tomorrow, we will continue our weekly series. the cover story of "new york" magazine -- our guest will be joining us from new york to discuss her article. that does it. we will be back tomorrow. we bring in now to a hearing in progress before the senate's judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism with justice officials, treasury, and homeland security department testifying about international organized crime. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> thank you, mr. chairman. yesterday, you made a public statement saying that atf and

the u.s. attorney's office officials repeatedly assured officials in the criminal division and the leadership of the department of justice the allegations about trafficking guns and fast and free areas were not true. -- fast and furious were not true. who exactly of the u.s. attorney's office said the allegations were untrue. ? >> as i said yesterday, it was my office that ultimately prosecuted the wide receiver case. when i learned of this in april of 2010, and we decided to prosecute this case from 2006 and 2007, i regret that at that point, knowing now, i wish that

at that time that i had said clearly to the deputy attorney general and the attorney general that in this case of wide receiver, we had determined that in 2006 and 2007, guns had walked. i did not do that and i regret not doing that. >> who told you at atf and the attorney general's office that these allegations were untrue? >> senator, at the time as i recall, we first spoke to the atf back in april of 2010. my front office did and based on what i understood, we had an understanding from the atf that this practice of 2006 and 2007, that the atf understood the seriousness of that. >> what is that individual's

name? >> as far as i know, senator grassley, at the time, mr. hoover was one of the people involved in that discussion. i was not there for its allies can only tell you my understanding. >> that's all i want is your understanding. >> van of course, early this year when this matter came to light and the atf agents made the claims they did, i recall that both the leadership of atf and the leadership of united states attorney's office in arizona who were closest and handling the matter were adamant about the fact that this was not, in fact, a condone the practice. >> the leadership applies to the people who are head of the u.s. attorney's office and the head of atf? that's who you're talking about? >> that's exactly right about let me go on --: february 4, 2011, the departments and the letter that assured me that

allegations of gun walking or not true. "atf makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to mexico." that statement is absolutely false and you admitted as much last night that you knew by april, 2010 that atf what to guns in operation wide receiver is that correct? >> yes, senator. >> that's all i need to know. did you review that letter before it was sent to me? >> i want to be clear that as i told you a moment ago, i regret that in april of 2010 that i did not draw the connection between wide receiver and fast and furious. i regret that earlier this year that i did not draw that connection. in direct answer to your question, i cannot say for sure whether i saw a draft of the letter that was sent to you. what i can tell you is at that

time, i was in mexico dealing with a very real issues we are committed to. i also regret that i did not draw the connection earlier. >> after learning of gun walking and wide receiver, did you a former attorney general holder or the deputy attorney general about it and if so when and if not, why not? >> i regret the fact that in april of 2010, i did not. at the time, i thought dealing with the leadership of atf was reasonable. given the amount of work i do, i thought that was the proper way of dealing with it. i cannot be more clear that knowing now, if i had known then what i know now, i would have told the deputy and attorney general. >> did you ever tell anyone in the justice apartment leadership? >> i dealt with by talking to

the atf leadership a. >> , many guns were walked in wide receiver? >> i can probably try to look at that. that was in 2006 and 2007. to be clear, that was the case that had been abandoned and language. it was my division that decided to take the case where guns had been permitted to go to mexico years earlier and make sure that the criminals co were responsible for purchasing those guns were held to account. as a result, we prosecuted 11 different people. to answer your question, in total probably about 350 or so. i will have to double check that number. >> i think you are closer you don't have to check that number. according to my informationtojust 5 straw buyers -- i will let you go on

to another member -- just five of the straw buyers in fast and furious were allowed to buy nearly 1000 weapons. when did you first know that guns were walked in fast and furious? >> i found out first when the public disclosure was made by the atf agents earlier this year. when they started making those public statements, both the leadership of atf and the leadership of the u.s. attorney's offices adamantly said those allegations were wrong. as those allegations became clear, that is when i first learned that guns that the atf had the ability to interdict and a legal authority to interdict that they failed to do so. that is when i first learned that, senator. >> thank you. >> i will call on senator feinstein who brings her distinguished service on this committee by a service as chair

of the senate intelligence committee. >> thank you very much. i appreciate that. mr. brewer, in june of this year, i received a letter from the atf in response to a letter i had asked them from acting director nelson stating that 29,284 firearms were covered -- were recovered in mexico in 2009 and 2010 and submitted to the atf tracing center. with those weapons, 20,504 or 70% or united states source. -- were united states source. the remaining weapons could not be determined by atf meaning that the number could be much higher. what actually is the number?

this was back in june. is that the most current number? is it fair to some that 70% of the firearms showing up in mexico are from the united states? >> picà for your leadership on this issue. we have identified the paramount issue we have to face as we deal with transnational organized crime from the mexican cartels. from my understanding, 94,000 weapons have been recovered and the last five years in mexico. those are just the ones recovered, not the ones in mexico. of the 94,000 weapons that have been recovered in mexico, 64,000 of those are traced to the united states. we have to do something to prevent criminals from getting those guns, senator. that is my understanding of the most accurate numbers them of this is a deep concern for me. >> others disagree but we have

very lax laws when it comes to guns. i think this influences the atf and how they approach the problem as to whether they have political support or not. i think these numbers are shocking. when you know the number of deaths of these guns have caused, used by cartels against the victims, it is literally in the tens of thousands. the question is what can we do? i would really rather concentrate on the constructive rather than other things. do you believe that there was some form of registration when you purchased these firearms that that would make a difference? >> i do, senator. we're talking about transnational organized crime and your leadership and other

senators shows that his information is the tool we need to challenge and defeat organized crime. today, we are not even permitted to have atf receive reports about multiple fails all long guns, a semiautomatic weapons or the like. the atf as i'm able to get that very few hunters in the united states are sports people of law- abiding people need to have semi-automatic weapons or long guns. i got into a dealership today and i want to buy 50 or 60 semiautomatic weapons, there is nothing that requires that to be in ny notified to atf. without the kind of notification, we lose track and can lose track of these kinds of potent weapons. that is one example of the kind of tool but i think would empower atf and law enforcement to help fight this scourged. >> my concern, mr. chairman, is

that there has been a lot said about fast and furious. perhaps mistakes were made but i think this hunt for blame does not really speak about the problem. the problem is anybody can walk in and buy anything, 50 caliber weapons, a sniper weapons, by them in large amounts, and send them down to mexico. what do we do about this? i have been here 18 years. i have watched the atf get beaten up at every turn of the road. candidly, is just not right. we have more guns in this country than we have people. somebody has to come to the realization that when these guns go to the wrong place suspect scores of deaths result and that is exactly the case with the cartels.

you are saying today -- if i understand this -- over five years in recovered weapons, there were 94,000. 64,000 of those came from the united states. >> that's right. >> over 2/3 of the weapons used in mexico by cartels are coming from the united states. >> that's correct, senator. in wide receiver which was a matter where the guns were permitted to go to mexico during the prior administration in years 2006 and 2007, when my team discovered that we had to prosecute that case because even though years and years earlier the guns had gone to mexico, we had to hold the people who bought those guns responsible so we prosecuted those people as senator grassley pointed out. it is clear that we need more tools to get those people who are buying the guns and

illegally transporting them to mexico. we cannot permit the gun to go knowingly and we cannot permit the guns to go unknowingly. we need to stop the flow them a last question -- what would be the number one tool that we -- the number one tool would be if atf for given the ability to know when guns are purchased and, frankly, one of the issues we are asking for in connection with the legislation we are talking about today is the ability to forfeit the weapons and the inventories of gun dealers who knowingly sell their guns to criminals. if we could forfeit the guns of want to do, we don't anything to people selling to law-abiding citizens but we have to stop these dealers from selling to criminals.

>> thank you very much. >> senator koons. >> thank you for convening this important hearing. let me start with some of the things you mentioned in your testimony. you mentioned transnational crime has broadens from its traditional areas. to perhaps less obvious areas like identity theft and cyber crime and intellectual property crime and counterfeiting. a whole series of recent articles have documented how and mexico, nine out of 10 dvd's are pirated a bus of them are stamped with an insignia of the most notorious drug cartels. gangs in mexico are turning to dvd piracy because it provides a huge profit margin, low risk compared to other criminal enterprises.

what can we do that we are not already doing? what additional resources do we need to strengthen our law enforcement activity and get our allies and partners around the world to join us in, and -- andcombating pirated dvd's other areas that have high profit margins and low risk to? >? >> we see this diversification and we have seen that with the mexican cartels as well. intellectual property theft is attractive because the sentencing exposure is fairly low given the profit potential by moving these counterfeit commodities. we are trying to partner internationally with our partners in mexico to share

information in the interdiction of copyrighted material or infringed material. many ways to build these cases is too wet -- is to get cooperating defendants. if we get more significant wouldnalties that encourage cooperation and worked into the higher echelons of organizations that are engaged in counterfeiting, that would be helpful. >> missed glazier, i want to commend your combating transnational crime and terrorism. you mentioned the financial action task force is going to release international standards regarding beneficial ownership next year. many of the stakeholders, the american bar association and the

european bar association and secretaries of state shared a concern they were not be meaningfully -- there were not being in them -- meaningfully consulted. there are folks that would be required to comply with the new beneficial ownership standards. i think we run the risk of creating a standard that works great on paper but bogged down and the real-world and might potentially put needless regulatory burdens on small businesses that don't achieve the goals. and do you agree that the atf should work more closely with those who would be responsible for implementing guidance and what is treasury doing to improve that collaboration in advance of a new rule? >> i agree that it is extremely important that the atf consult with the private sector and take seriously the views articulated by the private sector. the private sector serves as a reality check for the type of things that will work and will

not work. may have good ideas about how to make things go forward. i think the atf -- the standards you are referring to are scheduled to be released in february of 2012. in advance of that, there are formal consultations that the atf does. for the u.s. private sector, they need to deal directly with the u.s. government. the international standards are implemented through government. what will apply to them are the policies we adopt in the united states. you mentioned beneficial ownership and would have been working very closely with congress and senator 11 in particular and senator grassley it has co-sponsored that legislation -- this has been a

multi-year process where we have been working closely with secretary of states to understand how this corporation process works and how we can make it work as a practical matter. that is something we're working very hard to do. >> thank you. i urge some renewed consultation with close to do this professionally. one last question? >> police, go ahead. >> the broader context we were talking about is how bribery and narco trafficking and id counterfeiting are the expanded reach of transnational organized crime. this has suggested that they have expanded their scope to wear some nation states arthur early compromise. later today, i will chair a

hearing of china in africa and how the economic and political situation on the continent of africa has changed fundamentally. there are real challenges with counterfeit products, which transparency, with trafficking of drugs and human trafficking throughout africa. any comment in that context of how we see transnational organized crime beginning to affect the stability of partner- allied states? >> thank you for what you are doing in this area. we have to be very nimble and understand that those countries under economic dress and those countries that are less -- that have less stable governments or newer governments will be less able to resist the ever strengthening role of organized crime. early this year along with the assistance secretary of state, was honored to lead a delegation when we went to liberia andghana.

