since 1977. congressman mike is a 10 term congressman. and he is expected to bill nelson will face connie mack in november after each won their primary. linda mcmahon defeated chris shays in the senate primary. joe lieberman is retiring. chris murphy beat susan. the heritage foundation will be hosting a discussion on the impact of sequestration budget cuts on the u.s. national guard. an automatic five under million dollars goes into effect in

january unless congress changes the law. -- an automatic $500 million goes into effect. michelle obama will be joining president obama on the campaign trail today. we'll have live coverage of today's stop in dubuque, iowa. the president travels to davenport and we will have that live, as well. the republican party has released more details about their convention at the end of august. the first day will be the longest with the convicted gaveling in at 2:00 p.m. eastern and lasting through the evening and wrapping up around 11:00 p.m. we will have live coverage of every minute of the republican and democratic conventions here on c-span.

>> now the soviet bear may be gone but there are still wolves in the woods and we saw that when saddam hussein invaded kuwait. the mideast might have become a nuclear powder keg. our energy supplies held hostage. what was necessary. we destroyed a threat, freed a people, and locked a tyrant in the prison of his own country. [cheers] >> tonight, 10 million of our fellow americans are out of work. tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. the incumbent president says unemployment always goes up a little bit before a recovery begins. but unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin. >> c-span has aired every minute of every major party convention since 1984. this year, watch the republican

and democratic conventions on c- span starting monday, august 27. >> leon panetta and the chairman of the joint chiefs briefed reporters yesterday about operations in afghanistan, the gypt'sion in syria, and e.g.' new defense minister. this is just over 45 minutes. >> first of all, i wanted to indicate that, earlier today, i had a very good conversation with general al-sisi, which is the new general of defense in egypt. he is that highly experienced

officer. general al-sisi expressed his unwavering commitment to the u.s.-egypt relationship, which has been an anchor of stability in the middle east for more than 30 years. and i in turn indicated to him that i look forward to working with him and to continuing the relationship with egypt that we have had over the years. he takes seriously the obligations under the camp david treaty. he is committed for making the sinai and mary for militants. i indicated that i look forward to working with him in the

region. this morning, i also conducted a regular update. general dempsey and i both with the general allan. he continues to do an outstanding job as the commander of the assistance force. i will give you a brief update on afghanistan as well as a result of that conversation. we discussed the progress of the campaign, specifically with regard to four key goals which we are trying to achieve in afghanistan. first, the abilities of the afghan forces, second, the pressure on the insurgency, and third forcing to maintain the international community's unity of effort. we have long expected that our

forces would remain in a tough fight through this fighting season. that has been true through these last summer months. there is no denying that this has been the case. at the same time, it is clear that we're continuing to make significant progress toward trying to achieve the goals we have laid out. first of all, on the afghan forces, the ansf continues to grow in size. two-thirds of those in uniform defending afghanistan and now afghans. and the ansf continues to grow to 350 two thousand later this -- 352,000 later this year. the growth of afghan special operations, having the capability has allowed afghans to plan, conduct, and lead special operations missions every day and every night.

the ana recently operated a -- activated a special command consisting of 10,000 soldiers in one recent 24-hour period, 25 operations were afghan-led. they are showing real capability and that shows positive for the future. ansf has the potential to deal with a crippling and lasting blow to the insurgency. they have tried to take credit for a number of so-called insider attacks that have taken place in this fighting season. make no mistake about it. i have been very concerned about these incidents. both of us have been because of

the lives lost and because of the potential damage toward our -- to our partnership efforts. general allan and i discussed a range of measures that he is taking to try to stop these attacks. i will touch on a few of those. pick first, to increase the intelligence presence so that we can try to get better information with regards to these kinds of potential attacks. also, to increase counterintelligence, to increase people trained in counterintelligence so they can as well identify those threats. secondly, we have a thorough vetting process. it is an eight-step process. we're doing forensics on the particular instances that have occurred to make sure how that vetting process happened. and what we can do to improve it.

notification process so that, when we get information, we can alert people to the threats. to try to identify these people. we have a guardian angel program which involves identifying one individual who stands to the side so he can watch people's backs and hopefully identify people that could be involved in those attacks. general allan is meeting with the security ministers. they will talk about further steps to take to protect against these attacks. he is also meeting with the village elders. these are the people who usually about for individuals. individuals. the vig they have to sign something that the vouchers for the character of these individuals to ensure that that is being done properly. all of this requires action by both the united states, the coalition forces, and by our

afghan partners who all face this insider threat. we mustn't forget that the afghans themselves are also targets of these attacks as well. i want to stress that these incidents, which now include 31 afghans, do not reflect the pride and dedication of the 350,000 police of the afghan national security forces. the talibaneason the afghan - is targeting in this manner is the success that the afghan partners are having on the battlefield. the reality is that the taliban has not been able to regain any territory lost. so they are resorting to these kinds of attacks to create havoc. there is no question it is of concern. it is dangerous and we have to do everything we can to try to prevent it.

we will not allow this kind of intimidation to undermine our efforts to build up the nsf. and to put more in the lead. secondly, we're putting pressure on the insurgency, the growth of a nsf is increasingly putting pressure on the insurgency itself. as the fighting season has progressed, we have seen an increase in enemy-initiated attacks. violence levels have remained consistent with past summers. i should point out that a lot of this, according to general allen, we are taking the fight to the enemy. the number of casualties are going to increase. the fighting has been increasingly taking place away

from major populated areas. the insurgency remains on the defensive and it has not been able to regain ground that it has lost. all of this has enabled us to continue with the transition to an afghan lead, which is the third goal that we are after. and the transition has been and remains very much a successful operation. over half of the afghan population is predominantly -- is projected protected by a predominantly afghan force. we hope that it willfully be implemented later this year. 75% of the afghan population, including every provincial capital, would be in the transition process and would be under afghan security and governance. security gains made in these areas have been sustained in the first six months of this year. insurgent attacks were down 15% in areas that were undergoing transition, compared to 2011.

this has allowed us to introduce security-force assistance teams. these are small teams of isaf advisers. they come from all of our isaf partners and they train, advised and assist ansf units. on unity of the effort, obviously, the transition plan has the strong support of the afghan people and the international community. because of that, we have been able to maintain a strong unity of effort with the afghan government and our international partners. generalscussions with t allen and my foreign counterparts, i meet with a lot of those who continue to supply forces, i have been struck by their commitment and unity to

overcome the effort. pakistan has taken a more positive step to events our objective of a secure and peaceful afghanistan. their decision to open up the nato supply lines means a great deal to us to bring containers and material that are now moving across the border into afghanistan. cross border cooperation with pakistan is increasing. general allan is meeting on a regular basis with the general kayani. and trying to improve that cross border cooperation. now, i realize that there are a lot of other things going on in this country that can draw our attention. from the olympics into political campaigns to drought

to some of the tragedies we have seen in communities around the country. but i thought it was important to remind the american people that there is a war going on in afghanistan. and that young men and women are dying in order to protect this country. even as our surge forces will drawdown of the end of september and we are on track, there will remain 68,000 americans in uniform who will be deployed in a very tough fight against a determined enemy. as secretary of defense, i have said this before -- one of my toughest jobs is writing condolence letters to the families of our fallen heroes. frankly, i seem to be writing more lately. more than 1950 americans in

uniform have died defending our country in a can stand and -- in afghanistan and thousands more, as you know, have been injured, some very seriously. the pain and the heartbreak of this war weigh heavily on me. and i know they weigh heavily upon general dempsey as well as our other military and civilian leaders. but also as well on the families of those who have lost loved ones. and yet, when i talk to the families of the fallen, when you meet with them and meet with our wounded troops in bethesda, i am impressed by their need to see these missions through. and to ensuring that these sacrifices are not in vain. i want to say to the american people to take the time and reflect on the sacrifices. it is because of the sacrifices that i think we're moving in the right direction.

and afghanistan that can secure and protect itself. it can deny al qaeda is a safe haven from which to attack us. that is a tribute to general allen's leadership and for the countless sacrifices of thousands of americans and international and afghan forces who stepped forward to make us safer. at a time when i am sure that there is an awful lot to be mad about, there is a lot to be proud of when it comes to our men and women in uniform. and we shouldn't forget that. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i obviously share our deep admiration for men and women in uniform and all those serving in afghanistan. theirs is a story of unrelenting courage and uncommon sacrifice. it is a story they share with our coalition and afghan partners. it is a progress towards a more

secure afghanistan. the progress does not mean an end to violence or tragedy. i was reminded of that last friday when i went to dover to grieve with families as their flag-draped coffins return to their native soil. at that time, i was also inspired by the solemn professionalism of our airmen at dover who make sure every single dignified transfer is worthy of the fallen soldier and their family. i am returning to cobble next -- kabul next week to talk with general allan and other partners on how to make the anfs stronger and the taliban weaker. we will talk about efforts at every echelon to confront the insider attack that the secretary just elaborated on. i will also travel through iraq for the first time since our mission and there appeared. take stock of our efforts to continue to build a relationship through the office

of cooperation. and we will talk about what is working and what is the best way forward. we meet as peers and it is essential that our partnership continue to develop on that basis. in a similar vein, i, too, have reached that to my counterpart in egypt. i sense a positive -- for one thing, he is another army war college graduate. he has a longstanding relationship with the united states army. and i sense a positive trend for a respected military. while i spoke with the previous chief, and our relationship transcends individuals. i was encouraged by the increased emphasis on security in the sinai, which had been a concern to all of us. before taking your questions,

allow me to offer a few thoughts on my recent and upcoming travels. i was in silicon valley recently for about a week to anduss vulnerabilities opportunities in cyber with industry leaders. this is a domain without borders or buffer zones where public, private collaboration is the only to safeguard our nation's critical infrastructure. we all agreed on the need to share threat information at network speed. and i would like to see a return in congress to push legislation that does at least this. i would also like to mention our olympic athletes, 16 of which in the london games were active military men and women. i had a chance to visit with some of them. i had a chance to walk through the arlington cemetery with our basketball men and women. they displayed great courage and an enduring spirit to win.

two weeks from now, it will be our official delegation to be paralympics. many of those athletes are wounded warriors. on that ending note, i look forward to your questions. >> could you provide a little more detail on some of the added actions that will be taken on the green-onblue attack, the ongoing attacks? considering the numbers of these attacks, as you know, are on smaller teams and parties. is the intention to add intelligence to those small teams? how would be practically done? also, are there any other practical things that you are looking at in order to protect the troops, such as expanding the guardian angel across all of

the services? is it really possible to do this as the cost of doing business? >> first of all, you will hear us talk about these incidents more as insider attacks. lue.er than green on belo it understates the effect that this is having a on the ansf itself. they are suffering from the same trend that we're suffering. secondly, i would never become contend that there is not more that we can do. i would never characterize this as the cost of doing business. as the secretary mentioned, as always, and there are far more story is about a positive relationship than there is about this particular insight attack trend. but it is one that we have to be focused on.

