picture, where we are, and where we want to be. when it comes to national security and foreign policy, as with our economy, the last few years have been a time of declining influence and missed opportunity. . . >> these clear measures are the ultimate tests of american leadership, and by these standards, we haven't seen much in the president's first term that inspires confidence in a second. the president's polices have

made it harder to recover from the deepest recession in 70 years, expose the military to cuts that no one can justify. compromise our national security secrets. >> [applause] >> and in dealings with other nations, he has given trust where it is not earned, insult where it was not deserved and policy, where it is not due. [applause] >> -- and apology where it is not due. [applause] >> from berlin to cairo, to the united nations, president obama has shared his view of america at its place among

nations. i've come here today to share mine. i am an unapologetic believer in the greatness of america. [applause] >> i am not ashamed of american power. i take pride that throughout history, our power has brought justice where there was tyranny, peace where there was conflict, and hope where there was affliction and despair. i do not view america as just one more place on the map, one more power to be balance balanced. i believe our country is the greatest force for good the word has ever known, and that our influence is needed today as ever before. >> [applause] >> and i am guided by one

overwhelming conviction, and passion: this century must be an american century. in 1941, henry louce called on his kun men, just -- country men, just then realizing their strength to create the first great american century, and they did. together with their allies, they won world war ii, they rescued europe, they defeated communism, and america took its place as leader of the free world. across the cloab, they fought, they bled, they led. they showed the world the extraordinary courage of the american heart and the generosity of the american spirit. that courage and generosity remains unchanged today. but sadly, the president has diminished american leadership, and we're reaping the consequences. the world is dangerous, destructive, chaotic, and the

two men running to your commander in chief must offer their answers to the challenges we face. like a watchman in the night, we must remain at our post and keep guard of the freedom that defines us and ennobles us and or friends. the american century, we have the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world. in american century, we secure peace through our strength and if by absolute necessity we must employ it, we must wield our strength with resolve. in american century, we lead the free world and the free world leads the entire world. if we don't have the strength or vision to lead, then other powers will take our place, pulling history in a very different direction. a just and peaceful world depends on a strong and confident america. and i pledge to you that if i become commander in chief,

the united states of america will fulfill its destiny and its duty. [applause] now, our leadership depends as it always has an our economic strength, on our military strength, and on our moral strength. if any one of those falter, no skill of diplomacy or presidential oratory can compensate and today, as you know, the strength of our economy is in jeopardy. a healthy american economy is what underwrites american power, when growth is missing, government revenues fall, social spending rises, and many in washington look to cut defense spending as the easy way out. that includes our current president. today, we're just months away

from an arbitrary, across-the -board budget reduction that would saddle the military with a trillion dollars in cuts, severely shrink our force structure, and compare our ability -- impair aur october to meet threats. don't bothtory find a serious military rationale unless that is wishful thinking. strategy is not driving the president's massive defense cuts. in fact, his own secretary of defense warned that these reductions would be devastating, and he's right. and that devastation would start here at home. mark my words. those cuts would only weaken an already stretched v.a. system and our solemn commitment that every veteran receives care second to none. if i am president of the united states, i will not let that happen. >> [applause] >> this is no time for the

president's radical cuts in our military. look around the world. other major powers are rapidly adding to their military capabilities. some with intentions very different than our own. the regime in tehran is drawing closer to developing a nuclear weapon. the threat of radical islamist terrorism persists. the threat of weapons of mass destruction proliferation is ever present, and we're still at war, and still have uniformed men and women in conflict. all of this and more is going on in the world, and yet the president has chosen this moment for a wholesale reductions in the nation's military capacity. when the biggest announcements in the last state of the union address on improving our military was that the pentagon will start using more clean energy, then you know it's time for a

change. >> [applause] >> now, we're not the first people to observe this. it's reported that bob gates, the president's first secretary of defense, bluntly addressed another security problem within this administration. after secret operational details of the bin laden raid were given to reporters, secretary gates walked into the west wing and told the obama team to shut up. and he added a colorful word for emphasis. lives of american servicemen and women are at stake. but astonishingly, the administration failed to change its ways. more top secret operations were leaked. even some involving covert action, going on in iran. this isn't a partisan issue.

it's a national security crisis. just yesterday, democrat senator dianne feinstein, who's chairman of the senate intelligence committee, said, and i quote, i think the white house has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks. end of quote. this conduct is contemptible. it betrays our national interest, it compromises our men and women in the field, and it demands a full and prompt investigation by a special counsel with explanation and consequence. obama appointees who are accountable to obama's attorney general should not be responsible for investigating the leaks coming from the obama white house. whoever provided classified information to the media seeking political advantage for the administration must be exposed, dismissed, and punished. the time for stonewalling is over.

[applause] >> it's not enough to say the matter is being looked into, and just leave it at that. when the issue was the political use of highly sensitive national security information, it's unacceptable to say we'll report our findings after the election. exactly who in the white house betrayed these secrets? did a superior authorize it? these are things that americans are entitled to know, and they're entitled to know it now. if the president believes, as he said last week, that the buck stops at him, then he owes all americans a full and prompt accounting of the facts. >> [applause] >> now, let me be very clear. these events make the decision we face in november all the more important. what kind of white house would reveal classified material for political gain?

i'll tell you right now. mine will not. [applause] >> as you know, the harm that's done when national security secrets are betrayed extends to the trust that allies place in the united states. the operating principle of american foreign policy has been to work with our allies so that we can deter aggression before it breaks out into conflict. that policy depends upon nurturing our alliances and standing up for our values. if the president's moved in -- yet the president has moved in the opposite direction. it began with the sudden abandonment of our friends in poland and the czech republic. they courageously agreed to provide sites for antimissile defense systems, only to be told at the last hour that the agreement was off. as part of the so-called resetting policy, missile defenses were sacrificed as a

unilateral concession to the russian government. and if that gesture was designed to inspire good will from russia, it clearly missed the mark. the russian government defended the dictator in damascus, aiming him as he slaughtered the syrian people. i can only guess what vladimir putin makes of the obama administration. he regained the russian presidency and a corrupt election, and for that he got a congressional call from the oval office, then there was exchange picked up by a microphone that president obama didn't know what was on, you heard him asked dimeetie medvedev to give him space, this is my last election, he said, after my election, i'll have more flexibility. why is it that flexibility with russian leaders is more important to him than transparency for the american people? >> [applause] >> now, the president did

have a moment of candor now, just the other day. he he said that the actions of venezuelan dictator hug oh chavez have not had a serious national security impact on us. in my view, inviting hezbollah into our hemisphere is severe, it's serious, and it's a threat, and i'll recognize it as such. >> [applause] >> but at least he was being consistent. after all, this is the president who faulter \dollars/{^ed} when the iranian people were -- faultered when the iranian people were looking for support in the struggles against the ayatollah, that was treated an an inconvenient problem, instead of a moral and strategic opportunity, that terrible misjudgment should never be repeated. unarmed men and women in tehran, find the courage to confront oppressors at the risk of torture and death, they should hear the

unequivocal voice of an american president amping their right to be free. i'm going to be leaving reno this evening on a trip abroad. it will make me to england, poland and israel. and since i wouldn't venture into another country to question american foreign policy, i'll tell you right here before i leave what i think of this administration's stay treatment of -- shabby treatment of one of our finest friends. president obama is fond of lecturing israel's leaders, he was even caught by a microphone deriding them. he's undermined their position, which was tough enough as it was. and even if the united nations, to the enthusiastic applause of israel's enemies, he spoke as if our closest ally in the middle east was the problem. the people of israel deserve better than what they received from the leader of the free world, and the chorus of accusations and threats and insults at the

united nations should never again include the voice of the president of the united states. [applause] >> there are values and causes and nations that depend on america's strength, on the clarity of our purpose. and on the reliability of our commitments. there is work in this world that only america and our allies can do. house of powers that only we can -- hostile powers that only we can deter and challenges that only we can overcome. for the past decade among those challenges has been the war in afghanistan, as commander in chief, i will have a solemn duty to our men and women in uniform. the president owes our troops, their families, and the american people a clear explanation of our mission and a commitment not to play politics with the decisions of war. i've been critical of the president's decision to

withdraw the surge troops during the fighting season, against the advice of commanders on the ground. the president would have you believe that anybody who disagrees with this decision is arguing for endless war. but the route to more war and potentially to attack here at home is a politically timed retreat. as president, my goal in afghanistan will be to complete a successful transition to afghan security forces by the end of 2014. and i'll evaluate conditions on the ground and solicit the best advice of our military commanders. and i will affirm that my duty is not to my political prospects, but to the security of the nation and the safety of our troops. >> [applause] >> we face another challenge in a rising china. china is attendant to the

interests of its government but it too often disregards the rights of its people. it's selective in the freedoms it allows, and as with its one child policy, it can be ruthless in crushing the freedoms it denies. in conducting trade with america, it permits flagrant patent and copyright violations, forestalls american businesses from competing in its market and manipulates its currency to obtain unfair advantage. it's in our mutual interest, of course, for china to be a partner for a stable and secure world, and we welcome its participation in trade. but the cheating must finally be brought to a stop. the president hasn't done it and won't do it, and i will. [applause] >> we will need that same clarity of purpose and resolve in the middle east. america can't be neutral in the outcome there. we've got to clearly stand for the values of

representative government, economic opportunity and human rights, and we must stand against the extension of iranian or jihadist influence. egypt is at the center of this drama. in many ways, it has the power to tip the balance in the arab world toward freedom and modern knit. as president i'll not only direct the billions in assistance we give to egypt toward that goal but i'll also work with partner nationings to place conditions on their assistance as well. unifying our collective influence behind a common purpose will foster the development of a government that represents all egyptians, maintains peace with israel, and promotes peace throughout the region. the united states is will to go help egypt support peace and prosperity, but we will not be complicit in oppression and instability. now, there's no greater danger in the world today than the prospect of ayatollahs in tehran possessing nuclear weapons capacity.

yet, for all the talks and conferences, all the extensions and assurances, can anyone really say we're further from this danger now than we were four years ago? the same ayatollahs who each year mark a holiday by leading chants of "death to america" are not going to be talked out of their pursuit of nuclear weapons. what's needed is all the firmness, clarity, and morale courage we and -- moral courage we and our allies have together, sanctions must be enforced without exception, cutting off the regime sources as well, negotiations must secure full and unattended access for inspections. as it is, the iranian regime claims the right to enrich nuclear material for supposedly peaceful purposes. this claim, of course, is discredited by years of deception. a clear line has to be drawn. there must be a full suspension of any enrichment

whatsoever, period. [applause] >> and at every turn, iran must know that the united states and our allies stand as one in these critical objectives. only in this way can we successful encounter the catastrophic threat that iran represents to us and the world. i college to you and all americans that if i become commander in chief, i will use every meanies in to protect ourselves and the region and to prevent the worst from happening while there's still time. it's a mistake, and sometimes a tragic one, to think that firmness in american foreign policy can only bring tension or conflict. the surest path to danger is always weakness and

indecision. >> [applause] >> in the end, it's resolve that moves events in our direction. and strength that keeps the peace. i will not surrender america's leadership in the world. we must have confidence in our cause. clarity in our purpose. and resolve in our might. this is very simple. if you don't want america to be the strongest nation on earth, i'm not your president but with his cuts to the military, you have that president today. the 21st century can and must be an american century. it began with terror, war, economic calamity. it's our duty to steer it under the path of freedom, peace and prosperity. fewer members of the greatest

generation -- a few members of the greatest generation are with us today and they can't hold the torch as high as they have in the past. they're getting older. it's now our turn. we've got to seize that torch they've carried so gallantly, and at such great sacrifice. it's an eternal torch of decency and freedom and hope. it's not america's torch alone. but it's america's duty and honor to hold it high enough so the whole world can see it. i love america. i love what america represents. i love the sacrifice america has made for freedom throughout the world. this is a critical time for our nation. a time of choice. a time to determine what america is going to be over this century. you know where i will lead it. we will have another american century with freedom blossoming -- blossoming and prosperity for all of our citizens, because i believe in america, i believe in you, i salute you, and together,

we'll make sure we keep america the hope of the earth. thank you so very much and god bless the vfw and the united states of america. >> [applause] >> great speech, governor. >> ♪ >> ♪ >> ♪ >> ♪ >> ♪ >> ♪ >> and some of the remarks from mitt romney visiting the vfw. we're going to be also taking your phone calls shortly, and want to hear what you think about the president and mitt romney's foreign policy. for democrats, the line to call, 202-585-3885. republicans, 202-585-3886. and independents, 202-585- 3887. we have john from dayton, ohio on the line. and john, president obama is going to be visiting your

state next week. what do you think about his and mitt romney's foreign policy? caller: -- >> host: let me try once more for john in dayton, ohio. are you there? it looks like we've lost him. we're going to go on to terry in greenville, north carolina, and also on the republicans' line. caller: hello? >> host: can you hear us terry? >> caller: i can. host: what do you think about the the candidates' foreign policy. caller: specifically mitt romney? >> host: i think he's -- caller: i think he's more well versed in national relations as far as being a businessman than mr. obama, and certainly i believe that because obama really doesn't have any experience in foreign policy, that he is pretty much ad hoc about everything he does. host: so what are you thinking now that mitt romney is going to be visiting

israel and poland and he's also in england. whatwhat do you think of his remarks so far? caller: i think his remarks are prettyical cue lated and very -- calculated and very much trying to put a bandaid over the gunshot wound that this president has already done. host: okay, and now on to jackie. jackie is detroit, michigan, democrats' line. caller: hello how you doing today. host: good. what do you think about the foreign policy of the candidates? caller: i think the foreign policy of both of the candidates, one, i think obama is doing a better job at leading the country. we don't need to be fighting everywhere around the world. republican party thinks that each and every time some war breaks out somewhere, it's our responsibility to police the world. it's not ours. we can't even police our own nation. so how can we police the world? i never heard him apologize for the united states. the guy who said that mitt romney is -- has business strength, as a businessman, i

don't think he has any strength. he doesn't -- he stands for nothing. he hasn't given us a definitive answer on anything hasn't given a definitive answer on women, on the deal act. his definitive answer is to cut back. so how can someone who ran to europe to ride a bike around the world, in a foreign country, and protest against going to vietnam but didn't go himself? so i don't understand that. even if you have a moral code, with your religion or whatever, if you say you're an american citizen and you twoish stand up and fight for it, that's fine if you choose not to, but don't try to denigrate or degrade anyone else who has a different belief oology -- or ideology. i don't think that israel is, you know, a bad position. they're in a tough position

because they're around a lot of hostile nations, but if you open up your borders and talk to the people who are around you, then you won't have the troubles that they have. i think obama would be better at foreign policy because he tells the people straight what it is. host: "the washington post" also today comparing mitt romney's foreign tour with that of president obama's when he was a candidate, they noted that mitt's top advisers are not with him on that trip and his advisers debated whether he should go abroad at all, they were worried it might take focus off his message about the u.s. economy, and you can read the full article at "the washington post", phillip rucker, again, in the "washington post". and elma is on the line, she's calling from west virginia. the democrats' line. caller: hello? host: you might want to mute your tv, getting some interference there. caller: all right. i just wanted to say that i don't think president obama -- i mean that romney -- the

the candidate, romney, is qualified to become president, because if he defers -- his sons have never been into service, how can he talk about veterans' policy? i come from a family of servicemen, and i don't think that my brothers and my uncles are all navy air force, army, and marines, air force, and i don't think that this man knows what he's talking about. host: elma, do you think his travels to england and israel and poland this weekend are going to help that image for mitt romney? >> caller: i hope not. i hope not. he has no concept as far as knowing what to say to the people. if it's not written for him it comes out of his face with the wrong answers. he's a businessman. america is not built on businesses. it's built on learning how to communicate with people, and the united states is a country that comes from

people knowing how to communicate with each other. he has no concept of how t interface with other people. he thinks that he's better than anyone else. i don't like this man. personally speaking. and i -- as far as a leader of our country i think will go down the tubes. host: we're going to go on next to -- let's see here. we've got john, cleveland, ohio, on the independent's line. john, are you there? and let's try charlie in tampa, florida, republicans' line. caller: yes, hello. >> host: hi charlie. president obama is going to be coming to your state. what do you think about the president and mitt romney's foreign policy? caller: i think that it's irrelevant, because i think the secretary of defense already stated that he's using the united nations as an okay to go to war with other countries. he no longer needs congress' approval. so it's up to the united nations. as long as we get the united

nations' approval and nato's approval, then it's okay. so i don't think we really have a say in it. it's already been said by the secretary of defense panetta. so i don't know. neither of them have been in wars. my father did three tours in vietnam as a sergeant, as an airborne ranger, 82 drops, and neither of these guys have either gone to war so i don't know how they even can talk to these people and say all this stuff. you know what i mean? host: and president obama, getting out of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, what are your thoughts there? caller: i believe that it's just an ongoing war and he's going to keep it going on to build the military industrial complex. and i don't think we're going to get out of afghanistan. i think mitt romney giving us a timetable is absolutely ludicrous because he has no timetable, he doesn't know. you know what i mean? it's up to nato and it's up to the u.n. that's what nato already said. congress is the only -- under the constitution, congress is

the only one that can declare war, but according to nato, now it's the united nations' approval and nato, and under article six of the constitution, any treaty signed with the u.n. or nato supercedes our constitution. host: we're going to go on and take a look now at mitt romney's schedule. mitt romney is going to be in england for the olympic games, he continues his foreign affairs tour next in israel, that's going to be tomorrow, where he'll meet with prime minister netanyahu and other leaders there, and then on to poland monday, and tuesday, and then president obama, also, as mitt romney wraps up his tour abroad, the president is going to be campaigning in ohio and florida and virginia this week. going to take another call. this is phillip. phillip is in seattle, washington. democrats' line. call a call -- caller: hell oal? host: phillip, what do you

think of the candidates' foreign policy? caller: they're all -- >> host: we're moving on, gene is in vicinition, arkansas on the republicans' line, gene, the candidates and their foreign policy, what do you think? caller: thank you for taking my call. i think it's high time we have an adult in the white house, and that doesn't stick their finger in the air to figure out what the prevail ing winds are telling them to do. i think mitt romney's foreign policy is spot on, and it's time that we have a leader in the white house and not someone who follows from behind. host: gene, if you're on the line, still, what do you really like about mitt romney's foreign policy? any specific aspect? caller: i think that he embraces our -- he does not try to make friends with our enemies, so to speak.