we spoke to leaders in both of those countries about this issue. we have to be careful that those regions do not become beach heads for the cartel's who take their drugs and other products and try to use different places around the world for staging area. we have to be partners with. them in liberia, i was fortunate to see the beginning of a coast guard we are helping to build there. that is the central because if they themselves can begin to police themselves, they can do a better job of fighting organized crime. i think we have to be nimble and continue to develop partnerships throughout. >> thank you. >> centre klobuchar. >> thank-you all of you for being here for this important topic. i know senate coons raise the issue of intellectual property. i have been focused on this issue and not just dvd's but

also theft over the internet and people don't often realize their relationship between these kind of thefts and organized crime. could you talk about what type of intellectual property have been targeted by international crime group said what we can to better prevent such crime? >> we very much think that transnational organized crime today is a challenge to intellectual property and it is usually computers and it is expanding around the world. we have to have more tools. we have asked rico cases to be brought to trial. these are sophisticated organizations. i was just in romania last week and the issue you are identifying as one we talked a lot about. it takes root in those countries

through computers. people are stealing the intellectual property of the united states. we are bringing many cases in that area. we will continue to do that using the racketeering powers we have asked for, money laundering and forfeiture powers, which a best to have countries around the world join international conventions and that is the way for us to work hard in this area. >> i have always believe that our laws and prosecutors have to be as sophisticated as pricks who are breaking them. we have to make sure we maintain people's freedom and their ability to put things up there. at the same time, they should be able to draw line -- draw the line. in your written testimony, you proposed strengthening criminal penalties forip law and focused on those who risk bodily injury

and reckless and death. what has the department of justice dealt with in that scenario? >> absolutely, time and again, even in the last couple of years, we have brought cases where individuals have taken counterfeit products and tried to sell it to our military. that is one of the large categories. they have tried to deal with the infrastructure of our united states. that is another major category or have dealt with pharmaceuticals or products that we in jest. in the last year, we are at an all-time high in those cases. if i were to generalize whether they are trying to counter fedcisco products or people are taking products to our computer systems more generally, we tried as hard as we can to prosecute those crimes. we think we need enhanced tools and we are hopeful we can get them. >> you are aware of the two

bills that we have been focusing on in the judiciary committee would rogue website bill? it allows us to take down websites that still things and make a felony penalties the same as people's sellingdvd's on the corner? >> i am and we are very supportive of exactly those kinds of provisions in trying to have this comprehensive approach. >> thank you very much. >> those tools will be very important for stepping up our fight. there are interesting things we're doing already in terms of -- we're up to at least 200 domain names that have been seized. we're posting seizure notices. in part during with industries,

they have told us that a number of folks who are operating illicit websites used to destroy counterfeit merchandise is, 80 of them have taken down a website. we have forfeited about 86 of those 200 and we use that to route people who go to those sites to a public service announcement that talks about how it impacts the american economy in terms of participating in intellectual property theft. these tools that have been proposed in a legislative package will be important for staying aware as the bad guys adapt. >> thank you very much. >> boat has begun. senator white house has gone to both and you says he will be right back. he wants to continue this. i will continue on. last month, with senator grassley i authored the

targeting transnational drug trafficking act. this strengthens territorial law. among the provisions, the bill creates penalties for extra- territorial drug trafficking activity when individuals have reasonable cause to believe that illegal drugs will be traffic into the united states. current law says that drug traffickers must know that illegal drugs will be traffic to the united states. and we have lowered the knowledge threshold to reasonable cause. i would like to get each one of your views on the. >> senator, your legislation is essential. as we have talked about these transnational organized crime groups, they are very

sophisticated and can be very segmented. you can have an outfit in south america/columbia and a separate out what that is responsible for the transmission of the drugs in a certain area or for a certain ingredient. to prosecute, we have to prove that you knew that the drugs were going to united states. we want to do exactly what you say and it will be an enormous tool. if you have reasonable cause to believe that the products were going to united states and we don't have to prove you individually , that will be an enormous tool in prosecuting the cartels. if you are part of a conspiracy and we can prove that one member of the conspiracy and have reasonable cause to believe the product was going to the united states, that will be a tool that will enable us to go after all the conspiratoria. we could not be more supportive. >> thank you very much.

do you differ from that? i'd better go vote. >> thank you very much for stepping in as chair. the witnesses are aware that we are in a boating sequence in the senate. -- avo in ating sequence and the set --in a voting sequence in the senate. senator grassley is quite something to keep up with. >> this will be my last round of questioning. were you aware at the time the deputy attorney general was briefed on fast and furious in march of 2010? >> senator, i don't believe that i was briefed on operation fast and furious and i do not believe i was aware of that briefing. >> in december, 2009, director

nelson ask you to assign a prosecutor to the case from headquarters and in march, 2010 a prosecutor from the gang unit was assigned to fast and furious. why did the number two official in the justice department get a briefing around the same time and assigned a prosecutor too fast and furious? >> i can't answer that from the very beginning of my tenure as assistant attorney general, i became very committed to doing everything we could to fighting the drug cartels and doing what we can to stop what they are doing. it was in that vein that i offered to southwest borders whatever help we could bring. that is how the issues you are raising came about. i cannot tell you anything about the briefly because i simply did not participate. >> you said that when you first

learned about begun walking and wide receiver, you instructed one of your deputies to schedule a meeting with the atf acting director to bring these issues to their attention. when you first learned about gun walking and fast and furious, did you do the same thing? >> i did not. that is what i regret. >> was the deputy who you assigned to may also responsible for authorizing any applications to the court for wiretaps in fast and furious? >> he and other deputies in my office including the longest serving deputy in the united states history who served for almost six years -- if i may, i would like to explain what that role is if you would permit me. the congress made it clear in that wiretaps on telephones

are an extraordinarily intrusive technique. i supported fully and i think they are essential in fighting organized crime in transnational organized crime. in my 2.5 york years, i have tripled in the number of instances that are done. the role of the reviewer is in reviewing title three applications is only to insure that there is legal sufficiency to make an application to go on a wire and legal sufficiency to petition a federal judge somewhere in the united states that we believe it is a credible request. i have 22 lawyers that review is in washington that used to be seven. they should not replace their judgment with the thousands of prosecutors and agents all over the country. theirs is a legal analysis.

we must and have to rely on the prosecutors and their supervisors and the agents and their supervisors all over the country to determine that the tactics used are a pro. . >> thank you for that explanation. you said in your statement last night that you did not draw a connection between gun walking and wide receiver and gone walking in fast and furious. it also said you regret your failure to alert others within the department leadership of similarities. what finding made the light bulb go on for you that the two cases had similar problems? >> i hope you know i have tried in my division to deal with the plight of mexico. i am proud to say that it is my division that is prosecuting the thugs and criminals who killed the three u.s. consulate officials ju in thearez.

we are responsible for the investigation right now of the murders i of thece agents and it is my division working with law enforcement that has brought 100 for mexican criminals, cartel leaders and alike -- and the like to justice this year to the united states. every day whether it is an organized crime or white-collar crime or cyber crime, there is absolutely no question that as i was involved in this exercise and as all this has come to light that i have been thinking about this and realized that i should have back in april, 2010, drawn that connection. i have expressed that regret personally to the attorney general of united states and i determined that i should do publicly as well. >> i have three short questions -- when did you finally alert others within the department leadership about the

similarities that i just described? who did you alert? >> i cannot recall any more. by the time the connection was drawn with me >> -- how did you first hear about this? >> i first heard about the tactics about guns being permitted to go to mexico when atf had the legal authority to interdict them and the ability to interdict them. i first heard about that when the atf agents went public. >> when and how did you first learn about the connection between fast and furious and u.s. border patrol agent brian terry's murder. >> that is an absolute horrible tragedy are -- as are the tragedies of the other people who have been killed. the only way i learned about any connection there was when it became a. public

with respect to many of these tragedies, my division has done everything we can to hold people liable. i worked personally to bring that murder to the united states. i attended the funeral and spent time with his family and that is what we worked tirelessly to all the murders ofza agentspata and others accountable. >> mr. chairman, i released a report that i would like to ask the made a part of the record. it reduced the number is referenced early that 70% of the guns and mexico came from a u.s. -- came from the u.s. would you include that in the records? ? >> thank you. >> we will wind up the hearing

now. the votes are under way. i think we have 6 remaining. i don't think i can manage to continued plus we are now through a second round but i want to go back to the point i raised initially and ask each of you briefly -- you are all law enforcement professionals -- this is a practical problem -- evaluate for us and for those listening to this record howl and how much a case is complex -- complicated by having an international component. there is the initial investigative piece of tailing suspects and getting subpoenas for evidence and doing witness interviews and that is the

traditional investigative piece. there is the electronic piece of trap and trace and wiretap authority. there is often the third scientific piece of putting together a forensic evidence whether electronically or rebuilding a crime scene or reconstructing a fire or something like that. then there is the question and getting access to the criminal himself, the arrest and seizure of the individual and finally, there are the asset protection and ultimately forfeiture and seizure to make sure that the proceeds and instruments of the crime are claimed and seized by our government. if you could walk us through a hypothetical case and in those five areas, there are a couple

where you have a good to kill a specialty, maybe you can pass that on -- there are a couple where you may have a particular specialty, maybe you can pass that on. this becomes exacerbated as a challenge when has an overseas component. >> i will take a try at that. in a typical case, we may receive a complaint from some sort of entity, may be identity fraud or online fraud it could be anything. the first thing we have to do is investigate the allegations. we would perhaps try to trace any information weekend. we would try to find whether an online vendor or a money transmitter has been involved. it may turn out that we will try to run the names through something this administration started with to calledioc2, a

database that coincides with other law enforcement. we try to see if we conceive tou otherches throughout. we may need to get foreign evidence. some of our partners are very strong like romania and they exchange information and they work well with us. frankly, others will not share information. if we needed in court, we have to go through the courts system to do mutual legal assistance. that can take months and months if not years. we can sometimes follow byzantine kinds of procedures. >> something as simple as having an agent tell somebody? is supervisorht >> will decide to do it based on a case and you and the department of justice will never see the

u.s. attorney? that would be where the rubber meets the road, and investigators determination and there would virtually be no administrative burden or complexity to getting clearance to accomplish that task. you use the example of romania, if you want to tell a person there? -- >> we have to get permission from romania and it is difficult. >> compare trap and trace. >> in the united states, we can do that with some efficiency. in countries around the world, there is the entire gamut of what we are allowed to do with respect to telephonic and other information. some countries will do a somewhat easily and other countries will almost never do it. some countries, if we identify the criminals, will never

extradite their nationals. with impunity unless that country is willing to prosecute the person, we cannot do it. these are huge problems. unless we can lure them overseas. that is a difficult issue. that can also have international ramifications. that is something we do only after much consideration. >> from a treasury point of view in terms of the forfeiture and seizure of goods, a couple of practical comparisons if you could on how the international element of one of these investigations adds to the burden or challenge you have to face compared to a domestic case. >> as has been alluded to a number of times, the international financial system is seamless. it is borderless an instantaneous. people operating with international finances can do

so in that environment. the challenge that we have is that, unfortunately, governments are not seamless or instantaneous. we have to operate through treaties a mutual legal systems agreements and information sharing. at the treasury department, with respect to the international financial system, we try to make it as transparent as possible so the investigators and prosecutors that we work with on a daily basis have the opportunity to trace within the international financial system where the information is. also to make sure the information is there in the first place in major financial institutions are asking the right questions and keeping the right records so when there is a request made that the information is there in the first place. the biggest challenge we have now is with respect to corporate

