it applies to all forms of spending. this category all forms of spending. this category was put there so that it would preserve increases in spending so nobody would touch it. it has to be challenged. it has to be taken on. our candidates have to take on medicare, medicaid, social security, not to ruin it, but to save it. they are all going to go bankrupt and they are not going to be there 20 years from now. [applause] we have to reduce, reform, and simplify the tax code. there are two excellent plans for how we can simplify our tax code. whether it is the 9-9-9 of

herman cain or the flat tax program of rick perry, both of those would be a vast improvement over the complex, completely unexplainable tax code that we have today. [applause] we have to reduce taxes, we have to simplify taxes, to stimulate the private sector. when i talk about this, i say that the democratic party believes in the government. we believe in people. the democratic party want to raise taxes, more money for the government. what we believe in is leaving more money in your hands and pocket because we believe you will do more creative, much better things and engage in more

job creation with your money than washington will quit. take a look at the stimulus program. take a look at solyndra. look at the waist and not producing jobs. keep taxes low and keep that money in your hand so you can spend it. it will drive this economy through the roof. [applause] finally, another reason we have to reduce taxes. it is the reason i learned from my boss, ronald reagan. ronald reagan used to have a theory about reducing taxes. he used to call it start the beast. ronald reagan wanted to see taxes reduced because he wanted to give the congress less money to waste. the more money you give them, the more money they waste. the more money you hold back from them, the more they have to

make efficient decisions about the use of money. the more they have to look at is a program worth it. if we held back money we would not now have the solyndra scandal in which a half a billion dollars was given to a company. they have the hats with the windmills. the company was going under. they were going to support those little hats to create energy. they had money to waste. they have too much money. another reason for reducing taxes on the poor, on the rich, on the middle class, on businesses, on everyone, is to give the government less money. [applause] finally, the whole purpose of this, the whole purpose of this is not to reduce government for the sake of reducing government

or reduce taxes for the sake of reducing taxes, it is because we understand that this is the genius of america. this is what makes america the greatest country in the history of the world. we are one of the few countries, the one who has done it the best, that has decided that we can trust people more than we can trust government. it goes back to our very beginning. it goes back to out or sold. -- our soul. the other party trust government to solve everything. we dress, like madison and jefferson, we trust you, the people, to make the right decisions. we understand individual decision making. we understand that you will do better things than a bunch of government bureaucrats. we understand he will make a

better choice about the education of your children and government bureaucrats who do not know your children. [applause] we are about, not just the economic issues, we are about restoring the greatness of america. restoring our dignity and our pride. restoring respect for america. and america that will be militarily strong and not afraid to lead. this administration says it is lead by following. i wrote a book about leadership, i pointed out the best lesson of leadership. i am going to write a new book about leadership and point out what not to do, it is going to be based on barack obama. [applause] we love this country. there is no reason to apologize

for it ever. we have our faults. we have done things wrong. we have done things we can be ashamed of in our history. however, compared to every other nation, we are the greatest nation in the history of the world. we should never forget. we should build on our strengths not magnify our weakness. we should never apologized for ourselves. we should be humble about it. we are the luckiest people in the whole world and the history of the world to be here in america. let's preserve what is great about it. the private sector, the private individual, individual decision making, the ability for you to decide on your future, and let's have a government that is as it was greeted, a limited government that stays out of most of your life. god bless you and god bless america.

[applause] ♪ >> please welcome the editor at american spectator, john fund. ♪ >> thank you. i too have visited the up by wall street folks. as you know, they have been showered with gifts. they had to stop giving out the free food because the homeless had moved in. [laughter] they have gotten so used to being on the welfare wagon, i was down there and sure enough, in front of a burger king, osama

a protester. he had come of the burger king and he was shaking his head. i said, what is wrong? he said it is the first time it has happened. he said, i had to spend some of my own money. [laughter] you all know that the real power behind organizing the folks has been something called the new york communities of change. this group is the old acorn. they operate at of the same office. they have the same stationery, employees, they are acorn. remember, it was an umbrella group of 196 entities. they had a chart so confusing that the joke was our right hand does not know what our extreme left hand is doing. they are organizing occupy wall street.

what were the most famous for when there were not helping people set up child prostitution rings? they were famous for voter registration fraud. they may be back with that. i think that is one of the things we have to walk for as we head into a critical election. ever since the florida recount, we have seen a large amount of change in how elections were conducted. now you have to have a margin of victory on the litigation, beyond what the other side will sue over. the dean of american political science said we had the slightest election system. you cannot tell where the incompetence ends and the fraud began. we have not done enough to restore election integrity. if you do not believe me, look at the washington state government race in 2004. they found new ballots 17 times.

but the al franken race in 2008. there were more felons who should not have voted and the margin of difference. if you do not think that matter cannot remember obamacare on the past because they had 60 votes in the senate. al franken was that 60 vote. they say voter fraud does not exist. in mississippi the head of a liberal organization was sentenced to prison. she had voted 10 times in one election. she did not discriminate. just last week, the head of elections in madison county florida was indicted. absentee ballot fraud. they say voter fraud does not exist. they not only say that, they say the laws to prevent it, all of

these say are the return to jim crow. this is what bill clinton said. there has never been, since we got rid of the jim crow burdens, the effort to limit the franchise we see today. in july, this is the equivalent of opinion that the poll tax and jim quote. -- of greenbacks doc bringing back the poll tax and it jim crow. these are not to -- bringing back the poll tax and jim crow. they are not true. rhode island has a photo id law. rhode island is a liberal state. [applause] its legislature is 5 to 1. the sponsor was gordon fox. the sponsor in the senate was

the only african-american state senator. both democrat. this is what the senator said as to why he was supporting a photo id. it has come to my attention that many people in my community have had their boats stolen. -- votes stolen. this has been too often ignore. those who do not believe that there is voter fraud also will do nothing to make the elections more transparent. this procedure in rhode island passed to the democratic legislature, signed by the governor, he said, i have been called an uncle tom. i have been called a traitor. i offer but -- party loyalty but god gave me a brain and i use it. [applause]

now, he was attacked. now we have another witness coming forward. the democratic congressman from alabama, he served in congress until 2010 when he ran for governor. the teachers' union took him out of the democratic primary because he was for school choice. he is a distinguished democrat. he was the first democratic congressman of side of convert -- chicago to endorse barack obama. he seconded barack obama's nomination. now that he is at of office, he is calling people -- this is what he wrote, "i have changed my mind on voter i.d..

when i was a congressman i took the path of least resistance. i thought it was a suppression tactic. the truth is, the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression of the african- american community is the manufacture of pellets. boding the names of the dead, the nonexistent, it cancels out the vote of citizens who exercise their right. i have heard the peddler's bad about it. i have been asked to provide funds. i am confident it has changed the results of election. a voter i.d. law must be passed. -- passed." he was attacked for that. he deplored the intimidation.

anyone who stands up for this law is going to be attacked, but it is the right thing. in the end, some of the most tragic victims are in the minority communities who try to fight the machine and the reformers in those communities have their boats stolen from them -- their votes stolen from them by political machines that want to suppress them. it affects all of us. what can be done? we have to push back. yesterday, the democratic leadership in the house of representatives sent a letter to all secretaries of state. they asked them not to enforce any of these new photo id laws, not to enforce any of the laws designed to -- support voter into witty. last week it brahma -- obama let us -- white house with an

effort, says one campaign official, "we will look at what the states have done. we will look at ways to counter it. beyond that, you have a program that is attentive and must be stopped. we must stop them." all of you. [applause] all of you have an obligation to go out and not just campaign for the people you support, contribute money and time to the people you support, but makes for the elections are monitored. there is an organization based of houston, texas, you can look it up. they are starting a bipartisan organization designed to have people trained and ready to detect voter fraud with is absentee ballot fraud or fraud

at the polls. a little prevention can cure a lot. a little voter fraud prevention can tell people, maybe i should not commit that brought. -- fraud. [applause] we used to have democrats who cared about this. we now have people like congressman davis -- we used to have national democrat. there was the help american boat at in 2002. this country must have a system in which it is easy to vote. we want everyone to vote, but hard to cheat. we can do this. i agree with him. the rhetoric of the campaign has become very polarized. from whatever party, whatever part of the country, we must join forces and makes for voter

fraud no longer governs any of our election. ultimately, the choice must be the people's choice. it must not be left to those who tried to throw an election in court and have the judges decide. i am pleased to be the chronicler of these efforts. i am re-writing my book. i will be signing copies. i will be happy to hear from you. every time i do this i hear stories of election irregularities. i am happy to let them do it i will leave you with this. the 2012 election is one of the most momentous. we do not want it to end of floor that in 2000. -- to end like florida in 2000. some people wanted to recount

some countries and not other tickes. we cannot afford that. the worst result is an election that becomes close because of fraud, it's grown into court, and no one is satisfied. let's have a clean election. let's win this fair and square. [applause] ♪ >> please welcome the producer ann mcelhinney. ♪ >> hello. it is good to be here. i am a recovering european. because of mike realistic efforts -- my journalistic efforts to expose their mental paris -- environmental

terrorists, some of you might notice i have an irish accent. that is one of those jobs immigrants are doing. [applause] i love this country. one of the amazing things i think about, it is wonderful, if there were gates brushed every country in the world and he lifted them, this is the only country that people would all want to come to. the only country, that is very unique. [applause] it is a very unique thing that people in cuba are willing to swim with sharks to get to this place. what strikes me in these days is

that those people who swim with sharks are not occupying wall street. [applause] those people who are occupying on wall street are the most pampered, generation. people know what happens when you pamper children. [applause] can anyone really worked out what it is they want? what it is these people want? i have no idea. i do not think they know themselves. i will tell you what i do know. i know what the people in this room want. the people who have come here to defend the american dream and who know what that means. [applause] i just want to do a shut out for a number of the things that means. a number of the freedoms that means. to run a business that is successful and not have the

president give you a competitor money so you cannot be successful. [applause] the freedom to work hard and keep the money you earn and not have it be distributed to people who do not want to work. [applause] the freedom to use natural resources of this extraordinary country for the benefit of the people who live here. to make things safer and beautiful and gorgeous and to keep the lights on. to use the resources we have here in this country and not leave them buried in the ground. [applause] the freedom to form of the land of this country. not have the government tell you to stop it not have your governor turn off the water because he cares about a delta or than he cares about you. [applause] the freedom to control your own

thermostat. i lived in eastern europe. i lived among people who understood communism and head of local the tories who would turn off and turn on the heat. they talk about that now. the local authority will turn off the heat and turn on the heat. you had a president who says you will not be able to keep your house school. he has something coming. [applause] the freedom to choose a light bulb. this is america. [applause] the freedom to choose the kind of car you drive. he wants you in a prius. if you get into a car like his,

he is going to punish you. do you want to live in a country like that? that is not america. that is not the american dream. you want your gas guzzler and so do i.. good luck to you. [applause] the freedom to each whatever through the elected -- to eat whatever food you like. guess what, you are a grown-up. [applause] the freedom to smoke a cigarette and smoke it would you like. the freedom to shop in small stores and in big stores, however the mood is striking you. and the freedom, most importantly, to have your children educated in a school where they care about literacy.

