the occupied wall street protests, and then richard trumka will talk about next year's presidential election. then peter hirth on developing new drugs. he has developed new drugs, including those for kidney cancer. president obama is on the road this week, talking about his jobs plan. his remarks in north carolina are next. in 40 minutes, more about jobs from senator john mccain. then a preview of some of the senate races in next year's elections. >> because i am a businessman, of which i am very proud and

formerly connected with a large company, the doctrinaires of opposition have attempted to depict me as an opponent of liberalism, but i was a liberal before many of those heard the word. >> he was a member of the democratic party for over 20 years, switching in 1940. in 1940 he won the republican nomination, and although he lost the election, he became the former ambassador for his former opponent, franklin roosevelt. ndell willkie, friday at 8:00 p.m.. >> president obama criticized republican proposals aimed at

creating jobs. his three-day road trip began in asheville, north carolina. this is 40 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

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>> four more years! four more years! four more years! four more years! four more years1 four more years! [cheers] ♪ ["hail to the chief" plays] >> hello, asheville! it is good to be back in asheville, north carolina!

i love asheville. the tourism promotion bureau of ashville. every time i meet somebody i say, have you guys gone down to asheville? that's a nice place to be. so it is wonderful to be back in one of my favorite parts of the country. our family has great memories of staying here, and it's always nice to get out of washington -- mountain air. i want to recognize a couple people who are here. first of all, one of the outstanding senators in the united states senate, your

senator, kay hagan, is in the house. kay's daughter just got married congratulations to kay's daughter. we are so thrilled by that. and we also have your lovely and intelligent mayor of asheville, terry bellamy, is in the house. the last time i was here terry said she could play basketball. and so we went out -- it turned out she was a cheerleader and not a basketball player. but she's doing an outstanding job overall. thank you both for coming. now, as you may have noticed, i came here on a plane. it's a pretty nice plane. but i'm leaving on a bus.

the bus is pretty hard to miss. and over the next few days, we are going to take this bus through north carolina and virginia and i'm going to get a chance to hear from folks about how they're doing, what direction they want to take the country in. and i'll be doing a little bit of talking, but mostly i'm going to do a whole lot of listening -- because there doesn't seem to be much listening going on in washington these days. people don't seem to be paying much attention to the folks who sent them there in the first place. and that's a shame. because once you escape the partisanship and the political point-scoring in washington, once you start really start listening to the american people, it's pretty clear what our country and your leaders should be spending their time on. >> jobs!

jobs. take the time to listen, you understand that a lot of folks are hurting out there. work. the past decade, now. here in north carolina, you've got thousands of construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing bubble burst. some of those construction workers are here today. they've got experience. they've got skills. all they want is to be back on the job site doing what they do best.

go around. in this airport right here in asheville, you've got a runway that needs to be widened and repaired. you've got a taxiway that's in the wrong spot -- which means that planes sometimes get too close together. so we could be doing some work right here at the asheville airport that would help boost tourism, help to boost the economy here, put people to work right now. but it's not just here in asheville. all across the state, you've got highways that need to be built. you've got bridges that need to be fixed. you've got schools that need to be modernized. do best. we used to build things -- built built the golden gate bridge, the hoover dam, the grand central station. there's no reason why we should sit here and watch the best

highways and the newest airports being built in china. here in the united states of america. time in the making -- we're not going to solve them overnight. right now to put people back to work -- right now. right now to give the economy the jolt that it needs. so that's why i sent congress the american jobs act. >> thank you! >> keep in mind -- keep in mind, asheville, this is the kind of bill containing the kinds of proposals that in the past have received support from democrats and republicans.

it's completely paid for -- by asking our wealthiest citizens, folks making more than a million dollars a year, to pay their fair share. [cheers] independent economists -- not my economists, but independent economists -- have said this jobs bill would create nearly 2 million jobs. that's not my opinion. who work for me. it's the opinion of people who evaluate these kinds of things for a living. it says this bill will help put people back to work and give our economy a boost right away. but apparently none of this the senate -- because last week they got together to block thisthey

said no to putting teachers and construction workers back on the job. they said no to rebuilding our airports. they said no to cutting taxes americans. they said no to helping veterans find jobs. essentially, they said no to you -- because it turns out one poll found that 63% of americans support the ideas in this jobs bill. so 63% of americans support the jobs bill that i put forward, 100% of republicans in the senate voted against it. that doesn't make any sense, does it? >> no! now, it turns out that the republicans have a plan, too. i want to be fair.

they call -- they put forward this plan last week. jobs act -- the "real one" -- that's what they called it -- just in case you were wondering. so let's take a look at what the republican american jobs act looks like. boils down to a few basic ideas: they want to gut regulations, they want to let wall street do whatever it wants they want to drill more. and they want to repeal health care reform. that's their jobs plan. so let's do a little comparison here. the republican plan says that what's been standing in the way between us and full employment are laws that keep companies want. on the other hand, our plan puts teachers, construction

workers, firefighters and police officers back on the job. we have is that we helped to get 30 million americans health insurance. insurance rolls, somehow that's going to help people find jobs. our plan says we're better off jobs bill. their plan says we should go back to the good old days before the financial crisis when wall rules. they want to roll back all the reforms that we've put into place. >> no! >> our plan says we need to make it easier for small businesses to grow and hire and push this economy forward.

all right, so you've gotten a sense -- you got their plan, and then we got my plan. my plan says we're going to put teachers back in the classroom, construction workers back to work rebuilding america, rebuilding our schools -- tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for hiring veterans, tax cuts if you give your worker a raise. that's my plan. and then you got their plan, which is let's have dirtier air, dirtier water. less people with health insurance. all right so, so far at least, i feel better about my plan. but let's admit i'm a little biased. so remember those independent economists who said our plan would create jobs, maybe as

many as almost 2 million jobs, grow the economy by as much as 2%? so one of the same economists that took a look at our plan took a look at the republican plan, and they said, well, this won't do much to help the economy in the short term -- it could actually cost us jobs. we could actually lose jobs with their plan. so i'll let you decide which plan is the real american jobs act. >> obama's plan! >> four more years! four more years! >> look, i appreciate the "four thinking about the next 13 months. because, yes, we've got an election coming up, but that election is a long ways away, and a lot of folks can't wait. a lot of folks are living

paycheck to paycheck. to week. you've got kids right now who've lost their teachers because at the local level you ended up having layoffs. you've got bridges right now that are crumbling and deteriorating. so we don't have time to wait. and we've got a choice right now -- right now. look, i want to work with republicans on ways to create jobs right now. and where they've got a decent idea i'm happy to work with them. just last week, we passed a bipartisan trade agreement with korea that will allow us to sell more goods overseas and support almost 70,000 jobs here at home. because my attitude is if we're buying hyundais and kias, i want them buying some fords and chryslers and chevys.

so if they're serious about creating jobs, i'm ready to go. i don't think anybody doubts that i have gone out of my way to try to find areas of cooperation with these republicans. in fact, some of you have been mad at me for trying too hard to cooperate with them, haven't you? some of you -- i get some of your letters and your emails. you're all like, why are you cooperating with them all the time? because it can't be all about politics. sometimes we've got to try to actually get something done. and so i'm eager to see them stand up with a serious approach to putting people back to work. it's time to focus less on satisfying some wing of the party and more on common-sense ideas that we can take to people to work right now and

help the middle class -- and help people get into the middle class, because there are a whole bunch of folks who are hurting out there and have never gotten the opportunity. so we're going to give members of congress another chance to step up to the plate and do the right thing. kay and i, we've decided let's go ahead and let them do the right thing one more time. we're going to give them another chance to do their jobs by looking after your jobs. >> right now! >> so this week, i'm asking members of congress to vote -- what we're going to do is we're going to break up my jobs bill. maybe they just couldn't once. so we're going to break it up into bite-size pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation. so this week i'm going to ask members of congress to vote on one component of the plan,

which is whether we should put hundreds of thousands of teachers back in the classroom, and cops back on the street, and firefighters back to work. so members of congress will have a chance to decide -- what kind of future do our kids deserve? should we stand up for men and women who are often digging into their own pockets to buy school supplies, when we know that the education of our children is going to determine our future as a nation? they're going to have a chance to decide, do we want to make sure that we're looking after the men and women who protect our communities every day -- our first responders, our firefighters, our police officers? and then, after they've taken that vote, we're going to give members of congress a chance to vote on whether we're going to work. should they be just sitting around while roads and bridges

and runways fall apart? or should we put them back to work doing the work that america needs done? after that, we'll give them a chance to decide whether unemployed americans should continue to struggle, or whether we should give them the experience and support they need to get back in the workforce and build a better life. and we'll ask them to take a stand on whether we should ask people like me to pay a little more so middle-class families and small businesses can pay a little less, and end up creating the kinds of jobs we need in this economy. members of congress are going to face in the coming weeks. and if they vote against these proposals again -- like i said, maybe they just didn't understand the whole thing, so we're breaking it up into pieces. if they vote against taking americans back to work right now --

>> right now! >> right now -- >> right now! >> then they're not going to have to answer to me. they're going to have to answer to you. they're going to have to come down to north carolina and tell kids why they can't have their teachers back. they're going to come down to north carolina and look those construction workers in the eye and tell them why they can't get to work doing the work that america needs done. they're going to have to come down here and explain to working families why their taxes are going up while the richest americans and largest corporations keep getting sweet deals in the tax code. they're going to have to come down and explain to you why they don't have an answer for how we're putting americans to work right now. >> right now! right now! republican plan -- if they support the republican plan,

they'll have to explain to you why they'd rather deny health care to millions of americans and let corporations and banks write their own rules instead of supporting proposals that we know will create jobs right now. so that's where all of you come in. some of these folks just aren't getting the message, so i need you to send them a message. i need you to make your voices heard. i need you to give congress a piece of your mind. for you. if they're not delivering, it's time to let them know. it's time to get on the phone and write a letter, tweet, pay a visit. tell your elected leaders to do the right thing. remind them what's at stake: putting people back to work, restoring economic security for middle-class families and helping create a ladder for folks who aren't middle class yet to get into the middle class, rebuilding an economy where hard work is valued and responsibility is rewarded,

building an economy that lasts for the future and for our children. if we want to actually lower the deficit and invest in our future, if we want the best roads and best bridges and best airports here in the united states, if we want to continue to invest in our technology and our basic science and research so that we can continue to invent new drugs and make sure the new cars of the future that are running on electricity are made right here in north carolina and made right here in america -- if we want to do all those things, then we got to step up. we got to get to work. we got to get busy right now. we can't do nothing. too many folks are hurting out there to do nothing. we need to act. >> right now! >> right now. we are not a people who sit by and do nothing when things aren't right. we're americans. if something is not working, we go out there and fix it. we stick with it until the problem is fixed. that's the spirit we need to

muster right now. >> right now! >> let's meet this moment. let's get to work. let's show the world once again why the united states is the greatest country on earth. god bless you. god bless the united states. and thank you, asheville. thank you, north carolina. ["stars and stripes forever" plays] ♪

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>> while the president was in north carolina, plans to create jobs were also discussed on the senate floor. >> i come to discuss the jobs and growth act that was recently introduced by most of my republican colleagues on this side of the aisle. i would like to highlight the hard work done by my colleague, senators paul and portman. this is a common-sense alternative to the plan being championed by president obama. the difference between our plan and theirs is that we want to create jobs through growth, and they want to create jobs through government spending.

we believed that business creates jobs in america. it is clear from the present stimulus, that he believes that government creates jobs. there is a fundamental difference between our proposal and there's. what they have proposed is another stimulus. we tried that. we saw the move before, it did not work. it added to our debt and deficit. we lost jobs. my colleagues and i are putting forth a plan to create jobs through sound policies. most economists will tell you that economic growth is a fundamental part of a long-term sustainable job creation. that is what the plan does. it contains key component, spending reforms, including a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, to give job creators the certainty that washington will not continue to

grow unchecked. almost all of us understand from our experience over the years that unless the united states of america, our government, if required -- is required, as every state and city and town is required to do, and that is to have a balanced budget, we will continue to amass deficits. republican and democratic presidents over the years have passed -- asked for enhanced rescission authority. it would give the president the ability to eliminate unnecessary, wasteful earmarked spending provisions without having to veto the entire bill. we believe that these two measures can bring discipline in

this congress and in this nation that has been lacking for a long, long time and has given us massive debts and deficits. a deficit of nearly $50,000 for every man, woman, and a child in america. we need tax reforms. is there anyone who does not believe that the tax code does not need to be reformed the? our proposal is simple. at the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%. create categories of tax rates in america. close the loopholes, and eliminate the subsidies, let's give americans a tax code they can trust and believe in, even understand. it is up to $1.40 trillion, let us bring home the $1.40 trillion

in foreign earnings that is trapped overseas in countries where u.s.-based multinational companies do business. why won't they bring the money home? they have to tax it at 35%. it is not that much more complicated. last week, i introduced a bill that would provide incentives for that money to come home on the privies so that they create jobs in america. according to a recent study done for the chamber of commerce, the repatriation of this $1.40 coleen in corporate earnings currently trapped overseas could increase the gdp by $360 billion and create as many as 2.9 million new u.s. jobs. recently, there was a study that showed that this money would

have no effect. how could you possibly believe that if you brought $1.40 trillion back home to america it would have no effect? i think it shows, really, that you can probably have a study that shows that there was indeed landing of aliens in a city in nevada a long time ago. in new mexico, a long time ago. reforming the regulatory process costs taxpayers nothing, but does more for creating jobs than any stimulus program could. there is nothing more constrained to job growth than the relationship between business and government. talk to any business person and they will tell you why they are sitting on large sums of money and not creating jobs and not investing it. it is because they do not know

what regulation is coming down next they are going to have to comply with. please, i asked my colleagues and by friends, go ask the business people, it will tell you that. they will tell you that the fear of additional regulations are an incredible -- have an incredible, negative affect on their desire to invest and hire. lifting the prohibition on offshore energy exploration will create jobs. it will reduce our nation posted dependent on foreign oil. according to the american energy alliance, which is a pro- exploratory group, permanently lifting the offshore moratorium would result in a 1.2 million new u.s. jobs.

we need to give the president the authority to negotiate trade agreements. i would point out that the president is now on his "listening" fotour at taxpayer'' expense. he was taking credit for the passage of these three bills for free trade agreement. this only took nearly three years. as far as our bill is concerned, we have a statement from the u.s. chamber of commerce. yesterday, a group of senators including john mccain, introduced the jobs through growth act. this marks a departure from a government knows best approach and allows the private sector to rescue our economy. as the chamber pointed out, alleviating regulatory burdens, tax uncertainty, and restoring

confidence is the best way to get the country back on track. this bill is a step in the right direction and includes a number of the same broad based ideas for creation of the chamber's plan. it goes on to talk about current of tax reform as critical to job creation. they believe that reforming the regulatory process is necessary for businesses to begin hiring again. they argue for expanded drilling offshore. so, you will hear from various liberal think tanks that we do not create jobs. that this is not a good thing to do. the fact is that the chamber of commerce, which i think knows well about job creation, should be paid attention to.

