govern. and that's what we are doing here today. governing and providing a solution to the very real problems americans are facing in their ily lives. i urge my colleagues on both sides ofhe aisle to join me in supporting this legislation which pays for new spending with spending cuts, prevents working americans from getting hit with a tax increase next month, reforms our unemployment programs, and ensures seniors continue to have access to their doctors. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentlen from michigan. mr. levin: i yield such time as i shall consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for such time he may consume. mr. levin: the basic fact is that this legislation is very different from the december house republican bill, very different. and any efforts to mask that are false. and that house bill was the main bill before the conference committee. the basic fact is the conference committee made major changes to

the house bill that passed in december essentially on a partisan basis. and therefore this legislation is much better for the american people. the speaker said this about this bill, let's be honest, this is an economic relief package not a bill that's going to grow the economy and create jobs. that's not an honest statement. it's wrong. this is a bill that relates to the economic growth of the united states of america. we are recovering. and this bill will provide a boost to continue that recovery. it continues the 2% payroll tax through the calendar year. and it is not offset as was true

of the house republican bill in december. it had massive harmful cuts that would have been counter cyclical and would have undermined further economic growth. so in that respect this is very very different. it's also very different in terms of unemployment insurance. let's clear about that. the bill that the republicans passed through the house that was the main bill before the conference committee would have slashed 40 weeks of unemployment insurance for millions of americs in every state regardless of the unemployment rate in that state. and this bill essentially changes what was in the house bill. it extendsnemployment insurance through the rest of

the year up to, this is the maximum, up to 89 of 99 weeks through may, up to 79 weeks through august and up to 73 weeks through december, depending on the level of unemployment. let me just say our chairman has talked about job search and now a requirement of people be looking for work. that's already in the law of every state. that isn't a meaningful reform. in terms ofjob search, everybody not only registers but also, as i said, is requiring to look for work. and you know, i find it an insult to the unemployed of this country to say essentially

what we're simply giving them a check instead of a paycheck. you know if you talk to the unemployed through no fault of their own, they are looking for rk. they had a paycheck, in most cases, year after year after year. they work for their unemployment insurance, and to simply label this an effort to get people off of unemployment insurance, unemployment insurance is not a welfare program. people work for it and they need that assistance as they look for work. the bill that passed through th house had a g.e.d. requirement. that's out. to say to people, you don't get a check if you're not in a g.e.d. program when there are 160000 people in this country

who are on waing lists for education, that's out of here because it deserved to be out of here. and in terms of the drug programs, the effort to test people for drugs it is so limited so it is really masking the reality to call this major reform. it freezes in terms of the reimbursement for physicians through december. and let me just close bsaying a few words about the limits on this bill because there are limits. it would have beenuch better to treat unemployment insurance as an emergency as we have for 20 years. this is the highest level of long-term unemployed on record in this country, which is another reason not to blame the unemployed for their

unemployment as the house bill in december did and some of the rhetoric on this floor coins to do. we were not able to obtain this and i want to say this in terms of a precedent. in my judgment, it should not serve as a precedent. the precedent is 20 years treating it as an emergency, and let me also say it's deeply unfortunate that some on the other side insisted that federal workers carry a disproportionate share in the cost of this bill. even if there were put forward bipartisan pay-fors that would have cost -- covered the cost of u.i. in a bill that was brought in a bipartisan basis, there would have been an impact on federal employees of $67 billion. this bill has a provision that

will apply to pension programs $15 billion over 10 years, compared to the $67 billion that was in the bill that the house republicans passed. so let me just say in closing, this argument provides tax relief to working families, a framework is in place for the year for the unemployed workers, and a real commitment -- and i emphasize this -- but -- by us demoats to pursue efforts to strengthen the economy and boost job growth so that those hardest hit by the recession can return to work as they desperately want to. and i just want to reiterate how wrong the speaker was when he said, let's be honest, this is an economic relief package, t a bill that's going to grow

the economy and create jobs. the opposite is true. the provisions in this bill will help to continue economic growth. the payrollax, most economists say that. unemployment insurance, people spend it, and that is not only good for their subcystens but good for the economy of our country. for all those reasons i urge support of this conference committee, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the bce of his time. the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: madam speaker, i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized fo five minutes. mr. hoyer: thank you madam speaker. i've taken the unusual process of claiming time in opposition to this bill. i have done so so i could place

in context the bill we are considering. i do not rise to necessarily defeat this bill. i'm going to vote against this bill. i am for almost all of this bill. what we are funding this bill with was unnecessary unfair and ought to be rejected. i want to say at the outset that my friend mr. camp, and i had a very positive discussion. i believe that mr. camp and i could have reached an agreement which would have put me in support of this legislation. we didn't get there. we tried late in the game and we didn't get there. i regret that. i think mr. camp tried. i know that everybody on my side would have supported the agreement that mr. van hollen and i put forward. that agreement would, as the current agreement would say that the only individuals paying for ts bill out of 315

million americans are the two million civilian workers who work for us, who work for all of us, who day after day, week after week, month after month make sure we give the services to the people of the united states, protect the united states, ensure that our food is safe, ensure that we have amphibious agents on the job, -- make sure we have f.b.i. agents on the job, these are all civilian employees. highly skilled. highly trained. highly educated and, yes highly motivated. and every day they give outstanding service to the people of the united states. we talk here and we pass laws here but none of those -- none of that talk and none of those laws makes a difference unless

somebody implements what we say and the policies that we set. this congress is on the path to be the most anti-federal worker congress that i have served in. and i'm going to place that in context for you which is why i wanted the time. first of all, what is the context we find ourselves in? first of all we have a very struggling economy. the good news is the economy is coming back but not fast enough. we need to create more jobs, expand opportunities and make sure that the american dream is alive for all working americans. working americans like our fedel employees, working americans like the folks at g.m. who have done just very well, working americans who work in the hardware store, the grocery ore, the gasoline station, hardworking americans. and we don't have enough jobs for them. as a result we have high

unemployment, and i congratulate my friend mr. levin, for his leadership in making sure that the unemployment provision in this bill is sufficient to try to reach those folks and make sure they don't fall off the ledge. we walked away from them in december. i'm glad we are not walking away from them today. now, we also have, as all of us know, a struggling economy and therefore we put into effect giving $1,000 more to each and every worker. no many of your leaders did not support this 2% reduction, and i understand that. i won't go into their names. some are in the chamber, but the factf the matter is it puts $1,000 of additional pockets into average working americans' pockets. people paying fica.

that is people making less than $6,000. that is an important thing to do for us to keep this economy growing. i'm for that. i was for it in december. i'm for it ifebruary. i'm glad we are going to have consens on that today. but what i am not for -- let me go on because in addition to that, we are playing a silly little game. with the doctors a with medicare patients, and this silly little games pretends we are going to extend s.g.r. for 10 months. that's balo nmbs ey and everybody knows it -- baloney and everybody knows it. we are going to extend s.g.r. over and over and over again. we should have done it permanently in this bill. we should have done it permanently in the congress which i was the majority leader. we should have done that. i yield self two additional

minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. hoyer: so with respect to s.g.r. ladies and gentlemen, we are playing a game and the doctors all over this country and the medicare recipients all over this country know we're playing a ga. we're giving them no certainty, no confidence that come this september, october november, we won't have another one of these silly little debates. now, we also in the context have a deep deficit and debt that confronts this nation that we have to deal with, and we had two commissions that said we had to deal with it. one was bowles-simpson. my friend, mr. becerra sat on that my friend who sits in the chamber. the other was domenici and rivlin and we had oers, including the gang of six in the united states senate, and all of them had a premise that we needed to deal with the fiscal problem that confronts us and the other premise was all of us need to contribute to that solution. all of us.

now, what do we see that's being proposed in this congress , partially in this bill but only partially in this bill? we have either on the floor proposed on passed over the last two years -- listen to this ladies d gentlemen -- we are about to cut or propose to cut $134 billion out of our federal employees over the next 10 years. nobody else in this bill, not a millionaire, not a billionaire, not a carried interest beneficiary, not an oil company, nobody in this bill other than federal employees is asked to pay. i understand we have hospital cuts. by the way, we have $5 billion to that because we just increased by one year the cut that they know they got. the same for some other things.

no individual other than a federal employee's asked to take a cut in this bill. now, you will say to me, no, it's future federal employees. two more minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. hoyer: you say it's future federal employees so it doesn't matter. that's $15 billion of the $134 billion that's been proposed. they've already paid $60 billion $60 billion, and by the way, your side of the aisle is not going to give them that half percent the president asked for so that will be an additional $30 billion. so in three years, mr. and mrs. america, madam speaker $90 billion in contribution to help bring this deficit down, federal employees are paying. and by the way, federal employees is a percentage of our population are down by a third over the last 20 years.

it's not that the bureaucracy is growing. yes, our population is growing. we're trying to serve them. down by a third in numbers. now, i know something about federal employee pay. i represent about 60,000 federal employees. you say hoyer is up there defending his people. you'd be right. you'd be very right. . but most of the federal employees don't live in the washington metropolitan area. they live in your districts all over this country, serving your farmers. serving your drug stores. serving everything that you do. do i think it's the private sector that makes this country great? absolutely. do i believe they need an energized high morale, highly educated federal work force as their partner? i do. and you will not have that ladies and gentlemen, if we keep

along this path of every time we come to a bill that's a little bit of trouble the pay for is to reach in the federal employees' pockets. they pretty much are going to say i'm not with you any longer. i want to tell you in terms of recruiting and retaining you will not do it. 40% of the federal work force, ladies and gentlem, can retire in the next five years. one more minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for an additional minute. mr. hoyer: ladies and gentlemen, you are going to be able to recruit those folks only if you have a competitive work force. let me give you a figure that you might find interesting. there are 33,000 -- 33,300 employees at goldman sachs. average salary, ladies and gentlemen, $367,057. average calorie.

-- salary. of 33,300 people. you n't be able to compe. you won't be able to get n.s.a. employees as opposed to semans or microsoft or some of those other corporation, many of which are in . eshoo's district, you won't be able to recruit them and retain them to have the best and brightest defending america and making america the strongest and greatest country on earth. you want america to be an exceptional country, you better best have the best civil service on earth? . as well as the best private sector. one more minute. ladies and gentlemen, i don't know whether most of you know this i saw the gentleman from florida who has been here for a couple mths pontificate i didn't know anything outside the beltway. i was the sponsor of the federal employee pay comparability act. and georgbush the first signed

that october. we worked with his o.m.b. to get it. what does it say? federal employees cannot get a raise unless the private sect gets a raise. we are precluded from getting a raise unless the private sector gets a raise. what does it further say? that the private sector which is the economic cost index, by the way, in case you want to know exactly what the statistic is says we are going to take a half a point less. so what have you done? in this bill. unnecessarily. because you are going to eeze their salary for the third year in a row. and simpson-bowles said do it for three. but they said everybody ought to she. we only get $1 trillion in revenues. $1 trillion in cuts. everybody. one more minute, but nobody but federal employees. nobody is targeted in this bill other than federal employees.

