over to dean goldman. [applause] >> onthursday, susan collins was congratulated on the senate floor for her 5000 consecutive roll call vote. they both spoke to mark the record-setting vote. tor collins, just passed an important milestone. her 5,000th consecutive roll call vote. a tenacious accomplishment indeed and represents the work ethic and dedication senator collins has for the people of maine and for the senate. we all know she's one of the hardest-working members of the united states senate. listen to this. since she was sworn in in january, january 3 of 1997, she's been present for every single roll call vote. that's over 15 consecutive years

of never missing a vote. senator collins is actually in quite an elite company. recently she passed senator byrd and now third all-time behind senator chuck grassley and the late bill proxmire from wisconsin. i know she took great pride also to be in the company of her role model, a woman that played a major role in her decision to run for public office in the first place, fellow maine senator margaret chase smith, currently number five on the list. on behalf of the entire senate, i want to congratulate senator collins for this great achievement. mr. reid: it is a remarkable

accomplishment. i hope i don't get in trouble, but i really like her. i appreciate her ability to work with us, work with everybody. she is somebody who you never have to guess where she stands on an issue, and i admire and appreciate her so much for that. i've worked with her on issues going back for many, many years. i really, again, say i appreciate what she's doing. she has great genes. her mother and father each served as mayor of a small town in maine, a place called caribou. and i have really -- i don't have fond memories of caribou because in my, ihink it was my 1998 race, we we, this great mailing that we did, one of my

consultants from nevada, instead of having deer, they had caribou on my campaign literature. it took me awhile to figure that one out. i'm sure the town of caribou is bigger than my campaign spot. her family ran a lumber business. her father was also a state senator. i am confident that susan has learned toe the senator that she is because of bill cohen. i had the pleasure of serving with this good man from maine. i served as a junior member when he was chairman of the aging committee, and he was such a wonderful man. i still talk to bill cohen. and she has many of his traits. as we know, she worked for him. he has been a great secretary of defense. he's just been a good person, and i am confident that her ability to be the legislator she

is, a lot of it is attributed to him. e's always been known for her ability to comomise, legislation the art of compromise. and she works with all lawmakers. i think that the tonehat she has set working with joe lieberman is magnificent. they have run that committee with dignity and on a totally bipartisan basis. this is -- 5,000 votes, frankly, a number of us have cast 5,000 votes, but it is ridiculous the example she has set, never missed any votes. i wish her the very best in her many years to serve in the future of the senate.

they were trying to escape. that is when he realized it would come to an end. >> anthony beevor with a new look at the second world war. >> his main objective is not to be captured alive by the russians. he was determined to die. >> a more with antony beevor. >> the green party is holding the vice-presidential nominating convention in maryland.

roseanne barr did not attend but a supporter read a speech. she criticized the organization and talks about her own campaign in california. >> this is not my phone. i disney to get in here. -- i just need to get in here. okay, okay. i am sorry. i'm not trying to be a jerk. i am the coordinator for the roseanne barr campaign. [laughter] [applause] roseanne sent me a speech that i

would like to read. it is right here. thank god for technology. whoa. if i say things or read off things, if they are not my words. i swear to god i am reading them. did not get angry at me. -- do not get angry at me. i think of my delegates here rarely supported me despite a smear campaign that began as soon as i was allowed on the ballot. i am not angry. i am disappointed. that power is not central. how can the green party expect to face down the u.s. government to make the same demands on it? it is not possible to buy late 10 key values and still claim to represent the high road.

jill stein has never met with the caucus and it continues to wonder if it is even there. brout issue's spread into the living room week after week in a groundbreaking television show about working-class families is norepulsive to me. if i were a man no one would dare say any of that. i will work these for years to remove michael feinstein from power. and then i will oppose the floodgates. to the 99% of the americans deserve better representation than what this party currently offers. back. thanks.

wo.hink there might be part t maybe not. there is. okay. i am going to tell you what was on the piece of paper over their she asked me to read. part of the things she told me she wanted me to say was that she felt that she was carrying wait for people of color in this party. one of the reasons why i supported her was because i am a solidarity activist. i saw she had my act. i felt i could take her to a mosque. i could take her to anywhere were people of color would be ensured it felt comfortable and it would work.

not ashamed that i supported roseanne barr. i am proud that i did. i want people know that it is not ok to tree delegates like their outsider. people tell me that i got a lot of flak. people in my own state told me you are a distraction. poverty is a distraction. she went out there. she thought that pyrrhus i feel, sees the besshe thought that. that is why i thing she's the best candidates out there. i am going to encourage her to no matter howppeare horrible or people like you who

accuse us of reverse racism are other people who told us to deny the black caucus of votes. you need to change your attitude. more people of color are coming to this party. not ok. this is not happening anymore. thank you so much. >> thank you. growing up ind', the nuclear facility. we look at the effect on the environment and the people today at 7:00 p.m. eastern and sunday

on afterwards on the life of jean kirkpatrick. >> she saw the dominoes start to fall during this time. by 1979 she was in full-fledged opposition to carter. particularly crucial in this respect. she solved the fall of the others. >> the political woman behind the reagan cold war doctrine sunday at 9:00 eastern. then life since leaving the military, hotels and jails. all part of book tv. >> the green party is holding at the presidential nominating convention today on a hotel in

baltimore, maryland. this portion includes discussion and roll-call votes from states on electoral reform and representation. this is about 20 minutes. >> is it on? we will come back together. i think it is back on. we need to move forward on this issue. we're going to bring the group back together. thank you. can we all take our seats. is everybody seedeseated? folks, sit down.

[applause] thank you. thank you. we know there is a lot of passion about this issue. each and everyone if you is trying to make the best decision from your heart. you have the best intentions and both sides have the best intentions and are doing their best to move this forward. however we have to make a decision. i know it will be hard. there is so much still to say and that people won't explain that will probably not be done ideally. in an effort to get to consensus, we will allow one person to speak in favor of

thistriking this proposal, one person who will speak in opposition to striking this. then we are going to go to a roll call vote. ok? is there anyone prepared to sticspeak up in favor of strikig this proposal? >> ralph from the black caucus. >> we may think this is a remote issue. it is. what i want you to understand is a yes vote is a support of the black caucus. what we're saying is that this is historic. stick with us. reject us. support us. we can argue and debate this later. i would like to see support

since what we have been working on since 1863. >> is there one person that wants to speak in favor of retaining this proposal? ok. >> do you want to use your one minute? that is not true. if you like your minute, you are invited at this time. he presented. why is your hand race, sir?

>> i am in favor of the proposal. >> and then come up here. >> do you want the use of its? ? >> it is interesting when an issue becomes emotional and about keeping sides. it puts people like me who are electing for clear elections and a difficult position. they wrote to a whole bunch of us asking us not to overturn this piece.

we always had issues with process even though this was on the list in april and may and had been out there for months. i cannot fight this emotional battle. it is supported by reform people all over and to just abandon it now, i do not know. we are in a presidential year. it is good strategy. it is good for us to say how would you do something different? the trouble is the idea that this is proportional. the cannot have this with a single seat. it does not work. you are still stuck between picking the lesser of evils. of the national popular boat has a better point of getting us to using instant runoff. if we go to the approach that they are talking about, you are keeping a system that does not promote people to vote for what

they believe in. people do not vote for smaller party candidates won the only get one choice. i am sorry that it is being pressed as us versus them. it is not that issue. >> thank you. sari we went over. i know this is not easy. i am sorry we went over. i know this is not easy. we will go in alphabetical order by state. what is our first date? state?as t arkansas? just to clarify what you are voting on. if you vote yes, that means to strike this section of the

platform. i am very sorry. my deepest apologies that we do not have this in writing. it is to strike the language that it is asked to strike. >> if it does so then we will revert to the 2010 section of the platform that calls to abolish the electoral college. that would be the affect. i want to make sure that our ever confident hillary is prepared. arkansas, how do you back? >> we've vote for keeping the present. >> yes or no. >> no. that would be a no.

>> i believe you are confused. i certainly am confused. for striking is a yes vote. for keeping is a no vote. >> no vote of three present and three proxy. >> arizona? 5 votes, 2 proxy. we have support, two yes votes. one no. two abstentions. >> california. just to move this quickly, we ask that your state stay where

you are. we will repeat the votes into the microphone. to go through this quickly we ask that you stay where you are. >> the black caucus. >> yes. >> 3 yes votes. >> california. has twoop is only aucus onlyo votes. is that correct? >> that sounds right to me. >> i will make a note. we are making a note on this matter. >> two votes form the black

caucus, yes. >> we have 26 present. 26 yes, 24 no. from california. >> delaware. >> three yes, one exentsiotensi. >> district of columbia. soon to be a state. [applause] >> 4 votes yes. >> florida has 8 votes.

>> georgia. two yes votes. hawai.le two yes, two no. >> illinois has nine yes, 4 no, 1 extension. >> indiana. 1 yes vote. iowa. two yes, two no. kentucky. 2 votes yes from kentucky.

maine. 13 votes yes. maryland. 4 yes, two abstain. massachusetts. 11 votes yes. michigan. 16 votes yes. minnesota. 1 yes, 3 no, 3 and abstentions. [unintelligible] national women's caucus. 2 votes yes.

new jersey, 5 votes no. new york, 4 yes, 11 no, 1 abstension. north carolina, 3 yes, one no. ohio. 3 yes, 4 no, 2 abstensions. order. egon. 8 yes votes. pennsylvania. 4 yes, 3 no. rhode island. 4 vote yes.

south carolina. 3 yes, 3 no. virginia. 4 yes, 1 abstension. texas, y'all. [laughter] 8 votes yes, 4 abstensions. washington state. 4 no. west virginia

4 yes. wisconsin 7 no. quite this is going to take as a moment to calculate. >> the texas vote? >> 8 yes. >> what did he say? >> he said 8 yes. 8 to the present language. >> that is not true. you have misunderstood. would you like to change your vote? 8 yes, 4 abstensions.

colorado. [unintelligible] >> with great apologies to colorado. >> 7 no votes. >> 7 no votes from colorado. >> while this is calculated come out what to repeat the words. this is a very difficult vote. i know t hat. hat. i want to say this. it will be close. whatever the results, i stand with the green party of the united states. i stand for our principles. i stand on our values. i stand on the knowledge that we will move forward on this regardless of this vote.

i urge everyone whether your side wins or loses to join me in standing with the green party as we move forward. . [applause] >> i am going to ask for a little music while this calculation is taken place. then our sisters and brothers can engage conversation. as soon as their results are done we will come back and announce it and continue with the program. a little light music in the background. free time, y'all.

>> the green party is picking is president in baltimore today. the green party convention does not have the glitz of the democratic and republican conventions by getting away from the money is part of the point. that is according to some of the leaders. the national convention taking place before they move down to a downtown hotel. they are expected to formally nominate jill sign as their candidates. she is from massachusetts. roseanne barr fell to get enough support from candidates.

we were bringing more from the convention with highlights fr candidates and other issues from the day. that will be tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. we have a briefing you coverage of the national governors' association meeting in virginia this weekend. this the second of their three day meeting. today we will hear of the nation's veterans. we're havingome problems with the feed. we are expecting that to start at 2:30 p.m. eastern. we would get to the one we can. we are expecting to hear from the cochairs, governor martin o'malley and governor mead from wyoming. in the meantime, let's take a look at this morning's [video clip] [video clip] "washington journal."

>> what led you to investigate this? >> there is a growing body of research saying that this is very important. they reveal how rigorous the teaching is. they can provide a better insight into the infective this been more traditional indicators. they tried to shed light on some important policy debate. >> was it just federal data? >> that is correct. we just looked at federal data. this is commonly known as the nation's report card. , 29% of eighth grade math students said that there map work is always too easy.

then it said that it is always too easy. there seems to be a lot of redundancy. guest: there is a popular perception that students are overworked and under-played. they are carrying home a 40 pound backpacks filled with homework. that might be the case in affluent places like bethesda, maryland, or beverly hills, california. but for students in the other 15,000 school districts, we found the opposite. students are not being challenged. they are not being engaged. over 30% of fourth graders are saying they are not being challenged enough. more than 1/3 of eight traders say they are reading less than

that is not enough to prepare our students for the future, for college and a career. host: one line in the report says the data reports how the students perceive their work but not the actual rigor of the work. guest: have an education crisis. most eighth graders are not reading at grade level in eighth grade. 75% drop out of schools. students are saying the school work is not challenging enough. that might be one reason why we have this. host: does it go into why students are not being challenged? guest: our study did not look at exactly why. we did look at other research to suggest what is going on. standards have been too low for too long. academic standards emphasize certain things over others.

we have a problem with the testing center. they are enron-like in their accounting. in california, around 60% of their students are passing in fourth grade. when you look at the federal exam, it was much lower, around 30%. that is an issue. host: our guest is from the center for american progress. we have divided the lines for parents, teachers, and students. you can also send us a tweet and e-mail us. another element you talk about is teacher questions. what was that? the way teachers ask questions in class. guest: we found a large

percentage of students do not understand their teacher. they feel they are not learning all the time. what we know from research out there is that students need to be engaged. they need to not only be able to been memorized mature, they need to deeply understand topics to be prepared for the modern job. we need to make sure teachers have the tools and training they need. teachers work very hard. teachers are dedicated to their practice, but they need good textbooks and time to hone their craft to make sure they can engage students in creativity and critical thinking skills. host: you say the standards are too low. the previous administration put out specific standards.

guest: all 50 states have set their own standards. more than 40 states have joined to this reform movement on common core standards. it describes what students should be able to do at a higher level. we see an initiative that will get at this issue. implementation is going to be key. are teachers going to know how to teach to these standards? what will it look like when assessments are aligned? we need to make sure the text books and curriculum empowers them to teach to higher standards. they will be much more rigorous. host: if you have students saying their work is too easy, how are they doing when the test comes out, as far as their ability to pass? guest: we did not look at that. we know that students need to be engaged. students are often checking out. that can lead to low graduation rates we see where a high percentage of students are leaving school.

students need to be engaged in reading and math. they also need extracurricular. a lot of high school students come to school because of baseball or music class. we need to make sure while we are delivering rigorous material in the core subjects we're also making sure these other important topics are being addressed. host: roanoke, virginia, grover is a grandparent. go ahead. caller: i have a statement more than a question. in the classrooms in this day and age, the teachers are so limited in the amount of

discipline they can hand out to keep down the disruptive students. schools are liable to be sued if little johnny jerk likes to sit in the back of the class making noise. school is disrupted, but they have little or no ability to stop this. that is one of the reasons why the students are bored. they do not get much time to teach because the class is so disrupted among other things. that is my statement. thank you. >> you can find this on line. we're going to go live to virginia about serving our veterans. >> this may have been exacerbated. their legal situation. this is modeled after drug

courts and 100 similar ones across the country. they will be entered into plea agreements that will require rehabilitation. this is not a free pass. as part of the treatment plan participants to be supplied with veterans who are going through similar plans. it to be a cost-effective solution for the states. thisthey assume all costs. it is an alternative to incarceration. i will not open of this to share initiatives in their state. our reckon i governor o'malley to speak.

