but i want to make sure our veterans get what they need. they would say, hey, i would far rather go to this v.a. clinic than any other medical facility. other places i hear from veatrans that go to other clinics that say, i just asoon you give as you card and let us go to any doctor, any clinic we want, but at the same time all of this is going on and we were told there now is a need to increase the contribution from veterans for tricare, we find out there's $5.2 billion been sitting there unspent, unobligated for the last couple of years, department of justice, $1.9 billion here that we have them coming in before our committee whining and moaning about all of the millions and millions of dollars they need, turns out they've got $1,900,000

that they could use instead of coming begging here for more money to congress. $82 billion unobligated, unspent. the office of personnel management, $55 billion. i know that the administration spends more money than any other administration in history, far and away a lot more, but you would think they woobt have to come demand -- wouldn't have to come demanding more and more money and putting pressure on harry reid in the senate because they can't live on the $55 billion slush fund they had in the last couple years unspent. international assistance programs, $45 billion. i've said it over and over but

it is absolutely true, i've seen it firsthand going around. you could even see some areas of afghanistan. you don't have to pay people to hate you. they'll do it for free. save a lot of money. i still have a u.n. voting accountability bill. i filed it my fourth time in this fourth congress i've been in. says unless you vote with the united states over half the time in the u.n. that you shouldn't get any foreign assistance from the united states. again, these people in foreign countries that hate us, it is absolutely their right to do so, but we don't have to pay people to hate us. they'll do it for free. environmental protection agency, one of those things that was created when congress

made the mistake of giving the nixon administration the power to consolidate and reorganize government and make it more efficient. the nixon administration created the environmental protection agency, and right now the e.p.a. is in the process of costing thousands and thousands and thousands of people's jobs all over america, and this administration's doing nothing to rein them in. some people have said, well, can congress do something about that? sure we can. we can get rid of the e.p.a. i've been told by some federal authorities, but you don't understand. even though texas has an environmental commission, the t.c.q., there are a handful of states that don't have environmental commissions for

their states. so we need one for the whole country. what happened to the ninth and 10th amendment? if it is just inside the state, doesn't involve interstate commerce, then why shouldn't we let the states take care of those issues? instead, the e.p.a. is spending some of their slush fund money to sue states like texas and others. shutting down power plants. and i would have thought today that when the president released his statement about why he was going to deprive tens of thousands of americans' jobs immediately where they can earn their own way and own their own things without the government handouts that he would at least be able to say, because i have a better plan of getting us off foreign oil.

not what he said. apparently it's the president's position, he wants to get us off oil, not off foreign oil, just off oil. he wants to put more people out of work, increase the cost of gasoline and diesel which means increasing the cost of everything you buy in america because transportation costs have to be figured in. the one good thing about the president killing the keystone pipeline that you have to acknowledge with money like the e.p.a. has, $4 billion, and transportation, $45 billion sitting there in thashe slush fund, unobligated, unspent from the last two years, different

other agencies, departments, department of interior, by canceling the keystone pipeline , they won't have to spend money checking it out, regulating, making sure things are done appropriately so they can spend these hundreds of billions of dollars, if they cared to do so, on more solyndras. isn't that a great thing? we'll be able to fund more crony capitalism. somebody wants to come in and claim they are going to create some kind of solar product, then this administration will take a good look at it and there's a good chance, if you're a republican, you can forget it, but if you're not you may very well be the next

solyndra to get money appropriated for you and, heck, we may even have one of the administration's step in when creditors, the united states as a creditor, wants to stand in line and get repaid for loans that are made and downgrade those loans and put other unsecured creditors in front just as the administration did in the bailout of the auto manufacturers. turned the constitution upside down, deprived people of property without due process. there's a lot of money to do those good projects that the president has been doing for the last three years. so, mr. speaker, i hope that in the days ahead as people hear more and more complaining and whining from the administration about there not being any money, gee, we are going to have to raise taxes, i hope

that there will be people in america that will look at these figures and say enough whining, let us tell you about a shortage of money. you keep taking our money in taxes and sitting on it in your departments. enough is enough. it's time to be accountable. it's time to let money be in the hands where it is earned so we can get this economy going again. one thing's for sure, even though we spent more money than any nation in history, no matter how you want to look at it, whether it's in dollars or whether it's in percentage of g.d.p., this administration has been on a course for ruin and i just hope that as this

administration continues to follow the lead of countries like greece, italy, spain, others in economic trouble that hopefully before we go over the cliff with them there will be enough of us that can stop the wagon train and get us back on the right road to prosperity. quick recap. $687 billion that has been appropriated are unobligated, unspent from 2010 and 2011 so we shouldn't hear any more bellyaching about there being a shortage of money by this administration. it's time to help the american people, not the bloated government. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back.

under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. woodall, for a period of 30 minutes. mr. woodall: thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate the time. i appreciate you combiffing me a moment to -- giving me a moment to set up my charts because i have some pretty ones down here. i have the white house. it isn't the president's house. it's our house. every time i drive by, mr. speaker, i go past and i think,

you know what, i own that. i may live in a little old apartment of my own but when i drive by the white house i say, i own a piece of that, that house belongs to me and i hope every american believes that same thing. it's our house. if you have not gone to your member of congress to try to get a tour of the white house, i encourage you to do it. i encourage you to do it because it belongs to you and presidents, republican and democrat alike, open up those doors so that we can see our white house. it's a symbol of freedom around the world. i printed this one up in full color. i spent a little extra. i am pretty terroristy in my budget. if you know anything about me, not only did we cut our budget in the united states house of representatives, i cut mine by 10%. we will give about $300,000 back to the american taxpayers. we spent the money to get the blue sky because this is the president's victory election

speech. do you remember it? do you remember it, mr. speaker, because i remember it? i remember the promise of a better day. and here it is as he's talking about bipartisanship, because it gets a lot of lip service in this body, mr. speaker, but it takes hard work. it takes hard work. here we go. talking about bipartisanship and partisanship in particular, he says, i will resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for far too long. hadn't been sworn in yet. inauguration hasn't happened yet. victory speech, 2008, i will resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for far too long. that inspires me, mr. speaker. if it was true.

let's move past the full color to the black and white that we are living in, mr. speaker. here is the president last month giving up on the commitment of bipartisanship, when questioned about the partisan angle that he took throughout the social security debate, throughout the doc fix debate, throughout the unemployment debate, he said this, that he concluded, it was going to take more than a year. it was gonnet take more than two years -- it was going to take more than two years. it was going to take more than one term. probably takes more than one president. mr. speaker, you know as well as i know we've been in this institution just over one year now. it does not take time. it takes courage to make things happen in this body. it does not take hours. it takes i dos. it takes somebody standing up

and saying, i will be responsible for that which the president did, mr. speaker. he said, i will be responsible for ushering a new era in washington, d.c. as a freshman legislator, i took him as his -- at his word. couldn't do it in three years. and now he says it probably takes more than one president. might take a different president. but he says it's going to take more than one. let me take you back to sunshine and apple pie, mr. speaker, because that's what we're about here in america. we thrive on challenges, we thrive on opportunities to do better. we want one generation to do better than the previous generation. we want the next generation to do better than our generation. here's what president obama says. august, 2008, talking about his vice-presidential pick. after decades of steady work

across the aisle, i know he'll -- talking about senator biden, now vice president biden -- be able to help me turn the page on the ugly partisanship in washington so we can bring democrats and republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the american people. who doesn't believe in that, mr. speaker? who doesn't believe in that? who doesn't believe it's not necessarily compromised, it can be consensus, who doesn't believe on coming together to pass an agenda that works for the american people? you do, mr. speaker. i do. . take you back to the black and white, mr. speaker of where we have come. just two months ago. when talking about why it is his administration is taking on such a partisan tone. he says this. i negs elected some things that -- i neglected some things that matter a lot to people.

maintaining a bipartisan tone in washington. i'm going to redouble my efforts to go back to some of those first principles. mr. speaker, you and i came here for the same reason we came here to get stuff done for our constituents. we came here to uphold the constitution and preserve the freedoms. back home, we have been stuck in an environment where the sthat refuses to act on the legislation we put forward or any of their own legislation and we have a president that says this about his leadership in this town. i neglected some of the things that matter to a lot of people, and rightly so that they matter. maintaining a bipartisan tone in washington. and i'm going to redouble my efforts to go back to some of those first principles. well, you know, mr. speaker, that is a funny thing about principles. you aren't supposed to go back to them but supposed to stick with them, day in, day out, good

times, bad times. easy to have principles in the good times. it's easy. it's when times get tough that principles really matter. this was two months ago, mr. speaker. the president going to redouble his efforts to go back to some of those first principles of his, which is ending the partisan tone in washington, d.c., november, 2010. folks know what happened -- a year ago. folks remember what happened in november of 2011. we began the discussion of what to do to solve health care issues for our seniors because medicare reimbursement rates were on their way down and seniors might not have had access to care and make sure that access to care and folks were depending on benefits trying to sort out how we continued those and reformed that program and just does

president provide a check but a way back to employment and we had social security. the payroll tax break that the president instituted december of 2010, right after he made this comment. that reduces the social security contributions of every working american by herd. reduces the social security benefits by a third and doesn't do anything and thus accelerates the bankruptcy of the social security trust fund, not to mention breaking that link that has been present in this country with social security. it is not an entitlement in the welfare sense of the word. it is an entitlement in that you paid into it, and so you have earned it, you deserve it. we are changing that linchingage for the very first time.

and following that debate, following that debate, i wake up in the morning, northern suburb there of atlanta, wake up to find out the president has made recess apointments. agh. i have to tell you, i wept through the roof, but you might not have gone through the roof. i don't know where everybody was where they woke up to that news that morning or where they were with regard to their constitution. i carry mine. i know you carry yours, mr. speaker, and i would encourage anyone who doesn't have one to contact a member of congress. we can get you one. the united states constitution, the rule book should be judged. that's why recess apointments matter, mr. speaker.

what i have here, mr. speaker, is article 2, section 2 of the united states constitution. and i will back up a little bit and make it clear for folks who haven't studied the constitution. article 1 delegates the legislative powers to the united states congress. article 1, the very first order of business of our founding fathers in framing our republic was to protect the people's powers here in the people's house and in the united states. article 1. article 2, section 2, clause 3, the president shall have the power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the senate by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session. seems pretty straightforward. pretty straightforward but it's

not. that's what is wonderful about our constitution. our founding fathers had the wisdom to say enough without saying too much. shortly after the ratification of the constitution, alexander hamilton was writing on this topic and when he read this very same clause, he read this. the president shall have the power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the senate. what alexander hamilton saw, mr. speaker, is that the only vacancy that can be filled are those vacancies that occur during a recess of the senate, not vacancies that are getting filled in, but vacancies that actually occurred then. this is important language. it's important language because i live 645 miles away from the united states kohl. i travel with my friends at delta and get me here in an hour and a half.

but if i take my horse and ride, and i hope we can get back to having more recess. why in the world we have lot this full-time job, i do not know. germ assembly in georgia meets 40 days back home. -- general assembly in georgia meets 40 days back home. >> it has been stolen from the states and return that power to those communities. but it was a real issue in the early days of our republic that there was a recess and wanted to give the president the power to continue the republic, even when you couldn't get a hold of the united states senate for confirmation. well, in the age of ipads and blackberrys and fax machines, not hard to get in touch with machines. but still on the books today,

the president shall have the power to fill all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the senate. why do you even care about this? it doesn't concern you. it concerns me and concerns every american because it concerns the rule book by which our republic is gomped and if we decide that the rule book doesn't matter -- something small today, going to be something medium-sized tomorrow, going to be something huge a year from now and the freedoms that our constitution has owe ably protected will soon be gone. this is president a partisan fight, this is an american fight. i tell you when we had a republican in the white house and republican members in the

house and senate, power left this house and wept down to the executive branch. republicans allowed legislative power to leave this house and get transferred to the executive branch. we have to be on duty all the time. it's not republican and democrat, but executive u.s. house. why? when our framers were framing the constitution, they knew tyranny of the executive was what was to be feared. king of england, tyranny of the executive is what was to be feared, and so they invested most of the power in the people's house, in the congress, in the house, in the senate. this is where our framers trusted that power to reside. but they gave the president the power to make appointments.