a piece that was in the national review online, a noted economist and former head of the office of management and budget, and in interest of full disclosure, an adviser of mine, wrote the following, "senate republicans have just introduced a real jobs plan. and affected jobs plan is a commitment to a sustained environment for long-term growth. the president's failed proposals have proven that temporary and targeted stimulus -- i ask for additional time. he goes on to say, "the failed proposals have proved that temporary and targeted stimulus is ineffective. " they have proposed a plan that

targets job creation at a time when we desperately need it. it incentivizes growth and repeals the job killing act. there is a lot here to like." still, it will be a war of numbers in which progressives try to argue this strategy will not work. here is some highlights of the real jobs plan and some estimates of the jobs impact. lower the corporate rate tax to 25%, resulting in 581,000 jobs per year, in average. reduce the tax on foreign earnings brought back to the u.s. repeald dood-frank -- dodd- frank. on the dodd-frank act which was supposed to make sure, the whole

purpose, the dodd-frank act was to make sure that no institution in america would ever be too big to fail. my friends, tell me, tell me that these institutions are not too big to fail. we know that they have gotten bigger. we know they are too big to fail. we know if we went through a similar crisis, because of their size, we would be forced to use taxpayers' dollars to bail them out. the fact is, dodd-frank has been a complete failure. one of the reasons is because it did not address the phasing out of fannie mae and freddie mac, and it was the housing crisis that started this collapse. until the day the housing market stabilizes, we will not begin to emerge from this horrible economic situation that america finds itself in today. the aca recommended it will cost

the economy 800,000 jobs. lift the offshore drilling moratorium. prohibit the epa from regulating greenhouse gases, estimated at costing 1.4 million jobs by 2014. given the present trade preference authority -- giving the president trade president authority. i have outlined what i think is a proposal -- i would like to point out, october 14, 2011, i quote, "finally, a growth plan. senator mccain has drafted a blueprint that they hope to be the rallying cry of all

congressional republicans. the democrats hope to use the senate rejection of the obama plan as a campaign issue for do nothing republicans. senate democrats say that republicans have no jobs plan of their own. that is not true any longer. the senators drafted a comprehensive, economic growth blueprint that they hope will be the graves and cry -- be the rallying cry. we obtained a copy which includes tax cuts, obamacare repeal, and a regulatory freeze. the plan would cut corporate tax rates, is partially paid for by offering a reduced tax on retreated capital. the plan will not get close to 60 votes in the senate. it does establish a polar star for republicans to head towards piqu. the chamber of commerce at 1300

business owners whether they support the gop plan a permanent tax cuts and regulation or the democratic plan of temporary payroll tax cuts? more than eight of 10 said they favor the republican approach." so, mr. president, as they say, let the games begin. today, the president of the united states, in his visit to areas of the country that have a lot to do in the view of many with upcoming electoral calendars, attacked our plan and attacked it rather vociferously. in fact, i would -- i was taken

aback since the president and his spokesperson had billed his trip as a taxpayer paid visit. in his remarks, the president was very strongly condemning of the plan that we have put forward. in fact, remember, my colleagues and friends, the president made these remarks on a taxpayer paid for, writing in a canadian bus, visit. this is what on his tour the president said, "now it turns

out the republicans have a plan to. i want to be fair. they put forward this plan that -- last week. they called it the real american jobs at. let's take a look at what the jobs at looks like. turned up the republican plan boils down to a few basic ideas. they want to get regulations, let wall street do whatever they want. they want to drill more. that is their jobs plan. " on the taxpayer paid a dime, the president is attacking the republican plan. by the way, there is an article from the -- dated october 16, usa today, "president obama will kick off a three day bus trip through north carolina and virginia. white house officials insist the

trip is about jobs, not vote. they convened a conference call to reiterate that point several times, pointing out that the trip is fully on taxpayers' dime, not the republican's reelection campaign." the president has taken to the road. he has spent a number of minutes attacking our plan and i understand that. i think he has, in a political venue, the right and privilege to do that. i think the question might be, is that appropriate on the taxpayer's dime since it is campaigning? i must say, again, i have never seen an uglier bust than the canadian one. he is traveling around on a canadian bus cutting american

jobs. -- touting american jobs. one reason why i am skeptical, we have seen this movie before. we saw this movie before. it feels a bit like something we have heard before. in fact, let me give you a few quote. we all know the failure of the last administration. we all know what the president said, if we pass the last of this bill that unemployment would be a maximum of 8%. it has is -- is stuck at over 9%. it said it would stimulate our economy, we know it has not. let me give you a couple of quotes. this one was february 10, 2009, president obama, "it is a plan

that will create up to 4 million jobs over the next two years. the jobs of firefighters, teachers, nurses, that would otherwise be eliminated if we do not provide states with some relief." president obama, on 2009, "we greeted at least 150,000 jobs. -- we created at least 150,000 jobs." vice president biden, "it will create 3 million jobs, pulling us out of this recession. it is a monumental product, but i think it is doable. we have to stay on top of that on a weekly basis because this is about spending to grade 3.5 million jobs, so the rest of the good work being done drop kicks us out of the recession and we

begin to grow again." that was vice president biden that a plan implementation meeting, february, 2009. then my favorite, my all-time favorite, july -- august 24, 2009. from vice president biden, "in my wildest dreams, i never thought it would work as well. in my wildest dreams, i never thought it would work this well ." anyway, i hope the american people will understand that what we're doing here with the president's plan and what we will be voting on in pieces and a simple majority of the senate probably wouldn't have voted for is the same thing that they

tried in 2009 and 2010, which was steadfastly rejected by the american people in the overwhelming vote that took place last november. now, what i hope is, what i hope is that we could -- once the president gets off of the campaign trail, that we could sit down and come to agreement in some areas, all of us. all of us agree that offshore drilling is something that we need to accelerate as quickly as possible and safely.

and all of us should agree that middle income and lower income americans are the ones that need help the most. and i would like to point out that most of the key elements that we spent a lot of time on, many, many hours on health care reform. and we find out, we find out that one of the key elements of this health care reform, i will plightly call it health care reform, is the class act to provide long-term care for americans, which is -- for senior americans, which is a

worth while goal. thanks to a member of the senate who is not here, senator gregg, put in a provision that said that the class programs' reality to match the promises as a matter of law. if health and human services couldn't provide an analysis of the 75-year cost of the program that ensures solvency. the health and human services department was bound that senator gregg put through on this floor. after flailing around for 19 months, the secretary of health and human services announced that it would shutter a voluntary long-term care insurance program that was

included in the health care law and throws the issue back to congress. so, because of that and unfortunately, we did not have that same provision in the rest of the bill, otherwise the whole thing would have been junked by now, the administration has been forced to junk the class act. so the "wall street journal" this morning goes on to say, quote, at a minimum, the g.o.p. could begin by repealing the class program all together, since its legal authority is still intact. quote, one should never leave a partly loaded gun on the table even if most of the chambers are empty. also suggests that taxing a few of the more destructive provisions and forcing democrats to defend them as mr. orszag's independent payment advisory

board of 15 political appointees who have broad powers to control health markets and health care. our suggestion from the "wall street journal," our suggestion is for a greg-like amendment that applies to the entire health law and not a particular class. if you can keep your health care and all the other false promises, then it should be repealed. call it truth in advertising clause, obamacare would collapse in a heartbeat. so i hope that we will begin to debate whether the class act which now the health and human services secretary has announced is undoable, whether it should be repealed from the law itself and shouldn't other provisions such as that that senator gregg

in his foresight was able to force into the bill at the time of its passage. and if anyone believes -- and by the way, a little bit more on the class act. one of the major reasons why it was included was to distort the numbers as to how much money would or would not be saved in passage of health care reform. because clearly, and for the first early years since people would be contributing rather than me taking out funds because of retirement age, it would appear to have a significant cost savings impact. we will be talking about now the real cost impact of the health care reform bill. so, mr. president, i hope that in the weeks ahead we can engage in vigorous debate on how to move this country forward. there is clearly philosophical

differences between the two sides, but i also hope there are areas where we can find common ground. housing crisis is still with us in america. i noticed an article in the weekend in the "new york times" that fannie mae saw fit to send a huge amount of people to a convention in chicago on the taxpayers' dime. fannie and freddie are still responsible, a corrupt institution and americans, including those in my state of arizona, are still badly hurting. so i hope we can address the issues that affect this nation. i hope we can sit down together and work out at least some agreements such as reform of the tax code and others. but at the same time, we need to at some point address the housing issue in america and

until we do, until we get housing costs stabilized in america, i greatly fear -- i see my colleague from florida, whose state has also been very, very badly hurt by this housing crisis, that we have got to stabilize housing prices in america. and until we do, until we do and fix the fundamental problems, then i still fear that we will experience a very difficult economic times for our citizens. mr. president, i note the presence of my colleague and great astronaut and fine senator from florida on the floor. so i yield the floor. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> details on the president's jobs bill and majority leader saying he will bring the bill up in the senate. tom, how is senator reid planning on moving forward with this jobs bill? >> well, he is going to announce

a time frame tomorrow. would like to do it this week, but he said he will make a formal announcement after meeting with senate democrats. >> and they will be breaking this into pieces? >> the first piece -- the president's bill came in at $447 billion. they are breaking it into pieces. first piece would be $35 billion and that would be to create or save the jobs of 300,000 teachers and an additional 100,000 police, firefighters, other first responders. >> and how many other pieces do you think we will see this being broken up into and how often might we see votes on these pieces? >> in a week. i would say, four, five, six, maybe more than that. the first piece is the teachers. the reason for that is because the overall program, the overall obama bill proved popular in the

polls and they are going to try to force -- they will force republicans to vote on teachers first, whether you hire more teachers or protect teachers or not. so it is designed to crank up political pressure on republicans. >> what are the prices? >> it goes to the proposed surtax on millionaires and would pay for that which polls find that most americans agree with. >> is there a plan that the senate's plan would tax people who make at least $250,000? >> that got dropped. the new one is 5.7% surtax on millionaires. >> why are democrats in the senate pursuing this plan to break up the jobs bill? >> capitol hill is mostly moved by politics and this is politics. polls show most americans favor

the president's proposal. the republicans voted last week to block the bill. democrats couldn't get the 60 votes in the 100-member senate to move the bill. they are going to move the bill and force republicans to have an unpopular vote trying to crank up pressure on republicans. republicans say obama is more interested on campaigning on the issue than he is coming up with a bipartisan solution. so while democrats accuse republicans of playing politics, republicans accuse democrats of playing politics and there has been no bipartisan solution. >> how do you think republicans are going to vote when these actually come up? >> i think they'll vote -- i think democrats are going to fall short of the 60 votes they need in the 100-member senate. democrats hold the chamber 53-47. that said, they would need all

democrats plus seven republicans. last time around, they couldn't get all democrats. two democrats broke ranks and voted with the republicans against the president's bill. so i think democrats are going to have a tough time getting 60. >> how could this approach yield better results for those who supported the president's jobs bill in the first place? >> how could it yield better results? >> by breaking it up this way. >> it gives the president and fellow democrats on the hill additional quote, unquote, additional ammunition. they will get headlines showing that republicans oppose hiring more teachers. they'll get headlines showing republicans oppose rebuilding roads and bridges. so that's -- since democrats control the senate, they control the agenda and control what to bring up for a vote. republicans have offered their own jobs package and offered one

last week, but they don't control the chamber and won't have the headline that democrats reject republican jobs program. they aren't going to get that vote. >> what are you going to be watching for as lawmakers grapple with this? >> you have alluded to it earlier and you said no. what they are going to do, look for any crossovers, see the last time around they got all the republicans, which was 47 republicans, plus two democrats voting against the president's jobs bill. now when they vote on the teachers, the most interesting number will be what is the final count. will republicans hold ranks or will a couple break off. so that will be the -- that will be the story in the second or third paragraph, how many republicans if any. how many republicans break off and support at least a component

of the president's plan. >> congressional correspondent for reuters. appreciate the information. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> a preview of senate races in next year's elections. 40 minutes, a forum on congressional influence on foreign policy. and then president obama in north carolina talking about his jobs plan. and later, more about jobs from republican senator john mccain from arizona. >> the senate homeland security committee looks at the country's defenses against bioterrorism threats. on c-span 3 at 10:00 a.m. eastern. also at 10:00, treasury secretary tim geithner testifies on capitol hill about the effect of last year's small business jocks act. he is before the senate small business committee. and fed chairman ben bernanke

speaks at a conference in boston. that is also on c-span at 1:15 p.m. eastern. >> this weekend, six republican presidential candidates traveled to des moines for a candidate forum. watch our live coverage of the candidates starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern saturday on c-span's "road to the white house." >> a look at some of the key senate races in next year's election. from "washington journal," this is 40 minutes.

guest: they picked up seats. 53 for democrats and letting democrats keep their majority. here's the thing. republicans need four seats to win the majority. but what is working against democrats in this cycle are numbers. the races are up. 33. the democrats have to defend 23 of those seats. so they are playing defense on this cycle and out to protect their majority and it's going to be tough. host: we are going to go through a number of the toss-up races throughout this segment and get a feel for what's happening in those particular states, who the players are and what their chances are for a victory on either side. and we've got a chart. and start with far west.

look at hawaii, massachusetts, missouri, montana and nebraska. let's start with hawaii, what's the situation out there? guest: hawaii is the newest entrant on our list of states that we think are too close to call. there is probably one republican this the state of hawaii and that is the former governor. she got in the race last week. democrats have a primary to contend there between hirono and case. the former governor has won the last races and came within 4,000 votes. so we think that this is going to be a competitive race despite what a heavily democratic state hawaii is. guest: it's not a state that people -- host: it's not a state that people think of that often

except to go on vacation, but this could be an important race for the democrats in the senate. guest: it does not bode well for their majority. this is a symbolic race for them. this is the president's home state in some ways, where he grew up. it's where he is very popular still. he is leading. and makes it harder for republicans. but this is a race that they did not count on having. host: let's go to massachusetts. senator scott brown who is the incumbent and looks like his opponent will be elizabeth warren. guest: this race is going to be a collection of epic battles and this is one of them. you have scott brown who was elected in a special election in

2010, but was sort of the leading edge of what became this republican wave. now he's got to run in a general election on a ballot that again, president obama will lead. he is not as popular in massachusetts as you would think. brown's numbers are still good. the democrats have come up with a strong opponent in elizabeth warren, who was -- who spent the last few years in washington on financial services reform, but really most of her career as a professor. this is a battle between the ivy logan -- this is a battle between the ivy league and state

school. warren is a working mother and takes her out of the halls of harvard. she has sparked the imagination of progressives, not just in massachusetts, but across the country for the way she talks about of a lot of very progressive ideas. going to be a wonderful race and will go down to the wire, no question. host: are they ready to give the seat back to a democrat or they are going to have to work for this? >> they will have to work.

i don't think scott brown thought he was a caretaker. he is running hard. democrats will accuse him of towing the republican line. but he has voted with them. and voters speak nationally in polling and seem to appreciate this bipartisan approach, especially given the gridlock that they have been watching certainly over the last few months. host: in missouri, senator mccast i will is up for -- mccassell is up for re-election and looking to go against todd akin or the former head of the generation of tea party patriots. what is going on? guest: missouri is one of the three or four swing states. in the past two elections, it

has started to move a little bit more towards republicans. mccast kell was elected in 2006 in a very, very good year for democrats. now, president obama lost the state two years later in 2008. this is going to be another battle and going to be about where voters go there. i'm not sure you will see a lot of ticket splitters. she has her work cut out for her. and made it harder in that she had a problem with an airplane that she owned and didn't pay taxes on for quite a while and i think it ended up costing her $ 400,000. you have todd akin who is from suburban st. louis and newcomer to the race ran a company.

so there will be plenty of hands in the campaign trail. republicans seem to be looking at him as a serious candidate one because he can put his own money in, but two there is something about not being part of washington. host: we have senator jon tester whose main opposition will come from danny reberg. host: i'm going to put it on my list of senate battles. tester won in 2006 and defeated an incumbent and hobbled in the race by ethics questions. and he promised to be a different kind of democrat. republicans contend he has been

your standard-issue democrat, although he does vote against the party when he wants to. one of the reasons there is an epic battle is that rehberg represents the entire state. two candidates equally well known running against each other so it will be a fight. >> and one more state that we had on that page, senator ben nelson, looks like he has some competition coming from don stenberg who is the state treasurer. >> i think senator nelson is the most vulnerable democratic incouple bent. he trails his opponent. hard to be a democrat in nebraska. going to be harder in 2012. republicans have a three-way

primary. the attorney general, stenberg, the treasurer, who has run for the seat twice before and lost to nelson once and a state senator fisher. i think it's very telling that there were ads on ben nelson's behalf which is a sign of how much work he needs to do in this race. but they are all in and going to fight for this and fight hard. host: a map we have gotten from the cook political report, the states in green indicate that they are toss-ups.

