they said we are in a little shop and there is screaming and yelling. we are in canada and we have 127. i said i want to send some people to visit. i am sold. canada has an interesting model. in case you want to see it, we have daily flights out of chicago. [laughter] >> i want to close to the question. we have a link on our website. there are transportation issues and you are trying to address them. during your career, there has been discussion about government. and how to make it more effective. from a perspective of a mayor outside of washington, our people seem that issue in the same way?

it is this a solution-based approach where you are trying to help the most basic human needs? >> i have two points. i love this job. i have had great jobs. this is the best i have had in public life. i would never replace any of my jobs. but mayor is a government that is closest to city government. it is the closest to the people. that is how they envision their lives. recycling. garbage. tree trimming. parks. it is the most intimate. you make a decision. some people are happy and some people are not. they do not hide it. [laughter] that is one.

i used to congress on your corner. hear you say, i'm going to do this. it is the most intimate form of government. they did not hear your message about the telephone. [laughter] let me say this. we are having -- this is a pet peeve so thank you. this discussion about all that matters is tax rate is ridiculous. i cut upper head tax rates by 50% and by the time my term is out, we will eliminate it. tax breaks matter. -- tax rates matter. but any business person will also tell you the quality of a workforce matters.

can they get goods and services efficiently? is government transparent? this year, we had 147 business places on the books. we had more than l.a., phoenix, and philadelphia combined. we massively consolidated them down to 43. i do not like you focusing on city hall. i want you focusing on your customer. my favorite example of this consolidation was if you buy a dog, they need a license. if he so the caller, you need another license. if you want to offer the service of watching the dog, you need another license. i was just looking for a kid to by the dog. [laughter] government coming in a sense of

oversight, does not mean you eliminate it for health and safety. certainty -- once you give certainty and the ability to move goods and services efficiently, all things they care about and also a workforce that is trained and ready to go, they will go create the jobs and you will leave the country. the notion that only thing that matters and economic development is tax breaks. it matters. chicago to make it point. it did not have an income tax. o'hare is a critical platform for that operation. ford has a plant. we invested to keep it competitive.they decided what

cars that produce there. we make sure they can move them in and out. we are making investments. there is a partnership for the interstate highway system and the broadband development. there has always been this partnership and it is a good partnership. it has worked in our history. it is not one or the other. when we go over our line of 140 business licenses, nobody is less healthy than the city of chicago. we did it smartly and it gives small business a certainty.

the next thing we would do is we have 8 different inspectors. we are consolidating and modernizing it. then somebody can go pull it down on the website and they do not have to bother in business with an expected. we are not doing that from a health and safety perspective but from every other perspective. and and that is where government matters. this notion that government is bad and private sector is good, we always have a partnership. we should have a discussion about 30 doubles. i do not create jobs. the private sector does. i do create the atmosphere and the environment where they can succeed or not. that is based on the schools, workforce, airports, mass transit, water, quality of life, parks. that matters.

the fact that the city of chicago went from ten to fifth in bicycle friendly, it is not an accident. we have a massive improvement in startup companies and young workers doing web design and all types of other design. there is another means of transportation. they cannot build a bicycle lane on their own. i have to do it. >> great ending to a great conversation about chicago. [applause] and thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seat. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] but a look at u.s. businesses and households based on the latest data from the u.s. census bureau. from washington journal, this is

about 45 minutes. >> on your screen is the census director who is with us to give us a snapshot of trends in this country over the past decade. we worked with you through a set of statistics that will do what? what will people learn? >> today it is going through what you might call myths about certain economic and social phenomenon in the country. most of them are not real but they are the results of generalizing and when you drill down, you realize the stories are different. are looking at a total level of some phenomenon versus the rate or chance that it would look the same. oftentimes we get the wrong impression about what is going

on in the country because we are not comparing it to the right thing. we will go through a lot of different kinds of statistics. we will try to point out what in general impressions are telling us and that may not be true of the time. >> for viewers, we have posted the numbers on our web site so you can find them there. one of our flores -- our followers. you can follow the charts with us. if you would like to ask questions about specific targets, you are most welcome. a discussion question around this might be for you to think about how your family's circumstances of your business circumstance has changed over the past decade. we might hear your story as we look at the broader numbers for our society. the first asks the question to the latest recession calls home

ownership rates to decline for all homeowners of the same magnitude? >> let's go through this one. let me help you read things. we have a lot of different lines and the height of the line reflects what percentage of a group is buying our own in their home. as we move from left to right, we are comparing time. there are too big bars here and that is reminding us, pointing out when recessions happen. on the right side, you see the most recent recession. maybe the first thing to do is look at that dotted line in the middle. that reflects a percentage of the entire household population

that was buying or owned their home. if they go from left to right, you could see there is a mild decline of 1.8% between 2007 and 2010. so overall it went down 1.8 percentage points during the great recession. the can see 1 start difference. the line there is for young households were the head is less than 35 years old. we see homeownership lower throughout this time for them and that has to do with accumulating the income required to make a down payment -- downpayment.

then you also see another phenomenon. there is a big contrast between young households and older households on the impact during this recessionary period. the younger households declined in their home ownership by 4.4 percentage points during this time. the older homeowners showed a much smaller decline. that has to do with the fact that as the pay off your mortgage, you -- there is a much larger percentage of the older folks who own their home out right. about two-thirds of the older group own their home. that makes the recession-proof. the mists here is that age groups -- the myth here is that

everyone had the same affect during this period but it is disproportion among young groups. >> our phone lines are divided regionally. if he would like to call us and tell us your experience -- you can send a comment or question by twitter. we will put our e-mail address on the screen. lots of ways to get involved this morning about the snapshot of the united states and how things have trended over the past decade. for whatever the reason, whether access to capital or unstable jobs, younger home owners were the most disproportionately affected in homeownership rates. >> young households tend to move more often for a variety of reasons. that requires them to change household identification and

that produced a problem as well. >> home ownership and individuals net worth are closely tied together. we have seen big stories coming out in the last month. your next chart asks the question how net worth changes by age group. >> let's look at this one. here is the height of the lines. it reflects the percentage of households that have a negative net worth. that means that your debts exceed your assets. we break that down by age. if you move from left to right, you're watching the movement from the year 2000 to 2010. you see very little, if you focus on the right side of the graph to try to look at that in the or movemebnnt

recessionary period between 2009 and 2010, you see that the net worth of those that have negative net worth went down. it is the only group that did that. it is much higher on average. they are in some sense poorer than the other groups. zero's because theuy have or negative net worth but they have seen some gains between 2009-2010. >> but once again, 65 years and over are relatively stable. >> that is right. robusta both on housing ownership and net worth. >> let's take some form -- phone calls. st. louis. good morning. >> i think the last recession

caused a decline in homeownership that we should be worried about but also, i think that -- do you think it is a time that -- looking for a home and a certain value, whether ribby $3,000 or $300,000, do you think that people are looking at them more? >> these are statistics on housing. we wanted to point out how different groups in the population reacted and how their lives were changed by the recession. i think your question points out the fact that we need up-to-date

statistics. this phenomenon we're looking at are undergoing change right now. our data stops at 2010. this is the kind of thing we need to keep up-to-date on to make good decisions. >> this comment from twitter -- how does the government track causes for changes? >> traditionally the federal statistical system has monitored the prevalence and volume of different things going on. rarely does it attempt to identify the causes of changes. and that is generally left to the private sector with the academic sector to puzzle through why things are

happening. there is a large literature on this phenomenon we just talked about, mainly from the academic sector. >> this comment -- young adults bob stoddard harms -- bought starter homes. >> that is right. when you look at these and other data that we collect, you formed the impression that this young cohort right now is heavily affected by the recession getting into the housing market. it will be interesting to watch this group over time to see as we move out of this recession whether the rebound fast or more slowly. >> we are involving you in the conversation by asking about some of the trends in your family over the past decade.

we are here with the head of the census bureau. next is jason from las vegas. >> good morning. i am right behind the baby boomers. i am looking at the trends and watching how the greatest generation was always prepared for any situation, tough or good. they did not pass anything along to the young generation. i see that -- such a large majority of men are out of work. and the trend of these women having jobs. will we have a strong society we have so many people? i have seen the greatest generation -- they were willing to bring the mother in and have everyone lived in the house. but i see all of these young generations wanted to buy these big mansions and they do not prepare for anything.

how come we learn from the older generation so we can prepare and have another generation again when they go older to own houses and keep the communities up? vegas is decimated because nobody prepared for anything. the body save for a rainy day -- nobody saved for a rainy day. everyone got foreclosed on. it is scary. >> it is fascinating to study how people's behavior with regard to saving and investment are affected by their life experiences as they go through life. when you do the generational comparisons, cogeneration's experience different historical

events that shaped their behavior. one of the things we will alcee over the coming years is how this young cohort -- we will all see over the coming years is how this young court will make decisions about their own investments and how they behave with regard to savings and planning for the future. this great recession will be a major event in their life. >> by the looks of these numbers, my kids are never moving out. -- our mostk to people in poverty non-white? >> this is a mistake we all make at one time or another. we have all heard the assertion that most poor people are a minority group members and this

reminds us that you have to be careful about arithmetic. if you look at the top, we have to live here and the height of the line reflects how many people, millions of people in poverty. poverty is defined by the census bureau definition the looks as before tax cash income of families. the reset threshold by family size -- then we set thresholds and by family size. remove from 1959 to 2010 from left to right. here we see the blue line is higher than the yellow or orange line. the blue line reflects whites in

poverty. two-thirds of poor people right now are white. a much smaller number of non- whites are in poverty. contrary to the impression that some people carry in their heads. often it to go down to the next chart, the explanation for that myth is that the rate, the chances that someone is a dental property -- poverty relates to minority status. the height of the line here is the percentage of the group in poverty. the colors of the lines have switched. the poverty rate of non-whites is indeed higher than the poverty rate of whites. but since non-whites are a

minority in the population, you get those volume differences. the other thing to note on this bottom chart is the dramatic declines since 1959 in the poverty rate of the non-white population. how those two lines are coming together slowly but dramatically. >> related to that, on twitter he asks -- >> we do not have won today but you can go to our web site and put in those search terms and hopefully you will find that. >> georgia, frank is on the line. >> i know we had a problem with the housing market slowdown a lot.

you have a lot of people renting now. will that have an impact on that part of it? >> that is right. the problems in the housing market vary greatly across the country. different parts of the country suffered from this problem in different -- two different extents. our other data series shows that the movement from home ownership to renting, you can see it in the country. that has been a switch and exactly as you have observed in your area. it'll be interesting to watch that ratio of renting versus owning as we move out of the recession. but rental markets in some areas

are really quite tight now because of that movement from home ownership or by a home to renting. >> there is a big debate going on about income inequality and whether or not it is on the rise in the united states. the next two charge deal with this. >> this is data across countries. this is not statistical information that the census bureau collects but we rely on the organization for economic cooperation and development. they have attempted to create a standardized measure of inequality still the height of these lines is something that we call a gillani index. it goes from zero to one. if a genie index were zero, all

the households have exactly the same income and if it went up to one, it meant that only one had all the income. so the higher the line, the more income inequality there is. the lines here are different countries. we try to make the u.s. the biggest one, the fattest one. it is in blue. we have a comparison of the u.s. to a variety of other countries. the highest in the quality in this set of countries is mexico and the lowest is first week in. we are in the upper middle. we are above countries in western europe that were often comparing ourselves to as well in japan and canada. that is one way to look at it. we are in the upper end of inequality. another way to look at it is on

the next chart that asks the question are we getting more inequality or less inequality? --s compares the mid-1980s's on the to the late 2000's rate of growth of inequality. we are in the middle of the growth rates. most countries are experiencing growth and equality. the income distribution is becoming more cost of overtime in many countries. the exception at the bottom are france and spain. i do not have explanations for that but our growth rate is sort of a dental the middle of the countries we are comparing. >> an interesting phenomenon.

sweden had the lowest level of inequality but it is growing the fastest. >> that is right. they are changing at a faster rate. they are still low in terms of an equality comparisons but that is changing faster. >> jackie, idaho, your honor. -- you are on. >> i am a baby boomer and my father was in the second call war. came back and did -- i was raised on a farm handed down to the generations. i think what has happened this we have lost the definition of who we are. the father went to work, the what -- the mother was home taking care of the kids. the kids knew the mother would always be there. we were taught to save our money, not to go in debt. did not buy something if you

cannot afford it. uri abbottabad the next generation -- you always thought about the next generation. i was born in the early 1950's then as an adult, i am into this me, me, me. i think that we just we just got to the point where we became so selfish and greedy and only thinking of ourselves that i started out with a small home and worked myself up. i would sell that one and make a little profit and get the next one. now everybody thinks they should start at the top. it is this entitlement thing we have going on these days. they do not know what it is like to start out with what you can

afford and work your way up. host: thank you so much. a similar theme is echoed on twitter. is there anything about government data that gets to causality? guest: i think it is our obligation as government statisticians to give the people and accurate portrait of all of these things -- income variation, spending rates, saving rates across generations. these impressions we get by watching our extended families and our neighbors are grounded not in observations, but in data that we can trust across the entire country. some of these observations are prevalent in the country.

others are not. host: what do we have next? guest: another income equality issue that arises is between men and women. we have to remind ourselves that currently women that work are making on average 77 or 78 cents at every -- for every dollar that males are making. it has changed. between 2000 and 2010, it was about 73 cents. things are getting a little more equal. another interesting thing was why does that happen and will it happen in the future? the why that appears to be

relevant is that women are working in different occupations, occupations that do not have high median salaries. they work five hours less than men per week. they tend less to be in management positions. there are a lot of unexplained things. there is a change that most stenographers and labor economists believe is coming. that is related to this chart. the height of these lines reflexively percent of employed workers with a bachelor's degree. this is the level of the college education, percentage with college education. we compare men and women and if you go to the bottom, we are not comparing time but we are comparing age groups.

so, this is a rather dramatic chart for social data in that the blue and red lines crossed themselves. the younger people in younker groups, 20-40, a larger percentage of women who have bachelor's degrees than men. the red line above the blue line. as you go to older age groups at the top, it flips. the older groups working men have higher education than women. this fits a lot of other data. if you look at current graduate school and graduate school enrollment -- an undergraduate school enrollment. women exceed the accounts of men. we are already seeing a movement of women in a different occupational mix. they are entering those occupations that have higher median incomes.

the 77 cents or 78 cents, unless things change across occupations, should get higher and higher as these women -- these young women enter higher income occupations. host: lindsay asks the -- guest: it doesn't apply to every woman with a bachelor's degree or every man with a bachelor's degree. these data come from the very representative samples of people are around the country. we cover all of the country. and women and men in all occupations of all backgrounds. and they rely -- and this is an important thing for all of us to realize -- they rely on the participation of people throughout the country. the census bureau attains a very high participation rates, but it is important they do. host: will move on to manufacturing the first take a call from mark from maine.

caller: good morning, susan. thanks once again for a very informative "washington journal." the complexity of these census charts certainly needs explanation. so, thank you, robert. i am coming from the older generation, the chart on home ownership. it is obvious we older people have had a lifetime to pay off our mortgages. but my question will probably raise the ire of some listeners. is there any sense of data on the elderly who do not need a social security? i started on social security at 62 as a retired public school teacher.

and i still remember my depression parents raised in the depression is saying they didn't need social security because they saved, saved all through their life. and i was kind of raised that way. i always spent less than my income. so, i have kind of an opposite reaction of a previous caller. it seems our older people need to give and support the younger people. guest: we do indeed have statistics on that. i refer you to the census.gov web page. there are a lot of people now studying how people are preparing, if you will, for retirement, what their cumulative savings look like and how dependent they are on social security. and that very thing that you pointed out, what portion of the elderly are depending to what extent on social security for their day to day living, it is something that a lot of people are interested in right

now. and proper statistics on that allowed us to have these discussions. host: our first question was on job creation and what people out there who are experiencing the recession have to say about how to effectively create jobs. your next chart gives a snapshot of how manufacturing, beginning with that, which was typically a source of jobs, has changed. guest: we are going to look at a couple of things on manufacturing. the first one attacks the myth that nothing is made with the united states anymore. the height of this line is a function of billions of dollars in volume of the manufacturing sector.

these are constant dollars, fixed to $1,984. it allowed us to move from 1996 to the present time -- to 1984 dollars. look at the height of a line. there was a major hit to manufacturing volume during the recessionary period, a dramatic decline, but you see it coming back. slowly, it is sort of matching the early 2000's now. the type of manufacturing going on is actually that for which the u.s. really has really manages, i think. host: can we move to the next one? guest: the next one is a list we all carry around, the midwest sector of manufacturing -- ms. that the midwest sector manufacturing is completely dead. we compare four regions. the height of the line is the function of the share of manufacturing in the country

represented by each region. we see, focus your eye on the red line, which is the midwest, the so-called rust belt. you see a decline over the 2000's. you see that the south has been the major sector, the major region for manufacturing, most prevalent for some time. but by no means is the midwest falling off the charts. there is a little bump. what is happening in the midwest is the mix of manufacturing activities is changing in a way. the midwest is not completely dead. the south is still leading on manufacturing, but the midwest is hanging in there. >> going back to 10 years, 2002, -- can i speculate if the chart went back 40 or 50 years there would be a big decline in the northeast?