>> he has the distinction of being the highest ranking official to have a tour of duty. he has brought is special perspective to these efforts. according to the president, about one out of five that have served are in need of behavioral health services. and for a variety of reasons. they end up coming to the states rather than to the d.a.. . we signed a law to address the mental health needs of veterans suffering of from trauma related brain injuries and stress disorder.

this created the behavioral health advisory board. this has four regional research coordinators. including those residing in some of our more rural areas. together we have invested $6.4 million in funding over the last three years which has allowed us to make that critical connection between our veterans in need of services and the services that are available. made on a quarterly basis in order to keep track of the effectiveness of their programs and the utilization rate of our veterans. we review ways to figure out how we may better connections. these issues do not just affect

the veterans. they take their toll on families. they can result in homelessness are running afoul of the law. in maryland where providing njs.ncial aid prevention' it allows him to receive private donations and to make grants or loans. most of those primary requests are for food and shelter. that is the leading ask for help on ouwhen our veterans come home. 500have received reasserted th 35,000. >> thank you. we have a few.

we have been fighting wildfires in the west. in wyoming we had several fires. when i was 01 thousand acres. the next i would be 30,000 acres parapet which relied on many people. i am pleased to have you here. he found a way that is unfortunate. many people are flying over colorado and wyoming. >> we were honored to be able to provide assistance to you in the west.

and s.d. the whole team was delighted even though there was diversity. they were all excited. they love the mission. we met with the families. we began the burials on wednesday. they are very participatory. a real shot to the families. this is something that we have grown more and more accustomed to.

they have the third largest numbers of boots on the ground. we have branded our state as the most family friendly state. i've lived here for more than 20 years. n.c. had the largest success in the country after the last round of closures. i want to give you a template for what we're doing. we have such a huge numbers of veterans. we have done all the things the need to do to make a military and veteran family. we have a technologically driven data base to match up to the private sector.

this is terrifically successful. we have expedited a one where people are trying to enter the civilian work force. they say sometimes they can go there for days. we provide in-state tuition to all folks to leave the billet terry hill are actively assign a -- who are actively assigned to the bay. we have a higher a veteran tax credit. because of the large number of men and women who have been deployed to afghanistan and iraq we have developed a cadre

around wounded warriors. we have provided ourselves to rehabilitate the community services necessary. governor o'malley comment is the more we can do to shore up. anytime we have a tremendous national disaster you are there for us. >> it is an amazing thing, the level of cooperation among the states.

there are dangerous conditions. when i see troops off they say do what you can for my family. welcome home is there. too often we forget how important it is to follow up. that connection you have in north carolina at to make sure after the return home is something we can all do. thank you for your leadership. >> it is really important. we put in place a system where we would with the principals and teachers in the public or private school where the kids are enrolled while their parents are deployed. if you live in an era that is

where to have a guard's women, they do not know how to respond to a can do is still with a real challenge. program.a good problem gram >> thank you for that. one of the boys had a very touching story about how his dad was deployed for a year. he thought he was never coming back. he said he was here today. he did not believe me. he did not believe me until he was back in his that embrace. it was very touching. we forget what a struggle that is. can you share with us what is going on in your state? >> thank you for your

leadership. particularly with this issue. this is one that is very close to my heart, having served in the national guard of texas for almost 14 years. we in pennsylvania are a state that has supplied the french and indian war. we take the return of our veterans very seriously. my father is 90 years old. i have had the opportunity in the last three years to meet many people who actually participated in d-day along with people who participated as recently as the problems in iraq and afghanistan. the stories are the same, and they need help. i am proud to say the

pennsylvania has developed over 27 initiatives from education to veteran holmes to employment. the civil service to benefit state retirement if you have the service. sometimes he gets particular to the persian gulf conflict. the emergency assistance to veterans. emergency assistance for food and clothing for the disabled. it goes on and on. we had a school that was not too far from the area near gettysburg. it is the other side of the mountains. it was a school for the veterans.

it was not being used as much. the money they will game will go much like what he mentioned earlier. the veterans trust funds. it to help with the various service organizations to help but the representatives in each of the counties and to go at the hour veterans across the way. many create a program like that you want to find other sources of -- when you create a program like that you want to find other sources of income. it is wise for the legislature to take care. one would be a designation on a driver's license of "v" for veteran.

it would be to dollar offset the. that will go to the foundation. suddenly another belbill has ben created when you get your driver's license or renewal, you can check off the the box and at $3. that would go into a trust fund. we think that will raise about $500,000 a year followed up by a special license plate that anybody can buy. many people now recognize this in a much different way. people will be able to purchase that. anyone who wants to purchase a specialized license plates camp. we could raise about $250,000 a year, all going into a trust fund we think will be very important for our people.

now to our small business reserve program. it is set aside to allow small businesses to compete for state contracts. we have four different categories. we have one that is a veteran business and one that is also a staple business. one last one. he liked the idea of drug courts so much she suggested we do this to help them go through the posttraumatic stress syndrome that often affects their behavior afterward. it is going to be very important.

we think this is going to grow across pennsylvania. >> thank you for your leadership. i took some notes. >> any time you travel is good to hear from me. >> thank you. >> this is where they used to serve. in recent years we have seen a great return of our veterans so much so that over a period of 10

years we have seen a lot of veterans and their families returning. we had the one in the governor's office that would be referred to as the veterans of their adviser. i am elevating that office into a full department to deal exclusively with employment issues, health issues and issues with local governments as well. when we came into office, one of the things we saw was that veterans were forced to travel to hawaii and other states to receive other treatments.

the reserve forces were deployed. we have hold lots of them with behavioral health problems. we started pushing the veterans administration to have a -- to at least partner with us so we would be able to afford their health care locally. the veterans administration has not established a full-time clinic and staffed it with professional physicians and nurses and are doing outpatient effectively. that is part of the reason we're standing up the new department. there is so many issues that need to be addressed. do we do not have anybody full-

time assigned to that task. the new department will specifically work with the veterans and their issues. second to that i have also created a veterans association of the american samoa and leased to them four acres of land and may have constructed a sensor that is specific to the issue of veterans to house a clubhouse and also the new departments but we are standing up. with the new outpatient clinic, we are still not happy with the fact there is no mechanism for addressing the many soldiers that we see with potential ptsd issues. so one of the things i have

done, and one of the primary reasons for us setting up the new behavioral health center, was to allow a mechanism where most of these soldiers -- we saw a lot of behavioral problems when the deployments returned. it not only affected soldiers, but it affected their families, their children. we needed some place to treat them because we do not have a state hospital or any other mental health facilities on the island, so this will be a first for us, but it was primarily one of the reasons, to assist the veterans with their issues. one of the biggest things that we are hoping we can accomplish with the new department is to help veterans transition back into our work force. i have made it a priority of my

administration is to give preference, so any veterans that apply for a job with the government will get a preference number of points. as a matter of fact, they would get 10 points ahead of anybody. so all things being equal, the veterans will always have the preference of taking that job. two years ago, i signed a community contract. as you may have already done in some of your states. one of the commitments we have done is to assist our reserve forces but also to help the transition back to the community as they retire from their services. those are some of the special things that we are doing to assist our veterans. i am confident that our legislature in the present session will approve a new

department, and this new department will then take over the responsibilities that are now being done through my office with just an advisory person. >> thank you. i think it illustrates again that it is not one-size-fits- all. we all have our own challenges. thank you for real leadership. governor, we have had an opportunity to hear from other governors in terms of the initiatives they've had in their states. we will be eager to compare notes on the success. governor, is that statewide? >> i suspect within a year it will be statewide. then the governor mcdonald, if you wanted to share with us some of the things you have going on here in the commonwealth. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i guess i am too late to claim that i have the most veteran- friendly state in america. >> you are way behind. >> that is what i thought, and i'm sure we all have good reasons to make that claim. i am delighted to be part of it. we are to state that has about 800,000 veterans. we are very fortunate that a lot of those people choose to retire and then live and work in virginia after that, so we have a significant veteran population. over the last couple of years, being a veteran myself and having a lot of people in my cabinet that our veterans, we tried to put some things in place and build on the best practices from other states, but if i could mention a handful of things we have done that are working well in our state. like many, we have established a wounded warrior program as part of our veterans services department that is providing a

network of broad, community- based services that are designed to help veterans and their families to overcome some of the challenges of stress-related and traumatic brain injury. we have several major hospitals, particularly the one in roanoke, virginia, doing an awful lot of work on research and development. i have helped these veterans returning home to be able to recover with some very cutting edge things. wounded warrior is funded with several million dollars of state money and several other volunteer resources that we get to make that a very, very good program. we have a claims agent program now where agents assist our veterans in applying for federal and state benefits.

i think we borrowed the idea that has worked very well. for us, we have established discounted lifetime hunting and fishing licenses in virginia for our disabled veterans. we have provided now for in- state tuition for military dependents, veterans, guard members to be able to take advantage of our relatively low in-state tuition in virginia. we have created a disabled veteran-owned small business preference that provides certifications to businesses that are owned or operated by disabled veterans. we have also just ratified in our constitution last year a real estate tax exemption for veterans that have 100% disability. there's a fair number of them in virginia that are able to take advantage of that. one thing that has been really

exciting is that so many businesses in virginia offer veterans discounts, but if you do not bring your ddt 14 or you are not active duty, you do not have a card, so you have to have some form id. we came up with this very good idea of having a state-issued veterans card. i have the state one issued in virginia. i got to the front of the line. i do not know how that happened, but it is a beautiful card. this is really great for people that are not disabled or are not retired but our veterans who are entitled to 10% or 20% discounts. it is a brilliant idea and cost something like $10. last year, we also passed a number of homeless veteran initiatives. i can tell you, there are very

few things that bring more banks -- angst to me as a veteran and with a sauna in iraq than a veteran that as homeless. we have worked hard to provide an integrated system to provide benefits to those veterans that are homeless. we just had a coordinator for veterans initiatives position offered. we started a new program also this year, which is the virginia veterans reemployment initiative. our veterans services department has put it together to help train employers on how to redesign their hiring process in order to hire more virginia veterans. we have most of our departments in many of our companies that are fully compliant, and that is great, in order to support our

guard, but this initiative is going to really help our employers match with the people departing and separating from our many local bases in order to understand how to hire them because, obviously, they make tremendous employees with their technical skill. last year, we passed the spouse professional licensing reciprocity agreement. that is something mrs. obama has been advocating around the country. we did that last year. a lot of states unable to join on, but that is terrific, to have more reciprocity from other states. our folks came up this year with another great idea called the troops to trucks program. we also have a troops to teachers program, for many of the reasons i mentioned. we also have a new troops to trucks program to try to get

veterans involved in transportation-related jobs. the way we do that is we make it easier by waiving all the requirements for a commercial driver's license if they have the records and skills by proving they have operated equivalent machinery in the united states military. that is working out very well. if i can brag about my wife for a minute, she has made this one of her top initiatives as well, to support veterans, being the mother of a veteran herself. so we started something called the sos website, which is the serve our service members website. those of you interested can go to www.sos.va.gov. the whole idea is to match up the needs of family members whose spouses are deployed with volunteers who say they want to help a veteran or help the veterans family, but we did not have a way of integrating that

or matching it up. this web site is designed to do just that, and it has been remarkable to get people from churches or business etc. to get together with families of veterans who are deployed. she also is doing something really remarkable that we are excited about down at fort monroe. we just received for monroe back from the federal government. after 200 years with the federal government, we have it back. on this side, we are starting something called the freedom for the initiative. -- the freedom fort initiative. this is something easy to replicate. we are starting a one-stop shop so that any veteran that wants to know anything about any state or federal or local benefit that they might be able to get, instead of having to navigate the process on their own, they

can come to the support center at fort monroe, virginia, and with a state-funded initiative with private sector contributions, they can get virtually access to any benefit they need without having to get the runaround. i know many of you have done that in business, but we are doing it for veterans now, to have this wonderful clearing house. she is also setting up a warehouse where everybody from home depot to other vendors that routinely get rid of furniture and surplus items can now bring things there, leave it there so veterans can have access to furniture and equipment and different things like that that they can donate. they get a tax deductions. the veterans get free items, so it is a great way of matching that up. are some great things i could go over, but again, we are very pleased to have so many

veterans making their home in virginia. these are some things that we think will help veterans have a happy home in virginia for a long time. >> thank you for your leadership. the hunting was interesting to me. we ate oysters last night. do you hunt for those or fish for those? >> you fish, but you have to date, so i guess it is a little of both. >> thank you for your leadership and the many wonderful initiatives. we are running out time, but i wanted to announce because as i listened to the governors say what they are doing in their respective states, it is the reason why nga is going to be releasing a survey this week, to identify other states' best practices. in the comments we heard a, there's a lot of good things going on that we can all learn from each other. that will be sent out, and governors will report back on best practices to give us all an