so it wouldn't surprise you if any of these incumbents were to lose in 2012. guest: not at all. the one thing that we know about our toss-up races, they don't split between the parties. one party tends to win more. you have incumbents in this category, and wouldn't surprise us to see a few of them fall. host: we are talking with jennifer duffy, senate editor at the cook political report about campaign 2012, some of the top senate races. if you would like to get involved in the conversation, give us a call. and get in touch with us via twitter, email and facebook. let's look at the bottom half or

the other half of that list regarding toss-up races and that includes nevada, new mexico, virginia and wisconsin. again, these are spread all over the map. and we are going to take a look at some of those individual races in a second. but first we want to go to the phones and take our first call. on our line for independents out of richmond, virginia. caller: i would like to talk about the senate race with george allen and the polls are very close, maybe by a percentage or two. no way george allen can win and the reason why -- they are going by usual statistics where whites vote and percentage wise, and twice as many numbers as blacks but barack obama being on the

ticket, there is no way george allen can win because virginia is 18% black and will be as high a black vote as whites. george allen would have to win in excess of 65% of the white vote to win and that's an impossible built. even reagan i think didn't even do that. host: tell us about this race in virginia which is green, which indicates is a toss-up. guest: here you have two candidates, the democrat, former governor, tim cain and former head of the democratic national committee and likely nominee is george allen, former member of the senate who lost his re-election bid in 19 -- 2006.

virginia is going to be at the top of democrats' target list for the president. he carried it in 2008. he needs to carry it again. i will take issue with the fact that you know will the african american vote be as high as it was in 2008. right now the polls say no. some african americans are sort of disappointed in the president and what he has done and you have to understand, too, that unemployment among african americans is over 16%. the economy has hit them hard. now, this is a race where every single poll has shown these candidates statistically tied. and i think it's going to be that way all the way until next november. host: our next caller comes from burlington, massachusetts.

caller: question on the 2012 senatorial race. every couple of years when there is a third of the senate up for re-election, fine. but my specific question is in 2012, what is the breakdown? i think it's something like 20 democrats and 13 republicans or something along those lines or close to it. guest: 23 and 10. caller: 23 democrats and only 10 republicans up for -- wow! thank you very much. host: are you going to be voting for senator brown or elizabeth warren? caller: senator brown. i'm solid republican. host: ray on our line for

independents. caller: my comments is about the elections themselves and the 2010 election, we saw a large group of seats change and republicans are brought in and then you have the whole dust-up about nothing's done in washington and everybody is agitated. i think the sentiment in the country is that people elect people to conch and expect things to get done right now because their problems are immediate and this doesn't seem to happen and all the elections are fine to look at but people want something done and i'm not sure that the people who run actually convey that that they can and will do something. and that's my comment. host: jennifer. guest: the voter has a point

that americans are getting frustrated with washington's inability to get done. look at congress' approval rating, 13%. that tells the whole story that more than 2/3 think the country is in the right direction. you do see a lot of challengers out there right now talking about the need to put some of the rancor aside and get something done. i think you will see a lot more candidates campaigning that way. i heard normally die-hard democrats and republican incumbents talking about that. what they need to do is get the leadership of both parties to understand that it's time to put the political battles aside. host: connie on our line for independents calling from bowie, maryland. caller: i'm a senior and i talk

to seniors all across the united states and most of them are going to be voting for obama and for democrats because they are worried about their medicare and social security and democrats will help protect it. and i don't think, ms. duffy, it's fair to the democrats because they don't poll black people or anybody of color. so i think she skews it. it's time that the democrats will get back in and be in the majority and obama will be re-elected. host: how do you know who the political people talk to and don't talk to? caller: someone called in and asked mr. cook on your show last year and he said they did not

poll blacks and spanish people. guest: i'm going to answer that because we don't poll anybody. we do not do our own polling, however we spend a lot of time going through just about every national poll and that includes polling of african americans, hispanics, seniors and we incorporate that data into what we're doing. while mr. cook was right, we don't poll african americans and seniors, he should have added we don't poll anybody. host: let's talk about these races. in nevada, we have toot toss-up solidly green. tell us about that race there. guest: nevada is becoming more and more of a swing state.

it went for bush in 2004 and obama in 2008. in 2010, it elected a republican governor and re-elected harry reid to the senate. so you have a battle here between an appointed senator, heller who intended to run for the senate when ensign resigned. so he's got to run for a full term in his own right. his snonet is congresswoman berkley and represents las vegas and again, just another terrific battle that is going to be close all the way through. they both have certainly a lot to bring to the table. berkley's fundraising has been stellar. she is tireless on the campaign trail. dean heller has held statewide office.

he was secretary of state before he was elected to the house. host: he has pulled in $670,000 for a three-month period and in the same amount of time representative berkley has raised over $1 million. is there something we should see from that? guest: she represents las vegas. i mean, you should take -- but here's something about money that i don't think has been appreciated. we pay a lot of attention to what candidates raise and how much they spend and on what. these outside groups that have popped out, they are putting so much money into these races that candidate fundraising is becoming secondary that berkley has more money than dean heller and does not concern

republicans, because there will be outside money in that race to make up the difference. host: back to the phones and we've got -- i believe that is mississippi. are you there? i think that is john in panama city, florida. are you there? caller: it's more of a comment. i really wish just once there would be a good independent candidate for president that could work with both sides of the aisle. i mean we just never have that choice. but -- host: we are talking about senate races. anything you want to talk to us about regarding a senate race? caller: my second point is to give the republicans a majority once.

let them have a chance once to have a true majority. see what they can do. the democrats did when obama first came in. and instead of jobs, it was health care. it should have been jobs. i think he would have re-elected with no problem if he would just focus on jobs, the most important thing in our economy. host: how much is jobs going to play as an issue in the senate races? guest: huge. it races to the top of every voter's concerns. jobs in the economy and almost nothing else. so that that is something that you are going to see every candidate talk about and for some democrats, they'll defend what the president has done but jon tester has voted against the president's jobs bill last week. there is a senate race in fl

that has the potential to get competitive. the other nelson, bill nelson. republicans have a primary. none of their candidates are very well known yet. but let's see what happens there. that does have potential to join that list of toss-up states. host: in the map, we have seen new mexico. and representative heinrich who is running and we could also see representative -- former representative heather wilson who represented the state for about 11 years as republican getting back into politics and running for the senate. talk to us about this new mexico race. guest: this is an open seat. had senator bingaman been running for re-election but the fact that it is open. both sides are going to have

primaries. heinrich was the former mayor of albuquerque. and then there is the state treasurer and on the republican side, wilson is being challenged by john sanchez. it's going to be a very good race. i think that this is a place where president obama did very well in 2008, but i think this is going to be a state that they have to make a play for. let's see who comes out of the primaries to see if anybody gets a leg up. but it's pretty close. host: back to the phone lines, steve from mississippi. caller: one quick question for ms. duffy and it concerns if she believes that there might be any

third party candidates who will creep into the senatorial elections to try to split votes for either party? guest: it's possible. and certainly has happened in the past. it's hard to run as a third-party candidate without some significant financial resources. i have not seen a serious independent emerge in any race yet, but it's still pretty early and some of them get in late in the game out of shear disgust but worth watching in these toss-up seats. host: vern on our line for democrats. caller: nice to speak with ms. duffy with the cook report. few questions, i want you to

comment possibly on the ohio senate race with brown and his potential against any one of the republicans that may run. also, i wanted to know your opinion on the senator from missouri's race. i don't think that new mexico race is going to be as competitive with heather wilson. they may not come out of that primary. because that lieutenant governor that they have is a pretty strong fundraiser and i want to hear your comments on all of that. guest: while ohio is not on our toss-up list today, i expect it will get there eventually. senator brown elected in 2006 is going to face the likely republican nominee, who is the state treasurer, josh mandel. probably 33, 34 years old.

tireless campaigner and has blown people away with his ability to raise money. i think he has raised close to $4 million, which is pretty impressive. i think this is going to be a race of real contrast. ideological contrast. brown is a real progressive. man dell is conservative. going to be one of biography. somebody like sherrod brown who has been in public service most of his life. mandel has done two hours in iraq and been in the state legislature and was elected treasurer in 2010. i think this has the makings of a good race and not quite there yet, but possible. we talked about missouri and i think claire has a race because of the nature of the state and starting to go more towards

republicans and a state that obama didn't win in 2008 and can't win in 2012. in new mexico, let's see what comes out of both of these primaries. sanchez has been able to raise money, but one of the things he brings to the table, he can put some of his own money in. host: we talked about the nebraska race. we want to show our audience an ad put out by ben nelson's campaign promoting nelson and in coordination with the nelson campaign, some questions about how that whole campaign -- how that whole ad came to be and who is paying for it. we'll show the ad and get your response. >> this is an excuse. >> totally political. >> they don't get it. they put politics ahead what's best for the country. we need to balance the budget not on the backs of senior citizens, bringing our troops

home with pride and dignity and invest in america's jobs and future. i'm ben nelson and i prove this message because we need to stop playing politics and find commonsense sluges. host: it looks like a straight up vote for me ad. >> and creating a lot of controversy inside political circles. the ad is being paid for by the state democratic party in nebraska. they got the money to pay for it from the democratic senatorial campaign committee in washington. now the law says that political parties can spend what is known as a coordinated amount of money on behalf of their candidate in any given state and done by population and so every state is different. what democrats are saying is,

this isn't a campaign ad, this is an issue ad despite the fact that the candidates this the ad and speaking directly to the camera -- this actually has potentially big implications for campaign finance and the way parties spend money. it means that there is no such thing as limits anymore and it's a free-for-all. and this really does have a lot of implications in every state and for every party. host: our next caller comes from karen, republican line, from iowa. caller: it's new jersey. thank you for taking my call. i'm really commenting on a few calls before because she was talking about how seniors will vote for obama because we don't want to lose our social

security. if we do change social security, it will not be the current batch but will be those that are coming down the line, the younger people. the idea of president obama spending $1 billion on his campaign, that is buying an election. he can't stand on his record. it is abysmal. i'm so zipted in everything that has been -- i'm so disappointed in everything that has been to my country. do what is best for our country and not for their own election. i'm disgusted with the political system. host: jennifer duffy. guest: i agree with her on social security and medicare. it is true, whatever changes that are made and have to be made to keep these programs healthy, it will not impact current beneficiaries. i mean if you are going to,

quote, fix social security, probably means raising the retirement age and we are working and living longer any way. medicare may be make younger workers put more into the system. the average couple that retires this year will have put about $100,000 into medicare but will take out $300,000 in benefits. that's the best deal in town, but that is not a sustainable program. and as far as obama getting re-elected. we shall see. it will be interesting. host: william on johnson city, tennessee on our independent line. caller: i would like to say hi to jennifer. host: william, what's your comment or question? caller: let me give a brief comment. i think this coming election

will be a referendum on the senate because one of the senators said on tv that his job is to make sure that the president be a one-term president. i don't think that's the job of the senators. we send them to washington to serve the interests of the american people and not make the president a one-term president. and the president is trying his best and putting everything on the table. what is the senate doing? the democrats and the republicans -- what are they doing to help the american people. and my question is i believe the president a second chance because everybody deserves a second chance. host: william in johnson city, tennessee. we'll leave it there. guest: the comment he is referring to was made by senator mcconnell. and he said he would like to see

the president be a one-term president. of course he believes that. it does speak about how politicized the senate has become and both parties, democrats worked hard to diminish president bush while he was president as much as possible. and that's part of the issue we are dealing with is that the world's greatest deliberative body has gotten unbelievely political and is one upmansship and who scored more points and less about getting legislation through and working through to solve problems. they will say that's not true, this legislation doesn't reflect our views. guess what? the best legislation that ever comes out of the senate is one both parties don't like. host: the democrats that are trying to hold on to their seats and the republicans who are

trying to unseat them, how much of their campaigns are going to be based around the president? will the democrats be sticking with the president and riding his coattails or will they be trying to separate themselves from the president? guest: it depends where you live. i think somebody like jon tester is going to separate himself from the president who is not popular in mon tana. -- montana. senator mccassell did not join him on stage. but elizabeth warren is likely to embrace the president. i think that representative berkley in nevada or bill nelson in florida are probably going to be more likely to stick with him. it depends on where you live and how the president's doing there. host: next up is bill in cherry hill, new jersey.

yes, bill. caller: you know, i'm a democrat all my life, and one of the things i would like to say, it seems like that every single time these programs go on, i appreciate c-span, but i tell you, you know, democrats are going to have to get off their duff and vote. they talk about jobs and all these things that we need and talk about the president is not doing enough for us and not doing enough. all minorities out there who have been complaining about what's happening, need to go to the polls and vote. that's why we are in this situation now because in the last election, people dropped the ball and sat on their hands and republicans got in. host: bill in cherry hill, new jersey. is there one side or another going to have an advantage if

there is a larger-than-average turnout? guest: we don't know that yet. in 2008, president obama did benefit from what we called the surge voter, these voters who were 18-26 who were voting for the first time or didn't participate. i mean, part of his re-election is making sure that those voters come out again and he has work to do with some of these groups because of unemployment. but the caller is right, you lose your right to complain if you don't vote. host: last call comes from seattle, washington, on our line for republicans. mike, you are on "the washington journal." caller: good morning. i have a comment first. my comment deals with the occupy wall street.

book out there called "the starfish and the spider" which talks about leaderless organizations and the occupy wall street is following that path. what type of impact do you believe the occupy wall street would have on the 2012 senate races? and do you believe that the occupy wall street, if they continue to grow momentum would have impact and change on the policies within congress? thank you. guest ghost the caller is right. it's a group that is a little bit lacking in leadership but lacking a cohesive agenda. i got a press release that they will be occupying a golf course in california today. they didn't say whether they were bringing their own clubs and going to play nine. but the point is that i think it's giving voice to a lot of

voters' frustration. but unless they get organized and start backing candidates, you know, against democratic incumbents in primaries, i don't think their impact is going to be felt and democraticically elected officials are sort of encouraged by their local demonstration, but i don't see it changing any policy either. host: jennifer duffy, thanks for coming on and talking to us. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> a forum on congressional influence on foreign policy. in a couple of hours, president obama on his jobs plan. and then more about jobs from republican senator john mccain of arizona. >> on "washington journal" tomorrow morning, we'll look at the occupy wall street protests with editor-at-large for

"national review." president of the afl-cio will talk about labor's role in next year's election and how drugs are approved by the f.d.a. our guess is a c.e.o. of a pharmaceutical company based in san francisco. "washington journal" is live every day on c-span at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> middle and high school students, it's time to get the cameras rolling for this year's c-span video competition. make a video on this year's theme "the constitution and you" and get it to c-span by january 20 and you could win the grand prize of $5,000. for complete details go to studentcam.org. >> now a discussion of congressional influence on foreign policy. the woodrow wilson center hosted this little more than two-hour

event. >> thank you, john. i don't know why i'm needed here. i'm a recovering politician. but i think this is a very important topic. i was thinking back over the nine terms i served in congress. 17 years is 119 depaug years for any of -- dog years who want to do the math and the different wars we got into and the different ways they were authorized, from bosnia in 1995 to iraq to afghanistan and more recently to libya, when i was no longer there. but each time, congress' role seemed to be somewhat different and the formal and informal justification seemed to be somewhat different and it is really important to probe this

subject because so far as i know, the covenstution hasn't changed all -- constitution hasn't changed all these years and it is congress' job to declare war. i have come to listen up. there are very smart people on this panel and say to everyone that john and i served together on the house commerce committee 1,000 years ago. those were the days when there was some bipartisanship. i know most of you can't remember that that was ever true, but it was true. and he and i worked together then and we have worked together since and the woodrow wilson center, which i am now enormously honored to lead is absolutely committed, at least here in this one wing of the reagan building to fostering thoughtful conversation, respectful interaction and

bipartisan solutions to tough problems. and one of them obviously is what role congress should play as we confront very different challenges in foreign policy, some of them involving kinetics in the 21st century. and give john a hug and welcome our audience. [applause] >> today's program is the first in a series of programs in the coming academic year on the overall theme of congress and global challenges. we are grateful to chevron in helping to make this series possible. we thought it would be advisable to kick off the series with an overview by looking at congress and foreign policy general, hence our title "congress' influence on foreign policy. for better or worse?"