why is this important at all? article 2, section 2, clause 2, known as the advice and consent clause, the president shall have the power by and with the advice and consent of the senate to make treaties, providing 2/3 of senators concur, and he shall nominate and by and with the advice and concept of the senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and counsels and judges of the supreme court and all other officers of the united states whose appointment who are not herein otherwise provided for them. the president, absolutely positively has the power to appoint whomever he wants. by and with the advice and consent of the united states senate, by and with the consent of the united states senate. if the senate is not in session,

clause 3 takes over. during those times, the president shall have the power to fill those vacancies and shall not extend past that one session. well, mr. speaker, what happened over christmas, what happened over christmas as the rights and privileges of the american people were stolen out from under us here in the united states house and senate and transferred to the executive branch is that the president and you will remember the quote, he said, if i can't do it with congress, i'll go around the congress. if i can't pass my ajeopardya with congress, i will go around the congress. tyranny of the executive, the most fundamental fear our framers had, mr. speaker.

most fundamental fear is that an executive would decide that he or she could do whatever they wanted without the consent of the governed. we have to stand up as republicans and democrats and say there is a right way and a wrong way to run this town, that there is a rule book by which this town is governed, there is 200 years of precedent that tells how appointments must occur, when those appointments can be made. well, if you have followed any of this -- and we'll talk about this more in the weeks to come, because it goes to the bedrock of our republic. again, if you let your reverance slide when it's convenient for

you, you will find it pulled out from under you when you need it most. mr. speaker, i know when you swore your oath to the people of this country, you swore your oath not to protect the constitution from democratic presidents, not to protect the constitution from republican presidents, but to protect the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. whether there is a republican in the white house or a democrat in the white house, is to make sure that the people's power remains here with the people. we legislate and the president executes. this isn't a mystery, mr. speaker. this isn't something i came up with in the 7th district of georgia, but something president bush and senator harry reid struggled with. something that all congresses and presidents struggle with. the struggle isn't new.

the complete abdication of constitutional responsibility, that's new. the deciding that if you can't do it with the constitution, you'll go around the constitution, that's new. let me tell you what harry reid said, mr. speaker. i have a copy of that page from the congressional record. we record absolutely word that goes on here. we don't want folks to be misquoted. we don't want the debate to go on and folks not to be able to remember what was said. we want to hold folks accountable to the people back home. let me tell you what was reported by harry reid published in the congressional record. he said, mr. president, november 16, 2007, mr. president, the senate will be coming in for pro forma sessions during the thanksgiving holiday to prevent recess appointments.

>> i understand there is a lot of legal esen. we have the contusion right here. this is the important part. with the advice and concept of the senate, the president shall appoint and the president has the power to appoint without the senate during recess. now what is called pro forma sessions, because the constitution also says that no body of congress, the house or the senate, neither the house nor the senate can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other body. we have seen that in state legislatures and people take their toys and home and don't like the way things are going and they just leave. the founding fathers 200 years ago sensed that challenge and wrote it into the fabric of our

founding document, nobody of congress, neither the house or the senate shall adjourn more than three days without the consent of the other. what that leaves you with is these bodies in what they call pro form aveha -- forma sessions. we are open for 72 hours. the speaker comes up to the microphone and gavels us in. is it a full day? no, it's not. and this is a process that has been going on for dozens of decades and in november of, 2007, when senator harry reid was trying to prevent president bush from making recess appointments, he said this, we aren't going to go into recess. ha. ha. i have responsibilities back to the people back home, harry reid

said to advise and consent on all of your appointments. in fact, i think you will try to pull a fast one on us when we are home for christmas. the senate will be coming in for pro forma sessions during the holidays to prevent recess appointments. . mr. speaker, this was in 2007 when it was known that the law of the land is that while the senate is in for pro forma sessions, no president, not president bush and not president obama, can make appointments without the advice and consent of the u.s. senate. november of 2007, well-known. harry reid presiding over the

u.s. senate issuing those words, we will remain in pro forma sessions to prevent recess appointments, and this president, whose justice department put together literally dozens of pages to defend this departure were constitutional tradition to defend this rejection of 200 years of congressional president to defend this going around congress, said, no, we think you can do it. majority of the united states senate knew you couldn't do it. framers of the constitution knew you couldn't do it. and this president, as if it was nothing, this is what troubles me the most, mr. speaker, as if it was nothing pulled together a press conference and said i'm doing it any way. richard crordray.

this is a confirmation that didn't occur during a recess, didn't occur during a recess. the president made his nomination while the senate was absolutely in session. the senate voted, mr. speaker, and did not confirm. could not get the 60 votes necessary to move forward on the confirmation. took the vote. couldn't move forward. the vote occurred, it occurred in the negative. and while the house and senate was in pro forma sessions, the doc fix, our friends on medicare, to make sure that the resources were still available for unemployment, to make sure the program was reformed and funded for social security taxes, to make sure that the trust fund was funded and that workers were satisfied, while all of those things were

happening in this body during session, the president decided, no, in fact, we are not in session and he would make appointments and started with one that was already rejected by the united states senate. then went on to name three more people to the national labor relations board. that was a small press conference, mr. speaker, because that was more controversial. a press release. and then the president said, look out. i may do more. i may do more. you know what, i kind of like this thing where i get to do whatever i want. i like doing whatever no matter what the senate says, the house of representatives says, the american people says. if you will not work with me, congress, i will go around you. article 2 delegates authority

to the executive. article 1 delegates authority to this house. article 1 delegates authority to the people's house. you cannot go around the people in america. i can't do it. president can't do it. the military can't do it. that's not what we do. are there countries around this globe that does this? yes, there are. our forefathers fled those countries to come here where the only power vested in government is that we, the people, give it. hear that, mr. speaker. you know it to be true. the only power held in this city in the capital of the free world, the center of free speech and freedom of religion, the beacon of hope and prosperity all across the world, every bit of power that is here is here because the

american people elected to share it. there's no inherent authority of being president of the united states. it comes from the people. there's absolutely no authority in being a congressman of the united states. it comes from the people. the president has the power to execute the laws passed by this body. but he does not have the power to make new laws on his own. we've heard that from executive branch agencies across the board. the president has the power to choose who he would like to be in those positions of power and those agencies and he can make those selections with the advice and consent of the united states senate.

this isn't about me, mr. speaker. this isn't about this body. when the president tramples on the constitution like this, he's trampling on the senate's power, but when he tramples on the constitution he tramples on my freedom and he tramples on your freedom. he tramples on all of our freedom the and we cannot let it stand. what can we do? well, candidly what makes this so troubling is the constitution didn't actually imagine that we would ever elect an executive that would simply go his own way. there is no slap on the wrist. we cannot send the u.s. sergeant at arms down there to prosecute this kind of defense. what happens is it plays itself out in the courts. we will see it. everyone that's regulated by the consumer protection board, we will see. folks regulated by the nlrb, they will sue. it will go across the street to

the united states supreme court to try this division of powers. if it gets there folks are going to decide in favor of the plainly written words of the united states constitution. but, mr. speaker, it doesn't have to be like this. the president said i'm going to change the tone in washington. the president said we can work together to implement an agenda for the american people. mr. speaker, you stand here ready to work. i stand here ready to work, and the president said, i can't work with you. i'm going around you. mr. speaker, i don't know who the president thinks we are, but i'm a mouthpiece for a million americans back home in the seventh district of georgia. i come here with their hopes and dreams. you are the voice of a million constituents, mr. speaker, in your home state and you come

here to do their bidding. the president isn't fighting with this house. the president's fighting with the american people, and i say to you, mr. president, if you get on the wrong side, mr. speaker, i encourage you to share it with the president, if he gets on the wrong side of the american people he's on the wrong side. we can work together and we do work together, and i encourage folks to watch 2012. i had great hopes, mr. speaker, for what happens in 2012, and the president's first act was not to work with congress but to go around congress. the license plate of the vehicle that ran over the constitution, mr. speaker, it reads illinois, and we have to stand up and reverse, and i thank the speaker for the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn. mr. woodall: mr. speaker, i

move we do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question son the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. ac

for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> to addresthe house for one minute and revise and extend. >> before congress left washington in december, we asked the president a simple question, will he stop blocking the keystone x.l. pipeline. congress established laws to govern pipeline approval, the state department published regulations and typically aplufle -- approval takes 18 to 20 months. mr. pitts: however, keystone ha been on the shelf for 40 months now he ordered duplicative environmental reviews to xtend the approval process to 52 months. is this because keystone is unprecedented? no. transcanada has already built pipelines that extend from

canada through the united states. it's time to stop letting  seek recognition? >> to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. . >> a few minutes ago the white house announced it was going to rejeck the keystone x.l. pipeline. the white house did this among a backdrop with record high g prices in january. a major factor in these high gas prices is the continued political upheaval in the middle east and impact it's having on economic uncertainty around the world. keystone would bring nearly a million barrels of oil fro o friendly neighbor, canada, to the north d also up to 100,000 barrels of oil from the discoveries in montana and north dakota. mr. flores: it would also put more americans to work while improving our energy security. the department of energy has stated the gasoli markets -- prices and all markets served by the gulf coast and east coast

refiners would decrease as a result of the pipeline's consuction. the white house would be well advised to consider a poll i took in a recrept teletown hall of our constituents where 87% of the constituents said that they strongly supported the keystone x.l. pipeline. weannot wait for more jobs and for better economic uncertainty for all generations. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized for one minute. mr. altmire: mr. speaker, i rise today in suprt of the construction of the keystone x.l. pipeline. i ask that the president reconsider his reported rejection of this project. this project will increase employment while reducing our dependencen overseas oil. canada has already made its decision. the pipeline is going to be built. the question is whether it lands on the gulf coast of the united states or the west coast of canada. and make no mistake, if it ends up on canada's coast, that oil

will only continue westward to china and their markets. the jobs an the economic benefit of the pipeline would then be lost here in the united states. mr. speaker, this pipeline is a foregone conclusion. who will benefit is not. this is a chance to employ americans and help protect them in a volatile oil market. i ask the president to reconsider his reported rejection of this project. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yield back. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. poe: request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from texas is recognized for one minute. mr. poe: mr. speaker, there is disturbing news today regarding our national security and economic security. politico reports at the administration will say no t the keystone x.l. pipeline today. so no to thousands of union and nonunion jobs to build the pipeline and no to refinery jobs in southeast texas. no to obtaining oil from a reliable nation and ally like

canada, but yes to more oil from dictators like chavez from venezua. yes to being held hostage to middle eastern oil and dictators like ahmadinejad who now threatens to stop oil tankers from going through the straits of who are muth -- hormuth. and yes to insulting can in a dasm the prime minister of canada says he will build the pipeline and go to his west coast and that crude oil will be loaded ochinese tankers. china, our national enemy regarding -- and competitor regarding economy. isn't that a lovely decision? if the administration chooses to say no to keystone x.l., the administration chooses poorly. that's jo arizona seek recognion? without objection, the gentleman from arizona is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, it's not too often that a president of the uted states has the opportunity with one swipe of his pen to increase private sectorobs by thousands of employees while at the same time increasing our energy

independence and energy security. mr. quayle: that's what will happen with the keystone x.l. pipeline. unfortunately the president pued it on that decision and past 2013 even though the state department said there would not be a significant impact op the environment. we gave him another chance. unfortunately there are reports that he will reject the permit for the keystone x.l. pipeline. and the thing is what's confusing, mr. speaker, is he's been saying that we can't wait for j creation. but with this decision he's saying that we can wait for thousands and thousands of private sector jobs here in the united states. and that we n wait for energy security. mr. speaker, this is the wrong decision at the wrong time. we need better decisions from t gentleman from colorado ek recognition? without objection, the gentleman from colorado is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, according to the canadian government over 143,000 jobs in colorado defend on our trade relationship with canada.