for example, in one of the recent green-on-blues, it was a special operations forces lieutenant and a sergeant who came to the aid of their american counterparts and lost their lives in the process of coming to their aid. so this is not a case where you chalk it up to the cost of doing business. a couple of other things. we should all be encouraged by the message by president karzai condemning it. it resonates more effectively than us continuing to talk about it. secondly, general allan is convening a conference of all of his wounded stars and senior -- one-stars and above and senior advisers. this is the topic of that

conference. more important probably is a the afghan security ministers are having a summit to talk about what they can do on their side. the secretary mentioned that john has convened an acronym called jcft and it will look at the recruiting process, filing promptly, where did the men who committed -- what are the indicators that we missed? and we will learn something from that. we are also adding counterintelligence expertise, both inside of our own staff. i really expect them to be part of the security forces team and i would expect them to have a more robust capability. -- at the battalion level and above. and so true are the afghans. we are adding internal counterintelligence to them.

they discharged hundreds of soldiers who did indicate that they -- that some of these young men had the capability of being radicalized, either by traveling back and forth to pakistan, by literature, by music, and so forth. there are indicators that we track. >> the pentagon report in this program said that most of these incidents had to do more with personal grudges. basically, maybe americans disrespecting afghans that led to bloodshed. that there was very little taliban in frustration. -- infiltration. are we seeing a change now where there's more taliban infiltration into these incidents? >> in talking with john allen, it is clear that there is no one source that is producing these kinds of attacks.

some of it are individuals who, for some reason, are upset and they take it out. we have seen that here in the united states often times. secondly, there is a self- radicalization that sometimes takes place within it. so a person may not be a member of the taliban, but is suddenly self- radicalized with incentives for that type of thing. we have seen some of that take place in some of these attacks. and then others have some taliban ties. it is difficult to draw any kind of conclusion as to just exactly whether this is kind of a pattern, a broad pattern. appeared from everybody that i have talked to at this point, these seem to be incidents that

a taking place that are oftentimes caused by different backgrounds of the individuals involved. >> you mentioned pakistan and afghanistan relationship. people are running out of patience. what is the u.s. reaction? why is the u.s. not able to show a strong reaction to pakistan? >> it is very important that we do everything possible to try to get pakistan to take the right steps on their side of the border. the reality is that the communication and the relationship has gone better. general allan is meeting with general karani on a regular

basis. we have been able to make progress with regards to other areas of assistance. one area where we are making particular progress is in trying to develop better cross border operations so that both the pakistanis and the united states and afghans are all working on the global areas to identify -- border areas to identify terrorists who are creating havoc. there is no doubt that there are terrorist coming across from pakistan who wind up in afghanistan and then have some cross-border incidents across the way. with general allen is open to do is that the pakistanis can help the united states identify the terrorists on the afghan side of the border and we can help identify some of the terrorists on the pakistani side of the border. so there can be better coordination to try to do with

-- deal with these kinds of cross border incidents. >> on syria, we have word now that many of the 48 iranian men who were captured earlier this month by the syrian army in damascus are in fact irtc members. what information do you have about this? what were they doing there? how deep does iranian involvement run in this conflict? >> without having specific information about the individuals involved in this particular situation, it is obvious to both general dempsey and i that iran is playing a larger role in syria in many ways. not only in terms of the irtc, but in terms of assistance, training. there is now an indication that

they're trying to develop and train a militia within syria. one that is able to fight against the regime. so we are seeing a growing presence by iran. and that is of deep concern to us, that that is taking place. we do not think that iran ought to be playing that role at this moment in time. it is dangerous and is adding to the killing that is going on in syria. and it tries to bolster a regime that we think will ultimately come down. it will wind up promoting the misery of the syrian people. our hope is that iran thinks better of how much they do want to get involved.

but in any event, we have to make sure that iran does not exercise that kind of influence in syria and try to determine the future of the syrian people. the syrian people ought to determine their future, not iran. >> the militia you mentioned, are these iranian fighters you're talking about? have the iranians picked up arms or are they training? >> from what we have seen, a lot of it is training and a lot of it is assistance. they are training in this militia. i believe that the militia is>> it is translated into the army of the people. summer to what they did in iraq -- similar to what they did in iraq.

>> mr. secretary, you talk about seeing a larger role played by iran. have either of you seen evidence of al qaeda? >> there have been reports that al qaeda is present, but not aligned with the opposition. al qaeda is opportunistic. and i think it is on that basis that they are trying to find inroads into syria, but not aligned with the opposition in the way that the iranian influences are aligning themselves with the regime. >> you may statement about -- you made a statement as did secretary clinton that, in a post-assad era, you don't want to see a repeat of what happened in iraq in terms of the military being dismantled. >> sure. >> are you just throwing that out there publicly or are you specifically talking to anyone in syria or the opposition? i don't mean you personally, but the u.s.

>> i am not. but, obviously, one of the focuses for secretary clinton is to try to determine what a post-assad syria will look like and what steps need to be taken. there are a number of concerns that we have in that situation. how do we maintain security of the chemical biological weapons that are being stored there and ensure that they remain secure and don't fall into the wrong hands? how do we develop a process to ensure that the different segments of the opposition can come together and be able to organize in some kind of transitional government? how are we able to deal with some of the other groups that are now, like al qaeda, their

withvement, how do we do witeal them? how do we deal with hezbollah in this process? there are a number of questions that need to be addressed in that kind of situation. i think there is a strong diplomatic effort to try to determine what that would look like. >> and direct you as active in -- a direct u.s. active role in trying to do this. >> i think the u.s. is working with our allies to determine which steps we will be taking. >> can i talk with you about military assessments on both sides of this area of conflict? for the regime, there are forces, troops, equipment. what is your assessment? our they worn out -- are they worn out? are they reaching the end? can they maintain spare parts and logistics? lots of rumors out there.

do you believe that they have an anti-air capability? that they have the beginning potentially of heavy weapons? your assessment on the spot. >> on the condition of the syrian army, it has been fighting now for 18 months or so. and the army would be taxed with that kind of pace. we are expecting that they're having -- you know, sanctions and other pressures -- they're having supply problems, morale problems, the kind of wear and tear that would come from being in a fight for as long as they have. and i believe that iran is stepping in to form this motion -- militia to take some of the pressure off of the syrian military. you may have seen the prime minister, who left syria, is now calling on syria to do the honorable thing. and to join him.

i think that would be an outcome that we would support. on the other side, there was a report this weekend of the mig- 23. we don't know how it was shot down. >> do you believe it was shut down? >> the indicator was that it had a failure of some kind convicted not appear to be mechanical. but it could have been shot down with a small arms fire. it did have surfaced-air missile capability. they did capture one tank. beyond that, we have seen no indication that anyone has armed them with heavy weaponry. although, we're certainly alert to that possibility and wouldn't be surprised by it. >> given what secretary clinton said over the weekend, are you now looking again at the notion of having a no-fly zone or safe

haven for new working groups? or are you absolutely convinced that a no-fly zone is no feet? -- is not feasible? >> militarily, i explore options with partners, especially in these kinds of incidents. we have been in discussion with jordanians and the turks. they are both interested mostly in the effects that could spill from syria in to their countries. both have examined the possibility of a safe haven. but a safe haven would probably have some kind of no-fly zone. but we are not planning anything unilaterally, if that's what you're asking. >> as we both indicated, obviously, we plan for a number of contingencies and we have planned for a number of contingencies there. right now, with regards to syria, we are focused on three

areas. number one, humanitarian assistance. we provide about 81 million and we continue to work with turkey and jordan to do what we can to provide further assistance to do with the refugees p. secondly, cbw sides continue to be a serious concern and we continue to monitor those sites, working with turkey and jordan. we have been in discussions with israel to determine what steps need to be taken to ensure that those sites are secure and maintain so that those weapons don't fall into the wrong hands. thirdly, assisting the opposition. we are providing non-lethal aid to the opposition. other gulf countries are providing more aggressive assistance to the opposition, as well. but our goal is to do what we can to make a more effective in

the flight. as far as the no-fly zone, that is not an issue to us. >> there has been an uptick in publicity on speculation that israel is getting ready. -- gear ready to attack iran again. -- getting ready to attack iran again. on august 1, you said we need every option and every effort before it undertaking military action. then it was written that time is dwindling. the window of opportunity has been shut. what is your view here? is israel closer than ever before to taking unilateral strikes against iran? and what is your general thinking about the effectiveness of those types of strikes undertaken by a nation without stealthier craft bore bumper-busting type of weaponry? >> i have said this before.

i will say it now. i don't believe they have made a decision as to whether or not they will attack iran at this time. obviously, they are independent. they are a sovereign country. they will make decisions on what they think is in their best national security interest good but i don't think they have made that decision at this time. with regards to the issue of where they are at from a diplomatic point of view, the reality is that we still think there is room to continue to negotiate. the additional sanctions have been put in place. they are beginning to have an additional impact on top of the other sanctions that have been placed there. the international community is strongly unified in opposition to iran developing any kind of nuclear weapon.

and we're working together both on the diplomatic side as well as on the economic side to apply sanctions. i think the effort is one that the united states and the international community will continue to press. as i said and i will continue to repeat, the prime minister of israel said the same thing. military -- any kind of military action ought to be the last alternative, not the first. >> but they say that the window is almost shut. >> obviously, israel has to respond to that question. from our point of view, the window is still open it to work towards a diplomatic solution. >> militarily, my assistant -- my assessment has not changed.

i'm not privy to their planning. i may not know about all of their capabilities. my assessment is based on their capabilities and i may not know all of their capabilities. but characterization's say they could delay but not destroyed iran's nuclear capabilities. >> but that -- the time frame? >> i have not changed my assessment. >> thank you. i am from venezuela. the venezuelan government has been very outspoken, highlighting its support of the syrian and iranian governments. i like to know if you have any comments on that. thank you. >> we don't agree with a lot that venezuela does and we would obviously not agree with their approach to syria as well. i guess venezuela will have to

make its own decisions as to what governments that want to support or not support. >> two questions. has pakistan [inaudible] are you aware of their nuclear capability, that pakistan is extending their nuclear weapons program because of terrorists inside pakistan? also, it is 65 years of independence. >> one of the things i have

always tried to stress in that region is the importance of india and pakistan working together to deal with the issues that they confront. we will never have real stability in that region without india and pakistan, and for that matter afghanistan, working together in trying to do with common threats, particularly those threats from terrorism. i really do believe, when i talk to the pakistanis, i always stress the fact that we should have common cause which refeith regards to confronting terrorists in order to

confronting terrorism. a lot of pakistanis have died. terrorists are a real danger to their country. members of their military have died as a result of terrorism and it is important for them to recognize that threat and to act against that threat. in particular, it is important because they are a nuclear power and the great danger we always fear is that, if terrorism is not controlled in their country, that their nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands. >> i'm sorry. what message you have given him? >> i did not. he was here when i was a broad. >> as i was. but the chief of army staff, and recognizing the independent states, he gave a speech that i

would incurred due to take a -- i would encourage you to take a look at. >> as general dempsey said, the war and conflict has been going on for 17-18 months. do you think that, number one, america has done enough? -- that america is doing enough to bring this regime to andan end? and, number two, is there reason in the future -- are you confident that you have enough firepower? >> with respect to that last question, there is no question in my mind that we are -- that we have positioned a significant force in the middle east to deal with any kind of contingency. we are prepared to respond to whatever the president of the united states asks us to do.

