we agree on those things. we agree it would help to save lives if we can accomplish this. but it would reduce the risk of threat to the region. we have come to geneva today to begin to test these proposition, not just on behalf of each of our countries, but on behalf of everyone interested in a peaceful resolution. so i welcome the distinguished russian delegation and am proud that president obama's direction we have a delegation here, which

i lead, of some of the nation's foremost chemical weapons expert. people who dedicate their lives every day for the proliferation of the weapons and to bringing about their eventual elimination from this earth. the russian delegation has put ideas forward, and we are grateful for that and respect it. we have prepared our own principles that any plan to accomplish this needs to encompass. expectations are high. they are high for the united states. perhaps even more so for russia to deliver on the promise of this moment. this is not a game, and i have said that to my friend sergey when we talked about it initially. it has to be real. it has to be comprehensive. it has to be verifiable. it has to be credible. that has to be timely and implemented in a timely fashion. finally, there ought to be consequences if it does not take place. diplomacy is and always has been president obama's and this

administration's first resort. and achieving a peaceful resolution is clearly preferable to military action. president obama has said that again and again. it is too early to tell whether or not these efforts will succeed, but the technical challenges of trying to do this in the context of the civil war are obviously immense. despite how difficult this is, with the collaboration of our experts and only with the compliance from the assad regime, we do believe there is a way to get this done. we have come here to define a potential path forward that we can share with our international partners. together we will test the assad regime's commitment to follow

through on promises. we are serious. we are serious, as you are, about engaging in substantive, meaningful negotiations, even as our military maintains its current posture to keep up the pressure on the assad regime. only the threat of credible force and the intervention of anpresident putin and russia based on that has rocked the assad regime to acknowledge for the first time that it even has chemical weapons and an arsenal and that it is now prepared to relinquish it. president obama has made clear that should diplomacy fail force might be necessary to deter and degrade assad's capacity to deliver these weapons. it will not get rid of them, but could change his willingness to use them. the best thing to do, we agree, is to remove them altogether.

our challenge here in geneva is to test the viability of placing assad's chemical weapons under international control and removing and destroying them forever. the united states has also made clear that the deaths of more than 100,000 syrians and the displacement of millions, either internally or as refugees remains a stain on the world conscience. we all need to keep that in mind india with that. that is why we continue to work with the joint special envoy and ourselves under the geneva communique. we share those hopes that could foster a political solution to a civil war that undermines the stability of the region, threatens our own national

security interests, and compels us to act. that is our hope and that is what we fervently hope can come out of this meeting in these negotiations. thank you very much. >> i am not prepared with the political statements because our approaches are clear and they have stated in the statement and the president statement and article that all of you read this article and decided not to lay out our intent to find compromises. i am sure during the presentation of the american

position shows they would like to find mutual consensus. >> can you give me the last part of the translation, please? [laughter] you want me to take your word for it? a little late for that. >> from earlier today. with anadimir putin opinion piece in "the new york times," that read -- we have a link to this on our website, www.c-span.org.

lots of reaction on capitol hill, including from john mccain . a tweet earlier today read an insult to is the intelligence of every american. the chairman of the house intelligence committee and the top democrat of the committee spoke today in washington about the proposal for syria. here are five minutes of their remarks. let's try to understand the problem. russians have been on the ground since the beginning. they have contracts there. they have been supplying weapons before and want to do it after whatever happens in syria. they need that warm-water port, believe inthey keeping a military footprint in

syria. we should eliminate their benevolent interest in being a peacemaker. primary --r wine their number one primary concern is losing their access. it is in their interest to make sure that the first people who might show up at a storage facility, the russians want to be the first ones in the door. i imagine there is serial link there that writing is their concern. -- it canm with syria work -- but our interests have to align. i believe you need a credible military threat in order to continue to have a negotiation that is a success. that is why the russians said they would not allow that to happen in the united nations.

chapter seven that would allow a new united nations military threat if they cannot get a handle on these weapons. i think they are buying -- they got exactly what they wanted on day one, which was time. they needed assad to have more time, so this gives them more time to dig in, to engage in denial and deception on the ground about their chemical weapons program. it allows them to continue to supply arms and financing. it sends a dangerous message to the opposition that he is going to be there for a length of time. i am skeptical. i hope it works. i just do not think it will work if we do not have some real credible threat to say guess what -- if this negotiation does not go well, we have another set of options and you will not like any of them. i worry without that this just becomes a game of taking four meet, to decide when to