further, crude petroleum is our top import, and colorado is not unique, many of the jobs and energy around the country come as a rlt result of -- as a result of our relationship with canada. it been three years since the application was filed which would create a pipeline that exnds from the oil sands in alberta to the gulf coast bringing significant oil supplies into the united states. mr. gardner: the united states as a whole both economically and from a national security standpoint will benefit immensely from the approval of this pipeline. in my mind it's a very simple question. why import oil from countries that seek to do us harm? when we can get it from our neighbor to the north. i'm continuously awed at how much energy potential we have in north america and how simple it would be to advance policies that would make us more energy independent. snt that what we are trying to accomplish -- isn't that what we are trying to accomplish? apparently there is an as terrific when it comes to jobs for this administration. not these jobs, perhaps some others. this administration has done

everything it can to stand in the way of a project that will help 100,000 americans get back to work. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. gardner: mr. president, don'tminute. mr. olson: mr. speaker, while the president campaigns on his we can't wait slogan, american workers are still asking, where are the jobs? thpresident knows that 20,000 american jobs can be created by approving construction of the keystone x.l. pipeline. why is he rejecting 20,000 american jobs? why is he not reducing our dependence upon middle eastern sources of oil? why is he not increasing our security which increases our national security. why isn't he taking our debt crisis seriously by increasing revenue from taxpayers with american jobs? why is he not listening to the

american people? mr. speaker, the american people deserve better from their president. he should focus on the 20,000 new jobs he could helpt . >> thank you, mr. speaker, i appreciate following my colleague from colorado who recognizes the importance of jobs. unfortunately, the predent of the united states has turned a blind eye to the american people. in my state of colorado, we have 17 counties. according to the colorado department -- we have 17 county, according to the colorado department of labor, that have unemployment in excess of 20%. we have an opportunity to create jobs in this country. the keystone pipeline will help provide energy certainty for this country in a responsible way. create american jobs on american soil, to be able to put american people back to work. today, we hear the president is throwing his hands up, turning

his back on the american people. people deserve better. we must get this economy moving. we must create those opportunities for jobs for the american people. this is our time, this is our opportunity, and we call upon the president to enjoy - to join us in captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] leading up to saturday, c-span takes you live to the candidates all week. >> we need to means test, cut them, cap them and send them back to the states, remove the federal oversight and let the states have the flexibility to deliver these programs. >> we have brought to the forefront and others have tokenly talked about it and they get in office and don't nothing about it and there is a liberty movement which is seen as a

patriotic movement that is saying to the country and the world we have enough of sending our kids and money around the world to be the policemen of the world. it's time to bring them home. >> as candidates get their message out, meeting voters -- >> we are so happy. >> thank you. >> you have my vote. >> thanks so much. appreciate that. >> the endorsements in texas? >> we feel good about that. it's going to be good for us not just in south carolina. >> and find more video on the campaign trail at c-span.org/ campaign2012. >> only those who have shown the resolve to defend the freedom of the west can be trusted to safeguard it in the challenging and unpredictable times that lie

ahead. [applause] >> mr. president, the decade in the century which opened up its borders must see the lasting triumph of liberty of common cause. the world needs britain and britain needs us. >> nicknamed "the iron lady" in 1976, margaret thatcher is being portrayed on screen by meryl streep. watch it live on the c-span video library, british house of commons. >> there are some countries in the common market who would like to hand over their financial affairs to a european central bank and divest much of their powers. that is not our view and do not wish to hand over further powers. >> search, watch, clip and share, it's what you want, when

you want. >> every wednesday, "washington jourm" focuses on feature articles and magazines. and there was an article of superpacs. this is 35 minutes. host: we are talking about superpacs and the recent edition of time magazine has warren buffett. what is a superpa crmp so we define those? >> my six-year-old is excited because it has super before pac.

they are political action committees and had political action committees in the united states and a group of people who get together to raise money and influence elections. in 2010 there were a couple of supreme court decisions that changed the rules of campaign finance and allowed for the foundation. technical term -- host: beefed-up pac? guest: pacs weren't used to do. in the past, ever since the late 1970's, the supreme court ruled in a landmark case that spending unlimited sources of money to influence elections, especially right before elections could be regulated by congress and what that meant was, if you wanted to buy an ad before an election to say elect so and so, you had to

raise money in small increments and that was $5,000. the rules changed in 2010. and you can raise money in unlimited amounts. as we have seen in south carolina and through the republican primaries, very wealthy people and can have wealthy corporations, wealthy unions come in with checks in the range of anywhere of several hundred,000 and millions of dollars and purchase television time to influence the outcome and the vehicle that is happening is these superpacs. host: do pacs exist? guest: the pacs exist but you don't need to have the same -- the red tape is considerably reduced. the thing that held back pacs, a

typical p arch c would be a large union and go to the individual and ask for contributions and then they would pool that money to influence elections. that company can write a check out of its treasury to a pac or one employee, the c.e.o. can write a check for $5 million. you don't need that same pooling of resources and the amount of money is unlimited. host: are there any rules for the superpa crmp s? guest: there are. and they remain rules in place that bar what legally is called coordination between a superpac, a candidate and a campaign. each of the candidates in the republican primary and obama will have a general election, will have a pac getting one tore

getting elected. romney and gingrich have a pac and try to destroy their opponents. and in most cases, the pacs are run by close staff and friends of the candidate, but legally, they are prohibited from taking direct advice of how they spend their money. when they purchase tv ad time and design what goes in their spot, they aren't allowed to communicate with the candidate. those rules look nice on paper, but in practice they don't mean as much as they do on paper. the f.e.c. has written the rules so the candidates can appear at fundraisers, giving the endorsement telling the donor if you are giving the pac, you are giving to me. but that's the signal that is being sent. and they can model everything they do on the candidates' public strategy.

even if mitt romney is not communicating with his pac about where they place their ads and attack newt gingrich or rick santorum, it is clear from the romney campaign and they mirror that strategy. there is a practice here where you have friends of the candidate, funded by friends of the candidate, advertising on behalf of the candidate, the candidate has a veto power here in practice. if a candidate come out and says this ad is terrible and i want them to take it down, there is a long tradition of them taking it down. even though there is no coordination, there is effective control by the campaigns. host: are they benefiting themselves? guest: they take a cut, management cut and campaigns are big dollar things and everybody makes money. the reason they are doing it is

there are long-time staffers, people who have devoted their professional lives to these candidates, in the case of the obama pac, a staffer from the campaign and in the case of the romney pac, former treasurer and lawyer from the 2008 campaign, gingrich p arch c you have rick tyler. these are people who have professional identities and personal desires align up perfectly with the candidate and that is why they are getting the money. because if you are a donor, you go to a guy that you know the candidate has trusted in the past. . talking about, how they spend so far, and what is the prediction of how much will be spent? guest: millions of dollars of ads right now in south carolina. we did a week ago, i think we had almost $40 million had been spent on television ads,

broadcast ads, through last week. ads. it has no doubt got up a few million because of the south carolina ads. not all that is super pacs, but in a lot of the key content, the super pacs have been outspending the candidate campaigns. you see on that chart at there, in iowa, where the most money has been spent so far, mitt romney's super pac came in and blistered the airwaves with tough attacks on newt gingrich, and in which's polls drop considerably. -- gingrich's polls dropped considerably. host: we are talking with michael scherer. he wrote his recent article in "time" magazine, "attack of the super pacs."

remember, you can send aus a tweet -- @cspanwj is the handle -- or our facebook page. mitt romney says of course there are staffers serving on mike pac, and of course i raise money for them, but at the debate, he said. but it was like to get rid of them -- he said that everybody would like to get rid of them. guest: mitt romney has tended to make flubs on the campaign trail, and he has made mistakes -- he said in an interview that he would raise money for them. tactically, he is not allowed to raise money for them, but the rules are so weak that you can show up at the event, give a

speech, stand next to the guy who tactically raises the money -- who technically raises the money paid by law, romney is barred from making that ask. one of the things that is most controversial about super pacs -- in the citizens united case, the supreme court said that they concluded, the majority had concluded that independent expenditures from corporations or individuals, because they are independent, did not give rise to either corruption or the appearance of corruption. because the coordination rules were in effect, there was not enough of the government interest or public interest in restricting first amendment rights. it is the coordination rules are sort of only on paper and not in reality, the supreme court ruling. you have a situation where the

candidates themselves are saying to each other at a press, and the press is basically saying it thatll, that the cpac's -- these pac's are basically outgrowths of the campaign paid people running the pacs will tell you that everything i do is for the kennedy and i am taking my cues from the candidate -- not private cues, but public cues. host: let's listen to what governor romney had to say at the debate monday night in myrtle beach, south carolina. [video clip] >> we all would like to have a super pacs disappear, to tell you the truth. what a nice if campaigns could run their own ads and take responsibility for them?

mccain-feingold is a disaster. get rid of it, let people make contributions to they want to make, let campaigns take responsibility for their own words, and not have this strange situation where we have people who support us and run ads we don't like, we want to take them off the air, and by law will not allowed to talk to them. i have not spoken to any of the people involved in my super pac for months. this is outrageous. candidates it should have the responsibility and the right to manageads run on their behalf. guest: i thought it was a remarkable answer. what romney is arguing for is because the supreme court has listened to these rules, let's go the way -- has loosened these way., let's go all the let's drop the pretense and allow unlimited contributions

and let campaigns take responsibility for it. he refers to ads he doesn't like and want to take it off the air. what is notable that that is that he has said, and other candidates have said repeatedly, that they don't want any inaccuracies run by the super pac, but romney has pointedly on a number of occasions refused to call on his super pac to take down ads. "of course, i don't want anything inaccurate to be used in these ads," but he won't take down the ad. there is a clear indication that if he says that, the people running this work back -- running the super pac will be shamed by the candidate into doing what the candidate wants. host: "letting candidates except the big checks themselves would be even worse than the current mess." "tightened rules could prevent the wink-and-nod between

candidates and a super pacs." robert in ohio. caller: years ago, the union's basically started the super pacs, and if they had to collect money from their membership by selling -- the committee or something would cost $1 a year. we had a lot of members and could raise it a bit of money. all of a sudden, they clamped down on them. my question is what changed? our membership dropped drastically. we don't have the money. there are no really rich unions. but the corporations are extremely wealthy. all of a sudden it changed and they are like citizens. i don't believe that.

host: michael scherer? guest: unions have enormous influence on politics and spend a lot of money. year after years, the biggest funders of independent campaign ads for democrats, and if they are major donors to democrats. the thing about these super pacs so far at least is that we have not seen the fortune 500 corporations writing big checks, the big corporate interests writing checks. we do see corporations making large donations, usually shelf wan -- shell-front corp. for individuals. they're set up for tax purposes, writes the check, provides them distance and legal protection. unions still play a role in politics, the difference is that you have the ability to spend the money immediately before an election and directly influenced the outcome of the election. host: are unions on board? are they creating their own

super pacs? guest: it is assumed that unions will be giving to some of the democratic setbacks. there is a disclosure issue, that because the fec is one of these regulatory bodies that has a long history of not being tough as a regulator or really caught in its regulation, it has written the rules in a way that most of the super pac money being raised and spent right now through the early primary contests in florida and south carolina, iowa, new hampshire, those super pacs will have to disclose until --. won't have to disclose until january or february. that could be easily changed. the day the super pac cashes the check, they have to put it on my enemy could have immediate disclosure. -- they could put it on line and we could have immediate disclosure. host: tom, go ahead.