with regard to syria, we are not standing still. there is a very strong diplomatic effort that secretary clinton is involved in, working with turkey, working with jordan, working with our allies, to try to continue to bring pressure on syria. there are a number of sanctions that have been brought against syria, economic sanctions that have had an impact. at the same time, we're working on the humanitarian assistance. we're trying to secure the cbw. and we are trying to provide assistance to the opposition. i think the reality is that it is having an impact on assad. it is having an effect on the regime. we are seeing increasing defections. we are seeing problems within their military. i think that it is a matter of

time. -- before we are successful in bringing assad down. but it will take continuing pressure. it would be helpful if the russians and the chinese were a part of that effort. but, if they are not, we believe that the international community is maintaining enough unity on this issue that they can continue to bring strong pressure on the syrian regime to bring it down and to give syria back to the syrian people. >> you said we're working on securing the cbw. what do you mean? >> we are monitoring those sites and keeping an eye on them and continuing to develop plans with the adjoining countries to ensure that they will always be secure. >> would not involve the forces

that involve the forces? >> discussion on sequestration budget cuts. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> that conversation is coming up in about 10 minutes here on c-span. michelle obama joins the president on the campaign trail. we will have live coverage of the two stops, first in dubuque, iowa, and then the president and first lady had to davenport, iowa, and that will be live here on c-span. the reform party have their nominations at their national

convention in philadelphia. kenneth cross is vice president. their comments to the convention delegates are 10 minutes. [applause] >> wow. i humbly accept your party's nomination for presidential candidate. i realize that many of you are taking a chance on someone that you did not know for very long before, but i hope this was an educated decision you made. i realize there are some concerns on some of my stances, but that is one reason i believe the reform party is going to grow immensely and work very well. we have the ability to talk about these things. discussion and communication are

key in any process. and this discussion is important in any growing process. i believe that through the process that we have going here, we are creating a model. and we are showing ourselves to be true to what america needs and what they want out of leadership. you are wonderful opponent. i respected everything you said. you are a wonderful opponent. i am proud to have you as the vice president on my side. i would say this also. there is a lot that drew me to this party, as i said before. but right now, as i look at the people who took part in this process, i am more proud. i see the vast stand of americans, young, old. there are some of them who are

executives, rich or poor. i see the people who are here in everyday life, those who are actually affected. not the upper, upper echelon. not the super-elites. but those who are affected by the decisions made by government. i promise you -- i will do what i can to represent the ideals and beliefs of this organization. the reform party encompasses and embodies what america is looking for. reform. we have to get this back to a simpler form of government. is simpler form of economics. this is not over-complicated. i greatly appreciate your faith in me at this point. and i reach out to each and every individual with any

problems with my stances. i want to work with you. i want to work with you and i want you to work with me in return. this is the only way it works for everyone. with everyone. if this is a unilateral decision, it will end in destruction. it will end in failure. and that is not what this party is about. this is about success and a better future. something where we can leave something better for our children and they have more than we had. something where we can strive to do better. in every aspect, in every scenario. where we can project a real image of democracy around the world. not the psuedo-democracy we have now and can make decisions in congress within the government and get things done. it won't be a do-nothing

government or america. it is not going to be an america where people look at us and whisper behind our backs on what we think we are or what we used to be. they will look at us as what we are now and how far we will go into the future. the reform party is the greatest party that there is now. we have nowhere to go but up. we are growing. we will be the voice of the middle class and all of america. as i have said before, i am not a proponent of the 1% or 99%, it is 100% of everyone in america. i will not focus on social issues. that's not what we need. that belongs outside of politics. i will focus on our economy.

on the defense of this country. and on making our americans better educated to make the decisions we need made every single day. i will intensify my focus on bringing jobs back to america. people who are working, grinding their hands to the bones, they don't have time to do the research needed. we need people that are going to be effectively integrating themselves into this process. this democratic process. this great, american process we have. it is what sets us apart from other countries and sets us apart from the communists, those who would be considered religious, fanatical countries.

we are america. we are great, and wonderful, and proud. i think the reform party is the microcosm of america. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you so much, andre. that was just marvelous. i would like to give the opportunity to mr. cross, who is our vice-presidential nominee. [applause] >> i am grateful to be nominated for the reform party for vice president. i look forward to working with mr. barnett to help restore

america to its position of strength and respect in the world that we ought to be in, and that we have dropped from in the two-party system. we need a better way than we are doing things now. right now, even the campaign going on largely at the presidential level is personal attacks and slurs. very little substance. it reminds me of that commercial, "where is the beef." a few policies and positions are set forth, with little detail provided and little focus on how they will do this and turn around the problems we have now. i am sure mr. barnett and i will spend time working on options to set forth before the people to provide alternatives

to what we have and solutions to our problems. we need a government, of the people, for the people, by the people. we have gotten away from that. i am not a politician. i am a citizen candidate. not a great speaker. i love my country. the founders of this country were not polished politicians. they were a citizen candidates. they were generals, farmers, scientists, and all sorts of walks of life that stepped forward to help serve their country. we need this attitude, we need to present that attitude before the people so they understand that there is a better way, there is a chance to have a better way through the reform party than giving up hope.

the american people, many i have talked to, photographic shops at wal-mart, they feel the same way. that there is nothing they can do and there is no hope. everything is out of control. the two parties are so polarized that nothing can be done and we just have to go forward and see what happens, when things collapse or crash. that is a pathetic situation and we can do better than what we have with the republicans and democrats. i look forward to assisting mr. barnett with his approaches and strategies and i believe that together, we can help to make a path for a stronger america, for ourselves and our posterity.

[applause] >> on our website, more coverage of the other party conventions including the libertarian. this is the heritage center getting under way. live coverage on c-span. >> good morning, welcome, everyone, to the heritage foundation. we welcome those joining us on our web site at on all these occasions and those joining us on the c-span network? . we appreciate their attendance with us today. we remind everyone in how to make sure cell phone is have been turned off as we proceed. it will be appreciated if. will post a program on our website within 24 hours.

our viewers are always welcome to send their comments and questions for the panel by e- mail. hosting our discussion this morning is steven bucci. is senior research fellow for defense and homeland security at our center for foreign policy studies. he looks at special operations and cybersecurity as well as defense support to civilian authority keith. he served america three decades as an army special forces officer. in july, 2001, he assumed the duties of military assistant to defense secretary donald rumsfeld and worked daily with the secretary for five and a half years if. when he retired, the continued at the pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense, homeland defense, and american security affairs. immediately prior to joining us and heritage, he served as a lead consultant to ibm on cybersecurity policy. join me in welcoming my cci.eague steven ybu

[applause] >> good morning. we hope to have a lively discussion this morning. i have a couple quick plug before my introduction of our esteemed speakers. first, today is national emp awareness day. electromagnetic pulse. it came up in our discussion yesterday and is kind of nice that this is part of our homeland security week discussion. electromagnetic pulse is something we need to worry about, because in a country like ours where everyone is connected electronically on a continuous basis, it would affect us. any of you who remember the blackberry outage we had last year for six hours and everybody in washington was in a panic, you can imagine what would

happen if if we had an event where we lost all our capabilities in a city or maybe all over the east coast for a while. the other thing is today is the official rollout of this document. these are are two speakers in the suits. [applause] this paper, critical mismatch, the dangerous gap between rhetoric and readiness in dod civil support missions. this is a critical issue. there is a problem with our capability to do our job, the job of the nation. this does not deal exclusively with the national guard, but the national guard is a huge part of this and need to be. hopefully, our speakers will touch on that a a bit this morning. this is available outside and we

hope everyone will share it. it is an issue that affects each of you. if you are at ground zero when something happens, you will want this nation to have the capability to respond properly and expeditiously. right now there is some debate as to whether we have that capability or not. our subject for this morning is the price every state will have to pay: the effect of sequestration on the national guard. i never served in the national guard. i spent 28 years in active duty in the united states army. but i had the opportunity numerous times to work with the national guard. as i became the deputy assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense i got to work with them pretty much every day. i have to tell you, if you don't understand what the national guard, army, and air guard, what they do for this country, you

are missing something, because those men and women are heroes for this country. they are the lineal descendants of the minutemen. that is in their simple and it's very appropriate, because they are regular citizens. are not just weekend warriors. they are people who have real jobs in our communities. and then when the call is given, they put down that plow or whatever they do and then pick up a musket and they are ready to help their fellow citizens and most of the time at great personal sacrifice. these folks are important. i cannot think of canada better people to discuss this with you than are two speakers. the first is paul mchale, president of civil support international, a consulting firm in washington. paul was my boss at the department of defense. >> can you say that again? >> my boss.

only two people are still referred to as boss. that is secretary mckale and secretary donald rumsfeld. they are two gentlemen that i hold in high esteem, not just because of what they have done and who they are, but because i have seen them at work and i have seen their dedication to this nation. secretary paul mchale is a former congressman from the state of pennsylvania. he served on numerous positions and the most relevant to this is the was the co-founder of the national guard and reserve components caucus in the house. he came to work at the pentagon. i will be honest, i was the military assistance to the secretary of defense at the time and i said, a former congressman, this could be painful. as it turns out, he is an incredible gentleman, easy to

work with. easy to work for. he wants you to perform properly. the happiest i ever saw him was when he recruited me to come work for him and then shook hands and said i will see you in about six months, i'm going off to put on my marine uniform and he went back to afghanistan. already retired from the marine corps reserve, recalled to duty so he could serve as an adviser to the minister in the afghan regime. he was so happy to be a marine again. they never stop being marines. he served there with great distinction and then came back and continued being my boss. his dedication to the national guard is not just professional. he also found a beautiful woman who is a national guard general, who he then married.