vehicles and company's domestic and international law. and the use of companies used to disguise the true transaction. >> cumene shell corporations? >> front companies, shell companies and it could be trusts. all sorts of non-transparent corporate vehicles that exist for a perfectly legitimate want toand we don't interfere with how these corporate entities operate but the fact is, they are useful to criminals. i think there are common-sense things we can do domestically and globally to ensure that when law enforcement investigators and prosecutors, what they need to know is available to them. >> i would pick up on some of the same themes. the nature of the transnational criminal threat has migrated to

a very cellular structure so that frequently in our investigations they involve multiple countries and multiple continents. when you are trying to reduce the illicit flow across our borders, it is coordinating that effort in multiple countries. getting back to the point, the adversary that does not respect our borders, it is partnerships and information exchange that allow us to move as nimbly variant in mexico, during the course of our investigations along the southwest border, we developed information that identifies cartel hitmen and houses across the border. during the course of our investigation, we shared that with partners in mexico we have cultivated that would arrest those assassins and have seized

weapons. we need to build that across the entire pathway and that can be challenging depending on the framework and the governments of the particular countries we are dealing with. to build a structure that allows us to act as nimbly as the transaction and criminal threat will. face >> this is a question for the record. you can get back to me. trying to be as practical as possible, as a u.s. attorney, even if you have a relatively complicated case, the universe of folks involved in that case is your chain of command to the prosecutor who has been assigned. it is the investigating agency or, in some cases, agencies buy

usually only two or three and usually atf working with the fbi for instance side-by-side -- that is simple and within the district. you have thede-inflection to make sure you're not doing something someone else is already into and you have your relationship with the department of justice if this is a case where they need to sign off at various stages. that is your universe for doing a complicated case could you pull together an example of an international case, maybe one that has been taken down or pull a hypothetical one, and lay out what the prosecutor in charge of that case is looking at in terms of their own chain of command to the prosecutor, not only the american-domestic law enforcement investigative agency or agencies, but then the

intelligence components, the fbi, a liaison with the local embassy. there's probably a treasury component. i would like to be able to almost construct a diagram of what it takes to put all these agencies in the field to mount a really effective international investigation and how much bigger and administrative group and reece that is instead of what we have now. can i ask you to do that? >> yes. >> thank you very much. i will put the attorney general's letter to chairman issa chairman leahy i don't

think i have a date -- it's the one that refers to fast and furious. there it is. october 7, 2011 letter from attorney general holder to is chairmans, chairman leahy and others. the hearing will remain open for another week if anyone wants to add anything further. i will close by thanking the witnesses for their dedication to keeping our country safe and protecting us from the criminal threat we have always faced, the international criminal threat we face now in unprecedented intensity and an unprecedented me. your service to your country is much appreciated and a hearing is adjourned.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [no audio] [room chatter] [general conversations]

inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> you can watch this judiciary subcommittee hearing again and related hearings on fast and furious in the cspan video library at c-span.org. the members are headed to the senate floor and there are a

number of amendment of those under way on a 2012 spending bill, the mioni-bus measure and you can follow that on c-span 2. the house will, and for general speeches and back at 2:00 but legislative work is not likely to get underway until 5:00 this afternoon. one bill will reaffirm in god we trust as the national motto which is a bill sponsored by randy forbes of midget -- a virginia. another one is calling for a moratorium on cell phone story in they will return at noon eastern on c-span. we're also covering the joint deficit-reduction committee who are gathering for a look at previous calls for how to reduce the debt and deficit. this afternoon, they will hear from the heads of the simpson bowls commission. the former heads of those fiscal commissions will warn the super committee of dire

consequences if it fails to produce a significant deal by november 23. that is coming up at 1:30 this afternoon and that will be on c- span 3. also, dorothy rodham, the mother of hillary clinton has died. she was 92 years old next year, we will -- next we will ticket to john boehner talking about jobs at the university of louisville. he urged congress to find common ground despite ideological differences. he discussed the occupy what treatment and compared the recent protests to those during the vietnam war era. he is introduced by senator mcconnell. >> some of my equipment is falling off here. thank you, jim, for an overly- generous introduction. at the risk of this sounded like

>> transfo that has occurred here during your tenure. it is absolutely spectacular, is it not? [applause] and this center started before gary greg got here, but you can hardly recognize before and after. gary, you have an absolutely superb. thank you for your leadership. [applause] today, as gary indicated, we celebrated a first. this is the first time in the 20-year history of the center that we have had a sitting speaker of the u.s. house of representatives. as the second in line to the presidency right after the vice- presidential, and one of the few congressional offices specifically mentioned in the constitution, the speaker of the house plays a uniquely important

role on capitol hill. our guest today has performed that role exceptionally well. this is a moment of great challenges for our country. to many of our neighbors are what -- are looking for work. here in kentucky is one of 10. spending and borrowing by the federal government, which has exploded in recent years, is catching up with us. and for the first time ever, america has suffered a downgrade of its once pristine credit rating. but history has a way of giving america the leaders it needs in such moments, and speaker banner is one of those leaders. john boehner knows the struggles that small businesses face because he once faced them himself. growing up across the river in ohio, he worked at his dad's tavern, a place called andy's café. the mop the floors, waited

tables, tended bar. he put himself through college working odd jobs and night shifts. he tarred roofs, refereed kids in sports teams, drove tractors, and worked as a nice gesture. through hard work, he put himself through school and graduate from college -- and became the first member of this family to graduate from college. he ran a company that represented manufacturers in the packaging and plastics industry. they had only a few clients, and the company was barely hanging on when the order passed away. john took over and suddenly found himself the president of a struggling small-business and he turned it around. along the way, john learned a lot of important lessons. he learned how to meet a payroll. he learned what it means to go -- to wrestle with government red tape, and most of all, what it takes to create jobs.

john learned that it is the hard work of the men and women in america's private sector, not government spending, that drives this economy. he learned we must look to the private sector to grow, and to create opportunity. john boehner is a small businessman had a hard to, and despite -- at heart, and despite a sending to the highest congressional office, i'm sure he would tell you he will always be a small businessman at heart. in the house to work alongside the ghost of one of my -- my heroes, henry clay. he used the office to his dovish the house of representatives as the body closest to that -- to establish the house of representatives as the articles as to the people and to make clear their will.

john leads a new house of representatives today that he pledged would reflect the will of the people, focused and determined to put our nation's broken fiscal house back in order. and in the 10 months he's been at the helm, john has made good on that promise. for the 100th of congress, the right man has met his moment. -- the 112th conagra's, the right man has met his moment. ladies and gentlemen, to join me in welcoming the speaker of the house. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. [applause] thank you. [applause] well, good morning, and happy halloween. i want to start by thanking senator mcconnell both for his

french and for the honor of being invited here today to address this impressive institution here in the bluegrass state. senator mcconnell and i spend an awful lot of time together and i could not be blessed with a better partner. he is a man of integrity and one of the best legislators that i have ever worked with. i am truly grateful for his friendship and for our partnership, and i'm deeply honored that he asked me to, and be with all of you here today. i also want to thank our host, dr. ramsey, the president of the university, and dr. greg of the mcconnell center, who happen to get his doctorate from the university of ohio, which is located in my district. also, senator mcconnell told you a little bit about me growing up, a big family and working around the tavern.

the lessons i learned growing up are the lessons i need to do my job every day. we learned to get things done together as a family. if you grow up around a bar mopping floors, washing dishes, waiting tables, tending bar, you have to learn to deal with every character walking through the door. trust me, i need all of those skills to do my job. [laughter] but i am a product of the free enterprise system and i was one of the millions of small business people and around the country who make our economy grow. i got involved with the government because i saw politicians killing the goose that lays the golden egg. and that is, our free enterprise system. i decided i would do something about it and ended up running for office. trust me, i never thought i

would end up being speaker of the house. but the things that drive me to get into this business are the same things that drive me today. as a small-business person, i thought government was too big, i thought they spent too much, and i did not think it was holding it accountable. i do not see it as one bit different than the first day i walked into the u.s. congress almost 29 years ago. today, i speak to all of you at a time of great challenge for our country, and frankly, our country's economy. and whether you are one of the students at the mcconnell center, where one of the thousands of students that pass through these doors every year, the condition of our economy is something that millions of young americans are facing today. the unemployment rate is stuck at just over 9%. we had a national debt that exceeds, or nearly exceed, the

entire size of our economy. in millions of americans are out of work. because of government's seeming inability to focus on these challenges, it is also when conference -- confidence in our government institutions is at an all-time low. i have been speaker of the house for nearly a year. it is more clear to me that never what some of the obstacles are in washington. my message today is simple. i think that our government has never been high, but -- opinion of our government has never been high, but it does not need to be this low. the american people need to see that despite our differences, we can get things done. we need to start by recognizing that common ground and compromise are not the same thing. let me explain. common ground and compromise are commonly end -- and mistakenly

looked at the same way. and i think it is done by both sides of the ideological spectrum. i would prefer the term, and ground to compromise. i do believe there is -- common ground to compromise. i do believe there is a significant difference. the american people want leaders who will stand on principles and stick to those principles, who will keep their promises and fight for them. but i also believe equally that the american people expect us to get things done. they expect us to seek common ground and to act on it. common ground does not mean compromising on your principles. it means finding places where your agenda overlaps with that of the other party, locking arms and getting it done without violating your principles.

it too often, a common ground and compromise are assumed to mean the same thing. as a result, we sometimes see people with good intentions on both sides of the aisle operating out of an aversion to common ground because they do not want to be viewed as compromising on their principles. as a result, this mistake brings in less functional government and mistrust in our institutions of government. i do not think we can afford to let that happen. the jobs crisis demands that we seek common ground and act on it where it is found. we did that on the trade agreement the several weeks ago. the president signed a lease -- these three trade agreements into law that have been in the works for five years. these agreements will result in the creation of some 250,000 american jobs. they were enacted with bipartisan support and no one

violated their principles to get things done. the same thing occurred just last week in the house on another jobs belbacha by diane black of -- another jobs bill by diane blog of tennessee. imposes a 3% surtax on small businesses. the president passed it easily. in both of these cases, the trade bill and the irs bill, we found common ground and we acted on it. no one was compromising their principles. we were doing with the american people sent us to washington to do. and they want more of it. and i think we need to continue to focus on jobs. my colleagues and i have a plan for jobs and it has been our focus for this entire year. i gave a speech lacks -- last month at an economic forum in washington and i talked about the need to liberate our economy

from the shackles of government. as a guy who ran a small business, i certainly believe that until we get away from a government that is constantly battling, manipulating, and micromanaging our economy, we will not see lasting job growth in our country. i realize that president obama and vice president biden are probably never going to agree with that statement. it is probably going to take a different administration to do the things that i truly think are needed to turn our economy around. but that does not at all costs of our obligation to work together to do what we can do -- that does not absolving us of our obligation to work together to do what we can do to find common ground. we can make a difference in the crisis our economy faces. i want to highlight three bipartisan bills that are opportunities to begin the process of finding got -- common

ground, and building on the bipartisan efforts that have come about in the last month or two. the first bill was introduced by one of my colleagues in the house, bob gibso. it is designed to eliminate costly and duplicative permit applications. pesticide use is already heavily regulated and all this does is create new burdens and requirements for farmers, ranchers, and job creators. this bill temporarily stops it. 57 of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted for it, that is nearly one-third of the democratic office. -- caucus. today, the court order goes into