he has not been to israel since he first took office, obama hasn't, and it's like he just snubs all of our allies and wants to make friends with all of our enemies. he turned it into a muslim outreach. what does that tell you? host: jason is in petersburg, virginia on the independents' line. jason, are you there? caller: i'm here. host: jason, hi, what do you think about the candidates' foreign policy? caller: first of all, mitt romney was at the veterans for foreign wars and he just took the entire time to bash the president. this was supposed to be about the veterans. and first of all, i don't understand how our national security has benefitted by having our military stretched thin throughout the entire world, where our borders are wide open. i don't understand how they

spend all this money in nation building and in the middle east when that money could be better used by actually defending our borders. host: all right. and after our phone calls, going to take one more call here, we'll have analysis of the presidential candidates' foreign policy from the brookings institution. earlier last week. last fall to nancy, in gallatin, tennessee on the democrats' line. caller: yes ma'am. thank you for taking my call. i think obama has been there to help us through a lot of things, you know? if obama -- he's the bomb. i mean, this other guy, he doesn't know -- he's more in keeping war going on and everything and obama has been

trying to bring these soldiers back from war. host: and that's important to you, nancy? >> caller: yes it really is. and you know, this other guy doesn't know. he doesn't know. there are people that haven't been home in years. and obama is bringing those people in. host: president obama, again, this week, he's going to be campaigning in ohio on wednesday, florida and virginia on thursday. and then mitt romney, he's going to be abroad, he's of course in england today, the olympic games, and he's going to continue his foreign affairs tour next in israel. he'll be there tomorrow, meeting with prime minister netanyahu, then on to poland monday and tuesday. and tonight we'll have a look at mitt romney's work as president and ceo of the salt lake city organizing committee for the 2002 winter olympic games and we'll use c-span archival video looking back at his role in lobbying

congress for funding for the olympic games. we also speak with time magazine washington correspondent alex altman about his article "the real story of mitt romney's olympic turnaround" and that will be tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. thank you for all your calls. for those who didn't get through to us today, check out c-span's facebook page. you know, it's the tradition of common law judges not to reply to press criticism. we got clobbered by the press all the time. i can't tell you hom wonderful letters i've written to "the washington post", just for my own satisfaction, and then ripped you and thrown away. >> you don't send them? >> you don't send them. that's the tradition of the common law judge. you do not respond to criticism. >> antonin scalia reflects on over 25 years on the bench and interpreting legal documents, in the latest, "reading law", sunday at 8:00

on c-span's q & a. >> we're going to continue the discussion now on foreign policy, two advisers with the obama for america and mitt romney campaigns talked about the violence in syria, iran's nuclear program, national security leaks, and the asia pacific region. this is just under an hour and a half. host: good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the brookings institution. special welcome to the overflow crowd in the other rooms. we're very glad to have the opportunity this afternoon to host a special conversation about the foreign policy approaches of president obama and governor romney, his presidential challenger. i'm martin indyk, the foreign

policy director here at brookings. we have for a long time wanted to host both president obama and governor romney to give their foreign policy speeches here at brookings. for reasons that will probably be clear to you, they both gave their foreign policy speeches or initial policy speeches at another even tu, the veterans of foreign wars. i'm not sure why they prefer red that venue to brookings but they did. in the last two days, they've both outlined their foreign policy, and of course as you probably all know, governor romney is embarking on a foreign trip on friday, which will take him to london and then to jerusalem and war saw -- war saw, and so we thought it was a particularly appropriate time to have a

conversation, rather a. debate, between representatives of the obama and romney campaigns andnicity that spirit that we are delighted to welcome both michelle flournoy and rich williamson. michelle is probably known to you because she served from the beginning of the obama administration through february of this year as the undersecretary of defense for policy, where she was the principal adviser to the secretary of defense in the formulation of national security and defense policy. and in that capacity led the development of the defense department's new strategic guidance. michelle is well known to us here at brookings, has appeared many times, both when she was an

administration spokesman, the senior at defense department official, and in her previous capacity as the cofounder of the center for a new american security, a new think tank that is doing excellent work in the field of developing national security and defense policy. she served in previous administrations as the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and threat reduction, and she is now chair of the national security advisory group of the obama-biden reelection campaign. rich williamson, ambassador, is a non-resident senior fellow at the brookings institution, now on leave to the campaign for governor

romney. he founded the -- recently founded the sals bury strategy -- salsbury's strategy group in chicago. previously he had a number of distinguished responsibilities in both the reagan, george h. w. bush, and george w. bush administrations, first as special assistant to the president and deputy to the chief of staff and in the white house, as assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs. his many diplomatic posts have included ambassador to the united nations if geneva, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, and, most recently, as president george w. bush's special envoy to the sudan. he is also a long time

member, and i think now, vice chairman, of the board of directors of the international republican institute. so we are very glad to welcome both rich and michelle to this podium. brookings prides itself on being a nonpartisan think tank and it's in that context that we are hosting this event today. our moderator is guest scholar at brookings and former chief diplomatic correspondent for cbs and then nbc news, former anchor of the nbc "meet the press" program, and also, most recently, of -- >> legacy. >> "the legacy, marvin kalb, it's my pleasure to hand the podium to you, marvin to, conduct this conversation. >> thank you very much,

martin. i assume that all of you are foreign policy fans, and you all realize this is our moment in the sun for this 2012 presidential campaign. i haven't a clue as to how long it's going to last but let's take full advantage of it. like all of you, i'm sure, i read both of the speeches, the governor's speech, the president's speech, and what i'm going to do is just sort of run down major highlights and ask you questions about it. starting with iran, and every now and then, when i think about iran, and then i listen to the governor and the president, i ask myself what's the real difference between the two? because they both want that iran not have nuclear weapons, they're both sort of impatient that the process has gone on for this long. let's assume for a second, rich, that governor obama -- governor obama. get that! that governor romney is elected in november, and a

president romney takes office on january 20th, next year. would he in his impatience to get this process moving cut off the negotiation and begin more seriously to consider a military option? >> well, iran is an important issue, and i got to respond by putting a little bit of context in it. >> sure. >> it was four years ago this month that in israel, senator obama gave an important speech about the middle east and identified iran as perhaps the most growing threat to international security in the middle east. we're at more than 3 1/2 years into the obama administration and irre futably iran is much closer today than they were 3 1/2 years ago. so whatever the strategies are, they've failed. and governor romney has been clear that a nuclear iran is

an enormous threat to u.s. security, to our friends in the region, and needs to be addressed. >> and essentially unacceptable, is that right? >> unacceptable. he wholeheartedly -- and yesterday, reiterated his view -- consistent with the four u.n. security -- security council resolutions of zero enrichment, a suspension of enrichment. >> but that hasn't happened up to this point. >> you know why? in our opinion? as dizmark said -- as bestmark said, diplomacy without the threat of force is music without instruments. there is no credible threat of force. no one in tehran or in the region feels that the obama administration will use force. for example, they legitimately wanted to pursue a policy of engagement which contributed to a muted response to the green revolution when innocent

iranians were being beaten, arbitrarily arrested and killed. it meant that he was willing to work and allow the security council to define what sanctions would be in place, therefore, allowing russia and china to have a veto over what we did to pursue our own interests. and the current engagement or discussions are going nowhere. and they are buying time for iran to contribute. so i think, one, as you know, from the press reports -- as all the people here know -- there are winks and nods and suggestions that there might be acceptance of a 3 1/2 or 5 percent enrichment. that message to tehran is okay, we can wait until they move. they keep moving the red lines, and -- >> and that's an unacceptable -- >> that would be

unacceptable. >> that would be unacceptable. >> so would he also be impatient to get the process moving, and if the negotiations aren't working, move toward a military option >> he would create a credible threat. he has not taken it off the table. the mixed messages we've had, for example, the president gave a very firm speech at apac. i've got israel's back. i have use of force on the stable. the next day, republicans, including governor romney, made a reply, or gave their position. the day after that, president obama said those republicans are too militaristic, they're causing a war. he just undercut what he said on sunday. there's been a history of inconsistent messages from the administration on iraq. >> okay. we got the message. >> [laughter] >> we got the message. >> and hopefully tehran will. >> now, michelle, from an obama administration point of view, what it is that rich said about a perception out

there in the middle east -- now, the one -- number one, do you agree there is that kind of perception of the president not choosing to act militarily? and second, in light of what rich said, what is it that you think an obama administration, reelected, ought to do? >> so i don't share rich's characterization. i'm sure that's very surprise to go all you. the president's record on this. the truth is that this is a president who is very careful about what he says, and then does what he says. you can track that on his iraq policy, on his afghanistan policy, on his al-qaeda policy. he was very careful when he chose the words he uses with regard to iraq, that we must prevent iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, that a nuclear-armed iran is unacceptable. >> he also said he doesn't bluff. >> and he doesn't bluff. so that is the policy. i think that the policy has

-- i would strongly disagree, and reject the notion that the policy has failed. the truth is we went through a period of engagement because that was the -- first you have to give it a chance. secondly, it's the only way to create international unity behind any sort of effort to pressure iran. so we went through a period of engagement, we got a very disappointing response from iran, and that set up the possibility of getting u.n.-sponsored and sanctioned -- sanctions against iran with russia and china on board, and then that set up further action for the e.u. to take steps, for nations to take steps, and the truth is today we have the most serious sanctions ever put in place against any country on the face of the earth, including sanctioning the oil products, their central bank, and so forth. some of those effects are still being felt because the

most recent round of sanctions just started in july. so that is still to be fully felt in tehran. at the same time, you've had an effort at negotiations. and i think everybody has been disappointed with the iranian response. but the president has been very clear that the military option remains on the table, he's never taken it off the table, and having come from the pentagon, i can assure you the pentagon planning for this is incredibly robust, it's ready, it's there as an option. you look at our force posture in the region, you know, it is very strong and well-positioned. so the military option is real. the president's judgment is that now is not yet the time, because there is still a chance with further sanctions biding for iran to change its calculus. >> how much longer does the president, the administration, feel it can wait and give the negotiations a chance? >> the key is that we have to ensure that iran is not able

to enrich material to actually get a weapon. i think that that is what the intelligence community is watching very closely, their judgment is that we do still have time, and that the time to break out would be very physical. they've testified publicly on this on the hill, a year or more at a minimum. >> let us jump ahead to syria, which is another urgent. let's jump ahead the we've got to do a lot of things. michelle -- >> ask your question about iran later. >> that will come up, no doubt. if the assad regime used chemical weapons in any way against its own people, against an international force moving in, would the obama administration use american military power to stop it? >> look, i can't, you know, speak for the president on that issue. that's going to be his decision, obviously, and that's -- we'll now be getting into hypotheticals.

but what i can say is that the president has been very clear on a repeated basis that the use of chemical weapons, either inside syria or the transfer of chemical weapons to any elements like al-qaeda, would be unacceptable and that the syrians involved would be held accountable for that. i also know that this has an topic of intensive discussion with the neighboring allyies, if our allies -- allies who are neighbors of syria -- syria to say what can we do, how can we prepare for that contingency and be ready for it so i have every confidence that the president is taking that threat seriously and would take the appropriate steps. >> and that includes israel, clearly, in those discussions? rich, governor romney has said many times he would support the syrian rebels, but in what way? is he talking about providing american weapons to the rebels? does he know things that many of us don't know about who the rebels are?

is there the possibility that these weapons could end up in the hands of al-qaeda? >> governor romney has been clear and had a different approach han the president on syria. now into the 17 months, 17,000 people have been killed, the rhetoric to justify the libya action looks pretty hollow when you look at what's happened in syria. over a year ago, governor romney said we should be using our resources to work with the opposition, to try to identify moderates, help them organize for some of the things that we've done in other spots. the administration recently has been telling reporters and having stories about how five weeks ago, we began to work with the opposition, which is great. but it's 15 months late and a year after governor romney said we should be leading. second, he said we should be

willing to arm the moderate opposition. well, we don't even know who they are now because there was a vacuum, and al-qaeda and others have come in in the last month. sue: did we know a year ago who they were? >> you don't know if you don't talk to them and this administration didn't send resources in in covert to have a dialogue like we've done in other parts of the world, so yeah, we didn't. we are where we are. the point is, leadings means engaging -- leading means engaging an issue like syria that is, according to the centcom commander, the biggest strategic blow we could give to iran is if assad leaves. it's strategically important to the soviet union to say nothing of the humanitarian crisis. again, the rhetoric used in libya is shown to be hollow in the context of syria. and to neighbors in the area, like turkey, jordan, and israel, where we have interests and alliances. >> so that being the case, the idea of the u.s. under a president romney, if he were

president now, providing american weapons is correct, he would be providing weapons. >> he said repeatedly he would be willing and support arming the moderate factions within the opposition. >> and what about moving american forces on the ground to look after the arming of the rebels? >> well, you know, senator mccain and senator lindsey graham and others have called for safe havens, no fly zones. >> right. >> governor romney has not done that. but he has -- >> would he agree to that? >> he's been asked and he says no. >> he said no? >> he says that's an obvious position,. >> i see. >> but he feels we should have been and should be arming the opposition. but importantly, we shouldn't have been leading from behind, we should have a year ago been in there, had our assets, trying to identify and work with the opposition. >> please, go ahead. >> the administration has been working with the opposition for many, many months. not just the past five weeks, when it came out in the news,

but it's been working with the opposition first and foremost, providing humanitarian assistance and medical supplies, than most important -- and then most importantly helping them to gain greater cohesion, working with the political opposition to develop a common platform, to develop a syrian-derived transition plan, and this is crucial, because you have to have a question of how is change going to happen in syria. the way change will ultimately happen in syria is if you can get parts of the inner circle around assad to begin to defect. we've started to see that. but to do that, they need the assurance they can be part of a future syria, that they can be part of a new syrian government, and so it's very important for them to hear that from the political opposition, for them to really feel that minority rights will be protected and so forth. so i think working the political dimensions of this are the most important piece, and that's what this administration has been folk

uk dollars on from -- focused on from the get go. >> move on to israel for a second. i want to ask you, michelle, when the president went to cairo in june of '09 and delivered that very important speech to the arab world, is there any thought now that he made a mistake by not at that time going on to jerusalem, which after all is a 40 minute flight from cairo? >> you know, i think when you judge a president's commitment to israel, you have to look beyond the itinerary, his travel itinerary. the truth is does anybody criticize ronald reagan in his commitment to israel? he never went to israel. does anybody criticize george w. bush? he didn't go until his second term. so what you have to do is what has this administration actually done for the state of israel. we have increased -- they have increased, i should say -- security assistance levels to historic levels. it's never been higher. we have added on top of that

funding for the iron drone system to protect citizens from rockets coming from gaza. we have stood by then in the -- them in the u.n., vetoing resolutions trying to condemn israel and so forth. >> excuse me, but why is it that there is still the mood, the feeling, the stories that are written, that the relationship between president obama and prime minister netanyahu, for example, are so tense and strained? >> i think it's a good question, because i think there's a lot of playing politics with this issue, and this is an issue where we've always had bipartisan consensus. what i wanted to read, i have one cart of quotes because it's important to hear from the mouths of israeliings, what do israelies think about the obama add mags -- obama administration and theirald mks, in is from prime minister netanyahu, if there's something that stands out, it's that israel and america stand together, ehud barack said president obama is a friend of israel, the obama administration gives

back to israel security in a wide, all incom -- encompassing and unprecedented manner, and perez, never has security been better met than under president obama. those are israelis talking about the relationship. >> point vej r registered, understood. >> thank you. >> rich, the governor yesterday in his speech at the veterans of veterans of fors accused president obama of treating israel in a stay -- in a shape way and adding his voice to a u.n. chorus of what he called accusations, threats and insults against israel. now, what would specifically a president romney do to advance the israeli of-palestinian negotiations? >> first, let me talk -- respond to something michelle covered. because i think it's important to put context in your question. i think the very fact that michelle pulled up three quotes from israelis shows the defensiveness of the

obama administration on the relationship to israel. second, when romney's -- if you have other quotes of other countries, i'd be interested, but i think that says something. secondly, when our itinerary ies are announced, the campaign says oh, this is just a gimmick going there, but obama will do it in a second term. look, you treat your friends not only with military support, of which the obama administration has done quite a bit, as has his previous administrations, but you try to get a condominium of political cooperation, and that has not existed. there have been harsh differences, whether it's dealing with the palestinian issue, dealing with iran, and it's symbolize dollars to me by the fact that -- symbolize d to me by the fact that the president of the united states kept him waiting because he had a temper tantrum.