where is martha? that's his lovely bride. from vermont. next to him as the gentleman that he was joined at the hip with the whole time we were there in the building, lieutenant general retired h. steven blum. the whole time i knew steve, he was the director of the national guard bureau, not a very glamorous, but a very critical job. he later became the deputy commander of u.s. northern command, the first national guard officer ever to serve in that position. steve is also a special forces officer, which i kind of like, because i was too. he has served pretty much in every position you can have in the national guard. he is a man of infinite imagination, infinite energy, and vision. even before the rest of the

department of defense started getting ahold of the issue of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high yield explosives response, he was the one who picked up the gauntlet and said the guard can contribute to this and the guards will contribute to this. he made to the guard a critical cog in that responsibility. these two gentlemen fought that battle against a lot of naysayers and achieves quite a bit during their tenure. i will let you read paul's paper to get the status of it now, which is not quite as good as it was when they left office, but these two gentlemen i am proud to call both of them friends. they are personal heroes for me, because i have seen the work they have done for this nation, not for self aggrandizement and definitely not for money but for

the sake of this nation. i would ask you to join me in welcoming paul and steve. i will give each about 10 or 15 minutes to make opening remarks. and then we will go into question and answer. i will tell you, as i call on you to ask a question, if by the end of the second sentence i don't hear? , i will ask you to stop. questionon't hear a mark, i will ask you to stop. we will start with paul. [applause] >> steve, thank you very much for your kind words. i truly don't think of myself as your boss. i think of you as my friend and colleague. i was honored to serve by your side during 3 or four years of

pentagon service. general blum, my good friend, and my wife, the general as well. and the colonel just back from afghanistan, sir, thank you for your service. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, there was a very fine article in "politico" yesterday in which secretary of defense leon panetta was quoted. "i realize there are a lot of other things going on in this country that can draw our attention, from the olympics to political campaigns to drought to some tragedies we have seen in communities around the country. i thought it was important to remind the american people that there is a war going on."

the only thing worse than the fog legislative strategy of sequestration would be its actual implementation. with military men and women in daily combat, 41 were killed last month, says secretary panetta. it is a deep breach of trust to put the department of defense on automatic pilot. across-the-board cuts in d.o.t. funding would severely jeopardize the operational capabilities of our active forces, sent a message of u.s. defense vulnerability to our adversaries, and irresponsibly weaken the national guard in its ability to protect the u.s. homeland." because the sequestration cuts, totaling approximately $500 billion over 10 years are across the board, it's difficult to determine precise with the impact. but a substantial reduction in military personnel is a near certainty.

recently it was reported thatbye chairman of the house armed services committee and secretary leon panetta on july 25 when buck said, "we have 100,000 leaving the military." it's expected there will be a reduction of 100,000 personnel coming aboard donnelly from the army is what he's saying, as a result of cuts that have already been approved. then he went on to address sequestration. he said, "if we will have another 100,000 if sequestration takes effect." in response, secretary panetta said, "it would obviously add another 100,000 that would have to be reduced."

there is uncertainty as to what the impact of that reduction of an additional 100,000 would have on the structure and strength of the national guard. some insight into that was provided on may 17. that was when ray odierno, once the special assistant to the chairman on homeland defense issues. he and i worked together on a daily basis. i have extremely high regard for him and his professionalism. he provided some insight into how that 100,000 production in end strength would impact the national guard when he said, "if we have sequestration, it will affect the reserve component and the active. it depends on what the balance we picked. what i talk about a lot is 70,000 out of the active

component, 30,000 out of the reserve. the army could be reduced anywhere be 400,000 to 425,000 soldiers. the national guard might lose an additional 20,000 soldiers. the army reserve might lose an additional 10,000. the net effect of all that is if we have sequestration beginning in january, it's very likely the army national guard would lose an additional 20,000 men and women. in addition to the yen's strength productions, it's reasonable to assume sequestration goes into effect in january, national guard title 32 funding account would also be reduced. the negative impact of such title 32 reductions on homeland defense and defense board of civil authorities would be immediate, both in terms of

training and operational missions. over the last decade, some of which was described by steve a few moments ago, there's been a shift in dod policy. steve and i were intimately involved in that shift in policy, police in a far greater reliance on the national guard for the execution of domestic military missions. while that policy shift has correctly emphasize the role of the national guard here and home, it has also tied the domestic mission of the national guard more directly to the variables of d.o.t. funding, including sequestration. let me take a moment to explore some history now, if i may, to give perhaps a more practical understanding of that shift in policy. if my memory serves me correctly, and i believe it does, in 1992 during hurricane andrew, when it was necessary for the military to provide support to civil authorities because of the magnitude of the destruction that occurred and the aftermath, the majority of

the force that responded to provide assistance to civilian authorities came out of our active component. a great deal of that came out of the 82nd airborne. a smaller portion of that force came out of the national guard. if i remember the ratios correctly, and i believe i do, roughly 70% or slightly less of the force that responded to hurricane andrew in 1992 came out of the active component with slightly more than 30% coming out of the reserve component. but the benchmark was roughly with an emphasis on the active component participation in the defense support of civil authorities discommission. that policy of using primarily active component forces changed radically in the aftermath of

september 11 and in response to the requirements associated with domestic preparedness. i was nominated to become the first assistant secretary of defense in 2003. i met with the senate armed services commission in his office, senator john warner, distinguished gentleman. he wished me well in my new job and we talked about a few other things of a personal nature. he reminded me that we should not use the zero defunding to support discommissions executed entitled 32 status. -- we should not use dod funding. warfightingdon't her money and use it for civil support missions domestically executed. -- our warfighting money. i thought that was probably a

pretty good advice. my view of the subject changed considerably once we experienced the operational requirements of hurricane katrina. the national guard can function increase statuses. it can be in 10 states status. that is traditional. the national guard forces and states tennis are under the authority of state law. they're under the command and control of the governor of that individual state. they are funded by the state to execute those missions. state's status. federal status is kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. when the army guard or the air guard are brought into the title 10 federal status, the army guard becomes part of the department of the army and air guard becomes a part of the department of the air force. they are fully integrated into the active component of and are subject to federal law and are under command-and-control of the president of the united states. the funding comes from the department of defense. and there's a middle ground between those two and has become important middle ground, title

32 status. in title 32, the funding for title 32 status comes from the department of defense. the law that applies is generally not federal law, but command and control remains vested in the hands of the governor of that individual state. so it really is the best of both worlds from the vantage point of the state. the training, equipment, the funding comes from the department of defense of command-and-control. president.h the d title 32 status, national guard forces are not covered by 1878 statute that forbids the use of military personnel for law enforcement-related activities. under command-and-control of the governor in title 32, the national guard may be used for law enforcement-related functions. during operation liberty shield, which was the term we had in 2003 in the federal interagency

to describe are prepared this domestically for any repercussions associated with a possible war that we thought might take place with iraq. surely prior to the commencement of ground operations in iraz, operation liberty shield provided for certain enhanced protections here at home because we were uncertain as to what action iraq might take or could take within the u.s. in response to a combat action in iraq itself. just before we went to war in iraq my very good friend and former colleague in the house, pennsylvania, tom ridge, initiated operation liberty shield. he called upon the governors of the individual states to provide protection for their critical infrastructure, utilize in the national guard. i got a phone call from the governor of the state of arizona, who is today the secretary of the department of homeland security.

governor nepal tonneau was very creative. she had the distinction of being prematurely right. -- janet napolitano. she wanted to use the national guard to protect critical infrastructure within her state and she argued persuasively that because this was a terrorist threats from outside the united states if it was a threat really to the nation and not to the state of arizona and the funding for that title 32 mission should in fact the federal in character and that the state and state funds and state status should not be protecting infrastructure against our international adversaries. that was not policy at that time. i had to tell her, to my regret, but she cannot do that. she was not happy about it and i was not happy as the messenger and a couple had to communicate that guidance, but that was the policy. that has since changed. let me tell you how it has changed and then we move to steve for his comments. hurricane katrina occurred in

august of 2005. two months before hurricane katrina, the new strategy for a homeland defense and civil support was written. when i began my talk a few minutes ago i mentioned the ratio, 70-30 in terms of the military assistance provided during hurricane andrew in 1992. we changed that in the strategy. it made no sense to us in a post 9/11 world that we would continue to use active-duty military forces for these domestic missions when we had ample strength and structure in the national guard for these domestic missions. why should we use the 82nd airborne for civil support missions when the 82nd airborne was trained and equipped for overseas warfighting and we had superbly trained national guardsmen who could execute domestic missions without impairing our ability to project power overseas? that was the rationale of our strategy until we broke into the strategy -- and i personally

wrote the languages that said henceforth the department of defense would have a focused reliance upon reserve component capabilities predominately the national guard for our domestic missions. that was a direct reversal of the policy that had been in place during hurricane andrew. we did not realize just two months later during hurricane katrina that policy would be. put into be when hurricane katrina occurred august 29, 2005, most of the force, 70% 70% of the military response to hurricane katrina, 50,000 national guardsmen, came out of the reserve component and 3% came out of the active component. a change in policy and i think a good one. an amendment was passed by congress subsequently. that amendment allowed national guard forces to protect critical infrastructure in a way in which

we previously would have relied upon rapid reaction forces from the active-duty army and active duty marine corps. mission transition to correctly to the national guard. that would mean the national guard forces in title 32 would defend critical infrastructure. it also meant that secretary janet napolitano was right. the policy finally caught up with her vision on that subject. we were henceforth able to use national guard forces in title 324 critical infrastructure protection. secondary i will mention and then i will move to a conclusion. i realize i pushed the limits of my time, steve. steve blum, through his personal leadership, build, expanded, and in some cases initiated cases initiated see burn response capability that was unprecedented.

that capability was located within the national guard. the national guard recognized that in the 21st century our adversaries accommodation states and terrorists, for now have the capacity to acquire incredibly destructive weapons, weapons that can be miniaturized and easily transported, that could conceivably cause great numbers of casualties within our own country. we were extremely vulnerable to that type of asymmetric chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high explosive attack within the borders of our nation. the national guard under steve's personal leadership step up and said we can do something about that. under the leadership of the national guard, 17 enhanced response force packages were created. 57 civil support teams were established. ultimately, and a little later, homeland response forces got all established in title 32 status

within the national guard. increasedf dod's reliance on the national guard for domestic military missions, critical infrastructure protection, any reduction entitled 32 funding will directly impact on the safety of the american people here and home. cuts would reduce the national guard ability to protect critical infrastructure from terrorist attacks, would diminish the national guard ability to respond to vote major disasters whether natural or man-made. let me close with a quotation from craig moe tenleytown, steve's successor as chief of the national guard bureau. speaking in may, when talking about the impact of sequestration on the domestic military missions of the national guard, critical infrastructure, disaster response under very challenging circumstances, the general mckinley, stepped down as the chief said the following, "we

find ourselves obviously in the midst of constrained budgets and depositions. no doubt we must all curbs spending, but not at the expense of our security. that's why i must tell you that sequestration would allow the force, would follow the for substantially and devastate our national security -- -- would hollow th force. the national guard is already facing difficult budget cuts, cuts that impact equipment and personnel. further reductions would significantly limit the guard's ability to function as an operational force, a decrease its overall credibility, and reduce the department's capacity to protect a homeland and respond to emergencies. if sequestration is imposed under the provisions of the budget control act of 2011 and in january the d.o.t. experience

is an immediate cut of $55 billion, none of the bill are power projection capability is produced overseas, our domestic security will be placed at risk because of inadequate national guard title 32 funding. that means 20,000 fewer national guardsmen with less equipment, less prepared to execute their domestic emissions. that is the ultimate impact of sequestration upon the national guard. >> thanks, paul. that is and unintended but perfect segue to what i want to talk about. first, thanks, because i think you laid out a very good umbrella and background approach to what we are really facing here. this is a serious time, no question about it. the nation does not possess infinite resources, limitless