you can tell i'm angry about at because that's not fair. and that's not how you want to treat our employees, america's employees. america's public servants we call them. we ought to stop dissing them. we ought to stop demagoguing them. we ought to stop using bureaucrat as an epithet. america needs them. i'll have some other things to say in a few minutes, madam speaker. buwe ought not to walk away from our federal employees any more than we ought to walk away from those 160 million peopl who need this tax cut or walk away from those 2.4 million who need that unemployment insurance. or walk away as we have from the doctors who need ctainty, long-term, not for 10 months,

but lo term. i reserve the lance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: thank you. before i yield i just would like to say to the gentleman that he did characterize our conversations correctly. it was very late. i do look forward to worng with him in the future on these issues as we move forward. with that i would yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from oregon, a nferee mr. waln. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oregon is recognized for two minutes. mr. walden: thank you, madam speaker. thank you,r. camp. i want to thank my colleague from michigan for his extraordinary leadership in pullinthe house and senate together as chairman of our conference. one of the key elements of this piece of legislation is freeing up enormous swath of spectrum for use in the -- to grow jobs in technology and innovation, generate $15 billion to the treasury to help pay for some of the things that are being discussed today to extend the middle class tax cut, to provide unemployment for those who are seeking work, and in the process

here there are estimates of building up the 4-g network which will take spectrum like thathat will be made ailable here could generate between 300,000 and 700,000 amecan jobs and unleash technology and innovation in america. in addition to doing that, the republican house in concert with our colleagues across the aisle and chambers have come together to finally take care of you are public safety officials who on that terrible day in september of 2011 discovered their devices did not communicate well with each other, if at all. so finally we have come together to create an inroperable public safety broadband network they can operate on wherever they are wherever disaster may strike, and they'll be able to communicate with each other. we have allocated money to build it out. i think we have put governance structure in place that while it's not exactly what i hoped would happen i think it can

function. we will see. so we have built out a public safety network for our public safety officials. that will get under way. this bill will help generate 300,000 top00,000 american jobs, generate $15 billion private sector money coming into the government to help pay for some of this and protect our over-the-air broadcasters. our tv broadcasters who will be asking in voluntary auction if they want to give up a spectrum are protected so the viewers out there and-k still see and watch their over-the-air public -- public and private broadcasters. madam speaker, this is good legislation. and i hope you'll support it. the speaker pro tempore: gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: i now yield to a member of the conference committee, mr. waxman, and the ranking member on energy and commerce, two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. waxman: madam speaker, with two minutes i'd like to ask unanimous consent that i be able to revise and extend my remarks and insert extraneous material.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. waxman: with those remarks. i'll vote for this bill but i do so with reservations. we should have done better in meeting ouresponsibilities to the amerin people. there are important provisions in this legislation that will do a lot of good for families and our economy. we are extending the payroll tax reduction for millions of families, extending unemployment insurance, ensuring the doctors serving seniors will be paying for their services through the en of the year. and we are making spectrum available for new innovations in wireless communications. while these are provisions i support, in the conference report there are significant missed opportunities and poor choices that affect federal workers and preventive health programs. nowhere is this lost opportunity more apparent than our failure to end the medicare physician payment formula known as the s.g.r., and set us on a path to

a fair and reasonable physician reimbursement system. having to settle for another temporary solution which leases at the end of the year even deeper in the hole in terms of a permanent solution it's a real failure and one that fails medicare beneficiaries and doctors alike, and i did not agree with the cuts in reimbursement for hospitals and nursing homes and unbelievably in prevention services in order to pay for the physician reimbursement levels at a reasonable amount. i am he deeply -- i'm deeply concerned about the federal employees' provision i think that is very unfair. i do not have similar reservations about the spectrum provions in the conference report. our bipartisan, bicameral negotiations resulted in legislation that will make new spectrum available for broadband services, will create a nationwide band ever spectrum that can be used for innovative, unlicensed applications, and

will provide for the construction of an interoperable broadband network for first responders. taken as a hole, i -- whole, i believe we should support this package even with its serious shortcomings. yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland. who seeks recognition? the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: madam speaker, i now yield to mr. van hollen, the ranking member of the budget committee, distinguished gentleman from maryland. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland is recognized for 2 1/2 minutes. mr. van hollen: thank you, madam speaker. i thank my colleague, mr. hoyer. this bill accomplishes three very important objectives. it extends the payroll tax cut for 160 million americans. it extends unemployment insuranc to millions of

americans who are out of work through no fault of their own, and it supports the medicare program. so i am not here on the floor today to urge my colleagues to vote against this bill. in fact i'm confident that it will pass. the bill's also significant for what it will not do. unlike the original republican house bill, which cut compensation for current federal employees by about $40 billion this bill does not cut compensation for any current federal employee. not one cent. let me repeat that. i'm pleased that senator cardin and i and other members of the conference committee were successful in holding harmless our hardworking current federal employees. that being said, i'm going to vote no to send a message that enough is enough when it comes to using the federal work force as a piggy bank to fund our various national initiives. here's why.

while no current employees are impacted by this bill, it does cut compensation for future employees hired starting in january, 2013. and that will, as mr. hoyer said, it will make it much more difficult for us to attract the federal employees we need to do our national work together as part of our federal service. and indeed, one half, a full half of the 10-month extension for unemployment insurance that benefits the entire country $15 billion, is financed by cutting compensation for future federal employees. that is a disproportionate share from the federal work force. the federal work force has already contributed over $88 billion to our deficit reduction for the denial of two colas and the proposed cola cut this year and the republican transportation bill would cut another $42 billion from federal

employees to finance our national highways. that's a ridiculous approach. federal employees, as mr. hoyer said, are willing to do their fair share to help reduce our deficit, but stop singling them out and making -- singling them out and making them scapegoats. they had nothing to do with the meltdown on wall street and i'm sick and tired of hearing some members of congress badmouthing and belittling federal employees. if i could have an additional 30 seconds, please. mr. hoyer: 30 seconds. mr. van hollen: they are an easy political target for some, as mr. hoyer said. but it is irresponsible to denigrate their good work. these are the men and women who care for our veterans and many of our wounded soldiers. these are the people in our intelligence community who helped track down osama bin laden. these are the folks at n.i.h. and elsewhere who help find treaents and cures that help prevent diseases that plague every american family. they are the folks who protect our borders. they are the folks that help run the medicare andocial security

system. they are the folks in the capitol hill police that protect this great center of democracy right here. so while this conference report does many good things, we need to send a message it's time to stop scapegoating federal employees and usg them as the piggy bank for our national objectives. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield two minutes to a member of the conference committee, the gentlewoman from north carolina. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from north carolina is recognized for two >> thank you madam speaker. i ask unanimous consent to address the house for two minutes and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mrs. ellmers: sterday afternoon i happyly signed the conference report that was -- happily signed the conference report that was very, very well put together, and i commend chairman camp for the hard work that he didnd my fellow conferees. this joint conference committee came together. it was tasked to negotiate the payroll tax holiday extension,

and this is a very important break through and shows that we can actually work together and compromise for the sake of the american people. i would like to thank again chairman camp and my fellow conferees once again for the honor and privilege to serve on this committee. our report does what is necessary to provide a responsible level of certainty to job creators and ensure that millions of hardworking americans will be protected. . in this obama economy, it's important that arican taxpayers keep more of their money and use it to make ends meet. gas prices are projected to go up above $4 a gallon, madam speaker, by the summer. if this puts a little more money in individuals' pockets so they can pay for half a tank of gas or a quarter of a tank of gas then i say i'm all for it.

furthermore, this deal strikes the most dramatic blow to obamacare yet, keeping a promise i made when i first came to washington. with this agreement we are cutting spending by more than $50 billion and using a portion of these savings to pay for the doc fix. what is the doc fix? the doc fix ensures millions of medicare patients our seniors to receive that medical care. it will prevent the 24.7% cut for physicians for medicare services. we musnow return to the focus of the most pressing issue facing our nation which is job creation and fixing this economy. the speaker pro tempore: jeaths. mrs. ellmers: may i have another 30 seconds. mr. camp: i yield another 30 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for another 30 seconds. mrs. ellmers: the obama submitted another bloated budget that ignores the economic crisis we are living

under the obama economy. it's time to roll up or sleeves and get to work and remove these barriers to prosperity and focus on the one thing that matters most, job creation, and continue to provide certainty to millions of americans who arlooking to us to make concise decisions about their future and the future of their children. thank you, madam spear. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. just as a reminder the time remaining is the gentleman from michigan, mrcamp has 11 3/4 minutes. mr. levin from michigan has 10 minutes remaining. and mr. hoyer of ryland has five. the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: it's now my pleasure to yield one minute to our distinguished leader, ms. pelosi from the great state of california. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute.

ms. pelosi: i thank the gentleman for yielding and for hised a vow cass on -- advocacy on behalf of the thriving middle class of america and make sure we would have this payrl tax cut as well as the extension of unemployment insurance. he fought so hard on that as well as on the making sure that our seniors are able to see their doctors under medicare. congratulations and thank you, mr. levin. i rise today madam speaker, in support of this legislation. of course, identify with the concerns expressed by our distinguished whip, mr. hoyer, and mr. van hollen, regarding our public employees. before i talk directly about what is in the bill i do want to say that for our country to thrive and for us to do our very best, we must have a great relationship between the public and the private sector. the private sector is the driving engine of job creation in our country, but it cannot

succeed unless we also have an effective and thriving public sector. it's about so many things that we lates to our public safety, -- relates to our public safety the courts, the implementation of laws passed in congress, it doesn't exist unless the public sector then implements. so this is a relationship that's existed from the beginning of time in our country and it's not a zero-some game. we can't say we are going to do this in the private sector at the expense of the public sector so i salute them for their persistent leadership and recognizing the important role that the public sector pays. it was not necessary for us to go down the path that has been taken in this bill, and i'll get to that in a moment. i just want to say this represents a victory for the middle class in our country. i appreciateresident obama

taking this message to the american people, that it was very important for us to have a payroll tax cut for the middle class. it's important to those families because it puts $40 more into a paycheck to buy groceries, to buy gasoline, to make ends meet, to make ends meet, but it was additional being personal to families, it had a macroeconomic effect because these families will spend that money, inject demand in the economy and that is a job creator. any economist will tell you that this is very important to continuing the economic recovery in our country, to have rejected it, as had been inheix earlier, would have halted if not turned back our economic recovery. so let us recognize that one of -- we have three pillar that we insisted ben this package. we on the democratic side.

one, that we would have a payroll tax cut for 160 million americans. what is unfortunate is we did not use our choice of a pay-fo should it be paid for, the surcharge to covered the unemployment insurance. that would have been a preferable place to go. the undiplomat exteion -- the extension of unemployment insurance. it could have also been used to pay for the s.g.r., the ability for seniors to see their doctors instead of taking money out of the prevention piece of the affordable care act. prevention is -- makes america healthier, it saves money, it expands opportunity for people to get in the health care loop. that's unfortunate. and it could have been avoided as well as the unfortunate provision relating to our public employees. and even on that score mr.