>> and it is also related how the population has migrated west and south. everything working together. host: let's take a southern caller. shreveport. caller: my question for mr. grove, as we seem to have an increasingly into racial population, has the census bureau collected data on how income changes or poverty rate regarding interracial households and if so, how does it compare to the data presented earlier. guest: i don't have that with me. we certainly do have data on that. with regard to the changes during the recession, it is pretty clear that minority groups were disproportionately suffering declines during that period the income levels of multiracial families are indeed

sitting in our statistics. i just don't have them in my head now. it is very interesting to me to note the growth in the proportion of the american people who are self-identifying as multiracial. this is one of the fastest- growing groups in the country. so, watching this group and watching how they both in income, socio-economic status, and also culturally how they changed over time will be an interesting thing for all of us to watch. host: suzanne turns the comment on the head -- guest: they fit together. host: exports of manufactured goods. guest: here is another kind of myth -- that we don't make anything and we don't export it.

here, the height of these lines are in billions of dollars. un-adjusted data. and the redline our imports. the value of imports over time. the blue line is exports. there are two important things to look at. let your eye look at the difference in height between the blue and red, the disparity between imports and exports. we are an importing country and we have been for a long time. host: not so much in 1957 -- 1997, much closer. guest: and look at how the recession brought those together. the impacts of recession on exports and imports is a complicated matter because it depends on what the rest of the world is doing at the same time. you see a big bounce back in both imports and exports after the recession, this export increase is something our country is working on in a

variety of ways. host: our next call is from greensboro, north carolina. this is lisa. you are on with dr. growth. caller: i know greensboro -- during the last census, the census bureau actually had an office there and i worked on the last census. i am just wondering, when do you start looking for people to work on the u.s. census again? i know it is way earlier than when it is a venture with the form. two or three years -- i did statistics and i just love the u.s. census bureau and i love of of the statistics and i am wondering when you are going to ramp up the workers for next time. guest: first of all, thank you for your service to the country, working on the senses. -- census.

join more than half a million other people who gave such a wonderful census is to the country that we gave to the country for 2010. the. census, as you know, is in the year 2020. we are not hiring people for that one. we are trying to planning census that is more efficient, so people here in washington are completely devoted to fabricating designing of census that is very efficient, cheaper for the american public, because we have to save taxpayer money like everyone. but also as good as we have done in prior decades. one of the wonderful things we have about the u.s. case with census is if you compare our performance worldwide to other country, we do great censuses

here. this one was one of the greatest -- best in history. it is because the people that you work so hard on it. thank you. host: next is a small business and large business -- job creation. guest: another thing we hear, some people here, that small businesses are just disappearing and we are dominated by large businesses. the height of these lines is the percentage of business establishments that are either large and smallb. -- large and small. the blue are the small and the red are the big ones. this is a very stable rate of prevalence of small and large establishments. really complicated and really important. slow down as you look at this. let me first note -- what is the engine of growth?

what kinds of firms produce more employment? this contrasts small firms and large firms. the height of the bars are the proportion of employees that work in certain kinds of firms. look at the blue line, blue bars first. it gives you the proportion of employees among total employees and different kinds of firms. on the very right, the blue line is really high for big firms that are mature. 10 years or older. a larger portion of all employees work for big firms that are old, big firms. let your eye goes to the left and last -- let us ask the question, who is producing the new jobs?

that is the yellow bar. you see that a young firms on the very last side that are just a being born -- produce jobs. they start from zero and they hire people. if you go to the next group, these are small firms that have been in existence 1-9 years. they produce jobs, too. but the red bar are four job destruction. they go out of business, too. they both produce jobs and they lose jobs. if you look at this entire thing, it teaches us that the myth is that all small firms produce jobs. really, the truth is start-ups, a young firms produce jobs.

small firms that have been in existence for a long time are not producing a lot of jobs. host: start-ups create jobs but the jobs and not necessarily stable. if you want more jobs, you want more start-ups. host: here is a comment -- jacksonville, florida. babas online for robert growth. caller: yes, doctor. i was born in the mid 40's -- 1940's and we were the second family in the neighborhood to have a tv. we dealt with imagination. very few toys. as the decades progressed, i see the internet has done a wonderful job bring money to the world. i think the next big growth will be hybrid automobiles.

there is a lot of interest in that. we need something to carry on now. and i think the next thing will be hybrid use of cars, just the sheer enjoyment of it, and then there will be the necessity. host: thanks. let's listen to kim in annapolis. caller: good morning. i just have one small question. you hire a lot of temporary workers to be census workers but you also rely on the u.s. postal system to deliver a lot of the surveys to go to people's homes. with the drive now to reduce the letter carriers in the postal system, how will it impact the 2020 census if in fact they get rid of most of the postal workers and post offices that they are already doing -- offices close in on saturdays is the office closing, and on saturdays no delivery. guest: it is something we think

about a lot because we have to plan so far out. our contingencies on that really have to do with exploiting electronic communication more and more and more. so we are investigating how social media might be used to alert people to our request for census data, how we can use telephones and internet and basically all sorts of most to communicate with folks. we are preparing for a world in 2020 where mobile computing will be everywhere, we will be in a wireless world, and we will be interacting over the internet with a variety of devices in a variety of ways. that is the world i think we are moving to. host: we have two minutes left. two importance life. we feel a lot with the debate of private-sector and public- sector workers. guest: we are discussing the

size of the federal government daily now. this chart reflects the percentage of and pleased by sector -- employees by sector and the big blue part is the private sector. the different bars are for different years. from 1980 to 2010. you can see it is pretty constant. a little more than 80% of employees are in the private sector. but it isn't moving very much. over time. if we zoomed in on the top portion and go to the next graph and ask what are the characteristics of the government sector employment, this is generally a surprise to people. the growth in government workers is disproportionately in the local government rather than state -- and the federal

government shows a gradual decline in the number of employees working for the federal government. if you go up to the top and say why is the growth going on in the local government, about two-thirds of the growth has to do with folks working in local schools. this is a surprise to most people. host: that is it for these numbers. for our audience, they are connected to the website if you like to spend more time with them and the census website has a lot more data and you can dig into some of the ancillary sets of data. we said at the outset this was your final program with us on america by the numbers. where are you going? guest: i am off to georgetown university and i will become the provost at georgetown, something i am looking forward to. host: we should tell the

audience you have been a big champion of the america by the numbers segment. a question about your job -- when you look in your tenure at census, how the the organization change under you? guest: we tried to innovate in ways to make us more efficient. we are very concerned about spending every dollar of taxpayer money efficiently, so all of our work is trying to be more efficient and giving the american people more useful information. host: thanks very much, and good luck in your next position. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," the first anniversary of the consumer finance protection bureau. the founder and executive editor of the hackstrom report discusses how the drought is

affecting food prices. james angel explains the british-based barclays bank scandal. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. next, president obama and presidential candidate mitt romney comment on the shooting at the colorado movie theater. then a discussion on the violence in syria. >> this weekend on american history tv -- >> they have done more to confirm the markets marxist prediction of the rich getting

richer. >> the rise of socialism in 20th-century america. "the contenders." this week, thomas dewey. at 730 eastern and pacific. american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. president obama has ordered that flags be lowered to half staff for five days in memory of those killed and wounded in the colorado theater shooting. president obama and presented candidate mitt romney canceled scheduled campaign -- presidential campaign --

presidential candidate mitt romney cancelled scheduled campaigns. we will hear from former governor mitt romney in new hampshire. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, everybody. let me first of all say how grateful i am for all of you people and how much we appreciate everything that you have done. i know there are a lot of people

here who have been so engaged in the campaign, have sacrificed so much, people who have been involved since 2007. i want all of you to know how appreciative i am. i know many of you came here today for a campaign event. i was looking forward --i know many of you came here today for a campaign event. i was looking forward to having a fun conversation with you about some really important matters facing the country. the differences between myself and my opponent in this election. but, this morning, we will cut up to news of a tragedy that reminds us of all the ways that we are united as one american family. by now, many of you know and many of you have heard that a few miles outside of denver, in a town called aurora, at least

12 people were killed when a gunman opened fire in a movie theater. dozens more are being treated for injuries at a local hospital. some of the victims are being treated at a children's hospital. we are still gathering all of the facts about what happened in aurora, but what we do know is that the police have one suspect in custody. the federal government stands ready to do whatever is necessary, bringing whoever is responsible for this heinous crime to justice. [applause] we will take every step possible to insure the safety of all our people. we are going to stand by our neighbors in colorado during this extraordinarily difficult time. i had a chance to speak to the mayor of aurora as well as the governor of colorado to express how heartbroken we are.

even as we learned how this happened and who is responsible, we may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this. such violence, such evil is senseless, it is beyond reason. while we will never know fully what causes somebody to take the life of another, we do know what makes life worth living. the people we lost in aurora were a lot and they loved. they were mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors. they had hopes for the future and they had dreams that were not yet fulfilled. if there is anything to take away from this tragedy, it is the reminder that life is fragile.

our time here is limited and it is precious. what matters at the end of the day is not the small things. it is not be trivial things which so often consume us in our daily lives. ultimately, it is how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another. [applause] it is what we do on a daily basis to build our lives meaning and purpose. that is what matters. at the end of the day, what we will remember will be those we love and what we did for others. that is why we are here.

i am sure that many of you who are parents here at the same reaction that i did when i heard this news. my daughters go to the movies. what if malia and sasha had been at the theater as so many of our kids do every day? michelle and i will be fortunate enough to hug our growth a little tighter tonight. i am sure you will do the same with your children. those parents who may not be so lucky, we have to embrace them and let them know we will be for them -- to be there for them and the nation. i am so grateful that all of you are here. i am so moved by your support,

but there will be other days for politics. this is a date for prayer and reflection -- [applause] so what i would ask everybody to do is, i would like us to pause in a moment of silence for the victims of this terrible tragedy, for the people who knew them and love to them, for those who are still struggling to recover, and for all of the victims of less publicized acts of violence that plague our community every day. so if anybody can just take a moment --

thank you, everybody. i hope all of you will keep the people of aurora -- in your hearts and minds today. maybe lord bring them comfort and healing in the case to come. i am grateful to all of you. i hope that as a consequence of the today's events, as you leave here, you spend a little time thinking about the incredible blessing that god has given us. thank you very much, everybody. god bless you. god bless the united states of

america. [applause] [croed chanting "four more years] \ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [applause] >> i want to thank father christian. we come before you today with very heavy hearts with what

happened in colorado. joe and i want to offer the thoughts and prayers from the people of new hampshire to the victims in aurora, colorado and their families. to those who were injured, we wish them speedy recovery. that is why we are here today and to come together as a community and to offer our collected condolences and prayers. governor romney is here with us today to offer his thoughts and prayers and those of anne. it is my honor to introduce my friend, mitt romney, to you today. [applause]

>> good morning. and thank you for joining with being senator and me on this sad day. and thank you two thought the christian for beginning this gathering with a word of prayer. our hearts break with the sadness of this unspeakable tragedy. anne and i joined the president and first lady and all of america in offering our deepest condolences for those whose lives were shattered in a few months -- through -- few moments, a few moments of evil. i stand before you today not as a man running office, but as a

father, grandfather, and american. this is the time to look into our hearts and remember how much we love one another and how much we love and how much we care for our great country. there is so much love and goodness in the heart of america. in the coming days, we will learn more about the lives that have been lost and the families that have been harmed by this hateful act. we will come to know more about the talents and the tips that each victim possessed. we will come -- gifts that each victim possessed. our hearts break for the families. we pray for their recovery. we feel not only a sense of grief, but a sense of helplessness. but there is something we can do. we can offer comfort to someone near us who is suffering or heavy laden.

we can mourn with those who mourn in colorado. this morning, colorado lost youthful voices that would have frightened their homes, in which their schools, and brought -- brightened their homes, enriched their schools, and brought joy to their lives. the apostle paul said less -- blessed be god that we may be able to come for them that are in trouble. we know how evil can be overcome. we have seen that today in the goodness and compassion of a wounded community. the people in aurora are surrounded by love today. not just for those who are with them. they are being lifted up to date by people in our great nation.

in the hard days to come, make everyone of them feel the sympathy of our great nation and the comfort of a living dodd. there will be justice for those responsible -- living god. there will be justice for those responsible, but that is for another day. each one of us will hold our kids a little closer, linger a little longer with a colleague or neighbor, reach out to a family member or friend. we will spend a little less time thinking about the worries of our day and more time thinking about how to help those in need of compassion most. we will show our fellow citizens be good heart of the america we know and love. god bless you for being here and sharing together this moment of sorrow.

god bless the united states of america. thank you. [applause] >> next, a discussion on the violence in syria with a reporter who traveled with the opposition forces. then, rummy manual and the transportation secretary talk about funding for infrastructure projects. after that, a look at the latest census bureau figures for american businesses and households. tomorrow on "washington journal ," the second anniversary of the dodd-frank wall street reform act and the first anniversary of the consumer

financial protection bureau. the executive editor of the hagstrom report discusses how the drought is affecting food prices. and a discussion on the british-based bank scandal. "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> it was about those men and women who are almost mortally injured in war, who because of huge advances that have been made in medical trauma treatment over the last 10 years, they are being saved. an incredible number of them are being saved. i wanted to write about what life is like for these people.

having seen some people who were pretty gruesomely maimed. >> learn more sunday at 8:00 "q & a."-span's >> opposition fighters are gaining ground against syrian president assad's forces. this event includes remarks by john hannah. this is one hour and 25 minutes.

