforming the tax code, simplifying it and making it much more fair and eliminating these ridiculous giveaways and loopholes that special interest groups have carved out, and at the same time, using that opportunity to then lower rates so that we're in the competitive end of this graph and we start winning against our competitors in europe and asia. [applause]

>> thank you for holding this town hall. my name is gene barr, vice president of government public affairs for the pennsylvania chamber of business and industry. we're the largest broad based business advocacy group in pennsylvania. and i represent the people who would love to hire people like dan and others in this room and elsewhere in pennsylvania. i want us to pass on to you a survey that we just completed of hundreds of businesses across pennsylvania. just within the last week or two. and we asked them an open ended question to go to some of your previous points about what is the problem in job creation now? what are they seeing? what are they concerned about? number one wax the economy, not a surprise -- was the economy, not a surprise. number two, hindering job creation, the competitive regulations, the -- the consecutive regulations, these business people are all across pennsylvania and all sizes and all kinds of businesses. one of those things was one that you hinted at which is the federal health care. and i'll talk about one point specifically wigs the provisions of the federal health care kick in when you

have 50 or more employees. if you're a small business with 45 employees, particularly in this time, you're going to think long and hard about adding five employees to your rolls to pick up costs that are undrmed at this point. the question would be, do we have any chance -- the goals of health care are laddable. do we have any chance of going back in and crafting a health care proposal that really does what it should do which is lower health care costs for everyone and not hinder job creation? thank you. >> it's a great point. [applause] i often will ask small business groups at a chamber of commerce gathering or some other roundtable how many people believe that the result of obamacare is going to be to lower the cost of providing health insurance for their workers. and i've never seen a hand go up. it's a huge problem. and you're absolutely right. when you create this threshold that says all of these new burdens are going to kick in if you hire more than 50 workers, well, guess what? we're going to make sure they

don't hire the 50th worker. terrible policy. we don't have a consensus in congress to repeal it. we had a vote in the house to repeal it. we had a vote in the senate. and unfortunately, it went on party lines. i spo full repeal of this bill -- i support full repeal of this bill and replacing it with an alternative series of reforms that would lower the costs and improve access without all of these mandates and huge expense and the government's consecutive -- excessive intrusion into the delivery of health care. we don't have a consensus receipt now. what we're trying to do is work around the edges where we can. you might recall -- i know you recall the 1099 provision in this bill. this was a provision that would require every business to file a form with the i.r.s. every time they spend more than $600 on anything. now, stop and think about that. a small contractor is going to spend more than $600 filling up his pickup with gas. you have to keep track of every gas station that you go to and when you reach $600 that's a

1099 for that one. can you imagine the administrative hassle of trying to keep track of this sort of thing? that was in the bill. we were able to get that repealed. it took three votes on the senate floor before we could get a majority. but we finally did. i mentioned that because it illustrates that occasionally there are little risme shot improvements we can -- little risme shot imprfments we can make but not solve the problem until we repeal it and replace it with an alternative set of reforms. [applause] >> my name is rick elbert and i work for the postal service and they claim they're going through some hard times. i would like to know why we can process a bar coded piece of mail, meaning a letter or magazine, for 2 1/2 cents, why are we paying places like pitney bowes 10 1/2 cents to do the same mail? what this mail does then is it

comes back to our facility and it's presorted. but you have 100 trays of other mail that also has to get sorted. so this presorted mail just gets dumped into the mail stream. i don't know. it just doesn't seem right. and we only process about 17% of the available mail out there. and my other comment about it is the postal service was mandated by congress, the only government agency to prefund future retirees' benefits. i believe there was $39 billion in this account to begin with. what happened last year was the postal service overpaid this fund by $60 billion. they're trying to recoup this money. who makes that kind of mistake and keeps their job?