hoyer said mr. van hollen did there was a further compromise that could have been made that addressed some of the needs of the republicans to vote for this bill without doing more harm to the -- as mr. hoyer said, the recruitment, the retention of public employees the best public employees to help implement our laws and i want to salute all of them for their patriotic duty to our country, to keep us safe in every possible way, to allow commerce to proceed in a very positive way. but now let's get back to why this is important, this victory for the middle class. this was a fight. why should it have been a fight? there's something out there in the public the ground troops the common sense coming up from the ground that this was an important thing to do, and the

american people overwhelmingly supported it. there's a ground truth out there from the public, common sense coming up from the ground that in order for us to do -- meet our needs and also reduce the deficit that we should have a surcharge on the wealthiest people in our country. people making over $1 million a year. not having $1 million. making over $1 million a year. that was not contained in this bill, but it will be part of the debate as we go forward. so let's take a moment to say that we recognize here on this floor of the house the importance of a thriving middle class to our democracy, to our democry, and that this action taken today is an important step but we have much more work to do. democrats are committed to

reigniting the american dream, to building ladders of opportunity for all who want to work hard, play by the rules, take responsibility, but we have work to do. in this thriving -- this -- reigniting the american dream, it's about recognizing the role of entrepreneurialism in our system small businesses, what they do to grow our economy and how we have a public-private relationship there to encourage small business and, again, all of this relates to a thriving middle class. so i urge my colleagues to be ever vigilant about every opportunity we can take to support the middle class. today is a good day in that regard. it's just one piece of , though. we have much more work to do. and every bill at comes up, there are things you may not like in it and you say well i'm not going to vote for it

for that reason. on balance i come down in favor of supporting what the president asked us to do which we did do what the american people want us to do but i don't want to go forward without registering the concern that we could have done better in this. and one place we can start on our next legislation is to look at the surcharge for the wealthiest people in america instead of taking billions of dollars from preventive care so that we can offset the costs in here. none of it needed to be offset. unemployment insurance has not traditionally been paid for. we didn't have to do it now. in fact, paying for it diminishes somof its stimulative effects. as economists will tell you, unemployment benefits are paid out, spent back in the treasury as will the payroll

tax cut, it will stimulate the economy by injecting demand and creating more jobs. s.g.r. we should have gone all the way with it. we should have done it permanently. we could have paid for it with our war savings or with the surcharge at the high end. the republicans said no. having said all of that, having said all of that, the fact that we are here today is an admission and -- that this is thright thing to do in terms of the payroll tax cut and unemployment compensatn and our seniors a recognition that the american people are watching and ty have little appetite for us to be fighting over what they know is the right tng to do wch is to take every action we can to grow our economy, focusing on the middle class, small business sburel spirit -- entrepreneurial spirit and the rest reignite the american

dream in an even bigger way. with that, madam speaker, i urge our colleagues to support the legislation, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: madam speaker, i yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from virginia, mr. connolly. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mr. connolly: i thank my colleague. i support the doc fix in this bill. i support the payroll tax c extension in this bill. i support the extension of unemployment insurance to so many of our fellow americans who suffered in the great recession. sadly, i cannot, however, bring myself to ve for this bill. i represent the third largest number of federal employees in the united states, and they're asking a simple question -- what is the nexus, what is the relationship between their employment and these worthy subjects? and the answer is none. three times this week the republican majority has

attempted to get axed benefits and pay and compensation of the federal work force and often it's from misinformation. a bloated work force. we entered data in a hearing record the other day that shows the obama administration in absolute terms has 350,000 fewer federal workers than those that served during the administration of president h.w. bush and as a ratio to 1,000 population in america, it's the lowest since john kennedy was in the white house, in 50 years. they have already given $90 billion to debt reduction through pay freezes and future pay freezes. and to whack at this pensions affeing both current and future employees in the pending transportation legislation that i hope will die of its own weight. it is not fair to ask only one group of americans to make a

sacrifice shared sacrifice should mean shared sacrifice. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield two minutes -- i yield two minutes to a member of the house conference committee, the gentlewoman from new york. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from new york is recognized for two minut. >> this conference report that we bring to our colleagues for a vote today represents a remarkable good faith fert by the members of a committee who combined, who worked together, democrats and republicans, house and senate, to act responsibly for the american people and in response to what the american people have asked us to do. ms. hayworth: as a physician and i practiced in the hudson valley in new york, the importance of extending reimbursement insurance for our seniors who rely on medicare, for the doctors who care for

them, who have to keep their doors open, is a crucial issue. but not only did we provide that assurance through the end of this year, we also provided for some other cruci provisions for our rural hospitals, for our ambulance services for a number of other aspectof care that rely on our action and on the responsible action that we take today. and, yes, we did pay for those extensions in a responsible way , ase must, in a time of looming fiscal crisis. . we have a debt that extends to $50,000, roughly, per man, woman, and child in this country. it is unconscionable for us to fail to acknowledge that responsibility and for all of us to do our part in that way. we have, yes, asked our federal employees to help us because as

the employer, the federal government has to take its responsible steps as well. and the hope that all of us have is that we will continue to work through this year. we will move from here with this consensus document and connue to work on the growth that our economy desperately needs and do so together, byontrolling what the federal government does. and i thank you, madam speaker. i yield back. mr. levin: i now yield two minutes to another conferee the gentleman from california, mr. becerra. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. becerra: i thank the gentleman for yielding. in december this congress gave 20 conferees three tasks a cheeve by february 29. to extend the payroll tax cut for 160 million middle class americans. to ensure americans who lost their jobs through no ult of their own received their unemployment insurance benefits.

and to guarantee our seniors on medicare have access to the doctors of their choice and the care they need. we achieved this goal. but let's be clear. this aeement is by no means free of controversy. the gentleman from maryland, mr. hoyer, eloquentl illustrated that. our republican colleagues succeeded in extrabblingting a pound of flesh from -- extracting a pound of flesh from middle class working americans who also serve ably in the federal government. what was the alternate that we faced -- alternative that we faced? a house republican bill passed in december that quadrupled the cuts to workers in their salaries and benefits, that ineased the cost of medicare for millions of seniors, that eliminated and restricted access to physical, speech, and occupational therapy in hospital settings for medicare patients, that eliminated the child tax credit for millions of modest income families. that eliminated unemployment insurance benefits for nearly three million americans who he lost their jobs through no fault of their own. thisgreement represents a

rejection of the approach in the house repubcan bill of december. it is a compromise, free of the controversial and extraneous measures in that republican bill in december. but it is a bill of controversy. because we are asking american workers who work very hard who ve their all and just happen to work for the federal government to pay the costf helping other americans who are unemployed. we could have made this a good bill. we could have asked every american, especially those most able to contribute, to help out. we didn't in this bill and that's why it's a compromise. it could have been much better. but we face the deadline by february 29 for 160 million american families. would have seen their taxes increase. we would have seen a situation where millions of americans would have lost their unemployment insurance and we needed to act as we did. i urge my colleagues to vote for

this compromise measure. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: i yield a minute and a half to the distinguished ranking member of the government reform committee mr. elijah cummings from maryland. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland is recognized for a minute and a half. mr. cummings: i'm very pleased we are extending the payroll tax cut through the end of the year which is essential to support our continued economic recovery. i'm also pleased we are providing unemployment benefits to ensure the millions of americans have access to benefits they so urgently need and that we are implementing the doc fix to ensure that seniors who are on medicare can continue to see the psicians of thr choice. that said, there are a number of provisions in this agreement that deeply disappoint me. for example, this agreement will reduce by 30 weeks the maximum number of weeks of unemployment insurance available to residents of states with average unemployment rates, while the unemployment picture is certaiy improving in january with the creation of 243,000 jobs, and a reduction in the

unemployment rate of 8.3%, there's still 12.8 million people unemployed in this nation and millions more who are part-time but want full-time work. for millions of fellow citizens unemployment benefits are truly a lifeline. i'm also deeply disappointed that the conference report requires new federal workers who contributed more to their pensions. our federal employees are not a piggy bank. we should not reach into their pockets any time we need to pay for something. federal workers are the backbone of our government. in return for their hard work and dedication, the majority has been re-has rewarded federal workers with an unprecedented amount of criticism, assau on their compensation, and benefits including proposals to extend their current two-year pay freezand arbitrarilcut the number of federal employees. and now -- the speaker pro tempor the gentleman's time has expired. mr. cummings: i'm going to vote

against this conference report. 's an important bill to get through, but i have to vote against it in the name of my employees. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield 2 1/2 minutes to the chairman of the energy and commerce committee and a member of the house senate-house conference the gentleman from michigan. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for 2 1/2 minutes. mr. upton: i thank the gentleman from the great state of michigan for yielding. i rise obviously in support of this conference report. it's not perfect but it is srnl the right thing to do now. -- certainly the right thing to do now. our economy is still struggling bigtime. families are struggling in my home state of michigan, we know better than anyone else the pain of high unemployment and anemic economic growth. in extending the temporary payroll tax relief and unemployment benefits, it's not the way to fix the economy, but we need to do it now to offer a measure of relief to those in need. but our long-term goal is certainly much bigger. we got to fix the economy. we got to create jobs.

we need to return america to a place where these temporary patches are not needed. in addition to the payroll tax and unemployment health extensions, this package includes the doc fix threw the end of the year to protect seen -- through the end of the year to protec seniors to prevent physician reimbursement rates from being slashed by nearly 30%. again it is but a temporary solution to a long-term problem. and as chairman of the energy and commerce committee i'm absolutely committed to working with my good friend, chairman camp, to develop a permanent solution to the medicare physician payment system. one that protects seniors and their doctors in the long-term while also protecting taxpayers and making sure that medicare is efficient, effective and sustainable. these temporary solutions are a big part of the package, but madam speaker, it would be a teible mistake to ignore another part of the package. one that will help support literally hundreds of thousands of jobs, one that will spur

billions of dollars of investment in our economy and affect t daily lives of nearly every american. i'm talking about spectrum reform. spectrum, it's the airwaves that carried weless communications. spectrum is all around us and we sure do use it. with the explosion in smart phones tablets, mobile broadband devis, americans are using more spectrum than ever before. this bill helps our country make more efficient use of those airwaves. we are clearing large swaths of spectrum from innovative wireless investments and the upshot is that wireless companies will pay the taxpayers billions of dollars for the right to build the next generation of wireless networks. it's a huge win for consumers and taxpayers. this package is the culmination of years of effort, bipartisan effort, numerous hearings, extensive stakehder input, cooperations on both sides of the aisle, and i want to recognize my good friend and chairman of the communications and telecommunication --

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized -- >> both greg walled ron and -- walden and anna eshoo to push this bill through the finish line. no qualified bidder can be excluded from theuction. were it not giving away airwaves that the taxpayers paid to clea these are good solid reforms with clear congressional intent and i appreciate the hard work to get an agreement and advance this wireless future. i think all my colleagues on the conference committee. we worked together. we got it done, and the taxpayers are going to be better off. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: i now yield two minutes to another hardworking member of the conference committee, ms. schwartz from the state of pennsylvania. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from pennsylvania is recognized for two minutes. ms. schwartz: thank you. this conference committee was charged with resolving differences between the house and senate so we could extend middle class tax cuts, protect seniors, access to their doctors, and extend unemployment

benefits for americans looking for work. as a member of the conference committee mleased we found a compromise to meet these goals and we are able to provide stability forillions americans. action today means 160 million american taxpayers will be able to keep more of their hard-earned dollars. these are middle class families struggling to pay their mortgages, food built, childcare cost and college tuition. this tax cut will better enable them to meet their obligations and contribute to growing the economy. it means that 13 million of our hardest working americans will receive unemployment benefits and be better able to provide for their families. there are encouraging measures of economic growth in our country, but recovery is still fragile. we had 23 consecutive months of private sector job growth, unemployment numbers are down. yet millions of americans are still looking for work. action today better ensures that losing a job will not mean economic disaster for families who have worked hard and played

by the rules. action today will mean we will keep our promise to 47 million seniors by preventing a drastic 27% cut to physicians who care for medicare beneficiaries. this is a win for american seniors. but it does not relieve us of our responsibility to permanently repeal the s.g.r. and replace it with a new payment system. for over a decade thisailed policy has created uncertainty and instability for patients, for health care providers, and the federal budget. throughout this process i advocated for both permanent scally responsible repeal of the failed medicare policy, and a path forward to new payment models to improve quality while reducing costs. despite bipartisan support for this approach, long-term agreement could note preached. i will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to end this perennial threat to the promise of medicare once and for all. i urge support for american families and seniors and millions of americans still

searching for a job. i urge support for this conference report. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: i yield one minu to the gentleman from virginia, mr. moran. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia is recognized for one minute. mr. moran: thank you madam speaker. i thank my good friend from maryland. i appreciate the work of the conferees. but i oppose this conference agreement not out of concern for the welfare of the tens of thousands of federal employees that i represent, but out of concern for the welfare of the great nation we serve. we are blessed with the least corrupt, most effective least discriminatory, most responsive federal work force in the world. and yet how do we rep them? we are requiring them to increase their pension contributions by 400% with no increase in benefits.