>> let this -- let's get started. i am the president of the foundation for defense democracy. thank you for being here. this is timely. i am glad we have planned this. most people here are probably familiar with us. we were formed in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. we focus on national security and foreign policy issues. we worry about terrorism and the movements and ideology that are seeking the downfall of america, israel, the west, and other free nations. with that, i will pass the microphone to john. he is going to moderate and

offer his own interesting opinions and introduce our guests, . >> thanks very much. your knack for scheduling the timing of these things never ceases to amaze me. that me join you in welcoming everybody here for the -- to the foundation for the defense of democracy. it will be a discussion on the situation inside syria. we have witnessed a series of extraordinary developments. a decapitation strike against the regime's inner sanctum that killed three of its most important security figures, including the president's brother-in-law and injuring his chief confidante and enforce a. as of yesterday, there was a

takeover of several syrian posts in turkey and iraq. after 16 months of a horrific the braudel -- brutal slog, the endgame for the assad regime may be upon us. a lot of people have been called out on how quickly this inflection point has been reached and how rapidly things appear to be coming apart for the regime. for those following the situation closely, there is a bit more surprise. i remember talking to some of my colleagues in the first week of june, sifting through random set this up evidence and raising the possibility that amid the death toll, something may shift in the nature of the fight.

a corner may have been turned in terms of the capability of the three syrian army, the weaknesses of the regime, team the best the amount of territory that has been reseeded. perhaps, if we are lucky, the fall of president assad will come sooner than we thought. by mid-june, those punches were being confirmed by the writings of some of the most knowledgeable analysts. the institute of the study of war and the washington institute. today, we are fortunate to have someone else who has closely followed the evolution of this war. he has witnessed it firsthand and comes to us from default line. it is an all too rare opportunity to hear the inside and observation of someone who

spent a month on the ground with syria's rebels and has an intimate feel for the dynamics of that struggle and where it may be headed in the coming weeks and months. more importantly, he has direct experience and knowledge of the rebels themselves and can shed some light on the $64,000 question. it has been doubled policy makers and analysts alike -- bedeviled policy makers and analysts alike. that is the question of, who are these people? what do they believe? what kind of syria do they want to see? what will likely happen if they get control of the states? what will it mean for u.s. interests? even if i am writes, in the immortal -- right, even in the

immortal words of frank sinatra, the end is near and i face the final curtain. no one can predict how many acts this in game will have or how it will ultimately they -- be resolved, how it can have an impact on syria and the region. assad may be going, but he has not gone yet. he has the ability to wreak havoc that would make the carnage of the last 16 months look like -- he can deploy ballistic missiles and biological agents. it has become too plausible. the unleashing of this air force in major urban areas and the dramatic escalation of pro-

regime militias and an ethnic cleaning that leads to massive purse are all possibilities -- massacres. neighboring countries have been driven to act in defense of their own strategic interests. maybe president assad will wake up tomorrow, next week and decide to pick up his family and take them into exile in caracas or tehran. maybe the collapse of his regime will happen with a whisper and not aid. there is no -- with a whimper and not a band. it is hard to believe it ends well for anyone.

i will be interested to hear from our panel about what they believe the immediate future holds in store for us and what the rest of the world may be able to do. lost a page from my presentation. excuse me. there are important questions about u.s. policy and what the u.s. can and should be doing. i am joined by a great panel of experts. david will be providing us with a firsthand account of his extended period on the ground with the syrian rebels.

he writes for mcclatchy and we are delighted to welcome him. i would like to thank mark for arranging and having david joining us. after david, i will turn to two of my outstanding colleagues. he writes the outstanding blog, syrian revolutionary digest. finally, we will hear from another senior fellow at fdd. he is a happily provocative commentator on middle east affairs. he is a former opera death in the cia's clandestine service -- operative in the cia post a

clandestine service. after our speakers finish, i will ask some questions to get the conversation going. we will open it up to your questions from the audience. but for me to paul bunyan. -- with that, let me turn it over to david. >> first of all, thank you for having me. if you cannot hear me in the back, give me a signal. i will try to stay close to the microphone. i should correct. pulitzer's center, not kill a surprise. it is quite an honor. -- not a pulitzer prize. i have been to syria three-time

s. i find it is almost easier to work going in illegally. you do not have been constraints of a ministry threatening to our rescue or a real risk of arrest for trying to do any real reporting. the united nations monitors are no longer moving. when they were there, a journalists were able to move around. that made it a little easier as far as freedom of movement. we found that there was some freedom of movement if he were prepared to take risks. we were detained and almost arrested, which would have been bad for my syrian colleagues. that has given me two months of actual reporting inside the country, largely in the areas

around homes, not actually in homes. the rebels have not allowed journalists to travel with them since the end of february. we have made repeated requests trying to get in there. i was able to visit briefly while halloween the monitors to get an idea of some of the -- while following the monitors to get an idea of some of the destruction taking place. the last few days did not come as a terrible surprise. in the last months, what we saw was north of homes, the rebels control a considerable amount of territory and are beginning to function as a defacto government

in some areas, especially rural areas. they were in a number of city center's until the puree and march when they were pushed out. -- until february and march when they were pushed out. we see tens of thousands of refugees going to turkey and lebanon. we see tens of thousands of refugees going to turkey and lebanon. turkish refugee camps have become incubators for the rebels. they have become places where they train and share information. they have become a staging ground. crossing the turkish border seems to be increasingly easy.

we were briefly detained by the turks, by turkish soldiers coming out, who did not really know what to do with us. they told the syrians i was with to go back over the border, with five minutes for the commander to leave, and go back. there were a bunch of other people going across. they said, the soldiers are occupied, let's go. there are more people coming across the turkish border than they can really handle. you know, that is, i think, an indicator of what is going on. as far as the fighting in damascus, it is still confined to neighborhoods that have been very anti-regime since the beginning. i was in two neighborhoods in may, and there was a lot of tension. there were demonstrations. there was a lot of rock- throwing. there were small bombings presumably by the rebels against security forces inside as neighborhoods. at that time, the people there were very in support of having

the fsa inside the neighborhoods. the neighborhoods were full of refugees from homs and other parts of the country. i think that is another reason you are seeing these neighborhoods, specifically, start to fight. although now the fighting has come to damascus and, symbolically, that is extremely important and it makes it harder for people to ignore this, which is one thing you hear the rebels talk about. now it has moved to damascus and people cannot pretend that it is not real. there is no guarantee that this is going to be very quick. we are looking at something that is very protracted. there are a number of people who are part of a very large government security apparatus who are probably looking around right now and going, i am dead or i am forced to leave the country, obviously, if these rebels succeed. unfortunately, i think we may be just looking at the beginning

of a much more serious situation, a much more serious conflict, where people everywhere are forced to pick sides or flee. i will leave it there. >> i want to start emphasizing some of these things that have been said in terms of the reach -- in terms of the reach of the actual rebels and what that means, really, in especially since the development of the last few days. one thing that is very clear --

i was watching a youtube video that was produced on the 18th of the rebels in the north, and especially the north parts of aleppo. that is a show of strength. you can see 10 minutes of the video, convoys of vehicles passing by the camera. it is all rebel forces. that is something that is -- there are about 150 total. that is very impressive for that part of the country. there are not only -- they are willing to show strength publicly, and have such a long schilling of force.

these are really under rebel control. in that part of a lot of, they are trying to come together under a unified command. you can not tell from the name that they intend to be and is amodei. -- an islamic brigade. the amount of unification that has taken place is a trend we have to monitor. it seems to me that this will be a trend that will continue. this is bred by the fact that a lot of the people sending weapons are sending weapons to islamic groups. at the same time, the increasing frustration of the international community and the fact that it is doing everything to support pushing in one direction that exists out there. the days ahead, this is not a symbol -- a very surprising development.

many cities in northern aleppo have come under control. the kurdish areas -- i will talk about that. the kurdish areas in all of the country's -- the populations have taken control of the political security apparatus is, the police stations, and they have thrown away the assad officials completely. before that, there was an uneasy coexistence between the security forces and the kurdish leaders and activists. now that is no longer there. people took complete control. one of the things that facilitated this move was the recent agreement signed between the different kurdish factions,

each specially the one that is the syrian equivalent of the pkk, and the coalition group of groups in syria. the capital of iraqi kurdistan is under the patronage. they have formed a unity government in their own territories. you have a kurdish element that is a thomas -- autonomous, with fighters being trained locally. they are providing for their own policing right now. the kurdish forces are, in a sense, separated from the established structure, and have created their own force. you have those and the north, the northern part of rural aleppo coming control of -- under control of rebel groups. people are focusing on damascus. the city is gradually falling to the control of the resistance and the fsa. several neighborhoods are under the control of people

sympathetic to the revolution. we have seen now that a lot of demonstrations are taking place. this is a development of the last 48 hours. the trend -- the situation is that fluid. we are talking about all this -- one thing that is very clear is that all of these areas under rebel control are being bombarded. not the kurdish areas, but the areas in aleppo are being bombarded. the rebels can take control of the cities, but they cannot

prevent heavy artillery targeting their communities. they cannot prevent helicopter gunships attacking them. this is a challenge. the regime cannot really take over the town's and reestablish their control of these towns, but at the same time, the rebels, when they establish control, the bank cannot protect them against the mortar shells and missiles. unless there is awareness of this in the international community to begin stopping the heavy artillery positions, to strike the airports from which

the gun ships are coming, to at least let them take care on their own -- we are talking about a very worsening situation. a situation that would continue to be desolating. a situation where control on either side means nothing. assad is not able of establishing real control. rebels can establish control, but they cannot fend off the missiles. the deaths will continue. the dissolution of the country will continue. the other part of this story will also continue. during the question and answer session we can talk about this. ethnic cleansing is happening in the area, and that is the impression i get. my feeling is that the ethnic cleansing is happening in central syria. assad wants to retain control of homs. already, 3/4 of the sunni population had left the city. the areas they have left have been destroyed. all of these neighborhoods that rose up against the regime are being leveled. they have seen nonstop shelling for almost two months now.

also surrounding towns -- the idea is to destroy completely the cities, not to take them over with eight allied presence. there is no intention to take over the cities. the idea is to raise them to the ground and make sure there is nothing for them to come back to. ethnic cleansing is tapping north and -- happening north of homs. the idea is to push as much of the population as possible to the western part. this is plan b, but it is the plan b that is almost becoming plan a at the same time. plan a is to reestablish control of the country and make sure that the opposition is defeated. this is not happening.

plan b is to make sure that there is a majority in the central parts of syria. this is the plan that seems to be working. even with this plan becoming more and more embattled, it is hard to see how the resistance still taking place -- the fact that, after two months of shelling, control has not been reestablished, you would wonder at what point assad would realize that these people are not going to give up. what am i going to do? this is when the situation gets into consideration. when you consider the fact that the state department leaked reports that wmd's were shifted it from damascus in the direction of homs. the situation becomes that much

more ominous. the debate in this country is, what are we going to do in case there is a wmd attack? what should be done to prevent it? we are seeing the signs on the ground. this is not an isolated incident. we are talking about ethnic cleansing campaigns -- we can see this happen. we're seeing movement of wmd's. we see an embattled regime and a pattern of behavior whereby it gets more and more bloody and deadly. the more, or did they are, the more they unleash hell on everybody's. we cannot refuse the possibility that wmd's will be used. instead of waiting for that to happen and thousands of people to die as we are watching within the next -- tomorrow, the day after -- instead of waiting for that, it is fine for us to act.

the message would be sent not by simply having a statement by the white house. the message needs to be about airstrikes -- we want to target heavy artillery. we want to say we are willing to do this. then, the message might move in the minds of these people. right now, the international community -- to be taken seriously by assad is to show yourself willing to get down and dirty. to actually say, we are going to issue a statement against you, that has not produced anything in the last 16 months. we're not looking for a theoretical position here. we have now and experiential -- an experience we have established in 16 months. we know that the ways they have

used to deal with this situation are not working and producing the results that we want. if the obama administration is going to be always focused on winning this election and will forget about syria, by the time the election comes, assuming they win, we may not have a country that is viable at that stage. a wmd may have already been used. the facts on the ground are unpredictable. we do not always know what is going to happen. there'll be more killing, potentially a disaster. exactly at what rate -- will it

be tomorrow that you have a large massacre, or the day after? will another part of damascus get under the regime's control? will we start having killings now? these are the kinds of unpredictable elements that will happen. the timing will follow the trends -- they may not be predictable, but the pattern is there. even with intervention, it will be -- the trip will be a long process. -- it will be a long process of putting the pieces of the puzzle back together, even with intervention. without intervention, the pieces will not be put back together. there are the ramifications for lebanon, iran, and turkey. we have this approach between

the different groups. they are trying to secure their own borders. they realize that things are really getting out of control. i hope that something will happen before it is too late, i hope against hope. >> thank you. i will pick up where ammar left and say that i sincerely hope that the presidentcost locke continues and that he can within 30 to 60 days claim -- president's luck continues and that he can claim in 3260 days victory for his astute policy of nonintervention. i hope that will be the case, though i do not think it will happen. if you look at iraq, there are some parallels here, if you

examine the enmity that existed between the sunni and shi'a community magnify that by a power of 10, then you have something of an idea of what is happening. in iraq, you had the advantage that most shi'a families, there was a lot of cohen mingling -- coming in. -- commingling. there were a lot internal breaks in the system that mitigated the desire for revenge and to come and slaughter. i think that those braking mechanisms are a lot less in syria. it is easy to imagine killing on a scale that we saw in lebanon, which i believe, if you add up the body counts, it is

still the highest kill rate we have seen in the modern middle east. i would expect something like that, except even worse, maybe, in syria. i do not think that the obama administration will be compelled to intervene by the humanitarian lost. i think we have clearly seen that it has no desire to play any strategic calculations. had that been the case, a desire to wound iran severely, a desire to drive putin's remaining base in the middle east out, a desire to simply get even for all of the american

plot that has been shed by the assad regime, would have been compelling to at least unleashed the agency. i would emphasize that unleashed is a word -- this is almost tailor-make for covert action. it does not take a rocket scientist to do this one. they will not do it. there is no desire in langley to encourage them. i do not see strategic talk relations coming into play. the humanitarian loss -- i suspect the real figure is a lot higher than 20,000. the u.s. government since the figures are a lot higher. what is the difference? what is the difference between 40,060 thousand?

i suppose, if you could see graphic footage day and night coming in to your living room, bedroom -- i do not think we will see that. i can easily see the death rate is accelerating rapidly and it not having any impact, really, in washington. i wish that were not the case. i hope sincerely that the slaughter somehow motivates strategic calculations -- where strategic calculations did not. but i'm skeptical. i do think there is the wild card here, and it is pretty profound, and that is turkey. it is obvious that erdogan and the turkish army do not want to get involved. however, erdogan has made it clear that ties with assad are finished. they are certainly on the side of rebellion now, they just do not want to get involved.

however, turkey does have a dynamic internal political calculation. this is closely followed by the turkish press. the sunni-shi'a animus' has broken out in turkey. it started in turkey. it is possible to imagine the situation, particularly if aleppo continues to move in the direction of rebellion, or slaughter occurs in aleppo. because of the enormous ties between the turkish community and aleppo in the south of turkey, to which the prime minister is highly focused on, one of the basis of power -- i think it is possible that you could see the turks become much more aggressive. it is possible. it would be much more telling than either the saudis, who remain totally helpless, or the jordanians, who are a little better, but this is way beyond them.

the turks could do this. it is possible. if the turks were to do this, i could see president obama leading from behind. it is possible that you could then get american input. you could have greater american activity. you could have the agency working with the turks in coordinating the delivery of better weaponry, although i still think, as mark pointed out, if you have heavy artillery and your drop in it on a.c.t. level, that is a fairly -- a city level, that is a convincing argument. it is difficult to see and overcoming that. if they are not fearing a point of slaughter whereby they could lose the sunni components of the syrian army -- if there is no fear that, i see no reason why they do not slaughter everybody.

the only way they will take up that heavy stuff, i think, is through some type of air action. unless the opposition somehow can get close to that, unless there can be some internal break in sight of the forces themselves -- inside the forces themselves, i am skeptical and have you take these out. you can take out the helicopters if the americans and turks for delivery right kind of weaponry. a lot could be done. that would create a situation the regime does not expect to read the doom and gloom rarely since in -- sinks in.

they would begin to reassess their loyalty to the alassane family -- assad family. i am skeptical you can get them to break. their only alternative to the exile or debt. somehow, i do not think -- i do not see them going there. if you have a sliver of hope that is where it is. if you will, through new accord and tactics, change the tactics, that will still doom and gloom. i hope that we saw in the last two days will produce an expected unraveling and that president obama can go before us on television and say, see, i was right. >> thank you. a lot about u.s. policy. let me turn to david. let me see if i can get you to talk a little bit about your actual experience with the rebels that you did travel with. to get a little bit more

regularity of what you make of it. who they are, what motivates them politically, are they seized with the kinds of issues of revenge and retribution that reuel discusses? i want to mention the increase in case of islam as asian -- islamization of the rebel forces. they feel increasingly abandoned, with their only help from other is lummis and the hottest forces -- jihadist forces. i wonder if you could get your own sense of reality of what you saw? >> everything we have just heard is pretty much true. the sectarian nature of the conflict, and especially around homs, is very acute. we are seeing what does appear in some cases to be the syrian

military or pro-government militias clearing out the area to the west of the orontes river, and for some villages east of that river. that is articulated all the time by rebels and residents of that area. i have travelled to some of these places where the sectarian cleansing has occurred. at times, we find there is a lot more fighting, obviously. there are rebel presence is in this area. they then are not necessarily

just attacking civilians. these areas are generally sympathetic to the revolution or harper is abating in the revolution. as he said, -- or are participating in the revolution. as you said, they seem to have two options. i have not heard any of the rebel group's offer -- groups offer any idea of what transitional justice would look like, other than, we would like to kill them. i think that, in part, that window has passed. people said, six months ago, we asked the international community for help. they said this would not drag on. the killing has gone so long -- to not go crying to us. quite literally, those words. that is the general sense, e especially around homs, where at least since the end of last year it has been very pronounced as a shi'a versus sunna conflict, with a small christian minority contract in the middle.