>> yeah. in government it happens all the time. >> you know, let's say -- we can deliver a letter from allentown to allentown. talking about praoistizing for less than 44 -- privatizing for less than 44 cents. that includes training me to go to oklahoma anywhere from two days to six weeks. there's a thousand mechanics, technicians there coming and going all the time. they house us. they pay us. we get trained. and that's in with your 44 cents. i don't think fedex would do that. another thing when the post office does a study, like where to put a new processing center, they pay big bucks to have this survey done so they can place it in the right area. well, within six months, guess who's right around the corner? the fedex, u.p.s., they don't pay a dime. and it's -- it's just a shame.

there's so much mail out there. and sure, email has cut back a bit. but why are we only processing 17% of the mail? that means private companies are doing that. work that we can do in house for like i said 2 1/2 cents as opposed to us paying 10 1/2 cents. thank you. >> well, thank you. that was certainly informative. and i hope it will be the first to confess that i know nothing about the postal service's sorting system. [inaudible] to fund the postal service. we don't pay city tax or whatever -- >> property taxes, right. thanks for your input. let me -- i am not familiar with the status of the pension system. but we'll take a look at that. and i appreciate your bringing it up.

>> hi. my name is pat senafane and thank you for coming to inform us of your progress in congress. i have a two-part question. the first part is this. most people today feel that congress has relinquished its authority and has given it over to czars. we have never had a situation where we have people who have never been cross-examined by congress as to their background. we even had a communist -- registered communist working in the white house earlier in this administration. and i would like to know what you feel should be done so that this country never gets into this situation again. and secondly, the other part is the national labor relations board in boeing, and how it's

tilted to the left and unions and how they stopped a thousand jobs in south carolina, how now they're making rules and regulations. and here i believe it to be an advisory capacity of this board, not a government agency. why are they allowed to do this? thank you. [applause] >> i think it's -- it's hard to dispute the idea that congress has voluntarily relinquished authority that i think the constitution intended congress to have to the executive. and to the bureaucracy of the executive branch is stunning in its scale. and i think it's just way too big. one of the ways that we have to provide a check on that is

through the power of the purse strings. this is also by the really brilliant forsythe and design of the -- foresight and design of the constitution by the forefathers. in the annual funding bills that fund the government including the executive branch, congress can go through and decide how much money they're going to get and what they get to spend it on. so this is actually a very useful process by which we could decide, for instance, that money used to fund the national labor relation board, would not be permitted to be spent to have them telling companies where they can locate their future plants. i think it should go without say, but obviously it doesn't. so we could force that issue. here's the problem. congress has become so dysfunctional that we don't have a federal budget and we're not doing appropriation bills. senator reid made it very clear. very open about it now. for more than two years in a row, the federal government, by his decision, refuses to produce a budget. now, i went on the budget

committee because i wanted to play some role and whatever i could do to change the fiscal path we're on. believe me, i was shocked and i'm still furious that we didn't even have a budget. it's required by law. the 1974 budget act requires congress to do it. so this is a flagrant violation of the law. more fundamentally, it's an abdication of a basic responsibility. the government's the biggest enterprise in the world. we spend $3.7 trillion and to think we have no budget. and so i introduced my own. and we -- and forced a vote on the senate floor for my own. but i wasn't able to get cooperation from the other side. so we couldn't pass that. but i think it's appalling that we don't have a budget. now, why do i mention this? in part because one of the consequences is that this is the first step in the process that then leads to a series of individual funding bills that are supposed to be consistent with the overall budget. we have done none of those. and that means guys like me and the other 99 senators have had

no opportunity to go down to the senate floor and influence policy by offering an amendment to change the funding for a czar tore an nlrb or an e.p.a. or any of the others. it's ridiculous. and we're going to go back into session in september and the first point of discussion is going to be some giant humongous funding bill for the whole government because we haven't gone through this process. and i assure you we will not have the kind of opportunities we should have to affect policy the way you're describing. and i know it sounds like procedural minaya and tedious and i apologize -- minutee and tedious and i apologize. but this is the way the congress can reflect the will of the people we represent and if we don't have a process for doing that you end up with government by the executive branch without being able to hold it in check. [applause]