you don't treat any head of state that way, let alone your friend. >> i'd like us not to go through the political language here excessively. we do read the papers, we do understand that. my question has to do with romney as president. what specifically would he do, propose, advance, to move the palestinian-israeli negotiation forward? >> i think the first point is something that you've made, because you've covered the middle east for decades, something that ambassador has done in his work in the clinton administration and afterwards. the united states can't want this worse than the parties. and you have to have respectful dialogue, which is why governor romney when he's in israel will also be meeting with palestinian leaders. you don't go public on a negotiating position before you talk to one of the parties who you say is a friend. .

they will decide what they want to go public with. >> i would like to talk about pakistan. i am sure we have all read widely that president obama is described as being extremely

disturbed and concerned about the possible disintegration of the state of pakistan. the question comes up, what do you do with nuclear weapons? do you think that description is accurate that >> i think the united states is and should be concerned with the fragility of the situation in the state of pakistan. you only have to look at what happened on the civilian side and some of the dynamics to be concerned about the long-term future of pakistan. >> is that the reason why the president when he thinks about the future of afghanistan would like to retain the forces of 20,000 american troops in afghanistan just in case something dreadful would happen in afghanistan and?

>> when the president talks about a much smaller force in afghanistan post-2014, at that is focused on working with the afghan military and pursuing a joint counter-terrorism opportunities. it is not a force directed at any afghanistan neighbors. >> i do not mean it as directed against. i mean the force would be there in case the neighboring pakistan of the government disintegrate and the question of who controls the nuclear weapons are rises. >> that has not been a rationale for thinking about the footprint in afghanistan. several administrations have been seized with this issue. they have been concerned about the safety and security at

pakistan. they have worked on this issue. the situation has improved somewhat. i do not want to say more than i can. there have been cooperative efforts to improve the situation. the thing that worries a lot of people is some of the rhetoric coming out of pakistan about their future nuclear plants as far as the versifying their arsenal. that would be a worthwhile development. >> governor romney now seems to accept the president 2014 deadline, which during the primary season he did not. according to his speech, he now seems open. why the change? >> the position of 2014 was last fall. he has been critical of the president being guided more by

political considerations than facts on the ground. he has a concern that our military leadership has not been as supported when general petraeus was the cia director. it is enormously difficult between the intelligence, led the army, at the civilians, the religious factions. it is a barely functioning state. they have nuclear weapons that are dangerous. there is no answer. -- there is no simple answer. he has said we should look at conditionality for our foreign aid. that is pretty much where his position has been on pakistan. the description has a lot of merit to it. it is one that governor romney

understand. >> what discussiodoes conditionality mean? >> if you're going to give the aid to pakistan which is oa lot, the tolerance of them allowing the taliban and other factions to work in their western mountains that kill americans, you begin to pull that back. >> is that not something you have been discussing? >> i would not use the word conditionality. the discussion with pakistan after they took some steps to close the ground lines of communication as we worked our way back toward a more cooperative relationship. the united states has been very clear about the areas of cooperation that we need to see

to be able to move forward with assistance and support. first and foremost withmas the safety of troops in afghanistan. >> moving to russia and our relations with russia. gov. romney seemed very upset with president obama's and we set policy toward russia. the governor has described it as the no. 1 global foe of the united states. what do you think of the criticism? >> i think it is unfair. in mrs. some of the benefits we have gotten from recent policy. president obama has been clear that we want to have a cooperative relationship with russia. where we have differences we will continue to negotiate and pressed and pushed and work through. we will not sell out our allies

or allow russia to have a series of influence. what you get is very tangible process. it is another step and arms control that makes the world safer. it keeps the provisions in place. it is a very positive development that had bipartisan support. operation to transit supply through russian territory to get to afghanistan. a very important. important political sanctions. russia agreed to stop supplying iran with some of the most sophisticated weaponry. these things matter. i worry if you took the approach that this is our new geopolitical foe you is this a lot of the cooperation. -- you lose a lot of the

cooperation. >> do you think we will see tin the rise of an arab spring like uprising? >> if you look at the ambassador's writing what he was at stanford, saying bush was too soft and he did not get enough. it has to be magnified if you apply the same standard. not only do you have a drift, you have a new ngo law that further it squeezes civil society. the eu had a lot that tries to outlaw -- you had a law that tries to outlaw political parties. this has been a lifeline in both

syria [inaudible] without the special envoy to sudan, and there were things we cannot get through the council on sanctions because china got six% of the oil. we put together a coalition of the europeans and others that the sanctions -- put sanctions. you have russia against missile defense deployments. you have russia using their oil and energy to intimidate. be honest. you talk about it. i have dealt with some less unpleasant guys. saying you are not doing good things never surprises them. they know they are not. who knows what he is doing.

we have this false politeness. one more thing i have to say. i want to agree with her earlier comments. president obama says what he means and means what he says. that should concern us with respect to russia and other places. >> we do not have polite conversations with our russian colleagues. they are very hard hitting. we have raised concerns about democracy. we have been pounding them privately and publicly on syria. there is no holding back. we have been very clear on georgia and so forth. to be fair, we should characterize the record accurately. what exactly would you do differently or more? what would you sacrifice in the current situation?

what would you be willing to put on the table to take a different approach? beyond the rhetoric, what would you do differently? >> i was a senior staff at the white house when ronald reagan went into the pressroom. we saw the soviet union as an evil empire. people in this town so we cannot deal with them. you cannot do that. lo and behold we got the first nuclear reduction in history with the imf treaty under ronald reagan. first you speak the truth. the russian people that are trying to get more space for their civil rights deserve it. the american people deserve you to stand up for that. you do not power them by saying russia has a control over you pursuing your own security interest whether it is with iran or syria. you can see change behavior.

yeah allow them to test limits. -- you allow them to test limits. >> the governor says that the white house is leaking classified information for political gain. >> there is no one who was more upset and disturbed about the leaks them president obama. he did not authorize them. they were not authorized. he is appointed two prosecutors to pursue. no one is immune. nothing is off the table. he has also said that he will hold accountable and pursue the investigation said to the logical conclusion. he will hold accountable and precute anybody who is found

to have leaked. that is clear. if you look illicitly, there's no administration that has been more aggressive. you can look back to some of the things that happened in the bush administration on how clear these things need to be. this will not stand. intolerable. >> your hands are up. i have to ask you this question before you let loose. do you think that romney was equally disturbed when the bush 2 white house leaked oodles of classified information to bob woodward when he was writing is four books, including interviews with the president?

>> i do not understand it ministrations incestuous relationship with bob woodward -- administration's incestuous relationship with bob woodward. i've never had a discussion with governor romney. i find that extremely disturbing. in the weeks we have seen now are unprecedented. look what happened redid the leaks we have seen now are unprecedented. did they want this week may? -- leak made? >> it is routine. it happens every day. >> you are saying that the israelis like it? >> and they do not like it but they live with it. >> these and not come from israel and you know it.

maybe he did classified some things that the last minute. the president picking targets was highly classified. the fact that we engaged in the cyber attacks, even the meetings with senior pakistani officials and of a dhabi -- abu dhabi hurts america. he should have instructed them to say they should all way confidentialityconfidentiall agreement they did. he should be leaning with congress's efforts to get to the bottom of it. dianne feinstein made a statement and backed it off.

i believe every reporter in this town knows one of the sources. >> it will probably save the government is lot of money if you took a look at the latest book in the back. he lists all of the people he spoke to at the white house. there is no need to go through this entire thing. it is all there. it is all open and public. >> nobody owns outrage of how national security leaks. the president felt the outrage. i am sure governor romney feels that outrage. the president is going after this aggressively. >> a while ago i was at a forum in dealing with libya and syria. there was a question about

[inaudible] steve made a powerful response. i said i think the obama administration has figured out how to do it. move on to defense spending. michele, question for you. the president in an effort to sidestep sequestration requirements coming into play has proposed a $500 billion defense cut over a 10-year time frame. the question i ask is based on the congressional budget office study that says if the president got his way it would be almost impossible to get everything that he wants in his own defense policy. u.n. not have the money. how do you get the difference?

>> there is a lot of confusion on this issue including in governor romney's characterization. group the president is not advocating $1 trillion of defense cuts. there are two separate issues. there is a budget control act that was passed this past year by a bipartisan majority of congress. they all signed on. $487 billion of cuts over the next 10-years. that was the planning assumption for the budget they develop for 2013. secretary panetta was clear. this is part. after so many years of growth, we think it is possible. that leaves the fy2913 budget --

fy2013 budget. it is not cutting the base line of defense. it is cutting war funding but not the base budget. it is slowing the growth. compare the bush administration to thousand eight -- 2008. this is not some horrible cut in defense spending. this is a reduction in the pace of planned growth. that is what the administration has said yes we will live with the law that congress has passed. second issue, sequestration. it is hanging over our heads get the congress fails to come up with a $1.20 trillion deal.

the get ministration has proposed a very balanced -- the administration has proposed a very balanced spending cut on the table to avoid sequestration. if congress fails to act, you would see another half trillion cut in defense. everybody agrees that would be very devastating for the u.s. national security. we want to avoid that. >> thank you. that is helpful. governor romney has said that he would like not to cut the defense budget but rather to add to the defense budget at the same time being consistent with the republican pitch for lower

taxes. within the framework of the problems that the country has today with respect to the national debt, i do not know anybody who says you can raise defense spending, cut taxes, and accomplish anything with respect to the national debt. how do you do that? >> i should introduce you to more people. >> please. >> i heard the same thing in 1979. the economy was crippled with double-digit inflation. >> you think the economy is the same? >> it is worse because of the last 3.5 years. [laughter] it can be done. if he thinks we have to rebuild our navy, he has called for 14 more ships a year.

he thinks there is a philosophical difference between president obama and gov. ronald reagan on the economy. it is one the american people are intensely interested in. gov. romney want to keep discussing that issue and allow the american people to make a decision on the two alternatives. that creates growth. i would suggest the president would like to have taxes versus the taxes debate -- no taxes

debate. the administration refuses to engage. we're willing to have the debate in the context of a larger economic discussion. we do not in the current path which allows the diminution of what is necessary for american leadership and for the american interest. >> do you think it is possible short of an agreement on the economy and the fiscal cliff that is described for the end of the year, do you think it is possible to increase the navy and army and put more money into defense? do you really believe that? >> i believe we can and should have an adequate defense.

>> where would we get the money from? >> i am happy to provide our economic advisor to go through the details. >> i do not think that is appropriate now. give me your answer. what we can go back. there is a difference of view. the present view is that we're going to provide more stimulus. in 3.5 years it has not worked. the president does not want that discussion with the american people. small facts. just to put the president's current defense plan in focus. it will still be larger than it was at the point of 9/11 before the worst began. we grew the army to prosecute

these wars. it can resettle at a size that is slightly larger. this is not harming national security. you have every combat and commander in full support behind the president on this budget proposal. i think that is very important. history should inform this debate we're having about the economy. at the end of the clinton administration you had a surplus. you then have the bush administration put in place many of the same policies that governor romney is now advocating economically. at the end of eight years, you had a profound its deficit and debt problem. we have tried this before. it does not work. >> i understand the desire to run against george bush a second time rather than president reagan. [unintelligible]

>> this part is over now. we would love to have your questions. not only question here but questions in the spillover crowd next door. when you ask your question, identify yourself. please be brief. if you make a speech i am going to cut you off. i appeal to our panelists to try to be brief in their answers. right here. thank you very much. >> thanks for taking the time to speak with us. i wanted to ask you about the fact that a lot of the criticism about governor romney's for policy has come from republicans themself. bill kristol published a long piece criticizing him for saying that he would not hold a national security meeting.

there is a feeling that governor romney has a deep prioritize and national security -- deprio ritized national security. >> the good question. gov. romney, if you ask his he laid out hisbook, vision of an american century and what was required to be able to satisfy it. he amplified that in the vfw speech yesterday. there is a desire to always have more details. we tried to provide those in response to questions for journalists and others like yourself. in the end, what he needs to do is present a world vision and it is dramatically different than president obama's.

whether it is dealing with china or russia or iran, he has done that. there is enough to tell. he is -- enough detail. he is paid to be provocative. we are laying out a vision for where america should go. >> right over here. >> speak directly into the microphone. >> if your candidates when the election, what would be the policy toward macedonian?

? >> i am sorry. i did not get that. >> policy toward macedonia? hearing the without a microphone. >> no. what would be your policy toward macedonia? greece is also a state and nato. >> thank you. for the obama administration if has been important for our policy. the door to nato remains open. as democracies are able to contribute to the security of europe, the door should be open in principle. in practice, there has been a robust engagement with macedonia working on exercises

and so forth as part of a partnership for peace. i would expect in the second term that policy to be continued. >> thank you very much. hang on. one question at a time. >> this is a question for mr. williamson. i would like you to answer a question presented earlier. where is the money going to come from to rebuild the navy and to raise the defense budget? where would they come from? >> as the governor said yesterday,the ufw. in order to have the century he envisions and to have american in a position where it can lead internationally, the first step

is to renew and rejuvenate the economy. he believes that will come through allowing incentives and a different approach on regulation, eliminate uncertainties including obamacare that will all contribute to a stronger economic growth in united states. while we have many important issues to deal with at home if we are unable to protect our security interest, and the u.s. government is failing. >> until all of that happens, that does not happen in one day. time whether it is

three or 10 years, where are you going to get the money in order to deal with what it is that he says is so vital th? that is my problem in understanding this. >> you are entitled to your view. >> no. , my problem. >> you are entitled to the view of your problem. [laughter] whether it is dodd/frank or obamacare, etc., you have stifled of the growth. the fact is you had the slowest economic recovery since world war ii. you had a long history of unemployment, a 8 over%, since the great depression.