there has been a lot of talk about christians being targeted specifically for being christian. i have seen no direct evidence of that. i have seen christians targeted because they were associated with the government. the rebels are very open about that. there are definitely, there are definitely -- everybody knows that quite a few syrians are muslims. sorry, is that too close? ok. there are what we would think of as islamic factions amongst the rebels. at this point, the stated goal from virtually every group is that we want to get rid of assad. in more candid moments, rebels will talk about their fears for

what happens after the fall of the government. are we going to have the various rebel groups with the various divisions for what a post-assad syria looks like fighting over that vision? that is a very real and very likely possibility. rebels talk about that themselves. you hear people say -- these complaints about the islamist factions receiving the bulk of the support seem to be well- founded. people are channelling aid it from the gulf through syrians in the syrian gas rep. this seems -- diaspora. two groups -- amongst these fighters, i have met a number of fighters who were in iraq. i spend a lot of time reporting from iraq. if i mention i have been there, half of the guys will say, hey, have you been to fallujah? do you remember 2004?

the fighters have frequently referred to homs as fallujah. that is very loaded. they both have ideas about what that means. but that is a very real elements to this. for me, it has been truly fascinating. in iraq, as an american correspondent, i did not have access to these guys. it was almost impossible to meet with the sunna resistance or insurgency, what everyone to call it. now i am well, amongst them -- it has been very interesting to see how they fight and train, how they have become very adept at building roadside bombs. they are fighting a military and

do not have the best equipment. to some extent, the strength of the syrian military has been overstated. they are using old russian armored personnel carriers and tanks that can be taken out with an rpg, without necessarily an armor-piercing rpg. long-range shelling and helicopters are a serious issue, but they do seem to be shooting down helicopters to fly low. i'm mostly saw helicopters flying too high to identify what kind of helicopter they were. we did see some attacks and strafing, but i would say that, as often as they did seem somewhat effective, they also seemed completely ineffective, or to spotting for artillery. going back to the islamist element amounts the rebels, there are also people who have said yes, we grew a beard and went and asked for money. just because they say they are jihadis, does not mean they then are.

i have not seen any reports. i have not seen any reports. i have not experienced any groups necessarily enacting any kind of, i guess, islamic law in the areas they control. we have seen the courts that draw from local imams and leaders. rural syria is often a very conservative place. it is not surprising that you would see a lot of fighters, a lot of rebels, who are the

highest or observant. you also seen many who are not. i spent a lot of time with a few different battalions. they consider themselves somewhat moderate. they then do say, yes, we would like to see something that looks more like egypt, where islamic political parties are allowed to contest elections. that is perhaps the most articulate vision i have heard for what syria looks like post- assad. we want other parties to be able to participate who may not espouse necessarily secular

ideals. so i do not think that is terribly shocking. >> thank you. if, in some way, shape, or form, assad does go, the issue of the fracturing of the state, whether they belong at -- whether they can establish a state in the northwest and the kurds are in control of territory now in the northeast and are quite alienated and disaffected from the rebellion in the water part of the country, with its obvious sunni subtext -- given how far things have gone, do you see that now? is the most likely outcome of this chaotic fracturing if assad were to go? are the things we can do at this point in time to reverse that?

>> even with assad staying in power, it is happening. the fracturing is now gone back. regions and regional realities have really become real. they are imposing themselves on the scene. in aleppo, it is not the same as elsewhere. when i monitor what is happening in social media, you see that regional identities are solidifying. there is an overarching syrian identity, and even the kurds are not using separate language. everybody belongs to syria, but everybody is also saying, they do what a better deal than they used to have under the regime.

that indicates to me that there is some kind of local autonomy, not a decentralization, but a very strong local feeling. when you add that to the fact that there are already rebels who are acquiring revolutionary legitimacy, even in their own minds -- not just in the minds of the people, but their own minds -- they think, what is it for us now? it is not going to happen -- the fracturing is here. it is going to stay for a while. the challenge facing opposition groups inside and outside the country is to come up with a solution. we need an overarching political vision.

we have been trying for a while in our discussion in the opposition -- you know that recently there was a meeting of opposition groups. this is taught us to come together here. the concept of decentralization is still something that a lot of them are seeing. even though we talk about the reality of it, there is still this inability to transcend their own ideologies and think about what the others are doing and how we need to manage it. they are all potential managers of a different situation. they still think they will inherit the state as-is --

transitional justice, putting the economy back together. the idea they need to put the state's back together is not there yet. it is not just new buildings that need to be established -- it is putting the state back together. actually asking different people in different regions what their real aspirations are, and how do you envision your role in the future syria? discussions we are not having in the opposition, that will be very difficult to even broach. for these reasons, the intervention is going to be difficult. for this reason, we need an intervention, because if the situation is ok, you need to do something, because that is fast becoming a reality. i think that we are very much

near it. if we have to wait until after november, perhaps by that time we will have reached something different. we need to do something now. one of the conversations i have been having -- everything we are talking about, two months ago we had been saying and predicting this. we will have massacres, and ethnic cleansing. this is not something that was not predicted. it was predictable. we talked about it. and yet we saw action. it seems to me that there is a

tendency among the political establishment to accept a fragmentation of syria. there is an idea that this is somehow managed or -- that that is what will happen. >> let me pursue that with reuel. and cigna -- sympathetic to what they have had to say. it has been a frustrating to watch an american administration fault -- hide behind the need for fake diplomatic processes and international conferences, all of them seemingly completely divorced from the reality of what is happening on the ground and syria, all the while putting a veto in the hands of the likes of a vladimir putin over a moral tragedy like this that appears to cut vital american interests, not the least the struggle with the iranians. having said that, the

alternative arguments, as the present cost supporters could say, is, look at what has happened. not a single american soldier or a plan has and put at risk. lots of words, very little action, a little bit of digital -- logistical support. virtually on their own, the syrian people have struggled and possibly brought this regime to the cost of defeat. they are able on their own to get to the inner sanctum and blow parts of it to kingdom come. to have this regime, in a sense, on the run. as bad as it is, as much as there have been humanitarian disasters, many people have died, but this is all coming around. this guy was going to go 11 months ago. lo and behold, that may be

happening still. with very little american effort or rest. the risk-reward ratio at the moment, i suppose one could argue, looks good, even better than what happened in libya. if you are sitting with the president, i wonder if you hear this kind of argument -- how you persuade him otherwise? not to mention that the course that he has been on is entirely in keeping with where, i believe, the majority of the american people are, who are war-weary and fed up with middle eastern problems and completely consumed with our own difficulties here at home. what is the case to make to the president? >> at this time, i do not think you could make a compelling case. i think it is the narrative

right now that you just outlined -- the narrative that appeals to lots of republicans on the hill. you would want him, i think, to display the insight and fortitude to say that -- that george study bush had when he launched a search -- geroge w. bush had when he launched the surge, when everybody in his inner circle was against that. but the only way the inner circle change -- the only way the narrative changes is when assad does not fall, nbc 100,000 people dead. -- when you see 100,000 people dead. i do not know where the line is where suddenly that is not a narrative you want to have any more. but i suspect that it is somewhere between 100,200

thousand people dead. where that line is -- 100,000 and 200,000 people dead. you hear the argument on the republican side, let them all slaughter each other. without a look at least -- calculation -- -- without a strategic calculation. i think that that is also powerful. i would emphasize, if you had to put your finger on something that will change the dynamic here, that has to be turkey. i think that president obama is out of this one unless you see something happen in turkey, or if you see the slaughter accelerating at such a rate that we are morally obliged to do something. it is possible that the fsa

could declare aleppo a free city and set up an opposition government. it could figure out some way had to stop the armor, artillery, the planes, from driving them out at least for a while. you could rapidly change the dynamic. it would certainly be an interesting move with turkey. if they can do it. i do not think they have the wherewithal to do it right now. it's something like that were to occur, you could get a autonomous benghazi scenario that would have traction in turkey and maybe even be a compelling argument in washington. >> david, could i get your quick thoughts on this issue? how susceptible is the current conflict to outside intervention that would have a positive shaping influence on where the conflict goes and the

immediate -- in the immediate period, and what might come after that? >> a number of people -- we have seen in the rebels give up on international intervention. the key dynamic in the last six months is that they have decided they have to go it alone, one way or the other. they have done that. they have created networks. turkish intelligence could be more involved than we are getting. there is some evidence and talk of that. they have managed to secure weapons. they have a regular flow of weapons. they do not seem to have money issues. the trajectory is that it will take down the government or forced into an enclave. intervention -- if we are talking about bonding -- bombing, taking a defenses, do we want to be responsible for

what would likely be the ensuing massacre of the minority? what will fill that power vacuum? at this point, there is a vacuum that is part of the total vacuum. after the government falls, that could be even more serious. i do not necessarily see an intervention that prevents the state's lessening the death toll by taking away the government's ability to use these heavy weapons. other than that, i think that all of the dynamics we are talking about still exist, even if we are involved or not.

you have to figure at the issue of what we just saw in libya -- what happens when the dump a bunch of weapons on a country? where do these weapons go? do they fall into the hands of its lummis fighters who are then going to attack our allies in jordan -- islamist fighters who will then go and attack our allies in jordan? i do not think there is a clean intervention in any sense of the word. increasingly, the rebels say that they do not want nato. we are going to do it ourselves, and we will be better off because we have done it ourselves. >> an interesting issue -- how you define victory in this situation? if you define it as sending assad to the country or killing

him, if that is enough for you, then perhaps they can do it with weapons as clashes intensified and forced assad to leave or go to an allied country. if that is the definition of victory -- but if the definition of victory is creating a stable country, that is difficult. that requires a lot of management. if that is the definition of victory, we cannot simply watch and say that this is acceptable, that what is happening is what should be happening. many have said that the opposition needs a strategy. we do not want an entire

military campaign. some weapons will go to the revolutionaries -- we do not even want a lot of sophisticated weaponry, because we do not want a situation where militias are armed. air strikes and weapons -- when you allow these people to go into areas of forces, your alleviating all the concerns. the problem about this plan is not that is not realistic or practical -- not that it is not realistic or practical. thee dealing with international community -- it is not as if the conflict will resolve itself in the right way. we do not have to worry about islamists being in power - we

have a wish list that is very long, but you are not willing to do anything to make these wishes come true. we -- the intervention that is needed is one that is doable. if you have enacted it months ago, it would have been even easier. but there is no other way around it. if you want stability to the outcome in syria. but if you do not care about stability, if you can live with chaos, then all of you have to do is watch and enjoy the show. >> let's turn it over to the audience. people will introduce themselves

to be -- please identify yourselves to the audience. in the front row. >> turkey's position seems ambivalent and perhaps incoherent. as we speak to turkish diplomats off the record, as i have, you come to the conclusion that turkey's position is ambivalent and perhaps into europe. i would love for you to try to explain what their calculation is -- anybody who i know. i know you look at this, you have a lot of experience in turkey. >> i think ambivalent is exactly it. it is the kurdish issue -- that is one important situation. there is a point of view in the turkish establishment that what is happening is a normal process. it is part of their identity issue. on the other hand, turkey wants to be sure that any instability

do not fall into turkish areas. that is behind the agreement that happened between the turkish factions -- they then want to ensure that the kurds control all the borders. they are very pragmatic about the kurdish question. they are friendly. they want to have a stable partner in iraq -- and we will see a similar scenario happened in the kurdish enclave across the borders in syria. for them, as long as they can get that out, and perhaps some reports, whether it is intelligence or other things to ensure that they can take it to assad, they then are happy with the outcome. i do not think it and even what

airstrikes, especially if they are in the obama positions. >> i think that there is the component that in turkey, the mindset has permeated that the arabs are just bad news. they are an enervating factor, the weak part of the ottoman empire, a destruction to turkish foreign policy, which is to stay away from them. they have tried to change that, but it is still there. it is in the body politic. certainly inside of the military.

needless to say, erdogan and the turkish military do not have a very positive relationship. at on the troubles between the civilian government and the turkish military, which is under siege, the military has no desire whatsoever to go in there. the arabs are always bad news. it is extremely difficult to get the turks to go there. you can get the turkish intelligence to do a little bit more -- that is doable. but again, this is not their bailiwick. the turks have not had a pleasant experience is when they have tried to project power. the invasion of cyprus was a logistical mess. they really do not want to go there. but it is still conceivable, if you look at where turkish rhetoric and actions are now, backdated 12 months, it is quite a big difference. change is still possible.

>> i'm from palestine. i want to remain on the regional idea. one country is jordan -- i assume that jordan is worried about chaos and fragmentation. what can jordan do? what can they to be expected to do? the second is qatar. we think of other arab countries pushing an islamic agenda. what are they doing in syria? what is the country doing there? >> for me, i would like very much to see jordan be more hospitable for refugees, to begin with. there are problems in this area. i do not think they will results soon. i know that jordanian officials

would not comment on that, but that is an issue they should be involved with. they are not doing a good job at this stage. the other thing that is happening is that they seem to be not realizing that they can easily drive themselves into a conflict across the border. there were reports about clashes between jordanians and the syrian armies on the border. i would not discount that. it happened across the border with turkey, with jordan -- loyalists militias are trying to stop the ball from fleeing. the jordanians mike find themselves in a position -- might find themselves in a position. it is likely that some scenario like that will happen. i think that the jordanians will begin to think about ways

to actually reach out across the border and begin working on trying to show a relationship of their own, like the turkish have treated they can develop partners among the resistance. they can make sure it stays stable and friendly. that is one thing the jordanians can do. that is a important step, that they adopt that mind-set. your second question on the islamization, it is happening, but i would not say it is the trend. it is a trend among trends. it is not necessarily coming from the government, but individuals are doing it.

this is problematic in itself, and the brotherhood, as far as the movement is concerned, it is among the islamic factions we are seeing. we're talking about islamization -- the brotherhood has been enshrined. they have repeatedly talk about special minority rights. this is a good thing, i think. we still need more guarantees, we have to talk about the actual structure of the state and how things should be, and not blindly trust anyone. they still have a distance to go. about those groups -- they then

are movements you can actually interact with. the brotherhood is there. the other movements are new and becoming aware of themselves. one movement has grown in syria -- they already have groups in different parts, in aleppo. they have concerns with cooperating with other groups. they are calling openly for an islamic state. even other groups are not calling openly for an islamic state. the membership is limited, but it could be problematic on a local level. on the national scene, they are all minorities. every movement, every group, every region -- they are all minorities right now. it is a regional identity.

there are political divisions. because of the fragmentation that is happening now, having a group like that in a damascus, that has created a problem. they control this area -- nobody is saying, nobody is saying the transition will be easy, but at the same time i do not envision that the south and the north will fight against each other, and especially if there is an international will to somehow manage the situation and empower the dialogue between these groups. >> i could speak to jordan. i think jordan has slowly been pushed into becoming more supportive.

i think the majority of jordanians are very supportive of the revolution. i spent a couple of weeks in march trying to get across the jordanian border with a group of fighters who were being funded by individual donations. they then were not able to get across in march. the jordanians were not letting anything across. they were occasionally engaging in skirmishes with the syrian military, apparently to cover refugees who were fleeing. the jordanians would, apparently, engage syrian soldiers who were attacking people fleeing into jordan. as far as refugees, there are a lot of iraqis to feel -- who feel that for the first year of the conflict they were openly supportive. when we have reached the point where people are fleeing with

virtually nothing because they then are forced to, the jordanians have quietly sort of shut down their borders and, hopefully, activist will be able to convince them otherwise, but iraqis seems to have a very very little success in doing so. jordanian to speak to -- politicians and businessmen, they largely study tipping point for jordan being when the trade route was no longer viable in syria. when they then were losing more economically by not coming out against assad then they were gaining. as syria continues to sort of fragment and fall apart, we will probably reach that point with jordan. now, it does seem that they are at least allowing fighters to

cross the border again. with weapons. and with other supplies. >> thank you. we will take other questions. >> i am a journalist. when you are in beirut, do you see people like hezbollah? >> i am wondering, refugee camps in turkey are being used as a staging ground for rebel groups. i'm wondering if the panel had any recommendation as to how we can protect the integrity of those camps as places for protection and humanitarian aid, rather than active of variables in conflict? >> one from the back?