caller: jpmorgan and the super pac for mitt romney is the same thing. same old thing. a ron paul-type funding person -- these politicians are the same. we want to get somebody like ron paul in there. why are we so afraid of his foreign policy? host: tom -- i mean, ron paul has a super pac, doesn't he? guest: most of this spending does not come through super pacs. ron paul, much like barack obama in 2008, has been remarkably effective at raising small dollars from lots of people, like the caller said. newt gingrich, coming out of iowa, where he performed poorly, and new hampshire, where he did not perform well, would be

struggling going to south carolina, because you don't have the momentum to raise the money and the $2,500 checks from supporters. but he had a wealthy friend, a casino magnate in las vegas who was able to come forward and write a $5 million check, which immediately solve that problem. in the past, money has tended to come with the candidates who can get large numbers of people to give the smaller donations. now if you have just a few wealthy friends, you can counteract that pretty easily. host: winning our future is the super pac for newt gingrich. and when to give our viewers an idea of the super pac ads -- newt gingrich is the only one that can beat obama is the theme of thisad. [video clip] >> newt gingrich led the republican revolution, winning the majority in congress for the first time in 40 years. he passed the first balanced

budget in a generation. he cut over $400 billion in debt, all like rid -- all while cutting taxes and creating new jobs. he is the only proven conservative leader who can a beat obama. newt gingrich, he is the only one. host: we have been talking about these super pacs running ads against their opponents. this one was for their guy. guest: most have been negative, but some have been positive. if you are watching "wheel of fortune" with the nightly news, you'll probably it not notice it is not the campaign. that is the world we live in. host: winston-salem, go ahead. caller: good morning, greta, good morning, michael.

kudos to c-span. when i was watching that segment you had on "the contenders," they had rested on a george mcgovern, and it talks about the nixon campaign, rich guys, let them go ahead an average folks today and have hundreds of millions of dollars, and something to the effect of we would rather have 1 million people donate $25, etc. the other thing to come out of "the contenders" is that when a television became a really big deal, moving from truman and eisenhower, eisenhower to kennedy, the kennedy-nixon debate -- when television took over, the media took over, that is one of the move to raise dollars increase. beyond whether it is a democrat or republican, just to reach more people, to reach the demographics and off, and if you add in cable and internet people

can look at stuff on phones and things like that, people have the need for large dollars, whether it is rich people or little folks. i can see the logic behind the super pac. host: all right, the correlation there. guest: it is definitely true that television still dominates our political process, even though internet advertising is coming up, social media. you still invest most of your money in television. there is a long history with campaign finance regulations. teddy roosevelt was the first president to push for regulation of campaign finance. he banned corporate contributions to campaigns. you add additional bands on unions giving money and other groups to campaigns. it was after mcgovern, after watergate, and the scandal of watergate, that congress said we really have to deal with this. they first put in place these limitations on how much you could give to campaigns. that is the world we have been

living in from the late 1970's until 2010, where we are entering this new era. host: the caller referring to george mcgovern, part of our "contenders" service, looking at those who ran for president, lost, but changed history. go to c-span.org and find all the different contenders we focused on, george mcgovern b and one, al smith, etc. you can watch it on our website. jim is a democrat in st. louis, missouri. c-span.i love i'm wondering how in which foreign countries act as a super pacs, and whether they do it as a sovereign entity, or if they do it through multinational corporations. as an example, i can see how every opec nation would like

to keep us dependent on foreign oil. guest: there remain limitations on foreign contributions to campaigns that are tightly regulated. but when you bring in the issue of corporations being able to give, corporations span international borders and it becomes more complicated. we have not seen in this cycle any situation where foreign interests seem to be involved in giving. most of the giving to the super pacs has clearly been friends of the candidate, wealthy people involved in politics for a long time who are american citizens. the president has raised this also in talking about the supreme court ruling, which he vehemently disagrees with, saying it could open the door to foreign contributions. we just have not seen that happen yet. host: will the president have a super pacs? guest: the president does have a super pac that has been set up by bill burton, is former -- a

former spokesperson at the white house who is a spokesperson on his campaign. it is an interesting question of how big it will be. in the past, obama has been clear that he does not like un limited money and does not want it involved in the process. he actually attacked john edwards for not denouncing an independent campaign that was spending on his behalf in iowa. so far, is clear that president obama will not appear at events for this group, he is not going to give the wink and the nod, or at least he has not yet. but there is grumbling in the obama world, having seen the power of romney's pac and what it is able to do in iowa. there is a real discussion going on about how much do we have to play this game going into the general election. what is interesting about this discussion is that so far, it

has not raised a lot of money, but it does not have to now because of the way the rules are written, the five million-dollar check, $10 million check can come in at the last minute before the ad goes on the air. my guess is that you will see something like that. it may not be like what the romney super pac is, because the obama campaign will have more money to spend on its own. the other thing, the house and senate have their own super pac efforts they are working on. it is not just a presidential campaign thing. all sorts of elections are involved. host: "usa today" -- "romney leads in super pac spending. the group that supports romney has put more than $8.1 million into tv ads and mailers. a pro-gingrich group has spent slightly more than $4 million in

the campaign." here is a tweet. mike, independent in pensacola, florida. caller: good morning, greta. one question, if i may. i am interested in that last debate, and it was not shown on this station. i just wondered, is it possible you could show it again on c- span? host: what are you talking about, our debate with the members of congress, our conversation with them? caller: the last debate of the candidates -- host: oh, the last debate, i see, in myrtle beach, south carolina. i am not sure if we have the rights to reair that -- probably unlikely. if you go to our website, c- span.org, you can look at what we have covered in our archives. guest: you can probably find it online, too.

host: yes, you can find it online. caller: my comment with the pacs -- to me, it is the most glaring example of what is wrong with our country right now. it is so obvious that it is a way for big money to buy candidates. i cannot imagine how this could have happened. that is my comment. host: we will let that stand as a comment. jan is a republican in arizona. do you have a question? caller: i would like to talk to the gentleman from "time" magazine. you talk about this pax. -- the super pacs. when you give money to the campaign, you also give it to the super pacs. did you talk about that? the reason this all started was

because of the unions. all that money that goes into campaigns on at the union's, the unions said in the white house with president obama. did you do an article on the unions? i'm so sick of hearing about romney's money. did you do articles on the kennedys' money, camelots? how wonderful that they had all this money. romney has a squeaky clean background. newt gingrich is talking about family. the reason he wants kids to go out and work -- maybe some of these rich kids should get off their butts and work. i am tired of hearing a gingrich saying that poor kids should get up and work. he makes me sick to my stomach. host: the question about "time" magazine and what you cover. guest: the reason i wrote this

story is that super pacs and the way they are changing politics is a newsworthy event. it has changed the way it race is run. you do have a point about vice president joe biden. the president has made it clear he will not appear at fund- raisers. there was an incident where the vice president spoke to donors, and later that day there was a solicitation for the pac. i would not be surprised if you see more of that happening going into the general election. i am not sure whether super pacs at the end of the day will be something that republicans love and democrats take or democrats love and republican state. it is not clear at this point. there is support on both sides of the aisle. at this point, probably obama would prefer a super pacs not be here, because he has the ability to raise small-donor dollars. years from now, you could see that situation reversed and

republicans raising more small- donor dollars and the disadvantage by super pacs. i am not sure that super pacs themselves have a partisan bias one way or the other. host: by the way, we did not get the middle beach debate -- myrtle beach debate for reairin purposes. guest: that's a good point. what i said is that we have not seen it yet but we've not seen the disclosures yet for most of the money spent in january. we will see that until the end of the month. there are still limitations on foreign nationals being directly influence on the political process. it becomes tricky very quickly and in terms of what are these entities -- are they u.s. entities, are a foreign entities? when we see that, it would

become a scandal and it could influence future legislation. host: to the super pacs have to disclose who give them the money? guest: yes, they do, but they don't have to disclose in a timely way. the money can be spent, the election can happen, and you get the disclosure only after it is all over. host: charles is next, independent caller bank. >> -- independent caller. caller: what is is the height of a systemic problem, money in politics. when you have politicians whose livelihood depend on getting elected, many of them taking lobbyists' money and going to work for corporations that take those -- that money. when a politician's livelihood and job is based on getting money from private interests, it thwarts the whole system and kills the idea of the statesman. the super pac thing is just a

bad idea, buying political power in the end, period. guest: that rationale is why the supreme court has left in place this idea that you can only give limited amounts of money directly to campaigns, because there is the threat of corruption, or the appearance of corruption. you ask if all the disclosure will come out. there is another loophole that has not played out in the primary but will likely play out in the general, and that is that you can create a 501c4, political nonprofit, that only spends 49% of its money influencing elections, and because of the supreme court rulings, they don't have to disclose donors. there is this thing in place where it is not as efficient as the super pac, where the interest could spend money to influence elections in a way that would shield them from

disclosure. the group they are giving money to would have to be doing something else in addition to spending money on ads. groups supporting obama have set up a 501c4 and will probably be doing this going forward, probably the unions, i would guess, although that is just speculation,'t want to disclo who they are going into elections. host: another tweet. guest: i think it is a brilliant bit of satire. for those who are not familiar with steven cole thei -- stephen colbert, the comedy host, several months ago created the colbert super pac.

he has not spent much money, but it puts up funny web ads. he had on the show an official trestle of power -- official transfer of power to his friend, jon stewart, to show how weak these rules are, adding trevor potter, a republican lawyer, to describe the issues. jon stewart and stephen colbert our friends and business partners. jon stewart can raise money to support colbert's supposed candidacy for president of the united states as long as he just watches the show to see what to spend money on. host: sally is a democrat.

caller: how did we get this to the supreme court in the first place? usually when you hear supreme court rulings, there is a lot of talk about it, but who brought it to the supreme court? guest: interesting question. the case was called citizens united, and it was a group called citizens united that created a campaign documentary about hillary clinton in 2007. it was a conservative group, they created a documentary are coming at hillary clinton should not be president of the united states, -- arguing that hillary clinton should not be president of the united states, here are the reasons why. at the time, people thought it violated rules of expenditure, that you cannot directly advocate the support or defeat a candidate. citizens united said we don't think this is right under the

constitution, that the first amendment to protect our ability to advocate the election or defeat of a candidate before an election. they took the case to the supreme court, and we have seen in years and shift on the supreme court on the way they approach these issues, partially because of conservative of clemmons to the court. -- conservative appointments to the corporate it for the -- the court -- conservative appointments to the court. it forced the court to revisit aspects of mccain-feingold. host: sarah, you are on with michael scherer. caller: good morning. i was just thinking that, as a voter, i wish they if they would get all the money out of the politics. i truly believe that democracy -- everything is for sale.