so we are sending them a signal. so i will really appreciate what you are doing. you are expendable. it's a signal that will not be lost on the recruits that we desperately need in the few -- future. let alone the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who could easily bmaking much more in the private sector. the whole country's going to pay a price for the signal that this bill sends. and that's why i think we should defeat it. thank you,r. chairman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: i now yield one minute to the distinguished representative from california, ms. eshoo. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recoized for one minute. ms. eshoo: i thank the gentleman. madam speaker, i re today as the ranking member of the communications and technology subcommittee.

on this legislation because i think it's so important. it will define our nation's ability to lead the world in wireless broadband deployment. it also will define how we finally provide our first responders with a nationwide interoperable broadband network. this legislation will usher in more competition,nhance innovation bolster the american economy, and very, very importantly create jobs. good jobs. i thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and the other chamber for coming together to develop legislation that promotes the public interest and ensures the return on investment for the taxpayer by supporting unlicensed spectrum, a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network and provisions to ensure that our nation's 9-1-1 call centers will have the modertools needed to improve the quality and the

speed of emergency response. incentive auctions will ensure we have the world's leading wireless infrastructure and the future for unlicensed innovation in thev band is bright. the public safety community is going to have the tools -- 30 seconds. 15 seconds. mr. levin: 15 seconds. ms. eshoo: the public safety counity will have the tools to finally build out a critical nationwide interoperable broadband network and the inclusion of provisions to promote and fund next generation 9-1-1 bye will enable the delivery of voice text, photos, videos and other data to 9-1-1 call centers. i thank my colleagues and i urge them to support the legislation. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland. mr. levin: i reserve --

mr. hoyer: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from michigan. mr. he vip: i yield one minute@distinguished gentlelady , ms. edwards. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. edwards: i would like to enter into the record letters from public employees who are wondering why they had to sacrifice $60 billion of reductions over the last decade when they didn't create the deficit, yet they're asked to pay for it. the speaker pro tempore: you want to enter into the record, without objection. ms. edwards: and i rise in opposition to the conference report. on behalf of federal workers, and i wonder where it is that we'll be able to find the next robert ball who lived in my district, who was the architt of social security. i wonder where -- whether we'll be able to find the national security and intelligence specialist who live in my district in collington for the

next generation. i wonder mr. speaker, whether we'll find the next negotiator of a stark treaty in my district. we won't find them because we asked federal workers to sacrifice for a deficit they dn't create. with that, i yield back the plans of m time and say let's vote against this legislation, vote against the conference report, support federal workers and the talented work force we have for future generations. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back her time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from oregon. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. walden: once again as we're reading about how tubled the economy is this is the weakest recovery since the great depression. it is certainly the kind of economy we all want to improve.

the underlying piece of this legislationfrees up spectrum that will generate hundreds of thousands of jobs as 4g is built out. they need spectrum to build out 4g this provides spectrum. this is a voluntary incentive auction. nobody is being force off the air waives -- airwaves, but they'll have the opportunity to go off the airwaves and make the sprecktrum available. people say, what is that? that's what powers the device, your ipadan detroit whatever and it will generate $15 billion from the private sector into the government by auctioning off this spectrum to help pay for the middle class tax cut and pay for unemployment extension. and the doc fix. we would have, on our side of the aisle preferred a two-year fix for our physicians taking

care of seniors on medare. but that was not to be. and we know that. but we could not let them fall off the cliff and see their reimbursement rates cut 27.4%. contained in here are solutions for the long term and short-term that we're going to have to revisit. the other thinwe did that's important is we're going to build out an interoperable public safety broadband network for our first responders our brave men and women, public servants, police and fire will finally have thisongress answer the call that's been pending since 9/11. post-9/11 they said you got to get our public safety people an interoperable broadband network and it didn't get done until now. when you vote for this legislation, you're voting to help your public servants and police and fire to finally have the tools to keep them safe and do their jobs. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: how much time is

left for each? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan has three minutes remaining the gentleman from maryland has one minute remaining and the gentleman from michigan in support has four minutes remaining. mr. levin: i yield one minute to the representative and leader in our caucus, mr. clyburn. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina is recognized for one minute. mr. clyburn: thank you very much mr. speaker, i thank my friend for yielding me the timism support this compromise because it ensures that wwill be able to continue tax cuts for millionof american workers and it preserves viable benefits for unemployed americans that are essential for the overall economy and safeguards seniors' access to their doctors. while i will vote yes, this agreement is not perfect.

i have serio objections to the continuing demonization of public servants in the federal government. we should not keep cutting their pay and benefits while refung to ask the top 1% to pay one penny more. federal employees have sacrificed now and they should be given time to share in the sacrifices all of us should. i'm also disappointed that this bill cuts money for prevention, which is so important to the health of all americans. mr. speaker, i believ that an ounce of prevention is worth a poun of cure. thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: who seeks recognition? the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: i reserve the balancof my time. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves. the gentlen from michigan. mr. levin: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan -- mr. camp: we're prepared to begin closing if you're ready. mr. hoyer: i think i have a go first. mr. camp: i yield the gentleman one minute. thspeaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. hoyer: i thank my friend the speaker, i'm glad he's in the chair. we have worked together because we understand what needs to be done to meet the crisis that confronts our country. all of us need to participate, not just our federal employees, but all of us. in the short-term, we need to do -- in the short-term, we need to do what this bill does. 160 million people will get an extra $1,000 that hopefully will help build our economy, create jobs, expand opportunity

for our people. the unemployed will make sure that they have that safety net critical for them and their families. the doctors will have a short period of time to have some confidence that they will be compensated to serve medicare patients over the next 10 months. the only people asked to pay for that, as i said before are federal employees. that's why i took this 20 minutes, to say to each and every one of us in this house first of all, federal employees ought not to be the piggy bank out of which you pretend we'll be able to pay the deficit. that's wrong. it's not been recommended by any of our groups. i've had the opportunity of working with mr. camp, who in my view is a very conscientious member of this body. i'm glad he's the leader. actually i wish mr. levin was the leader because he's of my party. but my party -- but since my

party is not in control, i'm glad mr. camp leads us, he's a reasonable perso ladies and gentlemen of this house, america must know that we all need to contribute. the federal employee has paid $60 billion over the last 24 months, over the next 10 years already, $60 billion. and this year will have their pay reduced from what the law requires another $30 billion. that's $90 billion. forget about this bill, forget about the highway bill, which says $44 billion in additional reduction and benefits $134 billion is on the table. it hasn't passed, but it's on the table. let us as conscientious members of this congress, as representatives of the people, come together and have a plan that does not require nickel

-dim diming federal employees nickel-diming doctors nickel-diming medicare patients and nickel-diming america. let us come together and do what needs to be done. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: how much time is left for mr. camp and myself. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan has two minutes remaining, the gentleman from michigan on the proponents' side has three and three quarter minutes remaining. mr. levin: thank you. i yield myself the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. levin: i think this has been a healthy discussion and i think all of us respect very much the positions that have been put forth. i think we need to look at where we came from. the main bill before the conference committee was the bill that passed on a partisan basis here in december. it essentially would have

countermanded the effort and continued mick growth through the payroll tax bill, it would have required ve inimical pay-fors. it would have thrtened the pay of 160 million people. that bill also would have cut drastically unemployment insurance, cutting unemployment insurance is not reform. it is not reform. people have worked for, these are people looking for work who can't find it. we have worked so hard so hard to defend and to preserve the lifeline of unemployment insurance as best we could and essentially it does preserve in

major ways through the rest of this year and for seniors, we have made sure that health care , their physician, is available. with respect to differing points of view, i strongly urge support for this conference committee report. it said it isn't perfect an it's often said no bill is perfect, but we have worked to preserve the basic ingredients to preserve economic growth and preserve the unemployment insurance so critical for the unemployed of this country. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan, mr. camp. mr. camp: i yield myself such ti as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. camp: this conference report extends the payroll tax cut to 160 million working

americans, it prevents a cut in physician payments through the end of the year so that seniors can get the medical treatment an care that they need under medicare. this represents about $800 for working families in america over the next 10 months, but most importantly this agreement includes no job-killing tax hikes to pay for more government spending. the deficit spending on unemployment stops with this legislation, this agreement firmly establishes that extensions of unemployment benefits must be paid for. this includes this legislation -- this legislation also includes some of the most significant reforms to unemployment since the 1930's, job search requirements, drug screening and testing, reemployment programs, these are all critical for work readiness and for reemployment and these are essential reforms to the unemployment system. we also re-authorize temp assistance for needy families with this legislation but while

doing so, make reforms to that program as well by closing the loophole that allowed welfare funds to be accessed a.t.m.'s and in strip clubs liquor stores, and casinos. this bill, the government spening in this bill is fully offset. reductions to obamacare pay for more than half of the health spending in this legislation. and this also restores to the congress a process datg back to our founding fathers. they knew that at times government would be divided and that we couldn't always agree. this agreement was debated in public using that time-honored process and with that, i urge all members to support this bipartisan house-senate >> michigan congressman fred upton, chairman of the energy and commerce committee talks about key fiscal issues before congress. the president to attack fiscal year 2013 budget request the

keystone extension and the recent debate over the contraception policy. "newsmakers" sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c- span. >> republican presidential candidate newt gingrich had a campaign rally in peachtree georgia at the atlanta regional airport. he is campaigning in georgia which is holding its republican primary on super tuesday, march 6, with nine other states. 76 delegates are at stake in georgia's election. this is about 40 minutes.