>> i have heard some concerns about command and control capabilities of the rebel groups in trying to coordinate 3 youtube -- through youtube, and it has been remarkably fortunate in the past few weeks. has that changed, and what is your impression of their command and control capabilities? >> do you want me to take all three? >> the first in the last. >> as far as hezbollah, in the border areas, when you are crossing from lebanon to syria, there is talk about hezbollah fighters patrolling those areas.

but inside the route, inside tripoli, lebanon in general, as a foreign correspondent i feel safe. there were some reports four months ago, five months ago, from the syrian embassy threatening journalists. but nothing like that seems to have happened since then. as far as preventing the camps from becoming a staging ground, their art turkish soldiers stationed at these camps searching bags, but i think that as long as you allow syrians to come in, they will be planning and using these areas. the turks are patrolling the border very heavily. to some extent, there is such a volume that it is very hard to do anything about it without dedicating a lot more manpower. to making sure the scams are not used that way. the third question --

>> about command and control. >> the rebels have at least three tv stations that broadcast on satellite. one of them is very slickly produced and has obviously a lot of support. we do see -- skype is becoming a major tool of the revolutionaries. they have satellite internet in a lot of places. they use skype to coordinate a lot of things. they use infrastructure out of necessity, out of necessity it has gotten better. they are coalescing under command in larger areas. we are seeing them unite whatever larger groups of rebels, sometimes loosely, sometimes somewhat strictly. that is just a natural

development. >> it is also correct to say that the cia and the turks have delivered ined radio equipment. >> there was a question on refugees. in turkey. most of -- all of the refugee camps exist in this area. only one camps has military offices. they to take part in planning their. the other camps, as far as i know, only civilians are there. they have a lot of limitation on the movements anyway. they cannot really take an active part in operations. talking about areas outside the camps, these artificial

refugees who are not in the camps, i do not see a problem for the integrity of the camps. >> i did not say operational centers. it is much less formal. there are areas around the towns where there are lots of refugees. a young man sharing information, how to build bombs, do this, do that. it turned into kind of a joke. journalists were not allowed to go into the camp. we were looking and there were turkish soldiers stationed at the entrance of the camp and, if you hundred meters away, a big hole in the kantor people were coming and going freely. that sort of -- a hole in the tent where people were coming and going freely. that steve is an idea of where -- how tight it really was -- and gave us an idea of how tight security really was.

>> a country that has not been mentioned -- israel. in the context of potential use, or the loosening of chemical weapons, what you think the israeli calculations are now? do you see any possibility in which the israelis would have to get involved? >> i do not think the israelis have any great desire to get involved. obviously, chemical weapons and biological weapons would be a significant factor for them, and they would try to watch that very closely. i do not know what the israeli network is in sight of syria. i expect it is very haphazard. their ability to collect nontechnical intelligence is probably somewhat limited.

i do not see -- i suppose that they might decide to provide weaponry. there are certain groups that would take that weaponry. but i suspect that they see their role as to be in reserve. >> ok. we have reached 11:00. please, everybody join me in thanking the panelists. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> next, chicago mayor rahm aemanuel and randall hood talk about funding for infrastructure project and then a look at the figures for american businesses

and households. then an impact -- and in a hearing on the impact of dodd- frank. on newsmakers, adam smith, a ranking member of the armed services committee talks about sequestration, defense spending, and syria, and national security, and other issues. newsmakers this sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c- span. >> this weekend nonbook tb, the harlem book fair, coverage starts saturday at 12:30 with a panel discussion on the future of african american publishing. at 3:30, cornell west examining the next election. it and at 5:00, a panel celebrating the anniversary of the man summation proclamation.

sunday at 2:00 p.m., the summit with authors including katie p avlich. part of book tv this weekend on c-span 2. >> the ongoing debate between tax levels and economic development. he says once given -- government gives is a certainty, they will create jobs. transportation mary -- transportation secretary ray lahood introduced him and gave introductory remarks. >> i do not want to take any time away from what the mayor will talk about.

i'm going to go right to my introduction of him. some of you after word want to talk for a minute, i would be happy to do that. a few days before the last election, i got a phone call from rahm and he said toomey barack obama wants me to be his chief of staff and i said, shouldn't we have the election first before we start thinking about your next job? he called me a few days after the election and said i'm going to take it. notwithstanding what they told him, that it was a bad idea, you have a great job, you are going to be the first jewish speaker of the house, you are from illinois, it would be great for our state. he ignored all of that advice and i said by the way it will be

terrible for your family because you will never see them. we talked for a minute or two about whether i was a good enough republican to join the administration. he said to me, what it would you be interested in? he said agriculture. i said, transportation. always thinking long term about his ideas. this guy is very smart. politically and policy-wise. if i owe the privilege that i have to serve as secretary of transportation to two people. obviously, the president, and to my friend, rahm emanuel. he and i became friends and he called me and said i want to work in this delegation in a bipartisan way for illinois, and not just chicago, or my district, and from that time on

we became dear friends and we our dear friends because we care about getting things done in solving problems. because i think we are both in these government jobs for the right reasons, to get things done than solve problems. we call hosted by partisan bidders. he invited seven or eight democrats. i would invite seven or eight republicans, and these bipartisan dinners how to forge relationships that lasted beyond our congressional careers. for those of you that do not know, when rahm emanuel ran for mayor, he knew that he wanted to transform the city in a way that it had not been transformed, and what i mean by

that is he went to every l site and station, every transit station in the city of chicago to introduce himself. i think there are 125. 147. he went to everyone because it is a great way to introduce herself, and talk to people, and also to talk about transportation. a lot of people in chicago do not own cars. this is the way people live their lives in the city of chicago. rahm smart enough to know it is a good place to meet people and tell people what your agenda is. he recently announced an infrastructure plan for the city of chicago, not just trains

and buses, but he brought with him to chicago a guy named dave that transformed the city that we live in into the most livable, sustainable community in america, with one of the largest by share programs, with a community that will have streetcars, that has a very good metro system, and gave under the mayor's leadership, will have chicago had the largest bicycle sharing program in chicago. that is a terrific goal. his plan is more about transit

and auto buses. it is about the whole infrastructure of the city, roads and bridges, sewers and water, aging infrastructure, but also about a vision. good policy can transform the city, because when you have good infrastructure, what you are able to do is attract people for business, jobs, and young people that want to live in the city. it means more jobs and businesses. that is what this plan is about. the other thing that i think is a little bit surprising to people about rahm's leadership is how he has been able to work with a 50-member city council. i do not know of any other time in the city of chicago, but the 50-member city council

unanimously passed his budget. i believe that is a record. to get 50 alderman to do anything unanimously, let alone passed the city budget? that talks about rahm's ability to work with people and his strong leadership. i could go on. you have done the homework, reading stories about how he is transforming education, transit and housing, and i know he will talk about all of these things. the reason we have that some success in our working transportation is because we of good partners in governors and mayors, and we have a great partner in the mayor of chicago

for what he is done, for what he wants to do, it for his vision. it is not just about him, it is about the people, and what you do to serve the people to continue to make chicago the great city that it really is and will continue to be. so, i am delighted to say to all of you, we have great leadership all over america, and extraordinary leadership. rahm is off to a great start. please welcome the mayor of chicago, rahm emanuel. [applause] >> thank you again, secretary lahood. >> i will let the record to show that i paid for all of thosedinners he talked about. [laughter] >> we will start with questions from the moderator. recently, the university of chicago put out a report that

talks about economic growth in chicago. it talks about the opportunities and the most significant challenges. chicago was near the bottom in job performance. it discusses the opportunities in health care, manufacturing and transportation. perhaps that could provide a context for describing what the chicago infrastructure trust is about and how it works? >> the report noticed that we have the largest job creation and the biggest drop of unemployment in any major city, and a lot goes into that. on the infrastructure committee deals with the airport, the mass transit system, the community colleges, schools,

roads, water and parks. it is an integrated plan. if you took mass transit, by way of example, we have more people on our mass transit in a month that all of amtrak in an entire year. 60% of the people take mass transit to get from home to work, and i see that is the key economic advantage, just taking that one piece. every child will live within a 10 minute walk of parks, but on the mass transit, i see it as a key strategic economic advantage. companies are leaving the suburbs to come to the city because of our quality of life, and we have an advantage in moving people quickly from home to work. united airways open their

operation center in chicago. i did a town hall with them. a lot of people came, and one of the things they talked about that they loved was that unlike other cities where the drive for one hour or one hour in 20 minutes to get to work, they could bicycle, or get on mass transit. i take the mass transit system twice a week. i just took it yesterday. i get to work using it. it is two blocks from my house to the train. i take the train downtown. it is an incredibly important investment. we are replacing two/thirds of our entire trains, two-thirds of our auto bosses out of the stations. 100 of them will be repurchased, rebuild for totally new construction.

near our convention chapter, we could get there by bus or taxi, and we will have a new station. it is the huge economic advantage. we have launched a $2 billion infrastructure investment in that mass transit system with the fundamental view that you cannot have a 21st century economy operating and the 20th century foundation. it is not sustainable. it just cannot happen. our mass transit system, as companies look to relocate -- your work force is your most important investment, and after that any effective mass transit system, it is one of the calling cards to get the work force the

companies want today. i see it as a huge piece of economic strategy. >> is the chicago infrastructure trust partner with that, or part of mass transit? >> it is totally separate. the community colleges -- we have 6 colleges. we are building two new campuses. we have cut $120 million out of the central office, and we will get into the new campus, which will be for health care. the new airport, federal, local, working with the airlines etc. the first project they're going to look at it is retrofitting $200 million worth of work in

the cultural center. we are aggregating several things. there will be the first project at the board will look at other things people recommend. >> do you have a sense of how many jobs were created from the retrofitting project? >> yearly estimate is 1200-to- 1500. on water, we of the largest water investment in the country. 900 miles of pipes will be replaced, if everything 100 years or older. 700 miles of sewer will be replaced. two of the largest water filtration plants in the world will be rebuilt, ok? it is decade-long work, and of

the sewers, two thirds of everything that is 100 years or older will be replaced. 2,000 miles of road will be repaid. we are lying broadband. we are preparing for the future. this summer we renegotiated something with the laborers' union. 75 jobs. we renegotiated the starting salary. we gave them certainty of work, and they came down in wages, etc. >> to save money. >> save money. >> how many people do you think applied for the labor's jobs? how much? >> 10,000. >> 10,000 people for 75 jobs. clearly, if i could find other

ways to do it, we could do more, and we need it. i am proud of capital investment, but there is more work to be done then we can actually do, but the workers waiting to do this, carpenters, electrical engineers, laborers, bricklayers -- 10,000 people applied for 75 jobs. it is a telling sign. by the way, when we are done, we have done studies, two years of residential water users will be saved and we lose now through leakage. we have everything mapped out by year. they pulled up a tree trunk with a water pipe, and they put a tiny little thing for me and put it on my desk because the wire reports guys and we are on

track to get 69 miles, and the goal is 70. we are getting 70 miles done. i wrote 69 is not 70, remember your goal. [laughter] they pulled up a tree trunk in the city of chicago which is our water pipe. chicago is not alone. that is all over the country. when we are done, two years' worth of residential water users will be saved that we now lose to leakage, and last year, a car driving in milwaukee fell down. there was a picture of a man climbing a lot of the 14-foot hole.

just from a pipe that had busted. >> that is this interesting question about where we are here and at the local level. water is interesting question. you can save money, you can put people to work. there is a big demand for jobs. we know over the long term we save money when we make these investments, retrofitting, water savings. it makes us competitive over the long term. why has there been such a challenge to make these arguments, and if you want to skip over the politics of washington, one of the reasons the chicago infrastructure trust is so attractive is it is a way to make progress when washington is slowing down. >> the water thing, to the city's council credit, that was

part of a 50-0. i said that we could sell the water utility, but i think we know what happens when we do that. like the parking meter, i'm against that. we 63900 broken pipes a year. we band-aid our way there. it will get done by 2057, or we can decide the status quo is not acceptable. we will put together the resources, all the our own water utility, and fixed it. thee not going to debate problem away, or hope it goes away. secondly, the states have their own issues. when we passed our infrastructure trust, there was not a highway bill.

i will give credit, ray lahood has been a great proponent of the most innovative piece of the legislation, which it is a different model. is a smarter capital investment. the city of chicago that we will cut losses here, into the water, but we have to take our own destiny into our own hands as best as we can, and we cannot leave our own destiny to washington for the dysfunction or springfield's budget-cutting exercise. i understand what springfield is going to do, but i'm not going to let chicago become hostage to this dysfunction.

no city can survive with an aging infrastructure, but chicago, the second busiest airport in the country, one- quarter of all cargo runs to the city on rail and our roads, not counting our mass transit. if it is rail, road or a runway, it is coming to chicago, and it is part of our economic interest. given that, and i have a sustainable view based on mass transit i believe we have to set up another tool in the toolbox. the infrastructure trust is a tool. it does not mean you do not invest in new campuses like malcolm x. it does not mean that when it comes to water you do not do what you need to do or in our airport -- we are building the equivalent of another midway

airport with that many runaways. it does not mean you do not do those things. you say what other tools can i get to achieve the economic objectives of our city? the trust is another tool. it brings in pension money. the labor pension money is coming in. it brings in financial interests. they take the risks. we only asset. we get to use it, and we owned it. it is the rejection of privatization, in my view the wrong model. we still own it, but we finance it a different way. it really works when you evaluate from an economic perspective. doing the old thing, if there is a cost overrun, the taxpayers bear it. on the infrastructure projects,

if there is a cost overrun, the investors bear it. would you agree that we are the most free enterprise economic system in the world? >> we agree, for sure. >> here is. we are the most free-market country in the world, it we do our it infrastructure in the most socialist way in the world. all these other countries that are not as free market, they do it infrastructure trust type things. it is just a tool. the transportation department exist. it is another tool in their toolbox. it helps you achieve the goal and it makes economic sense. >> has there been resistance from the private sector because you own the access? >> the first thing we were looking at is in the trunk -- retrofit, but the first entity

to say they were excited was the union pension, secondly the foundations, and then obviously, the third, a lot of people that have had traditional resources and money available for infrastructure want to be involved. since this time, i think washington, oregon, and california are thinking of an infrastructure bang for their region. it is something people will look at because our economy is growing like this, and our foundation is moving at the space. >> or falling behind. >> it is clearly not keeping up. >> right. >> think of it this way. can you imagine chicago without o'hare, economically? we announced four weekly flights to beijing direct. you cannot imagine chicago.

ge transportation just moved headquarters out of the erie, pa., to chicago. why? they can get anywhere in the world directly. if we do not invest in modernization, i will not recruit co.. is a direct correlation, and i am putting people to work -- correlation -- is a direct correlation. i am putting to people -- people to work. it is a win-win. great for the city. >> do you think this could be more universally applied, a mechanism for larger city mayors and small city mayors? or can only do it regionally? >> well, we are doing it for chicago. i am only interested in chicago. other people can look at what they want to do. it cannot replace something. i want people to understand that.

it is not like i'm going to force -- i'm not going to force my community colleges to figure out how to build a new campus. we will apply ideas, the traditional model we have for the airport. we will use the infrastructure trust where it makes sense for us. we will do we need to do on the water on our own. it is a tool, and where the tool works you will apply it, and where it does not work, you will not apply it. you have to have the tool available. the notion to you are not going to make something available to yourself when economic needs and the vitality of the city require it -- and i do not think we could have the type of job growth and a drop in unemployment -- it is not like i'm sitting next to google. we have a diverse economy. part of it is the job growth we got through the infrastructure and investment piece of it.