resources. we really aren't everyday becoming more aware of how finite those resources really are and really why we have to be better stewards of those resources than we have been in the recent past or even in generations. -- we really every day becoming more aware. this is not a bogyman that does not really exist or a threat that's not out there. this is the reality that we are facing. the national guard is not an organization with substantial discretionary budget money. it is a bare bones, underfunded organization historically, because it was a originally intended to beat it strategic

reserve for so long, for 67 years, that was to be a deterrent force against a threat that is no longer out there. commission of the guard is still the same, but its utilization as an operational force in rotations overseas is well known to most of us in the audience. if not, the u.s. military has not done anything in the last 15 years overseas without significant dependence on the national guard, so that we could expand the capacity and capability theour active forces and reduce the stress on our active duty force and an all volunteer force of professionals, professional airmen and professional soldiers, so we could expand that and actually serve when necessary or at least reinforce

the forces in the field or expand the forces in the field or capability is required to utilize in the national guard. so this is no longer a national guard that sits around and waits for world war iii and is not used in the meantime, so you can afford to underresource it in terms of equipment, not trained to be ready, let it stay dormant in a somewhat less than ready posture. it has to be ready on a moment's notice. that is for overseas missions. for domestic missions, for usage in the united states at the command and control of the governors that are the commanders in chief of the army and air national guard when they are in the service of the state rather than in the service of the nation -- when they are in the service of the nation, they fall under the normal chain of command with the secretary of

defense and the president and they are entitled 10 status and are in distinguishable. the good news is the training now is uniform, the standards are uniform, so everybody is trained in the same schools with the same standards and has the same enlistment criteria, same selection criteria to become a member, and to remain a member, so that their performance is absolutely identical to the active duty force when it is called into service of the nation. what most people don't realize is that the national guard is called into the service of the governor's each and every day. i did not realize how much that was the case until i was lucky enough to be appointed chief of the national guard bureau by secretary donald rumsfeld under president bush back in 2003. for the five and a half years i have the honor of being the chief of the national guard

bureau before i went to be the deputy at u.s. northern command i kept a record of how many states call out the national guard on any given day and the daily average was 17 states had their guard called out on some level -- some as few as a few people with a truck and water trailer going to an area where a municipality might need water where a well was contaminated or the border purification system -was purification system -- water purification. the aftermath of christina in 2005, we have the largest, fastest, military response to a domestic disaster, natural disaster, not only in the history of our country but in the history of the world. -- the aftermath of hurricane

katrina. guam, puerto rico, district of columbia, and every state of the 50 states send their national guard. they were asked to comment not ordered -- asked to come and not order. they drove and pull together in record time over labor day weekend. it happened on a labor day weekend. in less than six days we generated 60,000 citizens soldiers from members of code in this country with exactly the right capabilities and sometimes in excess capacity, because frankly we did not know exactly what we needed down there, but we guest pretty right and we really restore the faith of the american citizens,

particularly the citizens of louisiana and mississippi, in the fact that their government would not respond when the local situation was overwhelmed. we were operating seamlessly with active-duty soldiers that came in later from northcom that were ordered in by the president. shoulder to shoulder, side-by- side, in distinguishable to the people that were receiving help. they saw the active-duty forces and national guard forces actually operating in a seamless fashion to save american lives. 17,443 american lives were saved by national guardsmen in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. that was a small city that would have been lost had we not intervened. 70,000 u.s. citizens removed from an area of uncomfortable, suffering and misery to be able to reestablish their lives in new places or at least be taken

out of the misery and suffering and maybe even ultimately disease or death if they would have remained in that area. today, if you check, it's almost invisible to everybody. if you really peel back who is responding to the fires in washington this morning, washington state, it's the national bar. who is responding to the drought relief or anything that happens that above and beyond the normal ability of the local and state governments to handle, the national guard comes in. one of the good things that happened to the guard, frankly, was the decision to use the guard as a part of the operational force, because not only are they value added on the battlefield overseas when they bring civilian skills to these complex environments like

afghanistan and iraq, but when they come home from that they are far better citizen soldiers and citizens airmen with contemporary, real world combat experience they can apply, the same command and control, logistics, planning, and reaction, and highly disciplined response to anything we would require them back at home. so we now have probably the very best force of citizen soldiers this nation has ever been blessed to have. it is an all volunteer force. how did you tape people that you have asked go overseas 3 or four goore's, walk away from their family and their jobs as long as two years, 18 months, six months on the short side, repeatedly over the last decade, whether it is to appear at an airport on no notice because we did not have tsa at the time and

we need to secure the airport zappos 9/11. whether it was to guard the skies pose 9/11 or critical infrastructure. whether it was to expand the capability of governors to protect critical infrastructure in the last 10 years. whether it was to put boots on the ground in places like afghanistan and kuwait, the horn of africa, iraq, and 34 other countries where the guard has been asked to serve. and they did a superb job in the balkans, close of zero, bosnia, all at the same time. -- in kosovo. katrina hit with no notice. 50 cows and national guardsmen from every state and territory responded. at the time we have the high water mark for the deployment overseas. we were literally surging in the army to allow the u.s. army to step the army into their current

configuration. we stepped up and took that rotations of the u.s. army to take a pause in the war and reorganize and refitted to their combat brigades. some of you may remember that. so you take that and take the last 10 years of what we have asked them to do. and now you have this specter of sequestration hovering over an organization that is under sourced, is pure muscle and bone, has very little discretionary, has no big accounts like intelligence or research and development, underfunded for equipping themselves, are trying to come out of a whole that was dug in 1947, and now tell them get ready because you are going to be part of an across-the- board cuts. if you are overweight and have

want toounceds and you lose 18 pounds, there's. a way you can there's. this is a couple ways you can do it. you can change your diet and exercise and become lighter and better and maybe even more attractive. as attractive. or you could cut your head off and lose 18 pounds immediately. but i don't think that is the preferred way for weight loss. this sequestration is much like that. when i look at the audience and i seen who is represented and where you come from and hopefully where you go back to and take some benefit of our discussion today, i would like you to consider two things, and then i will turn it over to the moderator. the most successful businesses in the world today size their

full-time work force that get full benefits, retirement, entitlements, health insurance, pension plans, matching 401k plan, all that kind of thing, they size that for their smallest, steady state, business day. they size their part-time force, trained, medic professionals, salesman, distributors, transporters, retailers, wholesalers, all of them. they size that for their most optimistic market demand. and then they adjust that and let the market drive that. and they make a profit internationally in a very challenging economic time even today because of that model. the companies that are failing today are those that are failing

to make those kinds of adjustments and are hanging onto an older industrial age model that predates the 21st century. they are finding it very uncomfortable and very unprofitable and are kind of melting away like an ice cube. that is one thing i want you to think about. when you are talking about a sizing of the active component and the reserve components, particularly when the reserve component is not the same reserve component that it was 10 or 15 or 20 years ago. it is a much different reserve component. is an interval, interdependent and not interoperable piece of the entire service and joint force that fights and protect our country here at home and overseas and has great utility that reduces the burden on the active force to respond domestically to a significant

degree. so anytime you diminish that force, you are actually raising the probability you'll have to dip into the already too busy actor forced to do something that they are really not comfortable doing or they want to do, nor are there really trained or resource to do, nor do they have the local knowledge, political, geographical, social, and otherwise, that the citizen shoulders who come from that area have. not to mention it will have to live in that state afterwards. so how they deliver their capability and capacity will be quite different than someone was 18 years old and came into active duty and learned how to fire their weapons and do their military jobs and then are transplanted into an area and culture they're not familiar with and then are going to leave. the degree of acceptance and respect is intangible and is something that should not be ignored. the second thing is everyone of

you lives someplace. very few of you in this room live anywhere that has a 100% full time professionally trained and paid firefighting force to protect you. anybody that lives in a place called a county does not have a full-time firefighting apparatus. but none of you sleep at night and stay up worrying that if your house catches on fire that the fire department is not going to show up on time and they're not going to come with suspicisufficient people and trg to save your structure, your life, and your loved ones and pets that. you that. so how do they do it? they do it with either a mix of a few full-time professionals to keep the equipment ready and

keep the communications and alert system ready. they depend on citizen fireman, volunteer firemen who stop whatever they are doing, get out of their own comfortable bed in the middle of the night if necessary, walked off their jobs if necessary in civilian life to respond to either a danger or alert system or just sirens in some small towns. they go and when they show up nobody asked them if they are part-time or full-time. anybody ever ask that question? when they come, they have gear that makes them all look like a fireman. nobody comes on an old firetruck that barely runs. nobody comes with handy down fire equipment. hand-me-down.

the community saves on the huge expense of having to pay full- time firefighters. so they rely heavily on citizen volunteer firefighters. i suggest that in a time where our nation is facing finite resources and a significant risk, a way to buy down the risk is not to do the real jerk reaction the pentagon has already announced. sequestration is coming, we already have it and regardless this way. that's like hitting your knee with a rubber hammer and it flipped as a reflex action. the pentagon and the system has reacted to budget cuts like that this way for so long that it's almost an automatic, unthinking response. i am saying, since i'm talking

to people who are from the think tanks and from the hill and from organizations with in this arena, that maybe it's time to look at how people do that our profits matched their active full-time force with their part- time force. we look in an area because you're going to get this is not a business, this is the military and in the military we are about saving lives. let me tell you, if you want to talk about an organization that response on no notice, or lives hang in the balance every day, and is the fire fighting community in our country. they are putting their lives on a line to respond online, on target, to ensure that you survive and your structure survived and your neighbor's house survives.