>> how are you all? i live in georgia and i am thrilled to welcome everyone to georgia. i am thrilled to be here because i love running the race here. hopefully, i will be back. it is a great race. it is a beautiful city and you are also hospital bold. -- hospital. it is my honor to introduce misses gingrich. i want to say a few words about her. obviously, i know her very well. i am proud to say, to watch her on the campaign trail has been just absolutely wonderful.

she has put in more hours than you can manchin. she has not complained. she has cut and up every day and smiled, and she does now. she is always smiling and she has been such a supporter of for my father in this campaign. i am thrilled, not only because she is in the campaign, but she is also a new york times best- seller. if you have not seen it, go get her book. i think most importantly, i want everyone to know that she is really behind my father. she is with my father every day. she works incredibly hard. i am thrilled to be here tonight. please give her a very warm welcome. [applause] >> thank you.

it is great to be back this evening. it is great to see you all. it is wonderful to be back in georgia. it being home in georgia always makes newt very happy. we are thrilled to be here. [applause] some of you know, newt went to high school in columbus. he graduated from emory. taught at west georgia. he represented georgia in congress for 20 years. [applause] starting as a volunteer in 1960, he help grow the gop into the great party it is today. [applause] we are so proud of our many volunteers to have been working diligently at our headquarters in atlanta and brought the state of georgia. we are grateful for your

support. newt and i are engaged in this race because we believe america is at a crossroads. we care deeply about the future of this country. and there are only a few months left before the most important election in our lifetime. our only opponent is barack obama and we are committed to removing him from the white house. [applause] newt is the only candidate with the experience and knowledge necessary to rebuild the america we love. [applause] he has a successful national record of creating jobs, balancing the budget, and reforming the government. today, we need a leader who can clearly articulate why it

president obama and his policies are wrong for america. [applause] we need a leader who understands that we must contain and defeat our enemies. we need a leader with bold solutions to create a better future for all americans. [applause] i believe that leader is my husband. please welcome former speaker of the house and the next president of the united states newt gingrich. [cheers and applause]

>> first of all, i want to thank all of you for the warm welcome. i want to thank jacki. jackie and our two grand children, i am grateful they are here. some of you may have seen her they were on hand at the -- hannity last night. i have to say they have also been doing more than their fair share. i am grateful for their leadership. i am surrounded by authors. she also has a two books out and writes a weekly column. we have all of these talented people that we are hanging out with. i want them to stay up here for a couple of reasons. they have been my debate coaches.

maggie is my smile coach working on me to smile more. robert who is a chess player has been trying to get me to be shorter and clear in my answers. you can imagine they were both disappointed to see the chicken show up tonight. [cheers and applause] they have been looking forward to having mitt romney and rick santorum come to georgia and have a debate. it was disappointing when they decided they did not want to run the risk anymore of being outside of their advertising. let me tell you, if you are afraid to debate newt gingrich, you sure can not debate to barack obama. [cheers and applause]

i am going to ask them to reconsider and come to georgia. it will be just fine. [laughter] we will be hospitable. [laughter] frankly, there is something wrong when somebody tries to buy their way to the presidency with a series of negative ads and will not stand up out in the open and defend it. [applause] this is the most important election in our lifetime because barack obama is the most radical, the most destructive, the most and constitutional president we have ever had. [cheers and applause] when he appoints czars without senate confirmation, he is operating outside of the constitution. when he appoints recess

appointments and there is no recess, it is a clear and direct violation to the constitution. [applause] when he declares war on religious liberty, he is clearly violated the first amendment of the constitution. [cheers and applause] when he produces a budget that cripples the military of the united states, he is violating his duties as commander in chief. [cheers and applause] we have to confront how really important this decision is. not just obama, but the bureaucracy, the judges, the laws, all of the things that have america on the wrong track.

the reason we decided to wrong is because we thought it was obama but to win a victory based on principle. to win a victory based on solutions. to have the strength of the american people to say to the u.s. congress, we expect you to actually work with the new president. we expect you to actually get things done, not just to bicker and fight all of the time. [cheers and applause] and let my competitors, i have twice participated in very large agenda elections. in 1980 i was working with ronald reagan. we developed the capitol steps. we came together. he was a clear underdog. we all came together on the capitol steps with gov. reagan. we pledged five major changes. we 16 u.s. senate seats.

we stood for something. -- week 16 u.s. senate seats. we created 16 million new jobs. -- we won 6 new u.s. senate seats. you might remember we had a problem with gasoline back then. we were rationing it. i had a friend who was 13 thathe was sent out back every morning with a screwdriver. he had to make sure that the car that needed gas had the right license number. i will tell you the difference between liberal and conservative. when the conservative here the government has a regulation so stupid we are teaching 13 year olds how to break the rules, the conservative says drop the rule. the liberal says that is why we

need a license plate police at every gas station. [applause] in 1994 we developed a positive agenda. we had the largest one party increase in american history. we won control for the first time in 40 years. we actually kept our word increase in american history. we won control for the first time in 40 years. we actually kept our word and voted on every item in the contract in the first 93 days. the result was the american people thought we were serious. they thought they could trust us. in 1996, we became the first reelected house republican majority since 1928. [applause] now, i tell you that because i want to run a principled campaign this fall, a very -- i

want to run a campaign of a very large ideas. i want to show that over here is obama, over here is gingrich. i want to run with a team that commits that if they get elected and control the house and senate, they will stay in session on january 3. by the time i am sworn in on january 20, we will have repealed obamacare -- [cheers and applause] we will have repealed the dodd- frank bill that is killing small banks. we will have repealed sarbanes oxley that is -- on january 20 within a couple of hours after being sworn in, we will already be signing three major bills starting to get rid of the obama administration's imprint on the one. [cheers and applause]

we will go further than that. on the first day i am president i will sign a series of executive orders. all of them will have been published by the first. the election will be about whether or not to do it. the first executive order will abolish all of the white house czars as of that moment. [cheers and applause] i will also sign an executive order implementing the keystone pipeline as of that date. [cheers and applause] i want to say to our friends in canada, you do not need a partnership with china.

you'll have a new president and agreement. you will be able to build the pipeline right through the united states. [applause] on that very first day, i want to sign an executive order that moves the american embassy to jerusalem and recognizes israel's right to exist. [cheers and applause] we want to run an american campaign. i am running for the republican nomination. the issues i want to run on our american issues. we want to appeal to every american of every background of every ethnic group in every neighborhood. i will give you a couple of examples. this is the biggest thing that makes me different than my friends running for the nomination. i know how to do large things in washington. i am prepared to be very bold in defining what we need to get done. i know how to get bold things done. i did it working with reagan in

the 1980's and i did it as speaker of the house in the 1990's with clinton. it is not talking points are what my consultants gave me. is not a random idea. i know this can be done. i am prepared to commit to you that we will get it done if you help us get to the nomination. [cheers and applause] we collectively as the american people should demand that washington achieve. the first and most direct relates to national security. look at the miss in the middle east. look at the unreliability of our allies. we need an american energy policy to be independent from the middle east. [cheers and applause]

we need an american energy policy so powerful and so compelling that no future president will ever again bowed to a saudi kingdom. [cheers and applause] -- bow to a saudi king. we know this is possible. in north dakota there is an explosion of oil available. it is on private land and the liberals cannot stop them from developing it. they believe they have 25 times -- not 25%, 2500% more oil reserves in north dakota than they thought they had 20 years ago. the current unemployment rate is 3.5%. that is actually a mistake. there are 16,000 to 18,000 jobs

available. they have a mismatch that is really a training problem, not an unemployment problem. revenue from oils have gone up so fast. they have had seven straight tax cuts. they have a multi-billion dollar rainy day fund. you would think that barack obama would look at north dakota and would say, wow. we could create jobs. we could create energy. we could strengthen the national security. we could get royalties to the federal government. no. this administration is actively trying to slow down and make expense of the development of oil, even on private land. the u.s. attorney for north dakota, obama's appointee, he filed a lawsuit over a eight migratory birds.

they have not filed any lawsuits over wind that kills thousands of birds a year. that is a green energy which obama likes. that is a necessary price of being green. they went out of the way selectively. a judge threw it out recently. this is the kind of selective violation of the rule of law. this is as bad as the solyndra case. you had an attorney selectively applying the law to undermine a solution that the american people want but barack obama is opposed to. the secretary of interior announced he wants to establish new federal rules that will slow down and maybe even stop the development of natural gas and shale which is an enormous success story. has the liberals going crazy because it turns out we do not have peak energy. we now have over 100 years'

supply of natural gas. we are about to prove the same thing with oil. we are going to prove there is so much oil available in the united states that it is absurd to talk about pete will. why is this happening? this is the heart of the conservatism i believe in. this is happening because science and technology and on her premiership are finding new and better solutions. -- entrepreneurship is finding new and better solutions. they say we have to regulate the present. it is exactly the wrong answer. it is an american answer. here is a side effect. as president, i will open up offshore development of oil and gas. i will open up federal lands to develop will and gas. [cheers and applause] -- develop oil and gas. this energy policy will have four goals.

one, to make as independent to the middle east and venezuela so we can say to dictators, we do not care what you think. we are not going to tolerate you funding terrorism. [cheers and applause] two, the development of royalties on federal property will be a major source of revenue without a tax increase. the leading developer in north dakota believes we could earn 18 trillion dollars in royalties from oil and gas. that is more than the current entire debt. although if obama keeps going that will not be true. three, i want the whole country to resemble north dakota. let's get back down to about 4% unemployment. that is where it was when i left office. let's put americans back to work. energy does that. [cheers and applause]

there is a fourth virtue out of the energy program. you can see all of this if you go to newt.org. it goes back to something we did in 2008 called "drill here who, drill now, pay less." my goal is to get back to $2.50 a gallon gasoline so people can afford to drive. [cheers and applause] now, the news media will be skeptical. the liberals will be apoplectic. the establishment will be nervous. let me remind you of some facts. when i was speaker of the house, the average price of gasoline was $1.13 a gallon.

when obama was sworn in the price of gasoline was $1.89. the idea of setting some more as a goal of $2.50 a gallon by producing so much petroleum in the united states the demand is not as big as supply. remember there are two ways to do this. the liberals are trying to drive down demand because they are convinced you cannot have supplied. they're trying to make sure you do not get any supply by making it impossible to go out and develop fields. i want to open up the field dramatically expanding the supply of american petroleum. my prediction is that with a gingrich presidency, by 2020 we will be the largest producer of petroleum in the world bigger than saudi arabia and russia. [cheers and applause] once you accept the reality. in california there is an

estimated 80 billion barrels of oil. there are all sorts of places that liberals do not want to talk about. it destroys their reason for controlling our lives. i would add to the energy program to abolish the cafe standards to allow the auto companies to actually produce the car you want to drive. let me point out. when they made cars smaller and smaller, americans bought trucks. this drives the liberals crazy. how dare we go out and buy vehicles bigger than their bicycle? i am trying to get across a simple principle. i will let you judge of this is right. i have no problem against people who -- the volt is an interesting car. this is obama's idea of populism. he wants to increase the amount given to every volt buyer to 10,000 dollars. here is my point. you cannot put a gun rack in a vault. -- volt. [cheers and applause] let's be clear what this

election is all about. we believe in the right to bear arms, and we like to bear the arms in our tracks. [cheers and applause] -- in our trucks. an energy program is a major step toward full employment. if you go to newt.org, you will see tax policies that give us to full employment. i believe just as ronald reagan created 16 million new jobs in his presidency, i believe with your help of we can get a congress willing to work with us we can create full employment in america.

our goal is to bring people back into the workforce and to get down to 4% real unemployment with everybody who wants a job getting a job. there are practical things we can do to achieve that. these are big changes. there are two other places i want to talk about with big changes. we need a president who is committed to protecting religious liberty in the united states, period. [cheers and applause] we have had the judges for 60 years trying to drive god out of the american public life. we have had bureaucrats, state legislatures. there is a clear conflict under way. it is between secular bigots who will do everything they can to undermine, we can, and cripple religion. the vast majority of americans

to believe our rights come from our creator. this is the heart of what i want to debate obama. i do not believe he can defend his radical views. i do not believe he can explain. let me give you two examples. the declaration of independence says "we are in doubt by our creator with certain unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." this says two things to me. the first is, every school should teach in the declaration of independence and should explain with the word "our creator" meant. the founding fathers set our rights are inalienable. that means no president, no

judge, no bureaucrat can come between you and god. that is why it obama is a profound assault on the american liberty in which he is trying to do. one of the first executive orders -- this will be a work in progress. we will want to study the administration right up to the last day. one of the executive orders will in one sweeping order repeal every anti religious act of the obama administration as of the 20th. [cheers and applause] the second example of that i urge all of you some day to read lincoln's second inaugural address. march of 1865. shaped by four years of work, 620,000 dead americans -- more than all of our other wars combined. oppressed with the feeling of his own heart that he bore that pain. he writes an inaugural of 702 words that mentions god 14 times and has two quotes from the bible.