politicians are for sale, our leadership is for sale. it really worries me. i would like to see we the people, the people of this great nation, the man no more money in politics -- demand no more money in politics. if we would have one or two tv channels for everyone running for public office, whether it is the president of the united states are congress members, could make their case on why they should be elected at without having to raise any money, i really think the results would be quite different and i really think that we would actually have the people represented in the government. host: let me get vanessa in come in and in florida. you are probably our last. caller: i actually agree with what the lady just said, but also, the super pacs are talking about individuals themselves about what they can do and what would make them a good

president, it is ok hit but when they attacked another opponent, i don't like that. i would not vote for a president who would do that. it is tit for tat, it don't make no sense. they need to look at all this money they spend on super pacs and put it back into the economy. host: michael scherer, if there is any movement in congress to address this attacks -- is there any movement in congress to address the supertax? guest: -- the super pacs? guest: we had a public financing system that worked pretty well for the general election, where once you won the party nomination, you are given a big check if you kept your spending under a certain amount. barack obama in 2008 was making so much money busted that system, decided he was not going

to accept the check. we have gotten to the point where campaigns are so large that there is no law in place and there is not a lot of movement by the federal government to put out the amount of money that would need to be put up. given the supreme court ruling, it would not solve the problem. just because you have a public financing system, it would not prevent outside interests, corporations from spending money, as the court has ruled that this is the first amendment issue and they have a right to speech. if you are saying something that is nice work if you are saying something that is really mean, they're both protected under the courts take it is hard to legislate that you can be positive but not be negative. wondering, is president of, this time around going to have to rely on super pacs -- as president obama at

this time around is going to have to rely on super pacs or will he continue to get small donations? guest: both. they are worried that it will have to play defense, there is discussion about how much to [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> then a look at the administration's rejection of the keystone pipeline project. our guest is susan kasey-lefkowitz. and later a discussion on turnout trends in previous elections. curtis gans of the centers for the study of the american electorate explains who votes and why. "washington journal's" every morning starting at 7:00 eastern here on c-span. south carolina republican governor nicky haily go giving

her state of the state address tonight focusing on jobs. we'll have la thank live in about 30 minutes from now here on c-span. >> leading up to saturday's south carolina primary, c-span's road to the white house coverage takes you live to the candidate events all this week. >> we need to eliminate these entitlement programs. we need to cut them, cap them, send them back to the states, removal the federal oversight and let the states have the flexibility to deliver these programs. >> we have brought to the forefront, others have talked about it, they get in office and they do nothing about it. but right now it is this liberty movement which is seen as a patriotic movement, an individual liberty movement that is saying to the country and to the world, we've had enough of sending our kids and our money around the world to be the policemen of the world. it's time to bring them home. >> candidates get their message

out, meeting voters. >> thank you, thank you. >> endorsements in texas? >> we feel very good about that. we feel that the conservatives are coalescing around our campaign and that's ghg to be good for us not just in south carolina but as we go forward. >> and find more video from the campaign trail at c-span.org/campaign2012. >> some will say we are reactionary. others will say that we stand for socialism. there will be inevitable -- the inevitable cries of -- [inaudible] it's time for a change and so on and so on. we'll hear all those things and many more besides but we will hear nothing that we have not heard before. >> as candidates campaign for president this year, we look back at 14 men who ran for the

office and lost. go to our website, c-span.org/ thecontenders to see video of the contenders who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> let our opponents stand on the status quo while we seek to refresh the american spirit. let the opposition collect their $10 million in secret money from the privileged few and let us find $1 -- one million ordinary americans who will contribute $25 each to this campaign, a million-member club with members who will not expect special favors for themselves but a better land for us all. >> c-span.org/thecontenders. >> now a discussion on upcoming budget issues in the u.s. house. republican representative of

new york was a guest on this morning's "washington journal." we'll watch as much of this as we can before the south carolina state of the state address. host: let's turn our attention to the 2012 spending agenda for this legislative session and the big agenda coming up here is this payroll tax extension, extending the holidays, unemployment benefits. you're one of the conferees that will go with senate democrats on the other side and try to negotiate some sort of compromise between the two -- before christmas the two sides left with a two-month deal. let me show you "the new york times" and their headline this morning. parties see few barriers to extending cut and tax. it says, with both parties largely in agreement on a year-long extension of president obama's payroll tax cut, the fight in congress over the coming weeks will boil down to how to pay for it.

>> yes. host: and democrats appeared to hold the advantage as members of the house returned to washington. guest: well, i don't -- i don't like to view it in partisan terms. truly i see ample opportunities as i believe certainly -- although i wouldn't presume to speak for every other republican conferee, but there is a lot of common ground with our democratic colleagues, certainly we know our house democratic colleagues quite well having worked during this year with them. guest: we 'greed that congress has a very low approval or very high disapproval rating but in fact one of the stories that isn't told is that there really is much more comity than you might imagine. host: so where are the areas of

compromise then? guest: i think there are going to be -- i read one account and this isn't based on some sort of information from inside what we're doing. because our formal meetings have not started although conferees have met a few times. on $150 billion worth of competencer totory spending cuts -- compensatory spending cuts, there was a dispute involving something like $10 billion. and there are provisions in terms of receiving unemployment insurance, certain types of benefits that may be contentious between democrats and republicans. company host: so back to "the new york times." it says republicans are eager to avoid another bruising fight like the one that took place before the christmas break. have signaled that they will drop the most controversial provisions in the version of the year-long extension passed by the house early in december.

those include efforts to block environmental regulations on boilers and carbon emissions and to allow states to impose drug tests on recipients of unemployment benefits. is that true? will those provisions be dropped? guest: there has been no discussion about those specifics, i can assure you. host: you have talked to your republican colleagues, your other conferees, though. where are you on this issue, the three of you? guest: of course there are eight of us, so i'm one of eight. our discussions really have been preliminary, primarily issues of how we approach the task of being in this conference committee. and looking at the scope of the issues that we're facing. and those are well known because of course the senate and the house bills are a matter of public record and that's really as far as we've gone. host: who what do you personally think? should those provisions be dropped? guest: i think they should be negotiated. they're reasonable provisions and this bill, the bill that the house passed on december

13, had democratic votes as well. so these are not provisions that democrats necessarily find objectionable. but that is why you have a committee. so you can work out consensus. and i imagine there will be vigorous discussion and perhaps there will be other ways that we can work those issues. but as i mentioned, one of the benefits, qualifications is one of the areas where we can anticipate that there might be some difference of opinion and the e.p.a. rules clearly have been a topic of discussion throughout the year. and i'm not saying that on the basis of what we've discussed as conferees but just what all of us know from the course of the year. host: one part of the debate in december was whether or not unemployment benefits be extended 99 weeks or whether you shorten it to 59 weeks. will republicans hold strong on

reducing the amount of weeks that unemployment benefits can be received? guest: the principle that we need to look at the benefit of conferring unemployment compensation from the federal level versus utilizing those taxpayer dollars other ways is one that has been discussed not only by republicans but also by democrats. we need to grow, greta, and this is the fundamental challenge and in fact the whole issue of state conferred -- when i say state government inferred unemployment insurance has been one that's received a lot of discussion because there is a balance point there. in which we may not see the benefits of prolonging unemployment insurance when we

should direct those funds toward the economy. host: let me go back to december and that week before leading up to christmas and what happened. how would you characterize the back and forth and then how the republican party was characterized after that? in the house. guest: we as the house majority, clearly november, 2010, made a statement about where the american public wanted to see the federal government go. in terms of its intervention in our economic lives. and so we looked at the bill that the senate returned to us and as a doctor i can tell you, as one of the 15 m.d.'s in the

house of representatives, nearly all of us are republicans, to have a two-month extension of the medicare reimbursement schedule is very hard on our seniors and our doctors. we sent what we considered to be a very good bill with democrat votes as well to the senate. so, yes, we did determine as a conference that we wanted to take a stand on that. and what was troubling to me and i don't think to me alone but i can speak for myself was that this was portrayed as opposition to extending the payroll tax holiday. it was not. and so those of us who remained in washington to be advocates on behalf of making a longer commitment and getting that work done before the end of the year were certainly working very hard to counter the prevailing impression that was pushed within the media that we

were -- and media did seem to take that stand by and large, that we were somehow opposed to a payroll tax holiday which we were not. but it was very clear over the course of those several days that we were not going to -- we were not going to provide the reassurance the people needed, to the extent that people were attending to this issue, there was a large degree of anguish and we didn't want to -- we didn't want to make that a more difficult issue. so i think i support our leadership in determining and they did so with appropriate consultation with those of us who were working on this, that we should make that technical correction in the bill and that was a worthy one because there were complaints that the new threshold level set for those two months on what could be included in the payroll tax holiday, we made that

correction and said we will pursue this again before the end of that two-month extension. host: some of your freshman republican colleagues, though, were upset about the leadership's decision, upset about the past legislative year. here is the hill d newspaper. host: do you share that concern? guest: i think all of us who revere and whether we're democrats, republicans, because there are many democratic colleagues who also feel that it's time to reduce the intervention of the federal government in what should be our citizen lives, all of us feel that there's a lot more progress we could make. there's no question.

i view last year as productive. did we make the touchdown that we all hoped we would for our side? no. but we did make progress along the field and given the fact that we are 1/3, if will you, of the levers of legislation, we have a senate and a president who feel differently about where the federal government should be. taking from us or where it should be expending our resources. i would say that we have succeeded in bringing the whole issue of reducing the size and scope of the federal government to the floor and that's a victory. and life is full of situations as we all know in which we don't achieve everything we aspire to achieve but we keep

working on it. host: let's get to phone calls. tom is a republican in plantation, florida. go ahead, tom. caller: representative hayworth, could you please correct me if i'm wrong in what i saw prior to the recent break and the legislature. did not president obama say that there would not be a recess unless the payroll tax extension was done for a whole year and didn't i hear him say there wouldn't be an offramp -- an off ramp and isn't this two-month extension exactly what an off ramp is? and it just seems to me like his own party made a fool of him because he said call them left and then the senate said, oh, no, call them right and president obama said, ok, then, call them right. host: all right. congresswoman.

caller: tom, the president did say -- guest: tom, the president did say that we should have a one-year extension of the payroll tax holiday. i think the off ramp referred to the sequesters that were made law by the budget control act. slightly different topic. but nonetheless the president supported the important principle being the president supported what we in the house, with democratic votes and republican majority votes obviously, voted to do in december, on december 13. so, it is unfortunate, it's regrettable, i wish it were different. the president by my light should have insisted that the senate return to the table with house republicans who were willing to do that. and this has been a scene for a certain part of the year, most of the year, for republicans when they look at -- but not

just republicans, when we look at president obama, he has said many things with which we agree, but we really very much as an american public need the president to back those statements with actions that manifest the meaning of those statements and one of them is the payroll tax extension. host: will the payroll tax extension happen? will it be extended for a year? guest: i do think it will be extended for a year, greta. that's the goal of democrats and republicans. so the question is, how do we manage that responsibly? host: here's a tweet then. guest: payroll taxes, some folks say, some say don't call them taxes, call them contributions, but payroll

taxes go to fund social security and medicare. the current tax holiday applies to what is used to fund social security. so it's absolutely true that we need to anticipate that those benefits will be paid on the other end of these contributing lives so we do need to find a way to compensate for that and that's what we did in the december 13 bill, h.r. 3063, and that's what we aim to do in the legislation that we craft with the conference committee. host: a democrat in maryland. you're on next with nan hayworth, a republican congressman from new york. good morning. zella in maryland. i'm going to move on. philadelphia, richard, independent caller. morning to you. caller: good morning. my thought is this, i understand that the tax code has to be rewritten, more than

just the debt issue. i wanted to know from the representative, in your constituency, what is the push back you have in restructuring the tax code? because what i'm hearing is the issue about restructuring the tax code has been going on for decades and it it hasn't actually been done. so here we are now and even the different commissions are saying it and everybody's saying that it has to be structured in order to assist -- [inaudible] but there's obviously pushback because there's benefits in the tax code. so from your vantage point and your constituency groups, what is that pushback? i'm interested in that. guest: well, richard, i can speak more broadly to the issue. interestingly enough, i actually get a lot of support and it seems to be from across the spectrum, to make the tax code flatter and fairer. and when i tell audiences, mixed audiences, that i support