some suggested we should have added "for richer or poorer" but others are already feeling that sting and know which direction some things are going. many americans think that foreign policy is the exclusive prerogative of the president and annoyed that congress should presume to interwith those prerogatives. in fact, that's what woodrow wilson thought when he wrote thn affairs the president possesses is virtually the power to control them absolutely." as we recall from the treaty of versailles, he largely had that attitude when he was president, yet the founders had congress in mind as a player in in foreign affairs when it gave exclusive powers to declare war, define and punish felonies on the high

seas, impose duties and regulate the value not only of u.s. currency but foreign currency, something in the news these days. the senate has shared powers with the president on ambassadorships and treaties. the purse powers of goes to domestic matters and foreign and military affairs as well. i was thumbing through the 286 pages of house authorization for foreign relations, and it covers a lot of territory, and i think they considered 77 amendments during july, but notwithstanding these separate powers, the intent of the framers that congress should act as a check both at home and abroad. congress has tended to defer more and more to the president

since the u.s. became an international power, and when it does get involved of making foreign policy, is accused of meddling. i recall henry kissinger saying it is like answer paddling on the kellogg, each thinking in -- on a log, each thinking it is during the thing. congress is organized to play a role in foreign policy, for most through its committees system. to authorize programs in those areas, finance and ways and medias, foreign operations and defense allocations.

all of these committees and subcommittees aconsume a substantial amount of time and lead to debate on the floor of the house and senate, so congress is involved in the formulation of funding and oversight of america's foreign policies. what we are asking is whether that involvement is for better or worse. does it enhance or detract from quality of success from foreign policy? we have an excellent panel to help answer those questions. you have the biographies before you, so i will not go into detail for each of these, but let me go briefly through who we are going to hear from. we are going to hear from the former senator of new hampshire, who has served six years in the house of representatives and six years in the u.s. senate, and he was

active in budget matters and the armed services committee. we will hear from david mccain, who is currently of public policies dollar, a former chief of staff and former foreign relations committee staff member for senator john kerry of massachusetts. he is the author of a biography i think you will find interesting corcoran. we are very grateful for your work and for filling in the last moment after the withdrawal of the congressman, and who had a last minute scheduling conflict. i gave him the option of waiting for the discussion or saying a few words, and he was kind enough to say, i worked on the hill with you. i can be with the rest of them, so i will fill in a few remarks, too. then we will hear from james and lindsay, the former national

security council staffer and a political scientist and co- author of several books, including congress and the politics of u.s. foreign policy, so we are grateful for you for being with us today. finally, we will hear from someone i have imposed upon several times to be here. she is with the congressional correspondent for the christian science monster. she was the paris bureau chief, so she has looked at this issue from both sides, and we would be grateful to her for insights. prior to being a journalist, she taught political science at college, she is someone my former boss, lynn martin, would have been proud to know, because she always said those journalists should be required to take one political science

class during college days, because some of them do not know what is going on. i am going to yield the podium to the senator for such time as he might consume. >> let me be the first to recognize that yielding to a senator for as much time as they want is the most dangerous thing you could possibly do in a format where you are trying to get to other speakers, but i will try to keep my remarks brief and focus on some of the peculiarities of congress in general and the house and senate in particular, how they might contrast with one another, how members might arrive at their own decisions with regard to foreign policy, what kind of background to they bring to their view of foreign-policy, and how might that affect some of the outcomes? a few things to say about some of the comments made during the introduction.

first, thanks to jane for her kind words. she is a good friend an extremely thoughtful person and worked in a bipartisan way on a host of issues but never more than on the intelligence committee, which she was privileged to lead. she mentioned bipartisanship, and i would start with an observation that there is plenty of bipartisan consensus with regard to foreign policy. president's absolutely agree congress has no business meddling in foreign policy. democrats and republicans joined together to agree the oval office has no idea where they are going on foreign policy, so there is opportunity for members of the parties to work together in that regard, but with respect to the age of the debate, the debate goes back to the 1970's,

although no question that academic circles have been more thoughtful and more focused on give-and-take with the presidency. some of the most heated debates with congress are on matters of foreign policy approval. and the impact now we did not just the impact of those treaties, but arguing about the broader role of congress in foreign policy. it is an issue that has been before the country since its founding, and there is no question congress has a role by design. that is the way the framers

wanted it. they could have written a constitution that on matters of foreign policy congress could back out, but they did not. there is no more important responsibility than the power to declare war. it is an incredibly important role that is enumerated for the senate to approve, and in terms of relevance, and now you can look through the past few weeks. some who are responsible for the delay might argue that it is important that the treaties are well-crafted. there is no question if you are korean that the delay and the details, and it may simply be a

trade agreement, but there is no question it affects foreign policy. dealing with chinese situation, there is no question it is not just relevant but very important to our relations with china, so there is no question congress remains relevant in this debate. see the attention being that in the abstract most americans

agree we would like a consensus- driven, unified foreign policy, because that is easier to represent national interest. there are certain members of the congress who are identified by ethnic identity, and none of those things are bad. you do not solve the problem by getting rid of parties. you do not solve the problems by telling people you should not identify yourself as an irish- american or an italian american

or a polish american. that is what america is all about. you cannot escape the fact of these things affect the way a member of the use their role in their responsibility, so what are the things said drives the members in their approach to foreign policy? first is their personal background. how do their families' views and their -- as an immigrant shave their value system and now as they grew up and got -- shape their value system as they grew up and got educated.

if you are a first generation polish american family, you are going to be focused on the issues associated with central europe, on issues associated adversariesies and in that part of the world. it is a very natural thing. there is no question the east coast and west coast tend to be of little bit more focused on international issues, and i think that is as much a reflection of geography as anything. there are a few people that are not nearly as focused on international issues as their counterparts in europe, but that is a reflection of geography a number of countries people may have visited as they were growing up and in public life.

that shapes members perspectives' without question. next is constituency, so regardless of your background, you are bringing your ethnicity, if you are a member of congress, you care about the makeup of the people of your district. where are they from? and what parts of the world are ?hey most focused on if you represent now dearborn, mich., you will have spent time in one of the largest arab- american communities in the united states, and that is going to help shape, help inform your view, and you may find that may

shape the intensity a member of congress affects about part of the world now. i think they call it international affairs in the house. if you are a chairman of the african subcommittee, you are going to be more focused on issues affecting the african continent. it does not mean you are going to disregard other parts of the world, or if you are a member of one of the committees with foreign policy jurisdiction, it does not necessarily mean you are going to be a good member, but it means you're much more likely to be focused on those issues, but it is not just the

foreign relations committee, but the armed forces committee is going to bring members in closer contact with issues having to do with foreign policies and international relations. the homeland security committees are going to bring members in closer contact with these issues because of the amount of work being done around the world to try to deal with a threat from terrorism and other threats to us, so it is not just one foreign relations committee. it is all committees, and a final thing to point out is it matters who runs those committees, so if you are on the armed service committee, john mccain and senator levin are going to have a different

perspective on foreign policy issues than their counterparts for foreign affairs in the senate. not necessarily better or worse, and whether issues are more partisan or less partisan, those individuals all carry with them their own biases and areas of emphasis. the final thing that affects members perspectives are against themselves. i did not expect i would be so involved in issues relating to iraq. if you would ask what issues of

foreign policy i would be involved in, where are my going to travel, if you would ask me in 2000, the answers i would have given you would have or no rhyme or reason to what i was thinking of working on in 2004 and in 2006. not many members of congress they are good deal of attention to foreign policy. how many members of congress pay attention? i think it is 5% or 10%, and how i would define it would be how many members pay attention or

work on foreign policy issues that are not in the headlines, work on foreign policy issues when others in the senate are not working on it or paying attention, so we are all asked to deal with, you have to vote on currency manipulation or a troop deployments or withdrawals from iraq or afghanistan. we have all been through that, and most members pay attention and analyze and come up with their own decisions when it comes time, but who works on foreign policy issues when that is not happening, and it is probably 5% or 10%. should it be more? yes, it should be, and the reason it should be more is the close of the more members pay attention to foreign policy

issues during the times these issues are not in the headlines, the better prepared they will be to respond to challenges when they do become a crisis situation, and that would be a point i would close on. how do you make the situation better? it is a simple suggestion, and it is probably one that has been made many times before, but it is worth emphasizing, and that is to provide as many opportunities as possible for members of congress to discuss this crisis. having a withdrawal of troops is

important, but the country would have been better served if people were talking about the nature of the afgani states, its strengths and weaknesses, its failures and opportunities to improve stability 10 or 15 years ago, so the objective should be, whether it is in the council on foreign policy was mentioned, you have got to work as hard as possible to convey what is being discussed. you might not draw as they of a crowd if you are talking about now ruth of democratic reform in sub-saharan africa. that might not draw the crowd that a debate of a true policy in afghanistan or iraq would, but it is going to be

important, and it is always difficult to tell if and when we will all be attuned into those issues, but if there is a crisis on the world stage that causes us to turn to that issue, we will be better off if we spend time discussing it out of the glare of the spotlight, because they will be better informed. they will be more confident, and they will be able to bring something to the table that will really make a difference for their colleagues in the united states congress. thank you. [applause] >> it is interesting you should mentioned sub-saharan african, because the president sent out a letter indicating he was sending out 100 services advisors to uganda, and he plans to send

them to see don -- sudan and the condo. this is just coming out in the news, but probably congress has not paid that much attention, but we are involving u.s. military in some other countries in potentially hostile situations. i will turn over to david mckean. you may approach the podium if you wish. >> thank you. i think don mentioned that one will be in history and i spent quite a bit of my career working for john kerry. that is what i want to talk about today. as an example of somebody who's career in foreign policy is illustrative of a lot of what

goes on in congress, so what about it? is congress a positive issue on -- positive influence on foreign policy? we have to keep in mind any influence congress has relies on the constitution, and one political observer put it very well that "a maker of a sound u.s. policy depends on a vigorous and often combative process that involves both the executive and legislative branches. the country's founding fathers gave each grants exclusive and overlapping powers in the rome of foreign policy according to each one is comparative -- in the realm of foreign policy according to each one is comparative advantage. let's be clear that for most of our history and the modern era it has not been much of a struggle.

the president has the vision. he sets the agenda. he set the tone. he appoints people to implement his mission, and some will argue there is a key division of power with a question of war. the power to declare war risk given to congress but the power to wage war goes to the president. the last time congress passed a bill with a title declaration of war was in 1942. since then, the u.s. has used terms like authorization to use military force, as it did in iraq in 2003. once the war is under way, congress has the power to stop it by cutting off funding. that happened in vietnam. i think it is unlikely to happen again where u.s. troops are involved, but congress has not always taken a back seat and will not always take a back

seat. president reagan pursued constructive engagement with south africa. the united states involve economic and military aid to the south african government. it encourages the prime minister of south africa to implement reforms. congress held up the pace of reform was to slow, and in 1986 its path over a bill imposing broad sanctions, so this shared responsibility with the executive branch usually taking the lead, i think it generally works pretty well, but what if anything can congress do to make it a more responsible player on a day-to-day basis? from where i sat, i believe the answer is oversights. let me read a paragraph from an

article written by thomas mann a couple years ago. it says one of congress's she rolls is oversight, making sure that the laws are faithfully executed. congressional oversight is meant to keep it from spiraling out of control. it has drawn on lessons of catastrophes to prevent them from recurring. good oversight cut sways and keeps policy makers on their toes. -- cuts in waste and keeps policy makers on their toes. it is time consuming. investigating possible scandals could easily last into a partisan exercise that ignores deeper issues for the sake of cheap publicity. i would only add that members need information to assess strategic viability and

implementation of any policy, and hearings are an important part of this process. too few members attend them. too often, issues are decided without proper information or political considerations, rather than being driven by a critical assessment of pros and cons. it is too easy. take pakistan. congress should be explaining congress should explain to the public with the administration why we need to maintain a good relationship with pakistan. this does not mean the terms of the relationship need to remain static but we have to put them into context of our historical relations with that country, and we have to do this in order to find common ground. and too often, we see a relationship like this captured in the knee-jerk political terms that ignore the national security implementations.

let me take a granular looked about how one committee and its chairman operate. i was the chief of staff for john kerry from 2000 to 2008. he had been on the committee since 1984 and his father had been a diplomat on the foreign service. he served in vietnam but later became a critic of the war. in 1962 he asked how you ask a man to ask a man to become the last person to die for re mistake. foreign policy has always been his great passion. it is different to be the chairman of a committee and not one of the members. as a member, he had a few staffers who were responsible for covering the issues for them.

you cannot be an expert on every issue. invariably, the focus on this -- personal experience can help a member find their issue. in the early 1990's he focused on the recognition and the transition and modernization issues related to vietnam, because he had previously chaired the pow investigation, and otherwise help the member find their issue. he was the senior democratic member on the asian subcommittee on the cambodian genocide tribunal.

and the opportunity to lead on an important issue may help a leader emerge. in 1990 he did a tremendous amount of work on aids in africa. this was a moral issue for him, but not a major issue. in 2009, he became chairman and had to cover the world. annie had to be an expert on every issue that came up. that means egypt and libya. suggest to put this in real terms, as a member of the committee, he promised that 20% of this time on foreign policy and now spends 50% of his time on committee-related work. the important thing is that when the senate is in recess, he spends much of his time on the road, with his vacation

spots as africa and afghanistan, the middle east and are for. he believes in order to understand a country, you have to know this and make contact with the people, and see this yourself. he would say to me that good diplomacy lets you see another country through their eyes and their history. i think the foreign travel component is especially important to any chairman of the committee that handles foreign policy. after 2004, he was declared it a serious student of foreign policy. he did meetings with any foreign leader that he wanted. what changed in 2009 is many of the leaders, there was a chairman who was close to the

president and wanted him to translate the administration and their foreign policy. but he understands that he is a translator and not a spokesman for the administration. he understands that congress is a separate branch of the government, and he has differed with the administration on many issues, declaring that the president and his decision on afghanistan went too far, too fast. he has also found he has a convening tower that is extremely important, like bringing in former republicans of defense -- to set a bipartisan tone, but the as it can be in power with his own members, inviting committee members to his house to build relationships and bridge the partisan divide.

that is a big part of why the committee has had important bipartisan success. let me add, john kerry has had a great partner in all of this, senator richard lugar. there were times when he had to run off an appointment and he was comfortable heading -- giving the gavel to richard lugar. more commonly, you find the chairman and the ranking member actually wanting to throw the gavel at each other. the last thing that i will note about foreign relations committee and his approach is that he wanted to make it clear, it is not center to the chairman, to the extent this is possible. his personal experience has been very instructive. he has worked with

contemporaries, but spend most of his career in the third or fourth position, and this can be frustrating. when he got the gavel, he thought about getting the members of the subcommittee engaged, to help barbara boxer work on women's issues. and he reached out to new members, and he empowered them to really lead on issues through the subcommittee. he knows the committee only succeeds if members on both sides get a real value for being on it, because it is not a committee that wins you a lot of votes back home. in the executive branch or the congress, the fact that foreign policy is the byproduct of effective leadership. thank you.