>> the connections to manufacturing especially. it starts with low interest rates. can the cit take advantage of that? should mayor's look at that because you have that opportunity right now? >> let me say one clarifying thing. the trust is not for basic maintenance and upkeep. it is for transformative investments you can not do any other way. you have to have good people running the system. rosie is here also. there she is. tom runs water. those people to the infrastructure for the city. in my view, it is right for cities, regions, or states that have things of scale.

obviously, you have to have a revenue stream that pays it back. >> i will get the questions. >> are there ways that the federal government that we should be thinking about? the cracks that is slightly different -- >> that is slightly different. the president did create the id for structure thing. it never got funded. think of it. there are big, national projects. it would be a perfect tool on a national project basis to look at. it had a revenue stream that are beyond city or beyond states. it would make sense for a

regional type of thing. for the economics of a region or a city or a state. i think it is a great thing. i have other questions that is my generous way of describing how i feel. with that said, i think it is great. other makers will make their own decision, ok? i want to make sure the city of chicago would not fall hostage to what happened to springfield, illinois or washington, d.c. even though it passed the transportation bill, it is only 18 months. i cannot plant chicago's futures on 18 months. that is crazy. therefore, i have to have a tool available that i call a breakup strategy. >> here is a question.

how we convince the country that infrastructure investment is crucial and necessary? >> first of all, i call it rebuilding. we are building a new chicago. i hate the word "infrastructure." that is one thing. second in the 1950's, we invested 4% of our gdp in the infrastructure. we grew at 4%. it is what happened. in the 1980's limit downshifted to 2%, we have grown on average two%. it is the foundation that allows the economy to move. a lot of people talk high-tech. words matter. infrastructure is a platform. everyone goes out and build their apps.

if you have the right airports, water, the right schools, the right broadband, the right mass transit's, then all of the other platforms can go off the bat and go. i have never had a companies to come up to me and not want to talk about some pieces -- even if it is marginal. it can be mass transit or airports. do not tell me infrastructure does not matter to the economic decisions. the number one service -- we have the best work force in the city of chicago. you have the work force and if you can get them to and from work efficiently, they will pick this city every time. >> the next question comes from stacey from the department of commerce.

>> stacey, what are you doing out of the office? get back to work. [laughter] >> i think it was her former role. did talk about your plans in that chicago transportation renewal? how are these issues interacting? >> the only thing i can think of -- we have a big auto ford plant in chicago. the workers have to park across the street so we have built a bridge. we have made a major investment. the infrastructure matters. it is the best exporting plant. they added a third shift made of 1200 workers. they also make police cars

there. we will be ordering cars and away for the police department. we made -- we did about two points advantage if it is made locally in manufacturing. the ford plant onwon. we had a local preference to that plant. i want to go back -- tally it up. the improved the efficiency of the plant. it is about exporter in the ford family of factories. they have added a third shift of 1200 jobs and another facility with 700 jobs. i want to tell you how busy they are to organize a trip to go announce it. i had to come during a 10-minute window during lunch because they did not want me to disturb the operation.

that is precisely how important the minute is at that facility. >> how did you get councilmembers' to pass your budget? >> by the chicago way. they saw a bright future for themselves. [laughter] we had a healthy debate. do not laugh too hard. [laughter] it was a healthy debate. we did a number of things we had been discussing for a long time. here is one example. our garbage collection is about to 20 per ton. we have good coverage. i never knew it was that good. in the past, garbage got picked up by 50 boards.

we put on a fedex ups model and efficiency. we will save 15-$20 million just being efficient. ears.bated this for 20 yaer we set up a competition. one sector sanitation workers. one sector waste management. both union, the same union. street and sanitation said they will win. you have to win it. we have enough savings in the system the same dollars we are taking citywide. we debated it and debated it. dawn. third, -- done. third, we are a big supporter of

the health care. we showed we could get better health care and save the taxpayers $100 per visit. now all seven clinics are going to fairly qualified free clinic operators. they will get better health care. the it is things like that we have done through innovation that i think -- we are honest people. we cannot do the same thing and hope for a different result. you cannot do it. the improved on original ideas i had. we implemented them. we used to do this in the past -- major non-profits got free water. three. -- free. we ended it. done.

for the smaller non-profits, we faced that out over time. for the big institutions, we ended it. i made sure everyone got affected. the city council look at it. obviously there vote -- this is where the water investment comes from. >> we have another question referring to something you said earlier. did you add education and health care to infrastructure? sure be thinking about the quality of life and the things that we need? >> day mean beyond the building of a school -- do you mean by on the building of a school? >> it is things we all need for the economy to grow, etc. health care, education, we think of them as human issues, but maybe we should think of the

more graphic. >> there is a great quote, "does anyone have any questions, answers? " we have six community colleges in the city. we are transforming our community colleges to career- based. malcolm x walling to health care. another wall into transportation logistics. another will do culinary and hospitality industry and i.t. advanced manufacturing. we have had industry leaders in each of those bills to the curriculum and the training of the professors. we have picked those six fields that we want to train the work force in. your workforce is the most important thing. i love what i am talking about

on the physical side. no one would comment that we did not have good colleges. their graduates. we have the largest alumni in the city of chicago. our workers is incredibly hard- working. the national average for four-is a tuition is about to%. in chicago it is 34%. i wanted to make sure at the community college level, those kids and those adults have as much of a chance at a future as the kids coming out of business school. i am glad i have the university of illinois and michigan, all of the schools and universities. all of them come to chicago. it is like a caravan. come to chicago. i have 127,000 kids in a

community colleges who are returning adults. i owe them an education and career and opportunity. that is a post-is coeducation. i am fascinated by this. i have never seen corporate america as excited about community colleges. i've never seen some of them work on the street -- from the street as excited. i.t. is a growing dissident technology. it is an innovation for both design and software development. right now on the website, there is 4000 and more job openings and 3800 web designers. that is on an average.

getting people trained is our responsibility. i want to make sure we of the workforce. i cannot see the test during that period -- the trust doing that. i will make sure that a community college graduate has that future. >> i think we have time for a few more questions. even now it can be spent on anything a state wants, how can mayors around the country convince governors that it is worth an investment? >> let me -- i am trying to figure out a clean way to say this. [laughter] i will say it wrong, but here it

is. a lot of the times the cities need to go through the states. direct funding is not like -- i would love to see more federal government -- first of all, i can tell you it telling analysis of that. capacity -- it is not just the we are closer, but why add another layer to transfer and have another box checked and another analysis going on. the truth is, we are all close and central. getting another approval process, that is about nine months to a year. not everyone's workload is the same.

i think you could walk " urgency. i would like to see a more direct. let me go back to two examples. we just recruited a firm to open up the largest air cargo in a gateway airport in the country. 11,000 jobs. they said what you are doing at the community college is guaranteeing the work force -- will give us certainty we can put this here. it is creating a facility for 1000 jobs. -- 11,000 jobs. two, this is an example of direct funding. we will build a facility near mccormick place and i want to get it done in short order. there is nothing there but to get that facility built -- they

were talking about the requirements at the state level. we were talking about getting it done in 2017. i said, what are you talking about? there is nothing there. there was a year for environmental studies. what is there? there was nothing there for environmental studies. it was a layer of bureaucracy and it is not because they do not want to see it happen, it is why i have to into the same questions that the state level that i do at the federal level? it is not like the state does not have self interest in mccormick place. somebody checking a box. i would like to send them the fed application.

i like to get going. as long as the standards are what the fed wants, i do not need another layer. my governor is interested in what i am interested in. i had to go through another loop to get it done. >> what city is the model for innovative infrastructure development? >> there are 127 projects in canada. they said we are in a little shop and there is screaming and yelling. we are in canada and we have 127. i said i want to send some people to visit. i am sold. canada has an interesting model.

in case you want to see it, we have daily flights out of chicago. [laughter] >> i want to close to the question. we have a link on our website. there are transportation issues and you are trying to address them. during your career, there has been discussion about government. and how to make it more effective. from a perspective of a mayor outside of washington, our people seem that issue in the same way?

it is this a solution-based approach where you are trying to help the most basic human needs? does that put a new veil on this? >> i have two points. i love this job. i have had great jobs. this is the best i have had in public life. i would never replace any of my jobs. but mayor is a government that is closest to city government. it is the closest to the people. that is how they envision their lives. recycling. garbage. tree trimming. parks. it is the most intimate. you make a decision. some people are happy and some people are not. they do not hide it. [laughter] that is one.

i used to congress on your corner. hear you say, i'm going to do this. it is the most intimate form of government. they did not hear your message about the telephone. [laughter] let me say this. we are having -- this is a pet peeve so thank you. this discussion about all that matters is tax rate is ridiculous. i cut upper head tax rates by 50% and by the time my term is out, we will eliminate it. tax breaks matter. but any business person will also tell you the quality of a workforce matters. can they get goods and services

efficiently? is government transparent? this year, we had 147 business places on the books. we had more than l.a., phoenix, and philadelphia combined. we massively consolidated them down to 43. i do not like you focusing on city hall. i want you focusing on your customer. my favorite example of this consolidation was if you buy a dog, they need a license. if he so the caller, you need another license. -- sold the collar, you need another license. if you want to offer the service of watching the dog, you need another license. i was just looking for a kid to by the dog. [laughter] government coming in a sense of oversight, does not mean you

eliminate it for health and safety. certainty -- once you give certainty and the ability to move goods and services efficiently, all things they care about and also a workforce that is trained and ready to go, they will go create the jobs and you will leave the country. the notion that only thing that matters and economic development is tax breaks. it matters. a menu of things matter. chicago to make it point. it did not have an income tax. did not have an income tax --o'hare is a critical platform for that operation. ford has a plant.

would make certain investments to keep it competitive. we invested to keep it competitive.they decided what cars that produce there. we make sure they can move them in and out. we are making investments. there is a partnership for the interstate highway system and the broadband development. there has always been this partnership and it is a good partnership. it has worked in our history. it is not one or the other. when we go over our line of 140 business licenses, nobody is less healthy than the city of chicago. we did it smartly and it gives small business a certainty. the next thing we would do is we have 8 different inspectors. we are consolidating and modernizing it.

then somebody can go pull it down on the website and they do not have to bother in business with an expected. we are not doing that from a health and safety perspective but from every other perspective. and and that is where government matters. hey, man, i love you. this notion that government is bad and private sector is good, we always have a partnership. we should have a discussion about 30 doubles. i do not create jobs. the private sector does. i do create the atmosphere and the environment where they can succeed or not. that is based on the schools, workforce, airports, mass transit, water, quality of life, parks. that matters. the fact that the city of chicago went from ten to fifth

in bicycle friendly, it is not an accident. we have a massive improvement in startup companies and young workers doing web design and all types of other design. there is another means of transportation. they cannot build a bicycle lane on their own. i have to do it. >> great ending to a great conversation about chicago. [applause] and thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seat as they depart. thank you. >> now, i look at u.s. businesses and households based on the latest data from the u.s. census bureau. a frp, "washington journal" this

is about -- from "washington journal." host: on your screen is census director dr. robert groves. he is with us to give us a snapshot on the trends in the country over the past decade. we work with you to choose a set of statistics to do what? what will people learn from this? guest: in a way, going through what you may call myths of certain economic and social phenomenon in our country. most of them are not real myths but the result of overgeneralizing. when you drill down and you realize the stories are different, or looking at total levels of some phenomenon versus the chance that the phenomenon would look the same. finally, oftentimes we get the wrong impression about what is going on in the country because we are not comparing it to the

right thing. we are going to go through a lot of different kinds of statistics and we will try to point out how one general impressions are telling us are not to all the time. host: for the viewers, we have posted these questions on our website. if you are a twitter follower, we tweeted them out so you had a chance to look at them ahead of time. if you want to ask questions about specific charts, you are welcome to. generally, we are looking at the past decade. we want to hear your story as we look at the broader numbers for society. the first question was, did the latest recession caused home ownership rates to decline for all home owners of the same magnitude? guest: let us go through this

one. first of all, let me help you read things. we have a lot of different lines. the height of the line reflects what percentage of a group is buying or owning their home. as we move from left to right, we are comparing time. maybe the first thing to do -- there are two big gray bars here. that is pointing out when recessions happen. you see on the rights of the most recent recession covering 2008-2009. then maybe the first thing to do is to look at that dotted line in the middle. that reflects a percentage of the entire household population that was buying or owning their home.

if you let your i go from left to right along the dotted line, you can see there is a mild decline of 1.8% between 2007 and 2010. overall, home ownership went down 1.8 percentage points during the great recession. but now let your eye compare the different colors. one stark difference, the very low line there is for young households, where the household head is less than 35 years old. first of all, we see home ownership is lower throughout this time could go for them. that has to do with accumulating the income that is required to make a downpayment and so on. then you also see another phenomenon. we have helped you notice that with these black ... --

ellipsis. there is a big contrast between their yen per household and the older households. -- younger household and older households. the younger households declined in their home ownership by 4.4 percentage points during this period, but the older home owner showed a much smaller decline. that has to do with the fact that as you pay off your mortgage, there are a much larger percentage of older folks that own their home out right. about two-thirds of that older group own their home, and that makes the recession-proof in a real way. the small myth here is that age groups -- the myth would be that everyone had the same effect during this period on

home ownership, but it is disproportionately among young groups. host: our phone lines are/age groups. -- divided by age groups. -- divided regionally. you can also send us a question by twitter. we will also put our e-mail address on the screen. lots of ways to get involved in the conversation this morning. for whatever the reason, whether it was access to capital or unstable jobs, younger homeowners were disproportionately affected in their home ownership rates during the recession? guest: young households tend to move more often for a variety of reasons, and that requires them to change household identification. host: home ownership and individual net worth are closely tied together.

we have seen a lot of stories talking about this. your next question, how is that worth changed by age group? guest: let's look at this one. here is the height of the lines reflecting the percentage of households that have a negative net worth. that means that your debts exceed your assets. once again, we break that down by age. if you move from left to right, you are watching the movement from the year 2000 to 2010. if you focus on the right side of the graph and look at the movement in the recessionary period between 2009 and 2010, you see the network, those that

have a negative net worth of long the youth went down. the only group that did that. much higher on average, in some sense, less wealthy than the other groups because they have 0 or negative net worth, but they have seen some games between 2009 and 2010. >> once again, 65 and older, relatively stable. guest: yes, both on housing ownership and net worth. host: let's start to take some phone calls. matthew is with us from st. louis. caller: first, i do think the last recession caused declines in home ownership that we should be worried about, but also, my question is, do you

think it is a time to look at a home, the value of your home, whether it is $3,000, do you think that people are kind of looking at that more versus looking at our human, american problems? i just want a brief comment on that. thank you. guest: well, these are statistics on housing. we wanted to point out how different groups in the population reacted, how their lives were changed, more or less, by the recessionary period. i think your question points out the fact that we need up-to-date statistics. and these phenomenon we are

looking at are undergoing change right now. our data stops at 2010. this is the kind of thing that we need to keep up-to-date on to make a decision. guest: this comment on twitter connects -- host: this comment on twitter connects two phenomenon. how does the government track causes for changes in location? guest: traditionally, the system has monitored the prevalence, of volume of different things going on. rarely does it attempt to identify the causes of changes. generally, and our country, that is left to the private sector, academic sector, to puzzle through why things are happening. there is a very large literature on these phenomenon

we are talking about, mainly from the academic sector. host: this comment on twitter -- guest: that is right, and when you look at this data and other data we collect, you formed the impression that this young cohort right now is heavily affected by the recession, on getting into the housing market in a meaningful way. it will be interesting to watch this group over time to see, as we move out of this recession, whether they rebound past or more slowly. host: we are asking you about some of your household economic trends in your family and community over the past decade as we look a trends in the u.s.

economy in that time period. next is jason, watching from las vegas. caller: good morning. grace and peace. i am right behind the baby boomers. i wanted to ask you a question. i am watching the trends and the greatest generation was always prepared for any situation, and they did not pass anything along to the young generation. i see such a large majority of men out of work and the trend of all these women having jobs. will we have a strong society when we have so many people? the greatest generation, they were willing to bring their mother and everybody living in the house until they can stand on their feet. all of these young generations want to buy these mansions, me, me, me. my, my, my. they do not prepare for anything. how can we learn from the older

generation so that we can prepare and have another generation again when they grow older, to have all of these houses and keep the communities up? if you go to las vegas, it is decimated because nobody prepared. nobody had saved for a rainy day, had a egg contest. -- egg nest. when the market crash, they all got foreclosed on. look all over america, it is scary. host: thank you. guest: it is fascinating to study how people's behavior with regards to saving and investment are affected by their life experiences as they go through life. when you do the general comparisons as you just did, we can know, those generations experienced different historical events that shaped their behavior.