not green of literacy. -- green literacy. [applause] the freedom to have those same children not terrorized by teachers who are not teachers, they are environmental terrorists who tell those children and their parents are evil because they work for an oil company. the same teachers that tell them their mother is irresponsible because she has eight children. the same teachers who told children we had something to mourn in the birth of the 7 billion baby what i think is a miracle and a joy to her parents. [applause] the freedom to understand that the miracle of natural gas

discovered in america in north dakota, pennsylvania, texas, is a joy, a miracle, is incredible. how gifted that a country can get gas. [applause] discovering that your neighbor, canada, have got saudi arabia in alberta. [applause] and the future is bright because look at where we have come. two hundred 35 years and look where we have come. the contract that to the thousands of years of development in greece. [laughter] [applause] they are leaving university at 40 and retiring at 50 on a government pension. [laughter] i have mixed up my pages.

you know that is going to happen. i am here to upset you a little bit. i think you need to be upset. i was 38 years old before i discovered how to capitalism was. i was 38 years old. i watched that television. i have been to university. i discovered it myself. i resent the fact you did not tell me. i think it is serious. if we come here to celebrate the american dream and realized we need to defend the american dream, which need to understand children, -- we need to understand children are not going to learn about this country from watching television. they are not going to get it from the university of utopia they are attending or they are at -- major in in anti-american studies.

[applause] you have to stop being so quiet about what you know, about how extraordinary this country is. you are going to have to do a thing you do not want to do. it is lovely being here among friends. you are going to have to talk to that of not just that you have. to that arrogant needs -- neice. you are going to have to talk to them about the american dream, what this country means. nobody else is going to do it. [applause] i am going to find my left page. somebody said this. i want to put from that person. -- quote from that person. we are lucky because we have a

petri dish for a lot of stuff. we have seen cuba. we have seen the soviet union. we have seen in north korea. we of looking at europe. we are looking at europe. we have a petri dish. you need to get busy and do something. preaching to the choir is a gorge is. it is one of my favorite things. you have to talk to those eight children who are being bred -- idiot children where it who are being bred. they are reading them in california. there is gold there. they are pumping oil in beverly hills. isn't that great?

you have to get up in front of this thing. the reason, in the words of someone who spoke this better than i could, someone who you love and admire as much as i love and admire him, ronald reagan who said, "freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. we did not pass on to our children in their bloodstream, it must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same or one day, we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the united states when we were free. quote thank you very much. -- free."

thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> this is the formal part. filling out the declaration of candidacy. it has been completed. >> all it needs is a signature. i can do that. >> this is the filing the. >> you got that. >> this is a slogan or something. we do this every four years. >> you have a great secretary of state. you have done a great job. you will the next 40 years. you are going to make sure new hampshire remains first in the nation. it is a responsibility and an honor. i am at -- happy to be a part of that process.

i hope i will be able to become the nominee of our party in the next president. but the new hampshire primary is set for january 10. you can allow can think of it, online -- you can follow campaign 2012 online. all the videos searchable, a curable, and free. it is washington way. -- your way. >> tomorrow discussion on the primary race with molly ball. a look at the future of manufacturing with carrie hines. later, a discussion of the impact of budget cut on the marine corps. that is starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. the house is in recess next week. the senate is in session.

members return on monday at two o'clock p.m. eastern. that afternoon, they will return to work on legislation that repeals a government withholding on government contract payments. a vote is the cold for 5:30 p.m. eastern. next week, a resolution of disapproval offered by texas republican hutchinson. follow the senate live on c-span 2. next, remarks from several republican presidential candidates at the 2011 ronald reagan at dinner. you will hear remarks from rick perry, newt gingrich, michele bachmann, ron paul, and rick santorum. from des moines, iowa, this is two hours. ust 12 months to save america from obama's

roamerica. after 0 -- 30 months, this economy wrongs to president obama. he cannot blame george bush anymore for what the economy is. [cheers and applause] he owns it. tax too much, borrowed too much, spend too much. i would admit that maybe this president inherited a bad situation, but by any measure of the economy whether you take four or five measurements or 25 measurements of the economy, and economists have that many, this president has made every one of those measurements of the economy worse than when he took office, every one of them. [applause]

it seems like he can't seem to learn from the mistakes of greece that he wants to take us down the road of near default with his massive increase in the national debt equal to what all presidents prior to him will have accumulated, he will accumulate in four years in office. mostly, it's because he's not attending to the knitting. he, instead of being a commander in chief, he's a campaigner in chief. [applause] and we -- [applause] and so between now and about a year from now, we have 12 months to elect a president who will unite america, the very same america that this president day after day attempts to divide. we have 12 months to elect a

president who will grow our economy instead of growing government. [applause] and i don't think he'll learn it, but it'd be nice if he would learn that the american people create wealth, and government consumes wealth. [applause] so we, republicans, get this year and into a new presidency, plan to not take more dollars from the american taxpayers. we will stop new regulations at least for a two year moratori. we will shrink government. we will pass a balanced budget amendment. we'll expand trade. we will drill here and drill

now. we will repeal oamacare. [applause] so in the sense i'm telling you, we're going to go the opposite direction, that this president has taken america, and we, republicans, then will not go the way of obama's euroamerica. [applause] we, republicans, will bring out once again through our president, the grtness of america and we will have no more apolies to the rest of the world about america at all. [applause] the american's story is a story of faith in the american people, not faith in government. our story is a story about real

genuine, authentic, private sector jobs, not government jobs. our republican story is if you work hard, if you play by the rules, you will get ahead. [applause] now, we all remember president obama's campaign based upon hope and cnge. what the american people are hoping for in this election is that we, republicans, can give them, the american people, a real genuine, authentic change that brings out the greatness of america, and we will do that, and i urge all of you over the next 12 months to work so very hard to make sure that we give

this country back to the american people. [applause] ♪ ♪ on caucus night, iowa is going to change the worl thanks to 25,000 of your fellow citizens who have tried our pledge for presidential candidates committed to identifying and eliminating $500 billion per year of known washington wasteful spenting. texas governor rickerry signed into law a west protection bill in texas that served as the model for congressman tom and the lien government bill. >> if we had all member ease of congress and the president of the united states standing by these principles, we would not be in the fiscal mess we're in

today. >> congressman ron paul said if only more business people were in charge of government to wield the business, we'd have this country in shape in no time. at the iowa straw poll, presidential candidates spoke to strong america now supporters. >> what you represent andwhat mike represents, what sigma represents is a disciplined approach to finding a lot of the waste in washington, d.c.. >> [inaudible] a man who -- [inaudible] >> this is the biggest idea for rethinking how you run government since the civil service ideas of the 1880s. this is the biggest idea in 130 years. >> if y have not joined our ranks, please do so tonight at our booth. we ask two things of you, vote on january 3, and support one of

the candidates you heard about tonight. may god bless america. ♪ ♪ >> every four years, americans choose their president, and every four years since 1972, the iowa caucuses started the process. for 40 years, iowans listen to the canidates, and most candidates move on, and every four years, iowa gets the question, why is iowa first? ♪ let's talk about why iowa's a great place to start the political process. in iowa, retail politics is the name of the game. candidates can't hide behind ads and big rallies. iowans take the process very seriously. we know that meeting the candidates first, having the courage to ask them tough questions is the best way to measure their mental and their

character. we donate our time to help the candidates, and we welcome them into our homes and meet with our friends. we share our stories, our hopes, and our fears, establish a bond with the candidates that go beyond any election. it is the bond of americans working side-by-side to make our country an even better place, and then on a cold winter's night, we venture outo support those ndidates that have taken the time to share their vision who want to build america and in whom we place our trust and those candidates who earned our trust move on to the next step in the process and continue the process until one is declared the next president of the united states. however, the process is not the only thing iowa is first in. iowa's the nation's leader in the production of renewable energy leading the way on lowering our dependence on foreign oil. iowa's capitol city, des moines, ranks as number one in the nation for young professionals. it ranks number one in best

places for business and careers. it is ranked number one richest metro in the united stes due to its reasonable cost of living. iowa's first in the nation of production of corn, soybeans, eggs, and pork. in fact, we produce over 10% of the america's food supply in iowa. iowa ranks first in children's health care without being told by the federal government how we should care for our children. being first in the nation is nothing new for iowa. in fact, we're good at it, even most times we are too hume to talk about it. for the last 40 years, this nomination process is starting in iowa, and it's starting here again today. here, in america's heartland, where the pioneer spirit remains strong, where the pride of america never waivers. the great state of iowa, first in the nation. ♪