effect. it should have been stopped months ago. it is disappointing that the deadline has arrived and that this bipartisan bill has not been enacted. but the senate still can act and it is a clear opportunity for common ground on jobs. october 6, the house passed the house resolution 2681, it regulatory act. we have some strange names for these bills. nearly 20% of our nation's cement plants will have to shut down if these new cement regulations her go into effect. literally eliminating thousands of american jobs. this bill gives federal regulators additional time and guidelines to develop a achievable governing emissions from manufacturing facilities. the extended time line is to

ensure that we do not have should -- do not have plants shutting down and putting people out of work. when president obama came to a bridge over the ohio river between ohio and kentucky, he did this at a -- an event at a concrete plant called hilltop concrete. and the jobs of the workers at the plant may end up being in jeopardy because of the rules that we intended to stop with this bill. 25 democrats voted for it, including one of their leaders. i am certain that president obama wants to protect the jobs of those people at hilltop concrete. and if there are differences, let's work through them, because i do not believe there is any reason we cannot get it done. another one of these bills is the epa regulatory relief act, a bipartisan bill sponsored by a

democrat and republican. it gives federal regulators additional time and guidelines to develop achievable governing emissions from industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers and incinerators. it is pretty arcane. but as the rules were being implemented, it is pretty clear that if you are operating a boiler, you have huge new requirements that you have to meet. we have 41 of our democratic colleagues in voting for it. it is a bill that will protect millions of americans jobs. both sides worked together on this. there was no reason to compromise. we found common ground and we were able to get this done. the danger is that the overlap will end up in some political pawn game in washington d.c., held hostage to a broader

debate while the two parties clashed over their various philosophies. listen c'mon -- listen, there's too much that we agree on to allow this to happen. and i believe it is up to you, the young people entering the workforce at the end of the school year, to get this done. the current generation of students that will graduate from schools like this one at a time when our country faces questions about its role in the world, our competitiveness is declining while our debt is increasing. if you are a student here at the university right now, or at another university, there is no one who has more at stake than you do. as a consequence of the that the united states faces, there's the possibility of a downgrading of

our credit rating, thereby, increasing the interest cost on the nearly $15 trillion that we have added up. we must deal decisively with the spending epidemic in our government, and specifically our failure to deal with entitlements that have caused spending trillions more over the next decade than what we bring in. we have caught a glimpse of how disruptive this can be in response to what happened over the summer. we were pushing up against the deadline to increase our debt limit. the stock market plunged, and frankly, i think it rattled many americans. but here again, a place where we need to search for common ground. the super committee is tasked with finding at least $one. true trillion in savings -- $1.2

trillion in savings to reduce the deficit. nobody thought the committee's job would be easy, and clearly, i have not been. i do not think anyone is at all surprised. but our hopes here in the days ahead is that we can find common ground. everyone knows that we cannot solve the debt crisis without making structural changes to entitlement programs. you know it. i know it. president obama knows it. if we do not make these changes, the programs will not be there for your generation when your -- when you need them accurate i think everybody understands this. the fact of the matter is, strengthening these programs will be good for our country, and nothing would send a more reassuring message to the markets than by taking bipartisan steps to fix

structural problems with medicare and medicaid and social security. judge handling of texas, and patty murray, a democrat from the state of washington -- jeb handling of texas and patty murray, a democrat for the state of washington could not be more different in their ideals. but they will work together and find areas of overlap between the parties in getting this job done. common ground without, -- without compromising on principles is the recipe for some of the greatest milestones in recent memory. the 1986 welfare reform law is probie the most important domestic -- is probably the most important domestic reform law of this past century. it happened because both sides knew it had to be done.

they locked arms and got it done. the same kind of effort can lead to success on jobs now, and on our debt. i know this is personal for me, and for senator mcconnell as well. we want these things to happen. i did not take this job to preside over some partisan screaming match. i took this job to be speaker of the whole house, so we can truly listen to the people of our country, those who truly hold power in this country, listen to their priorities, and get step down. -- get stuff done. as i said earlier, faith in government has never been high. it does not have to be this low, though. i think it is natural to have doubts about the government. americans have had a healthy skepticism of the government since our founding. but we should never lose faith in our country or the system the

founding fathers designed for us. it has worked and kept the nation's strong for two centuries and i believe it will do so for centuries in the future. i want to thank all of you for the honor of being here with you today and i look forward to your questions. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, speaker boehner. in the same spirit of common ground, i should note that we have a number of dignitaries in the audience today, and i cannot name them all, but at least we should acknowledge that our yarmouth is, john your mus with us today, and our mayor,

greg fisher. [applause] no use of the cards coming down of questions. let's begin. dash,l call on john weber the first question from the audience. >> thank you, speaker banner. the first question i have deals with president's jobs bill and his recent actions. i would like you to comment on how he is doing and how congress would respond, as well as how you might pass some of the legislation in pieces. of >> as i made clear in my speech, i think is our job to find common ground. about a month ago, the majority leader, eric cantor, and i sent the letter to president obama outlining the similarities between our jobs bill and his jobs bill where i thought there was common ground.

i expect the we will continue to work in a bipartisan manner to address the issues where you can find common ground. with regard to the president's activities over the past week where he has decided that maybe the constitution does not matter, it is the president who taught constitutional law, if i am correct, so he understands article one, section 1 of the constitution gives congress the power of the purse. we will make sure that we are not violating the constitution while we are trying to find common ground to get the economy going again and get the people back to work. >> catherine? >> thank you, mr. speaker. we have a question from a young woman in the audience wanting to know what your favorite part of being the speaker is. >> well, probably doing events

like this. anything outside of washington is a lot more fun than being inside washington. i think mitch will agree with this probably. it is where america has its big debate. and regardless where people are on the ideological spectrum, their representatives come to washington, 535 of us, and we have a battle of ideas. and yes, we argue and, yes, we fight. but 95% of my colleagues, i think, are doing exactly what their constituents want. democrats or republicans. you know, the other 5%, we will not talk about them, all right. but most of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are honest, sincere, and fighting for what they believe in. but that does not mean it will be real pretty every day.

being outside of washington, you are not in the middle of the pressure cooker. it is a lot more fun. a day like this is a lot more fun than sitting in my office looking at mitch -- [laughter] trying to figure out how we are going to solve the problem of the day when no one wants to do anything. >> thank you, mr. speaker. a member of our audience asks what your opinion is on the wall street movement. >> i understand the frustration with the economy and it is not producing jobs like they want. and frankly, under the first amendment, people have the right to speak out and to protest. but that does not mean they have the permission to violate the law. beyond that, you know, i lived

through the riots over the vietnam war in the late '60s and early '70s. you can see how some of those activities get out of control. some of us have lived through the race riots of 1968. that was clearly out of control. i would hope that these demonstrations will continue to be peaceful. >> thank you again for being with us today. it means a lot to all of us in the room. what you think is the future of the health care bill? >> the affordable health care act, or at least, i think that is what the title was. i call it obama care, and now apparently the president wants to call it obama care. in my view, i think it will deliver the worst health care system in the world and bankrupt are comour country.

i think it is doomed for three reasons. it could be the courts that decide the individual mandate for every american to buy health insurance, they may rule it unconstitutional. secondly, there will be an election coming up in a year. it is pretty clear that republicans and some number of democrats will have to go. and thirdly, it will just fall under its own way. over the course of this past year, you have seen various parts of this bill kind of fall away because it was not thought out very well, or it cost a lot more than people think it should have. there was one provision in the the long term provisions in obama care that the administration has decided not to go forward there. the provision was an amendment offered by a republican senator,

during the debate, and it said they could not proceed with this long-term care program unless it was actuarially sound for the next 75 years. that is kind of the basis for how we look at big entitlement programs. and because of that one provision, they could never see where this was going to be viable. frankly, i think we ought to take the same provision and apply it to the rest of obama care. if it is not economically viable and affordable over the long term of the program, then we probably should not proceed. [applause] >> john? >> mr. speaker, another member of the audience refers to the tax policy under both presidents clinton and bush, and the respective economic boom and recession and wondered what the

gop's evidence for tax cuts as an economic stimulus would be. i believe the more money will allow the american people told, whether they be families or small businesses, is money that will either be spent, save, or invested, all of which is good for the economy. while there is a role for government to play, money that goes to the government does not have the kind of a multiplier effect that it does when left in the private sector. and i am a big believer that the government should only take what it needs. the problem we have in washington is a spending problem. i have watched it for 20 years. mitch has watched it. we have spending that has been out of control and needs to be brought under control. what i was a first-time candidate in 1990, i said this. i said, the sooner we tackle our

entitlement spending, the easier it will be to make changers -- changes necessary to insure those programs are around for the long term. that was about 21 years ago. what have we done over the last 21 years? at best, and that around the edges. now what is happening is that we are chasing a runaway train. there are 10,000 baby boomers retire in every single day, people like me. 10,000 people on social security and on medicare. people are living longer and accessing medicaid benefits. this is not sustainable in any way, shape, or form. and the changes that need to be made, we are not talking about horrendous changes in the system, but small changes that will have a big impact over the next 10, 20, 30 years.

that is where senator mcconnell and i are focused as we look at this debt commission, the super committee, and the job that it has to do. but we have a spending problem, the big one. -- a big one. >> we have another question from the audience. someone wants to know about what your plans are for educational reform. >> when it comes to education reform, the secretary has been in conversations with both democrats and republicans trying to find a way forward. just like any big job that you might have around a house, breaking it down into smaller pieces gives you a chance to get the job done. the chairman of the educational work force committee, john klein from arizona, has taken the elementary and secondary education act and broken it

down into about five pieces. i think we have passed about four of the pieces. and frankly, all of them will pass -- passed with bipartisan support. the fifth piece will be more difficult because we are into the accountability part of the law. but i think it is time we take a very serious look at our education system. the facts are this, about half of america's kids get an education. maybe a bit more than half will get a diploma, but only about half of them are actually getting an education. i do not think we can compete long-term only educating half of america's kids. the current educational system, the structure that we have was designed over 100 years ago when most families had two parents there. the kinds of distractions in the evening were not as prevalent

and people did their homework. we have different needs today and bigger challenges in trying to find ways to educate today's children. and regardless of what kind of household a child might be born in, i think our society owes every child a chance at a decent education. that is not happening today, and it should happen. >> rose? >>, mr. speaker, how you feel about the president's promise to with fruit -- withdraw troops from iraq by chrichristmas? >> we all want our soldiers to come home. we have sacrificed hundreds of billions of dollars in treasure and thousands of american lives to try to help free the iraqi people from the grips of saddam hussein and to help those

people fight for freedom and democracy. we have nearly 10 years' worth of effort. all of those lives and all that money and my concern is that if we just walked out of iraq, we are risking everything that we have spent. the iraqis clearly are not capable of defending their borders. they have no ability to secure their space. they do not have the types of logistical things they need in place. they do not have the infrastructure in place that is needed for a country of its size. and right now they have the iranian regime just continuing -- the iranian regime just continuing to foment the discourse throughout the middle east. nothing would see them happier than to see us go because the iranians would attempt to fill the void quicker than you could

blink your eyes. there is some discussion about the state department for filling a lot of these missions rather than our military. i'm not sure the state department is capable of this because they've never done it, but we will continue to monitor this very closely. [applause] >> tyler? >> mr. speaker, a member of the audience today tells us she has historically allied herself with the republican party, but being fiscally conservative, she feels more more -- more and more alienated from a party every day precaution does the republican party plan to bring her back into the fold? courtney their party is what i would call pure. -- >> and neither party is what i would call pierre.