i say to my liberal friends. how would you explain america and its get 14 references to god and two quotes in the bible in one speech? how can you possibly believe that in real america can be a secular place in which god has no dignity. in which nothing can be mentioned in public. in which only secular bureaucrats and secular judges define who we are. that is not america. that is an alien country which we will defeat this fall. [cheers and applause] finally, we need to debate this president on his utterly and

totally irresponsible approach to national security. no president in my lifetime has as methodically undermined our defense system as barack obama. his budget proposals are devastating. it is inconceivable that we will be safe if he is allowed to carry out his plans. i wear this pin. this is george washington's commander in chief flag from valley forge. it flew in front of his headquarters during the revolutionary war. i wear it to remind myself and to remind you that when they wrote the constitution, the man presiding over that meeting had spent eight years in the field as the commanding general. when they wrote the president as commander in chief, they had a pretty good idea what commander in chief meant.

barack obama is derelict in his duties as commander in chief. he is putting his ideology ahead of defending the country. [cheers and applause] now, it is great to be home. i believe i have carried the county in every election, including the two that i lost. i felt really good coming back and really get to being here in peachtree city. i will tell you, i remember one election in 1990 that was so close that at 2:00 in the morning i was still behind running for reelection. ran the evans who was my chairman called and said, do not

worry about it. there are four large fayette county precincts still out. when they come in you will win by about 2300 votes. he was off by about 40 votes. there is a special warm place for fayette county. i won by two votes. i am close -- i am used to close campaigns. this has been a little bit like riding a roller coaster. in fact, i tell people it is a little bit like the roller coaster at disney that is in the dark. have you ever ridden space mountain? you do not know where you are or where you are going. the primary in georgia is very important. i need your help. nobody should take it for granted. [cheers and applause] this is a wide open race. the establishment has decided

that we were inevitably going to nominate mitt romney. wall street had decided that we were inevitably going to nominate mitt romney. that is now wide open. i think it is pretty hard to argue over the past few days he is mr. inevitable. we were there this summer when tim plenty came out of nowhere. we were there when michelle bachman came out of nowhere. my good friend herman cain who will be campaigning with me tomorrow came out of nowhere. [cheers and applause] my good friend rick perry came out of nowhere. we just kept trotting along. we will see in the next few weeks how mr. rick santorum does. the fact is, i am the only candidate in this race who has stood nose-to-nose with

presidents of both parties and not flinched. i am the only candidate in this race -- [cheers and applause] -- i was against tax increases when democrats were doing it, and i was against it when republicans were doing it. i did not flinch. i was the only one that put together large national elections that changed the country. past the first tax cut in 16 years, and the largest capital gains tax cut in history when unemployment rate dropped to 4.2%. with that we got the 1997 balanced budget act and it was balanced for four consecutive

years for the only time in your lifetime. [cheers and applause] with your help, if you will go back home and put this on facebook and tweet it and send out e-mails and call your friends. maybe in an old fashioned way actually see people, make sure they vote. with your help we will win the primary. that is a big piece of winning super tuesday. if we win super tuesday, we are back in the game. we will move back toward front- runner status with your help. thank you, and good luck and god bless you. [cheers and applause] ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> tomorrow, grover norquist

discovers discusses the tax proposals in the ministrations to the 13 tax request. the center for american progress reviews and the white house's proposed budget. and a presidential historian from -- george washington university examines the effect of unemployment numbers on a campaign. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c- span. >> now, peter orszag, the former budget director of president obama speaking at the executive club in chicago on the u.s. economic outlook. he looks ahead to the coming year. this is about 55 minutes. it is a huge pleasure to be back in chicago that happens to be my favorite american city.

[applause] a round of applause for that. it is linked to very much to the financial times. thank you very much for having me. it is my great honor to introduce the man that president barack obama called his propeller haead. -- head. it was a funny kind of complement. i am sure that you all agree that it is not an aspersion on his good looks. instead, it all makes sense when you realize that the propeller is inside his agile and compendious brain. it spins around very fast indeed. this man matched equations with larry summs and the white

house. he has the resume -- the fantastic hamilton project at the brookings institution. director of the congressional budget office. president obama's budget director, and the head of global banking data citigrou -- at citigroup. there was ambition and scope that he brought to all of those jobs. he is one of the nation's leading experts on the budget and one of the leading experts on the microeconomics of health care. if you want to know how to bend the cost curve on your rising health insurance costs, he is the man to talk to. peter is a self-confessed geek. his public life is not something you can say about many geeks. many economists will bludgeon you with theories and numbers. when i read peter's columns they connect the dots to a

pattern that i realize i should have known was there but i did not see it until he showed it to me. please welcome me in the -- help me in welcoming peter orszag. [applause] >> thank you, robin. thank you for joining us this afternoon, i am delighted to be here with you. i was like to talk to you about a few overarching things that are affecting the u.s. economy. i hope to use an empirical basis to connect some dots. even when i tried to be empirical, the world does not always turn out as i expect. the most compelling affect of that is after having been confirmed in record time as the director of office and management and budget, assembling talked advisers to

join me, i almost said the white house on fire since the war of 1812 -- on fire for the first time since the war of 1812. imagine this, it is a labyrinth in quite draftee. i was working the first weekend in office. it was cold and no way to adjust the thermostat. so i noticed there was, in the llout barrette office, a fireplace in which there was a fire screen at the next to it were some fire tools. and next to that, some logs. that suggested an operational fireplace. [laughter] being empirical, i decided t test the proposition. i made sure that the smoke would go up the chimney, the experiment worked perfectly.

i moved the logs intohe fireplace and i thought life was looking grand. the room is warming up nicely, five minutes and, i am getting work done. the fire alarm goes off. the secret service is clear in the hallways and somewhat was surprised someone was telling a four letter word and it did not come from rahm emanuel. [laughter] i tried to tell them that there was a fire burning in my fireplace. they say, don't worry about it please evacuate. there is an electrical fire on the fifth floor. the to the coffee shop across the street. the secret service came to collect me because i was the culprit. about five years earlier unbeknownst to the first secret service agent, another part had capped the chimney as a security precaution.

once it got to the top, and had nowhere to go except into a fifth floor conference room. my phone rings and i got a phone call from my mother that said, i am so proud of you, you are on television. [laughter] i say, they don't have the sound don, do they? hopefully what i am about to talk to you about doesn't have such dire consequences as evacuating an entire white house complex my first weekend in office. we are at a very rare moment in the u.s. economic history. it is extraordinarily rare for an underlying tectonic plate shift to be affecting the economy at the same time that you have an ovlay of a financial crisis.

the only time that has happened in the last century was duri the great depression when the economy was evolving from agriculture to manufacturing. that was a tectonic plate shift, and we had an overlay of financial crisis. it is an extraordinarily rare occurrence and we are living through it right now. the underlying tectonic plate shift can be expressed in lots of different ways. the way i like to look at it one of the first thing is taught in macroeconomics is that the share of national and come that a cruise -- income that accrues -- it looks like it is going down. the reason is happening, we are living through a dramatic change in terms of a globalized labour market or increasingly globalized labour market. there are lots of estimates, but basically, effectively, the labor supply has doubled to

quadrupled at the same time the global capital supply has not. the result of that shift is a downward trajectory and labour's share of national income. if you want to understand some of the frustration that people are clearly expressing, one way of looking at that is that if the labour share had been constant instead of declining labor would be earning $500 billion-$750 billion a year greater. you have a lot of frustration

but got a lot of policy prescription to address it. the manifestation again, one of them is the declining labor share. the other is stagnant, real wages for many american workers. this chart shows you what is happening to the worker at the fiftieth percentile, right in the middle of the wage distribution of the united states. the red line shows you that those working full time year round, their earnings have been flat. once you include the people that don't have full-time work on the blue line, if anything there has been some decline. it has been shown in family income as well. the bottom line is for married couples right at the fiftieth percentile where there is only

one spouse working. and not surprisingly, given earnings have been flat, our earnings distribution family income has been flat if there is only one worker. the reason that we have had some modest uplifted median income, the top line, is solely because it is increasingly likely that both spouses work. that is the underlying tectonics' plates shifted being driven not only by technological change that we can discuss in addition, but transportation costs and a globalized labor pool that is causing a significt shift. i also mentioned that to date, it has affected those up to the seventy fifth percentile disproportionately. i strongly suspect that it is reaching out further into the income distribution.

anything that can be digitized is subject to the same force. it opens up a series of other occupations and skill sets relati to the effects that were primarily felt in the past. what about the overlay of the surface waves we have been livi through? one way of looking at that is to examine total private-sector borrowing. in the united states, it reached a 30% of gdp in 2007. in 2009, is m wasinus -- it was minus 15% of gdp. it would count as economic trauma under any definition of that term. the result has been, as with most experiencesith other countries have suggested a sluggish recovery. it is fundamentally different to a downturn caused by excess

inventory, the central bank tries towring inflation out of the economy -- trying to wring inflation out of the economy. is hard slog. it takes time to deleverage. it has the housing sector feeding on to a weak economy and back on the housing sector. it takes time to work its way through. that is what has been happening in the united states. this is the share of the population that are working. you can see it falls off a cliff at the same time the total private sector borrowing, the financial crisis, hit. the key thing, it has not come back. it has remained at a subdued level for the past two or three

years. this is fundamentally different from other recent downturns. we're the red line there. the one at falls that doesn't go anyere. thother recent downturns are of less severe in the collapse of employment to population ratio or the share of t population working, and they tend to come back more quickly. i would also note that every single formal macro econometric model, from the federal reserve, private sector forecasts, they all got this wrong. in t beginning of 2009 they were suggesting a rapid and more v-shaped recovery. despite the fact that a financiacrisis is different from other downturns. for example, for this year if you look at the forecast from the congressional budget office in january 2009, they

were projecting an unemployment rate for 2012 of 6.8%. anyone willing to take that bet with me has to take the other side of if we are going to hit 6.8% or not this year. fundamentally, the nature of this l-shaped recovery was absent from every single formal model. the only people that got that right were basing their analysis on history or some other process, not a formal model. the lesson i take away from that, there are lots of people that will walk around with very precise estimates of a fundamentally on certain things and you have to pay attention to that -- of fundamentally uncertain things, and you have to pay attention to that uncertainty. frankly, we can still do -- i will give you one example. there is a lot of debate over

whether the initial 2009 stimulus should have been a lot bigger. i did not think that would be legislatively possible but let's say that congress would have voted for -- i wish i could tell you it would have been the case. but a $1.20 trillion stimulus. this is a very temporary problem, it would have all been delivered in 2009 and early 2010. 2010 would be stronger, but 2011 and 2012 would not have been that much different at all. what it misses is the time dimension. it would be far better to tie things to the unemployment ratios of that they remain in force as long as the economy is weak. there is false precision at the end of this year, that support

will no longer be necessary. where are we in this hard slog? we are part of the way through it but not all of the way through it. the only debate is if we are mostly or halfway through. this is one way of looking at that phenomenon. the share of vacant homes, share of mes offered for sale that are vacant, it goes up following the financial crisis. it is on its way down, but we are depending on the estimates between 500,001 million more homes vacant and being offered for sale that under normal -- 500,000 and 1 million more homes vacant and being offered for sale than under normal conditions.

so there is a tectonics' shift and surface waves to the financial crisis. with regard to the latter, it is a simpler set of solutions. my solution would be more support for the economy now coupled with a deficit reduction that is enacted mal to take effect over time. -- enacted now to take effect over time. with an elevated the unemployment rate, debt rises quickly. combine it with a deficit reduction that takes us back with delay. the underlying tectonic plate shift by contrast is much harder to respond to. typically, what we argue is that what we need to do is more education and better more investment in infrastructure.