that kind of a flattening and making the tax code fairer, i get applause. but where you get the pushback when it comes to actually restructuring the tax code, it comes not surprisingly from all the different groups who now are favored in the tax code and there are lots of them. there are industry groups, yes, there are charities as well, there's the whole housing and mortgage industry that clearly has a piece of the tax code right now. so, i think that the way we're going to get this done and i'm speaking again just for myself, but the way we're going to get this done is to take a comprehensive approach to the tax code. the personal and the corporate and business tax rates all need to be addressed and i think that we can make -- again, i think we can make broad

progress and there certainly has been discussion in the news that the corporate tax rate in particular we may be able to get some consensus on on reducing that rate and making ourselves more competitive with the rest of the world. because right now we do drive -- we do drive business overseas because our tax rate is so high relative to other nations in the free world. host: we'll go to the republican line next. elesia is in fort washington, maryland. caller: good morning. i'm listening, driving to work, to the congresswoman and, you know, the president has to stand strong and act on what he says but he can't act without a congress that doesn't compromise with him and everybody says that they want to compromise. i listened to two congress people yesterday in the news,

one democrat and one republican, who, again, you guys are coming back to work and say you want to compromise but you're still kind of living in the last congress, of the last month and year that we just went through. host: congresswoman. guest: well, i live with every day being a new day. the principles that we follow are foundational so they remain . clearly we have to face every challenge with as much agility and as much versatility as we can. i think in terms of consensus and cooperation, that certainly is what the people i represent in the hudson valley of new york have asked me over and over again, if i get one comment more frequently than any other it is, all of you in washington and i consider myself to be of course a representative of my district so i, you know, don't consider myself to be specifically a

creature of washington, but all of you when you're in washington, you have to get along. you have to prove that you can move forward and we can't move forward unless we have support from the democratic and the republican sides of the spectrum. we have a house majority that's republican. we have a senate majority as you know that's democratic. we have a president whose democratic. and that does create certain natural differences, not ones that we can't bridge, but it is a constant challenge and it's not a matter of reliving the past but clearly the structural issues that that we face -- that we face are fairly constant. host: do you think some in the republican party on the house side, the house republican freshman, that are upset about the way that things turned out in december, do they need to go forward and compromise a little bit more?

guest: i think it's a matter of looking globally at what we can accomplish. and this is something that applies to all of human behavior. you know, i'm a parent and i have two sons and i've run my own small business and i've run a medical practice and there are ways in which we have to step back from the individual battles if you will and look at the entire land escape of our goal and i think that's one of the ways that we try with colleagues to think about these things. host: that sounds like a yes. guest: it's a strategy and tactics issue and i personally think again, i'm speaking for myself, i think we're going to advance farther the more unified we are on fiscal

issues. so to the extent that we can as a house republican conference stick together and bring democratic colleagues onboard, this is not a matter of sticking together so we can exclude our democratic brethren in the house, but i think we will make ever-stronger progress. host: here's a tweet here. it's a job creating engine. it's what republicans do, feel that whatever the federal government takes from us, it better be for purposes that no one else can serve. that's why we hearken back to the constitution. it designed the federal government the interventions, p

like me would contend that the interventions that are made specifically to try to provide federal resources to a sector, solyndra comes vividly to mind. i'm all for green energy. i've sponsored a bill. i'm an original sfonser of a bill to allow mortgage holders through fannie mae and freddie mac to fund energy-saving improvements on their homes more easily. and that creates a green industry. helps to create one. but not through direct intervention with taxpayer dollars. because the marketplace enterprise, our own common sense is going to do a far better job. whatever the government does tends to become political. host: next phone call. susan, democrat in fort worth, texas. go ahead. caller: good morning. yes, citizens have watched the republicans scream about free markets but not fair markets for years. we've watched in the bush congress do away with

regulations, the glass siegel. you know, we've watched republicans backed by alex, the american legislative exchange council, and grover norquist, among others. you know, we aren't stupid out here. we see what's going on. you're all the new congress, the tea baggers have done nothing. they are opposed to everything. nothing has happened and we are well aware of it. guest: susan, i would dispute that fundamental concept that we're opposed to everything. we certainly are not. we are for the common sense of the american people and i would submit to you that our biggest problem economically is that the federal government has created conditions, and whether -- with the best of

inteppingses, let's say, but has created conditions that make the playing field unfair and uneven. i agree with you about that. when we look at the tax code we were just discussing a little bit earlier, when we look at the tax code, it is full of provisions that provide special advantages to one or another group while the rest of us have to make up the difference because the federal government goes on spending money system of we do need to make conditions fairer and the primary way to do that is to assure that we pull away from federal regulations that are inherently unfair and don't make sense and disadvantage our consumers and our vigorous enterprise sector. host: let's go to brad, an independent in cleveland, ohio. go ahead, brad. brad? we lost him. to jonathan a republican in capitol heights, maryland.

caller: representative hayworth, you look great this morning. i wanted to ask a question, is congress filled with cowards? i want to ask that this morning because it's the responsibility of congress -- >> "washington journal" airs live every morning at 7:00 eastern. we're going live to the state house in south carolina. governor nikki haley will give her state of the state address, which she says will focus on jobs.

>> please be seated.

i'm proud to present to you the honorable nikki haley, governor of south carolina. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much for that wonderful welcome. mr. speaker, mr. president, ladies and gentlemen of the general assembly, constitutional officers, and my fellow south carolinians, this and every year we will continue the tradition that recognizes the certain truth that nothing

said in this chamber tonight or done in this chamber tomorrow would be possible without the commitment and sacrifice of the men and women in uniform who bravely serve our state and nation. the hardest part of my job is the calls i make to the families of our fallen heroes, but each time i put down the phone, i am touched and amazed by the strength, the grace and the pride with which these brave survivors handled the tremendous sacrifice of their loved ones. now please join me to -- as we pay tribute to those who gave the last measure of devotion to their state and country this past year. senior airman nicholas j. aledman. sergeant first place alvin a. boatwright. staff sergeant thomas j. dudley. sergeant lashon d. evans.

private first class kaelynn c.l. johnson. sergeant first class jonathan bryant kain. gunnery sergeant ralph earl pate jr. private first class chesiree presley. master public safety officer edward scot richardson. sergeant d. ryan -- sernlt ryan d. sharp. chief warrant officer terry l. varnadore ii. sergeant first class anthony behr net jr. sergeant first class justin m. whit myer. -- whitmire. [applause]

>> we will never forget. we are a patriotic people, south carolinians. we love our state and we love our country and we love our men and women who put on the uniform who keep us safe. they are our parents and our children, our husbands and our wives. our mothers, our fathers, our siblings, our friends. we are honored to have with us the parents of one of those heroes, lance corporal william kyle carpenter from gilbert, who is wounded in afghanistan and is continuing his recovery at walter reed. our prayers continue to be with him and all our veterans. mr. and mrs. jim carpenter, thank you for being here. please stand.

[applause] tonight, there are 766 families across the state with loved ones in the south carolina army and air national guard who are keke -- who are deployed and serving overseas far from their homes. our family shares a special bond with the military families of south carolina. like them, we know the pride of watching our loved ones wearing the uniform of the strongest nation on earth, please join me in welcoming my husband, a member of the air national guard and the coolest first man ever, michael haley.

[applause] i have often said and i firmly believe that if i'm a good wife and good mother, i'll be a good governor. the greatest blessing of my life is being a mom to two little ones, a daughter who loves to dance and a son who wants to be the next lebron. please welcome my two little ones who keep me humble every day and who remind me that no matter what happens, the biggest title i will ever have is mom. stand up and give everybody a wave. [applause] i have great love and great respect for our state motto, which means, while i breathe, i hope. we adopted it in 1776, that

faithful year that birthed the nation each of us is blessed to call home. it described south carolinians then, tough, resilient, ever optimistic, and i believe it describes us now. the people we call our friends and neighbors, the people known around the world as south carolinians, cherish our faith, our families and the values they instill in us. we believe all is possible with hard work and our great hope lies in creating a better tomorrow for our children and our children's children. ladies and gentlemen, while i breathe, i hope, and it is with great faith in those words, the words chosen by our forefathers, that i say to you tonight that the state of our state is surging. when this administration came into office just over a year ago, with unemployment in double digits and growing, our focus was almost singular. jobs. the reason is fairly simple. if you give a person a job, you take care of a family. we have a lot of families to

take care of in south carolina. the good news is, we have made great progress this past year. the bad news is, we still have a ways to go. but my pledge to each of you sitting before me tonight and more importantly to the 4.6 million south carolinians outside of these walls, is that i will not rest until we've created a climate in which every citizen of this state who wants a job, has a job. [applause] we have grun and expanded our south carolina family this year, welcoming in some wonderful new partners and after all is said and done, due to the kind cooperation between all branches of government, we were able to celebrate $5 billion of investment in south carolina and the recruitment of almost 20,000 new jobs in our great state. [applause]

in a few moments, i'll recognize a number of those new partners who michael and i have invited here tonight as our special guests. before i do so, i want to focus on the cooperation i mentioned earlier, what it looks like and what it has meant for our state. we remember the excitement that swept across south carolina in the fall of 2009 when boeing chose north charleston as the location to build a new line of 787 dreamliners. we remember what 1,000 initial jobs meant to the people of our state and we remember it is the lift -- it as the lift to our economy and our spirits we needed. we remember the promise of thousands of future aerospace jobs both inside and out of the boeing plant and what those quobs will do for the next generation of south carolinians. it was the greatest economic development success the

palmetto state had celebrated in almost two decades and the people of our state wrapped our arms around the newest member of the south carolina family. part of the reason for our enthusiasm is that boeing knew no bounds. we had seen how they orped in washington state. they took care of those that took care of them. while they were creating 1,000 jobs here, they were expanding 2,000 more in washington state. not a single boeing worker was hurt by their decision. in fact, just the opposite. a commitment from boeing to a state, to a community, to a work force, is a real commitment, a proven commitment and we knew the face of south carolina would forever be changed. then this spring, the national labor relations board reared its head, suing boeing in what will surely be remembered as one of the most fundamentally un-american decisions ever handed down by the federal government and south carolina would not stand for it. from every corner of our state,

we pushed back. our federal delegation, business leaders, state and local officials and most importantly, the citizens of south carolina. and boeing stood tall. under tremendous pressure from the president, and his union allies, this great american company said no, we did nothing wrong. and we refuse to cave. and late last year, the nlrb backed down and dropped its frivolous lawsuit. please take a moment and join me in expressing our gratitude to a great american, and a great south carolinian, as he now has a home in the low country, judge michael ludig, executive vice president and general counsel for the boeing company and a tremendous friend to the state of south carolina. [applause]