>> please welcome the chairman of the republican party of iowa, matt straun. ♪ ♪ >> well, good evening. sixty days, sixty days from right now all across our state, in our church basements, in our gymnasiu, in our schools, 60 days from right now, we start the process of choosing president obama's republican successor, and it starts here in iowa. [applause] now, as my fend mark narrated so elegantly in the video, we're humble folks, but we should brag on ourselves today as iowa

republicans because we have things to be proud of, and for that, i want to thank you. i want to thank each and every one of you for being a partner in your replican party of iowa. [applause] thank you for being a partner in your iowa gop that as of the end of october marked the 32ndconsecutive month iowa republicans gained on iowa democrats in iowa's voters' registration. [applause] not too shabby. thank you for being a partner through your support of tonight's dinner and events throughout the year and being part of what will likely be the most successful fund raising year the fund -- republican party of iowa has ever had. we're outgaining the democrats there as well. more recently, thank you for demonstrating to the rest of the country by taking our caucus process so seriously, exactly

y it is iowa, not florida or some other state, but it's iowa. iowa that is first now, iowa that will be first forever. [cheers and applause] you know what? it's your iowa gop that's making a difference day after day here at home. it's your iowa gop having governor branstand and lieutenant governor reynolds on the hill. they are pushing an agenda every day in the iowa house. [applause] oh, and you know this one's coming. it's your iowa gop on the doorstep of telling the one-party reign over the iowa senate will soon be over. [cheers and applause]

now, we're not done. your iowa gop makes sure that tom lathum retis leonard boswell once and for all. [applause] and last, and by no means least, your iowa gop will make sure kristy vilsack and the liberal pals -- [laughter] will know that it's a very, very poor decision to move to ames with your liberal beliefs and think that you're going to beat our steve king. [cheers and applause] but folks, you know, it's not a reagan dinner without remembering and reflecting upon what i believe is one of president reagan's most admirable traits, that unshakable belief he had not only in the american people, but the promise of the american dream to anyone who wanted to

seek it and earn it, and, you know, being the son of an iowa farmer, grandson of a john deere factory worker, i was raised with perseverance, hard work, and responsibility, but it's not all. even though i grew up in a farm, my opportunity in the worlds were limitless. why? because i was an american. it was that promise, the uniquely american promise that you were only limited 234 this world -- in this world by those gifts bestowed upon you by your creator and how you choose to use them. that's the american promise 689 that's what we're fighting for today, and americans know it. americans know it's worth fighting for. you know why? i hear it every day talking to people across iowa. i ran into somebod over lunch i

never met for. a 20-year veteran works downtown now, and we started talking. he has a couple boys, one just leaving college andhe youngest is entering, and he was fearful for the opportunities he doesn't think they'll have that he has. this being iowa, conversation turns to politics, but before i could even ask him if he was going to caucus on january 3rd, this veteran looked me in the eye and said, matt, electing a new president for america is not my only responsibility, but my duty. sixty days, folks, every minute counts. we know our duty as americans. let's make it happen. let's get it don iowa

republicans. [applause] ♪ >> good evening, glad to be with you this evening to introduce my father. i don't exaggerate when i say likely no congressman since the days of our founding defended the constitution as consistently as ron paul. even when defense of the constitution is unpopular, when everyone else throws up their hands, goes along with the crowd, ron paul held firm. my father's been the lone vote against federal overreach more than any congressman in history. no representative deserves more credit for a constitutional foreign policy. ron pa relentlessly championed a policy that reaffirms what we fought for.

.. enumerated in the constitution. american land --is in a terrible recession. america will cry when we have leadership. when we have a leader who extols the greatness of our founding document, the greatness of capitalism and the unlimited potential of free individuals. i think that leader is my father, ron paul. i hope you will give him your consideration.

>> thank you very much. i am delighted to be here. i am proud. i am also pleased to be here on this very important event. of all the precedents i have met over the many decades, president reagan was the one i knew the best and visited with the most and had most in common. the first time i met him was in 1976 when i let a texas delegation to the convention in kansas city. later on when he became president, in 1980, he shortly thereafter he instituted the gold commission, i was a new --

member of the gold commission. one day we were finishing up and i was it will to go to houston. i was late to get to the airport. president reagan said he was flying over in his helicopter. i was able to fly with the president from the white house to andrews air force base. i had a one-on-one with him. of course, the subject of the gold standard came up. he said something that was very interesting and has stuck with me. he says, there has never been a great nation that gave up the gold standard that remained a great. he saw a money issue as being a very important issue. he saw the danger of not having any restraint on the monetary authorities. his concerns were the same as mine. guess what, we are in a situation today that demonstrates what happens when you have no control of the monetary authorities.

this is the reason that for many decades i have been talking about monetary policy and the federal reserve and why not only should we audit the federal reserve but we need to change our foreign policy and our monetary policy. [applause] the reason this is so important is congress gets licensed to spend money if they do not have to collect it by taxation, they can borrow to a degree. they never come up with enough money. what do they do? they send the bills to the federal reserve. they print the money. the tragedy is it causes the growth of government. some like to spend money on some issue. liberals like to spend their money on other issues. inevitably, without restraint, governments grow. when the government rose, the people puzzle liberties are diminished. today. the other consequence of unlimited spending is unlimited debt, and wenow have not a

national debt crisis. today our national debt this week for the first time on history became greater than our gdp. but the world is in the same situation. so what we're seeing on the streets of athens and around the world, even in our own country is a reflection of runaway government spending and too much debt and people aren't willing to admit it. they're not willing to admit the truth. we have spent too much, and to much debt, and the solution is, guess what, cu spending. that is what has to be done. [applause] [applause] this is the reason why in my program that i have suggested in the campaign is in the first year ct $1 trillion ot of the budget. [applause] [applause] a lot of people say, how can you

do that? well, you have to be willing to cut. you have to look to the constitution and find out what is authorized and was not to read you can't get rid of everything that is on authorize the first year, but i thought a good start would be to get rid of five departments the first year. [applause] [applause] there is no need the money for us the have the department of education. we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars of federal government has taken over, and what have they given us? of 45 a poor education system. weak ridge with a lot of students from colleges that are imbedded with that, and no jobs. so this system that we have had for the last 40 or 50 years run and a keynesian economics has been a total failure. the liberals wanted to give the house to everybody. what to do to make it cost housing bubble which collapsed. guess what, the wealthy get

bailed out. the top into reserve funds among the middle class lost their jobs , and it lost their houses. what we are witnessing today is the failure of the system. this is the end of an era. the big question is not so much about what we should do but what is going to come of this. we going to draft like the rest into more government solution or are we going to say enough is enough, let's do one thing, one thing, how do we get in this trouble? we have too many in ashington that did not care our understanding did not follow the constitution to be if we send only people to washington that know and understand the constitution and live within the coines of the constitution we can solve our problems quickly. [applause] [applause] we have to change policy. how can we cut and still take care of some of the priorities? the program i have, as to

protect the priorities, the elderly who have become dependent, the people who are getting child health care, we still have to cut. we have runaway spending overseas, and we cannot deny it. we have more weaponry than everybody else put together, and if you add up what we have and our allies, we have some the% of the weapons of the world. we don't need more weapons. we need no wiser foreign policy. we don't need to be the policeman of the world. we do not need to be nation-building. we need to have a strong national defense. we need to have @booktv me to mind our own business as sir bernie our troops on. [applause] [applause] we need to know what we believe in, and we believe in liberty. that is what america's all about. that is why we became the freest and most proper -- prosperous nation in the world we have to understand where liberty comes from. our liberty and our righs come from our creator.

this is the reason tht we should all be right to life. we should believe in life and liberty, but if this follows, if this follows the we have a natural right o our life and liberty, shouldn't it ao follow these should have the right to the efforts of your labor, which implies there should be no income tax the income tax is the worst of it, national sales tax would be a disaster, but the income tax implies that the government owns all of revenues and allow us to keep what they want under certain conditions. if you believe in liberty, free-market, and contracts, sound money, a sensible foreign policy, we could be back on our feet rather shortly. that is what i advocate and work for. thank you very much. [applause] [applause]

>> a great country who acquires a better direction. renewed future mates and renewed present. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> this time to get america working again. >> we don't need a president to apologize r america. i believe in america. a purpose. i greatest reserved for the generations to come. when the health and the kurds of the american people, we will get our country working again. god bless you, and god bless the united states of america.

>> please welcome texas governor rick perry. >> thank you. litenant governor, thank you. not to be with you tonight. as well as you and your family. thank you for your hospitality. and i also want to recognize all of my competitors that are her. let me tell you, each and every one of them that would do a heck of a lot better job than we got and the white house right now. [applause] [applause] you might say that we were involved in a project called operation occupy the white house it is an honor to be back in iowa and to campaign across this great state. truly a place where people either assaults of the earth, men and women who love this country, who want to give their children a brighter future.

you know, the president talks about winning the future, but you can't win the future by selling off the future. it is wrog to put out children's financial future in the hands of these foreign creditors, our energy security in the hands of foreign countries that frankly are high style to america. and no one can argue that the president did not inherit a bad economy. but no one can argue that he hasn't made it worse either. 14 million americans. now without work. one out of eight on food stamps. the washington solution, stimulate the economy. pro-government. about the only thing they have stimulated is a higher debt. the nswer to this mess in washington d.c. is not the status quo and it is not tinkering around the edges. we have to stop the big spending