and you will not get pure when you have a two-party system. but we need to focus on what brings us together as opposed to those things that divide us. by focusing on what unites us, i think that helps. secondly, i would say this. if we are listening to the american people and following their will, it will bring our party closer together, and i think both parties closer together if we will listen to the american people and act on their desires, not our own. [applause] >> we have time for one more question. >> the last question we have before you today -- thank you again for coming on behalf of the mcconnell scholars and the rest of the global community. the last question i have for you today revolves around a bridges

project that is central year in louisville, kentucky, and in cincinnati. how do you feel about infrastructure spending in those cases of the areas? >> it is one of those areas that was contained in the letter that majority leader mcconnell and i sent to the president about a month ago because there was area for common ground. more needs to be spent to repair, replace, and in some places, build a new infrastructure. the problem is, nobody wants to pay for it. as a result, we have been looking through the last four years or so with most of this being contained in the highway bill, and reauthorize in this for three months, four months. i spent the last 10 weeks focusing on where we find the revenue to do something significant for our infrastructure.

the second part of this is, we will find a new source of revenue for infrastructure. and we need to look at what we are doing with it. it may not surprise some of you that there are 116 federal programs financed out of the highway bill. if you look back over the years at what we have done with highway funds, we have built some highways and some bridges, and we have built some sports stadiums and we have beautified everything under the sun. we have frittered away more highway tax dollars than you could ever imagine. if we're going to apply the revenue, we will clean up this mess so the money tree does get to the kind of projects that we all expect. and why do we need to spend five, 10 years going through all of the regulatory nightmares that it takes to build a new bridge, for example? why can't we streamline this process?

[applause] we have to streamline this process so we can get the project's start and end done. lengthening all of this, all it does is drive the cost up more and allows us to do that much less when it comes to rebuilding the nation's infrastructure. i want to say thanks for the opportunity to be here. as you can tell, senator mcconnell and i are great friends, kreag partners, and we work at this. it does not happen -- great partners, and we work at this. it does not happen by accident. i really appreciate the opportunity to be here with all of view. i am just a regular guy with a big job. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> mr. speaker, this has been a great honor for us. and we would like to present you with a small token of our appreciation. join me one more time >> the u.s. house dublin in -- gaveling in at noon eastern. a couple of bills including one that reaffirms "ingod we trust" as our national motto. live coverage of the house at noon and later today on c-span.

senate is on c-span2. that is expected to continue for a while. there will gavel out at 12:30 for the weekly caucus meetings. follow the senate on c-span2. on c-span3, the focus on the negotiated cuts the federal budget. reviewing some reduction proposals. we have more coverage of the white house later this week as republican presidential candidates gather in iowa for the one reagan danner. expected speakers are, and ron paul and others. that is friday and c-span2 at 8:00 p.m. eastern.

>> watch more video of the candidates, see what political reporters are saying, and track the latest campaign contributions with c-span's website for campaign 2012. easy to use, it helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds and facebook updates from the campaigns, candidate bios, and the latest polling data, plus links to c-span media partners in the early primary and caucus states, all at c- span.org/campaign2012. >> coming up at noon, the u.s. house gavels in for speeches. until then, this morning's "washington journal."

host: we want to get your comments on this. there was a gap between the united states and much of the rest of the world on this point . there is bill attention in this country.

host: wanda from texas.

caller: i am against the death penalty. i detest governor rick perry and bush. i think we should leave that up to god. they should be locked up and that is it. if someone kills someone, how can we turn around and kill them? host: lee is a republican from california. caller: good morning. this is in regards to what the caller just said about the death penalty. the bible says an eye for an eye. i don't think a murderer should be allowed to prolong this case. you have to think about the

familyies. they will spend the rest of their lives thinking about their family member or their friends that were killed. what good is it for a justice to talk about it being cruel and unusual punishment? how about the family going through cruel and unusual punishment? host: so you don't think they should be able to prolong it. time between the sentencing of a death penalty and the execution is too long. caller: that is something the need to look at. in prison, they can study law. you cannot get your degree. -- you can and give your degree. you have a lot of a jailhouse

lawyers. it continues to be appealed and appealed. this is enough and this is wasting taxpayers' money. host: back to "the new york times" article. 3300 inmates are on death row in the united states.

host: john in massachusetts. your next. -- you are next.

caller: this began in a holy subsidiary of bankers, the media, and government. what you guys are creating this loss and taking people's rights away, sooner or later the public would be the criminals because they are trying to survive. federal reserve was introduced to the government. you have all these families -- host: you're going off on another tangent. judy from sarasota, florida. good morning. caller: i think that the killing happened in front of my house in 1978 in coral gables. it was a horrible, horrible thing. i think justice breyer has a right. if someone is going to be

executed, the pathway should be faster. it is torture on the prisoner and tortured on the legal system. host: what was that like for that area? caller: when the crime itself happened, the whole area was lit up. it was nighttime by the time police got there. the policeman that was killed -- his canine dog was in the car with him and took a long time for them to get to the police officer to save his life because they could not contain the dog. they commenced a huge manhunt immediately in the neighborhood because the guy that shot him sped off in a car and nobody knew where he went. he was found the next day in miami beach hiding out somewhere. it was very unnerving. there was a time in miami when

drugs -- there was a terrible, a drug crime problem. i think people -- it was another drug crime that they gone wrong, is a think what happened. host: have you been following this case and the jomon's appeal -- and the gentlem an's appeal? caller: this reminded me of the night that happened and brought back this awful memories of the gunshots an. it was very unnerving. host: that was judy in sarasota, florida. we have some statistics about death row.

host: rosa, a republican from kingston, washington. caller: i think justice breyer should consider that the person who is being put to death did not give his victim of 33 years to live, and he should consider himself lucky that he does not get the same thing he gave his victim. thank you. host: 28 democrat in jackson, michigan -- tony, democrat. caller: i worked in the penal system and i notice the inconsistency of sentences by judges. that's why i'm against capital punishment. i think it is a waste of money for those men to sit all those

years and be fed and everything . so it needs to be cut. the time needs to be decrease, i think. host: d.c. and inconsistency with judges when it comes to this issue -- do you see an inconsistency? caller: the sentencing of criminals into the prison system. you don't know and when they talked about god having it. when you do a crime, you need to do the time. and so, but i'm against capital punishment because everybody doesn't get treated fairly, and since properly -- sentenced properly. host: st. petersburg, florida.

he is not there. duane, a republican. caller: the whole point of having the crime -- somebody who does a crime and does the time. when i cannot support being conservative is the cost. the cost of putting one person to death in the legal system has become a business. the whole penal system has become a huge business. sometimes you have to weigh the cost against what we're doing. you can feed people for years for what one person is put to death for. i do not think that they should have any rights. we want to do something to cut the cost. they did not have rights. reform these other jobs out overseas. let's farm some of our prisoners

overseas. host: more on the cost. the average death penalty case costs approximately $3 million in maryland. it will be $186 million. five executions as a result since 2008. it cost north carolina 2.1 $6 million per execution. a majority of those costs occur at the trial level. that is according to duke university. beachs from m"the palm

post." that is from the "dallas morning news." you can see the costs are higher. duke, you are back. caller: in the bible, the sentence against an evil work is not executing -- the hearts of men are to be emboldened. is a dereliction of duty. they are not doing what the bible says they have to be a special enforcement of the sentence. otherwise you get a travesty like what happened in florida where a police officer was shot.

they are the spineless judges like breyer that are crying in the crocodile tears for these murderers. that man was shot in his neck. it took 33 years to execute that vermin. host: we will leave it there. we want to shoot the states with the death penalty, 34. states without, 16. caller: the number overturned of convictions -- how many are found innocent of the crime there were supposed to have committed. you have a lot of people have gone out of prison because the either found dna evidence to

commit these crimes. how many people are executed for crimes they did not commend? you talk about the cost for the prisoner and to execute a prisoner. there is a moral cost associated to those who are executed. thank you. host: if you want to post your comment on our facebook page, go to our website. you can post your comment there. we have a few of them. there is one from marilyn oden. you can post your comments on our facebook page and you could send a tweet. here is one from robert.

host: we have some headlines this morning on some other topics. front page of the "wall street journal." "the greek prime minister stunned europe by announcing a referendum on the latest bailout." host: that is the front page of "the wall street journal." "the washington times." "membership before peace is premature." front page of "the washington

post." no political consensus on forming a national army. host: that is "the washington post"this morning. a man in bangkok. high tide. the water levels are continuing to rise in cities north and west. that's some of the headlines this morning. with local back to our topic. john, a republican in colts neck, new jersey. caller: people making judgments on whether or not we should retain the death penalty in selected states. see the kind of changes in the

prisons that people undergo "cages," but in the prisoners call their cells. i've been a volunteer chaplain. i have seen this firsthand. every time we put to death somebody, we diminished our moral strengths. that is about it. people should understand what we're talking about. we're dealing with human beings who need assistance. there are some states in our country which believe that what they call justice by putting people together, getting those who appeared offended with those who are the offenders to

understand just what was going on and why these horrible crimes were ever committed. in that way, the people who have suffered an injury by the death of one of their relatives can better restore their own sense of the end. >> all of today's "washington journal" is available online. the u.s. house is coming in next for general speeches. beginning at about 5:00 p.m., will have a couple of bills including one reaffirming "in god we trust" as our national motto. from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., november 1, 2011. i hereby appoint the honorable

john campbell to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 5, 2011, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. there being no members present, pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until 2:00 p.m. today.

watch more of the candidates, see what reporters are saying

and track campaign contributions with c-span's website for campaign 2012. it helps you navigate the landscape with updates from the campaign, candidates' bios, plus links to c-span's media partners in the primary caucus states all at c-span.org/campaign2012. >> the three candidates for kentucky's next governor in the november 8 election, a week from today, faced off last night in their final debate. current democratic candidate bashir, williams, the state senate president and galbreath. governor bashir has a 28-point lied over mr. williams. this is from last night in kentucky. >> welcome to "kentucky tonight." we'll talk to candidates for governor.