>> i run through this story that many of us know because there's a lot of lessons to be learned. first to the business community, when you're here, you're family. no one will do more to fight for you, no one will do more to keep you competitive and the -- than the state and people of south carolina. second for the federal government, the lesson must be that if you pick a fight with south carolina, you better be prepared for one because south carolinians take care of our en -- our own. we always have, we always will, and we will not tolerate indefensible acts against our citizens. and third, thelessson that i, and i hope you, take away from this episode is that together, speaking with one voice and driving toward a clear and focused goal, there is nothing

that south carolina cannot accomplish. [applause] the sheer size of investment and raw number of jobs we have seen come our way this year during a time when states and nations are struggling economically in ways that the world has seen is a testament to the truth of that idea. coming into office a year ago, secretary bobby hit and i found an economic community in south carolina that was fractured. but job creecrute -- recruitment is by its nature a team sport you don't just sell a state you sell a state, a county, a community, and a way of life. they say all politics is local. that is twice as true for economic development. and the team effort has worked. we have so much to be excited about, not just in the traditional economic hot beds like charleston and greenville and lexington but also in the

less populated areas like orangeburg and union and denmark. please help me celebrate some of the great announcements we have had over the year. every south carolinian should be proud of the fact that of all the places in the world these companies could have picked, they elected to make our home, their home. when i call your name please stand and be recognized. representing continental tire in sumpter, george jurch. you may want to hold your applause. representing t.d. bank, david limonette, representative bridgestone, steve brooks, representing nefron pharmaceuticals, lou and bill kennedy, representing b.m.w. manufacturing who just produced their two millionth car and announced the new b.m.w. x-4,

max metcalf. representing otis elevator in forns, torshi hicks, representing z.f. group in london, grover redmann. reuben throak. representing green packaging in ridgeland mark blitzer and tave brown. representing g.k.n. aerospace and air show in orangeburg, kevin cummings. representing tihitco, jeff winkler. please stand and give all of these friends a great south carolina round of applause. [applause]

we have another great reason to celebrate in south carolina. from the tidal greeks -- creeks of buferte to the shores of lake kiwi, we are blessed with the kind of natural beauty that makes us the envy of the nation and this was the first year we finally beat san francisco. charleston was named the number one top tourist destination in america. please join me in congratulating mayor joe riley, who unfortunately couldn't be here tonight, and the people of charleston. but we can't rely on god's gift alone to keep our tourism industry, the second largest industry in our state, turning. we have to sell south carolina and there is no better opportunity, no better showcase for our state and citizens,

than the heritage golf tournament. for a generation, the heritage has been backed by a longtime corporate sponsor. it was a shock to our system that we lost their support. but that shock did not justify the knee jerk response from some in our government, it is not now, nor will it ever be the responsibility of the taxpayers of south carolina to fund a golf tournament. instead, it is the responsibility of the leaders of our state to do the work necessary, sometimes hard, sometimes less than glamorous torque preserve the events we value that pump dollars into our economy and energy into our communities and the hard work of many, duane parrish in particular and a host of local stake holders on hilton head island, paid off. the nation will again watch the best in the world walk down the 18th fairway at harbor town, awed by the beauty of the setting, the state and the graciousness of our people. south carolina has a new partner a great friend so

please help me thank and welcome the title sponsor of the heritage golf tournament, r.b.c., represented tonight by james tricoli. [applause] we'd also be remiss if we didn't think boeing, the local presenting sponsor of the new r.b.c. heritage. thank you. while we have made great progress, there is more work to do. we will continue to sell our great state each and every day, to fight for the jobs our people need and for the financial security they deserve. in order to better do that, we in this room need to focus on legislation that is pro-business and helps us create a more competitive environment. i have long said that it's a

wonderful thing when we recruit new companies to south carolina but when one of our own expands, that's when the real celebration begins. we have to take care of the businesses we already have. when they can grow and invest, invest back in their people, their product and their state, we're doing something right. as we talk with c.e.o.'s from around the world, their focus is clear. keep the cost of doing business low. our agencies have taken strides to reduce regulations and fees and to change the culture so that every single employee understands that if government is costing our businesses time, we are costing them money, and that is unacceptable. speaking of lost time and money, i want to thank speaker bobby harel and senator larry martin for leading the charge on tort reform last year. until 2011, south carolina was the only state in the southeast that did not cap damages on lawsuits. thanks to the people in this room, that is no longer the

case. that was a huge first. my ask of you today is to remember there's always more to be done on tort reform. looking at the states we compete with, the tennessees, the alabamas, the virginias, it would be naive to think they will play for playing second fiddle to south carolina in the economic arms race. they will scrap for jobs every bit as hard as we will. the greater the protection we give our people and businesses from frivolous lawsuits, the better positioned we will be to capitalize on other assets. the next step in tort reform is a loser pay system so that there's a real cost to suits that waste the time and money of our businesses and that of our courts and that our companies understand that south carolina won't stand for trial lawyers playing games with their bottom line. [applause]

we also need to strengthen our work force. it's critical on two levels. first the ability of our state to provide a company with the workers it needs to quickly move products is a huge component to getting them here in the first place. if they can't find workers here, they'll go somewhere else. second, and just as important, we want these jobs going to our people. 20,000 b -- 20,000 new jobs coming to our state is a lot more exciting when it means 20,000 more south carolina workers will be walking out the door in the morning with a sense of purpose and pride, able to care for themselves and their families. the tools for an effective job training program already exist. we just need to do a better job of putting together the puzzle. our tengny call college and rehabilitation programs are as good as any in the country. they have proven they can

deliver the workers our companies need and deliver them swiftly. it is our responsibility to ensure that the left hand is talking to the right, that we aren't wasteful and that every dollar spent on work force training is spent on training the work force. before the month is over, we will unveil a restructuring of the work force training program. in partnership with one of the most effective and respected private companies in america, we will get our communities ready and put south carolina back to work. finally, i love that we are one of the least unionized states in the country. it is an economic development tool like no other. our companies in south carolina understand that they are only as good as those who work for them and they take care of their employees. the people of south carolina have a strong work ethic. they value loyalty and take tremendous pride in the quality of their work. we don't have unions in south carolina, because we don't need

unions in south carolina. [applause] however, as we saw with the assault from the nlrb, the unions don't understand that. they will do everything they can to invade our state and drive a wedge between our workers and employees. we can't have that. unions thrive in the dark. secrecy is their greatest ally. sunlight their most potent adversary. we can and will do more to protect south carolina businesses by shining that light on every action the unions take. with the help and support of chairman bill sandifer and director katherine templeton, we'll create a competitive playing feel for the companies that choose to call our state home. we will require unions to tell the people of south carolina how much money they're making on ourbacks, which politicians they are funding and how much

they're paying themselves. we will protect the right of every private and public citizen to refuse to join a union and by executive order, i will make it clear that our state will not subsidize striking workers by paying them unemployment benefits. and we'll make the unions understand full well that they are not needed, not wanted, and not welcome in the state of south carolina. [applause] all of the strong pro-business policies we have put into place won't matter, however, if we do not keep our fiscal house in order. during the past several years, agencies have faced financial challenges and used fund balances and flexibility to shift money between accounts to cover expenses like rent and payroll. with revenues increasing, state government needs to stop these nontransparent accounting practices.

it is time for truth in budgeting. [applause] in my executive budget, we have funded agency operations with recurring funds so taxpayers can see how much and where money is spent. no more agency shell games, no more one-time money from other year expenses. much of the so-called growth in this budget is not growth at all but us being honest about how much it costs to operate state government. to permanently control spending, our government can and must function within a spending cap and as you've heard me say time and time again, any general fund dollars above and beyond that cap must go toward tax relief, debt relief or reserve funds. we cannot continue to spend every dollar we have. it is bad policy in our homes and in our businesses, which i think we can all agree to, and

we know it's bad policy in state government. it has to end. [applause] milton friedman, the famed economist, once said, one of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. we agree. in order to stay within the spending cap and deal with massive expansions in federally mandated programs like medicaid, we have had to make unpopular decisions but we tried to restore some of the programs and agencies that do pass the test that do fulfill core functions of government. the protection of our citizens and communities allows for us to have the quality of life we enjoy in our state, which is why last week, our budget strength have -- strengthened the south carolina law enforcement division we have restored funding to our d.n.a. lab so they can clear the back logs. we have increased the number of flood agents, their equipment

and we have brought chief mark kiel home so it can return quickly to its intended mission, serving sheriffs and chiefs across south carolina. [applause] we've also bolstered mental health, recognizing that failing to provide basic care to those who suffer from mental illness will cost us more money in the long run both in dollars and in human costs. these are people who, if treated, can live safe and productive lives. if left untreated, they often end up in one of two places, our emergency rooms or our jails. finally, every child in south carolina learns differently. some more so than others.

it is our responsibility as the leadership of this state to embrace that reality, not fight it, and give all of our children the chance to learn torque grow, and to thrive. and so the time to make real investment in our charter schools has come and our budget does just that. charters are innovators. we need those fresh insights and ideas to help us improve our educational systems for all of south carolina's children. yes, we can, have, and will cut spending in the state of south carolina but we must be smart about it. the time of across the board cuts is over. the executive budget also outlines a number of pl poll -- of policy initiatives that will continue to move south carolina forward and make us more competitive and importantly, it pays for them. tax reform is critical to our state. every conversation we have with c.e.o.'s at some point drifts to our tax structure and we have been communicating with representative tommy stringer

and his committee on how we move forward with real change this is year. our budget includes almost $140 million in tax cuts for the people and businesses of south carolina. these cuts will flatten the individual income tax if six brackets to three, redeuce taxes for the citizens of our state by almost $80 million, and phase out the corporate income tax over a four-year period, injecting much-needed dollars back into our businesses and giving us an unbelievable economic development tool. the tax relief we ultimately adopt must be broad-based, offering relief to as many south carolinians as possible, and these tax cuts should mean lower rates, not more credits, exemptions, and loop hope -- loopholes that only benefit a chosen few. what we have laid out in the budget is a blueprint for how we believe the dollars available for tax reduction can best bespent. together i believe we can agree

to a set of tax cuts that makes south carolina more competitive and sends more dollars back where they belong, in the pockets of the people and the businesses of our state. [applause] the executive budget also presents a plan to give local school districts more control over school buses. there is absolutely no reason for south carolina to remain the only state in the nation that runs a bus fleet. it is cumbersome, it is wasteful and it prevents the department of education from focusing its efforts on where they need to be, on educating the next generation of south carolinians. under the new system, individual school districts will be given the opportunity to decide whether to operate bus fleets themselves, choose a private operation or develop a hybrid solution. the goal is to give districts as much flexibility as possible, as every district is made up with different students, with different needs. we're not interested in mandating bus choices down on

our locals. what we are interested in is giving them options and getting the state of south carolina out of the school bus maintenance business. i know many in this chamber are concerned about the situation with our ports. the concerns are valid because our ports are vital. let me start by assuring you that no one will work harder to get the funding necessary to deepen the port of charleston, starting with the creation of a port infrastructure fund in this year's budget. part of south carolina's advantage in recruiting industry is the port of charleston. it is a huge part of why companies like bridgestone, continental and mish lynn come to and expand in our state from the first day of our administration, i have worked with our federal delegation to clear away all the impediments to making charleston the premiere part in the southeast, starting with getting the port to the depth of 50 feet.

there's been much discussion about the decision and whether two viable ports in the region are good or bad for the economies of south carolina businesses and our state. i have said it before, i will say it again -- i am not afraid of a 48-foot georgia port, 36 miles up the savanna river, confined to one-way traffic. you should not be either. let's quit wickering and work together to see charleston return to its greatness, jasper to have a future and georgetown to have a purpose. finally, the executive budget calls for an evolution of the way we funed higher education. our intention is two-fold. reward the schools that well serve our students, while providing real motivation for those that need to improve. i was a legislator. i remember the pressure that comes with the budget. i also know that there needs to be a better, more consistent way to fund higher education. one based on merit and

accountability, not on which school is the most popular. by adopting a new accountability-based funding formula for higher education, we all win. the schools get stability and flexibility, legislators will no longer be faced with university lobbyists demanding dollar after dollar, and above all, south carolina's parents and students will know that their education is fairly and appropriately funded. when this administration took office, we were facing massive debts in three agencies, health and human services and others, i told you debt was unacceptable in the haley administration. tonight i am proud to say that not one cab let agency is running a deficit of even a single dollar. [applause] i would like to request that the best cabinet a governor

could ever ask for, please stand and be recognized. [applause] the largest of those deficits was h.h.s., facing a hole of $228 million. in response, i asked you to release the handcuffs off the department so they could truly manage our medicaid program. under the leadership of senator harvey peeler, you did, and for that, i thank you. since then, h.h.s. has moved afwressively to find problems and fix them. today, the program is on budget and has avoided the massive service and reimbursement cuts that other states continue to experience. this past week, we announced -- we enhanced fraud prevention and quality control to reduce eligibility and payment errors

found in audits of the work under previous administrations. a year ago, many of us argued our number one health care problem in this country -- country was its high cost and the way to provide better health to our citizens was not just massively expanding a broken system by giving it more government money. medicaid is that broken system there is too much waste, too much fraud, and too little focus on prevention and personal responsibility. almost all of those problems are caused by mandates of the federal government. but here in south carolina, under the leadership of director tony keck, we are tackling the root causes of those problems, and not just the symptoms. health care providers are working in partnership with us to improve quality and lower costs. we identified payment reforms to align incentives between health care providers, payers and patients and implemented strategies to do just that.