, the bailout, the big government policies and empower the bureaucrats. you know, someone, reform washington a pair of tweezers. i am for being a wrecking ball to washington. [applause] [applause] my cat, balance and growth plan cuts taxes for every sector of. th low, flat, and fair 20% rate makes calculating and filling out that tax forms simpler, simple enough that you can put it on a postcard. you can put it on that i bet even tim geithner kendis it is taxes and if we give him a post card this size and the simple. [applause] [applause] i'll eliminate the corporate tax loopholes. crackdown on the washington influence industry. you know, scores of washington lobbyists are making a living

carving a tax out of those loopholes for corporations. i want to make -- of want to make a little history. i want to make those loopholes history. my plan cuts federal spending in a big way. balance that budget by 2020. i know that those deficits are caused by overspding, not by and the taxing. the president, i will spend my time and my campaign and not only my political capital campaigning all across this country to pass a balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution. you know why, what is lacking in washington d.cis and ideas. what is lacking up there is courage. we have a washington super committee today because the president kicked the can down the road on reforming the

entitlement and cutting spending . we have had 20 different committees now over 30 years to talk about the permission to deal with the debt. you know, it has been easier for people to put steadies' together than it is for people to have the courage to stand up and say here's what needs to be done and do what needs to be done. america is a longng for in this country. that is what is missing in washington dc. [applause] [applause] you now, even one of president clinton's advisers, he said he was afraid the super committee was going to fail. the difference is this. if they fail it is going to lead to more than half a trillion dollars of archer cuts to our defense budget. they are included in that debt ceiling deal.

i guess supposedly to force them to act. it shows you just tell broken washington d.c. is. the price for politicians failing to do their job is that americans are going to be forced to live in a nation that is less secure, and our young men and women in uniform are going to have your resources to keep them safe and to fight the battles that need to be fought across the world. we should not have to rely upon the gimmicks that make washington politians to the right thing. i'll show the courage to reform entitlement. as a matter of fact, have already laid out a plan as of last week it does justthat. my plan protect the current beneficiaries of social security , but as i was sharing with the group of young people for a walk in here, i really care about that next generation of young american workers.

who is it that i going to protect their ivestment in social security and medicare? we have to have the courage to reform these insolent programs for zero long-haul. we have to have the courage to say that the current tax system is fundamentally flawed and offer real change, cut taxes, take out the loopholes, cut the federal spending, balance the budget by 2020 by the spending cuts and pro-growth policies and a balanced budget amendment. something else. i happen to think it is time to force washington d.c. to kick the earmarked have it for good. stop the earmarks. if one comes to the budget the budget comes at the near mark and i don't care this democrat or republican, i will take out of the top end, and that will be vetoed. until the budget gets balanced

i'm going to impose across-the-board pay freeze for congress end all federal employees paid outside of the military and the public safety area. [applause] [applause] i happen to believe their is a clear choice in this race between the status "tinkers who represent the esblishment, those that support bailouts and oppose major tax reforms such as the flat tax. my approach is to break up the washington establishment with fundamental reform of the tax cut, putting a stop to the spending binge and the gravy train of those bill will lobbyists. the hard truth is this, the future of america is too important to be left to the washington politicians. let's take our country back, and with your vote and with your support let's take our country back to those principles that america was based upon and see

america great again. god bless you. thank you for your support. god bless our great country. thanks. [applause] [applause] >> please welcome congress' one michele bachmann. >> good evening, everyone. it is a thrill for me to deal to be with you all here this evening knowing full well they you would much rather be at the high-school football playoff game somewhere tonight. so you made a wonderful choice to be able to be here. as i looked out at all of you, what i see is the epicenter of hope and change for our country. that is the republican party of iowa, and we are proud of you.

thankful that you were here this evening thank you, everyone, for being here. [applause] i also want to thank the chairman of the party for taking the party to all whole new level . my life is showing very strong all across the country, and you have been a wonderful host to each of us to our present a candidates. it really is the thrill to be able to do this, and the reason why i even decided to come in and enter my name into the presidential election is because of what i saw in the last five years when i was in washington d.c. and 55 years old. the first 50 years of my life were spent in the private sector the last five years was spent being a real person in washington d.c. to be you know, the day then i went into office in januaryo 2007 the entire

national debt was a half trillion dollars. and as ron paul touch you in his remarks, this week is a historic first. we are tripping the wire it oks like right at $15 trillion. breathtaking. stunning. we all saw the fight that took place this last summer over should we raise the debt ceiling during that time the candidates were here this summer. we are meeting with all of you. i was flying back and forth to fight the fight. and i went back to washington i knew what had to be done. someone had to stand up. someone had to say no. someone had to say enoug is enough. we had enough revenue coming into the treasury. we could sufficiently paid the interest on the debt. there was absolutely no need for the country to go into default. we get paid revenue. we had enough money.

but we didn't have enough money for is to continue the absolute insanity of the borrowing. hal insane is it? we just fond out i october of this year, the month that just finished, that this country added another $203 billion in debt. now, let me give you a comparison. in 2007 the last year that republicans were in charge of washington d.c. the budget deficit for the entire year was something like $160 billion for the year. that is of the big spending george bush and the big spending republicans in 2007, 160 billion. compare and contrast that to barack obama, 203 billion. what that means for each one of us because sometimes we need to break those numbers down.

for every man, woman, and child in the united states we are each $650 more in debt that we go to this government. you see what we are watching right now is velocity. it is velocity. it is like we are in a canoe coming up to the very edge of niagara falls. it's like the river is moving faster right now. we are living in a theater of the absurd. when this week greece has the temerity to say to the you who have been kind enough to bail this profligate nation out, maybe they did not want to take a hair cut, they really didn't want to cut back on their spending. the rest of the world book degrees and said, are you out of your mind? take the deal or you go down the drain. what we need to do right now in the united states is take a really good look in the mirror.

because we have just observed is a thriller for where the united states is going t read over this last summer when i was a lone voice in the wilderness of washington saying stop no more, and got no more raising the credit card ceiling in the midst of all of that discussion that he went on. that is how washington works. that is why what we need in our nominee for the republican party is someone who will stand up and y stop, no more. let's hold on to this great magnificent gift that has never before been seen in the history of manind. it is this great thing called liberty. it is this place called the united states of america. there absolutely nothing like it ecause you see in this

nation we value each life, each individual life, because for us, you see, the beginning is the individual. and for us, you see, it is because we are made in the image and likeness of a holding god. what i have seen all across iowa is what i learned when i was born and raised here in iowa. it's a deep love and respect for the church. it's a deep love and respect for the individual. it's a deep love and respe for our military and for what they have secured and fought and died to give to us. it is agreed -- a deep love and abiding respect for the future and the fact that we believe that the future will go on. you see, i believe that, too. i have been renewed in my hope and love for this nation because of what i saw this summer in

iowa. it was a commitment from all of you and from your fellow men and women in iowa that we will go on as a nation. i have absolutely no doubt, none whatsoever, the barack obama will be a 1-term president. no doubt whatsoever, but what we -- that is good news. [applause] [applause] but what i also know is that we have to have a commitment that is absolutely grounded in cement that our nominee will be in individual who will sand strong and make sure there is no compromise with repealing obamacare, 100 percent. no compromise with repealing their jobs and housing distraction act, 100 percent. no compromise, abolishing the

tax code and creating it with their ronald reagan style pro-growth tax code. no compromise of liberty. no compromise. that is america. we have done it before, we will do it again. i want to be your nominee fo the republican nomination in 2012. god bless all of you and god bless the unite states of america. thank you, everyone. god bless you. love you all. [applause] [applause] >> we blanks, and the america that we knew had changed. individual freedom replaced by increasing government dependents . fiscal responsibility replaced by a rckless spending and mounting debt. a genational promise of a better future broken for a

lifetime of paying for the excesses of others. the question now is who possesses the courage and experience to save america. the answer is becoming increasingly clear. only one successfully led the fight to reform the welfare entitlement program, eliminating abuse and fraud and replacing it th hope and opportunity. only one wrote the bill that ended partial birth abortion is forever and has fought tirelessly to protect traditional marriage. for two decades rick santorum has fought passionately to protect our economy, our tax dollars, our security, and our families. and today is your day to join the fight.

>> please welcome senator rick santorum. >> thankou ll very, very much. it is great to be back in iowa, but i have been here a little while. this is my eighth straight day in the state of iowa, and i am proud to announce that i did. i have been to all 99 counties in the state of iowa, and i tell you i had a wonderful time doing it. people ask me, the reporters ask me, are you tired? techno. i am energized. i am energized by going out and talking to the great people of iowa and all four corners of the state have had a wonderful experience. your town squares andyour

diners and, of course, your pizza ranches. i've been to about 26 beats a ranches in iowa, so i have had a great time. i have learned a lot. in fact, as i was going through the tour this week in reflecting upon what i have learned, because you learn a lot going out and talking to people of violence and reflecting upon what i have learned to read sothing kept coming back to me, that on like all of the other places where i traveled and certainly unlike what you are hearing from the national media, there was a team coming out from the people of ireland that i was not hearing on the national stage. in the people of viral realized, the folks that i talked to a republican activist and people who re deeply about this country realize that america is not just about taxes and spending. it's not just about the size of government. is not just about the economy. they realized and they understand that we cannot have

limited government without strong families. we cannot have a strong economy without strong family and strong moral commitment to the people who live and work inthe economy they understand that the foundation of our country is, in fact, immoral enterprise, one that has created a strong this country in the history of the world because it is a good and decent people with strong families, strong community organization and, of course, faith. i read a book recently by now ferguson who was interviewing a man from china who had worked on the commission to study why america was the greatest country in the history of the world, and it went through all of these things that they bought first would be the reason. they thought it was the economy. they thought it was our guns. it bought it was our form of government. there rived 20 years ago at the

fact that it was our faith and made his great. we are a people, a faith-filled people that believe in that moral enterprise that is america . and so today i an ounce a safe freedom and family agenda here and to mourn. everybody else has put up an economic plan. i put up an economic plan, but no one put up a plan to strengthen the american family, make sure that we have strong marriages in our country, that we defend the institution of marriage. no one is put up a plan to make sure that e have religious liberty in this country and tht faith continues to be the bedrock of this country. no one is put a plan of what we're going to do to make sure that life is considered sacred from the moment of conception until natural death. i did. i put together i think it is about a 20-point plan of what i would do as president because it