i'm thinking maybe we put away some of the old paradigms' and start looking at some new paradigms' as to how we are going to apply precious resources that we are going to be providing to the taxpayers. clearly this will allow us to buy down some risk. sequestration is obviously not the answer. sequestration will gut the national guard. it will exist. it will survive, but it will be in under equipped, less trained. it will have less money. you will find how painful this will be because when they start closing 600 armories and shutting down 1800 construction projects that are on the books, you are going to find that these armories are in congressional

districts that. people that. you will find that it will literally kill off small businesses that are dependent on and have waited for and competed for and have been awarded this contract that will no longer be there to build an army, build an annex, build a- facility, builder readiness center, refurbish some older things that have not been looked at in 40 years. you will find that even if you start this, it's not going to be easy to recover from. the unintended consequence is that a building project in a state has state-matching funds in varying percentages. those funds have to be voted by the legislature. the states are also cash for right now. they are strapped right now. if they have a chance to take back that money through the cancellation of the project, they will. your probability of scene that money again in less than 10

years is pretty remote. if it's a renovation project, you really will be delaying that indefinitely. if it's an expansion project, you probably have lost it. you will find out how much that's going to matter because the citizens of the community, the citizens of that the code, that congressional districts will make their feelings fell to their congressional representatives. and it will be personal. this is an unintended consequence of sequestration. sequestration is one -- you don't make threats you're not going to carry through. certainly, if you're going to carry through with this, you have to wonder, this is not just a shot in the foot. you may as well cross your feet and catch both feet, because of the unintended consequence of sequestration is walking back the most superb force that this

country has fielded in its history, military force, and walking it back 30 years to 40 years back to the hollow force. as i look at the landscape internationally right now, a this, a benign landscape -- this is not a benign landscape. we used to talk about hot spots that could be problematic quickly and there were only a few of them. virtually anywhere you look right now there are some real issues, real tough problems out there that could cause us to do things with our military that we do not foresee, nor do we desire. and that does not mention the weather patterns, earthquakes, any of the natural disasters that occur, not to mention that

the chlorine tanker does not have to fall off or railroad track because of a terrorist. it could be because our infrastructure is decaying. it could be because of human error. but the effect is a release of chlorine in an urban area will be unbelievably painful. if that or anything like that were to occur, the requirement for the guard to respond would be absolutely one of the first things that would have to happen. a guard under even minor sequestration, under minor cuts, would been slower in its response and it might be two or three states responding rather than one state. in my people of all your hours getting there or a few days before you could get everybody over there. let me give you an analogy or

metaphor. if a loved one has a heart attack in your house, you call 911. three days later, five ambulances show up to your house in response to that call. you are not going to be satisfied. you're not going to feel like you are well served. what you expect is the ambulance would be there on time to save his life. if they are going to show up late, they may as well send the mortuary unit, because they're not going to save your loved one. so time delay really translates into lives lost. domestically, you are going to get one chance to do this. i've said this over and over and i will say it one more time. this will be the last thing i said before turning over to

steve. we took palfaluja more than once. in afghanistan and iraq and in almost every military operations be have had places and towns that we took it and they took it. we retook it and they retook it. that works overseas in a combat zone. you are not going to get to redo in cincinnati or on losing d.c. or wherever you come from, wherever your hometown is. they are not going to tolerate the american military not being able to respond properly and on time here in the united states it. we saw that in spades in 2005 in hurricane katrina. that close from theme

u.s. military swinging and missing on louisiana and mississippi. we were lucky to recover that. it will shake the confidence of the nation and for any administration when the american military cannot properly respond and home. read secretary paul mchale's paper. read this and think about what i just said. you will not be very comfortable when you read this. the trouble with this paper is it's true and it's factual and accurate. thanks. >> sequestration is an irrational and irresponsible approach to national security policy. when most of us walk in here

this morning we knew intuitively that a cut of $500 billion over the next 10 years, a cut potential in january of $55 billion would inevitably impact on the department of defense ability to project power overseas. i don't think it was as obvious when we walked into the room that sequestration would have a devastating impact on our security here at home. because of changes, the changes in policy, over the last 10 years, the protection of critical infrastructure in the united states against a terrorist attack has been primarily assigned to the national guard in title 32 status. that would be subject to any reductions imposed by sequestration's. over the last 10 years, because of good changes in policy, the primary reliance for disaster response has been tasked to the national guard in title 32 status. that changed during katrina when

steve and i walked down to the deputy secretary's office and encouraged him to approve the title 32 status for those 50,000 national guardsmen who had deployed in response to hurricane katrina. that had never been done before in u.s. history. to the great credit of the deputy secretary, he proved that. now we used title 32 pretty routinely for major disaster response. that would be subject to any reduction caused by sequestration. we must recognize that our domestic security would be similarly impacted. >> i have a couple questions are listed at the beginning, but you guys have answered all of them. i don't know if i want to beat a

horse or not. anyone have a question? >> thank you both for being here. i wonder if you could drill down a little on border security? if you could explain the guard's presence on the southwest border and how sequestration might affect their mission? >> i have a little trepidation because i am not absolutely current in terms of the existing status of national guard forces on the border. but i am pretty sure that i have a grasp on that. with the risk that maybe i impartially in error, let me answer your question. i have the responsibility for civilian oversight of operation jumpstart. that was the initial deployment of national guard forces along the southwest border. we have roughly 6000 national guardsmen deployed over a two-

year period along the southwest border. we spend a lot of time together, stephen drive, discussing the rules of the use of force and everything and what status the national guard would have during that order of deployment. my recollection is became to the conclusion the guard would be entitled 32 status. that's the middle ground where gubernatorial command and control would be exercised over those forces but dodpay for tho. in general answer to your question, the type of funding used to pay for the national guard forces, traditionally along the southwest bodborder, would be adversely impacted by sequestration. >> a think that is an accurate answer. just to give you a little bit more, the unintended consequence would be -- dod

would be faced with less money than it would normally have to do that mission. it was painful to dod to do it when we were better-resourced. it created frankly great thank you to -- great angst. where were told to pay the bill and transfer the money to the national guard. so they had to reduce the number or defer it or not do it at all. it created some unscheduled reprogramming. it created angst that was not seen because everybody tries to stay professional. but it hurt the relations between the army and the army guard because the army, who was

under funded at the time, had to give more money to do a mission that they did not see as important and frankly felt that the border patrol or department of homeland security should have paid for it. but that decision was made at far higher levels than even the department of defense. in answer to your question directly, sequestration might mean that we couldn't do it at all, to be zero -- to be totally honest with you. or, worse, we would do it on the cheap and it would probably not be effective. so then you're really wasting your money because she did not quite put enough of the right capability and capacity in there because you're trying to do it basically based on a $-- a dollar sign rather than on the requirement cost.

that is what i find so absurd about the sequestration peace because it is not attached to upset stomach abilities or risk that the military is supposed to put their resources against. >> this is an important footnote. in that paper that i just prepared, one of the points i a emphasizes that the cultural aversion within the department of defense, with regard to the domestic mission of the military, including those of the national guard -- dod is heroic and has predicted our nation over many decades. but in the 21st century, september 11 being the prime example, asymmetric attacks employing weapons of mass destruction must be seen as part of that national security landscape and the protection of our cities and our people here

at home must be seen in a larger context of national security and the role of the department of defense. frankly, at dod, there are some folks who are steeped in the traditional power projection who have not realized that changing circumstances. what can you do if you can fight effectively in baghdad that you cannot protect brooklyn. -- you cannot defend brooklyn? our adversaries are likely to employ it asymmetric attacks using ever more powerful weapons for decades to come. and that recognition has not really been inculcated in the warrior the close of the department of the defense. so when sequestration hits and dollars need to be say venture -- and missions need to be chosen responsibly, the missions that are most likely to be pushed aside are those in the domestic arena. at least within the department of defense, absent a change in

direction. we have made considerable progress since 9/11, but what i spelled out in a monograph is that we return to the status quo ante -- the status quo empty. i am worried that sequestration will hit domestic missions including critical infrastructure protection and the burn response disproportionately. -- and seaborne response disproportionately. >> as of last week, the administration in formed leadership that they intend to do that. but the across-the-board cuts gone from 8.5% to approximately 11.3%, do you see potentially a

hollow force to develop for the national guard to revert to a strategic reserve? >> the unintended consequence of what you just said, if you think about it, means that the only place you can get your savings is equipment, operations and maintenance, and that is critical, tempo and training and education. even if you keep the people, you really reduced their capacity and capability in that the will be less trained. the will be far less equipped and the equipment they have will be far less maintained than what we currently have. in the 21st century, what makes us the greatest military in the world is not that we are the biggest, not the mass numbers. we don't send mass, a human wave

against an objective. we have highly trained professionals that are superbly trained and educated in the use of the equipment that we give them and we give them the best state of their equipment that science and technology can deliver and it is highly maintained so it is reliable and effective on the battlefield. so everything that i just said -- and they are highly motivated volunteers. so you take highly motivated volunteers and you start giving them less equipment than they are used to, poorly maintained equipment, and start reducing the training that they have become accustomed to, how highly motivated will they remain? or do we have less members, less quality force and a less capable force? the answer to all of those questions is yes.

that is not the intent, but that will be the impact of sequestration appeared >> is it morally responsible to keep the people and then put them in an opera -- put them in operational jeopardy? that is really the net effect of that approach, which has the benefit of perhaps retaining 20,000 national guardsmen who would otherwise be cut, but then denied to them, as a result of reductions and operations and maintenance funding, the equipment, the training, the capability they need to go forward and execute their missions? that is hardly a solution. i had to the house of -- the president of the united states called off of the house floor to tell me that i should vote on a bill. i said to the president, sir, you don't know what will happen in the senate and neither do why. i can only consider what is in front of me right now.

after it comes back from the senate, i will be happy to support it. and i did. we would hope that we can protect the 29,000 national guard personnel that would otherwise be cut. but it is the height of irresponsibility to shift those funding cuts. we're talking about domestic missions. we have to make sure that when we send those men and women in uniform for word that they have the equipment that they need to execute their mission. and that it is easy enough to protect the personnel. it is a lot harder to ensure that they have the training and equipment and capability that they deserve. >> if you think back to chernobyl, the courage of those people was enormous. the commitment was enormous. the casualty rate was horrific. they all died within 30 days,

most, some a few months later. and the reason was that they were not trained and few had the resources they needed. there responded, but they paid an awful price for that. we owe our young men and women much more than that. >> where would you take money out of the pentagon? >> if it comes in a part of the question in timing? for instance, i believe that, once we come to irresponsible resolution of our combat operations, is inevitable that we will see a drawdown of the

force. i would support that. historically, we have drawn down the force after major combat. we have done that in the context of very poor judgment. we have not been very good at intelligently drawing down the force. but when u.s. were would you cut coming the aftermath, that might be 2014 and it might be later than that, that we have essentially completed the drawdown from afghanistan. we should look at a very thoughtful reduction in the overall size of the force. we have not done that. and unless we have very significant civilian oversight come including congressional intervention, what we're likely to see is a disproportionate cut in reserve component when coming in fact, i think the drawdown

should be primarily in the active component, maintaining a robust capability, but a drawdown in the active component while realizing a cost effective nature of the reserve component. we ought to retain a very strong operational reserve and draw down the enormous personal cost associated with an active component force that was correctly sized for ongoing combat operations, but is probably too large for a peacetime or a relative peace time environment. secondly, without going into details, there are in number of weapons that i think are highly questionable and we ought to take a hard look at some of those systems that are enormously expensive. but the reality is that something like 70% of the defense budget consists of personnel costs. a drawdown in the active component would make sense in the aftermath of the conclusion -- not during a conflict, but at the conclusion of a conflict in

order to right size a forced during peacetime environment. >> natalie that makes -- not only would that make sense in which he is talking about, but in a business model for firefighters and municipalities where they decide to go across the country with great success, but frankly what he just described, and expansion -- an expansion of citizenship and only a small percentage of them serve, we don't want a candor that turns into america's foreign legion. -- a cadre that turns into america's foreign legion. when the guard reserve cents a unit from you name it, small