>> ok. >> the policies are a different approach. >> i was asking a question. >> i am a washington correspondent for a south korean news agency. i have a question. what is your strategy on north korea? what is the main difference between your approach to north korea and that of the obama administration? what do you think about the talks on the nuclear program? >> thank you. >> it is a tremendously difficult problem. there is support for the six party talks.

north korea is sustained by beijing's food support and other support to the regime. their discussions with beijing they are putting more pressure upon north korea to abandon their nuclear program. we recognize that china is the lever richpoint -- leverage point to try to get change. >> of like to put in a question. -- i would like to put in a question. what would be brought on a's policy on china? how would it be different from

what the obama administration is pursuing? >> one of the successes of governor romney is his long business activity. in the first for policy debate, and he said we have to be tougher on the ways in which china is toting the field. he told us to go to the wto. i think that is indicative. he looks at china as someone who's not playing by the rules, whether it is support of the currency or stake controlled businesses or various trade aspects. he would like to use the wto and other leverage points on china.

on human rights he has taken a for their position -- further position. the president has made good progress. from day one governor romney is going to raise human rights issues. he has said we're going to be more forward leaning in dealing with the difficulties in the south china sea which after 14 incidents, secretary clinton is trying to get some talks about going. they had disappointment at the recent meeting. gov. romney has said it is a start. the differences in approach on the economic issues you can

express a more confrontational approach on china. quite thank you. michele, how do you judge the seriousness of the rising set of problems concerning the south china sea? >> i think we have to take them very seriously. there are a number of countries that have resource claims in the area. these disputes have the potential to erupt in conflict if mismanaged. we have seen a very aggressive posture of some chinese fishing vessels and so forth. secretary clinton has gone. she has made very clear that we cannot see use of force to solve

these disputes. the fact that the u.s. has showed up and consistently has nato presence in the region, it has given some confidence to partners in southeast asia that they can stand up for themselves and for the rule of law and for resolving these disputes peacefully. i think morning to be done. this is an area of the world to watch. it is one of the areas that we thought a lot about and making the decisions -- in making the decisions toward the asian pacific and how much that area controls trade flows and contributes to our economy. >> way in back on the left. behind you. yes. >> can you explain to us what

are the primary factors behind the administration's rejection of harming the syrian opposition? do you see any circumstances in which that might change? the romney campaign has said governor romney would not grant xemptions to n tthe ndaa sanctions to countries like china. does that mean governor romney would not exercise the national- security waiver to spare time in the effect of those sanctions? >> i do not know you're asking two questions. >> the earliest concern was lack of clear information and reliable information on exactly who the opposition was, where the arms would go, how you would control that, and the very real

risk that some of the americans could fall into the hands of terrorist organizations. that would pose serious downside risks. beyond that, and the focus of this administration is really on trying to create the basis of political focus on transition. the focus on working with the opposition has been to give them logistics and all kinds of assistance to help them be more coherent and effective and to keep open the path for assad to step down. we have had some significant success in preventing russia from resupplying and rearming the syrian military. if he were to launch a major

american weapons supply program to the opposition we will do is a lot for russia. that would just be pouring fuel on the flames, what is looking like an increasingly deadly conflict. >> just to be clear, there are no russian arms currently going to beassathe assad. >> we have been able to stop the it last few shipments. they were preparing helicopters. we are able to get the russians to turn them around. >> other equipment is coming in from russia? >> some have been stopped. that is important. behind that camera.

do you have a microphone their decktr? re? >> what is governor romney's thinking about bosnia and cause of go -- kosovo and that part of europe? >> they have tremendous infrastructure and governance problems. they have tremendous economic problems. kosovo continues to have incredible ethnic tensions. we are trying to find them with a greater capacity.

it is a very precarious situation. for it to be sustainable it has to have some economic viability which it does not have now. want to have some economic growth the services will diminish comment and you have a more stable state. >> the gentle man standing. >> you mention nuclear arms control. one of the things president obama did was to continue ronald reagan's start framework. the governor romney made quite an impression by opposing that which was opposed by many national security leaders.

>> ask a question please. >> would governor romney adhere to his criticism of july 2010? if elected would he withdraw from the star treaty? >> he stated his position that he would not support it when it was being deliberated in the senate. it is now in force. he will do a review of existing arms control agreements and other major policies. it would be premature for me to speculate. >> i have another question from the overflow crowd. i would like to ask michelle about this. what are the candidates approaches to european relations in the euro crisis specifically? president obama has spent a

lot of his time and energy revitalizing our partnerships across europe. we have gone to afghanistan together, libya together, done a tremendous amount of work. it is hard to find a policy we are not lockstep with the u.k. because of the connection between our economies, there's great concern about the euro crisis. in this illustration has been very engaged working with european leaders trying to help them make the steps necessary to solve the problem. i do not think anybody envisioned a u.s. bailout. one of the things that was curious to me was there is not a

single mention of europe and governor romney's white paper. i am interested in understanding how the governor views europe as a priority given that it is the foundation of our most important alliance relationship? >> in various speeches over the last year and the theme of the importance for us to keep our friends and allies close, he has talked about europe. that is where he is going on this foreign trip with respect to the u.k. and poland. he has expressed concern that in libya that there were only a few players that came in. that shows a certain tension

within the nato alliance and the need to look at it. he feels that europe remains our most important alliance. he is going to reiterate that message when he is in london meeting with prime minister cameron and others. he will also be reiterating its when he goes to poland and gives a major speech there. >> does he have any specific ideas of the problems of the euro-? >> it is real hard to have a single monetary system when you have 17 fiscal systems. they are now bearing be freed of it. the europeans are going to have to sort this out. there is tension on the germans who are being asked to try to help the mediterranean states. he has not thought it was appropriate for him to prescribe solutions. we recognize how difficult it is.

he has talked about that and the importance to try to keep europe economically strong. >> question right here. thank you. >> i would like to ask if you could comment on -- would you cut japan and india? japan we have not heard a position on governor romney on whether he would support tpp for japan. india is a country we have all been looking at as a possible security partner. can you comment on how you see that going forward? >> let me start with india. this is an area we have had a lot of continuity and bipartisan support. india is an important security partner today. our military relationship has never been closer. the exercise more with the

united states than with any other country. we are growing our court of effort on piracy in the indian ocean. it is a rising democracy. it is a powerful partner for us in the asian region. we have so many common interests and values. this administration has invested a lot. the president first a dinner was for his indian prime minister. we have not only continue to invest in that relationship but after the tsunami in the nuclear accident, the way we were there for japan is something that our military forces were so proud and happy to be able to help and to be able to be there in a moment of need. it has only solidified the relationship further. we're having discussions about

how to adapt to the new security environment. those are going well. both relationships are vibrant e last threender thi years. >> 26 cesses of the bush a demonstration -- one of the strengths of the bush administration was this. the governor has been clear that he recognizes the importance of japan and the republic of korea to our security interests and economically as partners. he has expressed his desire is to strengthen and work on the relationship. >> in bac right there. noncommittal. -- in the back right there. in the middle. standing with your hand up.

>> i have been here since the beginning. we did not hear anything about africa. the forces of the current president have attacked and displaced camps. i want to know how the current president' of america will make sure that the injustice stops in africa. >> i think this administration has spent a lot of time and energy on africa. the president visited the continent in the first six months in office.

he has laid out a very sweeping set of policies that deal with not only important issues like food security but also continued democracy development. i do not want to get into the but hillers of this situation of the ivory coast. i think the -- de details of this situation in the ivory coast. what i can say is any time it is like this it is on the radar screen. it is a serious concern. there will be appropriate action taken. >> there is a question concerning turkey. what kind of thinking has governor romney been involved with looking toward turkey. how would he improve the relationship?

>> turkey has growing importance. we would like a fraction of this. play a larger to role. it has come up in the context about syria and the need to work closely on both our strategy and support. we know turkey has allowed some of the opposition to have offices. gov. romney recognizes turkey's role with the nato countries. it is a country that the united states has a great interest in strengthening a personal relationship with. we will not always be in agreement.

most of our discussion has been in the context of the crisis in syria. he clearly has an appreciation of the critical role that turkey plays there. >> do you see the obama administration strengthening beyond where it is today the relationship with turkey in general and also specifically with respect to syria? >> turkey is a very close partner in syria. those engagements are daily and intensive. we have been working very well together. the administration has recognized the growing role that turkey is playing, particularly looking eastward. they have been very important on iran. we've also taken pains to make sure that they stay anchored in europe and nato. i think the president missile defense program that has now

been adopted and endorsed again is having turkey be a political part of that. this is very key as is continuing to have cooperation with poland. they're hosting elements of a system that will provide more capability and be deployed sooner. >> we are honored to have a question -- if we can get a microphone to him. >> i wonder if i can widen the lynns a little bit and ask you a more strategic question about the strategy. president obama has placed a lot of emphasis on shaping an emerging global order in which china, india, brazil will have a

seat at the table. he has worked hard at this multilateral approach. i wonder whether governor romney has a different approach to the rise of these powers and whether president obama in his second one will still wo make this a priority? >> it is important to make the comment that governor romney believes it is important to engage. it is important to seek a multilateral cooperation, coordination. and to recognize that the relative powers are shifting with the rising powers in china, india, brazil. that means shifting some of the

way you do business. having said that, i think there is a fundamental difference in how would the view the world. i think the president has a very legitimate perspective with confidence in multilateralism and a difference to international law. as one commentator wrote, at the present went to china -- the president went to china and the chinese found it curious. i think governor romney believes all countries look at their interests. they should. that means sometimes you have a different way you work with them. there is a different in approach whether we would argue or suggest governor romney is more in the tradition of reagan and president obama has a

different approach and way to look at it. the american people will judge us. >> we have spent hours watching this president make decisions in security meetings and so forth. >> he is first and foremost a patriot and a pragmatist. it did vances us when we are also true to our values. when we say respect for international law, it is not something that somebody else created. we created the international systems that came out of world war two. when we respect that, we are advancing our own interest in keeping that system. it has to -- we need to find ways of integrating china.

but this is not some vague, abstract, sort of idealistic notion. this is who we are. and you do not have to choose between pursuing interest and being true to your values. >> we just wish she would have done it more in serious. >> would you like to comment on that? >> i think we have been very clear on the differences on syria. this is a president who is one of the first commitment to the first, to call for millions of dollars of humanitarian assistance on the table and an effort to help the opposition, get them to be cohesive, so they have a viable chance that

transition. i think we have been consistent with our values in the way we have approached syria. >> i am terribly sorry to those of you raising your hand, but our time is up. this has been wonderful discussion. we ought to take it on the road. [laughter] thank you, both. [applause] may i first asked that you'll remain seated as the that -- so the panel has an opportunity to leave. thank you again. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> tonight, a look at mitt romney's work as president and ceo of the salt lake city organizing committee for the 2002 winter olympic games. using seized an archival value, we look back at his role in -- using c-span archival video, we look back at his role in lobbying congress. join us at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> military suicides are at their highest levels in the 10 years of war in iraq and afghanistan and are averaging one a day so far this year. the subject dominated the discussion by leon panetta and ericsson said key. they testified at a joint house committee hearing about veterans returning to civilian life.

this portion is about an hour and half. >> dear former colleagues of mine, i appreciate the up to date to be here. i also want to immerse specs to members of both committees. this is an important event. i want to thank all of the members of both the armed services and veterans committee for the support that you provide the department of defense, our men and women in uniform, and our veterans. we could simply not do the work the needs to be done in protecting this country and in serving those that are warriors in their families. we just could not do that with the partnership we have with all of you.

for that reason, let me just express my personal appreciation to all of you for your dedication and for your commitment to those areas. i also want to thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning alongside a secretary sean secchi. i appreciate the opportunity to appear oalongside of him. this is a chance to discuss the ways in which the department of defense and the department of veterans affairs are working together to try to meet the needs of our service members, theirrveveterans, and families. this hearing comes at a very important time for our nation. for collaboration between our two departments, and dod and va are in the process of creating an integrated system, something

the should have been done long time ago. but we are in the process of trying to make that happen and develop a support system which is fundamentally different and a lot more robust than it has been in the past. the day after a decade of war, a new generation of service members, of veterans coming home, our nation has made a lifetime commitment to them for their service and for their sacrifice, for their willingness to put their lives all for this country. -- put their lives on the line for this country. they have been deployed, as you know, time and time and time again. they fought battles in iraq. they fought battles in afghanistan. there have been targetted by terrorists and by ied's. they have been deployed from kuwait to south korea, from the pacific to the middle east. many are dealing with serious

wounds as well as with complex and difficult problems, both seen and unseen. they fought and many have died to protect this country. and we need to fight for them. we owe it to those returning service members and to the veterans to provide them with a seamless support system so that they can put their lives back together, so that they can pursue their goals, so that they can not only go back to their communities, but be able to give back to their communities and to help strengthen our nation in many ways. none of this -- none of this is easy. it takes tremendous commitment on the part of all americans, those in government, those in the military. it takes tremendous commitment on the part of those in the

private sector, business leaders, and frankly all citizens across our country. there is no doubt that dod and va are working more closely than we have before. but frankly, we have much more to do. to try to reach level of cooperation, to better meet the needs of those who have served our nation in uniform, especially our wounded warriors. since i became secretary a little over a year ago, secretary sean secchi and i have met on a regular basis in order to personally died efforts to share resources and expand cooperation between our departments. the partnership between our departments extends to all levels, led by a joint committee, cochaired by the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness and the

director of veterans affairs. senior leaders have been deeply connected to this effort. this is about the care of their troops. but it is also back recruiting and retaining the very best military force in the world. when it comes down to it, caring for those who have served and their families is not only a moral imperative, but a national security imperative as well. for those who have fought for their nation, we need to protect their care and their benefits, but we also need to protect their integrity and their honor. it is for that reason that, before i discuss the specifics about dod and va corp., i want to announce that an important step that my department is taking to help maintain the integrity of the awards and honors that are earned by our service members and their veterans.

you're all aware of the supreme court decision that determined that free speech allows someone to lie about military awards and honors. free speech is one thing. but this honoring those who have been honored on the battlefield is something else. for that reason, today, we are posting a new page on the defense department's web site that will list those service members and veterans who have earned her nation's highest military award for valor. initially, the website will list the names of those who have earned the medal of honor since 9/11. but in the near term, it will include the recipients of the services crosses and the silver star since 9/11. we will look at expanding that information available on the website overtime. this effort will help raise

public awareness about our nation's heroes and help deter those who might falsely claim military honors, which i know has been a source of great concern for many veterans and members of these committees and members of the congress. i want to thank you for your concern and for your leadership on this issue. and our hope is that this will help protect the honor of those who served the united states in battle. let me discuss the five priority areas that the dod and va are working on to enhance collaboration. the transition gps program -- the department of defense, our goal is to provide a comprehensive transition assistance program that prepares those who are leaving the service for the next step,

whether that is pursuing additional education, whether it is trying to find a job in public sector or the private sector, or whether it is starting their own business. on monday, the president announced the new transition gps program that will extend transition preparation through entire span of each service members military career. the program will ensure that every service member develops their own individual transition plan, meets new career readiness standards and is prepared to apply their valuable military experience however and wherever they choose. the second area that we focused on is trying to integrate the disability evaluation system. we have overhauled the legacy disability evaluation system and tried to make improvements with regard to developing a new system. in the past, as you know, service members with medical

conditions preventing them from doing the military jobs had to navigate separate disability evaluation systems at both dod and va. we replaced that legacy system with a single integrated disability evaluation system and it enables their departments to work in tandem. under the new system currently in use, service members and veterans have to deal with fewer layers of bureaucracy and they are able to receive va disability compensation sooner after separating from the military. but let's understand, as we try to do this, that this is a tough challenge, trying to make this work in a way that can respond to our veterans effectively. after role, veterans have rights. -- after all, a veterans have rights. they have the right to make sure

their claims are quickly adjudicated good at the same time, we need to expedite the process and come -- and to ensure, as you do that, that we -- we are working on a major initiative. in response to the challenge that was issued by the president and, frankly, presidents in the past and have tried to address this issue, dod and va is finally working steadily to build an integrated electronic health records system. when operational, that system will be the single source for service members and veterans to

access their medical history. and for clinicians to use that history at any dod and va medical facility. again, this is not easy. so the way we are approaching it is to try to see if we can complete this process into places -- at san antonio and hampton road -- and then tried to expand it to every other hospital. it is tough. but if we can achieve this, i would be a very significant achievement that i think could be a model not only for the hospitals that we run, but for hospitals in the private sector as well. fourthly, we need greater collaboration on mental and behavioral health. beyond these specific initiatives, we're trying to focus on enhancing collaboration in areas that involve some of the toughest challenges we face now.

posttraumatic stress has emerged as a signature unseen wounds of this last decade of war. its impact will be felt for decades to come and go for the dod and va must therefore improve our ability to identify and treat this condition as well as all mental and behavioral health conditions and to better equip our system to do with the unique challenges these conditions can present. for example, i have been concerned about reports of problems with modifying diagnoses for posttraumatic stress in the military disability evaluation system. many of these issues were brought to my attention by members of congress and i appreciate their doing that. particularly patty murray who discussed this issue because it

happen in her state in a particular way. to address these concerns that directed a review across all of the uniformed services, this review, led by the end of secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, will help to ensure we are delivering on our commitment to care for our service members. the review will be analytically sound. it will be action-oriented. and it will provide, hopefully, the least destructive impact for health services for service members. the area is to determine where those diagnoses were taken place, why they were downgraded, what took place so that we know exactly what is happened. i hope that the entire review will be completed within approximately 18 months. the last area is an area that has really concerned me, which is the area trying to prevent military suicides.

we have strongly focused on doing what we can to do with this issue. it is one of the most frustrating problems i have come across as secretary of defense. despite increased efforts and attention by both dod and va, the suicide trend among service members and veterans continues to move in a very troubling and tragic direction. in part, it is reflective of a larger society. the fact is that the numbers are increasing now within the military. in close cooperation with the va, dod is taking aggressive steps to try to address this issue. including promoting a culture to try to get people to seek help, seek the kind of help they need, to improve access to mental and

behavioral health care, to emphasize mental fitness and to work to better understand the issue of suicide with the help of other agencies, including the va. one of the things i am trying to stress is that we have got to improve the ability of leadership within the military to see these issues come to see them coming, and to do something to try to prevent them from happening. our efforts to divert -- to deliver the best possible service is within our dod and va professionals. i extend my thanks to all those who extend help to all of our men and women in service today and to their families. i have to say that we're all one family. we have to be one family. at the department of veterans

affairs and the department of defense. together, we will do everything possible to ensure that the bond between our two departments and between our country and those who have defended it only grows stronger in the future. let me also say this. as a former congressman, now as secretary of defense, and someone who spent over 40 years involving government in some capacity or another, i am well aware that too often the very best intentions for caring for our veterans can get trapped in bureaucratic infighting. it gets trapped by conflicting rules and regulations. it gets trapped by first reading levels of responsibility.