is important for the people f not system iowa but for this country to understand the we are not a party that just focuses on cutting tax rates, but we are a party that concerns all of america. we understand the important role that families face. i have also put together -- you can interrupt for a pause if you want to. [applause] [applause] i have also put together a bold plan on the economy. just a few days ago. it was in manufacturing summit headed by governor branson, and it focused on something that is really important to read again, i learned this going around. all of these little towns in rural iowa were either created because there was a process in the manufacturing plant, rural america will not do well, will

not come back into its fiber itself and be a place of choice to live unless we have a vibrant economy, and we won't unless we bring manufacturing processes back to america. [applause] [applause] we hear a lot of talk about growing the economy, but don't talk about something that is vitally important, and that is income mobility. if you are a college graduate in america the unemployment rate is 45%. if you don't have one it is well into the double digits. semiskilled and skilled workers are having trouble rising. in fact, europe has greater income mobility than the united states for workers at the bottom end of the income sale. why? because we have lost our jobs to china, south korea, mexico, and countries all around the world. we need someone who has a plan to get those jobs back. i laid it out, and i will quickly lay out for you. number one, we have to cut the

corporate tax for manufacturers to zero. we want you to make things here in america. [applause] [applause] we wantto take all the regulations that the obama administration has put in place that cost businesses over a hundred million dollars, repeal them. those that we can't repeal permanently will be replaced with ones that are more friendly to business and send a message on day one that manufacturers and processors and all businesses i elcome back here in america to grow our economy. [applause] [applause] and for those moneys that have been sent -- those moneys that are overseas because of manufacturing operations over there that made money, instead of txing than 35% which is what we do now, if you invest that money in plant equpment you will pay no taxes. we want your money back here, we want you to create jobs here in america and in iowa.

[applause] [applause] and i saw a lot of folks wi green shirts and a lot over replaces an iowa, folks that represent the world active co-ops, and they are conceed because they're eing energy prices going up, and there are going to go up more if the obama administration has its way of shutting down 60 coal-fired power plants. we will make sure that regulation does not go into effect and opened up energy in america whether it is and more, coal mining, drilling. we will have a free-market of energy prduction, and we will lead the world and have stable long-term energy prices. if we do those four things we will create millions and millions of jobs and we will create them in rural america and all over america unlike any other plan that has been put out there in the books. that's what i learned from spending all this time and go into 99 counties. [applause] [applause]

one final point have to make is i wrap up because something very big is going to happen next week. it could fundamentally change this worl that is a report by the international atomic energy agency about what a ron's nuclear situation is. i spent ten years of focused like a laser beam when i was in the senate on the country of ron i introduced the biggest restriction and sanctions on the a run in the pier program eight years ago. it was unanimously opposed even by president bush. i got no co-sponsor. thin two years after people saw what a ron was doing in iraq in afghanistan and seven of their program being regenerated it passed unanimously and was signed by the president. i have been toiling around this country talking about the threat that ron is to the future of our country, the stability of the middle east and, of course, the nation as well.

if they are in fact found to be close the world as you know ll unchanged. and we will have to do something we will have to do something to stop the production because an error in state that is fixated on the return of the 12th to ma in dominating the islamic world cannot under any circumstces have a nuclear weapon. we need -- we need a leader that noonly has the courage to act, but the courage to go outand tell the truth to the american public about who this in the is and why we need to act. ladies and gentlemen, i have that courag i have the track record on international, domestic, economic, life and faith and family to deliver the

message to contrast with barack obama. we can leave this country to be safe, prosperous, good for the next generation of americans. thank you and god bless. [applause] [applause] >> please welcome speaker newt gingrich. ♪ ♪ >> thank you very much for inviting us here. thanyou for participating as free citizens in this very important rocess of self government. this is a national conversation.

it is an opportunity for the american people to talk about where we are, wh we are, what we value, and we are trying to accomplish. i wanted thank you as the chairman for the job you're doing to be so enormously helpful, the job you did last year in hlping win a number of very key elections of a changing iowa. in addition, it's great to be back with senator grassley. he and i worked together back in 1984 on a project called guess all for those of you who are younger. that is what happened along time ago before it became ethanol. we also work together when i was speaker to say this in the late 90's. a very simple principle on why i am for at the mall. i believe my choices for money to go to the iran or iowa, i pick iowa. by to assist saudi arabia worst of dakota, picks up the code that. it's not very complicated. [applause] [applause]

i am delighted that you're committed to reelectg the congressman. i am here in part to urge you to it should two more republican members to the iowa delegation next year, so we have the momentum to govern in 2013 because we need the congress as well as the presidency in order to bring america back and to rebuild the country that we love . i think you can do it because i think the election next october will be very clear. i am really proud of my colleagues to have been here tonight. each of them brings unique things and characteristics. the fact is that ron paul has been consistently correct about the need to audit the federal reserve, limit and return to a policy of the dollar as sound as gold, so if you save dollar 20 years later is still with the dollar, and it's great to have him as a candidate explaining

monetary policy. rick perry was my mentor on the tenth amendment and the importance of implementing it. he has a number of tremendous ideas. i agree with most of his energy policy, which is a think an executive the right generation. i am delighted that part of the debate we will have is is like stacked -- flat tax is better. a significant idea that you now have a 9-9-9 plan and to candid with the flat tax. a real effort to think through on the republican side what we need to do as a country to be competitive and prosperous and successful. not only did she send it to the republican, but in addition she was the first person to introduce the bill, repeal one of the most destructive bills replan our economy.

i think she and steve king were in a race to see who would be the first to introduce a bill to repeal obamacare. these arepowerful ideas. no one has done more to try to arouse america to understand the challenge of radical islamist and understand the dangers in syria and iran then rick santorum, and i can't tell you how proud i am of the coure she is swn year after year in wanting to serve his coutry and to leave his children with a better future. so i looked at -- i looked at my colleagues. this is a great group. the couple were here tonight. i would have said nice things about them. let's skip over that. i am here with very fine competitors and opponents.

the only have one opponent. really have one opponent, and that's barack obama. we are delighted to be bak. at think we may be the only campaign his national campaign manager is from iowa. first met at the turn college, and her ties here are pretty real and deep. we are glad to be back because i want to bring a very simple and clear message. with your help on january 3rd you can launch a candidacy which if you go you will see is the most sensitive candidacy in modern times playing out a 21st century time track. i'not going to go into it tonight, but it's going to grow and evolve from now until september 27 when we will

release a contract with america on the anniversy of the original contract in 1994. on october 1st we will release executive orders which we will implement on to one of the gingrich a administration, the first of which ill abolish all of the white house source as of that moment. [applause] [applause] i have to hand only to arguments i hope you will end up deciding to support me. my colleagues are good people, and they're worthy of your concern. the first is i am the only candidate in this race wo had a national level has balance the budget for consecutive years, led an effort across the system for the first tax cuts in 16 years, led an effort which led ployment to drop from 56 to 42% and created a national majority for the first time in

40 years in the first reelected national majority for the first time since 1928. [applause] what we are faced with is the results of a radical ideology and an inexperienced incompetent president, and i would simply suggest -- i would simply suggest that to get the scale of change we need we need somebody who understands the legislative branch, mebody who understands how to get things done in washington, and somebody has a track record of having build a national movement that can bring pressure to bear in washington stting with the years that i have studied with ron reagan. i think i have that background in a fairly unique way. but there is one other reason. it comes up again and again when people talk about the debates.

as your nominee i will challenge barack obama timesaver and lincoln-uglas style debates, three hours each. with that timekper and no moderator. [applause] [applause] i will concede that he can use the teleprompter. [laughter] , and i predict to you, many of you will find this surprising. i predict see you in the end he will except for two reasons. first a mater of the go. how can i harvard law review editor, the greatest orator in the modern democratic party admit o being afraid to be on the same platform with a west

georgia college professor. [laughter] second, because i am a story in and i actually studied history, and unlike president obama i studied american history. [laughter] i know how lincoln set up douglas. [laughter] ncoln would have been out of office. he served one term as a house member and was out of office ten years as a practicing attorney. douglas was the most famous senator in the united states and present to be the next president. lincoln announced. he said 105 days in the campaign bibulous debate every day. douglas said i don't think so. lincoln began following him. lincoln would come the next day. after about three weeks douglas figured out that the newspaper coverage was always lincoln's answer.

not daedaluses speech. so i promise, if you will help me on january 3rd, if i end up as the nominee in my acceptance speech of the president has not yet agreed i will announce that from that date forward for the rest of the campaign the white house will be my scheduler, and wherever the president appears i will appear four hours later. thank you. good luck. god bless. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> please join me one more time in showing our sincere appreciation to all of our

awesome candidates for president [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] and before we close this evening on the night when we ar ronald reagan, it's only appropriate that we also honor our most distinguished governor, governor bob great. thank you so much for being with us this evening. [applause] thank you for joining yes. have a great evening and drive safely. [applause] >> a shining city on my political life, but i don't know if i ever quite communicated what i saw. in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger

than the russians windswept the blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony. and i hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless govern is liberty. as government expands liberty contracts. >> we as americans have the capacity now as we have had in the past to do whatever needs to be done topreserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom. >> back in 1927 an american socialist six times candidate for president of the socialist party ticket said the amecan people would never vote. under the name of lieralism and the american people about every part of the socialist program.