opportunity to see what other states are doing and adopt these many good ideas so we have an opportunity to see how it is working in other states. with that, i will turn the floor over to governor o'malley. again, thank you for your leadership, and you will take us in a different direction here, different topic. thank you very much. >> thank you all for your suggestions. we always come to the nga looking to take home good ideas borrowed from other people who have worked out the resrch and development. one of the issues, very reason for this task force creation, was the need to improve our nation's homeland security, our ability to protect our people here at home in the event of a sudden, and announced event, whether that is a giantweather event or a terror event. what we will do for the second half of this is turn to bio

surveillance and efforts to prepare for biological events. we have been working toward some basic core capacities we have been developing and making more robust ever since those attacks of september 11. one would be the personal protective equipment. another that was a big win for our committee was protecting that spectrum band so that we could have fully interoperable communications in the event of a big emergency so that all our first responders can talk to each other. this core capacity we will be spending the next few moments talking about has to do with biosurveillance. a speaker connoisseurs as the director of health preparedness and response for the cdc -- our

speaker currently serves as. over the last decade, he has led the response to a number of public health emergencies, including our nation's response to hurricane katrina and the asian tsunami. in addition, dr. khan has served on the cbc by terrorism program, which updated local, state, and national public health systems to get an early jump, to detect, to be alerted right away to the outbreak or perhaps to a buyer terror attack. joining thecd -- the cdc, he completed john residents at the university of michigan. he has a master's from emory university where he is also an adjunct professor. this task force appreciate your

making time to be with us today. i would like to turn it over to you for some opening remarks. make sure you press that little speaker there so they can hear you on c-span. >> thank you for that generous introduction. i know you used to be the mayor of baltimore once. there's a thing in baltimore the crowd can be prepared in 50 different ways, and they are all delicious. i feel the same way about preparedness. it is all good, no matter how you do it. what i like to talk about and what i talk about with my students is that public health has always been in the health protection business, but after 9/11, it became very clear as we came face-to-face with national security issues that public health has a role in ensuring the nation's health security. initially, it was framed in a sense of by terrorism, but it

became clear -- and you mentioned hurricane katrina, but more than just natural disasters, but also for pandemic. increasingly, as you think of routine health epidemics, there are fiscal, social, political consequences of public health events that our nation wide and require us to think about public health a lot more broadly as a national event as opposed to local events as we have done so in the past. we often for in this as public health, but i have seen all this present in developing new potential public health threats out there. the lifeblood of public health is information. not just routine information, but what we would like, and i'm sure you always liked is timely, actionable information.

often, information is confusing in the early days, and often incomplete. bios surveillance is about looking at the core disease monitoring system and railing in additional pieces of information on a strong public health work force, putting it together, getting it into your hands so then you have that information to say, how can i make decisions every day that are necessary to secure the health of my population? what comes to mind routinely would be routine public health events. influenza, for example. do you close a school or not based on initial information? including not just retain information, but factoring absenteeism into the -- into that. people have become very inventive looking at

biosurveillance. you can look at this information for all sorts of things going on in your communities that affect people as you later this information together. what i like to do is give you some examples. i know my time is short for this part, so i'll just give two, recognizing that all you governors actually have very good examples. let me start with the new jersey example. new jersey has a communicable disease reporting system that combines information from multiple places. not just as i said the core of your routine disease monitoring system, but includes hospitals, commercial labs, nursing homes, long-term care facilities, and, as always happens on the week and during the summer, suddenly, they noticed they were seeing

what looked like a cluster of cases of a salmonella outbreak, and it was occurring in one small ethnic community in new jersey. they reached over their to their colleagues in new york, and they recognized that they may be having the same sort of an outbreak, and they turned at that point to cdc and were able to look at a number -- on the top graph with the bar, the time charge and the little black line shows what you expect the average to be. the green line's show all the cases that were above the five- year average. the maps showed where in the end, they sought an extra 190 cases in six days. this is looking at combining all sorts of data that came together that allow them to find the outbreak earlier and importantly, since this is all about public health, because

they were able to identify the culprits, they recognized that it was due to broiled chicken livers, and they were able to recall these chicken livers and make sure there were no additional outbreaks. this is exactly how public health should be working. identifying things as pat -- as fast as possible, preventing people from getting sick or potentially dying. let me move to a second example. i must say, governor mcdonald, you have the same exact system. this is the maryland electronics surveillance system for the early notification of community- based epidemics. this is designed again along the same lines, of the detection of these outbreaks, sufficient patterns of ellis, and again, it combines traditional and non- traditional information resources together, prescription drug data, some pharmacies, and

other laboratory data, hospital data. i know at least in the case of maryland now, i believe it includes all school absentee data at this point. there are two examples i could give us nice public health impact. a couple oyears ago, during a disaster, there was evidence of a spike of people on dialysis coming into hospitals following the disaster, which relate to it -- led to some changes in prepared this in dialysis centers so that these individuals are not finding themselves in emergency rooms but instead of being taken care of. most recently, in this heat wave, this was combined with new data from 911 systems to think about who was at risk of heat wave, and it was used to mobilize the national guard to send out flashlights and ice to the most at risk people and provide care to them.

and you need to think about when you should set up: stations. this is about timely data to take public health action. i will move on here to national systems. you also have a similar system which wins awards, but you can ask me questions later if you would like. these are state-based systems. they are also national systems that take these data with data use agreements if you agree and will give you a national picture that provides a number of advantages based on the type of system. i have already said that the base system for everything we do is the classical, national notifiable disease reporting system.

we have become a lot more innovative, and i hope, in the last 800 years or so. one is aggressively looking at laboratory, making laboratory part of what we do. food borne infections nowadays -- you can produce food in one city or state and send it all across the united states, and the best way to identify that is if you have monitors, so we use healthnet to identify large, state of grace. national outbreaks are just a handful of cases. healthnet is a way to do that. you can just have a handful of cases in a single state, but when they are all compelled to get there, you realize we have a significant enough of break that you can recall a product very fast. we believe this helps protect consumers, not just consumers

and patients, but markets. because you get products very fast out of the market. the other system r would like to talk about -- this is available to states who would like to put together the sort of biosurveillance systems. this is completely available to you. it is in the cloud. it is free. it is available for states who do not have such biosurveillance systems. we can assist with that. for people of think about social media and things, the answer is out there. all you have to do is look at some sort of facebook analytic tool and you will know what is going on in the world. i am sorry to disappoint you that is not quite true yet. this is a word cloud. you look at this and see that there is a contagious viral outbreak going on in the united states.

this is actually a word cloud after the movie "contagion" came out. my other example uses the word fever, and it is all about just an -- justin bieber fever. you need to use all these tools in conjunction. they are complementary tools that come together. if i may, let me end at this slide for what opportunities you may have within your states to look at how you -- to examine within your individual states -- you have the building block for robust bio surveillance systems? do you have a well-trained public health workforce, core disease monitoring systems? do they have the ability to bring in lab information,

electronic health records? how well are these systems linked together? are there data use agreements with neighboring states so you can get a regional picture? can we share data nationally to look at a national picture? finally, what are their opportunities -- what are the opportunities for cdc to assist you? thank you very much for this opportunity. >> doctor, thank you. let me ask you this question for starters. if anyone has any questions, feel free to jump in. how do we, as states, access the information that you collect? how do we become, should we choose, part of that national -- or you open data enough that we can bring data in two hours? number two -- well, let me just

ask that. >> there are a number of data systems you have access to. some of these systems with a routine data use agreement -- you share your data, and there are over 27 states and municipalities that have already done so, and we would encourage that additional states signed up with this data use agreements. >> which brings me to my second question. have we done one of these data use agreements with you? >> yes. >> good. so we are one of the 22. the second question is this -- do you provide for us -- does cdc perform the function, the service, of looking at what we are doing at the state level and evaluating whether we are robust enough, giving a sort of check list? do you have an instrument or an instrument we can use to kind of

self-evaluate whether or not we have a buyer surveillance system that is timely, accurate, that provides our public health front line detection with what they need to do the job? >> there are a number of guidelines published on evaluating surveillance systems. states actually do that routinely and can request assistance from cdc to do so. >> thanks for being with us. very informative. you talked about the word cloud , and i always appreciate you talking about that. i was recently at a company that tracks that sort of thing, and they say that they can see these spikes where it is some dems of runny nose, sore throat, headache, fever, and you are saying it is not there yet. in particular, i am interested because in a rural state like wyoming, how does it otherwise work that you can quickly say

there is something going on in this part of the state or this part of the country to identify and address more quickly additional problems? how does a small town local hospital -- how normally with that information flow, and is there any combination with these words clouds to say that we are otherwise getting reports that there is a spike in searches on the google for these types of things -- to those go together in any way? >> they absolutely do. that is a two-part question. if my slides come back up, i will show you the first part of that. google actually has published a scientific paper where they look at searches around flu and influenza, and they can determine within one day the

indicators. the bottom slide will show you that, so that is kind of nice, and that is available -- it is actually available to anybody if you go into google. there are these tools, but you need to add that to additional tools that you would later in, including, for example, at the hospital. do they have some sort of mechanism in their chief complaint data to monitor that, transmit that to the local and state health department said they can see that they are having a spike of rash illness or fever-like illness, and then they can compile that and look at it using a number of different analytics to say that usually we see two people with favorable, in every day, and suddenly, we see six or seven. the tools exist, but they are complementary and need to be looked at together. these rarely if ever pulled the

trigger on a single tool. you always need that excellent analysis to go back and look at the data. plus it keeps people employed. >> another question, broad question -- we can be a very mobile country. as we fly around the country, go to the airport with lots of people -- how do you track that sort of situation where there is the potential for an outbreak, and you have this cluster people and they spread out? how do you watch that type of activity? what do you do to monitor in case there is an event? >> that is an excellent question. i did not know that one was coming, honest. somebody had mentioned that in a different context, and i think we had the super bowl example. there should be one from the super bowl -- i think that one was it. there was a measles cluster during the last super bowl.

some child during one of the venues that had the measles, which is rare in the united states -- fortunately, because of very strong public health systems -- and he expose a large number people, and the question came up quickly -- will there be measles cases all over the united states? we could get quick snapshots of whether or not we were seeing this spread throughout the u.s. with national systems, you can continuously see whether or not this disease is spreading. you need not just a picture at the local and state levels, you need to add that to the regional and national data to get the picture up yet. even though it started here in whatever city. it is spreading or it is not spreading. >> thank you. and in the case of the insular

areas that are promoted, and in the case of american samoa, we do not have any sophisticated lab. we only are limited to our hospital lab. what if any protocol does cbc have in the event of these things showing up in our territory. in the event of chemical -- for example, the last time an envelope shown up in my office with however, it took four days for the wmd support unit from hawaii to show up, and four days could have wiped out the population if that were a serious threat. they got it turned out to be

just harder and it was a hoax, but what does cdc have in place to address those outlying reloaded places that have no access to any real examination and quarantine? >> thank you, governor. that is an excellent question, and that has challenged many people at cdc for a while. you have many advocates within the agency for the issues in very remote areas in american samoa and other ancillary areas. we would be glad to get ideas from you to think about all of the efforts within areas such as american samoa. for example, i do know that our program supports american samoa with resources, again, for preparedness related issues, but

so do some of the other programs around hiv and tb and others. there are opportunities to think collectively about public health and help support you for public health. maybe more in a holistic fashion that would allow you to strengthen holistic lee public health, laboratory, and epidemiologic capabilities. and specifically for things like -- as you said, white envelopes, or examples -- are there rapid diagnostics that may be more amenable to your case than a full-fledged laboratory response network? which is, without a doubt, expensive to maintain. >> one of the things we tried to do was to ask the national guard to send out a small unit or maybe a couple of soldiers with

one of those portable labs that they have for just a cursory examination to determine things like those, but we have not had too much luck. is there any way we did get some coordination through the cdc and the military on assistance like that? >> i cannot speak for the national guard or dod. >> all right, so -- i was hoping to see the national guard here today. thank you. >> other questions? >> dr., 27 of the 50 of us have by nosurveillance systems --

biosurveillance systems? >> no, they have executed an agreement. it is not to that point because some our municipalities. we would like to encourage all 50 states and major municipalities to have signed, executed agreements with cdc, and we would be glad -- we cannot have everybody call on the same day, but we would be glad to work with the rest of the states and large municipalities to execute these agreements and help them get access to this sort of cloud- based i.t. technology. >> and these various streams of information, applauded, mapped -- plotted, mapped, geographically as well as time sequence -- that still is our best will identifying where there is an outbreak and when we need to employ an epidemiologist? >> correct, as long as it is a

true compilation of epidemiologic data, laboratory, and other information. >> we have heard some things -- as americans, we are always believing that we are on the cusp of a technological breakthrough. we have heard of the center's out there that can tell you whether there's agents that have been released or something. where is that technology? what are its limitations? what are its uses? i guess it can never replace this, but to what degree are other technologies emerging on this whole early alert front? >> we actually already have deployed biosensors in the united states, and that is another part of this multi-layer system for the united states that if somebody were to release a bioaerosol, it would be picked

up, but that is part of some of these epidemiology and laboratory systems to evaluate the signal and do other things to help protect our national population. >> so it is one tool? >> correct. >> but in a series of other data streams and layers? >> yes. >> ok, anything else? >> do you have on your web site or otherwise states interested in what it takes for a mou to be signed and the procedure so we know what we are getting into? >> absolutely. am i guess that is good news. thank you, doctor.