town whatever state you're from, whatever county or from, that is your home town team going. that whole town deploys with them. that whole town tracks that unit and its record and what is going on with that unit the entire time it is gone. that whole town now has skin in the game or equity in what we're doing and seeks to better understand why we -- why they were sent, why is the pew and be in church on sunday or at the synagogue on saturday or at the mosque on friday. -- on friday? my neighbor, why isn't he here? why is he serving? or in the classroom or the business place were fellow farmer or educator, whatever this person might be, a doctor or nurse electrician, it doesn't

matter. there is a whole area business in every social gathering, at every dinner table. these people now have neighbors that have equity in this america. in other words, when you call-up the national guard, you call out america. the only people they know that went with the local vendors in, say, fayed bill, not carolina and it will have an economic -- , north carolina and it will have an economic impact. when you call up the guard, you do in fact call out america and that is a very powerful message to send to our adversaries. and on some of these stability

and operations, peacekeeping operations, more complex operations that we have been involved in in the last 15 years to 20 years -- when the people in that country coming to you and find out that this man here in the blue shirt and tie that i am looking at is wearing an american flag and the informal one of the services uniforms and realized that he has a job and a family and this is not all he does and he doesn't have to do it, he volunteered to do this, it says more about what is right about our country than our state department and our finest ambassadors and foreign service officers could ever say. and that is an intangible that you don't want to lose. and that is an intangible, frankly, a trained full-time professional soldier, sailor, airman, or marine has a lesser message. when i go back, i'm going back

to my farm. you have a farm? why are you here? i chose to be here. i am here to help you with your problem. and when i am done, i am going back. that is a very different message then and occupier or a mercenary in the eyes of the local people, that you are a personal -- a professional mercenary rather than a citizen soldier. it is a very powerful tool. we should want to optimize. the constraints on the budget, hopefully, could have a very positive outcome. if you're going to maintain a volunteer force, you have to have the backing of the american public and the decision- influences, the coaches, the teachers, the parents, the neighbors, the employers -- all of that has to be feeding that system if it will be successful, particularly if it

has to grow much larger than it has in the past. the way we are able to bring that up, our capability last 20 years has been the guard and reserve. it is a far better value for the american taxpayer because you are paying them exactly what you would pay an active duty force when you need them. but when you don't need them, they are out earning their own living, paying their own taxes, raising their own family, building their own communities, building our country. and they are getting civilian- acquired skills so that, when they do get called by their nation nor their governor to respond, they will be much more capable and have a much greater capacity to respond than they would otherwise.

>> it is worth pausing to recognize -- there is a terrific subtext your question. your question is where would you make the hard choices? making hard choices is the antithesis of sequestration. sequestration is arithmetic. it is multiplication. it is irrational. and it is a breach of trust your men and women in service. it is a way to avoid hard choices. i am fairly sure that my views would differ from others. but it is an abdication of leadership and responsibility and ultimately democracy if we fail to make those choices. if we resort to sequestration and apply an across-the-board cut, that is a failure of leadership, a failure of government and which ought to be ashamed of ourselves. -- and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. we can baker vigorously and have majority rule at the end of the day.

but making hard choices is what the business of government on a good day is all about. applying arithmetic is irresponsible. >> we will get this gentleman right here. you too will be the last two. >> with in the dod strategy, you talked about responsibility -- the reverse ability clause which impacts us tremendously how is that even functionable even in light of sequestration? how can you implement that? >> i am not sure you can. >> it cannot. [laughter] we have gone pretty far down the road in anticipating in

irresponsible way what sequestration would mean in a responsible way what sequestration -- we have gone pretty far down the road in anticipating in a responsible way what sequestration would mean. when we move to a question of reverse ability as a matter of strategy, that is frankly too far out in the darkness to define the challenge with any degree of regularity. all we know is that the national guard now plays a vitally important role in terms of our domestic security. that role has changed considerably and in general moved in a positive direction over the last 10 years. the reality of asymmetric warfare, weapons of mass destruction, terrorist adversaries and nation states to

execute these kinds of attacks prompted policy that moved the national guard to the forefront in terms of the safety of american citizens here at home. most of those missions would be executed intel 32. title 32 is federal funding that is received through the department of defense. and sequestration would cut that funding. so the impact on domestic missions is inevitable and i think unacceptable. >> politico. this may be a good question to wrap things up with. what do you see as the solution? this all depends upon whether congress can come up with a deficit reduction plan, which is a whole other can of worms. i know there is uncertainty with sequestration, but how do you see this playing out? them kicking the can down the road? or sequestration actually does happen? i know it is a crystal ball question, but i would like to

see what you guys think will happen. >> is going to happen or should happen? i'll answer that. i launched into my boys got description of the legislative process in the were the democracy and i talked about some of the men and women have known in the congress of the united states who are truly courageous, or willing to make hard choices -- who are willing to make hard choices and you know that this is more important than the continuing progress of their political careers. and when the people spoke to stop laughing, i press that point. there are good men and women on both sides of the aisle.

i am a democrat. i take a fairly conservative approach to security policy .oul the exhibit of bran of government can strongly influence and inform policy choices that will be made and the power of the purse is in the congress. the budgetary decisions that have to be made and it is the duty of the executive branch to provide the kind of leadership for our country and in providing recommendations, budget recommendations, to the budget -- to the congress of the united states. if you cannot make our decisions, get out of congress. it may mean that a large number people leave the congress. but this is too important. we're not talking about secondary issues. we're talking about the security of the american people in their own homes. 3000 people died on our own

soil. and in our own airspace as a result of the attacks of september 11. 3000 people dead. that type of attack was not an occurrence. it was a case study. and asymmetric warfare in the 21st century. so we only to sober kilobit, -- we all need to sober up a little bit, a lot in some cases. to make hard choices, debate fiercely and sincerely, and then count the votes. we can no longer duck these issues because what is at stake is not a political career. it is the security of the american people here at home. and the images of september 11 should be burned into our memory, not as a matter of fear mongering, but as a sobering recognition of what warfare

looks like when it comes to our own soil. and these issues have to be debated. budgetary constraints have to be made. and responsible judgment has to be made in kind -- in coordination with the executive branch can we decide to draw down the forest research and degree in a way that makes sense that will provide continuing defense to our nation. i am still enough of a boy's got to believe that good men and women on both sides of the aisle in the legislative -- boy scout to believe that good men and women on both sides of the aisle in the legislative branch can do this. this generation is capable of making the same tough choices. >> ladies and gentlemen, the reason we put this panel together was that a lot of

people understand sequestration if they live in fayetteville, n.c., san diego, calif., places where there are large defense facilities. but my concern is that there are a lot of folks in this country that don't understand that, if not done with some degree of , these cutsentsense will affect every single state and territory in america and a adversely in their ability to deal with the local issues, the 1617 states today that have guardsmen called out or, god forbid those events that are describing here in our capacity to respond to them in a knee -- as a nation. the guard is a huge part of that. sequestration is cutting off the fat guys head when the bad guy

really needs orthoscopic surgery on his bad knee and a counselor. we need procurements and that kind of thing, not just lopping off a chunk of the body. that is a poor way to do it. and the guard come in this case, whether we like it or not, the guard will be adversely affected by that. this is an awareness and education session. i would ask you to join me in thanking our panelists. there have been very eloquent. [applause] and we thank c-span and abc radio for joining us and we appreciate you all being here at the heritage. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> c-span, traded by america's cable companies in 1979, provided to you as a public service by your cable providers.

>> this is the last day president obama's bus tour through north carolina. the president and first lady will travel to davenport, iowa. we will have that at 60 5:00 p.m. here on c-span. tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, sandra day o'connor talks about six education. she is chairman of icivics. she recently told a senate committee that civics has taken a back seat to science and math. >> we have learned to our dismay that our american students, when tested on math and science are not doing as well as students of an equivalent age as many other

countries and that distresses us because our country has been pretty events in math and science and we don't want to see our students lagged behind -- to lag behind. it has resulted in the dropping of civics courses. there are only certain hours in the day and they tend to maybe do more math and science and less on civics. and i would just like to be sure that we continue to teach some civics to students as they go through. my own concentration has been at the middle school level because, by then, the brain is formed and the young people are eager to learn. they are receptive and they can get it and it is not too early to start. so i think it is important and students want to know how government works, how their city

works, other counties, other state, their nation. they want to be part of it. and the icivics program teaches by gains where students play a role and play a game and learn. it is very effective. >> former justice o'connor also talked to the senate judiciary committee about public confidence in the judiciary and cameras in the courtroom. see her comments tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> i started as a copy boy. i was in a training program after i got out of the army for the "wall street journal." >> this weekend, walter pincus talks about his various jobs as a journalist, his views on extravagant u.s. spending overseas, and his criticism of the defense budget -- the defensive by rent budget priorities. -- the defense department budget

priorities. >> it has separate rooms for everybody. if you spent $4 million on an elementary school, i bit summit would raise questions. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. on c-span's "q&a." >> next, talking at u.s. taxes, for engagement, and congressman paul ryan being selected as a vice presidential nominee. >> ok, ladies and gentlemen, i think we are ready to begin. i am bob married. i am delighted to have all of you here. welcome.

i am particularly delighted to have grover norquist year. grover is one of those of whom always said that he needs no introduction. i will give one anyway because he is too interesting not to. d is a massachusetts native -- he is a massachusetts native. a harvard ba and nba. -- and mba. he is the author of a recent books "debacle," with john lot. in 1985, he founded americans for tax reform whose aim was to reduce government receipts as a percentage of gdp. he believes in a smaller government. he believes in getting a handle on the debt overhang, which i believe is the most serious

problem facing the country today. he is most famous for the famous pledge -- getting members of congress and other politicians to promise not to vote for any increase in marginal tax rates for either individuals or business and not to vote for any net reductions in deductions or credits unless there is a commensurate reduction in rates. as of late last year, 238, i am told on google, out of two hundred 42 house republicans have signed this played -- this pledge. this drives liberals and democrats crazy. yes been lauded and attacked for it. john stossel applauds him and locked him, "no one in modern

times has fought harder to shrink the state than americans for tax reform." arianna huffington has a bit of a different view. she calls them "the dark wizard cult."right anti-tacticax since coming in our species, you can only be the cross of two people, a male and female, i found myself reminded of what mark shields once said about his good friend bob novak, the late columnist, when he said that bob novak is proof positive that calvin coolidge and mop parker were more than just casual acquaintances. [laughter]

i thought about that when i thought about grover because he is a remarkable combination. i think it is fair to say that he is a bit of a slasher. he takes a rapier to his opponents. he takes no prisoners. at the same time, he is always very pleasant. he never raises his voice, which is projected in mellifluous tones and has kind of a lilt to it. it occurred to me that, maybe, back in the 1950's, richard nixon somehow hooked up with doris day. i'm not sure. [laughter] in any event, grover. >> thank you for the unique introduction. i have been talking about domestic policy and foreign policy and how they interact. there is the reality of economic

policy and whether it works or not and, since we are now headed toward november and talking about politics, you can win or lose an election on one set of issues, even though you think you are focusing on another set of issues. foreign policy and economic policy play out in a campaign, but they also play out in government. obviously, economic matters. the united states is the preeminent world power and has been for some time because of its economic policies, because it has a freer, more open society than other countries and creates more wealth and allows people to accomplish great things. more than other countries, less than we should, < we will in the future, but better when you're competing with the alternatives, not utopia. we were a world power back before we even had much of a military because of our economic growth.