-- by force trading levels of responsibility. this is no -- by frustrating levels of responsibily. this is no excuse. our warriors are trained not to fail on the battlefield. we must be committed not to fill them on the home front. i realize that there have been a lot of good words and a lot of goodwill and a lot of good intentions. but i can assure you that my interest is in results, not words. i am grateful for the support of the congress, particularly these two committees. and i think you and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. secretary. there have been comments made about how unique this is to how this joint hearing between these

two committees have resulted from chairman miller coming to me with the idea. and i want to thank him for that. and i think it also happened because we have two such outstanding secretaries, both of whom are veterans, both of whom have developed -- devoted their lives to service to this country. secretariat panetta with many years in congress was here when i first came here and a couple of others of us who are still here. we are the old people on this committee now. you were taken from our midst to serve the president as the director of omb and then as chief of staff and then the central intelligence agency and now the director of the department of defense. and secretary >shinseki has a

lifetime of service in the army culminating as chief of staff of the army. no one could have a better career leading troops in battle and leading the entire army in the start of this war against terrorism. thank you both for your service. mr. secretary. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your steadfast support of service members and veterans hand for this opportunity to testify before you. i am honored to be here with my friend as well, secretary leon panetta. his leadership and close partnership on behalf of those who wear and have worn the uniform of our nation has been

monumental. i will also like to acknowledge -- and believe we have here and in other places a veteran organizations. their insights have been helpful in improving the programs that we overwatch in the department of veterans affairs. i have said it often tough and i will say it again could little what we do in the va for originates in the va. a lot of what we do originates in dod. what this means is that we, in the day, must be aware, must be agile, and must be fully capable of caring for those who have, in lincoln's words, one battle. as a footnote, which still, today, the nba, care for two children of civil war -- in va,

care for two children of civil war veterans. a hundred years from now, we will still be fulfilling our commitment to veterans and their families. history also shows that our requirements in the eighth continue to grow for about a decade and maybe sometimes a little more after the last combatant comes back from operation. in this case, head decade or more after the last combatant leaves afghanistan, the va requirements will continue to grow. so for us, it is important that we spend the time now to better anticipate their needs for care, for benefits and for the

successful transition to civilian life. for this current generation, without losing sight of the needs of previous generations that we also care for. collaboration and cooperation between va and dod have never been more important. and for the next two decades, it will be entirely important because this will be in large measure the work of the nation and focusing on how we care for the less than 1% of americans who serve in uniform today and provide for us this way of life. most significantly, we're looking initially in four areas. three of those areas will match up with what secretary panetta just provided. that doesn't mean that his five and my four disconnected. we just described them a little bit differently. the electronic medical records

is in the process of discussion for 10 years now. i think both secretary panetta and i have agreed on what that will be. we are working towards a solution. the second point, a more comprehensive sharing of data for -- through a virtual lifetime of records in which the electronic health records is a key component. the third area of focus is the disability evaluation system which is primarily a duty enterprise with significant va support. and the fourth of our areas of focus, the president's initiative to the evolving the

heroes act. my testimony expands on each of these areas and i thank the chairman for excepting that written testimony into the record. and i won't go into them in detail at this time. let me briefly emphasize that it is important to reassure the greatest collaboration between va and dod and the critical phase before military members leave the military. we must transition them better. we do this in best with war handoffs. that is key to assuring the success of transitioning service members back to their communities and productive ways. but it is also key in preventing the downward spiral that some faced in being challenged in transition and sometimes

homelessness and sometimes suicide is what we have to deal with. while we're pleased with the progress made to date on critical issues common to both va and dod, we have a responsibility to better harmonize eric to large departments -- harmonize our two large departments. their well-being is the strongest justification of why we should be working together more closely and more collectively then we are today. there is more important work to be done and i am proud to move forward with secretary panetta to make the most progress possible in our time on behalf of those who wear and have worn uniforms of our nation. and with that, mr. chairman, thank you and to the members of this committee for your and will report of our efforts and i look

forward to your questions. >> thank you very much. i ask unanimous consent to include in the record all members' statements. without objection, so ordered. we have already agreed that we will have to minute questions. i will ask the members to make their questions short so that we have the answers complete and we will start with me. as i have already said, we know there's high unemployment among our veterans, our young veterans. with the $478 billion cut in defense, we will have 100,000 leaving the military. we will have another 100 once the sequestration takes effect. -- 100,000 once the sixth station -- 100,000 once the sequestration takes effect.

what effect will that have on what you will be able to do to try to move them into some meaningful employment? mr. secretary. >> i sure as hell hope that sequestration doesn't happen. >> i'm with you. >> as i said, time and time again, and it is a disaster in terms of the defense department as far as our budget is concerned and as far as our ability to respond to the threats that are out there. we have a huge impact. it doubles the cuts in the military, would obviously add another 100,000 that would have to be reduced and the impact of that on top of the reductions that are currently going to take place would place a huge burden on the system to be able to

respond to that. it would be impossible to try to do the work we're trying to do and make it work effectively. i think we can handle what we proposed in our budget and the drawdown numbers of coming out here we tried to do this pursuant to irrational strategy over the next five years. i think the systems we are working on and what we're trying to put in place, i am confident, can respond to that. if sequestered should have and an additional burden is put on top of it, i think you could really strain the systems. >> mr. secretary, could you please give us that input for the record? >> absolutely. >> in keeping with it, my time is expired. mr. miller. >> both secretaries come in 1961, john f. kennedy said that we put a man on the moon. eight years later, america was there. we're talking about integrated health records by 2017.

why could we put a man on the moon in eight years and we're not starting from ground zero with electronic health records. why is it taking so long? it is vital to solving the back log issue that exists out there today with regards to disability claims. >> mr. chairman, i cannot account for the previous 10 years. another is a history here. but let me just suggest that two large departments, each having their own electronic health records, which happened to be two very good, perhaps the best records in the country and trying to bring that culture together to say we will have one and it is entirely possible, i agree with you.

it is not technology. it is leadership. between secretary panetta and i, we have, in the last year, met five times -- four times. we will meet again in september. we are here today testifying together. i think this is a great signal to both of our departments. prior to that, i recall a meeting with secretary gates four or five times. so in 17 months, the two secretaries of these two largest apartments have sat side-by-side in direct communication on issues like this with the integrated electronic health records being the primary topic of discussion. it has taken us 17 months to get to an agreement that both secretary panetta and i have signed that describes the way forward. and the way forward for us is a single, joined, common integrated electronic health records.

each of those words means something. but key here is an agreement that it will be open in architecture and not proprietary in design. that is a significant change from previous discussions which were wrapped around which proprietary contractor were we going to be interested in establishing an arrangement with. i believe that was part of the challenge. the fact that we have agreed on a concept is groundbreaking here and both secretary panetta and i have agreed to move forward on this. >> thank you very much. the gentleman's time has expired. again, if you could complete their record on those questions, that would be good. mr. smith. >> i want to ask a question about the cap program. exit interviews are notoriously difficult to get people

interested in. i met with some of the folks from both your offices. they used to have a book this big and now have a book this big. bottom line, what can you do to get the service members to pay attention to the two or three most important things in that transition? in the face of overwhelming information, eyes glaze over. what is the critical piece of information you want to give them? how can we make that work better? >> i will yield to secretary shinseki on this as well. i remember when i got out of the service, i couldn't wait to get the hell out of there and i didn't want to spend a lot of time people tell me what i was or was not going to do. in this instance, i think the best way to try to bring these opportunities to the attention of members is the counselors who -- we are assigning individual counselors to this program. they will sit down individually

with them. i think that is the best way to get their attention and get them moving with regards to the potential benefits that are available to them. >> just very quickly, why would echo secretary panetta. i know that, when i got ready to get out of the military, i couldn't wait to get the hell out of there either. [laughter] i would just say, if we look at this as a transition assistance program and the focus is on assistance, i think we come at it with a different attitude. if we look at this as an education responsibility of preparing folks for at least the next phase of their lives, to make the right decisions, whether it is education, whether this is work choice, and certainly from the va's point of view, we are entirely interested in getting as many departing service members enrolled with us, whether or not they have a requirement for health care

today. having them enrolled fiver 10 years down the road when issues cropped up, we have the evidence necessary to be able to deal with it. we need to look at this as more than just assistance. this is really preparing them, making them career-ready for the next phase of their lives. >> thank you very much, gentlemen. >> in a democracy, where you need obviously the support of people who go to war, the cost of going to war is an important item to understand. treating our veterans is part of the cost of war. i have tried on several occasions to add an amendment to any war preparations a 15% to 20% surcharge for veterans. we have been borrowing money for war. nobody wants to borrow the money for veterans. part of the cost of war, you

know, we have statistics that show we have 6000 -- i am sorry, 5000 killed in action since 9/11 and almost 50,000 wounded. yet those who have shown up at the va for help -- and i know there are different definitions and different circumstances -- i think it could be well over a million. why is there such a disparity between -- and it is important for the public to understand what is the cost of war. how do you account for the million veterans who are seeking problems for more and only 50,000 considered casualty's? mr. panetta, you first. >> its is -- it clearly is the impact of war over the last 10 years and how it has affected

those who have served. and when they come back, the reality is that not all of them are getting the kind of care and benefits that they should get. it is our responsibility to try to respond to those needs as the return. look, this system will be overwhelmed. let's not kid anybody. we're looking at a system that is already overwhelmed. the likelihood is, as we draw down further troops and, over the next five years, assuming sequester doesn't happen, we will be adding another hundred thousand per year. and the ability to be able to respond to that in a way that effectively deals with the health care issues, with the benefits issues, with all of the other challenges, that will not

be an easy challenge. you talk about the cost of war. this is inherently part of the cost of war. it is not just dealing with the fighting appeared it is also dealing with the veterans who return. and that will be big ticket item if we will do this right. >> i just hope you will look at the camp as an idea to really get at that issue. >> thank you. by almost every account, we are failing our veterans. more of them are killing themselves than the enemy in afghanistan and the suicide rate is increasing. homelessness is reaching the percentage of vietnam veterans and that is increasing. unemployment is more than twice the unemployment percentage of the general population. the in service disability

evaluation delays are unacceptable. and after they are out, it may take more than a year. they are unemployable because of a disability, it may take more than a year because of the disability. 18-month review would be completed on time. that does not reflect the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. what do we need to do in the congress? >> the one thing that i have seen is that all of us share the same concerns with regards to our ability to respond to these issues.

the challenges that, as we try to make these systems work, there is a lot of built-in resistance to adapting and changing the way we do things. and to the extent that we can work together to try to make sure that we push for these changes to take place and do it in a way they effectively response to the challenges, that is something i think both the congress as well as the administration have to push. we cannot except the old way of doing things. things will have to change. things will have to be modified. people will have to respond differently. if we expect the same old responses to the problems we're having, then we will have the same old problems. we have to change the way people respond to these issues. >> thank you. .r. reddiyes

>> thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, i want to thank both of you. you have put your personal leadership in areas that have never been done before. the issue of women have been very important to both of you in the military, both in terms of sexual harassment and attacks and those kinds of things. secretary panetta, you have been a stalwart there. and secretary shinseki, your leadership in prioritizing homelessness among veterans, especially among women veterans, is very much appreciated. i can tell you because veterans very much appreciate those priorities and your personal leadership in that. i know both of you face immense challenges.

but reflecting on what chairman miller said, i hope we continue to do these kinds of joint hearings because this truly is an important -- i think one of the most important things that both of these committees can focus in. just echoing what my chairman, chairman bartlett said, can each of you comment briefly on where we can be most helpful in terms of -- as the congress, particularly from these two committees? >> i can speak on the va piece of this. actually, the congress has already provided some significant assistance to the day -- to va. in 2008, you have afforded us

advance appropriations. not all agree that it was a good move. but it provided us an opportunity to have a two-year look at our budgets. what is insured was that, for the health care piece of our budget, every year on october 1, whether or not there is a continuing resolution, we are able to fund our health care requirements so that there isn't a gatt in care for veterans. -- isn't a gap in care for veterans. meaningful support has been provided. i would also say that we're dealing with issues that grow over time and some of them very quickly. mental health, ptsd. the budgeting process is based on knowing requirements and reacting to growth in trends. when you have large growth in the short amount of time, the

budget process is not quite as agile. and it is a bit reactive. so are efforts to try to harmonize the reason why we're here is so that va has some good ideas on what to expect and be able to put that into our budgeting process. >> thank you. >> you both mentioned the prevalence of ptsd and tbi and certainly we need more research to better establish diagnostic tools and treatments. through what channels are the dod, va, and the private sector sharing their research findings and collaborating on the direction of future research? >> in 2009, the dod and va held

its first mental health summit, a joint effort to bring our mental health programs to the same table and have a discussion. 28 strategic findings came out of that. we continue to execute those findings today. while i was -- while it was a broad look, inside the discussion were issues on ptsd, tbi. we spent about $30 million in the va budget on research for ptsd. we learned a lot from duty because they have extensive experience as a from dod because they have extensive experience in this area, both in diagnosis and ptsd. so there is much that we learned from our collaboration with dod through our research.

more to be done, to be sure. >> what we tried to do is do mental health assessments, before and after deployment, so we can identify and try to treat somebody that might have a problem, specifically with ptsd. we have done about 600,000 of these assessments. our greatest limitation is the number of care providers. it is simply not sufficient for the demand and we are competing with the day and private health care systems to hire these people. -- with va and private health care systems to hire these people. >> thank you. >> i want to thank you both for your service and for being here this morning. a quick question and i want to

read from a veterans service organization letter that they sent to senator web last week. part of it says "the only branch of the military to show a marked improvement decreasing the number of persons taking their own life is the united states marines. they should also be praised for their active leadership from the very top in addressing the problem and implementing the solution. the remaining service had yet to be motivated to take any substantive action." i have been to iraq and afghanistan several times. i have looked at the journals in the eye and ask them what they're doing personally to help the stigmatize tbi and ptsd. the second question is do they need any help? i get the same answer there as i do here in d.c. everything is ok. we have all the resources we

need. we don't need any help. but the interesting thing is that some of the lesser ranks came up to me after i asked the general that question. outside, we need much more help. he suggested i talk with the clergy to see what they're happening. and i did. i have every trip since then. i am finding that our service members are not getting the help that they need. after looking at this letter that was sent to senator webb's, which appears that the marines are doing so good so far, what is the difference between the marines and the other branches and how can we address that? >> obviously, there is no silver bullet here appeared i wish there were to deal with suicide prevention. we have a new suicide prevention office that is trying to look at programs to address this terrible epidemic.