>> i guess now it is time to turn it back over to heather, who will give us the legislative update on where we are, where we are going. maybe an update on the public safety broadband network and things of that nature. >> i would be happy to. there are two items in particular i wanted to know that were already mentioned during this meeting and have been big areas of legislative focus for this committee since the beginning of this year and even prior to that. the first issue, of course, is the national guard. earlier this year, the u.s. air force proposed in its fiscal year 2013 budget request to disproportionately cut the international bar by imposing 59% of all aircraft and manpower cut on the international guard. this issue was discussed when this committee met in february and following nga meeting, nearly every governor signed a

letter to be sent to secretary of defense. secretary cannot agree to work with governors to see if there was a better path forward. following that meeting, several generals then worked on behalf of the council of governors to try to negotiate a compromise proposal to fund a better path to avoid, frankly, fighting this out in congress. unfortunately, those negotiations were unable to close the significant differences that remain, and following the conclusion of those negotiations, nga and the council of governors sent a letter asking that the freeze the current national guard at its current levels of manpower and funding for aircraft. i am pleased to report that as we currently stand, both the house and senate have decided to protect the international guard and its budget for fiscal years 13. to date, the house passed the legislation, and the senate has

moved their legislation out of committee, and it is anticipated the full senate will vote on legislation before their august recess. while all this is ongoing, the council of governors,hich will be meeting tomorrow -- again with senior defense leaders -- is trying to find a way to make sure we do not repeat this situation again in future fiscal years. the second issue that has been a big focus was the d block legislation. when this committee met, we talked about the passage of the legislation that provided $7 billion in funding to help construct the nation's first truly interoperable network. in this case, dealing with broadband capabilities for public safety. that legislation reallocated the spectrum, which is considered critical to making that network a reality. since that time, nga have been doing things to try to help continue to support state efforts to implement that

legislation and to ensure that governors' produce continue to be represented. we have put forward nominees to the two boards that will be established to help build and operate the network, and we have also submitted comments on behalf of governors to the department of commerce, who will be establishing a state and local grant program to support implementation. finally, i will not take away from my colleague's presentation, but the nga also recently hosted a national waiting for teams of individuals from states to get together and begin discussing what options governors have and what can be done now to continue to move forward for implementation. with that, i will end there. >> thank you for the update, and thank you for your help with this committee and getting us in order. thomas mcclellan is here as director of the homeland safety

division for best practices. you have an update for us. thank you for being here today. >> great, thank you. my job is to work to help implement legislation that the state level. my objective is to help you guys actually implement -- so the d block is one of the mostimpactful things to happen to public safety. it will change how public safety gets done by allowing mission critical data to flow in the public safety community nationally. it is the first dedicated broadband network to help states. to help states began to prepare for that, the nga center hosted a national forum on implementing broadband. the objective of our meeting was to look at actions that states can take now. we have 49 state teams

represented, which included cio's, statewide and proper ability coordinators, representatives from local law enforcement, state law enforcement, homeland security advisers, and we did this meeting in partnership with the national association of state chief and permission officer , willdhs and -- with dhs, and with the parts of commerce. a number of things came out of that meeting that are worth noting. we conducted in advance an informal survey of the states that attended. in terms of the governance and decision making processes that states are going to undertake related to public safety broadband in their state, there is really no one law. there are three different approaches. robert recorded it can take the lead. the cio can take the lead. the third is that there is some sort of wireless commissioner. there really is no model that states seemed to be queuing up

behind. second is that states need to continue to focus on engaging public safety. this is a broadband network dedicated for public safety, and public safety needs to be at the table in your decision making processes. there is a general sense that states could do a much better job including them at the table in the decisionmaking process. third, states need to begin to assess addressing critical assets in the states now as it relates to the public safety broadband. that is a protracted process. states will need that information and will lead it readily to be able to make some key decisions. fourth, regional planning efforts probably need to occur. one of the most successful discussions we had at the meeting where we did regional approaches, including our own product, alaska, hawaii, virgin islands, puerto rico, and so forth, related is the notion of working with tribes.

federally recognized tribes will present some issues, whether they opt in or out in terms of your planning process. they are things governors need to pay attention to. finally, there are a number of myths that were dispelled at the meeting. off in or opt out -- you cannot make the decision until first net makes -- issues their in or out.-- pot oopt boys will happen some years down the line. finally, there's not enough money to build up the network. so it will take time. it will take other resources. two other things i would like to mention -- first is that in response to the leadership of this committee, nga is pushing to create what we are calling a state resource center. we are fundraising for that right now. the objective is to fill the policy board, looking at what governess, what states can do

to effectuate. the second thing i wanted to note before i close is the ng-- that nga also release a rfp to governors this week looking to create a policy on prescription drug abuse, which talks to many of the issues. -- tops of many of the issues we discussed today. with that, i will close. >> thank you. questions? >> real quick question -- you said you were doing fund-raising in beside the security area. for what purpose and how are you doing that? >> we are working with private corporations, looking at the program, and the purposes is thenga --the nga center, as you know, is self-funded. our objective is to put together and national policy council on cyber security, and that would be a 30 or 40-person

policy group of folks, and the objective is to identify what are those core elements that governors can do now. the second phase would to do a paul -- would be to do a policy count, and we will work with states to implement the policy. and that any other questions -- >> any other questions? i understand we will be merged after this meeting into a larger group, but i would say work on the funding issues. i think we have done a lot of good work here, so appreciate your leadership. at our last meeting, we were surrounded by tags. it was a wonderful sight.

got some great advice and leadership. and also the work this committee does and you do in terms of having a seat at the table regarding state issues, so thanks for your leadership. certainly appreciate at this time working together with you. >> thank you. >> any other for the business we need to attend to? >> anything from the governors? >> doctor, thank you for what you do, and thanks for being with us today. appreciate it very much. gentlemen, thank you. we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> wrapping things up for the day in williamsburg, virginia, but we will bring you back tomorrow morning were governors talk about entrepreneurship in the states and its impact on the economy. you can join us for that discussion tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern right here on c- span. we will hear more from the governors tomorrow on "washington journal" at 7:45

eastern. at 8:30, talking about the green party presidential ticket, the party's platform and challenges facing third parties in elections. in the final hour, "congressional quarterly"'s rachael bade. we take you live up to the green party convention. that are in the middle of choosing nominees. >> i am sorry. i was in a hurry to get in. >> can we accept jesse as a delegate from the floor? [applause] and then i think the previous count stands, and we can move

on. all right. >> now, we returned to the state of massachusetts. >> we the people of the great commonwealth of massachusetts, the home of the original tea party revolt against the power of corporate monopoly, the home of shays' rebellion, the first revolt against bank foreclosures, against farmers and veterans who were defrauded of their pensions, the home of sir john a. truth, abolitionists, women's rights activists -- the state where 10 years ago, the greens merge

with the rainbow coalition to form the green rainbow party of massachusetts. [applause] massachusetts -- first in the nation in marriage equality. [applause] all of our favorite daughter, dr. jill stein, and the next president of the united states. [applause] >> our first round of voting is concluded. as our rules say, if we have more than 50%, a simple majority, we will have a winner. what does our tally say?

we have a winner? we cannot see that. that is more than 50%. 193.5? we have a simple majority. jill stein is our next vice -- sorry, i am anticipating. jill stein will be the next president of the united states of america. [applause]

>> go, green go! go, green, go! go, green, go! go, green, go! >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you. a quick reminder that that chant began with ralph nader, who to his credit, leaned into the microphone and said, "go, we, go." it is my incredible privilege to introduce one of our good friends, somebody that we have worked along with in building the green party, building the movement. >> when i think of ben, i think of all the hard work that is done behind the scenes. people do not understand how much he has done in his short

lifetime because he is a very young man, to help bring us to this point, to help build this party, to help us win ballot access in every state. ladies and gentlemen, the campaign manager of the jill stein campaign. [applause] >> that is quite an honor. i love the green party. [applause] you are not supposed to be here. you are not supposed to be here. it is supposed to be too hard to build an independent party. too hard. i travel all over the country where co i was-chair with -- co- chair with anita. i have seen this party grow. i have been a member of this

party for 22 years. today in wisconsin, there is a young woman who is the child of d.c. statehood green who is an up-and-coming actors. we we stick with it. there is a job to be done. this reminds me of a schoolyard bully. he is the guy you do something like take a kid down and cut his hair care or shove them and a locker are still his lunch money. another can it reminds me of a guy who's there and seeing you on. i will be there by your side. me is not there. he is not on your side.

i do not know which one is worse. i do not care. this has been going on my entire life year after year. the rich have been stealing from the port. they have been stacking up coition and taxing the working class. occupying every nation on earth. i think the germans have a pretty democratic system. they're doing pretty well. the have been doing it for 30 years. people have risen up like never before. you have the general strike paris it was a general strike in

wisconsin. -- you have the general strike. it was a general strike in wisconsin. yet the revolution in the middle east and chile. we are still hearing from the same thing. they are still trying to scare us. they said you will get what you do not believe if you do not vote for what you believe in. there is a line. they deliver that line in texas and in california. they delivered it in vermont. they delivered in south carolina. there's a little thing called the electoral college. i hope it does not around for much longer. it is there. the real reason why they deliver the line of fear is because they know that the greens represent

change and we are competition appeared they do not want us to take root anywhere in this country. they do not want competition. they're not afraid of the republicans are losing. they lose all the time, they made it an industry, of losing. if they won all the time there would not have a job. i am going to conclude in a few moments. we have a little bit of dirty work to do. it is the dirty work i really like to do. i like the commissioners to come back up here to make a formality in reality. ofase welcome holly hearhart iowa. >> we do have this one bit of trivia. we have the vice presidential candidates. when this person is announced we approval. you

we want you to show handsome whatever noise you wish to make. >> i've not announce surname. >> i'm going to play by the rules. >> we moved that sherry been nominated as the vice- presidential running mate. is that ok with you guys t? >> ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, the vice president for the 99%, the woman who has been leading the fight against foreclosures and the

banks, and the woman knew has been fighting for working people before it was fashionable. she has been known to ride a horse come into electorial combat. for therriff are o working people. please welcome sherry and her sons. [applause] >> wow.

let's have another round of applause for those next leaders of the country. nothing ever goes easy for us. very few people know that they got about 4:00 in the morning to be here today. the story gets even better. nothing goes easy for poor folk. they got a flat tire on the way here. they are here right now. they're not going anywhere. i bring you greetings from poor

and working people in united states of america. i stand here today as a formally homeless mother, a single mother of two children. i proudly accept the green party's nomination for vice president of the united states. [applause] this journey began at many years ago for me. watching my poor mother struggle to survive and provide

for five hungry children. i never knew why we had to go hungry, especially when i saw so much food in my home state of minnesota. i did not understand. i grew up watching my mama cried night after night about the bills. i grew up watching farmers lose their farms. i grew up watching indigenous family's struggle for something as basic as their land. something just not seem right to me, especially that day when i had to tell my nine-year-old son that we were no longer going to be living in an apartment. instead we would have to move into our car.

on a cold winter night in minnesota i lost my home, the car. when i parked my car and a drug driver hit and total debt. unable to find shelter in the dead of the winter in minnesota, i faced an important decision. occupy a heated abandoned house or risk freezing to death on the streets of america. i chose to live a. i chose to keep my son alive. [applause] we moved into that abandoned house. we moved thousands of families into abandoned houses for the

last 25 years. something changed way deep inside me that night. my hunger for justice was born. i figured that if me and my son on there left typo die streets of the united states of america at this have to be happening to other families across my wealthy country. here i stand today, some 25 years later. now i have a burning flame for justice. [applause] we now suffer from the worst economic equality ever.

the new movie be a hundred games for the basiche fights necessities of life look like a cake walk. one in every two people are in poverty. 6 million families have lost their homes. we spend more on building prisons than educating our children. youthsabled and immigrant and elders have been told about in clear from our elected officials that they just do not matter. you see if they do matter. -- you see that they do matter. so do the 40,000 children that die every day around the entire world. they matter. [applause]

we the green party of the united states of america are here to stand at and take on our historic role in history. we refused to proceed with the politics of fear and scarcity. we know that we live in a land of abundance, a land controlled by the corporations and the greedy. both political parties are controlled by wall street. we also live in a land where people love their children, love their country, up where we will no longer set by while others lose their homes to the

banks. we will no longer sit by as the united states of america continues to have politicians in the u.s. house of representatives that are proposing cutting 300,000 children from preschool lunch programs -- free school lunch programs. we will not watch as family members are deported. we are the unsettling force that doesn'tdr. martin luther king spoke of a. . augther and woman and doctor that will help lead this unsettling force to create another country and another world that values the human rights of all human beings. it is my distinct honor to introduce my running mate and

green party nominee for president of the united states of america, dr. jill stein. ♪ stand up stand up stand up for the rights ♪ ♪ [chanting "jill, jill"] >> i love you back, all of you. it has been such an honor and an

inspiration to get to know all of you or nearly all of you over this past year. together we are unstoppable. i am so very honored to be your nominee and to be running on the ticket to with cheri honkala. together we are the 99%. this is the time we pay our country back. something wonderful is happening across america. i have seen it traveling across the country this past year. in the face of severe hard

times, oppression and intimidation, people are standing up and speaking out. we are occupying our city squares, our imperiled schools, and work places. with this election, we are preparing to occupy the voting booth. [applause] the need could not be more urgent. so many people know who are in this room. we're at the breaking point for our economy, for our homes, up for our democracy, and for our planet. the heat is writinrising. the ranks of the poor are swelling. our young people are drowning in debt.

there are not enough jobs. wages are shrinking. the rich keep getting richer and the rest of america gets poorer every year. an entire generation has grown to adulthood knowing nothing but a social decline. the establishment parties have taken turns leading the way. bush, clinton, bush, it now obama. while the party labels change, at the labels have stayed the same. on most key issues obama has embraced the policies of george bush and gone further with more massive bailout for wall street, more free trade agreements that send our jobs overseas and depress wages at home.