one of the things that we will all see over the coming year is how this young cohort, which have been deferentially affected by the recession, will make their decisions about human capital investment, their own investment in houses and other big durable products, and how they pay with regard to savings and planning for the future. this great recession will be a major event in their lives that will shape how they think. host: floor on twitter rights -- laura on twitter writes -- but go to this next one. guest: this is a mistake that many of us have made it one time or another. we have all heard the assertion that the most affected groups are minorities. this reminds us that you have to

be careful about arithmetic. when you look at the top, we have two lines here. the height of the line represents how many millions of people in poverty. poverty, here, is defined by the census bureau definition, income compared to expenses. you can see the recession periods in gray. moving from 1959 to 2012 from left to right. here we see the blue line is higher than the orange line. the blue line reflects whites in poverty. two-thirds of poor people right now are whites.

a much smaller number of non- whites are in poverty. contrary to the impression that some people carry in their heads. often, if you go down to the next chart, the explanation for that myth is the rate, the chances that somebody is in poverty really does relate to minority status. this is a different chart. the height of the line here is the percentage of the group in poverty. you can see the colors of the lines have switched, in the sense that the poverty rate of non-whites is in the higher than the poverty rate of whites, but since non-whites are a minority in the population, you get the volume differences. the other thing that you see in

the bottom chart is the dramatic declines in poverty of the non-white. how the two lines are coming together slowly, admittedly, but dramatically. host: related to that -- guest: we do not have won today, but you can go to our website, census.gov and put in those search terms, and hopefully you can find a table quickly. host: frank is on the line from georgia. caller: we have a problem here. the housing market has slowed down a lot. after the slowing down of the housing market, we understand that there are a lot of people

renting now. will that be impacted? there are a lot of people around. guest: first of all, the problems in the housing market vary greatly across the country. different parts of the country suffer from those problems to different extents. our other data series show the movement from home ownership to renting, you can see it in the country. that has been a switch, exactly as you have observed in your area. it will be interesting to watch that ratio of renting versus owning as we move out of the recession. rental markets in some areas are really quite tight right now because of that movement from home ownership to renting.

host: there is a big debate going on in this town about income inequality and whether or not it is on the rise in the united states. the next two questions look at this. guest: this is across the country, not statistical information that the census bureau collects on its own, but we rely on various organizations like the oecd. they have created a standardized measure of inequality. the height of these lines, if you look at the vertical dimension, is something that us geeks call a genie index. it goes from 0 to 1. if the country were at 0, it would mean that all people and household had the same income.

if it went up to 1, it would mean that only one would have all the income. so the higher the line, the more income inequality there is. the lines here are different countries. we tried to make the usa hear the fattest one, in blue. we have a comparison of the u.s. with other countries. the highest in the quality in the set of countries is in mexico, the lowest is in sweden. we are in the upper middle. we are above countries in western europe that we are often comparing ourselves to, as well as japan and canada. we are on the upper end of inequality. another way to look at it is on the next chart which asks the question, are we getting more or less inequality?

this compares the mid-1980s to the late 2000's on the rate of growth of inequality. if you try to find the fat line, we are sort of in the middle of growth rates. most countries, and this is what many people do not know, are experiencing growth and equality. the income distribution is becoming more clustered over time in many countries. the exception is at the bottom, france and spain. i do not have explanations for that. the growth rate in the inequality is sort of in the middle of the countries that we are comparing here too. host: also an interesting phenomenon in early returns, sweden has the lowest level of inequality, but they are changing the fastest.

guest: that is right. they are still low in terms of inequality comparisons, but things are changing. host: next on the line is jackie. idaho. caller: i am a baby boomer. my father was in the second world war. he came back and i was raised on a farm, on a ranch that was handed down through the generations. i think what has happened, we have lost the definition of who we are. the father went to work, the mother was at home taking care of the children. the children knew the mom would always be there. we were taught to save our money, not go in debt. do not buy something if you could not afford it. you always thought about the next generation.

i went through the 1960's and 1970's. itwas horrible. -- it was horrible. i was born in the 50's, and as i became an adult, i came into this me, me, me. i think we just got to the point where we just became so selfish and greedy and only thinking of ourselves. i started out in a small home and work my way up. i sold that and made a bit of profit and then got the next one. everyone now thinks they should start at the top. it is this entitlement thing that we have going on these days. they do not know what it is like to start out with what you could afford and work your way up. host: i am going to stop you there. thank you.

a similar theme on twitter. is there anything about government data and that gets to causality? guest: not really on this, but i do think it is our obligation, as government statisticians, to give to the people and accurate portrait of all of these things, income variation, spending rates, saving rates across generations, so that these impression that we all get by watching our own extended families and neighbors are grounded, not only in just observations of small groups, but in data that we can trust across the entire country. some of these observations some of these observations are prevalent in the country, others are not.

they are located in subgroups. host: what is next? guest: another income inequality issue arises between men and women. before we look at this graph, we have to remind ourselves, currently, women at work are making on average about 77 cents, 78 cents for every $1 that males are making. one question is, is that changing? it has changed between 2000 and 2010. in 2000, it was about 73 cents, so things are getting more equal. another interesting thing is why does that happen and will that happen in the future? the why that appears to be

relevant here is that women are working in different occupations. disproportionately in occupation that do not have high median salaries. they tend to be more part-time workers. on average, they work five hours less than men per week. they tend to be less in management positions. they tended not to be in management and then there are a whole lot of unexplained things. the change the system is related to this chart. the height of these lines represent the percentage of the employed workers with a bachelor's degree. this is the level of the college education, percentage with college education. we compare men and women and if you go to the bottom, we are not comparing time but we are comparing age groups. so, this is a rather dramatic chart for social data in that

the blue and red lines crossed themselves. the younger people in younker groups, 20-40, a larger percentage of women who have bachelor's degrees than men. the red line above the blue line. as you go to older age groups at the top, it flips. the older groups working men have higher education than women. this fits a lot of other data. if you look at current graduate school and graduate school enrollment -- an undergraduate school enrollment. women exceed the accounts of men. we are already seeing a movement of women in a different occupational mix. they are entering those occupations that have higher median incomes. the 77 cents or 78 cents,

unless things change across occupations, should get higher and higher as these women -- these young women enter higher income occupations. host: lindsay asks the -- guest: it doesn't apply to every woman with a bachelor's degree or every man with a degree.'s these data come from the very representative samples of people are around the country. we cover all of the country. and women and men in all occupations of all backgrounds. and they rely -- and this is an important thing for all of us to realize -- they rely on the participation of people throughout the country. the census bureau attains a very high participation rates, but it is important they do.

host: will move on to manufacturing the first take a call from mark from maine. caller: good morning, susan. thanks once again for a very informative "washington journal." the complexity of these census charts certainly needs explanation. so, thank you, robert. i am coming from the older generation, the chart on home ownership. it is obvious we older people have had a lifetime to pay off our mortgages.

but my question will probably raise the ire of some listeners. is there any sense of data on the elderly who do not need a social security? i started on social security at 62 as a retired public school teacher. and i still remember my depression parents raised in the depression is saying they didn't need social security because they saved, saved all through their life. and i was kind of raised that way. i always spent less than my income. so, i have kind of an opposite reaction of a previous caller. it seems our older people need to give and support the younger people. guest: we do indeed have statistics on that. i refer you to the census.gov web page. there are a lot of people now studying how people are preparing, if you will, for retirement, what their cumulative savings look like and how dependent they are on social security. and that very thing that you pointed out, what portion of

the elderly are depending to what extent on social security for their day to day living, it is something that a lot of people are interested in right now. and proper statistics on that allowed us to have these discussions. host: our first question was on job creation and what people out there who are experiencing the recession have to say about how to effectively create jobs. your next chart gives a snapshot of how manufacturing, beginning with that, which was typically a source of jobs, has changed. guest: we are going to look at a couple of things on manufacturing. the first one attacks the myth that nothing is made with the united states anymore. the height of this line is a function of billions of dollars in volume of the manufacturing sector. these are constant dollars,

fixed to $1,984. it allowed us to move from 1996 to the present time -- to 1984 dollars. look at the height of a line. there was a major hit to manufacturing volume during the recessionary period, a dramatic decline, but you see it coming back. slowly, it is sort of matching the early 2000's now. the type of manufacturing going on is actually that for which the u.s. really has really manages, i think. host: can we move to the next one? guest: the next one is a list we all carry around, the midwest sector of manufacturing -- ms. that the midwest sector manufacturing is completely dead. we compare four regions. the height of the line is the

function of the share of manufacturing in the country represented by each region. we see, focus your eye on the red line, which is the midwest, the so-called rust belt. you see a decline over the 2000's. you see that the south has been the major sector, the major region for manufacturing, most prevalent for some time. but by no means is the midwest falling off the charts. there is a little bump. what is happening in the midwest is the mix of manufacturing activities is changing in a way. the midwest is not completely dead.

the south is still leading on manufacturing, but the midwest is hanging in there. >> going back to 10 years, 2002, -- can i speculate if the chart went back 40 or 50 years there would be a big decline in the northeast? >> and it is also related how the population has migrated west and south. everything working together. host: let's take a southern caller. shreveport. caller: my question for mr. grove, as we seem to have an increasingly into racial population, has the census bureau collected data on how income changes or poverty rate regarding interracial households and if so, how does it compare to the data presented earlier. guest: i don't have that with me. we certainly do have data on that. with regard to the changes during the recession, it is pretty clear that minority

groups were disproportionately suffering declines during that period the income levels of multiracial families are indeed sitting in our statistics. i just don't have them in my head now. it is very interesting to me to note the growth in the proportion of the american people who are self-identifying as multiracial. this is one of the fastest- growing groups in the country. so, watching this group and watching how they both in income, socio-economic status, and also culturally how they changed over time will be an interesting thing for all of us to watch. host: suzanne turns the comment on the head -- guest: they fit together. host: exports of manufactured goods. guest: here is another kind of myth -- that we don't make anything and we don't export it. here, the height of these lines

are in billions of dollars. un-adjusted data. and the redline our imports. the value of imports over time. the blue line is exports. there are two important things to look at. let your eye look at the difference in height between the blue and red, the disparity between imports and exports. we are an importing country and we have been for a long time. host: not so much in 1957 -- 1997, much closer. guest: and look at how the recession brought those together. the impacts of recession on exports and imports is a complicated matter because it depends on what the rest of the world is doing at the same time.

you see a big bounce back in both imports and exports after the recession, this export increase is something our country is working on in a variety of ways. host: our next call is from greensboro, north carolina. this is lisa. you are on with dr. growth. caller: i know greensboro -- during the last census, the census bureau actually had an office there and i worked on the last census. i am just wondering, when do you start looking for people to work on the u.s. census again? i know it is way earlier than when it is a venture with the form. two or three years -- i did statistics and i just love the u.s. census bureau and i love of of the statistics and i am wondering when you are going to ramp up the workers for next time.

guest: first of all, thank you for your service to the country, working on the census. join more than half a million other people who gave such a wonderful census is to the country that we gave to the country for 2010. the census, as you know, is in the year 2020. we are not hiring people for that one. we are trying to planning census that is more efficient, so people here in washington are completely devoted to fabricating designing of census that is very efficient, cheaper for the american public, because we have to save taxpayer money like everyone. but also as good as we have done in prior decades. one of the wonderful things we have about the u.s. case with census is if you compare our performance worldwide to other country, we do great censuses

here. this one was one of the greatest -- best in history. it is because the people that you work so hard on it. thank you. host: next is a small business and large business -- job creation. guest: another thing we hear, some people here, that small businesses are just disappearing and we are dominated by large businesses. the height of these lines is the percentage of business establishments that are large and small. the blue are the small and the red are the big ones. this is a very stable rate of prevalence of small and large establishments. really complicated and really important. slow down as you look at this. let me first note -- what is

the engine of growth? what kinds of firms produce more employment? this contrasts small firms and large firms. the height of the bars are the proportion of employees that work in certain kinds of firms. look at the blue line, blue bars first. it gives you the proportion of employees among total employees and different kinds of firms. on the very right, the blue line is really high for big firms that are mature. 10 years or older. a larger portion of all employees work for big firms that are old, big firms. let your eye goes to the left

and last -- let us ask the question, who is producing the new jobs? that is the yellow bar. you see that a young firms on the very last side that are just a being born -- produce jobs. they start from zero and they hire people. if you go to the next group, these are small firms that have been in existence 1-9 years. they produce jobs, too. but the red bar are four job destruction. they go out of business, too. they both produce jobs and they lose jobs. if you look at this entire thing, it teaches us that the myth is that all small firms produce jobs. really, the truth is start-ups, a young firms produce jobs.

small firms that have been in existence for a long time are not producing a lot of jobs. host: start-ups create jobs but the jobs and not necessarily stable. if you want more jobs, you want more start-ups. host: here is a comment -- jacksonville, florida. babas online for robert growth. caller: yes, doctor. i was born in the mid 40's -- 1940's and we were the second family in the neighborhood to have a tv. we dealt with imagination. very few toys. as the decades progressed, i see the internet has done a wonderful job bring money to the world. i think the next big growth will be hybrid automobiles. there is a lot of interest in

that. we need something to carry on now. and i think the next thing will be hybrid use of cars, just the sheer enjoyment of it, and then there will be the necessity. host: thanks. let's listen to kim in annapolis. caller: good morning. i just have one small question. you hire a lot of temporary workers to be census workers but you also rely on the u.s. postal system to deliver a lot of the surveys to go to people's homes. with the drive now to reduce the letter carriers in the postal system, how will it impact the 2020 census if in fact they get rid of most of the postal workers and post offices that they are already doing -- offices close in on saturdays is the office closing, and on saturdays no delivery. guest: it is something we think

about a lot because we have to plan so far out. our contingencies on that really have to do with exploiting electronic communication more and more and more. so we are investigating how social media might be used to alert people to our request for census data, how we can use telephones and internet and basically all sorts of most to communicate with folks. we are preparing for a world in 2020 where mobile computing will be everywhere, we will be in a wireless world, and we will be interacting over the internet with a variety of devices in a variety of ways. that is the world i think we are moving to. host: we have two minutes left. two importance life. we feel a lot with the debate of private-sector and public- sector workers. guest: we are discussing the size of the federal government

daily now. this chart reflects the percentage of and pleased by sector -- employees by sector and the big blue part is the private sector. the different bars are for different years. from 1980 to 2010. you can see it is pretty constant. a little more than 80% of employees are in the private sector. but it isn't moving very much. over time. if we zoomed in on the top portion and go to the next graph and ask what are the characteristics of the government sector employment, this is generally a surprise to people. the growth in government workers is disproportionately in

the local government rather than state -- and the federal government shows a gradual decline in the number of employees working for the federal government. if you go up to the top and say why is the growth going on in the local government, about two-thirds of the growth has to do with folks working in local schools. this is a surprise to most people. host: that is it for these numbers. for our audience, they are connected to the website if you like to spend more time with them and the census website has a lot more data and you can dig into some of the ancillary sets of data. we said at the outset this was your final program with us on america by the numbers. where are you going? guest: i am off to georgetown university and i will become the provost at georgetown, something i am looking forward to. host: we should tell the audience you have been a big champion of the america by the

numbers segment. a question about your job -- when you look in your tenure at census, how the the organization change under you? guest: we tried to innovate in ways to make us more efficient. we are very concerned about spending every dollar of taxpayer money efficiently, so all of our work is trying to be more efficient and giving the american people more useful information. host: thanks very much, and good luck in your next position. >> tomorrow, financial times reporter marks the second anniversary of the dodd-frank wall street reform act and the first anniversary of the consumer financial bureau. the founder and executive editor of the hackstrom report discusses how the drought is affecting food prices.