if you look at the numbers, recent totals, you have about 104 confirmed and 100 to pending investigations in 2012. the total is as high as 106, almost one a day that we're seeing. that is an epidemic. something is wrong. look, part of this is people are inhibited because they don't want to get the care that they probably need. so that is probably problem, trying to get the help that is necessary. two, to get them access to the kind of care that they need. but three, and, again, i stress this because i see this in a number of areas dealing with could discipline and good order and trying to make sure that our troops are responding to the challenges -- it is the leadership in the field, the platoon commander, the platoon

sergeant, the company commander, the company sergeant, the ability to look at their people to see these problems, to get ahead of it and to be able to ensure that, when you spot the problems, your moving that individual to the kind of assistance that they need in order to prevent it. the marines stay in close touch with their people. that is probably one of the reasons that the marines are doing such a good job. we're stressing in the other services to try to develop that training of the command so that they, too, are able to respond to these kinds of challenges. >> thank you. >> secretary panetta, there was a cover story on military suicides in "time magazine" within the past couple of weeks. and some statistics really jump out at me. one fact this is that 33% of military suicides had never deployed overseas at all.

and 43% had been deployed once. that is 76% if you add it together. number one, are those statistics accurate? no. 2, what does that tell us about the problem if a third of all the suicides -- we are focused so much on ptsd and so forth -- if they never deployed all a third of the suicides, maybe we're not looking all the factors. >> those numbers are accurate as far as we know. i think what you're seeing is that it reflects the larger problem in the society. the fact is that suicides are on the increase in the rest of society as well. so problems with drinking, problems with finances, problems within the family, problems of trying to deal with the conflicts that they are confronting, problems of dealing with the general pressures we see in a society that is dealing obviously with the economic pressures at the same time with

social pressures. all of that is impacting on families. and that is true in the military as well. that is why we see this occur not only in those that are deployed to the battlefield, but in regards to families that are here. >> it seems to me that it puts a little different perspective on the scope of the issues that both you gentlemen have to deal with if it is not just combat but the entire gamut of those problems. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. mr. secretary, do you know if there's any correlation between this age group in the military committing suicide and those not in the military but in the same age group committing suicide? >> mr. chairman, that is an important question. the cdc publishes every year the top 10 leading causes of death among some americans. as i recall, the last report --

and it is a continuous track -- between age groups -- in the age group 15-24, suicide is the third leading cause of death in the top 10 of americans. and the age group 25-34 is the second leading cause of death. so suicides is a national discussion. when you recruit out of the population and put youngsters into stresses that we are all familiar with, yes, suicides become a matter of great focus coming interest and importance to both secretaries. i guess the follow on question is how do we tried to decide who are best suited to serve in the recruiting effort. i no longer have those responsibilities. i used to at one time. >> thank you. mr. sent -- miss sanchez.

>> thank you for being before us today. in preparing for this hearing, i asked my staff back in orange county to go through the case work with respect to veterans in transition. even though we have a great relationship with our va hospital in long beach and we have clinics in santa ana and another in our district, the most troublesome area with respect to these cases involve the quality and the lack of health care for our service members were transitioning from active or having been called up and are now out into the veterans world, if you will. in fact, i have a lot of veterans who come to my office and they express real concern about not receiving treatment or having a long time to wait for a specialty doctor, for example. in long beach, it would be oncology where it must be short- staffed or something of the sort. another big concern for them is

the issue of being prepped for surgery and then some on the surgery team doesn't show up out of whatever and the surgery is postponed. it isn't until these people come to my office and we call them directly that we are able to get that rescheduled. some question is how you addressing these types of concerns with respect to health care and why, if the surgery is scheduled, why are they not showing up to be on of surgery team? and more importantly, why does it take a congressional office to call and have it be rescheduled? >> all fair questions, congresswoman. if you would give me the details, i would be more than happy to research both your frustration and mine. i agree with you. >> my second question is with respect to homelessness. we have a lot of great

organizations helping us with that. but they are low on bonds. is there a grant program coming up for something like that for local 501 (c) 3's to help? >> about $60 million worth of grants were provided under the support of services to veterans families find. -- families fund. $100year's investment of million and, in the 2013 budget, we have an increase in those investments as well. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to both you gentlemen for being here today. the president has announced the new model of the tap program. everyone will be required to attend a one-day dot brief

separation class followed by a workshop and a one-day benefits briefing. determining readiness for post- secondary education and entrepreneurship will be offered as voluntary and not subject to the mandatory provisions of law. this is hardly a tailored approach that would meet the needs offering non-employment related instructions nor the fact that it is difficult to get supervisors to allow service members to attend the 3.5 day course much less seven days away from the unit, especially at that unit is preparing to deploy a. . would he make it mandatory? >> we have to move in that direction.

we're doing nine pilot that will test this out. we're hoping to complete it by november and learn exactly what we have to require, how we have to mandate and revise it. the only way it works is if you make it mandatory. >> giving the options to those who are about to discharge, is that aid model worth looking at as well? >> i would think so. >> not every service member will be coming out planning on going into the workforce. >> thank you. >> thank you. i would like to thank you for making this happen. i have done this for most of my adult life. it appears it is happening.

the you have my deepest gratitude for the care of that nation. i have a tough one. i know it troubles both of you. the issue that came out that 6000 soldiers and discharge of personality disorders. my question is brought by the vietnam veterans association about what we're doing about that. what are we doing to correct the record of the veterans who may have been improperly discharged with personality disorder diagnosis? >> we are conducting a complete review of those areas. we responded to the situation that took place in washington. that was the focus of the report. a concern to us. we're not only running there, we are running every few elsewhere to make sure it the same kind of

problems have not occurred elsewhere. it is important that we determine why we get this diagnoses and then it will be downgraded. there may be some legitimate reasons. this raised tremendous concern. my concern is that one of the biggest problems is not benefiting this. it is the ability to get care. it could have been whether it was existing or exacerbated. they're not getting that character are wonderful folks at the va. as these have decreased, adjustment disorders have increased. i appreciate you for paying attention to this. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

two years ago in the bill, it the house have a provision that said if you have served this country at war and you come back home and in that time use of medicaid and be yourself in trouble and therefore you have been given a less than honorable discharge before the people would finalize their decision, the house position said if you were given less than honorable discharge you can go back to the department of defense and ask the department of defence to review your medical records and maybe change your discharge. i would like to know how you're handling this issue, how you have contacted those who were may be given less than honorable discharge. >> let me respond directly to

you. i want to give you an accurate answer. let me give you this answer. >> thank you. that will be very satisfactory. thank you. >> thank you both for your apparel of leadership in trying to work and coordinate these programs. i wanted to ask you about coordination and resolving this alignment between the two programs the doa and va. you talked about trying to get over the trap. what is it that is causing these problems? it seems to be creating more confusion than anything else. >> the biggest problem here is

these things have developed on separate tracks. as a result, you have two bureaucracies that have developed their own approach to dealing with these systems. they get familiar with them. that is what they used. the resist change. the rhesus coordination. they resist -- 8 reses coordination. >> the coordination program as well as they transition gps program that the president has proposed calls for counselors. we know the problems and mental health. how are we planning for the kind of counselors that will be needed for this? they have to be cost trained. how are we planning for the emergence of these kind of folks that will be critical to this.

we do not really have them in any great number. >> that is the key to make this work. we have counselors that are familiar with veterans and defense areas. what are the opportunities that are available and be able to present that. it will take some training at the people that will be part of this a they provide good counseling. >> is there a cost factor involved? >> there will be a cost factor involved here. we will have to discuss. >> there may be some great models around the country. we think we have one in san diego. if we look at those it would be helpful. thank you. >> thank you. thank you for being here today. thank you for protecting valor for those who have earned it.

my question is theoretical. what promise this is the claims processing time. this is the worst in the country when it comes to adjudicating disability claims. what can we do it this does not work? what can we do to fix this issue? it seems to me that we have cultural issues that cannot be fixed by having new systems. you are doing your best to get the system is right. what are we doing to fix the cultures so we do what we promised our veterans of the would do in terms of providing a benefit for their service? it seems but we're not spending any time on culture. can you help me on that?

what are you going to? where is the white board that has the big ideas to fix this? >> i just want to make sure i am answering the right question. claims would sound to me like disability claims that we normal handle. ids is a joint program of dod and the va. we have piloted ids. we started off with 27 site. it is an initiative. we are 139 site now, fully operational across the nation. we both have put in place controls that will drive this to the target, at 295 days for

processing. that sounds like a lot of time. well we did our systems independently, dod furs, and then va, 540 days. that is down below 400 days. we are targeted to 295. only get to under 95 -- 295, involved is care and surgical procedures that veterans who have been injured are still going through. there is leave associated with that. whenever a surgery occurs, the individuals provided x amount of lead to recover. while this sounds large it is a

treatment anprogram. i think we have the right model. what is incumbent is to get to the targets we described. the va is about 100 days. we have been as low as 103. the only get a surge from our friends in dod and we adjust. -- then we get a surge from our friends in dod and we adjust. >> thank you. we know that va topped out at 904,000 claims. about 60 5% are over 125 days. -- 65% are over 125 days. can the current system handled the reduction in the budget under sequestration?

can you elaborate any way you want to to clarify? >> your numbers is a little higher than mine. it is a big number. let me explain why the inventory and the backlog portion of that, 550,000, why these numbers result. in the last three years comedy awarded agent orange, gulf war illness, 9 new diseases. some have been waiting 20 years since the conclusion of that conflict for vietnam veterans,

50 years. the third decision was combat, .erifiable ptsd >> by time is running out. how will sequestration impact these claims going forward? >> in the case of va, we have been informed that they are exempt from sequestration except for administrative costs. i do not have a definition of administrative cost right now. what i would say is the reason you have the two of us here, whatever impact him will have some of that here even though i have been exempted. it has my attention.

>> thank you. mr. secretary, you just said possibly administrative costs and would be affected by sequestration. the present the other day said no veteran issues would be touched by sequestration. could you explain to this committee? there's still some conflicting information out there from the director letter i got in june. how much is va going to be affected by sequestration? >> i'll go back to what you received. va is exempt from sequestration. i do not have the letter in front of me. i think administrative costs were listed in that. >> id du jour understanding

no account would be subject to only -- it is your understanding no account would be subject only to the minister of costa? if you like to take it for the record? >> this will be one that i best provide to you and your response for the record. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you very much for being with us this morning. we talked about suicide quite a bit. us on an effort thi to stop homelessness? is it as serious as suicides? what programs do you have been placed? >> i think he may be familiar with the fact that we have

established 2015 as the time where we intend to end a veteran homelessness. when i say and, if there are the two pieces. one is the issue, getting everyone into housing. training for employment and moving on with their lives. what will not in in 2015 is prevention. -- and in 2015 is prevention. it is ongoing. right now we have about 900,000 veterans in the gi bill programs. colleges, universities, community colleges, and trade schools. any youngster who fails out is at high risk of homelessness.

our prevention effort is to make youngsters get into school and graduate and have an opportunity to go on and work. the housing mortgage program last year, about 90,000 veteran mortgage owners who had defaulted on their home loans, we were able to defer roughly 75% of them from being evicted. this is what va getting in there and helping them get control of their finances, lowering the monthly payments, extending the monthly payment timeframe. we are able to then a share stability. we will still with these veterans. our records indicate that the

health care costs is 3.5 times with the health care costs are four veterans who are not homeless. -- 3.5 times what the health care costs are for veterans who are not homeless. >> thank you. >> thank you both of you. i have come to respect greatly both of your commitments and your heart for our veterans. i am not convinced that all the members of your organizations to share that commitment. the will follow through with the commitment that you are making. i understand that you have to

bureaucracies that do not necessarily like to be told what to do. in another five years is unacceptable. it is unacceptable to me and should be to you. this is not a matter of can do or should do. this is a matter of want to and will do. this is 2012. you and i have talked about this before. it still does not exist today as far as i know. i appointed this out. organizations outside have looked at the i.t. department.

i'm not convinced that five years from now, my fear is that we will be here talking about this same issue again. we're not going about it with the discipline that is needed. i come from the technology career over 30 years. i looked at the operations command. i know what it takes to get this step down. five years is unacceptable. i do not really have a question for you. i just want you to fix this. >> you have had this discussion. i will work with you. we believe we have a good architecture. we will come back and work it again. >> mr. turner.

but thank you. thank you for being here. i appreciate your leadership. i want to thank you for your work on sexual assault. i know you are working on your efforts to change the culture throughout dod to prevent sexual assault and assist the victims. many of the questions you have received have been about service members and their families transitioning out of the military. when it the most important things in transitioning with their family is to keep their family together. that raises the issue of custody. i want to acknowledge former chairmen skelton on the issue of this committee. the house has passed eight times

legislation that would protect the custody rights of service members. secretary gates had endorsed the provisions that the committee had passed. you sent a letter suggesting a compromise. i just wanted to ask for your support for this and to say we will need your additional assistance. the commission just brought out a draft uniform bill that would change the state laws, actually reversing of the progress we have made in favor of taking the custody right away. we hope to have your support. >> i appreciate that. i support the efforts that you have made. yet provided tremendous leadership on this issue. -- you have provided tremendous leadership on this issue. >> thank you.

thank you both for being here today. i want to thank you secretary panetta. i appreciate your efforts that you have made over the last several months to improve the treatment of survivors of military sexual assault. i was so hard and to learn of your recent interest in the documentary film "the invisible war." that which starts with military service and 70 va. that movie painfully highlights the pains of assault and what they must endure to prove that their physical or psychiatric symptoms are connected to an incident of military sexual trauma. too often victims are unsuccessful in pursuing their claims for persistence. to address one aspect, fiscal

year 12 had consultation to develop a comprehensive policy for the department of defense on the retention of and access to evidence relating to sexual assault involving members of the armed services. this policy is to be in place by october 1, 2012. can you both comment on the status of this policy? i also welcome any further thoughts on how these claims can be processed bacfaster and more accurately. >> isn't important issue for me. -- it is an important issue for me. it would get the support they need. if they want to continue their

career, and the support system will allow them to continue. it is fair to say that we are going to work together on this issue to make sure we can deal with this on both sides, not only defense but on the veterans side for those that ultimately move in that direction. >> thank you. >> thank you. it is great to see you both here. i've been working on these veterans issues with you. thank you for the support on the veteran skills and jobs act that was signed this week into law. it was a good bipartisan effort that we worked on at our afghanistan trip. another issue that came up was working with our veterans on active duty that were transitioning that and had disabilities.

further conversations at the hours, he said this was a continuation process making sure not a day goes by that they are having to wait for disability or the issue of 20,000 non- deployable men and women that are disabled on active duty. he said it was the number one issue that needs to be fixed what can we get done? what would be your recommendation? what is the legislative fix you need to get past? sed? >> one of the most important things we can do is address the needs of our wounded warriors and the ability of those individuals.

if they want to stand the service, we ought to do everything we can to help them stay in the service. they have to work together to make sure this is as smooth as possible. we have a tremendous amount of focus on this. the one key is helping us in terms of funding to make sure that we have the funds necessary to complete these evaluations and give them the assistance they are going to need. that is a key area for me. >> is there a legislative fix that you are looking for? >> i think we have the pieces we need. numbers we need to deal with. the assistance is in place. we just have to make sure that we provide the resources necessary so that we can do what we have to do to help them. >> thank you.