more threats to medicare and social security. more foreclosures in student debt. more attacks on our civil liberties. more plundering of the environment's end in less illegal wars. have we had enough? we have had enough. that is why people like you and me are standing up in a way the world has not seen in generations. we are a movement that is alive and well across america. we are here to stay.

let me tell you why i am standing up and how i come to be standing here today before you. 30 years ago i was a new doctor starting off the medical practice. even then it was easy to see that our broken health care system was failing the system basically need it. as a mother, i was deeply disturbed by it be a new epidemic of disease descending on our children. the rising tide of obesity and diabetes and asthma and cancer and learning disabilities and autism and more. these were new. i became impatient with pills and sending people back to the very things that are making us sick to start with. pollution tog from

poverty to industrial and nutrition and violence. i thought it only our elected officials knew of the amazing solutions that save lives and 10 money and create jobs while saving the environment. surely they would do something. like supporting local farms and clean energy instead of pouring our tax dollars into a toxic poison as of fossil fuels. i slowly realized that if you want to persuade electric officials, forget all that cost saving job-creating stuff. that is not really count.

what you need are giant bundles of big campaign checks. that was my wake-up call. if we want to protect children's health or anything, at the health care we need are the education or the job, we need to first that the broken political system. that is why i now say that i am practicing political medicine. it is the mother of all illnesses. we have to get this one to fix everything else that ails us.

i went to work to try to fix that problem. i joined a broad coalition in massachusetts to get big money out of politics. we won. so we thought we did. we passed a referendum to provide public financing for political campaigns. we passed thit by a huge margin. our legislature which was about 85% democratic repealed the law as soon as it was passed on an vote.rded bothvoice that was my real wake up call. if we want to change the broken

political system what we need is not just a new law or lobbying efforts or a fresh face and a corrupt system. unbought politicalbough party that can put people of integrity into office. we need real public servants to listen to the people, not to the corporate lobbyists that final campaign chests. this is what brought me to the only national party that is not bought and paid for by corporate money.

here is why my resolve has only grown stronger. as a mother and a doctor, the concerns that captivated me 30 years ago have only intensified. i see that our young people are still struggling in every aspect of life, settling for good health, decent schools, struggling to stay safe on the street, struggling to afford a college education. shovelling to get a job, to get out of debt. struggling to have a climate that they can live in for the future. they are losing the battle on every front. when people ask me why i keep

fighting political battles and a bridge system the answer is simple. -- in a rigged system, the answer is simple. when it comes to our system, mothers to not give up. do you know what back neither do fathers -- do you know what? sistersher do fathers or or brothers or sons and daughters. young people haven't given up. they are the ones carrying the burden of this system.

if they are not giving up, we are not giving up. we are not only not giving up, we are doubling down and rising up. we are a movement toward democracy and justice that is alive and well across the country. we are eviction blockades or brink of america protests. we are in protests against shoot first, in mass arrests at nuclear power plants and civil disobedience to stop mountaintop removal and stop the keystone pipeline.

they all market game over for the climate. we're not good to settle for that. to " alice walker, the biggest way people give up power is by not knowing they have it in the first place. we know we've got it. we are going to use its. one of the ways we're going to use it is by having a voice in this election in a choice at the polls that is not bought and paid for by wall street. voting for either wall street

mandate forves a four more years of corporate rolrule. every boat to they recede is be deadly to structure we are on for the american people -- every vote they receive is an endorsement of the deadly structure where on a for the american people. every vote we receive is one for the 99% and survival for the planet. to achieve that future as president i will work to deliver a new deal for america.

a package of emergency reforms to put it 25 million people back work and jump-start the green and economy. that will put a halt to climate change and make wars for oil obsolete. the new deal reforms not only our economy but our financial system and our democracy. it is not just an academic idea. it is based on a program that works, it a new deal that got us out of the great depression. it is time to bring it back and put to work.

these reforms create living community-based jobs. communities decide what jobs they need so that jobs in the grain area of the economy, a clean manufacturing, and manufacturing, and claim renewable energy. i want to tell you about a young man whose life was transformed by this kind of job. his name is ricardo. and net him in massachusetts touring some of the small businesses that are thriving. he had dropped out of school after being held back three

times in the ninth grade. like most kids in poverty, his glasses were too big, dominateded, and to dominatetoo by less than inspiring test prep. he found a program offered by a green energy cooperative called co op power. he was then hired by a small green energy business where he became a true leader. all that, ed thet tha high school drop out entered a program and graduated before his own high school class received their diplomas.

at age 20 he has now been leader of his crew for two years. this is a triple win. the community gets cleaner air and the climate gets a little more stable for us all. rule andbs will be the rol not the exception. they're coming to your community. the green new deal not only creates the jobs like ricardo's that make us sustainable, it also creates jobs and meet our social needs. let's hire back those 300,000 teachers who've lost their jobs

in this recession. let's hire the nurses we need and the child care and the home care in senior care and rehabilitation and affordable housing construction. these jobs will be nationally funded and democratically controlled. they are community-based small businesses. they are worker owned cooperatives. instead of going down to the unemployment office, you can just go down to the employment office and get the job being me.

to be clear. the green in new deal and unemployment in america -- the green in new deal and unemployment in america. this would never occur to washington politicians. you can imagine why. this depends on the threat of unemployment. frontnand the unemployment is and center for americans who need jobs. it is front and center on the green agenda. we are committed not only to

jobs but also to improving social conditions for everyone in america. we cannot afford to have even one more rhonda thrown out of her home. we're going to put an end to that. that is why the green new deal guarantees health care for everyone as a human rights through medicare for all.

this not only provides quality comprehensive care for everyone, it will restore your choice of provider of piggybacking control of your own health care decisions and said it you having them made for you by a profit sharing ceo. it will save trillions. it does not cost us trillions. it saves us trillions by streamlining the and wasteful health insurance bureaucracy and putting an end to run away medical inflation. as part of the green new deal we will forgive the crashing

student debt burdens. we will liberate an entire generation of young people who have been turned into indentured servants. we will provide tuition free public education from pre- kindergarten through college. this is an investment and our future. it pays off enormously. we know that from the g i bill that provided $7 in increased economic benefits for every

dollar that we invested. in order to create an economy that works for people we need not only jobs and secure working conditions, we need a financial system that is free from domination by big banks and well connected financiers who hijacked our economy and our democracy. instead we will create a system that is open, stable answers the real economy, not the phony and economy of high finance. we will and the bailout in the corporate giveaways and ensure the resources are available for investment and our community.

through these reforms we will break up the big banks that are too big to fail. we are going to restore the glass-steagall separation of banks. we will regulate of financial derivatives and require them to be traded on open exchanges. we will democratize monetary policy to establish public control of the credit creation.

we well tax capital gains as income, a tax wall street transactions to stop taxculation and put a 90 surta% on bonuses for bankers. in order to secure these reforms we must also an act political reform to give us a real functioning democracy. as you know, we do not have that yet. we must end the domination of our election by big money that makes government for the people and possible.

for this reason we need to amend our constitution to make clear that corporations are not persons and money is not speech. those rights belong to breathing human beings like you and me, not to business entities controlled by the very wealthy. the green new deal will also undercut the power of lobbyists and billionaires' to control elections. we will do that by enacting a voter bill of rights.

in so doing we will guarantee a voter marked paper ballot for all voting and requiring all boats and be counted. we will bring same day boat registration to the nation saw no qualified voter is far from the poll. we will replace partisan oversight of the elections with non-partisan election commissions. we will restore the vote of 1.4 million african-american men who are far from voting because they

are [inaudible] election reforms like proportional representation that can truly reflect voter sentiment. we will take money out of politics and replace it with full public financing and free and equal access to the public airways. we will guarantee equal access to the ballot for all qualified

candidates. [chanting] >> they do not know what they're in for. they're going to find out.

in summary, the green in new deal is a comprehensive program to pull us back from the brink and move beyond the current state of emergency for our economy and our democracy. there is much more to it. you can go to our website and find out more about it. there is more to be done beyond the universe of the green new deal. that is why i am committed to the emergency actions in other areas as well.

we need to bring them home. it is the illegal and immoral wars. and the soldiers and over zero hundred and 40 countries around the world. foreign policy based on militarism and the protection of oil resources will be replaced

by diplomacy, diplomacy based on respect for international law and human rights. i will restorer our imperiled civil liberties by repealing the un-american provisions of the patriot act. it is not only the patriot act. it is also the national defense authorization act. and the anti-terrorism act which they protest and direct our police to find a non- violent center.

i will prohibit the department of common security from conspiring with local police to suppress our freedoms of assembly and speech. i will also work to legalize marijuana. and put it into a state regulatory framework. marijuana is a substance which is dangerous because it is illegal. it is not illegal because it is dangerous.

finally i will in the bipartisan war on immigrants. i will stand up against discriminatory republican malls like the remanent -- laws like the remnants of arizona. i will stand up to the racist demagoguery that wrongly blames immigrants for the unemployment theught on by wall street's use of the economy.

i will end obama's communities program. it has deported over 1 million immigrants, heartlessly as butting families and taking thousands of children away from their parents. this issue also gets my blood boiling. with that track record, at the obama white house has been the most nine anti immigrant administration in a century. it is true obama it did a pre- election for things last month

and a temporary work permit to a limited number of immigrant use. this group will face deportation at age 30. it is not a solution. i well issue an executive order to end of the deportations now. i will vigorously support passage of the dream act. i will work to provide a welcoming path to full equal citizenship for undocumented

americans who are vital members of our economy and our community. i will work to replace the corporate so-called free trade agreements which generate economic refugees in the first place. these will be replaced with fair trade agreements that respect workers in this country and latin america. we need these solutions. the public supports them by substantial majorities in poll after poll. why haven't we got and then?

-- gotten them? there are big campaigns that have been waged over the past decade. they have been telling us to just be quiet and boavoter your fears. silence is not an effective political strategy. in fact, the politics of fear has brought us everything we were afraid of. what democracy needs is not fear and silence but voices and values. it is time to answer the

politics of fear with the politics of courage. as those radicals did when they took on the british east and dumped the tea in the harbor and declared themselves free, like the abolitionist did. women suffragists did with the women's party. in each of these cases independent politics was critical to formulate the

political demands with frederick jervis said so famously. it is essential because power concedes nothing without a demand. and never did. it never will. into theng this demand election, we can advance democracy and justice and drive the solutions into the political agenda. the history of politics is killed was social movements of live with political parties that made history together.

abolishing slavery, the right to form unions, child labor laws, safe workplaces, social security, the new deal and more. it is understanding our political voice encourage. the royal aspirations of the american people can no longer be denied. it'll have a base from which we can build and dry for those critical solutions. wall street politicians have kept them off the table. we are the only vehicle in this election.

we will get people a choice and a voice in the voting booth and allow them to go to the polls and greed for the green new deal and the reforms that will lives.e our ou i ask for something much more. help us raise money. help former new green party areas all over the country. help support our local candidates. insure the voice of principled opposition will be heard now and into the future. stand up and push forward with this campaign.

we signal to the world that we the people have taken the stage once more indian knighted states. -- once more in the united states of america. we will create an unstoppable movement. we will not rest until we have turned it the white house into a green house. we will take back the promise of our democracy and the peaceful future we desert. thank you.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> the nominees for president and vice president make speeches. we'll have highlights tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. on monday the house rules committee voted to send a bill to the house floor repealing the one. during the monday committee hearing, they criticized republicans for not doing any work in the house. they call the members to focus more on creating jobs.

>> the rules committee will come to order. thank you for joining us. i hope everybody had a wonderful independence day. welcome back. we are in for an action packed weekend we are here for consideration of the repeal of obamacare act. we are happy to welcome representatives of the energy and commerce committee and the work force committee. mr. pitts is here and he chairs the subcommittee on health. i see the ranking member of the subcommittee, mr. pallone.

please join your colleagues at the table here. let me say without objection any prepared statement that you have -- it looks like you all have some beautifully prepared remarks. without objection, anything you have been writing i want you to know, unless any member objects -- does anybody object to having statements appear on the record? prepared remarks will appear in their entirety. i say all that in an effort to encourage brevity and a summation. we will begin with the energy and commerce committee. it will go to mr. pallone and mr. andrews. welcome mr. pitts. thank you for joining us. >> since the supreme court has

decided to leave obamacare intact, it is now the job of the congress to repeal the slot in total. since the law was enacted the american people have told us one thing the, they do not like obamacare. we have pledged to repeal the law and pave the way for real reform that lowers health care costs for families and employers across the country. this is a reaffirmation of that promise we made two years ago. potentially asked with good intentions, it will only serve to undermine health care quality, increased costs, and worsen and anemic economic recovery. americans want reform that delivers -- he said it would lower premiums by $2,500 by the end of his first term. in 2011 the annual premium for a

family plan soared past $15,000. that is a sharp 9% increase since 2010. premiums will skyrocket as the rest of the law is implemented according to estimates from the cbo. americans worry -- the president told the country they like their health care plan. they can keep it. yet surveys of employers tell us businesses will drop coverage for their employees in advance of the massive new government exchange program beginning in 2014. the cbo has estimated up to 20 million americans will lose their health coverage because of the lot. the president said his law would cost $9 billion. two years later the new entitlement program and a massive expansion is estimated

to cost 1.8 trillion dollars. buy back loading federal spending, the law did not cut costs. it hit them from the american people and double down on fiscal recklessness. americans want a medicare program that will be there for them and future generations. the president promised to strengthen the medicare program and reform entitlements that are going bankrupt. the medicare program faces 38.9 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities, medicare savings should have been used to strengthen a program with shaky finances. the health-care lot of $575 billion to help pay for new entitlement spending. i could go on about other promises the president made on the individual mandate. it was not a tax. the irs will impose new taxes on medical devices, prescription drugs, health coverage, and tanning services.

the agency will impose new savings on health savings and flexible spending accounts. they will face a tax for failing to provide government-approved health coverage and surtaxes on investment and in all, $800 billion in taxes will crush americans' poor, middle, and rich with higher tax and medical bills. we know about the religious and first amendment rights issue. archbishop timid the golan -- timothy dolan wrote that organizations must stop providing health coverage to call for exemptions. many promises were made to the american people. the only way to honor and fulfil those promises is to support the repeal of obamacare. i urge that you report the bill to the floor. >> mr. pallone.