those will help, but this force is so powerful that we should not hold up the false hope that we will online dollar that. -- have to unwind all of that. let's look at what is possible there. it is often not noticed that we have had, up until those that were born in about 1950 or so, wind at our back, from reaching educional attainment. the rate of increase has slowed dramatically. those born 1950 and after educational attainment has risen, but not as fast as earlier generations. you can see earlier in this slide that breaks it down into different time periods between

1940 and 1960, it is mixing that a bit. the supply of college graduates is growing very rapidly. this is for the actual years sorry. today, there is much less rapid growth. there is still an increase in college enrollment, but it is rising at a slower rate than previously. that diminishes the underlying economic productivity growth. another effect of it is to raise the premium for college workers. since supply is growing less rapidly and at the same time we have at the technological change in the underlying tectonics' played shift at raises the demand for college workers, you have a right not and how much college-educated workers are relative to those --

you have a run up on how much college-educated workers earn relative to those that are not. how do we get back on the path of rapid educational attainment? the answer will involve a lot more attention on lower and middle income and romans and completion of college. -- enrollment and completion of college. that is where the most improvement is possible in the lost 20%-40% of the population. there is a very steep gradient to college enrollment by income. some people argue that that is because low-income kids are not prepared for college, and there is a significant component to which college preparation does vary by family income. one of the things that we should

be disturbed by, take a look at this chart. this shows you what your scores were like in a standardized test in eighth grade and what the subsequent college enrollment rate was by family income. what i want to draw attention to, the lowest performers from high-income famies are enrolling in college at the same rate as the highest performers from low-income families. that is a problem. we need to make sure that the highest performers regardless of income, get the opportunity to go to college. it will help us, it is fair, and it will get us to rapidly rising educational attainment overtime. all of these forces have led to what is widely described and widely known as a rise of income inequality in the united states where the sluggish growth in the middle has occured at the

same time as very rapid growth for the top 10% and top 1% over time in the united states. and the tax code has offset part of that, but not much of it. the policy discussion often says, what are we going to do about this rather than other ucation. it will take time to move kids through college, community colleges, it plays out over a law period -- along period of time. with regard to the tax code, it works quickly, but we should not expect it to be a full solution here or anywhere close to a full solution. most of the increase that has occurred has occurred with regard to pretax income.

there is no plausible set of changes one can put into play where you can take this chart and offset any significant share of that over time. e tax code can help a bit, but it is not a full solution. we should t hold out false hope that this is going to change instantaneously. what are the implications of all this? there are some implications with regard to differential spending patterns. those of you in retail have undoubtedly noticed that high- end retail has been doing better than mid-tier and a discount retail over the past couple of years. another implication has to do with income mobility. we like to pretend there is a hugemount of mobility from one generation to the next in the united states. it haseen more of a myth that

we would like to believe. what a way of looking at that is this chart. if you were born into the bottom 20% of income distribution in the united states, there is a 40% chance that as an adult you are still in the lowest percentage of the distribution and only a 6% chance that you are in the talks. similarly, there is a 40% chance you will remain there as an adult and only a 9% chance that you decline to the bottom 20% as an adult. is this related to, or is there any implication of changes of the income inequality for income mobility? they're essentially different topics. as income inequality goes up,

mobility gs down. there has been recent controversy over this. this is a chart from alan krueger of the council of economic and visor put up, suggesting exactly this. the question becomes, is this related to or is there any implication of changes in income inequality for income ability because those are conceptuly different topics. there are some suggestedthere has been recentas income inequality rises, mobility declines. that may be another implication. i think perhaps the most challenging of all the implications has to do with or political economy, which is where i am going to end. there has been a fundamental change in the congress that has occurred at exactly the same gone up. i do not think these two are unrelated. let me try to illustrate first congress. this chart shows you the red distribution is republicans in the house. the blue is democrats. the key thing i want you to

focus on is in the late 1960's, there was a significant amount of overlap. the most liberal republicans and the most conservative democrats were voting together on a significant share of things. the model most of us have an hour had about health policy should be made reflects that. -- we have in our head about policy should be made it reflects that. the middle is disappearing. starting in the late 1960's towards the late 1980's, it is dwindling. we are effectively two different parties united by a single congress with almost no moderate. especially since melissa is not there anymore. she was that one person sitting there inhe middle. with far-reaching consequences. why is this happening? the punditry in what i call this corridor between new york in d.c. -- new york and d.c.

suggest is proportionally that ideas gerrymandering. we have carved dick drea -- we a car to districts into spaghetti areas. this causes a split. most of the political science literature suggests that is a very small part of what has been happening. ifou can see that. i thought i had a slight, but i do not. if you can examine what has happened in the house versus the senate. the senate has gone up as much as the house. we have not redistricted st. -- state lines. that raises questions. the question that becomes, if it is not gerrymandering, it is it annside development phenomena or does it reflect that? if it were gerrymandering, we would know how to fix it. if it is an inside the beltway

phenomenon, we know how to fix it. if it is reflecting us much more difficult. there is a heated debate about whether it is side the beltway or outside. the best evidence says that there are 17 states with senato from different parties in the beltway. they're representing the same constituents in different ways. members of congress and centers have the flexibility or the operational room to polarize them selves. similarly, when a district splits parties, that a member of congress represents the same constituent in much different ways. if that is what were happening you would expect the majority of people, when asked if they are -- their member of congress is now too extreme, a larger share of them would say yes.

that has not happened. if it were an insight development phenomenon, you would expect state legislatures to be polarizing less than the house of representatives. actually, two-thirds of the state legislatures have polarized more. all of which suggests to me a significant component of this is hot. we are becoming more polarized as a people. the reason for that, i belie is that we are increasingly bothirtually and physically surrouing ourselves with like- minded people. one the most compelling pieces of findings or evidence from social psychology is, if you put like-minded people together, the group becomes more extreme than any given individual when they started. because the people want to prove that that -- that they are the true member of the tribe. you make yourself reenforcg comments.

virtually, this is happening to us now because we can choose our own that news sources. we only used to say newspapers. watch the evening news. now, we can select our own reality. my favorite example of that -- i have a twitter account. i do not tweet, but i follow pele. about two or three months ago, i noticed that one of the people i was following was saying a lot of things i did not like. mostly because he was criticizing me. [laughter] i responded by un-following him. i realized he did not exist. i should check to make sure he is still out there saying the same things. he no longer occupied my brain space. that point of view was no longer present in my thought blago. similarly, physically, to a degree that i think it has been under appreciated, we are segregating ourselves by political parties. republicans are moving into their neighborhoods and democrats are doing the same.

it is not only news and virtual reality, but our neighbors are increasingly of like-minded perspectives. let me show you a map that demonstrates that. this is a county -- this is county data. one way of measuring whether the county is polarized is to examine whether it goes hard one way or the other in an election. this is from the mid-'70s. the black or gray areas are landslides for the democratic or republican candidate respectively. there is nothing special about the carder race in 1976. -- jimmy carter race in 1976. the key thing is, look at the best part of a country that is next. it is whit it does not landslide one way or the other. that is the '70s. that is today.

applewhite is disappearing. there is retake the white is disappearing. a 30% of the population lives in more polarizing the states. you have to wi presidential elections by appealing to those increasingly rare mixed counties. therefore, run to the middle if you will. i am no longer for that you can actually legislate there because the middle is gone. if that is right and it reflects us, we are going to face a central dilemma in our political economy. you run to the middle of the national election, y cannot legislate there. the only way you can at this point in any meaningful way is by dominating the political system, winning the white house the house, and 60 votes in the senate, and legislating based on one part of that distribution. if you do so in those rare circumstances, you will generate some much backlash that

that dominance will then disappear. we will have a significant time of gridlock and divided government. historically, that would not be that damaging because we still have enough overlap that you can legislate despite divided government. the key changes with the disappearance of moderates -- id is not clear to me that divided government lead to anything other than clear -- gridlock, which can be damaging. i will close with this thought. at about this time next year we are going to face fiscal trifecta that will make last summer look like child's play. that debt limit -- we will be bumping up against it once again. the tax cut from 2001 and 2003 will have expired or are scheduled to expire in full at the end of this year.

at the same time, we have very large scheduled cuts in both the defense and non-defense spending, beyond what anyone believes as possible. they're all happening at the same time. that, historically, would have been a moment, because you have so many things that have to happen for big legislation to occur. instead of dealing with those rather unpleasant topics might as well put some lipstick on it ango bigger on something. i suspect, however, that if we wind up with a divided government scenario that january, the prospects for that big legislation are much smaller than they should be because of the disappearance of moderates. again, thank you for having me. i am delighted to beere. melissa told me not to end on a

bad note. [laughter] t me say three things think can help alleviate some of these trends. the first is, the evidence is overwhelming that is causing the polarization. it is not being exposed to f view. i think we all, as citizens, 0 it to the country to go out of our way -- owe it to theountry to expose ourselves to things we would not normally agree with. the second thing that i think corporate leaders, in particular, can do to try to provide me relief on the tecton plate shift -- i do not want to hold out anything. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

there are two things i think will help on underlying tectonic plate shifts. i mentioned education. when we mention that we typically talk about the institutions of higher education that are the crown jewels. i am particularly encouraged by what chicago is doing to try to unite local employers and local community colleges. wouldn't it be great -- this is already happening to some degree. wouldn't it be great if the local employers said these are the skills we need, and kids going to community college knew if they were doing a good job studying in those areas, they either were guaranteed or had a high probability of getting a good job? the firms get training and a skilled workforce the workers get -- or the community college students get higher degree of reliance that what they are studying is going to matter. this is exactly what chicago is

doing. i think a lot of people will be watching carefully how that turns out. it is exactly the kind of thing that has to be happening between the business community and local community colleges across the country. [applause] then the final thing has to do with pushing even harder for value in health care. the reason is, most american workers do not realize how much their take-home pay is being reduced by the health care costs that businesses face. if the trajectory on health care costs were improved, take-home pay could rise more as a result. over the next five or 10 years we are on the cusp of a significant resolution possible in health care that involves information technology. it involves changing the way

that providers are incentivize. i think united health and other insurers are doing a lot of useful things in moving towards a bundle payment and episodic payment and other methodologies that move away from just paying for each particular service. that whole effort will not succeed unless the people who are in charge of collecting health plans and providing health care for their workers, thats you, are forcefully behind it. i would urge you to read things and be exposed to things from a different point of view. continue to press what chicago isoing on community colleges and put your weight behind the effort to get more value out of health care because that will ultimately prove beneficial, not only for you, but for our -- for the workers across america. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you very much for a fascinating speech. we of arctic up some interesting questions. we have about 50 minutes to get through them. -- we already have some interesting questions. we have about 15 minutes to get through them. how much more will inequality wise, how much longer can the medium work? if y're a's business -- what can we do to face that world? >> i think it depends on what you mean by inequality. i suspect these forces have widened the gap between the 90th percentile and the 50th percentile. on a going forward basis that is not going to continue. the 90th percentile is going to be affected the forces of

globalization and technological change. it has not been as prevalent over the past few decades. inequality will not continue rising there. it is in the 99.9%. the 90/50 ratio -- what is happening to the college graduate versus someone right in the middle of our earnings distribution. i am not sure it is going to continue. a professor like to ask his students, who do they think will earn more in the next 20 years it qualified plumber or a run- of-the-mill engineer? he has been surprised to hear that often more than half of the students picked the plumber. to the extent that the engineer skills are easier to digitize,

that may not be wrong. >> i guess you would interpret that -- make yachts. that is what will be in demand. >> thinks that are delivered in person or that involve non- tradable services involving different -- involve a different dynamic thanhe triple. -- the tradable. >> i am one of these people who is affected by digitization. >> there are now data mining software that can do a better job at analysis then what used to be a team of ph.d. economists 10 or 50 years ago. it is not only journalists. [laughter] >> and oer thing you mentioned is, the falling labor share of the economy.