>> thank you so much for joining us. i want to ask you about how we can better align military to civilian jobs in transition, especially as it relates to licenses. you take and highly trained medical clinic. he wants to work here pier has got to link the schooling, -- here, but it takes a lot of schooling. how can we better align the skills that are obtained in the military to parallel what they could be pursuing in jobs and the civilian side? that is one of many categories you are aware of. it is figuring out how we align paralleling.et some

>> that is a great point. that is something the first lady has dedicated a lot of time to. we have got to push states to try to develop some common standards with regard synchronization. -- regard to credit nation. they have great skills. they have done tremendous work in their particular skill area appeared to come out and then have to track them there a whole process in order to make the schools applicable, that is something that a number of states are willing to take these individuals. we have to get all the states to recognize that kind of prudential. >> if these individuals become a

chain medic they would get something within the military to say now you have a credential. they have some kind of way that there is an equivalency. they are obtaining the same skills. >> that is a good point. can we develop some kind of certification with in the military that would then be transferable in terms of their getting a job within the state? >> it seems if we align things there could be a good process. >> thank you. thank you for your attendance here today. this falls under today's hearing. this is a very exciting example of the work of the va has been doing with the blue button

program. it is something i think you surpassed even the private sector in terms of really trying to give patients control of their medical situations as well as make a smarter system in health care delivery. >> it is one of several it initiatives. blue button is the one that has received a lot of attention. there are several systems now adopting the concept. you are able to access your personal data regarding health care. you can download your records. he can take those in use them as you would with your own private physician. it has tremendously ground in size. we think this is also helpful for the private sector in having

that kind of concept capability. >> it gives the patient control. in terms of not being able to move. dingratulations for leav the way. i know i am running out of time. the issue of regionalizing claims is emerging of an issue in connecticut as well. i look forward to working with your department to solve the problem. >> we will do that. >> thank you. thank you both for being here this morning and for your service to our nation. it is an honor to have you here. you have heard some references to the commission and now five years later after they issued this urgent call to make sure we have a single point of

reference for the care and services of our military we have two distinct entities. we have had multiple hearings trying to get assurance as to how you are going to get this together so that we can make sure our veterans get the services without being overwhelmed by a complex system. i would ask both of you today house specifically, what are the goals? what are the plans to get these two entities under one roof deck? >> the program is from 2007. as secretary panetta indicated, it two good departments developed the programs that don't quite harmonize. we have a task force.

harmony to these programs. where are we not doing things that we should be doing? it is going to get a good look here. i would be happy. i think secretary panetta would be as well to make people available. >> we share the same frustration. we have been working on this. we have been pushing to try to say "why can we not get faster results?" the bottom line is we got to kick ass and try to make it happen. that is what we are going to do. >> you mentioned commitment. we look to our military. we should be committed to make sure we get this job done.

thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> you can watch this in its entirety on our website, c- span.org. you also see coverage of last week's international aids summit on the u.s. economy. leon panetta travels to the middle east next week. he plans to meet with egypt new defense minister about their political transition. to first stop will be discuss the violence in syria. his final stop on his overseas trip is poland on tuesday. >> we're glad to take the lead issue of gun control. joining us from your, he is with

the reagan group. is the director and mares against illegal guns. thank you ford joining us. host: i wanted to start off by reading a statement that was in the "washington post" yesterday. i wanted to get your perspective and take. he wrote this. given the existence of mental illness and criminal gangs, what is the rational design for our gun laws? how do we preserve the right of self-defense and respect the rights of sportsmen's while complicating the plans of the violent? how would you respond to that?

guest: that is the way he frames it and many conservative authors have framed it more or less exactly the same way since the shooting in aurora. we have several mayors against guns. you can do much more to keep guns out of the wrong hands while strongly supporting the second amendment and the rights of law-abiding gun owners. what we focus on our common sense solutions that are overwhelmingly supported. everybody ought to get a background check and be able to pass on when they want to get a gun, not just at a licensed dealer, but at a gun show aired when people lie to a gun dealer whether they are a legitimate purchaser of that gun, they should be subject to strict penalties. we believe that if a person is

on a terror watch lists, they should not be given access to guns. there is a wide range of things that one can do to make sure that people who are law butters are able to do what they want and people who are not for people who are likely to use again to hurt themselves and others do not have access. host: how would you respond to the question? guest: the devil is in the details. i did not hear anything that i disagree with. i think all purchasers should go through a background check and i agree, depending on how you manage this terror watch list -- you know, the no-fly watch list is over broad and under-broad -- but i believe the people should be able to protect themselves with guns that are in common use and not with machine guns. unless we live in a police state, we will never be able to prevent all of these meticulously planned attacks that we see every now and again, unfortunately. host: if there is commonality between both of you on this issue, where do the typical issues of disagreement come into play? guest: organizations like mayors

against illegal guns try to ban assault weapons. the way they discipline -- the way they define those is where they disagree. 70% of handguns, including a revolver, is a semi-automatic. it involves how many bullets, and a clip. we want to ban something more than 10 rounds. that is not how we want to go. the 100-round magazines, 10 rounds or even 20 is not the proper cut off point. host: how would you respond? guest: just a correction, i do think that there are organizations out there and

members of congress that do want to ban -- different mayors believe different things, but we believe that, if you give your body in the country background check, you would screen out a lot of people who want to do the wrong thing with their guns. you can have a legitimate debate and there is one not just about assault weapons, but also about high-capacity magazines. try spoke with some sportsmen and in colorado -- i spoke with some sportsmen in colorado where i come from about gun a purge -- gun ownership. colorado is a concealed-carry state. if more people in the theater in aurora, colorado had a gun, maybe they would have stopped

the shooter before he committed the atrocity that he committed. you can have a good debate about that. i think most police officers would tell you that more guns in the hands of untrained people in a situation like that will not make you safer. but if jamestown's had come in and rather than having a semiautomatic rifle that could shoot 100 rounds in short order and had something that had a lower capacity weapon, they could have stopped him because he would have to stop to reload. it wouldn't violate the second amendment or in a british rights, but it would have -- or anybody's rights, but it would have screamed at him out. -- screened him out.

host: mr. glaze, let me follow up with you. guest: the national rifle association has limited the kind of research that the government can do after what we call in washington appropriations pair did put a block on fun andding -- on funding. we do know that there are a lot of assault weapons out there and a lot of high capacity clips. and if you cut them off, presumably, the older ones would be grandfathered in.

you have some many of them out there that it would take a while before they flushed out of the secondary market. if you cut off the supply of something that is highly dangerous, eventually, you to shut it off. our collection does not take a position on the assault weapons ban. but when you block something that is problematic, it will take a while, but even she, you can get there. guest: i want to focus on one thing that he said. the so-called -- the a r-15 is the best-selling rifle in the country. this is a rifle that is in common use for hunting, for shooting. it is not some exotic thing and courted from china or russia or something that -- it is not some exotic thing imported from

china or russia. that doesn't matter. it doesn't shoot faster or more powerful bullets than other types of hunting rifles. it is a canard to say that, if he had been limited to handguns or something like that, short of banning all long guns, there's nothing that could have been done in that case in choice -- in his pictures of weapons. guest: that is not quite true. this is not something that our coalition takes a position on, but, for example, one of the folks who survived the tucson shooting, she is actually here in new york talking about her experiences in this weekend. her experience was that she helped russell the second click away from the gentleman -- helped wrestle the set and took away from the gentlemen who shot giffords and those people. they stopped him from shooting

100 rounds. the idea that you can -- guest: that is why i said you should not have a 100-clipped magazine. host: democrats, you're on first. caller: i want to say thank you for c-span. i believe that this shooting is another staged falsified event by the u.s. government. you have the human gun-control

treaty coming up for a vote. this is exactly the kind of thing that the government does. these oral falsified events pushing a government agenda pushing this country into a fascist nation. guest: this is a treaty that is trying -- i don't think it will get anywhere in this senate certainly -- to try to force an international elite consensus on things on to the united states. i think this is a debate for the federal government, for each state to decide their own laws. host: do you have any thoughts jury perspective on that? guest: the arms treaty is about conventional arms being trafficked in two nations, including in to many nations

where those weapons go into the hands of private armies and fuel an enormous amount of mayhem that the government cannot stop. we're not talking about any of the kinds of weapons that might dad or a gun dealer or i or you would want to buy. this is one of those things that the national rifle association resists a lot of money -- raises a lot of money. will it be approved before the elections? i would not be surprised if it did not. members of congress and the administration are not keen on those issues. caller: there seems to be a mistake in stigma that people with mental illnesses cannot buy guns. that is not true. here in the state of pennsylvania,

hospitalized many times, i have a concealed weapon permit and i also own a ruger 22 semi- automatic and a shotgun for self-defense. there are basically seven criteria in order to get a concealed weapon permit. have you ever committed a crime? have you ever been declared mentally incompetent? the last one is -- host: we will leave your thoughts there. mental health as part of the process, should it be toughened? guest: that is a huge issue. i think that is one area that needs to be looked at. the institutionalization of mental health people decade ago started a trend in this

direction. the tucson shooter, if you are so violent that you get kicked out of community college, i think there are steps that can be taken and is the experts should look at it and recommend things there. that is definitely an area of policy that needs re- examination. host: is there a way to go beyond background checks? guest: a couple of things you can and should do. one is very straightforward. the background check system which is supposed to contain all of the records and also people who are seriously

mentally ill or drug abuse, all of those records are supposed to be in that do not sell database. if you have one of those prohibiting factors, you are not allowed to buy a gun. states are not doing a good job at sending mental health records into that national database. the federal government cannot compel them to do so. 23 states have submitted fewer than 100 mental health records to the national system. gov. bob macdonald of virginia has said that we have to do much more to get those records in so the next deadly shooter who bought guns and ammunition because his record or not there -- we have to do much better to make sure the states get the records.

we do not want people who are simply depressed or under treatment for anxiety to not be able to exercise their constitutional right. on the other hand, you do not want people who are not in possession of their faculties and are going to do other people harm by walking into a store and buying a gun. host: tennessee, good morning. caller: i have two points i wanted to make. the second amendment was not written for hunting. they just came out of a tyrannical government and they wanted to make sure there were people who could armed themselves and defend themselves. in the state of colorado, the movie theater -- the theater had a policy that they could

not carry weapons with them which prevented a lot of law- abiding citizens from being able to carry the weapons. if they relaxed those types of laws for people to carry their weapons with them, these types of incidents would be stop. host: as far as this discussion and intent of the second amendment, what would you add? guest: there are two issues here. whether a more guns make people safer in public places. who ought to decide the eligibility requirements for concealing weapons? let me take the second one first. the nra's top priority has been

in national reciprocity which would require a new york to recognize concealed carry permits from anywhere else. we strongly oppose that because here in new york mayor bloomberg and others think it is a good idea that we have very tight restrictions on concealed loaded weapons. that works for us. if this bill were to pass, new york would have to allow anybody from a permit from anywhere else in the country -- new york would have to allow anybody with a permit from anywhere else in the country to allow them to carry a gun here. more hands in the guns of people not necessarily trained do not help.

guest: i am a fan of federalism. i do not think the federal government should be able to put in a one size fits all regime on the states. i do not know what his position on the other things are, but i agree that the second amendment was put in their primarily for self-defense and otherwise as far as the right to carry, to bear arms. 41 states currently have an issue regime, which if you pass a background check, you should be able to get it. is there is always an exemption. even the nra agrees with this. someone who does not have any red flags in the background but a naked man muttering wild

things in their yard, sheriff's can prevent that person from carrying a gun. the caller is absolutely right. if all you do is prevent guns in your establishment by putting up a sign, the only people who are going to have guns are the criminals. they are not going to follow your rules against guns. i think colorado got it right. public establishments who want to enforce gun-free zones have to make sure that each entrance as a guard and a metal detector so making sure the gun-free zones are in forced against everyone. host: we are talking about gun control laws in the united states with two guests. ilya shapiro, senior fellow at

the cato institute, and mark glaze. our conversation goes for about another 20 minutes. albuquerque, new mexico, good morning. caller: i have two quick questions. i would like both gentlemen to weigh in on the attorney general problem. the gun walking was completely legal. i wanted both gentlemen to weigh in on that quickly. thank you very much. guest: there are two issues. the program itself and then more legal issues. the program seems bizarre to me. it just seems like a bizarre premise. it makes gun dealers uncomfortable when encouraged to sell to all the rest.

on the legal side, this is a battle between the congress and the executive about releasing documents. i think the justice department is not being completely forthright. executive privilege from the white house is a little odd. they said they were not involved in decision making, and then when you invoke executive privilege, that means the president receives advice from his advisers. there are a lot of legal strange things going on. ultimately this is a political battle. guest: let me place aside for the second because he did a good job discussing the executive privilege piece of that and focus on the underlying problem underneath fast and furious

which is that over the past six years or so, more than 50,000 mexican citizens have been slaughtered in gang wars. more than often, those wars have been perpetrated by guns from the united states. you cannot buy an assault weapon. there is a ban there. here in the united states, we have not had that ban since 2004. someone will go into the store and buy it assault weapons and pass them back down to the drug gangs who use them to facilitate shipping narcotics into american communities. that is the underlying policy problem. the reason it is difficult to prosecute those crimes which is arguably what we got into the

situation that we got in with the fast and furious operation, there is no federal fire arms trafficking statute in the united states. the penalties are not very large. these crimes are not particularly jury-friendly. without a federal trafficking statute which is something many people had said they think we need, that purchasing and shipping guns out to mexico is going to continue to be a problem. host: the law covered such things as possession by prohibited persons, selling or giving to a prohibited person, use of fire arms in a drug felony or crime of violence. should there be an expansion above where we are as far as the number of federal gun laws?

what would you add? guest: i think i would start with the premise that there is some agreement between the gun lobby and folks who think we need to get some illegal guns of the street. we do not enforce the laws that we have right now. . . >> somebody who's not in the business of selling guns, there's no background check and obviously criminals know and private sales at these

gun shows become a source of prime guns, also new york city did a major investigation on gun sales online and found you can buy about anything you want on the internet and very often you can do it not only with no background check, we announced in 62 percent of cases in which an investigator told the private seller, look, i hope i don't have to have a background check because i couldn't pass one, the private seller could sell it anyway. that's a felony. the internet and gun shows are both great things, but i think you kind of need to tighten up what we believe is current law by requiring background checks on both of them. do we need new laws, you very well may need to kind of close a loophole in current law to make sure that everybody gets a background check, but we believe the letter of the law that was passed in 1968 forbidding people who are in those categories of prohibited purchasers can be fulfilled,

whether through new legislation or not. >> i degree with mr. glaze's previous point that a lot of things should be left to the states and indeed if states don't enforce background checks, they should. i don't think that's something the federal government should be getting into. the federal laws i think you listed off i think are find if there are enforcement problems, they're enforcement problems, that's not a problem of new laws. the gun lobby, he want to make clear i'm not part of the gun lobby, i'm part of the constitution lobby. i want to help people protect their rights and enforce their rights for self-defense, i've never owned a gun myself, i've lived in cities, in fact i grew up in canada so this is not a matter of being a shell for the nra or any other type of group. i just think this is something that law-abiding citizens should be able to defense themselves against whether it be mass murder mers, crazy people or muggers.