>> i will turn things over to james linsey, but it is teaching in the university of iowa after i left there as a graduate student. i have fond memories of the high was the campus. >> this is when i am is supposed to say, go hawks. and i want to echo what don said earlier, this is an excellent book and i would recommend that people not only read this but purchase this, which is what every author is wanting to readers to do. i may oakdale and apology. i am a professor by training, and this is the job of one person talking as other people sleep.

i hope to turn it -- the panel over tea with the audience have to wait. i was asked about the influence of congress on foreign policy, for better or worse? and my answer is, yes. the question is if this is good and bad is in the eye of the beholder. people like congress when they're standing up to the president is doing things they don't like and want them to be quiet when the president's is doing what they want for him to do. you want to go back and forth through history to find examples of a good congressional influence on foreign policy or whether the active as congress is good, or a differential congress -- you can find

multiple examples on both sides. you could talk about the imperial presidency and congress surrendering its voice, giving up the gulf of tonkin resolution. what a threat -- the congress getting in the way of the president doing the right thing, such as the rejection of the treaty of versailles. i would like to make three different points. one of them is that congress works at a disadvantage in form policy and will continue to do so as long as united states as an activist foreign policy. politics will shape what congress does in foreign affairs. and congress influences foreign policy, directly and indirectly. my first point is that congress

operates at a disadvantage in foreign policy and will as long as we have this policy. if you look at the constitution, it is important foreign-policy powers to congress and the president. they say the constitution is an invitation to struggle over foreign policy. but since world war two, this has gone decisively in favor of the white house. the most important is the changed u.s. role around the world. and the set -- to change perceptions of presidential power. james madison became president during modern times and the house representatives passed a bill to pass to him the decision of whether to go to war

with france. madison said that they could not delegate to power because it belonged solely to congress. after the invasion of south korea, president truman sent forces to stop -- to south korea, and he did so without going to congress or the russian leaders. or barack obama in operation odyssey dawn. the extensive overseas involvement and the national security establishment means that congress must delegates authority to the white house and they will have difficulty with oversight.

on both points, delegation and oversight keep this in mind. if you are congress, you want to give authority to the presidency. one of my favorites was an appropriations rider in 1970 wanting to prevent the central african empire, but this was when it collapsed. and they were barred by law into helping the success of government. you delegates -- open the door for people to do what they want. the national security -- the department of state, and the treasury, the intelligence community is huge and it is very difficult to oversee people

like david. -- people like david tried to follow with these policies do, but this is a very daunting task and this is difficult for the white house to oversee the same agencies. and the third thing is that the courts say and the sidelines for most issues. what has happened is that they thought they would step in and referee. this is the president and the white house. especially if this damages the white house. >> this effectively advantages the white house. the president can take the

initiative and then require congress to try to stop them. you really do have to presidencies. -- two presidencies. in domestic politics,the president increasingly cannot act unless congress agrees. this would be a debt ceiling -- for the summer. the president can act until congress can stop them. loll only becomes of law -- a law only becomes a law before the senators. a bill is veto-proof. as long as the president can maintain the support of 34 senators, which is not hard to do. the last foreign policy bill to be overwritten is the south african sanctions bill. that was a quarter-century ago.

and this is coming more recently with president obama and libya. there was sentiment in both chambers, particularly the house, to stop the president's decision. everybody knew no bill could stop the bombing was going to pass. politics shapes congressional interest in foreign policy. americans, they believe politics stop at the water's edge. the fact is that politics does not stop at the water's edge. it never has. we talked about earlier. the most bitter disputes during the george washington presidency, i am not arguing that all foreign policy is about politics. the staff works very hard to try to oversee what the government does as part of this -- there is the policy platform.

the united states senate gave more free rein to members, this does in foreign policy. this is the basic law of democratic politics. this is one of the issues that voters care about. that is what lawmakers gravitate toward. to put it differently, squeaky wheels to get the grease. when the public this is focused on jobs and the economy. when they are solidly behind the president such as in the fall of 2002, the public comes to rally behind the president.

there is consensus about what the policy should be and the politics become very partisan when there is a significant difference, in what we should be doing abroad and what the solution to those problems are. this influence foreign policy directly and perhaps indirectly. this is in terms of what law will be passed, that compels the president to do this. some congressional legislation specifies the substantive foreign-policy. how the money may be spent, and you talk about the south african sanctions bill. the substantive legislation,

what is well beyond that. iny aren't changing this important ways, in directly. congress has extensive foreign- policy powers, and historically, congress has treated offices in the executive branch that have not been attended to in the more recent ones, with the concern that the administration is not paying enough attention to this. and likewise on trade policy, this is mandated with the executive branch, as it develops the policy. and the procedural legislation. it is predicated on the idea that if you change how decisions get made, or who and to has a

say in the making of this decision. and the foreign policy, and directly, trying to change the climate of the country. the speeches and the television appearances, and even dramatic stunts like going out on the ground of capitol hill with a sledgehammer to break the imported goods. there is a cost overruns and things like that. if you want to be less charitable, they are trying for political grandstanding but at the end of the day, they're trying to shape the terms of the public debate to make some policies more likely and other policies less likely. at the end of the day, actually

passing the law is so difficult. this is aimed at trying to shape what the white house is going to do, and what is likely to be able to accomplish on capitol hill and what will cost it too much, politically. and i will stop right there. >> thank you. [applause] >> i am happy to be here because don has sent me on more times than i can talk about. institutional memory is something we are very short on right now. that is institutional memory, or you can get the context or the time line, or ask the question, is this something that is new or has this been going on for years? this is a place that remembers things. switching to our topic today,

foreign policy, to me, it is critical to remember that congress is not as strapped as sen. sununu said. -- is not abstract. it is about people. only 5% of people are interested in foreign policy. we have hearings. oversight is a critical function of congress, but if you want to look at the hearing rooms, there are only a few people up there asking questions. they are largely empty. too few members are attending. and the last comment was the most important. there is great interest in foreign policy that some members of congress have in spades. they do not get credit for this at home. this is a very important point. mr. murphy was talking about congress affecting what the public is interested in. the christmas trees, the

smashing of imports is a way to attract the public but what struck me the most in the panel discussions is that no one has trashed the media. so let me do that. my favorite place in paris was a bookstore owned by an iranian dissident. he had been part of the revolution that brought coming into power. he thought khamenei would leave power. so many of his colleagues and himself ended up back in paris. he had a special interest in the united states, which he visited frequently. the last time i saw him, i asked him what he was encouraged with in the world. and the thing now made him the most depressed in the world was seeing cbs news.

he noticed only a minute and a half or two minutes were devoted to foreign affairs. he said, you are the world's superpower and you don't know anything about the world. you are not been given anything about the world, how can you exercise that authority responsibly. and now we go back to congress. when i was an academic i thought about congress as an institution. this as people. 535 people who have to make decisions about how that will use their time and resources. lately, those decisions have less and less to do with foreign-policy. why is that? you can get hurt by being too interested in foreign policy.

it is a tough place for 87 second advertisement. so you are accused of caring more about foreigners than the problem we are facing back home. i was calling about -- maybe it was libya. this occurred to me recently as i was calling senator lugar's staff, something i do frequently position. it had something to do with weapons. maybe it was libya. this excellent staff meeting said the senator is at an ag fair in indiana. i thought he had not heard me. by repeated the question. he told me the senator was out and at an ag fair in indiana. this is a very important race. we do not want to look as if we're more concerned with something there than here. that is a small version of what

is a broader trend in congress. i was jotting down some questions that i would love answers to. i would love to know the amount of time that a member of congress spends in washington as opposed to home. my sense is that congress starts about 6:00 on tuesday and ends about noon on thursday. if you get in the way of someone exiting the building to make an airplane, you are taking your live in your hands. what happens in that small section of time when people are together and can talk and build relationships on issues like this? members of congress carry laminated cards that are broken down into 15-minute intervals. there is time for committees, but not a lot. their fund-raisers in the evening.

they do not have a lot of control over the time they spend doing things. that has an impact on what we're talking about. if you look at the percentage of staff resources, how much is spent hiring and retaining staff that knows something about policy as opposed to staff that can man a warroom? i remember a conversation with a man who was regarded until he was let go as one of the most effective. people in congress. -- p.r. people in congress. i said he semi-is mills -- i said he constantly sending e- mails. thoughts about these things? >> said yes, i know him well and how he would think about

this. i used to work for a member of congress and had to see everything i sent out under his name. it was ridiculous. we kept missing the google waves. the google wave is serious. it is the first thing i look out in the morning. what is cresting and how quickly can write something to catch the google wave? everyone is trying to survive in the current media environment. when you talk to members of staff, what is motivating them? i was interested in the oversight function. there are members of staff that are superb at oversight.

they have done it for years. they are like treasures. when one member leaves the congress, this treasure is passed on to someone else who continues the excellent work. these people are feeling kind of like dinosaurs these days. the young staffers kind of want to get out. they are carrying college loans that would stagger anyone. they cannot afford to stay on the hill as you might have 30 years ago, carefully working out an area of expertise. i did prepare some remarks which i would like to run through briefly. the main point i want to leave you with is that when you ask about congress and foreign policy, you need to think about those 535 people. you need to think about the 5000 ants on the log. think about what is motivating

the staff. what would give them incentive to develop the kind of expertise you need to be effective in foreign-policy as opposed to just coming up with a sound bite that will be good in a campaign environment? there were individuals who made a difference in foreign policy. i was talking to the senate historical office the other day. that is another place that has a wonderful institutional memory. for some reason, the house did not do as good a job as the senate. the senate prizes. we're talking about the great a poser, a member of the irreconcilable. he said america is respected and mired by the world. she did it by mining her own business. he opposed the league of nations, as many academics did when they came to congress and

found out that things were not quite as they could be. one of the many superb historians said that he never went home to idaho. she said congress only paid for a trip once a year. it was hard to get to idaho. he never went home. i thought this was an interesting point. members today go home all the time. what difference does it make that they are constantly in their districts as opposed to developing relationships and pursuing arcane interests with fellow colleagues here? i think it is significant. arthur vandenberg was kind of the opposite. he came up with one of the most often repeated phrases in the senate that politics stops at the water's edge.

people do not say that quite as much anymore because there is not much that is bipartisan anymore. he was the one that said it. he cooperated with the truman administration in forging bipartisan support for the truman document, the marshall plan, and nato. senator fulbright was a very interesting figure. i was talking to one of his aides about what it was that prompted him as a democrat to go against the president of his own party. why did he get so interested in vietnam and learn a lot about it? he sponsored a series of hearings that educated the nation about the war. have we had anything comparable with iraq? i do not think so. afghanistan? i think not. he devoted a tremendous effort to it. he said it was simple. i screwed up his plane reservations.

[laughter] he said he was going to australia and headed -- had to spend 28 hours on the airplane. he was miffed about it. he said on the way out the door to get him a big book to read. he was given a book on vietnam. he read it. 28 hours going out, 20 hours coming back. pat holt said that fulbright walked off the airplane and said we cannot win this war. he learned something about the country. we cannot win this war. he started his hearings. it is always something like that. anytime i ask a member of congress who is interested in something besides the number one priority back in the district, it is something like that. congressman wolf, i was talking to him the other day. he said he took a trip wants to africa.

-- wants to africa. -- once to africa. the plane could not go back. i had to stay overnight. i was there for a week. i never forgot those faces. i talk to colleagues about it and convinced others to go. it is basis. -- it is basis. -- faces. it is personal. it is knowing something and having the time to do it. that brings me back to senator richard lugar and senator nunn of georgia. they got interested in one of the most arcane issues possible. is russia dismantling the soviet union chemical and nuclear weapons? if not, how can we help them do it? how can we get congress to give money to them to do it? how can we track that is being done? in retrospect, one of the more productive things congress ever did on an issue like that and what senator lugar could be in a difficult fight for

reelection is in part because of the good work he has done in foreign policy. he is rapidly rebuilding ties back home. the idea of people who have excelled in foreign policy somehow getting burned for it is one of the many factors that is the motivating -- demotivating. how do you build expertise in foreign policy without time or trouble? -- travel? how many members actually travel? i think the press can make credit -- take credit for making travel look like a bad thing. we were the ones to convince people travel was a junket, wasting time. i admit some of these -- tip o'neill had a famous outing to the philippines with lots of golf. this does look bad. but the time spent actually in

a place, seeing it, and knowing it is important. if you come back home and are in a congressional environment where committee work no longer matters, where you take big issues and resolve them behind closed doors and send them to the floor weaken the with the -- to the floor in a whipped vote, where you can vote with the party or not, it is a demoralized atmosphere. it is something that academics and journalists do not take into enough account. when speaker boehner came in, he said he wanted to restore congress and functioning as an institution and restore the committee process. the house would be out every three weeks or so, but it would be back for the full week. the committees would be fully functioning. it is still dangerous to stand in front of the door at noon on thursday. i do not know if his plan is working yet. the question of how to develop

expertise without time is an issue. foreign affairs used to be an a-listing assignment. senator kerrey had a choice between the appropriations committee meeting people would -- which means you never have to raise a dime for the rest of your life. people will be coming to you for money. people would kill to be on the appropriations committee. or he could go to foreign affairs. he had been one of the most remarked-on witnesses before the committee. he chose foreign affairs. that is not a choice many people are making lately. effectively, it is no longer and a-list committee. there is not a crush to get on it. it is because it plays so badly

at home. i want to talk about currency manipulation another time. let me collapsed this and hope it is something we get into. currency manipulation looks like an arcane issue, but it has such an impact on the current job situation. looking over this debate, you would see that. the u.s.-china commission was formed by congress in october of 2000 to give congress regular updates on the china relationship. is it good for the economy? how are we doing militarily? every year, they produce an astonishing report that is ignored as most reports are. if you look back to the reports on terrorism before 9/11, they were very accurate and completely ignored. it is the same thing with the china commission. i just saw an advance copy of the new report. i had to pay $38 to get a copy.

you can get it free soon. some quick facts. the u.s. trade deficit is now more than half of the u.s. trade deficit with the world. it is 12% worse now than last year. our trade deficit with china is at a record high, $25 billion in one month alone. the u.s. supports roughly -- imports -- the u.s. imports roughly 640% more advanced technology products from china banned exports to china. -- than it exports to china. let me read that again. the u.s. imports roughly 640% more advanced technology products from china than it exports to china. allot of that 640% is from american companies manufacturing in china and selling back here. if you blink, you would miss it in the debates that just went on.

the debate over china and free trade was collapsed into database. -- into two days. for journalists, it is impossible to cover. google news does not care about it after the vote. it is banished. it does not care about it until just before the vote. there are two days to write anything that would matter or make a point that would matter. then the attention has moved somewhere else. back to this report. foreign-invested enterprises were responsible of 55% of china's exports and 58% of the -- 68% of the trade surplus in 2010. 2/3 of all the chinese boots are made by foreign companies operating in china in selling back to its market. -- and selling back to this market. employment in the united states would increase by up to 2.5 million jobs if china were to adopt an intellectual property system similar to the united

states. china is huge. are members of congress going to spend time on it in an intelligent way? let me leave you with the problem i have last week covering this. on tuesday, the senate voted 63-35 to impose tariffs on countries for currency manipulation. china is not mentioned, but everyone knows who is meant for. -- who is meant here. it has been held at an artificially low level to give chinese goods a trade advantage. there were numerous different numbers cited in the debate. at the same time, in the run-up to the senate vote, they announced they would not bring the bill to the floor. it became a free vote in senate terms. you could vote on it knowing there would be no outcome or it would be a symbolic vote. the club for growth is a

conservative group that weighed in on this. they sent out letters saying any conservative that voted for the currency bill could expect to be scored on it. in other words, watch what happens to your funding in the next election. last year, the house voted overwhelmingly to vote for an -- 348-79, to vote for an almost identical bill on china currency. 99 republicans supported the bill. there is a comparable bill right now in the house. is sponsored by congressman levin. 63 republicans have co-sponsored the bill. we have more accurate information about where members stand on the foreign policy issue than for most issues. and yet this bill will never come to a vote on the floor. iraq it will never come to the floor as a stand-alone vote. -- it will never come to the

floor as a stand-alone vote. i have to stop for a minute. my editors say no one will read this. their eyes glaze over. i am beginning to see this looking out there. [laughter] i could be very bad at explaining it. the issue is explaining it and -- needs explaining and that is not happening. there was a motion to recommit on the floor last week. that means the democrats get to bring up a stand alone thing. they tried to make as punishing as possible to the other side. republicans try to do the same thing. what did they pick? they picked the senate bill on china currency. it has 63 republicans already endorsing it. only four of them voted for it on the floor. that could be because if they voted for it, it would have killed a free-trade pact that was very important to republicans.