>> this is the issue. whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or ether we abandon the american revolution and confess that a little intelctual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan the marcels. >> our constitution is a document of which we the people care what it is allowed to do. we, the people, are free. god bless you and god bless the united states of america. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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>> general, you may proceed. >> chairman johnson, ranking members thank you for your

commitment to protecting our service members and families. i want to thank you for the opportunity to appear. i grew up in a military family. my father served in korea and vietnam. my brother served 30 years and as did i and i'm the proud father of a son who is a captain. before the committee are ones that are important personally and professionally. i appreciate the chance to represent usaa. i had the privilege to serve as deputy chief of staff in iraq and got to know general patraeus. during that time we were very honored to live down the street from holly patraeus who we first came to see as a wonderful advocate for our soldiers and families and friend to my wife throughout my deployment so i want to say how much i am personally appreciative of her

service, her willingness to continue to serve and be an advoca advocate. served with well her. i'm also humbled to represent the 22,000 of usaa today. we were founded in 1922 by 25 army officers who found themselves in a situation where the risk they were exposed to and mobility associated with their careers precluded them from finding insurance and security. so they banded together and formed an association that has grown to eight million members today. but the founding values and sense of service and commitment to one another endure and are at the center of uss as an association of member based organization. our purpose today continues to be a simple one, help military families and facilitate their security. usaa employees are recognized

for their commitment to customer service and it manifests in hour members feel about the association. about 98% of members will stay with the association, about 94% say they will stay for life and we have about a 97% member satisfaction rate among those eight million members of the association. our employee commitment to those members is driven by one simple fact. we have the very best customers in the world. our members. that is how we refer to them, as our members. they deserve the best service and protection that any financial services company could provide. we see their financial security as our national security responsibility to this nation. i want to share one example of how that commitment comes to life on a daily basis. this is an example that took place a few months ago.

it was an army captain serving in iraq who called usaa because she was about to lose her home in the states due to foreclosure. her mortgage was not with usaa but she is a member. she spoke to a member service representative norma rent raceway. norm into hundreds how important it was for the captain to get back to the duties of her employment and realized that we needed to find special to take care of her. norma arranged for a short-term honor at a competitive rate to get the captain current with the other lender and got her started on an application to refinance her mortgage at a lower rate and kept her in her home. it is not with usaa but a usaa member. norma renteria represents the commitment of our association to

understand the military, understand the special circumstances and support them in those. about one in five employees is actively serving in the military, has served or is a military spouse. that is why we go the extra mile. some things we do specifically unique to their circumstances is we have a deployment kit specifically for those that are deto employed to help get their finances orpgd. our insurance policies do not have a war tome exclusion. our checking accounts are truly free. .e refind the a. tfpt.m. fees in 2010 we adjusted the payment terms on about $1 billion in credit and loans, enabling members to at this poi continue meet obligations to keep them financially secure. we share your commitment to

supporting and empowering our service members in the financial services sector and we look forward to the discussion today. thank you for the opportunity to be here. >> thank you, general bergner. mr. pollack, you may proceed. >> good morning. on behalf of the board of directors of the pentagon federal credit union i want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on these important issues that affect those who are sacrificing so much to protect our nation. when we think about financial issues within the military community we believe that more can be done to provide financial education and tools necessary for service members to better manage their money. too many service members are ill-prepared to protect themselves from those who would take advantage of their hrbg of financial sophistication. we would never send troops into battle that way but we have not focused on their financial preparedness. i would be remiss if i failed to recognize the efforts of credit

unions in general and defense credit unions specifically because defense credit unions are not for profit cooperatives and we can yet unique programs. i would like to share some of the programs that the ppg federal credit union has and provides to membership. recognizing the need to address hrbg of financial -- lack of financial education we have established relationships with partners it develop financial education materials to assist teaching personnel how to properly manage their money. we provide these services free of charge to members between ages of 17 and 25. all of our materials and legal documents are already in plain english. we believe the lack of clear disclosures prevent members from comparing and selecting the best options. as a result, in collaboration with the pew trust we introduced

a checking account disclosure to allow them to understand the fees an costs of their account. we hope to roll out similar easy to use disclosures for all our products by the end of the first quarter of 2012. we believe the format created by pugh trust represents better way be ard and we are proud to leader in rolling it out. the fact is when a service member is fighting in afghanistan or iraq they should not have to worry about fees and charges on accounts even when they do make a mistake. in 2009 we introduced a program for active duty service members called warriors advantage which waives checking account fees up to two occurrences in any rolling they -- three-month fees and waived a. tfpt.m. and provide free bill payer services. in a recent survey of fees by the military times newspaper we had the lowest average tpaes of

any financial institution serving in the united states. we intend to continue to drive our fees lower. our efforts extend to borrowers and save, because we do not price based on risk every qualified member receives the same price for a loan. our present rate for use for the loan which is a staple is 2.49% a.p.r. we provide a credit card offering that has no annual charges, no foreign transaction fees and annual percentage rate is 7.49%. in short we are trying to do everything we can to ensure the military member has low cost credit available for any need they might have. we do know military members can and do get into trouble with debt. when they do, some turn to pay day lenders for assistance. the past eight years we have provided an alternative in such circumstances.

through our arc loan we provide up to a $500 emergency loan for a fee of $5. a roll over is requested the member is required to go to consumer credit counseling to develop a plan to get out of trouble. we provide up to five roll overs free of charge for any additional roll offers -- roll offers that are necessary. we cover the losses for 12 other credit unions that participate. our foundation stream make are program provides grants up to $5,000 for active duty members seeking to purchase their first home. because we have never done subprime lending and delinquency our losses have remained low and collection efforts are focused on helping members in trouble rather than -- get out of trouble rather than harassing them. we are one of many defense credit unions. the men and women who have given so freely of themselves so we may be free at home deserve

nothing less. we appreciate the opportunity to testify and thank all of you for taking your precious team on an issue of real importance to the long tournament security of our nation. thank you. >> thank you. thank you very much for your testimony. as we begin questions, i will ask the clerk to put five minutes on the clock for each member. mrs. patraeus, many of the abuses that have been raised in testimony today are committed by nonbank financial institutions. do you think that it would be better able to protect service members and families from buff debt collectors if it had a director in place? >> yes, chairman, i do.

we have an array of things we do to help service members. one is certainly education, which we are already working on. another would be enforcement. but the third leg, if you will, is supervision. without a director we cannot do the supervision of the nonbank entities such as pay day lend s lenders, debt collectors. the ones you mentioned. >> would you describe some of the regular financial literacy training you and your partners conduct in the south dakota national guard. >> we provide a program called money in motion, a two-hour program. policeman understand that they know -- people understand they should care about the credit score but don't know why. we explain the why.

you budget so you can reach your goals and cover bills. you want to know the credit score because it depends on what interest rate you will pay and that is determined what your car payment is and how much money you have left for other things. we provide a six-hour program called credit when credit is due. the third program we provided is make your move, a guide to home ownership a six-hour home buying education program that shows them the current forms and information they need to know in any community what they need to ask. those are the programs war providing. we will provide programs on request from ellsworth. >> gentlemen, as we have heard, the military lifestyle is different and creates unique financial challenges for service members and their families, especially during deployment.

what tools are available to military consumers to make these transactions -- transitions -- smoother? >> admiral? >> the military lifestyle is one th mrs. patraeus described, in recent years has involved so many rotations into theatre and back, that creates the difficulties for the families that are staying back at the installation and the dilemma that is posed for them, whether they are going to remain at the installation or in fact move to some other location where they might have other, more family oriented support, particularly difficult for the junior members. so, we, for instance, at the

navy marine corps relief society will see individuals who have come in to us to ask for assistance it -- in dealing with circumstances where the military member is deployed over a substantial period of time, the spouse is land at the installation and may choose to move to a location where she or he has more family. >> general, bergner. >> mr. chairman, one of the biggest challenges service members face is mobility challenge. yon and them histo hither and their ability to maintain credit and have access to financial services is one of the biggest challenges they face. one of the tools we have recently deployed is something that you can access on the

mobile device. we have arranged discounts with car manufacturers to provide them. on average they can save about $4,500 on the purchase of an automobile. most importantly, it puts the facts in their hands so no phaematter where service takes they have the facts to make a decision that is the right decision that isn't going to be a car lender or dealer outside their gate. we do the same with home purchases and mortgages allowing them to access online. that allows the application on line and pursue that mortgage online. being relative to mobility is one key thing we commit to. >> mr. pollack. >> credit unions do a lot and pentagon does as well. similar to usaa we have a deployment credit. many credit unions serve overseas bases and very few of those locations make any money. we do it at a loss.

the issues are as the general has pointed out, when you are moving that frequently your spouse and family may be at home and you may be a long way away so we provide online services 24 hours a day seven days a week. a member can call us on d.s.n. and we reimburse the government so they can reach us 24 hours a day if there is an issue. in our case, we are live, real-time in our computer system so if a military person deposits money in okinawa it is available at the same time it is deposited. those kinds of services enable a military person to be far away from their family and able to take care of their family at the same time. >> thank you. senator shelby. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mrs. patraeus, in your testimony you discuss that you joined the

bureau in january of this year to start an entire new office, the office of service member affairs. how many people have you hired to work in your office, how many total staff members do you hope to hire, and what is your budget? and, lastly, are you getting the resources that you need here? >> thank you for the question, ranking member shelby. i have six employees working for me, so we are a small but mighty office, i hope. i don't expect to have it get much larger than that, at least not for the moment. of course, everybody has a wish list and there is nobody if you ask can you use more employees do i say no. but there are other divisions within the cfpb that we are able to tap for their expertise as well.