and a georgetown associate professor explains the british- based barclays scandal and its relationship to the global financial market. "washington journal." live at 7:00 in the morning on c-span. next, a house hearing on the impact of dodd-frank regulations on businesses. after that, president obama and republican presidential candidate mitt romney, on the shootings at the colorado movie theater. then a discussion about the violence in syria with a reporter who traveled there with opposition forces. >> this weekend on american history tv -- >> 30 years of administrations have done more to confirm marxist predictions of the rich getting richer and everybody else falling behind than the 70

years of the soviet union, perhaps. >> socialism and america, eric foner on the rise of socialism and 20th century america. and sunday, more on key political figures who ran for president and lost, but changed political history. this week, thomas dewey, who prosecuted gangsters, but he lost in 1944 and to harry truman in 1948. american history tv, this weekend on c-span3. >> small business owners and organization leaders testified before a house financial services subcommittee wednesday on how the dodd-frank financial regulations are affecting businesses. this is two hours, 20 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> the committee will come to >> the committee will come to

order. the hearing is about dodd- frank's impact on families, communities and small businesses. i want to thank our witnesses. there is a lot of different ways the government can get in your pocket. i think most people think about taxes as the primary way to do that because basically the government as to determine how much of your hard earned money you get to keep. but what i do think about the people underestimate is what the cost of other ways government does that through

regulations that basically there are costs to those. when we look at -- one of the things this congress has been trying to focus on for a number of months now is jobs. we still have a number of americans that are out of work and we are looking for ways to make sure that we help find ways to get those people back to work. in texas, about 98% of the employers are small businesses. in the 19th congressional district, there is probably a higher number because we have a bunch of hard-working small- business people that have worked hard to build those businesses up. we do not have the big trio the plant in the 19th congressional district but the small businesses are a major job creator for us.

small businesses rely on access to capital. our community banks have been the primary provider of that capital. when you look at small business loans in this country, most of those loans are under $100,000. while that is not a small amount of money, for many banks that would be a relatively small loan. but to those businesses, it is a very important loan. we want to make sure that as we move forward, we are not part of the problem of inhibiting the financial community's, particularly our community banks, from providing important lending opportunities. but also serving the customers. i was talking to someone the other day and many other smaller communities across my

district with the consolidation that's happened in the agricultural business, there are a smaller number of farmers farming in a lot more acres. a lot of communities that are used e.g. they used to be more larger or smaller now and in many cases, the community bank was one of the last larger corporate citizens in those community. to provide capital and other financial-services for those individuals. what i am looking to accomplish with this hearing -- i think there has been a lot of focus on wall street but what we really know is that main street is where all of the cost and burden of regulations tends to fall. we do not think about the fact that we raise the cost of the asphalt in the parking lot of the supermarket if we tinker with some of these markets or that the cost of financing a

car, the commodities and availability of certain banking services are now at a cost. so what i hope to accomplish with this hearing is to begin to identify some of those because i think on both sides of the aisle, we want to make sure that if we are going to have regulation, we understand the consequences. also we have had discussions about the cost and benefit. you can make a car really safe but if it cost $100,000 to make a car really safe, how many people can afford the car? so i look forward to our discussion and our panel. we have a great panel today. thank you again for being here.

with that, i will yield to the ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the witnesses as well. i look forward to this hearing and the other hearings scheduled this week. dodd-frank, i do not think anyone would suggest it was a perfect bill. certainly not by my measure. that is never the measure of anything. if was, we would not be reelected. therefore we have to look for the cost-benefit analysis. but costs are easy to measure. how much does it cost to hire a new person to do regulation? that is a fair thing to look at. benefits are more difficult to measure. the benefits to the economy as a whole and the individual in this -- institution are almost impossible to measure. i fear some people are suffering with amnesia. secretary geithner wrote an

article a couple months ago talking about how we got to where we are. dodd-frank came out the response to an economic crisis caused by a massive on regulated banking industry. i do not mean the regular banks in a people who were totally unregulated and that the competition with regulated banks. they took excessive risk. they had no document loans. just giving out loans to people with no documentation whatsoever. credit defaults what squared and tripled and all kinds of things. i have not met a human being who really understands what that is about. off-balance sheet investments. cozy relationships with regulators and credit agencies. all of that led us to the second worst recession in american history.

in a speech recently, the president remarked that if you bought a business, you did not bill that. somebody else make that happen. i am sure you do with plenty of small businesses. in your experience, who build

those businesses? what is the individuals did and if you doubt it, you should come to texas. you know the independent nature that are business people have. >> thank you very much. i yield back the balance of my time. >> now another gentleman from texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we have about four texans in the house currently. i would like to welcome mr. paar sell to the committee. -- purcell to the committee. i have met with the small bankers in texas, a good many of them. at small bankers from other places as well. and they all echo the same concerns and it has been said enough for me to walk to find some means by which we can ease some of the consternation. i am not sure what the solution is but i would like to ask, do you make a distinction between the $10 billion demarcation

that we have in the community bank? many of the bankers i meet with are not at the $10 billion mark. they are considerably smaller. do you make a distinction in your mind? >> i do. i do not know if it is a magic $10 billion or if it is $2 billion. i do not know if it is $50 billion but there is definitely a difference for someone -- if they make a good loan, they have to die by the business and be proud of it. the bad side of it is if he made the bad loan, you still have to drive by the property every day and decide that it was not a good deal and remember that. so i do not understand all the fault swaps and the things that happen on wall street. i am confused by the definition of what a bank is of how the common to the fdic without pain passed premiums and now they

are automatically at bank. by my definition, it does not include a lot of those on wall street. >> are you considerably smaller than $10 billion? >> we are less than $300 million. >> less than $300 million? >> i know the zeros in washington kind of get confused but a lot less. >> it is just my hearing. some of the things did not function as well as they used to. but $300 million. our most of the community banks that you refer to less than say $500 million or less than $1 billion? >> by my definition, a true community bank would probably be less than $1 billion. there are some successful banks in our area that are $2 billion that really do serve their

communities. >> when you are smaller than $1 billion, tell me how your department's organized. do you have many departments or do you have people multitask? i have heard the answer but i want it for the record now. >> it does not know very often but we multitask -- we have about 40 employees. we have been lending department and then we have customer service and operations department. there are some cross issues there because you have to wear many hats. at the same time. if a customer comes in to the bank and they want to borrow money, they choose to they want to go to. we do not assign them. we do not say if you're doing consumer credit, you need to go to the gentlemen are this lady or fill out an application and we will run your credit check and get back with you in a week. we do not do it that way. we try to answer immediately.

>> would you say that most community banks with assets under $1 billion, that they do a lot of multitasking that they do not have parnis set aside -- have departments set aside for compliance adherence? >> that is correct. >> as i talk to bankers in texas, it seems they have a distinction between a $10 billion small bank and what they call a community bank. that is where i'm trying to find some means by which we can address some of these concerns. i do not know that we can go to a third tier. right now we have a two-tier system. but small community banks seem to have a different role. i am picking up that they seem to serve a clientele that is

much more intimately known to them. the way that they do business has a lot to do with tradition and i am trying to find a way to resolve some of these issues for the small community banks. >> i do not know if i can help you with that but i do know that if our customer does not do well and survive, our bank is not too well and survive. >> what percentage of your loans do you maintain in house? 100% of the loans, unless it is too large a credit and we would participate that out with other community banks in the area that understand the risk involved and know that type of credit. but our customer is serviced their. -- there. he does not go anywhere else. if he has a problem, he comes to us. if we have a problem, we go to him. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> now the gentleman is

recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and witnesses for taking time to be with us today. mr. purcell, i am from west tennessee. a lot of farms. severe drought right now that we're facing. we have been farmers for seven generations. ups and downs many, many times. i want to use a hypothetical three years ago, we had some bad times and i can remember my father going to the bank, our local community bank, and saying we have had a bad season. so i want to pay the interest on my notes. we had been doing business at the bank for ever. my father and the banker were able to work out a solution to go forward and and the pain the bank of in full.

today, with what is happening with the drought situation in the country and all the farmers that will be short this year, do you still have the same authority and flexibility to sit down with the customer and work out a solution? or are we standing in the way? >> we have the ability to do it but i do not know that we could sustain it for very long with the regulatory climate that it is. everything needs to be lost -- loss free. interest is the price for taking the risk but we would attempt to do that. we would talk about the capacity if you make a crop next year, we would try to set up your carry over over a 3-4 year period. but you could not stop your toe three years in a row and come

out ok. one of the problems that might be ongoing is the basel 3 which we have not even discussed in this. your market accounting on small loans -- what is a drought ridden ag loan worth and who would buy it? we can stop credit fast if we have to go to market. a guy comes in and he wants to borrow money and he was to use the land for collateral and we telemarketer market. he is 150% collateralized and next year, real estate values go down. he says but i have not had a loss. so, it is complicated. >> to the, a few minutes ago about the -- some of you not giving suggestions on the rules of what you wanted to see

change, the unfortunate part of what i hear when i am out in the district is that most of you were doing it right. you were not doing things wrong. so you were cooperating and working in the system as it was very -- as it was. us getting in the way he most of the time, the and the count -- the unintended consequences really mess things up. you talked about how successful you had been five years ago -- had been. five years ago, it you charged the same rates as today? nothing has changed? >> in terms of the cost of our services? yes, more less we are the same. >> so the charges would be the same? >> in terms of what we charge our members? interest rates obviously have

changed so those would have been adjusted according with prime rates and so forth and terms of fees, we have not raised fees. >> did your credit union take part of money -- take tarp money? >> in my testimony, i talk about one of the regulatory tools that our credit union, low income credit unions that are certified by the treasury department. in 2010 -- >> why did you apply an need money if you were doing things so well? >> what it was is this was actual money that was returned by the banks made available to these community development financial institutions serving distressed neighborhoods. it was a loan to strengthen our bottom line, our net worth so we could expand lending.

we specifically took that money to increase small business and other lending in our neighborhood. >> and he paid the loan back? >> it is over the length of eight years so we are in the process. >> to wrap up, in your testimony, i heard you say uncertain as we go forward. dodd-frank was an active july 21, 2010. 728 days ago. what happens -- i am a freshman member of congress but i am afraid that maybe sitting here three years from now saying what if, it is unclear, it is uncertain. because it is so big. a lot of times regulators denied get blamed if someone does not make a loan but it the making bad loans, they do. so they are overprotective of what is happening in the

private sector. we're not recovering. the jobless claims numbers this morning we did this is not getting any better. this is just a monster. to this magnitude -- it has got to stop somewhere. with that, i yield back my time. >> i thank you gentleman and the panel. we have had a great discussion today and we have been talking about the people we need to be talking about and that is the consumer of financial products. those are the people that are most affected by this. i think we had some good dialogue and i think one of the things i feel encouraged about is there seems to be a bipartisan feeling that there are some areas that we need to take a look at and a look forward to working with my colleagues to do that. the chair also notes that some members may have additional

questions for the panel which they may wish to submit to you in writing. without objection -- i am sorry, i yield to the gentleman. >> there are two news articles on record without objection. one from "the wall street journal" and another one from forbes magazine. i would just offer to put these on the record. >> without objection. without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 30 days for members to submit written questions to these witnesses. with that, this hearing is adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> president obama and mitt romney comment on the shootings at the colorado movie theater.

then, a discussion on the violence in syria with a reporter who travel there. today and "washington journal," shahien nasiripour talks about the dodd-frank act. jerry hagstrom discusses how the drought is affecting food prices. an associate professor james angel explains the barclays bank scandal and its relation to the global financial market. "washington journal" is at 7:00 a.m. on ec-span. >> it was about those men and women who are almost mortally

injured in war, who because of the advances that have been made in medical trauma treatment over the last 10 years, now they are being saved. an incredible number of them are being saved. almost everybody who falls on the battlefield is being saved. i wanted to write about what life was like for these people and i started with a question having seen some people who were gruesomely maimed. don't they wish they were dead? >> in the "beyond the battlefield," david wood spoke with veterans and their doctors on the struggles for the severely wounded in military operations. learn more on sunday at 8:00 on c-span's q&a.

>> president obama has ordered that flags be lowered to half staff for five days in memory of those killed and wounded in the colorado feeder shooting. president obama and mitt romney also canceled their scheduled campaign rallies and instead spoke briefly about the tragedy. we begin with president obama's remarks in florida. then we will hear from former governor romney in new hampshire. >> thank you, everyone.

thank you. thank you. let me first of all say how grateful i am for all of you being here. we appreciate everything that you have done. there are a lot of people here who have been so engaged in the campaign and have sacrificed so much. people have been involved since 2007. [applause] i want all of you to know how appreciated i am. i know many of you can hear today for a campaign event. i was looking forward to having a fun conversation with you about really important matters that we face as a country. and the differences between

myself and my opponent in this election. but this morning, we will cut to -- woke up to news of a tragedy that reminds us of all the ways that we are united as one american family. by now, many of you know or have heard that a few miles outside of denver in a town called aurora, at least 12 people were killed when a gunman opened fired in a movie theater. dozens more are being treated for injuries at a local hospital. some of the victims are being treated at eight children's hospital. we are still gathering all of the facts about what happened in iraq. -- in aurora.

what we know is that police have one suspect in custody and the federal government stands ready to do what ever is necessary to bring who ever is responsible for this crime to justice. i had the chance to speak with the mayor of colorado to express on behalf of myself, michelle, and the entire american family of who heartbroken we are. even as we learned how this happened and who is responsible, we may never understand what les anyone to terrorize their fellow human beings like this. such violence, such evil is senseless.

it is beyond reason. while we may never fully know what causes someone to take the life of another, we do know what makes life worth living. the people we losses were loved. there were mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, and neighbors. they have hopes for the future. they had dreams that were not yet fulfilled. if there is anything to take away from this tragedy, it is a reminder that life is very fragile. our time is limited. it is precious. what matters at the end of the day is not the small things. it is not a trivial things that often consume us and our daily lives. ultimately, it is how we choose

to treat one another and how we love one another. [cheers and applause] it is what we do on a daily basis to give our lives meaning and to give it purpose. that is what matters. at the end of the day what we will remember will be those that we loved and what we did for others. that is why we are here. i am sure that many of you who are parents had the same reaction i had when i heard this news. my daughters go to the movies. what if malia and sasha had been inside that theater as many of our kids do every day? michelle and i are fortunate to hug our girls a little tighter

tonight. i am sure you will do the same with your children. for those parents who may not be so lucky, we have to embrace them and let them know we will be there for them as a nation. again, i am grateful that all of you are here. i am moved by your support, but there will be other days for politics. this i think is a day for prayer and reflection. [applause] what i asked everyone to do is i would like us to pause in a moment of silence for the victims of this terrible tragedy and for the people who

knew them and love them and those still struggling to recover and for all of those victims less publicized of the acts of violence that plagued our communities every single day. everyone, please take a moment. thank you, everyone. i hope all of you will keep the people of aurora in your hearts and minds today. may the lord bring them comfort and healing in our days to come. i am grateful to all of you. i hope that as a consequence of

today's events, as you leave here, spend a little time thinking of the incredible blessings that god has given us. thank you, everyone. god bless you. god bless the united states of america. [cheers and applause] >> four more years! four more years! [applause]

[applause] >> i want to thank father christian. we come before you today with very heavy hearts with what happened in colorado. joe and i want to offer thoughts and prayers from the people of new hampshire to the victims in aurora, colorado. to those that were injured, we wish them a speedy recovery. that is why we are here today. we want to come together as a community and to offer our collective condolences and prayers. governor romney is here with us

today to offer his thoughts and prayers and those of ann. it is my honor to introduce my friend, mitt romney, to you today. [applause] >> good morning. thank you for joining with the senator and me on this very sad day. thank you to father cushion for beginning this gathering with a word of prayer -- father christian for beginning this gathering with a word of prayer. our hearts break with the sadness of this tragedy.

i join the president and the first lady and all americans in offering our deepest condolences for those whose lives were shattered in a few moments of evil in colorado. i stand before you today not as a man running for office, but as a father and grandfather, a husband and an american. this is a time for each of us to look into our hearts and remember how much we love one another and how much we love and care for our great country. there is so much love and goodness in the heart of america. in the coming days, we will learn more about the lives that have been lost and the families who have been harmed by this hateful act. we will come to know more about the talents and the gifts that each victim possessed and will come to understand the hope and opportunity that has been lost. our hearts break for the victims and their families. we pray that the wounded will

recover and that those who are grieving will know the nearness of god. today we feel not only a sense of grief, but also helplessness. but there is something that we can do. we can offer comfort to someone near us who is suffering. we can mourn with those in the colorado. colorado lost youthful voices that would light up their homes and brought joy to their families. the apostle paul explained, blessed be god who aided us in our tribulations. we know how evil is overcome. we have seen the greater power in the goodness and compassion