>> it's very unusual to find yourself in one of the thee dates where the person who wants tougher restrictions on guns is the son of a gun dealer and owns guns and the guy on the other side has net. this is probably the first time. >> host: bits -- pittsburgh, republican line, hi. caller: a couple of quick points. the law, according to it, president obama and eric holder would be in international court being charged with murder, number one. number two, chicago, 40 murders back on back, a month. where is the president speaking about it. rahm emanuel seems to be more concerned about chick a lick or whatever that chicken place is there. number about, -- number three, did anybody notice this guy was a note making bomb? he could have einvestigation ly put a gun in that theater. every time something happens, everybody goes nuts. msnbc was blaming newt gingrich in 1994, this brian

ross, he finds a guy's name, the same name this guy did it , blamed the tea party. >> guest: to bring politics bo it, president obama and moit rmny -- mitt romney, we're going to play their thoughts back to back and we'll get both of your thoughts on it as well. >> i like most americans believe that the second amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms. i think we recognize the traditions of gun ownership, passed on from generation to generation. that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage. but i also believe that a lot of gun otherrers would agree that ak47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. >> piers, i don't support new gun laws in this country. we have gun laws now, we have background checks on gun openship, and we have

300 million guns in america, we have a second amendment that protects the peoples' right to bear arms. i support that. i think the efforts to continue to look for some law to somehow make violence go away is missing the point. the real point has to relate to individuals that are deranged and distressed and to find them, to help them and keep them from carrying out terrible acts. >> host: mr. shapiro, you go first. >> it doesn't sound like there's any policy daylight between the two statements. certainly president obama has not come out with a call for any new legislation, which is good. -- which is good. despite the halaba loo, i don't think there are going to be any federal gun laws and the states, most states considering anything are coming up like what was the colorado consensus, passed in mr. glaze's home state, as he said, to have reasonable regulations like the background check, like eliminating straw purchasers, while enforcing the rights of individuals to carry and do

all these other things we've been talking about. host: mr. glaze? guest: there's not much daylight between them in the way that they talk about these laws, and in fact, there's less daylight than one might think, given the fact that when governor romney was in massachusetts being governor, he actually supported an assault weapon ban in that state, a place our coalition doesn't go. but there is also an enormous con sense among people in the country on what you ought to do, just as there is a consensus between -- and our mayors. frank once took a -- frank l. u -- luntz took a poll and 74 percent of nra members think there ought to be a criminal background check for everyone. even so that's very hard to get that done in congress and state legislatures because you have a gun lobby does not represent its memberships. it raises a lot of money, and

it's paranoia. as long as that's the case and they're will to go spend money in the lkses, it's hard to get done. it's too bad. host: time magazine, polling with when it comes to public opinion, respondents, the gallup poll, 2011, that was down from 78 percent in 1992. a couple of thoughts off of twitter, fishing sam says laws don't stop felons who want to get one. also weighing in this morning is matt johnson who asks what difference does gun control law make if you usurp the law to buy a gun ifs in. wains borough, pennsylvania, hello robbie, independent line. caller: i just wanted to go back to the constitutional portion of it. the right to bear arms has nothing to do, in my opinion, with hunting or feeding your family. it has everything to do, as a last ditch effort to protect yourself, your family, your

community, from a tyrannical government, and that right to protect ourselves -- in a last ditch effort, has to be protected. now, that being said, i also feel that there should be background checks, so that these crazy people don't do crazy things. how do you do that and balance that out and realize that the larger issue with the second amendment has to do with the protection of the freedoms of the people in this country? >> host: mr. shapiro. guest: i'm all about protecting freedom. that's what cato is all about and perhaps that's -- perhaps one point of disagreement, since we seem to be having a love fest, is the carry laws. there are nine states in the country that don't have shell issue. as i said, 41 states, like colorado, as long as you pass all these checks and you're not the naked man on the lawn

you're going to get your permit to conceal and carry but there are eight mates that are what are called may issue, which range from a little more discretion, i guess, to deny -- like delaware, to ones where effectively you're never going to get it unless you're a celebrity or the mayor indeed, like new jersey and new york. mayor bloomberg is kinds of hutzpah to be chairing mayors against legal guns, and yet wherever he goes, he has bodyguards that he would deny his fellow citizens so they can protect themselves, so there are those eight states where you have to be friends with the sheriff or a celebrity, as i said, or well connected politician, and of course in illinois and in the district of columbia, they're blaitently violating second amendment but not allowing you to carry at all. we're going to see future litigation in that area i think going up to the supremeority. >> host: mr. glaze, a response? guest: sure. you know, i'm not sure how much we disagree even there, the position of your mayors.

guest: i want to make the show a little more fun! >> guest: states ought to make these decisions. the mayor of new york has security because public officials can be targets, and that's why the president has security, too. but again, here in new york city, 85 percent of the guns that are found at crime scenes come from somewhere else, and that's because we have some of the toughest gun laws in the country and they work for us. now again, as i said, what works in montana might be somewhat different but we also have to recognize that respecting federalism is important, letting states decide is important. but because gun traffickers don't respect political boundaries or borders there are some problems for which we also have to have a uniform solution, so that if i can't buy a gun to do wrong in new york city i can't just go across the border to another state and get it and bring it back in, which is the problem that we often have in the district of columbia, for example. virginia has very weak laws, d.c. has comparatively strong ones. host: this is new york, al,

democrats' line. caller: hi, i wanted to make a comment on the right to bear arms to protect yourself against the government. first of all, this day and age, the government that is tanks, missiles, gunships, cruisemisms. that line that you need to protect yourself from this government really isn't working. also, the nra is just -- they're definitely the third rail. they got their hands in it. and all the peoples of pockets. it's never going to pass. we really need to try and focus -- like i'm from new york, and i think it's a good thing to kind of limit the amount of guns around. yes, a lot of people have them, and they do go to states like virginia and places thriek and that's all crimes are, where they get it from, and you know, you basically -- people -- we got 20 guns in your house, but 1000 rounds of ammunition, i

mean, you can't stop that, someone with 200 rounds or guns. what are you doing? i think you're preparing for some kind of revolution. the minority wise, not necessarily government wise. there's this ongoing thing of organizations that are -- trying to protect the government. host: thanks. mr. glaze should gun laws consider the amount of guns owned? guest: you know, some states have done that. virginia, for example -- i will go back into the archives, way back when the mayor of new york was mayor jenkins and governor of virginia was governor wilder, they kind of recognized the fact that virginia is i think still the largest exporter of crime guns, and it to new york, they got together and decided that virginia will limit gun purchases to one a month, that's 12 a year and the governor of virginia eliminated that law, so maybe

we'll see whether the laws make a difference sometime soon, but i -- our mayors don't personally take a position on measures to limit how many guns you can own, no. host: and the limitation, is it a concern of yours? guest: gun collection is legitimate as car collection or anything else, and the caller's point about protecting against the government, i mean, we're talking here about a doom's day apocalyptic scenario something where there's effectively civil war, and i think even given the gunships and tanks and so forth versus rifles, if you have an armed citizenry or those who just have the types of arms in common use for self-defense, that might be something that's important, in that, you know, apocalyptic scenario. i want to mention one thing about going across state lines and dealing and so forth. you have to distinguish between firearms, illegal firearms dealers and those who would import guns into

new york to do harm or to sell to gangs versus innocent law-abiding citizens who happen to be traveling through states that have these more restrictive laws and are tied up because of either they're stopped for speeding or some other even more innocent thing. every few years here in d.c. we hear about in the metro section, you chuckle, you hear the stories about a little old lady from texas or so forth giving the guard at the smithsonian to hold on to while she checks out the theater and being charged with a felony. people like this who are obviously innocent, you know, whether it's a prosecutorial discretion or rewriting the law in a certain way, to not capture these people, that clearly are listened in -- licensed in their home state, or simply aren't aware of the weird things in places like d.c. and new york about guns. host: charlestown, west virginia, gary, independent line. caller: thank you for having me on, first-time caller.

this particular issue is pretty important to me. i'll try to keep it brief. first thing, as far as the magazines go, something was said earlier about how many rounds should be in a magazine. here's the thing. i'm a firearms instructor, an avid sportsman, i'm a hunter, i shoot a lot. there's no particular reason for anybody to have a 100 round magazine. something of that nature is not for self-defense, it is nothing -- there's no other purpose except for shooting -- for warfare. the type of weapon systems such as ar15s, ak47s, again, those were basically platforms designed as military and wore fare use. it's not something an untrained civilian should have. host: so the question is so what? caller: i didn't have a question. but i'd like to more or less -- have both gentlemen weigh

in on that, as far as the basic -- how can i put it -- they were talking about the basic laws. and the new regulation for gun control. and as far as a semiautomatic, you know, they have to be more along the lines of -- >> host: let's leave it there. during this conversation, i've addressed this conversation but they can add in what they want. john from new york on the democrats' line. caller: the gentleman, i forgot name, spoke about a police state and he also spoke about property rights. it appears to me that it is because we live in a police state that guns are so valued. obviously, the human is not of value, it's what the human owns in this society that is of value. the ownership class, those who exploit professional labor, blue collar labor and the state, which by sheer force exploits professional

labor, blue collar labor and the poor. but the individual takes on the exaggerated sense of individualism, just because of the real individual freedom. host: to our topic, sir? >> caller: i would add that guns, because people know this intrinnicly, guns are there to protect ownership. the means of production, guns take on an exaggerated value for people and they really do point to them. that's a very unfortunate term because we know who said that but he meant more. i'm taking myself out of context. values are value -- guns are valued over humans because property rights are extremely valuable and the individual left out of this, exaggerates the individual to a great degree where it no longer has any meaning. host: we'll leave it there. guest: it is entirely too early in the morning for that conversation. guest: i can something off of what that caller said, the topic of the poor. most gun violence in this country is in poor

communities. somebody earlier mentioned black on black crime, in chicago, and what have you, and in d.c. as well, of course, and it's unfortunate that a lot of people have benefit from gun rights and being able to possess guns in places like chicago and d.c. are the urban poor and i think that's something that even as our national homicide rate has fallen from i think -- i think cut in half in the last 30 years, from 1980 to 2010, there are still problems in urban communities, and i think from a legal weaponry, obviously, so if individuals who are underprivileged and have less economic power, if they are at least able to defend themselves and their families i think we'd be better off. host: can either of you think of a situation where we'd have to see a major shift on how to deal with gun control in the united states as far as laws are concerned, mr. shapiro? guest: gosh, if one state, or if the federal government, if a high profile politician started talking about

disarming people or putting in much harsher laws, you know, we've had massacres of various kinds and those don't seem to shift it. i really don't know. if we had complete prosperity and everything was going great in the country in terms of economy and health care and all these other issues, then kind of, you know, you'd start guns and social issues and things like that would take more prominence. host: mr. glaze? guest: yeah, i think that's right. the applicable's attention -- the public's steangs different issue, waxes and wanes depending upon who is on the buttoner but 34 people are murdered each and every day m this country. can you stop all of them with laws? no, you can't. but if you did the simple things like make sure they got a background check, if they're seriously mentally ill, make sure that's known to the federal government, you could actually stop a lot of them an some of that you could do without new laws. what will happen is eventually somebody, whether it's a president, senator,

bunch of mayors, will take some brave steps, implement common sense reforms, and the gun lobby and people who really care about having their guns will discover that the sky doesn't fall and things will change. host: joining us, mark glaze, director of mayors against illegal guns, joining us from new york, and ilya shapiro with the cato institute, a senior fellow for that organization. both of you gentlemen, thank you for the conversation. >> guest: thank you. >> guest: thank you for having me. >> the political parties are holding their platform hearings in advance of the summer conventions with democrats holding hearings in minnesota this weekend, followed with the final platform recommendations in detroit. in mid august, republicans start their platform process, at their convention site in tampa, florida. c-span's coverage of the party conventions continues august 10 with the reform party in philadelphia, followed by the republican national convention, with live gavel to gavel coverage, beginning monday august 27th from tampa and the democratic

national convention, live from charlotte, north carolina, starting monday september 3rd. >> in his weekly radio address president obama urged republican members of the house to approve the senate's tax cut extension for middle class americans before next year. he emphasized that doing so would create more jobs, encourage businesses to stay in the u.s., and make education more affordable. utah senator orrin hatch delivered the republican response. he talked about the impact the tax hikes could have on economic recovery, and he criticized the obama administration's tax polices, saying they would discourage small businesses from hiring more workers and making investments. >> this week, the senate passed a plan that i proposed a few weeks ago to protect middle class americans and virtually every small business owner from getting hit with a big tax hike next year, a tax hike of $2200 for the typical family. now it comes down to this.

if 218 members of the house vote the right way, 98 percent of american families and 97 percent of small business owners will have the certainty of knowing that their income taxes will not go up next year. that certainty means something to, a middle class family who's already stretched the budget as far as it can go. it means something to a small business owner who's trying to plan ahead. that is security at time when folks could use some security. and here's the thing. everyone in washington says they agree on this. everyone says they agree that we should extend the tax cuts for the middle class. when democrats and republicans agree on something, it should be pretty easy to get it done. but right now, that's not the case. instead of doing what's right for middle class families and small business ownerrers, republicans in congress are holding these tax cuts hostage until we extend tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. republicans in congress have their nominee for president,

believe the best way to create prosperity in america is to let it trickle down from the top, they believe if our country spends trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthy, we'll somehow create jobs, even if we have to pay for it by gutting things like education and training and by raising middle class taxes. they're wrong. and i know they're wrong, because we already tried it that way for most of the last decade. it didn't work. we're still paying for trillions of dollars of tax cuts that benefitted the wealthiest americans more than anyone else. tax cuts that didn't lead to the middle class jobs or higher wages we were promised and that helped take us from record surpluses to record decifits. we can't afford more top-down economics. what we need are polices that will grow and strengthen the middle class, that will help create jobs, make education and training more affordable, and encourage businesses to start up and stay right here in the united states. that's why i've cut middle class taxes every year that i've been president, by $3600 for the typical family.

that's why i've cut taxes for small businesses, 18 times. and that's why i'm calling on 218 members of the house to do their jobs and not raise taxes on the middle class. as soon as they pass that bill, i'll sign it right away and in the meantime, i'm going to keep fighting for an economy where we're not just putting folks back to work, but making sure that work pays off. an economy where every american, no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from, can have the confidence that if you work hard, you can get ahead. thanks. and have a great weekend. >> hello. i'm senator orrin hatch of utah. it's sometimes hard to see how the policy debates in washington affect you sitting at home, but there's a significant debate taking place that could put nearly every american on the hook to pay more taxes to uncle sam. in just over five months, middle class families, job creators, and seniors will get hit with a massive tax hike, unless the president

and congress act. this would mean taxes would go up on virtually every single tax paying american. the alternative minimum tax, designed decades ago to ensure that 154 wealthy americans paid some income taxes, would then hit 2 million americans with a $92 billion tax hike next year alone. now, what would this cost you? a family of four earning $50,000 a year would see a $2200 tax hike. if you're a single mother with a $36,000 a year paycheck, you'd pay $1100 more to the government. a married couple over 65, with $40,000 in income would see their tax bill double. and just under 1 million small businesses who are trying to lead our economic recovery would be hit with as much as a 17 percent tax hike. think about that. one million job creators with less to invest and create jobs.

this just doesn't make sense. the uncertainty caused by this tax crisis or taxmedeggon is contributing to america was economic recovery. that's not a republican talking point. that's based on what job creators across the country are saying, like beth geinz from sandy, utah who said that any increases in expenses or outlays always has a big decrease on our ability to do business, or the 90 percent of small businesses who told the chamber of commerce they are very concerned with taxmegeddon or federal reserve chairman ben bernanke who told congress that our country's economic recovery could be endangered, the congressional budget office an international monetary fund have both issued warnings as well. taxmegeddon doesn't have to happen. in the last few weeks, i've offered a clear choice with how we can stop it. as the top finance on the senate finance committee i

put forth a common sense plan to prevent this massive increase so we can take a long overhaul of america's broken tax code next year, unfortunately, washington democrat in default position appears to be to let everyone's taxes skyrocket if congress doesn't agree to their plan to raise taxes on one of the most productive segments of our economy. the groups charged with representing small businesses found that 25 percent of our work force is employed by those very small businesses that will be hit by the president's proposed tax hikes. in a study by ernst & young found the looming tax increases would shrink the economy by 1.3% and shed 710,000 americans from the work force. raising taxes as our economy continues to struggle is not a solution. and the majority of americans and businesses understand that. the president once understood that as well.

in 2010, he said that allowing these same tax increases would have been a blow to our economy, just as we're climbing out of a devastating recession. forty democrats in the senate agreed. joining republicans to stop these potentially devastating tax hikes. that was the right position then, and with news this week that economic growth is weaker than it was two years ago, it's the right position today. regrettably, washington democrats have abandoned that common sense position, opting for a campaign message instead. this week, senate democrats voted on a partisan proposal to increase taxes on small businesses and jack up the death tax, hitting 24 times more farms, ranches, and over 13 times more family businesses by as much as 55 percent. the good news is that they won't become law with the house of representatives set

to pass bipartisan legislation next week ensuring no one gets an income tax hike. now, the president may not think that small business owners are the ones who actually built their business, but the president and his allies need to listen to what you, the american people, are saying. republicans are listening, and that's why we put forward this common sense plan to extend all the current tax rates as we did in 2010 so we can work together next year to fundamentally reform our broken, costly tax code. what will tax reform look like? it should mean lower tax rates to promote more hiring, investment, and a stronger economy. a simpler tax code should make it easier for people to invest in new businesses, pay for our children's education, and give money to charity. this isn't the time for political games and vilifying job creators. the president and his washington allies need to stop holding america's economy