we are shifting toward medicare managed care which independent studies show pays us more and -- saves us more and provides better service and for the first time we are giving institutions a stake in improving health care. we will continue to push back against the fall takeover of our health care system. south carolina does not want and cannot afford the president's health care plan. not now, not ever. [applause] to that end, we will not pursue the type of government-run health exchanges being forced on us by washington. despite the rose-colored rhetoric coming out of d.c., these exchanges are nothing more than a way to make the state do the government'sed

bying in spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars on subsidies we can't afford. we will have no part of that we will continue to fight to increase transparency between patients and doctors and between doctors and insurance companies. as a nation, we can no longer allow ourselves to be divorced from the true cost of health care and in south carolina, we won't be. last year, we spoke openly and honestly about the fact that it was a tough budget year and for some group, in some programs, it was going to hurt. in some respects the same thing is true this year. i have been pleased to see what's been accomplished on pension reform in the past few months. specifically, i want to recognize senator gregoryberg who has literally been banging the drum on this problem for years, as well as senators letterman and alexander, representatives white and merrill and retirement director bloom. the seriousness and focus with which you approached reforming

our retirement system is commendable. let's be clear. the size of our pension system, the size of the unfunded liability, has ballooned from $199 million in 1999 to $17 billion this year. if we are to honor our commitments to those who have dedicated their careers to public service, then no one, then no one, can dispute that this is an issue we must resolve to deal with today. fortunately, some steps have been taken. the recent decision to lower the assumed rate of return was an important one, not just because it means we will finally be more honest about how much we can expect our retirlte systems to earn, but also pause it forced us to confront the fact that our current policy of automatically awarding cost of living increases is irresponsible and unsustainable. to protect our pension funds, we must stop granting cost of living increases to our retire

yeses in years when the funds are losing money. it may not be politically popular but it's the only responsible thing to do. there are a number of other reforms we must adopt in order to show -- to shore up our retirement systems and curtail further abuses. we need anti-spiking provisions that keep employees from using sick leave and vacation to artificially inflate their payouts. for new enrollees we need to close the doors to the terry program once and for all, to prevent double dipping. [applause] while we're on the subject of double dipping, we need to shut down the general assembly's own retirement system. it's time legislators receive the same benefits as other state employees. if we take these steps now, we

can ensure that our state employees have a reasonable, sustainable, comfortable retirement. if we don't, we if we continue to stick our heads in the sand, they may not have a retirement at all. the retirement system is not the only reform we need to move forward with. just this summer, we were reminded what happens when you have an agency that answers to more than one boss. at the department of transportation, we have a secretary appointed by the governor who runs day-to-day operations and a commission that sets policy and approves the projects as a balancing act, one that has the entire department answering to two bosses. worse the commission system is entirely political and pits the regions of our state against each other. how can we possibly have a state-wide road plan when every project is initiated because of parochial needs and interests? the honest answer is we cannot.

d.o.t. cannot repeat the mistakes of this past summer but it is time for the two bosses system to go. i ask that you support speaker pro tem jay lucas, who has more than 60 co-sponsors joining him in his effort to restructure the department of transportation. [applause] many in this room worked on this issue in 2007. we knew then that the actions we took for simply the first step. it is time we finished the job and dissolved the transportation commission. speaking of restructuring, two decades ago, governor carol campbell made the following comment in his state of the state address. quote, ladies and gentlemen, 1992 is the time to start whipping government into shape. we must reform government and we must start now. for at least 62 years, governors have stood at this

podium appealing to the general asemipli for an efficient government, accountable to the people. eight studies, spanning 70 years, echoed this call. yet much of government answers to no one, end quote. 20 years later, we are closer than we've ever been to ridding the people of south carolina of a backwards, 19th century government structure that continues to keep us down. constitutional amendments to allow for the appointment of the superintendent of education and for the governor and lieutenant governor to run on the same ticket are through the house, through committee, and on the senate calendar. let's bring them home. and then there's the department of administration. chairman jim harrison got the bill rolling in the house and our offices worked on the development of the davis-mass see amendment in the senate. we ask that you support it. it is time to abolish the budget control board. [applause]

the bill is now on the senate floor. many in the senate committed to the people in our state last june that the department of administration will be the first task you complete this year. i thank you for that. i know the people will hold you to your commitment. i understand all too well the politics that stand in the way of this bill landing on my desk but the leadership of south carolina has for far too long put politics ahead of progress and our constituents deserve better. they deserve a government that hears them when they speak. that responds to their needs. that waits less an serves better. and they deserve a government that is truly, finally accountable to them. please don't get distracted. this is not about politics, this is not about power. this is simply about moving our state forward and responding to the will of the people. it's time to put this issue behind us, celebrate together

and move on. the first year of anything new brings challenges and opportunities. pleasant surprises and regrettable disappointments. this last year for me has been no different. i have been pleasantly surprised by the willingness of legislators to work together and find common ground for the betterment of the people of south carolina. it is my sincere hope that the willingness remains and that we can continue to make progress on the issues we have touched on tonight. my biggest disappointment has been just as surprising. all though less pleasantly sew. i simply do not understand the culture of negativity that exists within our political class. the initial response to almost every action is for someone to say, can't, and no, and then run to file a lawsuit. i think differently. i believe the only way we make south carolina better, stronger, is to take that same negative energy and turn it into a positive and focus on

can and will instead of can't and won't. no greater example of this negativity exists than the response of a few naysayers to the phone greeting we created for our state employees. let me tell you how that story came about. while my primary focus day to day is on getting our state working again, i also understand that i am the chief executive of south carolina and i've tried to do what i can to improve morale of state employees and remind them that our mission is customer service. one afternoon, i was in my office thinking about the culture of negativity we were try so hard to change. i made my way to sheila jones, our receptionist, and i answered her to try answering the phone, it's a great day in south carolina, how may i help you and to let me know what the resubpoenaing -- response us. on the first try, the caller responded, you know, it is a great day in south carolina. it was all the confirmation i

needed. the goal was for state employees to feel proud of what we -- where we live and what we do and the constant reminder that we work for the person on the other side of the line. what could possibly be so wrong with that? [applause] so let's think about this. in 2011, we started with a deficit and ended with a surplus. we announced almost 20,000 jobs and $5 billion in new investments. our legislature showed the people they understood the importance of putting their votes on the record and passed tort, unemployment, and medicaid reform. we protected the integrity of our election process from voter fraud and from the citizens -- and the citizens from the cames of illegal immigration. we saved the heritage golf tournament and won the fight with the national labor relations board. those are all reasons to

celebrate. but what i love is that we are a great state with good, hardworking people. we are patriotic and love our country. we appreciate the simple blessings of life. we understand that the hospitality we show visitors is reflective of all of us. through our challenges, we will never forget the importance of holding on to our faith and families and always taking care of our neighbors. that, to me, is more than enough reason to say, it is a great day in south carolina. and we've lnl just -- we've only just begun. thank you, god bless you, and may he continue to smile on the state of south carolina. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> would everyone please rise -- >> on tomorrow morning's "washington journal," congressman joe wilson, republican of south carolina, will be on "washington journal." he'll discuss his party's opposition to increasing spending, including raising the debt limit. the a look at the administration's rejection of the keystone oil pipeline project. our guest is susan casey-lefkowitz of the national resources defense council. and later a discussion on turnout trends from previous elections. curtis gans explains who votes and why.

"washington journal" every morning starting at 7:00 eastern here on c-span. defense secretary leon panetta today outlined new initiative to assist victims of sexual assault in the military. he said men and women will be allowed immediate transfer when they report an assault and there will be better training on dealing with allegation of assault. this is 20 minutes. >> thank you for showing up. we've got meetings at the white house this afternoon, so i had to reschedule. good afternoon. when i was sworn in to the office of secretary of defense, i said that i had no higher

responsibility than to protect those who are protecting america. our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day. to try to keep america safe. we have a moral duty to keep them safe. from those who would attack their dignity and their honor. that's why i've been so concerned by the problem of sexual assault in the military. sexual assault has no place in this department. it is an affront to the basic american values we defend and it is a stain on the good honor of the great majority of our troops and our families. as leaders of this department,

we're committed to doing everything we can to ensure the safety, dignity, and well being of our people. these men and these women who are willing to fight and to die, if necessary, to protect an serve our country, they're entitled to much better protection. their families an their dependents also sacrifice and serve and so for that reason, we have to spare no effort in order to protect them against this heinous crime. the number of sexual assaults in the military is unacceptable. last year, 3,191 reports of sexual assault came in. but i have to tell you that

because we assume that this is a very underreported crime, the estimate is that the actual number is closer to 19,000. one sexual assault is one too many. since taking this office, i've made it a top priority to do everything we can to reduce and prevent sexual assaults, to make victims of sexual assault feel secure enough to report this crime without fear of retribution or harm to their career. and to hold the perpetrators appropriately accountable. all these efforts, i've worked closely with the military and civilian leadership of the department. i've discussed the subject with service secretaries, the

chairman and vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and all the service chiefs. the latest meeting was as recently as last week. they completely share my sense of urgency and commitment to addressing this problem, as do members of congress with whom i consult regularly on this issue. to ensure that this issue receives proper visibility and attention within the department, a two-star officer, air force major general mary kay hertog, was appointed to serve as director of the department's sexual assault prevention and response office last august. general hertog has done a great job, coordinating a d.o.d.-wide effort to address the serious and complex problem. there are no easy answers.

but that makes it all the more essential for us to devote our energy and our attention to trying to confront this crime. over the holidays, we announce two new policies that provide greater support for the victims of sexual assault. the first policy gives victims who report a -- report a sexual assault an option to quickly transfer from their unit or installation. to protect them from possible harassment and remove them from proximity to the alleged perpetrator. second, we will also require the retention of written reports of sexual assault to law enforcement to be retained for a period of 50 years. the reason for that is to have these records available so that it will make it easier for

veterans to file a claim with the department of veterans' affairs at a later date. these two policies are the first of a broader package of proposals that we will be presenting in the coming months. many of which will require legislative action by the congress. today, i want to announce some additional steps that we are taking. first, i've directed the establishment of a d.o.d. sexual assault advocate certification program. which will require our sexual assault response coordinators and victim advocates to obtain a cre endrble -- credential aligned with national standards. this will help ensure that the victims of sexual assault receive the best care from properly trained and credentialed professionals who

can provide crucial assistance from the moment an assault is committed. second, i've directed the department to expand our support to assault victims to include military spouses and adult military dependents who will now be able, this was not the case before, they will now be able to file confidential reports and receive the services of a victim advocate and a sexual response coordinator. in addition, we're going to ensure that d.o.d. civilians stationed abroad and d.o.d. u.s. citizen contractors in combat areas receive emergency care and the heaven of a response coordinator an victim advocate. third, because sexual assault cases are some of the toughest