so, we don't have to do everything ourselves. as for our budget, that is still being hammered out and thankfully for me my deputy is doing the numbers. i'm a little bit removed from that so i cannot give you accurate information on that. >> do you think you are getting the resources you need thus far? i know you are just getting started in a way. >> uh, yes, although the resources there are but again i think it is the frustration to have -- to not be able to do everything that people expected us to do. when i first began i got letters saying we are so excited there is an agency that you will be able to do something about these people that prey on the military. i'm eager when our nonbank supervision team can stop circling the airfield and get permission to land and start their work. >> as you well know, in 2006

congress passed the military lending act and this gave the department of defense to promulgate regulations to address unscrupulous lending involving the military. after dodd frank was passed the department of defense still has the sole authority to write regulations implementing that particular act. what is your view of the effectiveness of the act in stopping unscrupulous lending? >> i think we heard from admiral abbot that there's been success. but there are a lot of predatory products that have managed to write themselves a definition that puts themselves outside the definition. i went on line and searched military loans and i got 9,980,000 hits. the top two search terms were

military loans bad credit which is almost two million and no credit check also two million. so there are a ton of people who are managing to exist outside of the protection of the military lending act and it is a problem. >> mrs. spain, should the v.a. require first-time home buyers to receive financial education of some sort before they can obtain a v.a. ensured loan, in other words, serious counselling as to the implications and obligations of a loan like this? >> my opinion would be yes. >> it is a big buy for most people, isn't it? >> it is the largest purchase they will ever make. >> admiral abbot, in your testimony, among other things you stated that the military learned being act has

dramatically curtailed pay day loans to active duty service members. we are glad to hear that. you also point out however that some financial institutions have found loopholes in the regulations. they always do this and you have to come back. have you contacted the department of defense regarding the issues and, if so, what has been their response to close some of the loopholes? >> yes, senator, we did in fact, in the year immediately after the act was passed and then implemented have a period where we examined its effect and we reported the results that we had seen to the department of defen and it had already begun to be clear that it was having a positive effect and the you described of the work-arounds were coming.

the narrowness with which we saw the act implemented gave us concerns at the beginning and now in the light of four years of experience it continues to cause us concern and that is the direction the financial industry has gone in using the particular limited application of closed end loans in certain circumstances to in effect new products that were new pay day loans. >> regarding online lending there are additional steps that the d.o.d. can take to ensure that the act adequately covers screen lending? because people will be resourceful to get around anything. >> senator, i believe that

education may be the single most important weapon in that fight. >> you agree with mrs. spain? >> yes. >> general bergner, usaa, i know your organization is unique. what are some of the ways briefly that usaa is uniquely qualified to serve the military? focus. that is your and their families. >> senator, i think it starts with best customers in the world and we recognize that. it is then followed by the best employees in the world to do that. the combination of those two things generates a level of commitment that really is at the center of how we can truly put their needs first. a couple of ways it manifests itself, we look at every person out there from a member needs

perspecti perspective. so, that is where we start and finish. last year we saved those members about $165 million through refinancing on mortgages and on savings in their auto purchases specifically. that is a tremendous amount of savings for service members who are exposed to the threats mrs. patraeus is talking about. so it is a member focused effort. fdra caps at 6%. we cap exposure at 4%. so, it is going that extra mile for service members because it is the right thing to do. >> mr. pollack, briefly, it is my understanding there are at least nine federal regulators and regulators in all 50 states with the authority to regulate, supervise and possibly enforce service -- lending to service members by both banks and nonbank lenders.

in your view, have any of these regulators failed to properly oversee lending to military personnel and, if so, which ones? because we need to point this out. the regulators need to do their jobs. >> i'm not sure i could actually answer your question. but i do believe it is an issue of education. if we properly educated our young people in america they wouldn't make some of the mistakes today. >> is the worst thing a lender any but over loload especially a sung service member with debt they can't carry, it makes no sense financially and it is exploiting the service member, is it not? >> yes, it is. and i have been doing this for 33 years and for 33 years we have had that problem that a young person enters the service

and the first thing they do is buy a car they can't afford and take on more insurance they can afford and before they get going they are in trouble. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator reid. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your wonderful testimony. i want to commend pentagon for adopt being the pugh disclosure form. that should be the standard for financial institutions throughout the country. second, one of the most satisfying aspects of the dodd frank act was working with senator brown to create the service of service members affairs and particularly in light that holly patraeus is leading it. third, in the mid 1970's i commanded a paratrooper company and before that i was the executive officer of the company which means every day i got letters from creditors and letters from paratroopers how

they bought a $25,000 truck on a $17,000 a year income. but particularly now in a tim of war war, whatever we have done it is not enough and we have to do more. let me focus on the particular issue alluded to in admiral abbot's testimony and thank you for your selfless service. we have facilities that operate on bases and the expectation, i think, is that they are on a military base from the individual service members who are sort of the gold edition because they have the stamp of approval. i know they operate under operating agreements. so the question i want to address to ms. patraeus and ms. spain and the admiral, are

the operating agreements sufficient and being enforced? and some of them are charging far in excess of the fees for payments or failure to pay on time, et cetera, than is normal. ms. patraeus? >> i will say, as you mentioned, they do have a contract to operate on the installations and they are expected to do certain things. part of that is to provide financial education. certainly there should be transparency in the feet and when that contract comes up for review that is an opportunity to decide if they are treating their customers right. i will say that we are taking a look at the issue of what are the special products that financial institutions are providing for service members. we put notice in about a month and a half ago asking for input across the field saying let us

know what you are doing. we are going to have a one -- day forum next month where we discuss the issues and some of the things that are being done that are on the positive side. hopefully that will serve to put the word out about what is being done that is kphpbdable and -- commendable and what are the issues that need to be addressed. i hope we will look and see why can't our stukeses -- stukeses do that. >> there is a group that supports financial education through grants that allow us to provide the information. they haven't had any complaints regarding that particular credit union. >> i know that our service members and our clients are grateful for the services that they do get from the finance

industry on base. that is a great convenience and we are grateful for it. i do agree that the renegotiation of the periodic contract is a spot at which there ought to be a frank discussion about practices, and that the local leadership should be empowered to discuss those issues with the bank and credit union leadership. we have heard today about some commendable best practices. i personally believe there is an opportunity for a discourse consolidation of those in a way that would benefit all of the military installations that have those facilities. >> my time is about to expire. general bergner i don't want to

upset your premise that you have good customers because i have been a customer 40 years. in 1971 i insured a very dashing triumph sports car with usaa. now i'm ensuring a 1991 ford escort. that is what happens when you go on to grow older but thank you for your service. >> senator akaka. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. ms. patraeus, our guard and reserve services have been called up to fight alongside their active duty counter parts to ensure our nation's safety. what do you see as differences in the consumer protection needs

for families of our reserve components when they are on active duty versus when they are in reserve status? >> i have had the opportunity as i mentioned to talk with a number of national guard office officers, and their families, and i try to do that when i go out because their issues ar bit different. for a agreement of their type the families consider themselves really to be civilian families. and some of the challenges preparing them for the change of circumstances when suddenly they become a military family and they have their guardsman or reservist deployed. don't have the stphauplgss with the wonderful -- installations with the wonderful offices to walk into so a lot of it has to be delivered virtually through the web.

there are some great initiatives now, the yellow ribbon programs that provide information before they deploy and circle back around after they come back. delivery of information is certainly a challenge for them. again, just making the families aware of what is there for them in the way of benefits. i will add that the economy is a challenge for those families as well. employment is a big issue for them when not on active duty and for their family members. >> thank you. ms. spain, on average, military members arrive at their initial training assignment with $10,000 in debt. this means that they may already be behind before they even consider how to manage their finances. in your experience, does this initial debt influence their reliance on high interest honest

to meet their short-term needs? >> when they come in and have debt it does affect them because they become targets because they know they have to make the payments. and if they have anything go wrong, if the car breaks down or whatever they become more vulnerable. that is why they fall prey to lenders that charge exorbitant fees. we are allowed to come in and talk to them which makes a huge difference, and provide them the jackson so that they -- provide them the education. i want to congratulate you, ms. patraeus, as you focus on the important topic of edit

generation to military families. if there was one thing that congress could do to help the cfpb better help families what you this it would be? >> confirm a director for us. i agree education is vitally important but we need to exercise supervision to look at the practices of some of the non bank lenders that are out there and i actually heard a quote from a c.e.o. of a federal credit union in ohio that we have a branch of ours near a pawn shop and pay day lender and the only one that is regulated is us. we need a fair playing field and to do that we have to be able to go in and supervise and exercise the enforcement capability as well.

>> as operations come to a close in iraq, we will begin to see in strength numbers decrease and veteran numbers increase. what are you doing now to partner with agencies such as the v.a. to identify the financial needs or vulnerabilities of those transitioning to veteran status? how are needs of these wound ed in action different? i was glad in your statement that you did mention that you are working closely with v.a. >> we are, and we have talked to them about distressed homeowners that may come to us that we might be able to help. we have tacked to them on the -- talked to them on education benefits because we will have a lot of veterans getting out looking to use the g.i. bill and

we want to be sure they use it for college promises that provide them the best bang for your buck if you will. unfortunately there is heavy marketing right now because the military education benefits don't count in the 90% of for profit colleges. they can only get 90% from title 4 education funds and 10% elsewhere and the military benefits are part of that that 10%. so they are heavily marketed to that. we have been talking to them again hopefully to make it more transparent when you look at a college what is its track record, what is the default rate on loans for its graduates, what is its accreditation. and our office of students has put out a note before you owe a worksheet that is a good first step. we tonight see our veterans come

out and find tpwaegainful emplo and we have worked with the department of defense office of transition on that as well. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. chairman. i had a question i want to dove tail with the ranking member's question. i want to be clear, the reason that the nonbank supervision team is still circling and hasn't received permission to land, in other words, the reason we cannot regulate the nonbank financial folks that i think about everybody referred to as being somewhat of a problem is to military folks is because we do not have a director of the cfpb. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> i want to go back to the for

profit schools. you brought the attention to us of some of the unethical recruitment and marketing practice of the bad actors in this industry. they are not all bad actors but some of them are. what are you doing about it? is it an education situation? how are we reaching out to the military personnel? and are we being successful in that? >> i think it is a work in progress right now. i think a lot of it just has to be education where service members know to ask the right questions. there are kind of two competing priorities. when a service member is on active duty and has tuition they may be nefits looking f looking for college credits for promotion so they want something they can get quickly, easily, possibly online. 70% of those sources are delivered jane. that might be the -- delivered online. be the best t college credits for them when they get out and want to apply that college to a job. right now it is mostly