they are -- we invite your questions for the candidates tonight, join the conversation on twitter, follow me at bill ket@kitonight. please include town and county in your messages. or use the web format www.k rembings t -- kytonight. welcome, also, to our viewers tonight on c-span3 and listeners on weku public radio and to all of our viewers across the state of kentucky. gentlemen. thanks very much for being here. >> thank you. >> first question to all of you and i'll combrin with you, governor, are kentuckians with better off than they were four

years ago? >> we are in the middle of the worst recession in our lifetimes. as a matter of fact, the people say it's the worst recession of the great depression of the 1930's. because of tough decisions are we made, particularly with our budget, keeping a balance, and also passing sol incentive programs -- incentive programs, i think it's going to come out of it a lot faster and a lot better than most other states. >> no, kentucky's in worst shape than it is than four years ago and it's not this governor's time. it's because of the international scene and local scenes. there are things this state could have done to help both

prepare for this and to fight it. i do not believe the -- we can't fund the teacher's retirement. we cannot fund education. we can't fund infrastructure. so there is the -- we are not going to get any more jobs under the current condition. the same old same rolled, both parties and policies have failed us and that's why we present ourselves as independents because we have to have fresh and new thinking in here or else we'll continue this downward slide. >> senator? >> well, kentucky is not better off than it was four years ago. that's not the worst news. there is no plan by this administration to improve the administration. governor bashear said it's not

the time to change the tax structure. we need to wait until times get better and there's no certainty that we'll have a recovery that will include the creation of jobs. i don't think giving incentives and letting the governor try to pick and choose the winners. >> governor, have those tax incentives been dolled out by picking certain businesses and corporations that have chosen to locate in kentucky? >> not at all, bill. you know, in 2009, we passed a total revision of our economic incentive programs. and it was a bipartisan effort. senator williams voted for it as well different republicans in the house and senate and we

gave ourselves the ability to not only try to attract businesses from out of the state to move into the state but to work with existing kentucky businesses, to help them grow and expand and create new jobs and that strategy's working. we got so far 350 companies who have been approved for one or more of these economic incentive programs. those 3050 companies are going to invest about $3.4 billion of investment in the commonwealth. going to create about 19,700 jobs and the amount we are retaining is 8,100, 8,200. are we out of this recession? no, not yet. we still have way to many people out of work and we are moving in the right direction and need to be moving. >> you did vote for that plan? >> yes. the reason i voted for it is because i put the military pay exemption right in the middle

of it that the governor was against and it a ceremonial signing at fort campbell. it's not the incentive program legislation that's the problem. he says 300 and something companies have been authorized. i no doubt they'll authorize anyone that will come up and make an application and go ahead and have a press conference and press release and talk about potential jobs. he very carefully couches the number of jobs. they will do this. the thing that the voters need to look at and tax people need to look at is it is to overcome obstacles we have in competing with other states. rivet tear down the obstacles like our tax structure, our unemployed insurance situation, the failure of the right to work. these changes need to be made. and little nitpicking here and

there won't get it done. we need change. >> i take broad exception to the creation of new jobs. we lost 94,000 jobs in the past two years. i cannot see how anyone can take credit for adding jobs. my big thing about tax incentives are a couple things. in 1993 gene strong said publicly, i have a plan for every kentuckian. by the year 201280% of kentuckians will be -- 2012, 80 prgs of kentuckyians will be making $8 an hour. people can believe what they want. i am against using tax incentives, these people hard-earned tax dollars to come in here and give money to big corporations to establish $8 an hour jobs. we are cannibalizing our tax base. they will be the working poor and will be on food stamps before sts over. let's give it to jobs that will

come in here and pay. >> ford motor company, 10 months ago because we worked with them with the tax incentive program announced $600 million of investment to upgrade the louisville assembly plant. 1,800 new jobs. they just came in a month ago and announced another $600 million of investment. another 1,300 jobs with a third shift. g.e., we're bringing jobs back from mexico and china. but it's not just the big cities. it's the small towns. in eastern kentucky, western kentucky. let me give you an example of what these companies really think about these incentives. stevens pipe and steel, now, this is the senator's father-in-law's company. down in russell springs. 25 new jobs. an investment of $1.1 million. and let me tell you what they said. this is stevens pipe and steel. they said the past 18 month

have been the most challenging since we opened it nearly 36 years ago. during that time most of our customers laid off employees and sometimes ceased operations altogether. it's good that the governor and legislature recognize companies such as ours to create incentive programs to let us move forward. we will be hiring 25 new employees tore staff this new operation right here -- to staff this new operation right here in this town. that's progress. we are making a lot of progress. >> have you disputed those numbers? >> how disingenuous can you be? have you no shame? your p.r. people read them as press releases. stevens pipe and steel hasn't accepted a dime and will not accept a dime from you. they created hundreds of jobs.

last time you were on here you said they received $1 million and you know that's not true. they haven't received anything. and it was their money. it was their own money. nothing from you. you don't understand, governor, is you haven't created any jobs other than the jobs from jerry abramson's friends over from louisville. it's the private sector that creates the jobs, sir. the tax structure, the unemployment insurance. the things you are either disingenuous to admit, it's scary either way. >> it came up in the other debate at e.k.u. did stevens pipe and steel receive any tax incentive from the state? >> no. >> they applied and signed an agreement to create 25 jobs and to create the tax incentives. now our programs are great because if they don't do that they -- >> they were preapproved. >> did they apply, senator? >> you know, there was an

application -- >> yes. >> there was an application that was brought over by the economic development folks and they asked them if they would apply. they applied. they saw the situation. it wasn't worth doing. they didn't do it. they created other jobs in this state without tax incentives. the governor wants to pick and choose and get personal about these sort of things. that's the mean-spirited side of the nice steve bashear. talk to these 9.7% of the people that are unemployed. talk to the people that have to go to tennessee and other states to visit their families. talk about the jobs that left here and your inability or refusal to come forward with a plan other than hide behind an in70ive program. if you drop the personal income tax, corporate income tax, let people vote to see if they want right to work, you would have more jobs and you would be busy

answering the phones. >> let me ask you about the different tax plans in your platforms and the ones you've been talking around the state about. a couple weeks ago, as all of you know, a canadian company agreed to go to glasgow. they will develop automobile parts for-foot, general motors and ford motors. he said the company would have chosen the location without tax breaks because of the quality of the school system, its proximity to western kentucky university and also the strength of the community. you've seen research that shows that some tax incentives or some revision of tax structures in states is not always the best answer to the equation. all three of your campaigns emphasized some revision of the tax structure. you've used tax incentives. mr. galbraith, you talked about eliminating business taxes. and mr. williams, you talked

away with doing away with personal taxes. talk about the examples you've girch, governor. >> you don't have to take my word for it or any of these other guys' word for it. the national tax foundation which is a conservative business organization who for years, every year has analyzed the business tax structure of every state in the union. their last report out ranks kentucky 19th best in terms of business tax climate in the whole country. we are better than virtually all of our surrounding states including the senator's favorite state, tennessee, which is 27th. so that's where we start. we got the 19th best business climate. they are tea 27th. now, -- they're 27th. now, if tax structure was the answer to economic development, then why is tennessee's unemployment higher than ours? why is the national tax

foundation say we have a better tax business climate and a better tax structure than tennessee? you know, the senator's proposal that he's thrown out for the campaign is to do away with all of your income taxes. personal income tax, corporate income tax. but he won't tell you how he's going to replace that money because that's 43% of the general fund. that's the money we spend on supporting education and senior citizens and all these other folks. all he said is we will have a commission after the election, tell you the taxes they will raise. you will have a consumption tax. it's a sales tax. he will have to raise the kentucky sales tax to 14% to replace the 43% of the money that he's taking out of the budget. i don't think kentuckians are going to go for that. >> can you clarify that, your position? >> frankly, you'll go along with what the general assembly does. that's what you've done for the last four years because you haven't had any ideas for the last four years. you haven't even been involved.

but the truth of the matter is other states have consumption taxes and, yes, governor, consumption taxes is sales taxes and we have sales taxes already in this state. but the bottom line of it is your 14% is a pie in the sky number. the truth of the matter is we can do consumption taxes on goods and services and replace the income that comes in from our income taxes. now, the governor talks about tennessee. you know, i live closer to tennessee than the governor does now. but everyone that's in kentucky is in competition with tennessee. governor, they have three additional congressional seats more than we did and almost got a fourth. people have moved there by the tens and hundreds of thousands over the last decade while they have changed their tax structure, have right to work, have an unemployment insurance plan. if you remember, governor, we borrowed $960 million from the federal government. tennessee borrowed $40 million

and you wrote a $28 million interest check that you didn't have the money for and said the general assembly would decide how to do it. so, yes, tennessee has a better business environment. i'll submit to you our tax environment would be much worse if i hadn't insisted on reducing the corporate tax from $8.75% to 6% and the personal income tax reduced from everyone over objections of your party. so we do need tax reform in this state and taxes do matter. the states that have lower taxes create more jobs. >> we do need tax reform in this state. and the independents are the only ones that can bring it because the audience can see just how far away these two sides, the partisanship between the democrats and republicans are. they are never going to fix the fax code, folks, as long as this partisanship stands in the way. they can not get that committee together and agree on it. we need tax reformation in this state. i called for a consumption tax.

i am a practicing attorney. i said, tax on me, tax my services. the working man, the people that earn a paycheck out there and small business can no longer afford to carry the load of kentucky. we need help and we need it through tax reform. >> governor, last week on this program on the lieutenant governor's candidate program, your runningmate, abramson, said you would be open to discussing tax reform. in the discussion in his words he said, "as the economy gets better, as this international recession begins to decrease, it's time to begin thinking about what we're going to do in the future." he said you said this several times. so my question to you, if you're elected in four years, if you're re-elected for the next four years, whether or not the economy has turned around or not, what are the details that you will put forward on tax reform and the rescission of the state tax structure in the commonwealth? >> well, if we haven't come out of this recession, none, because i am not going to have any broad base tax incretions.

it would be worse to put an additional tax burden on our people while we're trying to climb out of this recession. if we can't to look at tweaking our tax code, we can. as i just mentioned to you, it's not senator williams, it's not steve bashear, it's our tax information system that says we have the 19th best tax system. the senator wants us to go higher than that. if that's mimicking tennessee that's fine. tennessee, for instance, taxes food and medicine. now, is that what the senator wants to do and put tax -- we don't tax food and medicine in kentucky and i am not going to tax it. >> what number would you use? >> everything is going to have to be on the table. all goods and vmbs. and if you want someone that plays politics like governor bashear, he says his own runningmate says, we'll wait until after the election and

talk about tax reform. virtually everyone in the general assembly and everyone in the business community knows that tax reform has to happen. governor bashear is the only one in the state that says everything is already lrt. there doesn't need to be a change in the pension system. there doesn't need to be a change in the tax system. he hasn't had an agenda. gatewood and i have been going all over the state and talking to people. he tried to do an constitutional amendment and he hasn't been able to do that through the house of representatives. >> we have some interested viewers and listeners. this first question from michael moynihan in lexington. with many young veterans returning overseas with little ability to find work what effort would you make as governor to help find jobs for

these returning veterans, mr. galbraith. >> i'm -- i do know, i think it was david that introduced a bill that would remove active military from state income taxes so i know that was a help. i have an honorable discharge from the marines, folks. my sympathy and my heart is with you, guys and gals. i'd do anything i could to try to help the military. right now i haven't been up there in the belly of the beast yet. i don't know which peas are hidden under which pods are up there. if anything will be done for the military, i'm your man. semper fi. >> is there anything you would spell out for returning veterans in the state of kentucky? >> sure. i'm devoted to our veterans because i am one myself.