>> senators, thank you so much for coming to carbon county. my name is robert dages and i'm a businessman and own three businesses. and so does my wife and children here. i do it entrepreneurial style. it's my opinion, my conviction, sir, that the biggest problem to business is government. government being in competition with private business. sir, there's three parts to this issued question. it has to do with the bill of rights. it has to do with government moving outside their charter. and it has to do with transparency in government. first, moving outside their charter, we have the situation here in carbon county, also

known as packard and ginyards, a big cost, my understand, the excise tax on gambling went to fund that project when it was supposed to come back for a tax relief. sir, when i pressed issues, they said they had constitutional authority to move outside provisional authority to do what they're doing. they would never give it. when i pressed it in court, horrendous decision came, which now allows any official, there's actually case support to move outside of category in kind, and move away from government charter into corporate law, corporate charter, and use -- and use corporate law, litigation issues, to argue for client attorney privilege with an affidavit to being the

appropriate roadblock to deface us from making redress of grievances which is our bill of rights. i've taken this to a new level and i would like you to call the chief clerk of commonwealth courts and follow case 1415. and see that it gets the attention that it needs. so would you tell me, please, senator, what you are doing for transparency in government? >> well, first, let me say that i think it would be helpful if you could spend some time with one of my staff afterward. i really didn't fully follow some of the aspects of what you are referring to. i think some of it is specific to state government and probably -- i probably don't have much of a role in some aspects. but maybe i do and i would be happy to try to determine that. as a general matter, i'm a believer that transparency is a

good thing. and sunshine is a good disinfectant. and the government ought to operate with as much transparency as possible. and then citizens can hold their government accountable. so i would like to work with you if we can on the specifics of the issue that you raised. thanks. >> senator, i am a businessman. i have built and sold three businesses in pennsylvania, including a manufacturing company. i have dealt with government regulation all my life. i have to respectfully request that you take it easy on the environmental protection agency. i am also the father of four children. i have a stake in the next generation.

while i recognize that the paper mill you will meet with tomorrow in pennsylvania need to create jobs and to maintain production, i also recognize that what they are asking you to do is make it so they do not have to invest in state of the art clean oilers. they are asking you --to you- clean bo -- clean boilers. i believe in capitalism, free markets, and liberty. i believe that your liberty and swear in french of -- enfringe -- infringes on my right to exist. the paper mail is asking you to let them pollute. the coal power -- mill is asking

you to let them pollutes. the coal power plant is asking you to let them pollute our air. i disagree with that. i think it is time that we stop thinking of our atmosphere as a sewer for toxic waste can we stop letting companies dumped mercury, carbon monoxide into the air we breathe. that is not liberty. i do not care if my electricity went up 5%. i would pay that to have clean water and clean air. i just had to respectfully suggest that to you that maybe take it easy on the epa. what i wanted to ask you about is our precarious dependence on oil. our entire economy is dependent on oil. as i think you probably know, the united states has 2% of the

world's oil. 2%. if we had to rely on our own oil, it would last four years. to me, as a business person, it seems reckless and irresponsible that we let our business model for the country cling to that precarious dependence. 81% of the oil is in saudi arabia, venezuela, russia, libya. they controlled 81% of the world's oil. my question is this. america has done so many great things. why are we not rising to the occasion and creating clean energy technologies that we can deploy throughout our country and get off of the foreign oil and stop importing foreign oil and exports this technology? i think that is what will create jobs for america and the clean

energy for the next generation. why is the senate not embracing the concept? -- that concept? >> thank you for that. you are the first person to suggest that i go easy on the epa. it is a good alternative point of view. i would just remind everybody that we all pollute. most of us probably got here by a car. there is some pollution that comes out of the back end of a car. there is a certain amount that is part of our lives. we have made enormous progress on the missions we put in our atmosphere. i am in favor of -- the emissi on we put in our atmosphere. i am in favor of the process. we have to be careful about doing this because there is a cost. when that costs us jobs, that is

a price a family is paying. it has to be weighed against the hope that there will be a benefit in the form of cleaner air. i want to move on to your point about oil. it is an important additional point. i doubt there is anyone in the room who doesn't believe we should continue to strive for cleaner air and cleaner water. it is a question of the pace at which we do it and how we do it. we have to do it in a rational and careful way that does that damage the economy. no question we have a huge dependence on foreign oil. it is a huge national security vulnerability for us. we have not done anything about it in a long time. we did not leave the stone age because we ran out of stones. we figure out a better way to make tools. in time, we will figure out

alternatives to fossil fuels. right now, fossil fuels are more affordable as a means of producing energy and transportation. one of the things that is encouraging to me about our dependence on foreign oil is the natural gas we have discovered here in the united states, specifically pennsylvania. in the first time in our history, it is plausible to see an alternative to oil has been a transportation fuel of choice. natural gas is already cost competitive to gasoline. we do not have a natural gas refueling infrastructure the way we have a gasoline refueling infrastructure. it takes less infrastructure to take it from the ground. we have a staggering supply. we have a huge supply just in the marcellus shale.