more is going to capital and less is going to labor. the upside is that profits must be strong. if that continues and there -- how can you get businesses to invest this huge amount of capital they have building up on their balance sheets? >> let us address that question. i think you are going to see investment -- there has been fair amount of growth in investment at the short end. the stuff that depreciate rapidly. in the could finance software, that has been growing the past couple of years. -- in equipment and software that has been growing the past couple of years. others have been hunkering down. the fact that ideas have been suggested me that -- the fact that it s happened that suggests that there is macroeconomics uncertaty.

of the world is an uncertain place right now. that would make complete sense that if you are being driven by a concern abt how the world is going to turn out, you make shorter-term investments because the cost of doing a longer-term one is larger. >> moving on to the budget issue. if the bush tax cuts on dividends and capital gains expired, the spending to sequester goes into effect. what does that do to the economy? what is your guess of what the outcome will be towards the end of the year? >> all of that will be something like a 4% of gdp fiscal contraction occurring at a time when i doubt the economyill be back on its feet.

that would not be good. some deal will have to be done. the challenge i have is, i do not see -- what i was mentioning about the congress. exactly how the deal happens i do not see. until the election and see how that turns out. no one wants an economy that is still not fully back on its feet to be hit with a fiscal contraction of 5% of gdp. that would be undesirable. >> they will have six weeks or something to do i do? is that possible? >> ice -- i would be willing to bet that in order to get deal done in a divided government scenario, you are going to need short-term extensions to purchase time for two months, as we have seen the congress to act when it cannot figure out how to

resolve things before deadlines. or, we are going to have to go over the cusp and have all of this stuff expire in order to force people together, which would be -- anyway. this time next year, there will be a lot of trauma one where or another. >> plenty to write about. [laughter] speaking of journalists, in a recent book an article -- it pour -- it portrays your role as the anti-stimulus man. what is your response? >> i am called an especially tragic figure. [laughter] there are a whole variety of traps that one can fall into in terms of missing important

distinctions. i have long been the savior of a couple of stimulus approaches. i just mentioned earlier in which you provide more stimulus now, but couple it with a long- term deficit reduction. i think that is the right policy response and the legislative strategy. the debate describing these articles actually was between that couple stimulus, should we do more stimulus in and couple it with long-term deficit reduction or should we do naked stimulus? somehow, suppo for couples stimulus is being presented as anti-stimulus, which i do not understand. that treatment is ofn a sense of missinghat very important point. i think coupled stimulus is the only thing that has a chance of making progress with the congress.

in addition, you have to remember, this is late 2009, we were coming up against another debt limit increase. the thought you would go out with a stimulus only bill and no long-term deficit reduction at all and then hope to raise the debt limit strike me as fanciful. not ev planetary. >> moving on. i am going to keep throwing the stute. where do you invest your personal wealth? [laughter] >> i am in diversified, low-cost index funds, which are mostly global, but are we to my home country. for no reason i think i can actually justify other then it feels safer. >> ok. [laughter] what are some ways to reduce

health-care costs in the u.s.? >> there are basically fourid approach to reducing health-care costs. you can reduce prices. reduce how much you pay doctors and hospitals. that is a very blunt and quickly effective tool, but it is only blunt. it is not a long-term solution. for example, if all you did w to ratchetown prices in medicare and did not address the underlying quantity of services provided, you would create access problems for mecare beneficiaries incentives to costs. if you cannot just bludgeon this through prices and have a long- term solution. that leads as to where the great debate is. it is a fault dete. how do you get a quantity of service provided? one approach -- these are presented as mutually exclusive. one approach is the consumer approach. people often do not have that

much skin in the game. if thehad more cautionary, they would be better consumers of health care. that can hel at the evidence from experiments the united health has done suggests there is a benefit in terms of reducing costs. the problem is, its not as big as you think. most of the consumer driven approach is to provideery- third-party insurance. most health-care costs are in a high-cost cases. for example, you take medicare and you rankin by costs, the top 25% account for 80% of the cost. that brings us to the other category, which could work in concert with more cost sharing.

this is focusing on provider value. in those high-cost cases, why is it that some providers deliver health care in this way and others deliver it in that way? that involves changing the information flow in terms of health information technology and the technological incentives. there are a whole series of changes. one thing that has not been remarked upon is, over the past couple of years, there has been a huge deceleration in health- care costs, both in this -- both in the commercial space and medicare. it is not just a blip on the reen. it has been going on for a few years. ideas have been disproportionately to medicare as it goes to e commercial space. -- it has been disproportionately medicare as it goes to the commercial space. i ask at has happened to medicare revenue. when i asked, i t was only up 2% year to date, which is dratically lower than in the past.

pulpsif you ask for the reason, the reason is the number of orientation -- the number of hospitalizations have been flat. the number of readmission people who are discharged -- 20% are readmitted within 30 days. that has gone way down because they have put in a screen. if you look like you were at high risk, they put a team of doctors on you and it is working. if you want to know what is wronwith the financial incentives in our health-care system, that program is working. no one would voluntarily want to be readmitted to the hospital. the person who runs the hospital cannot afford to continue it because the doctors and nurses are expensive. more importantly, the hospital loses the revenue on it.

there you go. >> see what i mean about him being good on health care? this is the last question, i am afraid. the eurozone debt crisis -- how is it affecting the u.s.? how concerned or do that it can do us harm? >> -- how concerned are you that it can do us harm? >> 25% of expos go to europe. exportare still a modest share of overall u.s. economic activity. when you put those two things together, the direct impact are not massive. at second linkage is if financial contagion in the european banking system infected the u.s. financial system that looks increasingly less likely. the european central bank has stepped in forcefully to backstop the financial

institutions, at least by providing three-year liquidity to them. also, because u.s. financial institutions have had enough time and are trying vigorously to insulate themselves as much as possible from that channel. your left with the third one which is the hardest to calibrate. it involves underlying uncertainty. there is hit to export. risk from in direct linkages through the financial system. more generally, we do not know exactly how this will turn out. i spent a lot of my time talking to ceos and you hear a lot of that. the macro uncertainty is causing you to pull back a little bit. one of the principal components of that uncertainty involves the european debt crisis. >> thank you very much. please be kind to us on your blue papers.

[laughter] [applause] >> thank you. [captioning performed by >> and giving them to businesses that create jobs here in the u.s. then representative kathy mcmorris rogers delivers the republican address in which she criticizes president obama's budget address for its proposed spending and tax increases. >> hello everybody.

i'm speaking to you today fromed boeing production facility in everett, washington. to be honest, part of why i came was to speed up quotes. this is also a great example how we can bring jobs and manufacturing back to america. the last few decades have not been productive enough for technology. it has made a lot of jobs obsolete. the result has been painful for a lot of families and a lot of communities. factories where people thought they would retire have left town. jobs that provided a decent living have been shipped overseas. the hard truth is, a lot of those jobs are not coming back. that does not mean we have to settle for a lesser future. i don't accept that idea. in america, there is always something we can do to create new jobs and new manufacturing and new security for the middle class. in america we don't give up, we get up.

right now that's exactly what we're doing. over the past 20 months, businesses have created 3.7 million new jobs. manufacturers have hiring for the first time since the 1990's. it is getting more expensive to do place -- business in places like china. and companies like boeing are realizing that even when we can't make things cheaper than china we can make things better. for boeing business now is booming. last year orders for commercial aircraft rose by more than 60%. to meet that demand, they have put thousands of folks to work all over the country and we want to see more of this. we need to make it as easy as we can for our companies to create more jobs in america, not overseas. that starts with our tax code. no company should get a tax break or out-sourcing jobs. instead tax breaks should go to manufacturers that set up shop

here at home. bigger tax breaks should go to high-tech manufacturers. and you should get help financing that new plant that new equipment or for training new workers if you open a plant here in the u.s. it is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas and start rewarding businesses that create jobs here in america. and congress should send me that kind of tax reform right away. another thing we are doing is to make it easier like companies like boeing to sell products all over the world. more exports mean more jobs. two years ago i set a goal of doubling u.s. exports. we're on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule. we have a big opportunity to build not only an economy that will help us succeed today but to help our kids and their kids succeed tomorrow. we need to strengthen american manufacturing. we need to invest in american-made skills for

american workers and we need to renew the values that have always made this country great -- hard work, fair play, shared responsibility. we can do this. just ask the folks here in aberdeen. squ right here one of the first stream liners took off on its maiden trip. one was from the executive office. as sharon saw that first plane took flight, the result of so much hard work, she got goose bumps. in her words she said, "we said we would do it, and we did it." that's the story of america. we said we would do it, and we did it. that's the can-do spirit that makes us who we are. we have seen challenging times before, but we always worked from the strongest, and that's what we're going to do again today. thanks. have a great weekend.

hello, i'm cathy mcmorris rodgers. i am the mother of two young kids and i am concerned about the country they will inherit. president obama made a promise to the american people. i'm planning to cut the deficit he said, by half, by the end of my first term in office. in the budget he submitted this week to congress the president admitted he won't keep his promise. he won't even come close. because of the president's failure to control spending, the government will run trillion dollar deficits in each of his four years in office. president obama's broken promises have left our country broke. on his watch, the size of our debt has surpassed the size of

our entire economy making it harder for small businesses to create jobs and bushing us closer to a -- and pushing us closer to a fiscal crisis. i'm afraid his budget is even worse than it looks. more than half of the proposed savings are already lost. these savings come from the budget control act. the bill congressional republicans insisted the president sign last year in response to his demand for an increase in the nation's debt limit. the president spent nearly six months last year resisting those spending rucks until he finally listened to the people. another almost trillion in savings comes from what we call the war gimmick. money that was never requested and will never be spent on wars in iraq and afghanistan. those aren't real savings. do the math and you will

discover that the president's budget only achieves at most most about a 10th of the savings it promises. this kind of accounting would sink any business or household. it isn't all that surprising, however, when you consider that a lot of what president obama has promised about the economy has turned out to be untrue. friday marked the three-year anniversary of the infamous stimulus spending bill. the president said the unemployment rate would stay below 8% if taxpayers gave his party a blank check to spend on government programs. that promise didn't pan out either. in fact, unemployment has been above 8% for three years running. gas prices have nearly doubled since the president took office, and the new health care law is making it harder for small businesses to hire new workers and provide insurance for their workers. you see the president and his

pearlt have it -- party have it all wrong. they believe they can increase the economy by increasing government spending and raising taxes, including taxes on small businesses. but the american people know that the way to grow the economy and create jobs is by cutting government spend and keeping taxes low for all taxpayers. unfortunately, the president's budget continues on this wrong path. instead of leading the effort to bring down our debt and make tough choices, the president is proposing that we spend more and more. all of this wasteful spending puts us deeper in debt to china. all of these tax hikes would destroy jobs and make it tougher to compete with china. if we keep on going like this, the consequences will be devastating. as we have learned from greece and the european union no country can escape the cost of big government policies forever.

the president's budget isn't a blueprint for america. it is a roadmap to greece. it didn't have to be this way. the president and his party have been given numerous opportunities to reign in spending and help create a better environment for job creation. they have punted almost every time. the president's democratic colleagues in the senate haven't produced a budget in nearly three years. that's like writing checks all year long without ever balancing the checkbook. they wouldn't even accept spending cuts to go along with the payroll tax spending reduction. spending cuts that came mostly from the president's own proposals. and now after breaking his promise to cut the deficit in half, the president can't even offer a credible budget. that just isn't leadership. the american people deserve better. my children and yo