i wore the uniform. my runningmate wore the uniform. we served in the united states army. one of the things i did is exempting the military pay, actively duty military pay from the state income tax and i think that's a help. but as these folks come home our economic incentive programs we're doing is going to create more jobs for these fox. and i'm proud of that effort because it's not just in the big towns. we're creating jobs -- take eastern kentucky, pikeville, laurel county, moorehead, letcher county. we're going into all of these counties and having some success. you don't have to believe me. talk to these economic folks what they think of these programs. they're excited about it because we're getting our people back to work slowly but surely. >> well, i don't have to ask the economic development folks because they call me all time like mike mentioned who is the economic director who testified

recently the best two things we can do to return job creation in kentucky would be to do away with the personal income tax and to have right to work. as far as the veterans are concerned, we have a lot of wounded warriors that are going to come back, people on multiple deployments and we have to give preferential are treatment inside state government to them and we have passed several bills as far as our preference is concerned and we need to keep the military pay situation in. governor, i which you'd admit tonight you never introduced any legislation to exempt military pay. as a matter of fact, you tried to talk us out of doing it. before that you wanted to remove from your bill. do you remember that conversation? >> first off, i can't introduce legislation. i was proud to sign it. >> the bottom line is our military are our treasure. 101st airborne, the special ops, the people at fort naaqs.

we've done everything we can to support the military and our vicious coming back and we will continue to do that in a bipartisan sort of way. >> ms. baker. question for the candidates, please. ms. baker, if you'll go ahead with your question, please. ms. baker, a question for the candidates. >> yes. i'm an educator. i'm an educator with 18 years' experience. >> yes, go ahead with your question, ms. baker. >> i'm an educator with 18 years' experience -- >> ms. baker, do you have your television on? turn your television down. >> my question for the candidates is. teachers are working harder now than ever and my question is -- what is going to be done to keep -- >> ms. baker, are you there -- >> what is going to be done to

keep teachers here in kentucky? >> an education question from elannette baker. turn your television down so you don't hear yourself ask the question. senator, why don't you respond first? >> we have trouble keeping teachers in the ranks. keeping them in the teachers' ranks, specially those that have the -- especially those that have the skillset in science and math and those sorts of things. now, i've always been a supporter of education and i'll continue to be. unlike the governor i'm willing to tell the truth about what sort of financial situation our state is we have about a $700 million in next year's budget. as soon as january comes around it's going to become evident that the cost savings we tried to do last year are going to be implemented by whoever the next governor is. but the governor is in some of his ads says he's never cut funding for education.

the truth of the matter is he's the only person that's ever cut the seat funding sits -- since it's been put in place. it misappropriated or miscalculated the number of people the average daily atendans there and cost reduction of $28 million last year and about $55 million this year in the seat formula. we had a contingent redugs of -- reduction of .3% because the governor wouldn't call the revenue forecasters back in. the problem is if we don't grow our economy every session of the general assembly we will be cutting and cutting no matter who the governor is. >> let me take a shot like this. when i ran for governor in 1991 we spent 68% of the state budget on education. this year we're spending 58% of the budget on education. defunding of the very apparatus

is necessary for us to educate our kids and get them into a trainable mode so we can get new jobs and emerging industries into this state. you know, we need to refund education. i plan on the commonwealth incentive which i've been campaigning on throughout this whole time where we reward our high school graduates for $5,000 voucher for books. give every eighth grader a laptop computer. we need to make education interesting. we need to make education exciting with he need to fund it to the extend we can lift our children to the modern day and age and get out of this mentality where we got to rank 50th in quality of life and education as we have for the past several decades. >> governor, have you cut education funding and do you think the budget we have today is adequate for kentucky education? >> well, bill, first of all,

because of this historic recession, i've had to balance our budget nine times in the last 3 1/2 years and i've done that each time by getting democrats and republicans together in doing that which is the kind of bipartisanship that i follow as governor. we have cut over $1 billion in spending and reduced the executive branch to the smallest it's been in the last 40 years. you know, each time i had to reduce that budget, senator williams and some of his folks advocate cutting things across the board. nine times i've said no. we are not going to do it that way. it requires only a pencil and not any thought. that's not the smart thing to do. what we did is set priorities and we picked education as the top priority for this administration and for this state because it's the -- it's the best investment we can make in our future. we picked public safety.

we picked commirk development and picked health care for the most vulnerable. in education what we did is preserve the seat formula. the basic classroom funding. that's the money that goes into the classroom and we have not cut that. >> but there were some other areas in education there you did cut. >> -- that you did cut. >> yeah. we had to cut some of the frills. there are good things. some of that had to be reduced. we reduced higher education in a small amount. but i tell you what, the rest of state government got reduced 20% and 30% and 40% so that's what our priority is all about. because we did that, that's one of the main reasons that we're coming out of this a lot better and a lot stronger than most states. new jersey, to balance its budget, laid off 3,500 fichers. other states have closed down schools, cut millions of dollars out of k-12 education. we haven't done that. and i think that was the smart thing and smart approach for us to take. >> one of the reasons that kentucky is not in the shape

new jersey is in because of the republican state senate over the last 10 years that didn't go along with $1 billion of projects over there and has held the line on this spending in the face of big odds. governor, you got to say that the seat formula was reduced because of average average daily attendance. the superintendents sent $28 million back and send $50 million this year. what will you do next year when you have a $700 million hole? we need to talk about the next generation. no one in kentucky, republican or democrat, has a better record of supporting education than david williams did. i have separated from my party and voted for the kentucky education reform act. and when the governor came and wanted tax increases on cigarettes and alcohol, we went along with that because he said that he needed it for education. but the bottom line of it is we can't go any farther than we have as far as cutting these

things that we are going to do. we have to change our tax structure, create more well-paying jobs out there orwell be hurting. he has to submit a budget that's going to have to come up with demrr 120 million just to pay the additional pension cost and he doesn't have a plan. >> i am coming back is the one thing he said right. >> here is a web message. what will the three candidates do to make college more affordable in kentucky? i am a middle class family with four teenagers, two in college and tuition is going through the roof. >> that is my plan, folks. first, we will freeze college tuition so these capitalization projects on the major campuses, building buildings instead of educating kids, is wrong. we give every high school graduate a $5,000 voucher for books, tuition and fees to any institution of further learning in the state of kentucky that

will train them into employeeability. whether it be truck driving school, cosmo tolings school, woodworking, welding, it has to be spent in kentucky. no pizza, creature comfort. they have to spend it in 10 years. it's about emerging industries in the state because we will pay them to train their workers in that industry or work and will give these kids in the poor counties some vision beyond a high school diploma. instead of not going to school any more or get a driver's license, it mr. cut -- it will cut the dropout rate. it says the high school diploma is now worth something and strengthen the underlying curriculum so people will get it not dollar gets spent until they present themselves to be

trained. we are talking about higher education for not only a few. it's not trying to entice people into a $1 million building. it's at the direction of the person who wants to be trained. so it's very surgically spending money for education. >> i think i need a bite at that question first. >> well, i'm going to ask you, can a governor or a legislature really do something about controlling the higher cost of education and high tuition rates? >> well, the truth of the matter is in this coming year, in 2012 there will have to be about a $16 million reduction in higher education because the governor's budget took $16 million or $18 million from 2012 and put it back to 2011. the governor has a history of reducing higher education. the underlying situation here, people wonder what's going to be reduced. i'm telling you, we have a $700 million hole in our budget next

time. the governor's implementation of the medicaid is an unmitigated disaster. he said he was going to be able to cut $500 million worth of services off to reduce services to the elderly and to the ill and to those that are disabled. $500 million. he hasn't gotten it implemented. they say they are going to put it in tomorrow. a bunch of hospitals aren't signed up. no matter who signs up, nobody with any sense believes he can save $500 million in 3/4 of a year. it can't be done. >> my turn? >> yes, sir. >> first, let me talk about the specifics of higher education costs. number one, we've meafed small reductions in high ireducation because we had to. i didn't want to but you have to make tough decisions when you are in this job and when you have to balance a budget that's what you got to do. go ask any university president in kentucky and ask how they feel and they say they are

thankful because they have gone around the country now. i tell you, there are universities around this country that are disasters now because of the cuts that they've had to take. our universities have done well under the circumstances. what we've done for our students, number one, is part of my education priority we didn't cut the keys scholarship program and we found a way to keep our student loan program going when other states, their loan programs were going under. so that helped our students. it's been very beneficial. we also got a bill passed that makes it easier to transfer credits from community college to the four-year universities. so that our kids can get through in four years. we had a mish mash before that and now folks can transfer all of their credits. it's a uniformed kind of situation so they can get out in four years. i know parents would appreciate it if they could get out even earlier. let me talk now because the medicaid program's come up. in is one of the proudest moments that kentucky is going

to have in a while because we have taken our fee for service program, medicaid, and we are moving it into a managed care model, a model that's going to emphasize wellness, emphasize preventive care. we brought the private sector in and they are going to apply all of nair skills and i guarantee the private sector a lot of times knows a heck of a lot better about running health care businesses than we do. we are going to implement it tomorrow because the federal government has looked at our whole program, looked at everybody we signed up and they said, you're good to go. you covered the whole state, things are ready to go, people are ready to get into the new program and not only is this going to save us $1.3 billion over the next three years in taxpayer money. now, that's about $350 million to $375 million is general fund dollars. it's all tax dollars. we pay for all of that. we are going to save demrr 1.3 billion over the next three

years and $-- 1.3 billion over the next three years and these companies that won the bids, they're creating 550 new jobs in our state so it's another economic development in our state. >> senator, why do you still have questions about the program? >> it was supposed to be implemented tomorrow. the week before the election, who knows what implementation is. you know, there is no accountability to this governor. everything gets kicked down the road. the you know, the bottom line of it is the sort of managed care you need is the people in the private sector that need to be doing it are the hospitals and physicians and groups like that that can manage the care. it doesn't make any sense the model he set up to bring in three separate companies that don't have contracts with the hospitals around the state and a lot of hospitals are not included. managed care is a proven approached if implemented in a thoughtful sort of way. now, the governor hasn't been able to accomplish the medicaid

savings the last two years that he promised. so there will be a huge hole there and implementation has been fought back to higher education. the higher education problem we have in this state is indicative of the fact that our total budget situation is so upside down. the governor talked about balancing the budget nine times. the governor has never presented a budget to the kentucky general assembly that's been accepted. as a matter of fact, the last budget that he put forward was predicated on bonding the key scholarship money and using that money for current expenses and bonding some slot machine money or actually slot machine license fees for five years that he couldn't get the bill passed through that either. $800 million. the governor's proposed budget spends almost $700 million more than the budget that was ultimately passed. and now he takes credit for balancing a budget. bill, we don't have balanced budget here. he line item vetoed $260

million of required savings without reducing any expenditures. we are in a dire circumstance and he's used $10 million he raised and tries to tell people that it's puppies in bow ties. >> governor, do you want something to say. mr. adams from moorehead. mr. adams, a question for the candidates, please. >> based on news reports i've been hearing, kentucky has become a magnet now for convicted sex offenders due to the ease of getting on welfare. i'd like to ask how the candidates feel about that and what would they do to change that appearance of kentucky? >> all right, mr. adams, thanks for the call. >> i never heard that. it comes as a surprise to me. >> either candidates? >> i think we have the present laws in effect in the state of kentucky that would fake care of those and try to ice plate

those people and identify them. i'm sure there are some who don't take part in that program and get off the radar. but we have law enforcement ready to take advantage of that. i know the sheriff's in fayette county are making sure there are in the place. i'm sorry it's being a magnet for it. i wouldn't give the impression this is where they ought to come because i won't welcome them. >> the partial pardons, governor, like the one that -- did you ask ray larson before you did that jerry said you always check with the prosecutors. i looked at the press and say ray larson hadn't been consulted on that? >> do you want to go that? or voter registration rights? >> in the four years i've been governor i haven't pardoned anybody. and i know that what people think of as a pardon you is let somebody out of jail, you wipe their record out as if they

never had one and we've never done that. not one time. what we do is the same thing that every governor before me has done and that is a process once a person has served his time and once they're served all their parole and probation, once they paid all their fines, then if they apply to get some of their civil rights back, voting rights, that kind of thing, then we review, we make sure with corrections that all of that is correct and then we check with the prosecutor. that's our process. and if the prosecutor doesn't have any objection, then we restore somebody's voting rights because it's a rehabilitation kind of thing. the case that i think senator williams is talking about early on in the administration, we went through that process, we sent a letter out and, you know, later on the prosecutor said i never got the letter. you know, i assume he's telling me the truth. i know ray larson and i know he's not going to tell me something that's not so and so we tightened up the procedure

to make sure that communication is there. but that's our process. >> but there was more than that one example. >> when people apply, whatever crime they've committed, if they go through this process and they've gone and served all of their time and all of that and the prosecutor locally says i don't see any reason why they shouldn't have their voting rights restored, then they're restored. >> a lot of this grows out of h.b. 70, representative crenshaw's bill which does exclude murderers and child sex crimes. it would amend the kentucky constitution to automatically restore the voting rights for convicted felons who have completed their sentence. and just to be clear, to include expiration of probation, final discharge from parole and serving their full sentence. so would you be in favor of a constitutional amendment to restore those voting rights? >> i am because 48 states -- this is automatic in 48 states.