but it is part of this gridlock/gamesmanship that is crushing the life out of this congress. if there is any motivation for any member to spend time on the issues we are talking about, i think that is the most discouraging aspect of all. can congress be a force for good? of course it can. foreign policy affects americans. they may not be aware of it, but it does. china trade in a radically affects americans. -- china trade in fact -- emphatically affects americans. one of the interesting studies that members referred to in the very brief debate was by the economic policy institute, which somehow develop numbers. the numbers of jobs lost to the china trade in each district and state was compiled. that is the kind of boiling down of data that you need to make a dent in a congress that is so fixed on what it needs to

do to maintain its own majority and follow the leadership died - leadership-- guide on that and play politics at a level of gridlock that historically is going to stand unrivaled. it cannot continue to be this bad. something that cannot continue to be this bad won't. that is how i inspire myself to give up every morning. -- get up every morning. members of congress are discouraged. they're excellent people considering leaving the institution precisely because the work they do in committee goes nowhere. it is a demoralizing time. it was better to be there when woodrow wilson was meeting the -- leading the united states into being a dominant and world power.

members of congress are at a time when it is becoming less the case. it is not so much fun. >> thank you. [applause] >> even though some of that is depressing, the fact that you have a sense of humor keeps us all little bit lighter. you have the bluebird of happiness suit on. [laughter] one thing i would like to do before we engage the audience is to give our 1st two presenters a chance to follow on what the last two said. senator sununu has an engineering degree from mit and also has a business degree from harvard. notwithstanding those degrees, he is probably still trying to figure out how to fix congress. he knows how it was operating then and operates now. i wondered if you have anything to say on the dilemmas that

congress faces and on foreign policy. >> the importance of oversight was brought up. there are a number of staff members that are good at oversight. that is important and valuable. the real question is whether there are members that are willing to put themselves into the process of oversight. reform and oversight are tough. they are far tougher than just writing a new piece of legislation, even in the foreign-policy arena. one of the reasons you need oversight and reform is because over time, we have endured and accretive process. people have good ideas about being thoughtful in the way economic development funds are

used. if we build a school, it should meet safety and environmental codes and maybe local labor laws. conceptually, these are all good ideas. they may make it just about impossible for the development assistance to make a difference on the ground. the only way to rectify that situation is for some number -- member to set the priority of looking carefully at the different restrictions and limitations we place on development assistance and how we make the system work better. it is not more liberal or conservative, just make it work better so we do not have to read stories about funding being wasted around the world and not being used for its intended purposes. oversight and reform is tough. it is important and valuable. the only way it's done is by members setting the priority

from the top down. believe me, the staff will follow. >> when the republicans took over the first time around in 1995, they prided themselves on the fact that the cutback the committee staff by 1/3. that thought it was too bulky. the cutback from 1800 to 1200 people. a few years later, they regretted that they had taken away a lot of good oversight committee staffers. there were less able to do the oversight than their predecessors. that was something new to it even by the republican members. -- that was something noted even by the republican members. david? >> we have talked about what motivates people to be involved in foreign policy. you raised an important question about what motivates staff. i did a book on tommy corcoran, the first great super lobbyist.

not that much has changed except that the staffs have gotten a lot bigger. staffers are therefore very -- there for very different reasons. the foreign relations committee is not a place where you can easily said his -- segueway into a k street job. you don't go from working on developmental issues to making $1 million and a law firm downtown. it does not work that way. one thing i really enjoyed about it was the personal experiences of people that brought them to the committee. that is what kept them there. there were some extraordinary staffers who had been there a long time and really believed in what they're doing. there is another group out there who see this as punching a ticket. you do two years on the hill and then you go downtown.

it should not be a huge surprise that there is a lot more money in the defense industry. foreign assistance is $50 billion compared to $800 billion for defense. you find more money in -- more people willing to cash in. that does not mean you will not find folks on the armed services committee who deeply believe in what they're doing and are willing to work for not much money when they could make more money. i am not sure anything is changed much in that regard. people have different reasons for being there. >> i did a very unscientific study recently. i was reading "roll call." i happen to be a columnist for it. they have a fabulous 50 list of staff members on the hill. they asked to are the most powerful ones.

i noticed most of the people on the list are either leadership staff with the republican or democratic leadership for our -- or campaign staff for the republican or democratic campaign committees. a smaller percentage are actually committee staff. i asked for a comparison of the top 50 list. they came up with 1986 and 1987. it has turned around completely. in 1986 or 1987, it was about 60% committee staff considered the most powerful. now it is the opposite. committee staff are considered less powerful. leadership staff are up there on the list because people are looking at those who command the -- can man the war rooms. they are politically astute and

can help the parties get their members reelected. that is where the real staff growth has come from. that is where you have the best and brightest now working with the leadership on these political issues and not so much on the policy issues. >> the only review are the only one who would of thought to ask for those numbers. -- you are the only one would think to ask for those numbers. >> are used to be on there. -- i used to be on there. it was all vanity. >> i wonder if the 50 most beautiful faces gets more reading than that. >> i was once told i had the perfect face for radio. [laughter] >> let's go to the audience for questions. please wait for the microphone. identify yourself and your affiliation. we will have questions and comments. not everybody wants. -- not everybody at once. let's start right here with a former wilson staff person and not a renowned legal scientist

in his own right. >> i am a professor at american university. one of the historical trends with congress has been its assertiveness in foreign policy has been greater at times when we have not been any major war or in a moment of crisis -- in a major war or in a major crisis. the cycle is based on how prominent wars are crises have been and current american farm policy. -- wars for crises have been in current american foreign-policy. now we seem to be entering a time of greater inwardness. i wonder if that might suggest the president's dominance of foreign policy may recede compared to past decades. >> mr. lindsey first on that one. >> have you noticed any trends on this? one of your books is called "resurgence of current -- congress in foreign policy" or

something like that. >> it came out in the mid-1990s when congressional interest or activism in foreign affairs began to surge. the dynamic that jordan pointed to is this. -- exists. the ebb and flow of power is tied to the country's perception that it is under threat and secondarily to the expectation that the president's policies are working. after world war ii, you had more congressional involvement in foreign affairs. by the early 1950's, there is a growing sense of the soviet threat. you begin to see much less criticism of the white house from capitol hill. this is what arthur schlesinger

referred to as giving birth to the imperial presidency. it would stub its toe so to speak over vietnam. people became convinced that the president's policies had made the country less safe than it had been. i have to put a footnote on gail's remark about senator fulbright. he was critical of the war in 1966. he was also the floor manager of the resolution that included one -- the gulf of tonkin resolution that included one of my favorite exchanges on the floor when a senator raised the question of whether it gives the president the authority to go to war. fulbright said yes, but i do not think that is what he is going to do. as a legal matter, it does not

matter what you think the bill will do. it matters what the bill does. i think that was the significant thing there. as the country feels more secure, you will get more congressional activism. it is a matter of politics. if you can do it and not worry about getting in trouble and there is a sense you are not in danger in the country -- in danger in -- endangering the country as you might have been. the dynamic repeated itself after september 11. the country rallied around george bush. president bush's approval ratings were sustained. in october 2002, the administration was pushing for authorization of the iraq war. many democrats wanted to put the issue behind them and move onto other things. they realized this was not going to work to their advantage.

the smart political money argued that democrats and those interested in running in 2004 with the best to get on board -- would be best to get on board and move on. >> in the 1970's, i came on the day nixon was inaugurated in 1969. congress was getting more active in foreign and military affairs. as nixon was winding down the war, they became more activists. i was looking at these great amendments. one of the giants bestride the earth anymore the way they used to in the senate? we had these great eminence. these all occurred after johnson left office. nixon was in and winding down the war when we started to have challenges on vietnam and cambodia and also on military weapons systems. congress was very activist

during that time. people refer to the resurging congress after the country had grown more wary. -- war-weary. it was no longer popular. therefore, members could assert themselves and not feel as at risk politically. that was my observation. >> by the fall of 1967, the public had begun to sour on vietnam. their expectation was this would not last long. we kept going in further and further. you have the tet offensive in early 1968. from the vantage point of the johnson white house, congress set already begun to be too critical of its policies. that is one of the reasons why lbj chose not to run for reelection. >> gail mentioned the quote about politics stopping at the water's edge.

there's also the quote about congress wanting to be in on the takeoff and landing. >> that was from johnson. one of the reasons for the gulf of tonkin resolution was that johnson wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened to harry truman. he thought harry truman made a mistake by not going to congress and getting congressional authorization. there was a standing resolution already drawn up. he calculated that would protect him against people changing their mind later on. it turned out people can vote for a piece of legislation and still change their minds. [laughter] senator fulbright being first and foremost. lbj complained he had gotten him on the takeoff and would be

there for the crash landing but forgot to factor in the parachute. >> david? >> i remember reading from 1960 to the transcripts of president kennedy consulting the minority leader about the nuclear treaty. he was providing political advice to his president about how to get this thing passed. can you imagine that happening today? i do not have the answer of why it has deteriorated significantly and how to bring it back. maybe senator sununu does. >> i had a slightly different viewpoint. we would all like to think the times we live in a completely unique, different, or not as good as the good old days. in many respects, we are reliving the same challenges and debates and questions they were talking about in the 1970's, 1950's, or at the turn

of the century, or in the 1960's. when the test ban treaty was probably taking place. they probably thought it was so polarized with so much tension over civil rights or other things, why could this not be more like the turn-of-the- century when we had this wonderful academic woodrow wilson and things were much more genteel? there were two things that affect whether you are in a time of congressional activism or not. one is politics. members think this is an issue that their constituencies care about and are acting on it and voting on it. the second our people.

do you have members who are in a position of leadership or have the will and wherewithal to drive an issue to completion? with regards to the politics, those can be a factor with the country is divided -- whether the country is divided into are a democrat trying to make the president look bad. uc political opportunism to rally reduce the political opportunism to rally -- you see political opportunism to rally opposition. they seemed to be turning against what might view viewed as intervention is some in latin america. -- interventionism in latin america. when the country's unified, we feel strong, committed, concerned about the national security to it. members are engaged and active in formulating the legislation that responded to 9/11.

it was with everything from new national security powers, the patriot act that was passed in a very unanimous way back in 2001. i ended up filibustering four years later in 2005 and winning it. who thought that what happened? -- that would happen? that activism is driven by politics, but it is not necessarily the politics of unity or division. second, there is the individual. we talk of a midget would talk about a vandenberg on one hand or a borah on the other. they decided this was what they wanted to do. this is what they would commit themselves to. in 20th 30 years, we talk about a senator lugar or a senator kerry, or a senator mccain, people misspent a lot of time --

people who spent a lot of time working on foreign policy issues. you may have agreed with them or not, but there was no question they were the kind of policy makers who have an impact. >> now we have got questions. let's go with the gentleman on the aisle. and in the one in front of him after that. >> i am an intern with a congressman in the house of reps. i have been in turn several weeks. -- an intern for three weeks. i have had a chance to go to foreign affairs and oversight committees. at times i was shocked. sometimes the congressmen were not as interested in the topic being debated. other times, i thought the congressman new what he was talking about. he has actually studied our whatever. -- or whatever. i came here today because it is

very interesting to talk about the topic. my question was regarding lobbies in effect they have over congressmen as far as pushing certain policies they think are morally important to push. sometimes i feel that lobbies hold them back. they have an influence over them. i wondered if you could talk about it. >> that is a very good question. we have talked about political bases and constituents, but we have not talked about the interest groups in washington that represent constituents and members of parties. they have specific interests. how much of an influence do they have on the foreign-policy process? >> i guess i should start having been and lobbyist -- a lobbyist. -- having been lobbied on a

whole host of issues during the time that i was in congress. i would say the things i mentioned in my remarks, the background, the district, the constituencies are all important. there are not many nationally organized lobbies on foreign policy issues that are effective one way or the other. to the extent that there are lobbies on different issues, on domestic car regulatory issues, -- on domestic or regulatory issues, their effectiveness varies from member to member. oftentimes, their most valuable -- they are most valuable as a source of information. there will be someone on both sides of just about every issue. if someone is an effective lobbyist, they will tell you the pros and cons of an issue. lobbying groups tend to look

toward or flock to members to -- that already share their perspective to start with. on domestic issues, if you are from an energy-producing state, you are going to be working on issues that energy lobbyists are concerned about. if you are on the foreign relations committee, you will probably end of visiting with -- and up -- end up visiting with lobbyists on foreign policy issues. part of it is a self-selecting process rather than walking into a member's office and thinking you will persuade them to change their mind in a half hour of conversation. >> to david, what was your perspective from working in an office and on a committee staff? >> i met with a lot more lobbyists when i was on the personal staff than on the committee. the kinds of groups that tended

to come in when i was on the committee had foreign-policy agendas, but it was a different approach than somebody who wanted a change in the tax law or wanted an appropriation. it was very different. it was much more policy-based. there are a lot of nonprofits. there were some corporate interests as well. it was one of the most gratifying things about being on the committee that i did not have to meet with lobbyists all the time. [laughter] >> james lindsay? >> i would offer of the observation that lobbyists are more effective the fewer the people that care about the issue. the system is relatively open. it allows many veto points where things can be stopped.

if you are lobbying for a big issue that gets people excited like trade relations with china, afghanistan, you are going to be hard pressed as a lobbying organization to get your agenda through. there are a lot of other organizations opposed to you talking to senators and members of congress making a different set of arguments. if you are going in and arguing for making a change in u.s. aid policy towards name the country in africa and there is no one lobbying against it, you are more likely to be able to have an impact. in lobbying, if you are unopposed, if you are more likely to win than if you are opposed. >> on the house bill, there is a separate title on individual countries. there are about 17 sections east -- each one dealing with

different countries with my new provisions. it is interesting to go through that list. anything you have observed on lobbyists and foreign affairs? >> the most influential lobbyists were those who came to the member. i was talking to a member about this once. he said the most powerful lobbyists are the ones that do not have to come to you because you already know what they need. that is how significant they are. there is so much we do not know about the lobby process. campaign finance is now so opaque. i wrote a lot of enthusiastic pieces about campaign finance reform. it seems every step congress has made to make money more transparent in washington has had the opposite effect. we now know a great deal less about a great deal more money in politics. that is a critical element. the other thing that has surprised me is how often

lobbies are not of one mind. the national association of manufacturers, if there ever was a group that should have views on china, it is them. they do not. but they are too divided. the board tends to be people who themselves manufacture in china. they think china currency is fine the way it is. all those little manufacturers who are not big or savvy enough to move to china are getting clobbered by it. they want to see the organization go in another direction. they could not make a difference. i suspect that is a lot more likely than you think. one thing house republicans tried to do when they took back the house for the first time in 42 years in 1995 was something called the k street project.

the idea was that they would literally go to lobby firms and say that democrats have been controlling this place for 42 years. it is not surprising that your main lobbyists are ex-democratic staffers. if you do not start getting republican staffers, you will not have access to us. it may not have been as blunt, but that was the sense. you have got to start hiring republicans if you will have access to us. the argument they made is that you have democrats representing you, but republicans are closer to your interests. you ought to have republicans representing you on capitol hill. that was another angle i had not thought about. with the lobbyist -- what if the lobbyist is out of sync with the constituents paying them.

that happens a lot more than i thought it does. it is a good question, to which there is not a clear, a good answer. >> the fellow in a white shirt. >> my name is jason. i wanted to ask about the background of people who become congressmen and women. is it that their professional background affects how they deal with foreign policy? i do not think too many people unless they came from the foreign policy related field would ever become a member of congress. the kind of people who become congressman armey businessmen -- are maybe businessmen,

lawyers. maybe the only deal with domestic issues in their normal lives before they became part of congress. how does that affect them when they get into their careers? >> senator? >> i do not know that there would necessarily be an extraordinary value of someone having a ph.d. in foreign relations in congress. it would be of no more or less value than having someone with that degree in economics. an ice education. -- a nice education. it depends on how they can translate that knowledge into practical value, crafting legislation, understanding public policy, understanding the impact that house.