>> thank you, mr. chairman and members of the rules committee. i am here to testify in strong opposition. i feel like this is an exercise in futility. i do not mean it disrespectfully. i do not know how many times i've been before here, this committee, the energy and commerce committee. it seems like almost every other day, we have an effort to repeal the same thing over and over again. in the words of one of your republican colleagues, these votes mean nothing because "we have already passed repeals 16 ways to sunday." it seems like more than 16 times before my committee. it is like groundhog day around here. i am tired of it and i am tired of it. -- and i think the american people are tired of it. not that many people mention the affordable care act other than to say they like it.

it was not the topic of the day. they were talking about the economy and want us to focus on the economy, creating jobs. not litigating these old political battles. what is happening is that republicans waited, convinced that the supreme court would overturn the aca. when that did not happen, they figure they have to go back and repealed it again. it makes no sense to me. we had the battle. the supreme court said it was constitutional. we should just move on. that is what my constituents are telling me. solving the problems must begin with repeal of the affordable care act. once you have done that, what do you have to replace it? i said to mr. pitts and other gop members of our committee, every time they have another

hearing, i never hear any proposal to what you are going to replace it with. what are you going to say to all of the american children who get insurance regardless of their illnesses? what would you say to the 3.1 million young adults who now have insurance over -- under their parents' plan? what would you say to the cancer patient who can continue their chemotherapy? if you repealed this bill, you are saying that these people are out of luck. republicans are more interested in protecting interests rather than patients' rights. only insurance companies gain from repeals. the repeal means that insurance companies would be put back in charge. they would be up allowed to deny health coverage to breast cancer patients who need to restart their chemo or put an annual cap on the amount of care for a lifetime limit on health

coverage for people who are desperate. i do not understand this. i am not trying to be disrespectful, but it seems we have done that before. do not continue to do it. do not waste our time. the critical issue is not whether we should go back to the health-care system. we cannot go back. the status quo was unsustainable. the issue before us should be to the accelerate economic growth. it is what all people have been talking to me about. they want the country to move forward. you have to stop looking backwards. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am honored to represent the ways and means committee in the presentation of this and i urge the reporting favorably out of this bill. i would agree with mr. pallone. the status quo is unacceptable. as a physician, it does not work for patients, doctors, employers. the president's law has made things worse.

with the ruling that it is constitutional, does not mean it is good policy for the country. the chief justice of the united states supreme court said, "the court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the affordable care act. under the constitution, that judgment is left to the people." as the people's representatives, it is important for us to act when people say they want something addressed. it removes $500 billion from medicare. it puts in place a 15-member board of non-elected bureaucrats to deny the payments of services for seniors. the president said over and over again, if you like what you had, you can keep it. they now will not be able to. many of them have lost the coverage they had before. it is more expensive than

anybody imagined. it is that $1.76 trillion and only going higher. as a physician, it is destructive of the physician- patient relationship. doctors and patients are learning that. the ability for us to innovate as a nation is a -- is compromised significantly by this bill. what has changed? the supreme court ruled it is being paid for by a tax that very few individuals in this chamber would have allowed to have been adopted had they known that it was going to be a tax. we believe there is a better way. we believe that folks back home are telling us the consequences of this bill. small businesses who have 40-45 employees and want to hire more say they cannot do that because

if they go over 50 than they get into the matter a number where the government forces me to provide health coverage that they want. home health just talk to me two weeks ago and said that if this comes to pass, they are going to have to lay off up to 15 people in order to comply with the cost of this law. the consequences of this are destructive not only to the health of you and me and every american, destructive to the health of our economy. this is about the economy and jobs. it will destroy 800,000 jobs if we allow this to go forward. the new issue is that the playing field has changed. the assessment of this law has changed. it has -- it is incumbent upon us to move forward and repeal the small. -- this law. >> thank you. glad to be here again. let me just boil it down.

"made it worse?" if you vote to repeal, you send it back to the insurance companies. kids with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied coverage. 17 million made it worse. over 100 million americans no longer face lifetime limits. made it worse? in terms of rebates for insurance company charges, almost 13 million americans are going to get rebates because of this wall. -- of this law. made it worse? over 5 million americans will have saved $4 billion in

prescription drugs. made it worse? by the way, you voted for a similar provision regarding medicare payments twice. made it worse? four children, kids -- not kids anymore. i called my kid's kids when they are not kids. over 6.5 million will remain on their parents' plan until age 26. you talk about repealed and replaced. all we have heard is repealed. there is no plan to replace. none. let me close by saying a word about this notion of a mandate that was changed from republicans, in the first place.

this wall -- this law, build on private insurance but reform, was modeled under the massachusetts law proposed by mitt romney. i will sum it up this way. in so many respects, the mandate and otherwise, obamacare is romneycare. the penalty under the tax provisions is held out by the supreme court. it is estimated it will apply to 1.4% of americans. 1.4%. so let me just close it this way. i am on the ways and means committee. there have been bills proposed to help create more jobs in this country. instead of are coming forth,

the ways and means committee, with proposals for jobs, we come for the 31st time -- we do not, you do -- with a bill to up -- to repeal which is going nowhere. >> thank you very much, mr. levin. >> i appreciate the opportunity to be here. i served on the education workforce committee. i have been too a health care reform in the state of tennessee with a 10 care plan. in my district, three out of four people want this bill overturned and replace with common sense reforms. in the last two years, i had the privilege to serve with my good friend, rob andrews, on the health and pension subcommittee, and we held two hearings outside of washington. that is a novel idea, actually going where the people are. i have been to indiana and

pennsylvania. let me tell you what is going on. we have a grocery store chain, 10,000 employees. i spoke to him on friday. he said, i have a lot of tempary employees that i higher because people get off work in the afternoon. i work them 32-33 hours per week. i will have to cut those back in the 20's because of what it will cost my business. i talked to a restaurant owner in my state that has five restaurants. he is going to close two of them. that is 300 jobs that goes away. in my local hospital, i have been there 35 years. for the first time in 35 years, they laid off 100 -- they laid off 168 people. as a practicing physician, i realize that i have read the

2007 hundred-page bill. already, we have 13,000 pages of rules and regulations. does anybody in this room believe that those 13,000 pages are going to make it easier for me, as a physician, and easier for that patient to come in? there is a much simpler way to do it. all of my colleagues have said cost is a major issue. access and liability are major issues. two of those three things we did not even touch on. we did nothing to bend the cost curve and we did nothing for liability. i am here in support of this bill. >> mr. andrews. >> i wanted think the ladies and gentlemen of the rules committee for their hours and hours of service. we are debating the wrong bill here. what i heard time and time again from my constituents was,

why don't you work together and why don't you work together to get jobs created back in the u.s. congress. -- economy.' we could have a bill before us that cuts taxes for small businesses that create jobs but we do not. we could have a bill before us that builds on the work we did due 10 days ago and puts more americans to work building our roads, bridges, transit systems, and the modest progress that that represents. but we are not. we could have a bill before us that addresses the very real problem that while the private sector has gained 4.2 million jobs since the health care bill was enacted, the public sector has lost about 600,000. police officers, teachers, firefighters, public works employees. we could be addressing that problem but we are not.

here we are again addressing the repeal of a law that was debated and passed by congress, signed by the president in 2010, whose constitutionality was upheld by the supreme court about two weeks ago. it is the wrong bill. i do think we ought to have the right record in front of us. ask people on both sides to dispassionately respect the record and use facts. we have once again heard the rhetoric pulled out that this is a job-killing --thank you.

they turn the microphone on. it is usually the other way around. we have heard the rhetoric that this is a job-killing health care bill. since the president signed the health care bill, companies have created 4.3 million private sector jobs. we have heard that the bill hurts medicare because it would withdraw $500 billion from medicare. here is how it does that. it tells insurance companies that we are being paid 114% for the same services that are regularly medicare was paying 100% for. if this was such a bad thing, i would say to you that my republican friends have voted at least twice to do exactly the same reductions. we have heard that this is an enormous tax increase for the american people. the penalties for failure to have health insurance will affect 1.4% of the american people. that is the 1.4% who can afford health insurance but to opt not to buy it so that when they use an emergency room, they can pay

their fill instead. the investment surtax that we heard from my friend from pennsylvania, small businesses are troubled. they are troubled by a lack of customers and a lack of credit. as far as this is concerned, if you have 50 or fewer full-time employees, you are obligated to do nothing under the new health care law. finally, we have heard that this bill comes between doctors and patients. tell that to the breast cancer survivor who cannot afford a doctor when the insurance company tells her that because of for pre-existing condition, she cannot have insurance anymore. that is coming between a doctor and a doctor's patient. tele-tv medicare recipient who is receiving between $600-$800 per year in rebates for their

prescription drugs and will no longer be able to afford their medicine. that is coming between a doctor and a patient. what is coming between doctors and patients is the poorly- considered destruction of these hard-earned rights of the american consumer. this is a debate we should not be having. we should be having a cooperative effort to create jobs in our country. if we must have this debate, let's have it based on facts and not sale, this proven representations' of two years ago. >> let me briefly say that there are a number of items we have brought forward. you mentioned the issues of taxes on small businesses. we have had a number of measures focused on small businesses. the president signed those so every day we are proceeding with items that will address both of the issues that mr. pallone and mr. andrews mention it. the reason we are here is the court made its decision. as mr. price has pointed out, the chief justice made it very clear.

they are not passing opinion on the legislation. they made a determination about constitutionality. that decision was made. it shows how important the united states congress is. frankly, an issue that is important to raise is the taxes. if we had had the kind of straightforward approach on the tax issues, this would not have passed. repeatedly, we we told it is not a tax. on the issue of no alternative, i have consistently argued that there are five simple things that would have immediately played a role in diminishing the cost of health insurance and health care itself. some of the items, i do believe california has a structure in case to deal with pre-existing conditions. it is one that is worthy of

consideration. i do not think that someone who is diagnosed with a massive tumor should be able to have millions of dollars in health- care the next day. i do believe that there can be a structure to deal with the issue. second, the expansion of medical savings accounts is something that is proven to provide an opportunity for people to put dollars aside, to plan for their healthcare needs. association health plans. we passed, out of the house of representatives, when my party was in the majority, association health plans. it allows for small businesses to come together and get lower rates. that has been done. we consistently offered no alternative at all. it died in the democratic control of the united states senate.

we also need to have real, meaningful lawsuit abuse reform. you have all mention that. the president of the united states stood in the house chamber and argued on behalf of meaningful lawsuit abuse reform. yet, we know this measure does not do that. the fifth point, which the president said he supported, was for us to move in the direction that allows for the purchase of insurance across state lines. those five things that i consistently talked about for a number of years, which i believe play a role in immediately bringing costs down. i do not have any questions for you, but let me close by saying the following. we want to repeal this so that we can, in fact, replace it. there is a need. this is a need that has to be addressed. when we considered this, it was done under the most closed structure imaginable for an issue of this magnitude. without dredging up all of those

old arguments, i will tell you that, for those who may have forgotten, there was a plan that was in place right up until we consider this that would have allowed us to self-enact this measure, reporting it out of this committee, taking it to the floor we want to make amendments -- i think the notion of what we are -- i will recognize you if you want to respond. i am simply stating my response to what i have heard in your testimony.

after we get this through, we will do this. some of the things i just mentioned on my five items. items that democrats have supported. and yet this was not done with the process the american people deserve. >> all these areas that you mention, my question is why did you not enact any of them when you wear -- >> we did. >> if i can reclaim my time. thank you. we did. we did. i just said that. i do not know if he were listening to me. it enjoyed bipartisan support here in this chamber. we passed it when my party was

in the majority. we sent it to the democratic controlled -- does the gentleman mommy to yield? >> children with pre-existing conditions. i could reclaim my time, i never said we did everything. what i said is i mentioned these five items that would play a role in immediately reducing the cost of direct health care costs. we were often told, it was just said in the testimony that we had no ideas. there was no proposal to replace. when the republicans were in the majority last, we passed the plan for association health plans that would have allowed the small men and businesswomen of whom we regularly talk, we passed and sent it and told the senate, and it died there, ok? so let me first recognize mr. pallone.

i am not asking a question. i am getting ready to ask. >> i just want to say, some of the things -- what have we done wrong? am i not allowed to question the witnesses? >> the way we normally do. >> i was just going to say briefly, some of the things he mentioned are good ideas. we addressed malpractice and some of those things, but i think that the difference between those five and the comprehensive health care reform is that with the aca, you are going to make sure that they have health insurance. in some ways, i support them. but i do not think they are going to make that kind of a dent. to help some people on the

edge, but they are not going to provide the type of coverage that they're going to get with the aca, and as far as the tax, i actually think that the aca results and a tax cut, because in new jersey, people are paying about 1000 to $1,500 per year of their premium to cover people who do not have insurance. if everybody is covered through this mandate, which i know you do not like this mandate, it is actually a tax cut for the people paying those premiums, because they should not have to pay for the people who are irresponsible, in my opinion. >> i am just saying what was ruled on by majority vote. making a great deal of time available on the house floor. that is the reason i am not asking any questions.