kentucky and one other state is the only state -- >> two other states. three states. mr. galbraith, would you be in favor of a constitutional amendment? >> i think so. if they paid their dues and exempting the murderers and sex offenders, there are so many people that have been cast at the bottom of the economic and career net because they got involved in drugs and a personal possession level, not trafficking, get caught up in the addiction, they go through the criminal process, they have a felony on nair record and you know, it's going to keep them from being productive citizens, authorize that cast of people i say, yes, we need to take care of their record. >> i am not for automatic restoration of voting rights for convicted felons. i voted for the piece of legislation that set up a process to do this and that process was abused by the governor and his staff to say that they sent a letter and got no response and they give a partial pardon to one of the most heinous criminals that's ever been in fayette county,

kentucky, and now he wonders if ray larson is telling the truth about whether he got the receipter or not is a poor -- letter or not is a poor excuse. you parole more than anybody else in history. these people that are hardened criminals have to pay a price and i will not restore, will not restore voting rights to these heinous criminals. >> governor, why issue any partial pardon to a convicted murderer or to a rapist? >> we check with the prosecutor because they know the circumstances of the crime a lot better than we do. >> and if the prosecutor -- >> if the prosecutor signs off on it then we feel that's the action we ought to take. >> what about the families? what about the -- >> checks with the families. >> that's exactly what the prosecutors are for. >> did ray plarson check with the people that were victims? you don't know and don't know if the families were checked

with or not. this is an egregious abuse of your pardoning power and it will not happen in a williams administration. >> by the way, i don't parole anybody either. there's a parole board that looks at everybody's case. >> we did not confirm in the state senate members of your parole board because of the record you nominated to put them back up that were paroling people that should have been behind bars. >> governor, here's a tweet from jonathan in frankford. will steve bashear furlough employees? >> one of the last things i wanted to do is furlough state employees because we were faced with a very difficult decision. we needed to have another $24 million and it was either have state employees take six days of furlough or i'd have to fire 415 of them because we had to

balance a budget. our constitution requires it. i thought almost everybody would prefer to share a limit of the pain as opposed to 415 people losing their job. now, when i did that i took those six days myself. i took six unpaid days just like they did. i also have been writing a check for 10% of my salary back to the state treasury every month for about the last three years because if i am going to ask our state employees to sacrifice and they have. they have done so much more work than they ever done. some are doing two and three jobs because we reduced the size of the executive branch. if they sacrifice i feel i need to step up. the second year because the revenues are starting to come in and do better we announced it didn't look like we have to do that. so i don't think we will. >> mr. galbrith. >> i'm sure it's easier for a

millionaire to take a 10% paycheck than those living paycheck to paycheck. it's the wage earner that's had to carry the brunt of carrying this state. the time you furloughed and took away 2% of our workers you hired 81 policy advisors at an average cost of $75,000 a year whose function i can't figure out except they are out in the field trying to get you re-elected. you know, we got enough money we don't have to furlough our state workers. if we quit the corruption that's going out to the big special interests that's contributed to governor bashear sess campaign, 90% of the money does business with the state, they expect a return on that investment, that's where the money is going instead of going to the men and women working for the state of kentucky. >> the first political ad of this campaign was governor bashear bragging he did a

furlough. it was a political ploy making him look like an independent. a furlough does not reduce your base budget. we have rank and file workers out there that couldn't make their electricity and grocery bills and that's why democrats and republicans put a provision in the budget to prohibit him from doing the furloughs again and he line item vetoed. governor, if you don't plan on doing it, then why did you line item veto the prohibition there? we don't have a -- the governor is not making bond payments that needs to be made. he calls restructuring. he line item vetoed that and $220 million of other savings. there's a dire circumstance in this state and he's mismanaged the state. by failing to understand that we have to change our business model and create more well-paying jobs to support the basic services that our people demand. >> you know, the state bill is

so mismanaged that ford moved -- forbes moved us up four places. moody's, the rating agency, just predicted that kentucky will have ott third highest job growth right next year than any state in the country. you know, these outside reliable sources look at us, they like what we see because we managed ourselves well. we're coming through this recession so much better than most any other places. you know, part of leadership in my book is leading by example. that's why i stepped up and took the furloughs. that's why i take a cut in play. there's not a person on the senator's staff that's taken a furlough day yet. he hasn't cut his pay yet. i think it's about time that others lead by example also. >> the governor continues to misrepresent the research commission. we did you should have done. we reduced our work force by 5% through attrition so we

wouldn't have to give furlough days to our employees. you shouldn't give furlough days to your employees. you are using this as a political ploy to make yourself look like a good manager. moody's and fitch and others have downgrade rain shower state and said it's the worst managed state in the united states of america. it is. we're in trouble. we have unemployment insurance debt. we have a huge gaping hole in our budget and the governor is trying to make the citizens to think otherwise. >> let's hear from thad mccorm i can. a question for the candidates please. >> i need some clarification on one of the issues. this would be for david williams. i understand that mr. williams was voted -- he voted against the slot machines at the racetracks some time ago but yet we also understand that mr.

williams doesn't mind gambling too much himself. it seems like a double standard to me and i'd like him to clarify his position on gambling. >> i have not gambled for several years. i don't hold it against anybody who does gamble. gambling is an issue for one person on this panel. steve bashear ran four years ago saying he would support a constitutional amendment to expand gaming. he has not been able to get it pass through the house of representatives. it passed out of committee and he helped kill it over there. now he wants to blame everyone except himself. if folks want to know who is responsible for not having a constitutional amendment they can look to steve bashear. he has not been able to get it passed through the house. as far as the slot machine bill that came over, it was heard in committee. voted down in committee. it never had enough votes to pass the kentucky state senate. it passed the house by one vote after they promised $1 billion worth of projects over there to

get it passed. now, there could very well be support sometime in the future for a constitutional amendment, and i'd like to give the governor an opportunity now. governor, what would be the provision of a sfutional amendment you'd like to see on the ballot? >> well, let me talk about gaming, ok, bill. there is not a soul in this state that's keeping up with what's going on that knows -- that doesn't know who is the one person that stood in the way of us having expanded gaming in this state and that's senator williams. i mean, everybody knows that. i don't know why he wants to say it's not. i mean, he's been proud of the fact that he is opposed it and has stopped it. you know, when the first constitutional amendment was proposed, he announced down in the senate it would be dead on arrival. that's really encouraging to think that the house will pass something that they know will be dead on arrival but we did get a bill passed down there that would put slots at the tracks. he got it killed in committee.

everybody knows that he runs that place with an iron fist. the republican senators won't go against him and we have enough votes down there to pass something if he'll let it come to the floor for a vote. now if he'll sit here tonight and tell us if we get a sfutional amendment down there, he'll let it come to the floor for a vote in the senate, we'll get him a constitutional provision. >> what are the provisions, governor? >> well, i want to sit down with the house -- >> you've had four years to come up with the provisions and sat on your hands and promised that to raise money. you know that there were never the votes in the senate to do that. how weak does that make you look if you got one money that's president of the senate that you say can stop anything you want to? the truth of the matter is you haven't had an agenda. you let the horse people down. you let everybody makinges that hallow promises. >> if you are elected governor, would you let the legislative process go through for either a

constitutional amendment or referendum on expanded gaming? >> a constitutional amendment does not need the -- >> there are some who think a referendum may at least in the discussion stages could be possible? >> i've never stopped the process. as a matter of fact, the only people that have stopped the process have been the governor and the folks in the house of representatives. let's look back at the real history. not all the money that the governor and his pro-gambling forces have spent, let's look what happened in the house. there was a bill with a constitutional amendment that passed the house committee. it was posted and never called on the floor. governor, do you not have enough strength to get a bill called with your own party over there in the house of representatives? >> they would not do that because they knew that the senate would not approve it? is that the not the reason they didn't call it? >> you have to call it. the governor acts like i can call over there and put him in a locker over there, that he's

too weak to get the house of representatives pass something. >> it's that the republican senators are weak and won't stand up to this guy. hopefully they will. >> this is a perfect example. a governor who doesn't care if it's a republican idea or democrat idea that on public television here talks about how weak the republican legislators are. no wonder you have so little success among house or senate members over there, governor. you have been an ineffectual governor. >> you were quoted in the paper in tom's piece in "the curry journal" that you had plans to get that addressed in the 2012 general assembly. that bill expanded gambling. >> yes. we are going to address it. i will work with the house to come up with a proposal and we are going to pass that proposal and we are going to put it in front of the senate and i wish instead of you asking him about being gombor if you ask if he's

going to be president of the senate, will he allow the proposal to come to the senate floor? he doesn't have to be -- >> what is your proposal? you want members of the general assembly to say they'll be for anything without knowing what your proposal is? you can sit there and smiled -- there and smile. you've sat on your hands for four years. you are supposed to say how strong you are, effective you are as governor. >> what horse are you riding? >> first of all, i am for the putting the vote to the people. i'd like to see it come into existence. let me bring this up to the folks who are watching this here tonight. d. riley and i are independents. this is exactly the kind of blaming, exactly the kind of

dysfunctionality that's existed in frankfurt for decades. this is partisanship and what's kept us from progressing. it's put us on a downward slide. i just want you to know, truly as an independent which don't care who has the best ideas. -- we don't care. if it's a good idea, let's do it. let's not get caught up in what's going only right here, right now, which is a microcosm of everything that's gone on and wrong with this state over the past two decades. >> another call from judy spalding. a question for the candidates, please. >> yes, i've read in the paper that unemployment insurance in kentucky owes almost $1 billion to the federal government. and i know that the governor appointed a tax force to address this loan but i am not really seeing in anything i read how it addresses the loans