it is equivalent to half of all the oil in saudi arabia. there are other comparable fields throughout the country. we also have our own oil, which i think we should develop more of. that would diminish our dependence on foreign oil. we have in alaska and offshore. i think we should be developing every source that is economically competitive, of which there are many. over time, the technology will emerge that will introduce new sources. as that happens, we should embrace them. i am in favor of most of the above when it comes to an energy policy. [applause] >> hi, i live in harting,

pennsylvania. my question will not change because of what you were talking about about oil and gas. the gas industry -- the natural gas industry is not exactly sure of the outcome that they are projecting with the chemicals that they use and the contamination from the dissolved solids and a lot of things that are involved. there has been no study by our government to protect us. my original question was about the epa. one of the reasons we have, as you stated, the best ever, is because of the rules and regulations from the epa. the epa relies on science. science tells the epa that this chemical is bad. that chemical is bad. we should not have in our bodies

more than 0.8%. my question is, how can you say, i am going to give you a job, but you have to hold your breath for 8 hours? how can i tell my child that he can only eat one fish per month? how can we let companies pollute? it may create a job, but five years from now i will have leukemia. 10 years from now you are going to have something wrong. how does that -- how is that actually cost effective in the long run? how can we allow lobbying in congress? our d.e.p. is one of the lowest

rate in the state. we are used as an example of bad d.e.p. regulations. trouble because of the gas companies lobbying our representatives that we elected to protect us. how is lowering chemical protection, epa protection actually going to benefit me or my family? >> maybe i was not clear. i am not suggesting that we reverse the progress we have made over these recent decades. what i am is suggesting is that the new way of regulations that the epa is trying to impose -- some of them go too far and happen to suddenly without examining the implication. if the benefit of a new regulation is actually going to

save lives and it is measurable and we can clearly establish a significant benefit, we need to do it. in some of these cases, the benefits are tenuous and the costs are real. i have to disagree of your characterization of the d.e.p. it is my understanding that the d.e.p. is qualified to regulate marcellus shale. that should be some comfort. the fluid that is being injected into the stone is being injected two miles below the surface of the earth. it is kept and contained in steel tubes. this is extensively regulated. i am in favor of regulating to the best practices out there.

i am convinced that the best practices make for a safer approach. i have been too well sites. i have the -- to well sites. we should put whatever resources we have to make sure that that is what happens. i think the epa is capable of doing it. [applause] >> three more questions. if you did not get your question in, raise your hand. >> my name is paul. i am a retired steelworker. you mentioned a big corporation that did not pay any taxes. i think you were referring to

generally that trick. am i right? >> yes. >> i think they got some of the stimulus money. their ceo is jeffrey immelt. he was a big supporter of president obama. general electric is one of the biggest manufacturers of light bulbs. they are manufactured in china. there was a vote in congress a little while ago to ban incandescent bulbs. is the band going to be voted on again? when they close all of these plants -- there were 40 plants

that manufacture incandescent bulbs. they were sending jobs to china. am i right? tried to get rid of these fluorescent bulbs. you have a problem with the mercury in there. will that be another vote on ban that ban? >> i do not know the answer to the question. i am personally in favor of libelled freedom. -- light bulb freedom. [applause] they emit different shades of light. let consumers decide. consumers can sort this out. i do not think we need a ban. >> my name is bob. i am a local resident.