everybody knows how we stand on this. this is something that i want to see. i was just responding to the testimony that i heard and outlining some of the things i thought. so i would like to recognize mr. sessions. >> thank you. i want to thank each of our colleagues who have taken time to be here today, and i think we will do the same thing, which is just to address things the way i see them. i do realize we are talking past each other. to say this is going to be a tax cut for many people, i have never heard that argument before. what i will do is that the supreme court says it is a tax. it is a tax. we know this, whether we like one of the supreme court says or not. as i have heard at least once today, marbury vs. madison. will we cannot escape is the cost.

the cost is times two, so i would say to you if we do not repeal the bill, then we will have to figure out how we double the taxes, how we go and pay for the bill. we already know, and we heard at least one of the gentleman said, i wish we were here finding a way to cut taxes for small business. we are. we are going to repeal the bill. i wish we could do something about roads and bridges. we are. half of this real cost falls on the states. states are having to pay the cost, and they do not coin money, so they are laying off people, and they have gone from essentially looking at bridges and education that now that are going to get into the health- care business. we talked about the loss of

jobs. oh, my gosh, i am sorry there have been public-sector job losses. but we tried to say that there have been 4.3 million jobs added, yes, but those have lagged behind the tremendously. 4.3 million have been created. anemic. and everybody knows this is anemic, and i am disappointed that everybody was trying to say we have done so great. in fact, we have not done great. somebody tried to suggest we had the same bill as republicans with how we treated medicare. that is not true. they said 55 are over, they would not be impacted. rather, we would plan for the future, and so anybody 54 and below would be impacted by the republican bill. today, every person, particularly those who are

seniors, 80 years old, 90 years old, immediately hit by $500 billion in cuts in medicare, that is not the same as republicans. it is not ok to say they would do it as republicans, because that is not true. the medical device tax. we spent time back in dallas, texas, during the break. granted, perhaps they are not as impacted necessarily by the bill. they are in the health-care industry. they are talking about chairs that they will have in their dental practice. they are talking about where bands that they will put in children's mouths. these are all going to be taxed

with a medical device tax. also, dental care will rise very substantially. so i go back to this point. even at a cost of twice as much, would this be a good deal? heck, no. because if we did not take care of repealing it, we would have to double the tax. we would have to take $1 trillion, not $500 billion. $1 trillion out of senior care. not the republican side, but people who are 80, 19 years old who are on it today. we would double the cost on states. they are already staggeringly high. we would double the tax on small business. we would double down virtually everything about this bill, and instead of huge budget losing 800 million more jobs, which is considered the government estimate, the private sector is

over 1 million jobs are going to be lost between now and 2014, so i think when looked at, the alternatives are that we should repeal the bell -- repeal of the bill. we should go back and look at the testimony. mr. sessions, we are going to create millions of jobs at this new bill. that is not the way it turned out. we have been looking back. we should go back and evaluate what we have done. we should find a way, the senate, the house, listen to the american people, and come up with a better bill. but this is a very complicated mess, and the last point i would make is, and i have heard insurance companies say many things we have been told will go back into the dark ages to retreat again, they of already

agreed that they will stick with the status quo, some to argue these cases is, in my opinion, not the right way. i think we need to understand. it is either repeal or double down on the taxes because the costs are twice that, and they will be very destructive if we are not smart enough to do something today. lastly, the american public will have something to do about it. everyone will be held accountable for their vote. thank god we have gotten to a point where our vote counts. i go back. >> thank you, gentlemen, for being here. it is nice to see you on this monday afternoon. you started by saying you feel like you voted on this about 16 times. tomorrow will be 31. this is going to end up just like the rest, nowhere.

we do not have much work to do around here. but the jobs bill, i think we need reminding, those folks on the side that voted for the bill probably do not, but theodore roosevelt when he tried to do this with something in line, the health care is approaching 18% of gdp. we cannot afford it. we could be heading towards where they say they want to bomb somebody. we had to do it. somebody threw a brick through my niagara falls district office window or threatening my children. that is not what i was here for. there has been more talk about this bill, abet them knowing nothing about what is in it. i am so sorry i have not had

time to see this. but i would bet you that this is about the same. the world coming to an end. for goodness' sake, we are the only industrial country on the face of the earth that puts the burden back on our employers. why can we not try to get to the point where we need to be where we have a single payer bill, which many of us wanted to do in the first place. we have watered it down. for the life of me, i do not know why it caused all of these lost jobs. they have fewer than 15 points, they are not even involved. if they had more than that, i think they get some deduction, some tax deduction. they simply cannot afford to do it. if this is a way to save money. billions of dollars. and the cbo says we could save

if this bill went into effect. remember, it has not. this is conjecture. we all know what changes would be made. we did note that it was going to be very costly to do away with it. am i right? it would be very difficult to do away with it. but more important, what is astonishing, i think before i finish, somebody has got to speak up for women in this country. you repeal this bill, and women will continue as they have from the beginning, single women particularly pay more money for the same insurance that a male pace. did you know that? do you want to go back to that? women's health. one other thing as far as i am concerned, as everybody knows, this was at large. paying the tax or the mandate or the penalty, it is absolutely true. all of these years and yet been paying health insurance premiums, we are paying at least $1,000, i think more, because that is the figure we heard because the people who are not paying for compensated care.

i would like my children's family to be able to save that money and pay for their own health care. i thought in a moment of madness that is all of the people decided not to have health care, they would also say

they would never go to the doctor, who are, whatever happens to them, "i am not going to the hospital," but we know they are not going to do that. so no one can say whether the repeal of this bill will add to or subtract to the deficit. we do know that the first time of the 31 that there were an

attempt to repeal the bill, they said it would add far in excess of $200 billion to the deficit. now, there have been changes since then, regarding the class act and other provisions. so i do not know whether a repeal of the bill adds to or subtracts from the deficit, but neither does anyone else. so on would say, madam ranking member, it would seem that we should at least put off this consideration of the repeal bill until they said what is going to cost. i cannot think of a major piece of legislation that has ever been brought to the house floor in my tenure here where the congressional budget office has not given us a score and said whether or not it has added to the deficit. >> talking about replacing it, about what we would replace it

with. it might be probably nothing that we would go back to what we had before, but we are not making what here. while we are doing is making political points. that is what we should expect for the rest of the session. yes. >> there will be a lot of rhetoric, and you know as you look back, the republican party has had decades to come up with a comprehensive -- decades. there has never been a comprehensive health plan sponsored by republicans, and now the democrats have passed, so essentially, this is the answer. >> i will not take personal

offense to the republicans not offering a comprehensive plan. hr 3000. i would be glad to go over it with you block's stock and barrel. actually, we have got 30 million to 50 million folks insured. we see the portability and pre- existing and ways that allows them to have coverage that they want, rather than what the government dictates to them. you cannot have it both ways. you cannot say that the law has not taken effect or had any effect, but what are we going to do with all of those folks. they are a significant portion. to address the pre-existing is incredibly important, it is you never hear about folks being --

challenged with injury who are in self insured markets. the walmart, the coca-cola, these are not the folks who are challenged. you see the individual and small group market. that is about 18 million people. >> i know, and i know you have, women you have been diagnosed for breast cancer, but there is no treatment for it. that happens. >> exactly. if i made tangentially talk about breast cancer. you will recall what the task force did is to say that women under the age of 50 did not need a screening mammogram. it took an act of congress for us to say, oh, yes, they do, because that decision ought to be between a patient and a position, and what we need to do is do it like this. >> let me point out, if i can claim my time, the congress of

the united states, we said oh, no, you are not going to treat us. >> and under medicare and the opposition to it -- >> if i may? >> in terms of illnesses and injuries, the fact is there are about 80 million folks who are challenged with that, and it needs to be addressed, and the way to address it is to make certain that those individuals have access to the same kind of mechanisms as our folks in the self insured irina. -- arena. they can let the insurance that they want, not that the government once for them. >> they have their choice. we are not going to debate the bill. as i said, we have great affection for you. you know that. i just feel badly for you when

you get home, and when you realize that they have to pay more, all of these other people that they have no access to health care because something happened to them. i just do not want you to have to face that. >> if i can just say one thing that you mentioned. i know that a lot of republicans give the impression that if this was repealed, all of the discriminatory practices, pre-existing conditions, all of those things are going to continue. the fact is they are not going to continue, and do not believe them when they say that they will, because the insurance companies bought into this in support of this bill knowing that everyone would be covered and that they have a lot more people paying into the system and therefore did not have to worry about pre-existing conditions and lifetime benefits and recisions and all of that. once they get to where they have this because the bill is repealed, this will go back into place, because that is the way they make money, you see?

no disrespect. the insurance companies are going to keep these protections in place. they may have said initially six months down the road, one year down the road, they will go back to them again, because that is the only way they can make money absent all of these people that would be in the insurance pool under the aca. >> i yield back the time. >> thank you very much. >> 6:00. we have gone for just a couple of members of the rules committee, and again, i am hoping that this committee will make an order, and then we will get a vote on this issue. i think this is an interesting issue brought forward, and i look forward to having it. >> we want to go through. >> it is true, we have other

witnesses, and i know we of folks coming in. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i do want to associate myself very strongly with your comments and the comments of mr. sessions. i will not repeat those things, and i am not going to be asking any questions either, but i do think some comments that have been made me to be responded to. i say this off and on the floor and occasionally on the rules committee. anyone who has not read the book "1984," or who has not read it in a long time, i really urge people to read that book, because i think in many ways, we are living through the experience described in that book. we're talking about things being rewritten. it is just sort of fascinating to hear the comments being made here.

i think mr. pallone, in particular, gives a great example of some of the things talked about. in 1984, you say that only the insurance companies are going to gain from the epo, -- the appeal, but this is for insurance companies, from my perspective. you want to make us look like we are supporting the insurance companies, but it was you all who went hand in hand with the insurance companies. you set it up so they could not lose. you made them regulate utilities. they were guaranteed a profit every year as a result of the individual mandate, so it is the democrats that are helping the insurance companies, and that point has not been made. and yet, you talk out of both sides of your mouth, and that is such a perfect example about what goes on in the book "1984," allowing them to do that, allowing them to create

this regulated utility. it helps the insurance companies. and then to say the only big gain from the appeal, no, mr. pallone, the american people gain from the repeal. we gave our freedom again. the difference between the liberals in this country and the conservatives is the issue of freedom. you and your colleagues want the government to control every aspect of our lives. we do not believe in that. we want this to continue to be the greatest country in the world, and what makes this the greatest country in the world? the rule of law and the freedom that we have along with our judeo-christian beliefs and our capitalistic system, and obamacare is an assault on all of those things.

you know, the president said in 2008, this is the greatest country of the world. now, help me change it. i just thought that should have been played over and over. i think that is the attitude of many who side with the president on this field. i also want to say that you encourage this. i hope you will give that advice to your president, to president obama, because he continues to blame president bush for everything. the negatives in this country. so if you want us to start look backwards, i hope you will look at that. i will say to mr. andrews, i appreciate the fact that you have said companies have created 4 million jobs in this country. thank you for not being like other witnesses that have come to this committee

who have said that i or we have created these jobs. the administration has not done that. is the private sector who has created the jobs. the other thing important to talk about is the fact somebody mentioned 98% of americans get insurance under this bill. however, before obamacare was passed there were only about 10 million americans who wanted health insurance who could not afford health insurance. it was somewhere around that number. we could have taken care of that with the things our colleagues have talked about. republicans did do that. comprehensive health care -- i love that expression you all used when you want a government takeover of some issue.

let it be comprehensive. that is the code word for that. my colleague from new york mentioned college grads need to be covered by obamacare because they cannot get jobs. republicans have sent 30 bills to the senate that would help trade and environment for jobs. we know the government does not create jobs. we help create an environment. we need to look at not the symptoms, we need to look at the causes. the causes that are creating -- forcing so many young people to not be able to get jobs after their college education is that the economy is in such bad shape and we are spending so much money at the federal level. i also want to say that our

motives are often in tune on this side of the aisle by our colleagues. the implication is we do not care about women or children. if we do not vote for a government takeover of our lives. i would like to point out to my colleagues that there were many democrats -- over 30 democrats that voted no on the bill and i suspect there will be democrats who will vote to repeal it. i am sure my colleagues, and here in their motives or integrity when they do that. i do not do that. i think there are people who understand the difference between freedom and a lack of freedom in what we do when we give the government so much control.

our colleague mr. price says pointed out we want patient centered health care. we want patients and doctors to make decisions, not a 15-member, an elective, and accountable for people to be deciding -- not elected, and not accountable board of people to be deciding who is going to get health care in this country, and that is what you have when you have obamacare. that is the kind of thing we want to get rid of. all of these problems can be dealt with, and they can be dealt with, as my colleague from california so well stated. and in many cases, they are being taken care of. h estee's were not -- were it -- existence --es were in existence and yet, president obama wants to destroy them. it does not allow for reform or

for purchase across state lines. i also hear my colleagues talking out of both sides of their mouth on the prescription drug plan. many of them have lambast of that program. on one day, they will screen about how it is not paid for. on the other hand, they will say, but we have to close the door not whole. -- the doughnut hole. i do not like margaret programs, but come on, you are being hypocritical when you say you have -- i do not like more government programs, but come on, you are being hypocritical when you say you have to have more programs.