as a matter of course, what we need in congress generally are people with more practical experience working in the real economy domestically and internationally. someone with business experience with a company that did importuned -- importing and exporting, that understood the real ramifications of the issues like intellectual property protection, the impact of stronger and weaker currencies, and whether or not those are manipulated by the governments labor laws. it is really practical experience that is missing. in the case of the foreign policy question we're talking about, do they have practical experience working with and interacting with individuals, companies, and institutions

around the world? generally, that is something missing in congress. >> david, you have a law degree and a degree in law and diplomacy from tufts. how relevant was that to your work on capitol hill? did you find it very useful? >> no. [laughter] it was a demonstrated interest i had for a long time. it is not that it was not useful. it was useful. senator moynihan went to fletcher. he had that demonstrated interest. people become interested in these issues for a variety of reasons. chris dodd was in the peace corps in central america. that is why he embraced the foreign relations committee for a number of years. i think there are people from business backgrounds interested in it from that point of view. there are a lot of different

reasons why people come to the table. >> one of the rare exceptions is howard wolpey from michigan. he taught international relations in michigan. he came to congress and became a share of the africa subcommittee. he was defeated for reelection after several years. he ended up in the state department on the africa desk. he came here and randy africa -- and ran the africa program. program. now he is back to the state department on the africa desk. he was a very good member of congress. he represented his constituents well. eventually, a republican beat him in an election. >> since i have a phd in political science, i feel i should stand up for members of my profession. however, i am reminded of what william buckley once said. he would rather be governed by the first 200 names in the boston phone book than the harvard faculty.

perhaps because he was a graduate of yale. i think what senator sununu and david just said are spot on. it matters more people's practical experience and ability to mobilize others rather than knowing what is that hanz morgenthau wrote or being able to do a calculation that would make the nobel prize committee in economic science is happy. what i do think is notable in the membership of the house and senate is that there are many more lawyers. i do not know if that is to our

advantage. there are fewer people who have served in the military. that has often been remarked upon. there are a number of social scientists who explore these issues trying to determine what difference it makes in what congress actually does. there is no clear evidence it does much of anything. what members do is driven and constrained by other factors that are more important like party, a constituency, the events of the day, and what have you. >> william buckley ran for mayor of new york city. he said the first thing he would do if he won was to demand a recount. [laughter] that has nothing to do with foreign policy. let's go to this gentleman. >> brian jacobs. i am an intern. i do want to serve on the committee sunday into effective work. -- serve on the committee one day and actually do it effective work. hopefully that happens.

my question and years into the lobbying subject -- veers into the logging's of it. there is the argument that there is an influence on u.s. policy towards israel that is developing and maintaining a relationship. i would like to ask the members of the panel to expand on that. there are divergent interests within the lobbies. my second question is in regards to the house foreign affairs committee. on the armed services committee -- the house foreign affairs committee is not appropriate -- does not appropriate as much. is it important have that support base? the armed services committee has a defense industry and support base. where is the support base for

the foreign affairs committee? if there is not one for the foreign affairs committee, how do you develop one? they do important work that needs to be recognized. >> i have visited with people recently that sked the second question about whether this is any constituency for foreign assistance, foreign policy, how you go about organizing one in the united states. there are no two ways about it. you run up against a wall with the public at large. people put foreign-policy and economic assistance way down on the list. there are natural hurdles and challenges. the american-israel political action committee lobbies on issues they feel are important to israel and the greater middle east. they've been around longer, are

better organized, bigger membership. by definition, that means they're likely to be more effective and better known with members. that goes from organizing locally, at the state level. they reach out to them regularly all the way to the national efforts involve board meetings in washington and big public affairs conferences and the like. to the extent they are effective, it has to do with their size, history, and scope their success could be replicated by other groups. the answer is almost certainly yes. there are many different constituencies in the country. there are many different groups within those better focused on foreign policy related to the

middle east and israel that have divergent viewpoints. there is a lot of opportunity for new perspective. >> we have time for one more question. let's give the microphone to jeff biggs. >> thank you for the wonderful topic and the superb panel. one thing that did not, but i was surprised about is the israeli-palestinian issue. it seems to reflect a lot of what has been said. dramatic changes have been taking place. for a number of years, we could rely on egypt and turkey to play a supportive role in negotiations between the two parties. now congress is thinking about eliminating entirely any assistance to the palestinians.

in the process, they seem to give up a u.s. role of being an honest broker. i did not know who replaces the role. the you get that this is a result of politics or well thought out foreign-policy? >> that is above my pay grade. >> an interesting piece in cq weekly on this exact issue. much more detailed. there was a spike of interest in a pack -- aipac after a book by two harvard professors saying it was the most powerful lobby in the united states. i do not know what they said on our earth, but they could have. for a while, aipac seem to disappear and other groups replace them for a time. they are still obviously there, but they deliberately took a less strong profile appeared in

a funny way, they were replaced by eric cantor, the first jewish republican in the house. not ever, but in the current house. some extraordinary things that he did after the election, meeting with netanyahu. the first time an opposition member had met with a head of state like that. shaping up to be a very important issue in the 2012 election. it could potentially drive a wedge to a strong democratic constituency by in effect saying i am more pro-israeli then you are. i think that that is an enormous implications. you have already seen the president back off -- compare what he said now with what he said in his cairo speech. there is a striking difference. how did that happen?

was that a process of learning on his part or running up against very strong opposition both from aipac and their republican house group led by eric cantor that is taking a role that had not been taken before? very interesting to see. i predict that this will emerge as an important factor in the 20 collection, and it is giving the president of a lot of difficult y. he has to link the carries speech with what he is now saying. it is the same problem that senator john kerry seemed to flip-flop on. >> senators and and and, you can have the last word and we can take the conversations across all to the reception room. >> this underscores the suggestion i made, which is to

want to cultivate members of congress -- you want to cultivate members of congress who understand these issues related to foreign policy during the quiet times. you never know when they are going to be needed. you see uprisings and transitions empower in tunisia, egypt, other countries throughout the arab spring. it is good that members of congress are paying more attention to these areas, thinking about the national security ramifications for the united states, national interests, and what our perspective should be encouraging this process. you would want those members of congress leading that debate to have been thinking about listening, understanding, politics, economics and northern

africa, in the middle east, 10 years ago. you don't want them to suddenly come to the issue and get a crash course and crashed participation. 10 years ago, there were probably not many people they would say, i think you will have a mass protest in egypt and a transition period. i was in egypt about a year before the protests and the transition. i talked to quite a number of real business people, not necessarily political, about how they felt about the economy and politics. even they did not really see it coming. there is a lot to be said about, if nothing else, you will not necessarily make it a huge political winner or develop grass-roots constituencies at home for involving in farm policy, but you can help create opportunities for members to think and talk and discuss these issues domestically.

and no way that a rich's them -- in a way that enriches them so that they can put it to good emerging put it to good use in critical times. >> thank you very much. join me in thanking our panel. [applause] please join us for a reception at all across the hall in our board room. thank you for coming. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> [inaudible] >> i would get your signature on this. >> president obama is on the

road this week talking about his jobs plan during his remarks in north carolina are next. and about 40 minutes, or about jobs from republican senator john mccain of arizona. then a preview of senate races in next year's elections. several live events to tell you about tomorrow. the senate homeland security committee looks at the country's defenses against pirate terrorism threats. -- bioterrorism threats. tim geithner testifies about the small business committee. ben bernanke speaks at a conference of the federal reserve bank in boston also on c-span at 1:15 p.m. eastern. >> i do not object to an

investigation into some lender. based on the wreckage today, i do not see evidence of wrongdoing by government officials. just a bad investment decision. i do not want to minimize it. but this was a bad decision as far as we now, made on the merits. the gentleman's time has expired. >> on friday a subcommittee continue to probe of the energy department's 5 and the $35 billion june was the entire offs well as testimony from officials and the 2010 presidential visit online. it is washington, your way. >> present obama talk about his efforts to bring up his jobs

bill in the senate. this is 40 minutes. [applause]

[applause] >> for more years, four more years! four more years!

>> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. ♪ >> hello, asheville. it is due to be back in asheville, north carolina. -- good to be back in asheville,

north carolina. i love asheville. i think i should be in the tourism promotion of asheville. every time i meet someone, i say, have you been down to our asheville, that is the place to be. it is always nice to get washington and read some of the mountain air. i want to recognize a couple of people who are here. first of all, one of the outstanding senators in the united states senatoe. kay hagen is in the house.

her daughter just got married. congratulations. we are so thrilled, and we also have lovely and intelligent mayor of asheville. [applause] last time i was here terry said she could play basketball. it turned out she was a cheerleader. as you may have noticed, i came here on a plane. it was a pretty nice plain, but i am leaving on a bus.

it is pretty hard to miss, and over the next few days we are going to take it through north carolina and virginia, and i am going to get a chance to hear from folks about how they are doing and what direction they want to take the country in. i will do a little bit of talking, but mostly i will do some listening, because there does not seem to be much listening in washington these days. people do not seem to be paying much attention to the people who sent them there in the first place and that is a shame, because once you escape partisanship end point sharing in washington, once you start listening to the american people, is pretty clear what your leaders should be spending their time on. we should be talking about jobs.

when you hear what is going on in the country, when you take the time to listen, you understand a lot of folks are hurting out there. too many people are looking for work. to many families are looking for a sense of security that has been slipping away for the last decade now. here in north carolina you have thousands of construction workers who lost their job. some of them are here today. they have got experience. they have got skills. all they want to do is be back on the job doing what they do best. there is plenty of work to go a round. you have a run with the needs to be widened and repaired.

and you have got a taxi way that is in the wrong spot, which means the airplanes sometimes get too close together, so we could be doing some work right here at the airport but would help boost tourism, help boost the economy, put people to work right now, but it is not just in asheville, all across the state you have got highways the need to be built. you have gone bridges the need to be built. you have got schools and the need to be modernized. that is what america used to do best. we used to build things. we built a golden gave the bridge, the hoover dam. there is no reason we should sit here and watch the news airports

being built in china. we should be building them right here in the united states of america, right here in north carolina. our problems were a round of the region were a long time in the making. solve themoing to overnight, but there are things we should do right now to get the economy the adults it needs an -- the jolt it needs, so that is why i sent to congress the american jobs act. keep in mind, this is the kind of bill containing the kinds of proposals that in the past have received support from democrats and republicans. it is completely paid for by

asking our wealthiest senators, folks making more than $1 million a year, to pay their fair share. independent economists have sent this jobs bill would create nearly 2 million jobs. but is not my opinion, not ofthe folks who work with me. it is the people who evaluate these things for a living. it will help put people to work and give our economy a boost right away, and apparently none of this matters to the republicans in the senate, because last week they got together to block this bill. they said no to putting teachers and construction workers back on the job. they said no to rebuilding our

bridges and airports. they said no to cutting taxes for middle-class families and small businesses, when all they have been doing is cutting taxes for the wealthiest americans. they said no to helping veterans find jobs. essentially, they said no to you, because it turns out that one poll found 63% of americans support the ideas in this jobs bill. [applause] 63% of americans support the jobs bill i put forward. 100% of republicans in the senate voted against it. that does not make any sense, does it? now it turns out the republicans have a plan, su. i want to be fair. they put this plan forward last

week. they call it a real american jobs act, just in case you were wondering, but let's take a look athens what the republican american jobs in -- a look at what the republican american jobs back looks like. it comes down to a few ideas. they want to cut regulations. they want to let wall street do whatever it wants. they want to drill more and repeal health-care reform. that is their jobs plan, so let's do a comparison. the republican plan says what has been standing in the way between us and full employment are laws that keep them from polluting as much as they want. our plan puts teachers, construction workers, firefighters, and police

officers back on the job. their plan says it of a problem and we have is that we helped get 30 million americans health insurance. we figure we should throw those folks off the health insurance rolls. somehow that will help get jobs. our says we are better if every worker gets a tax cut, and that is my jobs bill. their plan says we should go back to the total days before the financial crisis when wall street was writing its own rules. and they want to roll back all the reforms we put into place. our plan says we need to make it easier for small businesses to grow and hire and push this economy forward. you have got their plan, and you have got might learn.

my plan says we are going to put teachers back in the classroom, and construction workers back to work, rebuilding america, rebuilding our schools, tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for hiring veterans, a tax cut if you give your workers a raise. that is my plan, and then you have got their plan, which is let's have dirtier air and 30- year water. -- dirtier water. as people with health insurance. somehow i feel better about my plan, but let's admit i am a little biased, so remember those independent economists who said our plan would create jobs, grow the economy by as much as 2%?

one of the same economists that took a look at our plan republican plan, and they said, this would not do much to help the economy in the short term. this could actually cost us jobs. we could actually lose jobs, so i will let you decide which one is the real american jobs act. [applause] >> four more years! >> i appreciate the four more years, but right now i am thinking about the next 13 months, because we have got an election coming up, but that is a long ways away, and a lot of folks cannot wait. a lot of folks are living paycheck to paycheck.

a lot of folks are living week to week. you have kids right now to blow off their teachers because of the local level you end up having layoffs. you have businesses crumbling and deteriorating, so we do not have time to wait, and we have a choice right now. i want to work with republicans on way to create job right now, and where they have a decent idea i am happy to work with them. we passed a bipartisan agreement with. but will support more than 70,000 jobs here at home, because my attitude is if we are iuying hyundai's and kias, want them buying ford and chevy, so if they are serious about

creating jobs, i am ready to go. i do not think anyone doubts i have gone out of my way to try to find areas of cooperation with republicans. a in fact, some of you have been mad at me for trying to hard to cooperate with them. i get some of your letters. you are like, why are you cooperating with them all the time? it cannot be all about politics. sometimes we have to get things done, so i am eager to see them stand up with a serious approach to putting people back to work. it is time to focus less on satisfying some wing of the party and more on our common sense ideas but we can take to put more people to work and help

the middle class. there are a bunch of folks who have never gotten an opportunity, so we are going to give members of congress and another chance to step up to the plate and do the right thing we decided, let's let them do the right thing one more time. we are going to give them another chance to do their job by looking at your jobs. this week, i am asking members of congress to vote -- we are going to break up the jobs bill. maybe they could not understand the whole thing at once, so we are going to break it up into bite size pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach, so this week i am going to ask members of congress to vote on one component of the plan, which is whether this weekend "

hundreds of teachers back in the classroom and firefighters back to work. members of congress will have a chance to decide what kind of future do our kids deserved. should we stand up for our men and women who are often digging in their own pockets to buy school supplies when we know the education of our children is going to determine our future as a nation? they are going to have a chance to decide, do we want to make sure we are looking after the men and women who protect our communities every day? after they have taken the vote, we are going to give members of congress a chance to vote on whether we are going to put construction workers back to work. should we put them back to work

during the work americans need done salmo? after that we will give them a chance to decide whether unemployed americans should continue to struggle or whether we should give them the support to build a better life, and we will ask them to take a stand on whether they should ask people like me to peso middle-class families and small businesses can pay a little less and end up bringing the types of jobs we need in this economy. those are the choices members of congress are going to face in coming weeks, and if they vote against these proposals again, maybe they did not understand the whole thing, so we are breaking it up into pieces. if they vote against taking steps we know will put americans back to work right now, and they are not going to have to answer

to me. they are going to have to answer to you. have to come to back to north carolina and tell kids whether teachers cannot come back. they are going to have to look those construction workers in five and tell them why they cannot get back to work doing the work americans need done. they are going to have to explain to working families why their taxes are going up while the rich corporations keep getting sweet deals. they are going to have to explain why they do not have an answer for how we are putting americans to work right now. if they support the republican and, they do not have to explain why they would rather deny health care to millions of americans of let corporations

and banks write their own rules instead of supporting proposals and we know will create jobs right now, so that is where all of you come in. some of these folks are not getting the message, so i need you to make your voices heard. i need you to give congress a piece of your mind. these members of congress work for do. if they are not delivering, it is time to let them know. tell your elected leaders to do the right thing. remind them what is at stake, putting people back to work, restoring economic security for middle-class families and help create a ladder that will help people get into the middle class, rebuilding an economy where harness work is valued and responsibility is unrewarded,

building a future the class for our children. -- now and responsibility is rewarded, building a future for our children. if we want to continue to invest in technology and research so we can continue to make sure the new cars of the future are made right here in north carolina and in america, we have got to step up. and we have got to get to work. we have got to get busy right now. we cannot sue nothing. too many folks are hurting to do nothing. we need to act right now. we are not of people who sit by and do nothing when things are not right. we are americans. if something is not working, we fix it. we stick with it until the problem is fixed. but is the spirit we need to muster right now. let's get to work.