you go back to before the american revolution and we were taxed at 1% to 2% of gdp of people's incomes in the colonies. britain, when they decided they wanted to raise our taxes, people in britain were paying 20% of their income to fund the british empire. empires are expensive and people do not appreciate having to pay for that when they wanted us to pay for the british empire and we said, thinking, we will pass. rather than run an empire, we ran a rather large commercial republic which became very appalled -- dr. powerful. yes, it matters that we have a large economy. it makes it possible for us to have a national defense, spending 3% or 4% of gdp that spans the globe and we do so

with a much smaller fraction. foreign policy also affects domestic policy. blowback and look at the last the administration. bush was elected on his domestic platform and decided after september 11 to focus on foreign policy. as a result, there were opportunity costs. the opportunity costs on your foreign policy is that you take a dollar that you would spend on welfare and instead you spend it buying a gun. i think the more important opportunity cost, it is not -- the more important opportunity cost is when you have a presidency, the white house and bush decided to be the mayor of baghdad rather than the

president of the united states. he decided to occupy iraq and a afghanistan rather than reducing fannie mae and freddie mac. the president can go and ask for or demand certain things from the congress. if you made all your asks about occupying afghanistan and iraq for -- it does not fit the magnitude of the threat and the problem of freddie and fannie mae. it has been written about by critics in the aegean sea. so if focus on foreign policy has domestic consequences. the other challenge is, rather than do doha, we did kabul.

we lost the opportunity to extend trade in those three years. we could have had all the europeans to gang up on france and beat them senseless and get a free trade agreement that maybe french farmers were not getting the subsidies they were used to. instead, we had europe beating up on us on our foreign policy. we could have focused on immigration reform, very important to the united states economy and to us being us and instead time and effort was put into iraq and afghanistan. so when you talk about how foreign policy to it -- for policy affects domestic policy, in theory, you can run aggressive foreign policy and aggressive domestic policy, but try to get a white house to be able to have that kind of band with and a focus on dealing with

congress when they speak to the american people about what they're trying to accomplish and what they're doing. go back to reagan. reagan was able to manage the collapse of the soviet union because he focused on getting the american economy turned around, taking double-digit inflation down to almost zero, 20% interest rates down and got gdp growing. -- it had reagan's rates is important to have many handouts.

we have been in recovery technically since july of 2009. if we had reagan's rate of economic growth, reagan's rate of job creation, it would have many millions more americans working today. gdp would be about 10% higher than it is. this is a disaster. it limits american leadership in the world. one of the reasons other countries look up to us is our strong economy. and when it appears to be lagging -- we are looking ok. how is your wife compared to what? how is the american economy compared to europe? we are not so bad. compared to the trend line of where we were and where we could be, where a normal recovery would have taken us today, we are in very bad shape, much weaker than we could be. reagan focused on getting economic growth and job creation, and that sense that he was always focused -- he had one hand out here, holding the

soviet union at bay, whacking at grenada, but he was always focused on us and domestic policies, explaining to the american people he was focused on their concerns about keeping the bear at the door. the alternative is to walk outside and spend all your time arguing with the bear and convince people you are focused on what is important to them. since we have elections every two years, there is a cost to that. republicans lost in 2006 not because the economy was a problem. the independents were unhappy with the occupation of iraq and afghanistan. not necessarily knocking off saddam hussein. but staying for 10 years afterwards. that is where people tended to

miss the point of the exercise. the voting switched from 60%/40% to democrats. on foreign-policy issues, the economy doing well going into that election -- moving forward, where do we go from here? i would argue that our tax policy -- we're going to have a big election. we will get into this more with questions and answers. paul ryan's choice as vice president clarifies that the directions. it is written down in the ryan budget, in the ryan road map, as endorsed by the modern republican party. tax policy -- i would argue this affects both our hard power

and our soft power. on the soft power, we have 3 million americans, 4 million americans living overseas. every one of them, as they tell you when you travel to some european country or around the world -- you are an ambassador for the united states. do not annoy people. people meet you. they get a sense of what the united states is like. this is particularly true outside a paris or london. countries and cities that do not see a lot of americans. there could be a lot more americans overseas representing the united states on a one-on- one basis, a sort of ugly american novel of being a good representative of the united states, except our tax policy makes this difficult to impossible. we have, in the united states, not a territorial tax policy, which the rest of the world does. we have a worldwide tax policy. france -- if you live in france

and you are french, you earn money, the government steals some of it. here, the united states government steals some of it. when you go back to france, they do not take any more of it. the bite at the american government took out of your income is all that is taken out. in the united states, if you are an american and you go work in another country, that country will tax you because you earned the money there. but you come back to the united states and the united states will top off whatever the other country failed to take from you to where it is at 35% or, under obama, 43%-plus of your income. americans living overseas are taxed more heavily than other countries' citizens when they were overseas. that is particularly problematic when you're working in countries that have little or no income tax. hiring a german to work in saudi

arabia is less expensive than hiring an american. reagan lowered marginal tax rates from a top rate of 70% to a rate of 28%. the economy boomed. the rest of the world looked at that and said, we want to do that. you saw the european countries come in with flat income-tax rates. then corporate income taxes drifted down as well. the canadians are under 18% corporate income tax. not only does it think it difficult to hire an american, it is less expensive to hire somebody from another country to work in saudi arabia or brazil or around the globe, but american companies are at a disadvantage. i bring this up because the paul ryan plan is not only

entitlement reform, welfare reform, plus tax reform. the outline that he has generated, the top rate of 25% corporate and individual, and territorial tax system -- within that, revenue neutral. the territorial tax is very important to america's foreign policy, not just domestic and economic policy. an american company overseas earns $1. the local government taxes some or not. when you bring the $1 back, the federal government takes 35% of it. if you do not bring it back, you want to leave it in china or brazil or germany, you can -- there is no additional tax to leave it there. we have more than $1 trillion

overseas. when you talk to the corporate guys who have been trying to get obama for the last 3 1/2 years to go to territoriality or allow repatriation of that money without a big tax hit, some say it is between $500 billion and $800 billion that would come back in the same year. it does not cost anybody anything. we just have to get rid of our worldwide tax system. the reason anheuser-busch was bought by a european company, it is more valuable if it is owned by a european company than an american company because of the way we tax earnings and other countries do not. if we did not fix this, other companies will start being bought more and more by foreign

companies. the economics just makes sense. we can fix that by taking our rates down 25%. and by going to a territorial tax system. i think these are extremely important. another challenge that europe has is the defined-benefit government pensions, the social-welfare pensions, the unionized pensions for the private sector, and there defined benefits. it means you constantly -- defined benefit requires a whole bunch of new people coming in and paying pensions to support the old guys. there are more united mine workers retire than working. it is an extremely heavy load for the industry. the coal industry, the automobile industry, all of these industries are badly damaged.

people have gotten most out of wack in the public sector unions. we have begun to reform this in the united states. one of the reasons i am optimistic is not just because i believe that romney and ryan are going to win the next election and have a republican senate and house -- i think that will happen and i think that is very important. but if you look at the 50 laboratories of democracy, there are 24 states that have republican governors and republican legislatures. there are 11 states that have

11 democratic governors and legislators. we have a real opportunity to see what works. california, illinois, maryland, and new york are busy working on becoming -- and the red states are trying to reform reduced taxes. we had overwhelming elections in kansas where the winners were committed to the governor's vision to abolish the state income tax. north carolina is about to elect a governor committed to abolishing the state income tax. oklahoma has made the same commitment with their government and other states are moving in that direction. in utah, the government there a year ago -- all new hires -- state, local, county, teachers, they will have a defined contribution pension. which means here is your pay, here is 10% of their pay and a 401k. 12% if you are a fireman or policemen. because you retire earlier. that is the model that louisiana has begun to move to,

kansas will be moving to. other states -- north dakota will do it shortly as well as wyoming. moving state-by-state to reform the pension system allows us to also look at how we can do this at the national level. private sector has been doing this for 20 years now. shifting from a defined benefit plans to contribution plans. i think we miss the challenge your past. -- that europe has. not only because our demographics are better -- we are having more kids, more open to immigration as opposed to the europeans. and we can -- this buys us the time to reform our pension system so we do not bankrupt ourselves with the entitlements. the big reform that ryan has put forward the us three things -- tax reform brings the rates down, makes us more competitive on the corporate and individual level. territoriality which stops disadvantaging american corporations around the globe. american companies are ambassadors for america. it is much better to do the one

on one conversations. so those reforms are key in part of ryan and will happen with the republican house senate and presidency. it will not happen if obama is reelected or the democrats have the senate. they did not do any of those things. they moved in the opposite direction on all of them, including territoriality which is why some of high-tech corporate world is so irritated at obama with a had a lot of hopes for. the other two pieces are beginning to reform entitlements. the model we have is working at the state level. people are doing this and winning elections. not losing elections. which is always the key thing that politicians want to know. is this safe?

can i do this and get reelected? and is it good for the economy and everything else? it always has to assure politicians that this is safe to walk out on the ice with. then the other one is the block ranting of all the welfare programs. clinton reform welfare, the bill in 1996 but block granted aid to families of dependent children. here is your money, a fixed amount, but you have a lot less strings. each state could decide how to get people out of welfare dependency and focus on people with real needs so that people with real need for taking care of and other people were not locked into welfare. there is somewhere between 77 and more than 100 means tested programs at the federal level. the big ones -- medicaid, housing programs, job training

programs, and food stamps but then there are a bunch of others as well. lyon and that approach looks to block grant. when you hear critics of ryan say you're cutting aid to the poor, they're plagiarizing the criticism of clinton's welfare reform. everything the left said about clinton's welfare reform turned out not to be true and everything they are saying about ryan is not true for the same reasons. it is doing for other welfare programs what clinton did. they signed the welfare reform bill and it worked. they did everything its critics said it would not. i think these reforms here will help strengthen the american economy and we can afford to have an adequate national defense which keeps us free and safe and would make anyone afraid to throw a punch at best.

-- at us. as long as we do not make some of the decisions that previous administrations have which is to overextend ourself overseas and to run the government -- we are not very good at making americans organize their lives in the way somebody in washington thinks they should. why did the same people think they can do this in baghdad with success? it has not worked well there. let me take some questions here. the two feet off each other. a strong and healthy american economy with reasonable laws that we do not allow the billionaire trial lawyers -- where we do not have overregulation, we will have overregulation, we will have tax