maybe they will see some of themselves in terms of how you rewrite history, how you make things sound great that are not great. the loss of freedom in this country is putting us at risk long term. and that is my greatest concern about this bill and the taking away from individuals the ability to make decisions about their health care. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> oh, boy. dr. fox, it is funny to hear you talk about impugning motives. just now, i am pretty sure i have been called a big brother totalitarian who wants to take everybody's freedom away. i think we ought to be careful about some of the rhetoric we use. i would urge my colleague --

maybe to replace some of her speeches. because that was pretty harsh. my colleague, mr. sessions, talked about taxes. let me say for the record, my constituents in massachusetts are sick and tired of paying for people in texas who could afford coverage, but choose not to. we have been paying for that. the health care act actually provides my constituents with a tax cut. and i should also point out to my colleagues on the other side, that your standard bearer, mitt romney, who was the co-author of the massachusetts health care plan, last week said that this was not a tax. this week, he changed his mind. your own him. he is yours. good luck. he will be all over the place by the time this campaign is over with. the bottom line is, this notion of making sure that everybody has the freedom to have access

to good, quality health care is something that motivated me to vote for this bill. not everyone has the freedom to vote for good quality of care. the status quo is bad. i'm glad that we do not have to hear anything about insurance companies have our best interest at heart. we can repeal all of these requirements that banned discrimination against children with pre-existing conditions, as my colleague always pointed out, the provision that forbids insurance companies from discriminating against women, a precondition, that has been banned. we lift requirements of the of 40 health-care act, live to the requirements on these insurance companies to be able responsibly, and they will just do that. one of the reasons that we need

to do this is because insurance companies have not behaved responsibly throughout the years. to many citizens have paid the price for that. i wanted to begin my comments by saying, "enova already." this is our 31st time -- "enough already." this is our 31st time to repeal some aspect of this health-care law. if this is all about politics, then i guess -- i was reading politico today and it says the gop plan is to push back roads. that is what this is all about. how many times do you want us to be on record about this? if this is a campaign issue for you, fine. if you and mitt romney want to run on the platform of saying, we are going to leave it up to states or insurance companies to decide whether or not it is okay to discriminate against kids

with pre-existing condition -- conditions, if you want to run on the platform that will stop closing down on hold and increased the cost of prescriptions for senior citizens, and if you want to run on the platform of letting insurance companies decide whether or not women should be discriminated against, if that is your platform, i welcome the debate. the fact of the matter is, i appreciate the german section have lots of time on this. but i do not want lot of time. -- the chairman saying i have lots of time on this. but i do not want lot of time. use dolle and stahl. this should have been months ago. we need to put people to work. we should not be spending hours debating the president's jobs proposal, or your jobs proposal. buteven -- we should be spending hours debating the president's job proposal, or

your jobs proposal. but seven hours debating this? >> [inaudible] lecture about george orwell. i think my colleague from north carolina is right in referencing george orwell. i can think of no finer example of orwellian rhetoric than the use of these things. the misrepresentation that there will be some committee who will decide who gets a heart transplant and who does not, it was false, it is false, and will always be false. i'm also a little sad that my friend from north carolina yielded back before she took any comments. i note the sincerity of her views, but it is hurtful to your refer -- to hear her referred to

the president as "your president." i did not agree with everything he did, but george w. bush was my president. i never voted for him, but ma -- ronald reagan was my president. i disagreed with him most of the time, but george h. w. bush was my president. i am sad that in this country, that for whatever reason we do not have one president at represents all of us. i think we should get beyond that rhetoric, and frankly, beyond this bill, to talk about what really matters in this country, which is jobs, as you said. >> i am amazed at how much congressman fox and i have in common. i think the thing that bothers me about what she said is this notion of freedom. my idea of freedom is freedom of speech, freedom of religion.

it is not the freedom to not have health care. the problem is, i really look at it as a responsibility point of view. republicans often talk about that. in other words, it is not fair, if you will, that people not take responsibility for their own lives. why should so many of us be paying these large premiums and bills for people who do not decide to have health care? -- health insurance. the other thing you said that i do not agree with is that there are a lot of people out there who want help insurance, millions, probably 30 or 40 million and cannot get it because they cannot afford it. and there are others who are underinsured because they cannot buy a decent benefits package. we are not only talking about these 40 million who will have health insurance under the affordable care act, but also, maybe another 40 million who are underinsured and cannot get coverage for the things they need coverage for because they

will have a basic benefit package and be able to buy affordable insurance with a subsidy under the benefits provided. and finally, with regard to the insurance companies, if you repeal this, not -- when i say that if you repeal this, the insurance companies are the only ones who will benefit, i say that because they will go back to what they do -- did before discriminatory practices, pre- existing conditions, and not because they are evil, necessarily. i am not suggesting that. but because if you do not a take in everybody and have a much larger pool, you're almost forced to go back to the old ways in order to make a profit. it is not a question of evil. what i'm saying is, you would allow us to go back to the old system where all of these discriminatory practices take place, and without having -- and

that is how insurance companies make money. that is the only way they make money in the old system. the way they make money in the new system is by covering everybody. that is just the responsible thing to do. >> i have been here a few years. and i say this respectfully to dr. fox, i guess, as she is leaving. i think her comments in using "1984," which i read some years ago, illustrates how difficult it is to get anything done here. we have framed the issue in terms of "1984." is so misguiding. and soetoro-ng we polarizing. -- so totally polarizing. if that is the mindset of this

republican party, we will never get anything done. >> i appreciate that. i will conclude with a couple of observations. on january 20, i think we voter on the first repeal. the problem is that the majority of the republicans in the house that run the floor, we have a bill that will enable people to keep her or his health insurance if we like that, we have not seen that on the floor. you have repealed to replace. dr. fox right police said this is the greatest country on the planet. i think we all agree with that. but somehow you cannot try to make the greatest -- that somehow you cannot try to make the greatest country in the world even better is stunning to me. we are here for that. that is what we are elected for. that is what the president of the united states is supposed to

do. we're supposed to improve the quality of life for people. this is the greatest country in the world. and if we can guarantee the right to have good, quality health care, that is even greater. i understand what is going on here. the hot button issues. i would request that you give us less time on hot-button issues. if you want your vote for your campaign commercials so that these multimillion-dollar super pacs can pomelos, fine. but we should be spending less time on hot-button issues. >> i do not intend to go through the philosophy of this event, this particular bill, or the issue here. with one caveat. i served in the state legislature before i came here. i am perhaps a different and in my delegation, whose first jobs were to come to washington, and

thought that perhaps the way we do things in washington is the way it ought to be done. i appreciate the kindness here, because i did not realize how incompetent i was as simply a state legislator, how much i did not care about issues, and that only once i briefed the rarified air of the potomac river i was able to make these kinds of decisions. the fact that you to require health care to age 26 as a family plan decades before anyone here thought about it, i guess, was just an apparition of our inability of doing things. however, i did have a specific parochial question, simply because i never received an answer for it. i do not know who wants to claim credit for this program, but if anyone could do that, now that we know it is a tax and has been verified as such, the tax will be collected by the irs. i have a center in my district. they are very good people and do a good job, but they are pressed

to the max right now. if this program were to go through, how would you handle the process of having the tax fair fight through the irs -- the tax verified through the irs? will you, indeed, outsource this program, as with other programs? because the present iras capacity to handle this is not there. there are some moves suggested it could be 12,000 to 14,000 more people just to handle the program. i have to read it there is some historical reference to that. when our tax sproat -- program went from a class tax to a war tax in ward 2, we had to triple things. when the bottom rate went up to 25%, there was a sick to begin in greece -- increase in individuals. the irs will not be able to handle the men and -- will be able to -- will not be able to

manage this workload. is this to support this program, were to increase the number of irs employees? >> it will be handled intelligently. we have the intelligence with in this body to implement this. >> that means planning ahead of time. what was the purpose of the plan and discussion? >> doane, about -- don't talk about conjuring up some intelligence. there is enough intelligence within his body to rise to the occasion. >> is the plan to outsource this work, or will we hire more people inside? that is a legitimate question that should be thought through. >> the answer is, i will be determined. i do not think there is any plan to outsource. there is a lot of outsourcing being done. that is not being contemplated. >> so we will increase the

number of irs agents? >> maybe so. mr. bishop, we do not need to conjure up a straw people. we will handle that. there is enough intelligence with in this body to respond to that. don't sell it short. >> mr. levin, i'm asking what the plan is. if you do not have a plan, say you do not have a plan. if the plan is to outsource, say it is to outsource. it is not a $64,000 question. >> the answer is that it will be implemented. some implementations are not in place, some are. you want to repeal what is in place. that is what you want to get rid of. so now you conjure up what will happen with some of the provisions that have not yet been implemented. the subsidy provisions, and others, have not been implemented. -- have been implemented, and others have not yet been. but the very purpose to try to

-- your very purpose is to try to repeal what is already in place. >> here is the wave would work for taxpayers. when a person files there 1040, if they are providing health insurance 3 w-two, it will reflect the health insurance. if a person does not have a w-2, then he or she will have to file a schedule that indicates that they have health insurance. it is pretty much the same way you show you make mortgage interest payments if you claim the deduction. if the person does not have that, there will be a penalty assessed as part of the federal tax. if they do not, it will be added on. whether that requires more employees or not, i do not know. but i do know the treasury department has presented a budget that assumes this will be the lot and will provide the manpower to get the job done. >> how many employees will that increase? >> i do not know.

i will be happy to check the appropriations record from that apartment, but i'm certain that the irs has taken this into account. that is the way it works in the real world. >> i appreciate that, but i also realize that in the real world, the irs center that we have in my district is maxed out right now. in the past, the programs that were added to their responsibilities were, indeed, outsourced. >> i do not anticipate any outsourcing. >> if it is, indeed, what you started to say and then backtracked, if the goal is not to outsource, that was the result of my question. is it legitimate answer, and i appreciate that. i do recognize, though, that historically, every time there has been an increase in the role of the irs, there have been an increase -- has been an increase in the number of agents.

it cannot be denied. >> when the mortgage interest deduction was added to the tax code, was there a spike and irs agents? i do not know. >> there was an outsourcing. >> was there a spike in irs agents? >> i am making the assumption that there was because i -- because that is what i think it is. i may be inaccurate. >> we got a bunch of people know better than i, but i have tried to read the bill. there are 17,000 new agents are authorized with the health care bill. there are 17,000 authorized through the ways and means component of the bill. i know that mr. rangel was the chairman of the time, but chairman dodd is the subject matter experts. 17,000 agents off -- authorize. the white house indicated last week it will begin that hiring

process through the omb right now. >> my question is parochial. i have people asking a question and i did not know this was a big action -- answer. -- the specific answer. >> these mellman began by referring to himself as a modest statement. it was the last position you help? >> i walked out under my own power. they called me speaker at the time. >> thank you. >> history teacher during that same time frame. mr. chairman, i would like to -- with unanimous consent, enter into the record of the statement of the administration policy. >> without objection. >> and i might add, mr. chairman, this one does not say, as many have advertised, that stack would recommend to the president that it be vetoed. -- that staff would recommend to

the president that it be vetoed. it ends with if presented with it, he would veto it. >> i think is very clear that the president would, if handed this bill, repeal it. he would veto it. >> 17 months ago, the ouster of the extraordinary step of adopting a resolution instructing house committees to do some very specific things regarding our health care. since that time, as has been mentioned here several times, we voted 30 times. tomorrow will be 31. to repeal are measures having to do with the affordable care act. i wonder how well the theittee's have followed

instructions. has your committee or report of the bill increased the number of insured americans? i gather by no response that you have not. i'm talking to committee now. are not talking about u.s. and abroad -- i am not talking about you as individuals. >> it looks as though mr. palone has to leave. does anyone have any specific questions to him before he leaves? thank you very much. >> let me go to the next question. has your committee reported -- recorded a bill that would provide for permanent? six of the house instructed -- permanente doc fixed at the house instructed you to do?

>> there has been -- have been a number of meetings in an effort to garner the kind of information allow us to bring forward a piece of legislation. we would like to do that in a bipartisan fashion. >> i take that as a note. >> -- as a no. >> excuse me, denman, were you finished, doctor? >> apparently, he does not want to enter. >> i took your answer as a no, as i put it. >> look, it can be said that the committee is considering, is studying. the truth of the matter is, no legislation has passed through the ways and means committee that would make considerable dent in the number of uninsured. >> and i would have to do with measures that would do with pre-

existing conditions. >> it is a shift in the affordable care act. >> let me go in another direction. as a lawyer and as a former judge, i want to say something to you all that may benefit all of us here. it behooves us as congresspersons to be a great deal more respectful of the nine members of the united states supreme court. and what i sought in the medium, -- saw in the media, and i might add, ideologically, i agreed with some and i disagreed with some. and i do not have to put my history on the record. i have been to the supreme court as an individual on two occasions, and i thought they were wrong in their rulings, but i accepted that and i went about

my business. i shudder to think that we would continue to, as one senator said, that two members of the supreme court changing their position does not make it the law of the land. well, the senator is wrong. today, it is the law of the land. we have rights and responsibilities that are correlated to those rights. and if we want to desire to continue in this institution, we can seek to repeal, as you are doing in this case, and to do what some of us think would be helpful, and that would be to continue about business of following the law as it exists, and try to do what we can to make it better. many of the things that you speak of cross state insurance matters.

black people like me would support. there are business matters that we have all the time since i came here. and i came here seeking single payer. and a public option. i advocated for this health care before i ever heard president barack obama's name. and you use the word obamacare. it should have my name in it because i have something to do with it more than he did. dr. fox when she comes back, that most of us read george orwell in 19 -- a read george and some of us read "brave new world." of the way or acting implies --

the way you are acting implies the decline of an empire. >> coming up next, the communicators. that is followed by cyber security threats. and later, the green party nominates its presidential candidates from earlier today in baltimore. tomorrow morning, the national governors association continues its annual meeting. they will talk about on treanor were shipped and what -- entrepreneurship and what government and state leaders can do to encourage it. join us for live coverage at 11:00 a.m. eastern here on c- span. on wednesday, the house voted to repeal the president's health care law. 239 republicans and five democrats voted to repeal. 185 democrats voted against repeal. the final vote, to 85-144.

it is not expected to -- 285- 144. it is not expected to pass the senate. >> this we, -- this week, the big show in las vegas is every winter. but every spring, vendors and bike technology companies to come to capitol hill to display for policy makers. we spoke with some of those at the show. >> you are with communicators on capitol hill. we are joined by the president and ceo of the electronics association, which is putting on this event. this event.