let's show the world why the united states is the greatest country on earth. god bless you, and thank you, after filtering good thank you, north carolina. [applause] ♪

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likes while the president was in north carolina, plans to create jobs were also being discussed on the senate floor. this was also 20 minutes. >> i come here today to discuss the jobs and growth fact that was recently introduced by most of my republican colleagues on this side of the aisle, and i would like to highlight the hard work done by my colleagues, senators paul and portman in putting this together. this is a common-sense alternative to the plan being championed by president obama and majority leader read. create jobs through growth, and they want to create jobs through government spending. we believe that business creates jobs in america. it's clear from the president's

stimulus, too, that he believes government creates jobs. so there is a fundamental difference between our proposal and theirs, and what they have proposed is another stimulus. we tried that. we saw the movie before. it didn't work. it added to our debt and deficit, and we lost jobs. my colleagues and i are putting forth a plan to create jobs through sound policies and most economists will tell you that economic growth is a fundamental part of a long-term sustainable job creation, and that's what the plan does. it contains key components, spending reforms, including a balanced budget amendment to the constitution to give job creators the certainty that washington will not continue to grow unchecked. almost all of us understand from experience over the years that

unless the united states of america, our government is required as every state and every town and every county and every city in america is required to do, and that's have a balanced budget, we will continue to amass deficits that mortgage our children and our grandchildren's futures. republican and democrat presidents alike over the years have asked for an enhanced rescission authority, what we used to call the line-item veto that would give the president of the united states the ability to eliminate unnecessary wasteful earmark pork-barrel spending provisions without having to veto the entire bill. we believe that these two measures can bring about a fiscal discipline in this congress and in this nation that has been sadly lacking for a long, long time, and has given

us the massive debts and deficits, a deficit of around -- nearly $50,000 for every man, woman, and child in america today. we need tax reforms. is there anyone in america who doesn't believe that the tax code which is this high does not need to be reformed? our proposal is simple: cut the corporate tax rate from 35 -- cut the tax rate from 35% to 25%, create three categories of tax rates in america, and close the loopholes, eliminate the subsidies, and let's give americans a tax code that they can trust and believe in, even understand. it's up to 1 point -- let's bring home the $1.4 trillion in foreign earnings that's trapped overseas in countries where u.s.-based multinational

companies do business. why won't they bring the money home? because they'd have to tax it at 35%. it isn't that much more complicated. senator hagan and i last week introduced a bill which would provide incentives for that money to come home on the proviso that they create jobs in america and invest in america. that according to a recent study done for the chamber of commerce, the repatriation of this $1.4 trillion in corporate earnings currently trapped overseas could result in increasing the gross desk product by roughly $360 billion and the creation of as many as 2.9 million new u.s. jobs. recently there was -- i must say from the other side of the aisle there was a study that showed that this money would have no effect. how in the world could you possibly believe that if you brought $1.4 trillion back home to america it would have no

effect? i think it probably shows that really that you can probably have a study that shows that there was indeed landing of aliens in a city in nevada a long time ago, in new mexico. new mexico, a long time ago. reforming the regulatory process costs taxpayers nothing but does more for creating jobs than any stimulus program possibly could. there is nothing more constraining to job growth and the add verb adversarial relatip between business and government. talk to any business person, small or large, and they will tell you why they are sitting on large sums of money and not creating jobs and not investing it. it's because they don't know which regulation is coming down next that they are going to have to comply with.

and please, i ask my colleagues and my friends, go ask the business people. they will tell you that. they will tell you that the fear and specter of additional regulations are an incredibly negative effect on their desire to invest and hire. lifting the prohibitions on off-shore energy exploration will immediately create jobs. drive investment and reduce our nation's dependence on foreign sources of oil. according to the american energy alliance which is a pro-, more tri group admitteddedly, permanently lifting the jof shore moratorium yum would result in 1.2 million new u.s. jobs. and of course we need to give the president the fast track authority to negotiate trade agreements. by point out that the president is now on his listening,

quote, listening tour, at taxpayers' expense, and he was taking credit for the passage of these three bills for free trade agreements for panama, colombia, and south korea that only took nearly three years. as far as our bill is concerned, we have a statement from the u.s. chamber of commerce. yesterday a group of senators, including john mccain, rob portman and rand paul introduced the jobs for growth act. this legislation marks a departure, from 5, quote, government knows best approach and instead empowers the private sector to rescue our economy. as the chamber pointed out in its six-points jobs plan, alleviating regulatory burdens, tax uncertainty and restoring confidence to invest and grow jobs is the best way to get the country back on track. this bill is a step in the right

direction and includes a number of the same broad-based ideas for creation of the chamber's plan. it goes on to talk about comprehensive tax reform as critical to job creation. they believe reforming the regulatory process is necessary for businesses to begin hiring again and they also argue for the expanded drilling off shore. so you will hear from various liberal think tanks that we really don't create jobs, that this is not a good thing to do, etc., but the fact is that the chamber of commerce which i think knows well about job creation, should be paid attention to. doug holtz, a piece in "the national review" ron line, a noted economist and former head

of the office of management and budget and in the interest of full disclosure, an advisor of mine, wrote the following. "senate republicans have just introduced the real jobs plan. as i've long argued an effective jobs plan is is a commitment to the sustained commitment for long-term growth. the president's failed proposals have repeatedly are proven that, quote, temporary and targeted, unquote, stimulus stimulus -- mr. president, i ask for such additional time as i may consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: he goes on to say the president's failed proposals have repeatedly proven that temporary and targeted stimulus is insufficient. -hourover his latest effort displays more interest in politics than growth. senators mccain, paul and portman have targeted job creation at a time we desperately need it by incentivizing growth by

repealing the affordable care act and d.o.d.-frank law. there's a lot here to like. still, inevitably there will be a war of numbers in which progressives try to trot out numbers from keynesian models to argue that the strategy won't work. to anticipate the debate here are highlights of the real jobs plan and some estimates of the jobs impact. lower the corporate tax rate to 25% resulting in an additional 581,000 jobs per year on average. reduce the tax on foreign earnings brought back to the u.s. resulting in 2.9 million jobs, repeal d.o.d.-frank --, dodd-frank, estimated to cost 6.2 million jobs by 2015. on the so-called dodd-frank act which was supposed to -- i was supposed to make sure the whole purpose, of the dodd frank act was to make sure no institution in america would ever be too big to fail.

my friends, tell me, tell me that these institutions aren't too big to fail. we know they've gotten bigger and we know they're too big to fail and we know if we went through a similar crisis because of their size we would again be forced to use taxpayers' dollars to bail them out. the fact is, that dodd-flank bill has been a complete failure as many of us predicted it, up with of the reasons because it didn't address the phasing out of fannie mae and freddie mac and the housing crisis started this collapse and until the day the housing market stabilizes we will not begin to emerge from this horrible economic situation america finds itself in today. repeal the a.c.a. recommended to cost the economy at least 800,000 jobs. lift the off-shore drilling moratorium resulting in

1.2 million jobs. prohibit the e.p.a. from regulating greenhouse gases estimated to cost the economy 1.4 million jobs by 2014. and of course, giving the president trade preference authority. now, . mrs. i've outlined what i -- now, minutes i think outlined a proposal which i think -- finally, i'd like foint out in "the wall street journal" political diary, october 14, 2011, and i quote from "the wall street journal," "finally a g.o.p. growth plan. senators mccain, rand paul, rob portman have grafted an economic blueprint they hope to be the rallying cry of all congressional republicans. the white house and congressional democrats hope to use the senate rejection of the obama jobs plan this week as a campaign issue to, quote,

do-nothing republicans. senate democrats have crowed, quote, the republicans have no jobs plan of their own but that's not true any longer. senators campaign and rand paul and rob portman drafted a comprehensive economic growth blueprint they hope will be the rallying cry of all congressional republicans in the weeks ahead. we obtained a copy of the draft document which includes tax cuts, a balanced budget amendment, obamacare repeal and a regulatory freeze. the plan would cut corporate tax rates to 35% and 25%, is partially paid for by offering a reduced 5% on repatriot rated capital. the plan won't get close to 60 votes in the senate but will establish a polar star for republicans to head towards. republicans got a nice lift for the plan when the chamber of commerce poll asked 1,300 business owners whether they support the plan of permanent tax cuts and less

integrity or the democratic plan of temporary payroll tax cuts and public works spending. more than eight of ten said they favor the republican approach. so mr. president, as they say let the games begin. so today, the president of the united states in his visit to areas of the country that have a lot to do in the view of many with the upcoming electoral calendar, attacked our plan and attacked it rather vociferously. in fact, i was somewhat taken aback since the president and his spokesperson had billed his

trip as a taxpayer paid visit. and in his remarks, the president was very strongly condemning of the plan that we have put forward. in fact, remember, my colleagues and friends, the president made these remarks on a taxpayer-paid-for, riding in a canadian bus, visit for the next three days. and this is what on his listening tour the president said. now it turns out that the republicans have a plan, too. i want to be fair. they call,,the call they put forward this plan this week, they called at this time real

american jobs act, the rile one. that's just what they called it in face you're wondering. let's take a look at what the american jobs act. boils down a few basic ideas, they want to gut regulations, let wall street do whatever it wants,, to want to repeal health care reform. that's their jobs plan. etc. so on the taxpayer-paid time, the president is now traveling attacking the republican plan, obviously i think unfairly. and other by the way, -- and by the way, there's an article from -- dated october 16 by richard wolf, "usa today," president obama will kick off trips in north carolina and virginia monday but white house officials insist the trip is about jobs, not votes. so much so, in fact, they convened a conference call to

reiterate that point several times pointing out that the trip is fully on the taxpayers' dime, not the republicans' re-election campaign. so the president has taken to the road and, i mean, he spent a number of minutes attacking our plan, and i understand that. i think he has the -- certainly in a political venue -- the right and privilege to do that. i think the question might be, though, is that appropriate on the taxpayers' dime, since it is clearly campaigning. and, i must say again, i've never seen an uglier bus than the canadian one. he's traveling around on a canadian bus touting american jobs. so -- and one of the reasons why americans and i and my

colleagues are a bit skeptical, because we've seen this movie before. we saw this movie before. it feels a little bit like something we've heard before. in fact, let me -- let me give you a few quotes. you all know the failure of the last stimulus bill. we all know that the president said and miss economic advisors, "if we passed the last stimulus bill, then unemployment would be at a maximum of 8.9%. we all know it's now at 9%. it said that it would stimulate our economy and we know that it hasn't. so let's -- let me give you a couple of quote quotes from -- s one was february 10, 2009. president obama: "it is a plan that will save or create up to 4 million jobs over the next two years. the jobs of firefighters, nurses, teachers, and police

chiefs that would otherwise be eliminated if we don't provide states with some relief." president obampresident obama oe of 2009, "we created and saved, as you said, joe, at least 150,000 jobs." vice president biden: "in 18 months, stimulus will quote 3.5 million jobs, literally drop-kicks us out of this recession. this is a monumental project, but i think it's you don't r. do believe. but i think we have too stay on top. we've to stay on top of that on a weekly basis, because this is about getting this out and spend in 18 months to create 3.5 million jobs and to set this up so the rest of the good work that's being done here dropkicks us out of this resection and we begin to grow again and begin to employ again." that was vice president biden, remarks that cover plan implementation meeting on

february 2009. then my favorite, my all-time favorite on july -- august 24, 2009. quote from vice president biden: "in my wildest dreams, i never thought it would work this way." in my wildest dreams, i never thought it would work this way. well, in my wildest dreams, i hope that the american people will understand that what we're doing here with the president's plan and what we will be voting on in pieces and even probably a majority -- a simple majority of the senate probably wouldn't have voted for -- is the same thing that they tried in 2009 and 2010. they're steadfasthey were steadd

by the american people in the overwhelming vote that took place last november. now, what i hope is -- what i hope is that we could, once the president gets off of his -- the campaign trail, that we could sit down and come to agreement in some areas. all of us -- all of us agree that simplification of the tax code is something that the american people want and deserve. all of us know that we should try to do what we can to bring home that $1.4 trillion which is now parked overseas. all of us agree that offshore drilling is something that we need to accelerate as quickly as possible and safely. and all of us should agree that middle-income and lower-income

americans are the ones who need help the most. and while i'm here, mr. president, i would like to point out that one of the key elements that we spent a lot of time last year on, a lot of time, many, many hours i spent on the floor of this senate trying to combat the program that is now known as obamacare or health reform. and we find out -- we find out that one of the key elements of this health care reform -- i will politely call it health care reform -- was a program called the "class" act. now, what the "class" act was to provide long-term care for americans, which is certainly a worthwhile -- senior americans, which is a worthwhile goal. things to a member of the senate who is now here, senator gregg

-- thank god -- put in a provision that said that the "class" programs was required -- the "class" programs' reality to match the promises as a matter of law. in other words, if health and human services couldn't provide an actuarial analysis of the 75-year costs of the program that ensures solvency throughout such a 75-year period. in other words, the health and human services department was bound by that amendment that senator gregg, the former senator from new hampshire, put through on this floor. so after flailing around for 19 months, the secretary of health and human services announced that it would shudder a voluntary long-term care service that was included in the health care law and throws the issue back to congress.

so, because of that -- and unfortunately we did not have that same provision in the rest of the bill, otherwise the whole thing probably would have been junk by now -- they were forced -- the administration has been forced to junk the "class" ablght. so "the wall street journal" this morning goes on to say -- quote -- "at a minimum, the g.o.p. quo begin by repealing the -- could begin by repealing the 'class' program toalgt. one should never leave a partly loaded gun on the table even if most of the chambers are empty or just house blanks, writes the american enterprise institute's tomliner. forcing democrats to defend them middle class orszag's independent payment advisory board of 15 political appointees who have broad unappointable

powers to control health care markets and health care. our suggestion -- this is from the wawrnlings, our suggestion to for a gregg-like amendment that applies to the entire health care law not just "class." keeping our health care if you like your health care and all the other false promises, then legally it should be repealed like "class." call it truth in stiesing clause, obamacare would collapse in a heartbeat." so i hope that we will begin to debate whether the "class" act, which now the health and human services secretary has announced is undo believe, whether it -- is undoable whether it should be repealable itself.

and if anyone believes -- and by the way, a little bit more on the "class" act. one of the major reasons why it was included was to distort the numbers as to how much money would or would not be saved in passage of health care reform. because clearly and for the first early years, since people would be contributing rather than taking out funds because it would appear to have a significant cost-savings impact. we will be talking about now the real cost impact of the health care reform bill. so, mr. president, i hope that in the weeks ahead we can ingauge in vigorous debate on how we can move this country forward. there's clearly philosophical differences between the two sides. but i also hope that there are areas where we can find common

ground. the housing crisis is still with us in america. i noticed an article over the weekend in "the new york times" that fannie may ma fannie mae sd people to a huge convention in chicago on the taxpayers' dime. fannie and freddie are still responsible for 90% of the mortgages in america, a corruption institution. and yet americans, including those in my state of arizona, are still badly hurting. so i hope we can address the issues that affect this nation. i hope we can sit down together and work out at least some agreement such as reform of the tax code and others, but at the same time we need to at some point address the housing issue in america, and until we do, until we get housing costs stablized in america, i greatly

fear -- i see my colleague from florida whose state has also been very, very badly hurt by this housing crisis -- that we have got to stablize housing costs -- prices in america. and until we do, and until we do and fix the fundamental problems, then i still fear that we will experience a very difficult economic time for our citizens. mr. president, i note the presence of my colleague and great astronaut and fine senator from florida on >> details on the president's jobs bill and harry reid announcement. a correspondent for reuters joins us by the phone. how is he planning to move forward with this jobs bill? >> he would like to do it as