two quick items. back to the jobs. in order to create jobs, how do you come down on these three items. to me, you need consumption. you need to have people buying things so that companies will be forced to produce more. now you have roughly 12-14 million people who are out of work. you have these companies that have high productivity that they are making 1000 gizmos and they need to make more, they can increase their productivity and they do not need to hire more workers. my second point is on this super committee that you are a member of. do you really think six republicans and six democrats sitting in a room are going to really come up with any ideas

that 500 members in congress should be able to do? >> the first point you made those to the hearts of the debate that is raging across america about economics. should we be focusing on the demand side or the supply side? this administration is all about the demand side. i would argue that it has not worked. a massive stimulus bill -- the giant one was not the first. the huge surge in spending is unprecedented. if the idea that the government can create demand and created by borrow-- create it by borrowing and spending, we would have a recovery going on right now because of the huge amount of spending. my view is that that is looking at economics in a backwards fashion. if the government can have policies that allow people to produce things that a lower

cost, there is unlimited demands. who does not want a newer car, a nicer home, better things for their kids. the demand is there. the problem is we cannot provide the product at an affordable price. when the government at to the cost of the products, we separate the natural consumer demand from their ability to have that demands met. the focus should be how we enable people to provide supply at an affordable price. as to your question about the select committee, i do not blame you for being skeptical about this. i have my concerns about whether we can get this done. it is not as though we do not have enough committees down there. my hope is that there is a greater sense of urgency now than we have had in the past. the deficits are massive. the debt is unprecedented. we see this volatility in the

equity markets. we see on rest in europe. -- unrest in europe. i am hoping that this combination of the bids will help us come up with a reason -- of events will help us come up with a reasonable way to succeed. [applause] i have a couple of comments. we need oversight on the epa. the burden of regulation on businesses and people is too much. people do not understand that the cost of the product to make is passed down to the customer. you mentioned tax loopholes. one of the things i have been hearing is that some of the mortgage interest deductions you were able to take on your income

taxes will be eliminated. 52% of the american people do not pay federal income tax. everyone needs to have a stake in the game even if it is all the 5%. [applause] i am happy that you are on the super committee. we need a conservative boys. -- voice. the problem i have with the super committee is, is it constitutional? >> good question. as far as the tax policy goes, nothing has been decided by the select committee or anybody else. the mortgage interest deduction is one of the most popular features of the tax code. the least likely thing to be addressed. because it is so popular and so widespread -- it has not been

addressed yet. there is nothing in the legislation that creates and authorizes the select committee that forbids considering tax reform. i hope we will. the tax code is a disaster. we could encourage economic growth much better if we made some reforms there. at this point, i cannot be sure we will take it up, much less what the changes will be. as far as the constitutionality, here is my view. the constitution specifically states that the congress is authorized to develop its own rules. the house is required to choose a speaker and it does so. beyond that, both bodies have, from the beginning of this republic, developed their own rules or proceeding. they have developed their own committee structures. every congress has some kind of

change, even if it is only the ratio of members. it seems to me that the creation of this particular committee falls entirely within the purview of congress to decide how it will conduct its own business. at the end of the day, all we can do is produce a piece of legislation that congress passed to vote on. they can all take it down. if congress votes in favor of it, the president has to sign it. it follows the constitutional process in that respect fully. as far as us coming up with something that the 535 members have been unable to, i do not know. we have to get this done. i am in favor of giving this a try. thank you, senator toomey. i have a concern.

there is talk, and you probably heard this, that sometime next year before the election president obama intends to circumvent congress and give amnesty to the illegal aliens in this country. this will virtually assure his reelection. i am wondering if that is possible and, if so, are you and the fellow conservatives planning to stop or have some method of stopping this action from happening? >> i do not think it is likely that that would happen, to be honest with you. the president probably views

immigration issues differently than i do. he has acknowledged that it needs to go through a legislative process. if he attempted a dramatic and large-scale change that was profound -- to attempt to do that unilaterally would be disastrous for him. i doubt that. you hear these rumors from time to time. i think it is quite unlikely. thanks for raising that. i want to recognize a couple of people who have been kind enough to join us. where is dave? [applause] i appreciate you coming. and representatives, thanks for being here. i think we have run out of time here. i want to thank you for taking the time to be here and providing the input.

people have a wide range of opinions here. they are all valuable. i appreciate the fact that we were able to have a reasonable and civil discourse, including on those matters that we disagree. if you have a question and we did not get to it, please reach out to our staff. send it to us. if you have a suggestion or an idea about something that we can and should do, please. we would love to hear from you. thanks again for being here this morning. [applause]

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