education. our jurisdiction, if you will, is limited to the private student lender side of the market. i have a broad mandate to work on consumer protection measures with federal and state agencies. >> we appreciate that work. i want to talk about foreclosures for a second. this is a question for you, too, major general. right now the service members are protected under the service members simple relief act when it comes to foreclosures. correct me if i am wrong on that. can you tell me what is the mechanism for mortgage serviceers to determine if there is a deployment status of a service member? and how is that handled? what i'm trying to get at is it is my understanding there are some servicers that are starting foreclosure while the service member is deployed. i do not believe that is legal

under the law. what is being done about that. i will start with you, holly. >> first, i have to fess up i'm not a lawyer. >> neither am i. >> so i won't give you binding legal advice. when it is a question of foreclosure it is in the the obligation of the service member to tell their mortgage holder that they are going on active duty. unlike the interest rate reduction provision where you do are to tell them. for production from nonjudicial foreclosure it is on the lender to determine if you are on active duty and they can do that by going to the defense pan power data system and looking that up. and you are right, judging by the recent announcements by the department of justice of some large scale settlements there are servicers who are not doing that before they fork. >> major general could you address that from your perspective? >> i think i go back to a

reference i made in my opening statement by norma renteria. she is probably the best example of our commitment and the way it plays out on a daily basis. she was the person who benefited from the person who understand what the requirements are and to ensure we operate and are true to those. and in my recollection she was not -- this was not a loan we had even made. >> right. i guess the question i have is we have heard about mortgage servers. it hadn't been good in a lot of cases. do we have to ramp up the penalty on them? i'm not big into the stick, but by the same token you know this better than anybody and tell me if i'm wrong, if you have a service member in theatre, in very stressful conditions, the last thing you want is to have head back at home think

about a house that is being forked on. what do -- foreclosed on. >> it starts with a sense of ownership and obligation to the service members. that is what is at the center of our commitment. even when the slope is not with our financial institution we will work with that service member to protect them from foreclosure and do everything possible to keep them in their home, not to mention the will you requires us to do so for those deployed. >> i praoeappreciate you and yo company. unfortunately, there are a lot of others out there that don't share the same commitment and i don't appreciate them near as much as i do you. i want to thank you all for your testimony. you do ciate the work and good luck. >> thank you for your testimony. i want to pick up where senator tester left off as the housing subcommittee chair. we have taken a particular interest in stopping foreclosures on military

families. at one hearing i chaired we invited an attorney to testify who represents military families who were illegally foreclosed upon by some of the largest banks in violation of the act. it seemed from his testimony and other sources that the act is either not well understood on the benign said, or simply not followed and needs better enforcement. for example, bank of america, morgue stanley and jpmorgan agreed to pay $80 million to hundreds of military families who they illegally foreclosed on. what can the cfpb do to help the problem of service members and families being threatened with foreclosure when they are on

active duty? >> i certainly had the opportunity to talk about this issue and i did hear that testimony on the house side along with the young captain who was impacted by being foreclosed on or the defense of it while he was deployed. i should point out there is a law the service members civil releaf act is not a law that the cfpb will enforce. it is with the justice department and that is because it is a very complicated law. but we wanted to take steps so if we got complaints that came to us that our consumer response folks could be able to identify something that was a potential complaint. so we have done some training in our own system so people it.gnize we also met with all of the jags and justice department in the same room and we and the jags of

all the services signed a joint statement of principles. one of the main drivers of that was to make sure complaints didn't fall through the cracks and we would have a procedure to see that they would be addressed. >> i appreciate that. the justice department is sometimes a matter of the the fact when you went through the nightmare foreclosure while you are stationed abroad. and while you may get relief at the end of the day by an action taken by someone on behalf of the families, that doesn't mean you some the problem of keeping your home. so i hope that while you may not have direct jurisdiction we would love to work with you all to try to have a more vigorous has those who give mortgage products out understand the responsibility they have here at the end of the day so we

can prevent that action versus deal with the aftermath of foreclosure. >> much better to be pro-active than reactive. it all boils down to that person end of the phone. if they are unaware of what protections they should be then you are going to have a problem with that service member. >> is the justice department considering bringing in the largest mortgage entities and giving them a little bit of a primer on what they are supposed to do? >> i have not heard that in particular from them but again a lot of what they do, they don't announce publicly. i did have the opportunity, i wrote a letter to the c.e.o.'s of the 25 largest banks several been ago saying this has an issue and i hope that you will look at your own practices and make sure you are not doing this to service members who have accounts with you. >> let me ask you collectively, i know that some of my khraebgs

before have talked -- some of my colleagues talked about the military landing act. it seems to me that the act which capped annual interest rates for consumer credit to military borrowers at 36% including fees and chargers has been narrowly defined and pay day lender loans and vehicle title loans and tax refund anticipation loans but don't include high cost credit cards or overdraft loans, military installment loans, any forms of open ended credit, mortgages, auto loans. one e public policy in universe is to protect service members at the end of the day from such high interest fees and charges, is there a public policy reason not to extend that to the broader universe for

service members? >> well, i don't know about consumer advocacy. i would love to see broader protections. but i know the devil is in the details trying to write a rule that does it in a way that doesn't have an unintended consequence. but i'm for broader protections. >> anybody in public policy know why that is not good? >> i was going to climb on the side of saying i think there is a public policy reason to extend it for the seame reason the original legislation was put in place because of the effect it was having on service men and women on their condition on their loss of security clearances, on their loss of readiness to deploy and the morphed measures that have been taken to deal, to go around those measures that are in existence have effectively

produced the same circumstances, just with shrill differe-- just slightly different products. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator hagan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to say how thankful i am for you holding the hearing. i think what we have discussed speaks volumes about the need for financial literacy education in our public school systems. i don't think we do enough of that. i keep saying it is not rocket science, we just don't teach it. i think so many of our young people in the military could benefit greatly if they had a financial literacy education course in high school. it is something i advocate and hope at some point we can accomplish that at the state level and federal level. but i did want to, general bergner, ask you a question.

i know many years ago when many military bases were in remote locations that there were, did there was a one base, one bank rule that came into play. and i heard that this limited the number of financial institutions on military bases. can you describe this to me and discuss the benefit to service members pro and con? >> thank you very much. we do not operate on a military installation as a single bank, but we do have an educational foundation that will produce about 4.1 million pieces of material on everything from cyber security to financial management, to car seat safety, things that do matter to service members and their families, without regard to a product endorsement or even a mention of the company that is sponsoring

the educational foundation. one of the challenges that exists is access to those military members to support their requirements around needs. for example, we have been asked by army community service and family readiness groups to provide such educational material and support them. because of the one pwaefrpg rule that is -- bank rule that sometimes limits our ability to provide those even though they don't have any reference to a bank or other financial activity. so i think to the degree we can make those kinds of resources available there is the for nonprofit, not for profit, educational foundations to help fill this gap in financial literacy. we will give about 900 presentations this year from the educational foundation on financial management, many to service members and families, many to national guard and reserve components who are located far away from the footprint of army community services. i think there's an opportunity

for us to be able to unable not profit educational foundations like our educational foundation to serve some of those purposes. >> anybody else care to comment on that question? >> senator, i think we need to be careful in the overseas environment, because credit unions are not making money over there and to the extent we put more financial institutions on base overseas it could be counterproductive. stateside it is different but overseas we need to be careful. >> thank you. admiral abbot, you mentioned overdraft practices in your testimony. what could be done on this front? and are high overdraft fees common on base financial institutions? >> senator, yes, i would have to assess it as probably the top

problem that i'm observing right now in young service men and women who are getting into a condition that they can't cope and therefore come to see us. and it is the magnitude of the fees that they pay. i read a statistic that in 2011 the national cost of overdraft fees will be $38 billion. f course, the military members are only a small fraction of that, but at $25 to $35 a time, and in some cases up to as many as seven per day. so, for somebody who has overdraft protection and $500 of

it, seven thames -- seven times 25 doesn't work out very well. and there needs to be and there are a number of proposals that not only been made but implemented by credit institutions which improve that circumstances. we don't advocate one specific list of them, but we are encouraged that they are being discussed and we think that is going in the right direction. >> well, it certainly seems like something that once again education would really help up front on this issue. >> i would like to strongly agree with that and also add that it is not a one-time kno that you have to repeat financial management education throughout the career of an individual. because the problems will rear their heads again.

>> i have one more question or should we -- >> go ahead. >> ms. patraeus, in your testimony you state the cfpb will ensure the students understand the dynamics of loans. so many service members and in particular first time college, first generation college students and they are being offered opportunities for a lot of different areas. can you describe a little more about what you are looking at in that regard as far as advising them? >> well, i think there are some real concerns. there is such aggressive marketing to military and it is not just the military members but their spouses and children as well because the benefits can be transferred to them. i talked to an army wife at fort

campbell, kentucky, and she started her comment at my roundtable saying i'm attending a military tpeuplted college. -- affiliated college. so i asked her the name and it was a for-profit but they had marketed themselves to her in a way she thought they had an official military affiliation. she said that when she filled out a card of inquiry they called her 10 or 15 times a day until she enrolled. once that first day of class happened she was having trouble logging on because it was an online class and she could not find anybody to take her calls because they had her money and she ended up not passing the course because she couldn't get logged on enough times to do so. but the money was definitely committed. again i have a real interest in folks being able to make more informed decisions than just they sounded military found and

called me 15 times a day. i think that we need to get some tools to make it easy for people to compare and see what is the track record. a for-profit and costs more is it worth the extra money i may have to spend beyond my skwregs benefits that will not cover the whole cost. >> in that instance did she get her money becoack? >> no. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you all for your testimony and for being here with us today. i'm grateful to those men and women who have served our country and to those who continue to serve and sharing their stories. i will continue to work to make sure service members and families have all the tools and protections they need to have

and deserve. this hearing is adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> today on c-span british prime minister david cameron addresses members on the g-20 summit in france. following his statement he will take questions from opposition and members. that is 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span. former secretary of state madeleine all bright on the arab spring and transition period. she will be joined by activists from lybia, yemen and bahrain. that is 5:00 p.m. eastern. >> stacy schiff discusses her latest book and other