four months to decide who gets to me, another six months to decide who gets to go into syria, and i do not think that is helpful to what is happening on the ground. >> do you agree there needs to be a credible threat of military force? >> without a doubt. we're here because of the threat of military force. and a lot of this started, when the opposition was starting to gain momentum, that is when russia basically wanted us to come to the table and see what he could resolve. why does russia do this? putin will only do what is good for putin, and second, russia, and they know they are on the wrong side, especially when it comes to chemical weapons, but also their interests in syria and the middle east. it is the only jurisdiction that works with russia. it was to their advantage. then when hezbollah got in the game, things changed. they knew iran was there. they said, we are winning, and

that is why we decided to coordinate. no boots on the ground, but them a quarterback helps somehow change the time. our goal then was to get russia back to the table. the position to know where we are, and the president made the right decision because the only leverage we have now with the assad and there -- killed on hundred thousand of his people. he is a low key person trained in britain, and his father and iran were pulling the strings. it is about maintaining that kind of power. we need to verify, and we need time limitations. if this is a stalling tactic, our military force is our leverage, and we have to verify with the people that will go into the country, and that will

be a tough situation. the country is still at war. people will see where the weapons are, and will they be safe? these are things we have to deal with. video that event in our library, and tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. the u.s. house gaveled out before the rain arrived this afternoon. this afternoon, john boehner held his weekly briefing on the issue of syria. ed called putin's op- insulting. he said republicans will demand spending cuts. he spoke for less than 10 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> good morning, everyone. last week yet another report showing our economy continues to

struggle. growth, normal of slow high unemployment, and stagnant wages. we have got more americans leaving the workforce than we have finding jobs, and that is unacceptable. that is why republicans are focused on jobs, strengthening our economy, with our plan for economic growth and jobs. this week we are taking steps to dismantle the president's health care law, which is driving up the cost of health care and making it harder for small businesses to hire new workers. bill, a passed a proposal that has received support to protect taxpayers and prevent massive fraud in the health care law. for the sake of our economy we will continue to do everything we can to repeal this obamacare. another important part of our plan for jobs is raining in the

massive deficits that is hurting jeopardizingnd the dream for our kids and grandkids. yesterday i met with jack lew, the treasury secretary, and this morning with leaders reid, mcconnel.d i reminded that for decades the white house and congress has used the debt limit to find bipartisan solutions on the deficit and debt. these types of changes were signed into law by president clinton, and president obama himself two years ago. uh -- is obama -- going to have to do with this as well. it is no different. you cannot talk about increasing the debt limit unless you are willing to make ranges and

reforms that begin to solve a spending problem that washington has. unless we deal with our spending problem honestly and forthrightly, the american dream will be out of the reach for our kids and grandkids. i think our members are ready to solve this problem. we show leadership and we passed the balanced budget. it is time for the president to work with us to truly solve this pproblem. believe we have national security interests in stopping the use of chemical weapons. in syria and around the world. as i said earlier, we have doubts about the motives of the assad inand president offering this current path. now that the president has made the decision to the lay any authorization -- delay any authorization vote, i hope they do that -- i hope a diplomatic solution can be found. questions? >> [indiscernible]

concerns about russian, do you have more concerns after putin's op-ed? >> a lot of ways i could describe this, but i have doubts about the motives of the russians and of assad. --with obamacare >> whoa, whoa. >> thank you. speaker boehner, or conference rejected your latest proposal in to fund thed -- government to the end of the month. >> like quite yet. there are a lot of discussions going on about how to deal with the c.r. and the issues of obamacare. >> if you cannot get this funding measure to the end of september, which is fairly routine, how can you get the at limit extended, and will we have

a replay of 2011 -- >> there's all this speculation about these deadlines for coming up. i am well aware of the deadly -- deadlines. so are my colleagues. we are working with our colleagues to work through these issues. i think there is a way to get there. i will continue to work with my fellow leaders and our members to address those concerns. >> [indiscernible] >> no, i'm fine. >> [indiscernible] a one-year c.r. -- [indiscernible] >> there are a million opposition -- options being discussed. when we have something to report. we will let you know. >> [indiscernible] produced vernment has -- [indiscernible]

there are also lots of occasions when there is an impasse on the budget and congress simply increase the debt limit, like in 2002 when george bush was sent to a clean debt ceiling. willing to give him one and not president obama? >> if you recall that was on the heels of 9/11 and the economy faltering in a big way. -- we have spent more than what we have brought in 455 of the last 60 years. this year the federal government will bring in more revenue than any year in the history of our government, and we still have a $700 billion budget of said. have a spending problem. it must be addressed, period. yes, sir. >> [indiscernible] what is your blunt reaction when you read that op-ed today? do you think america needs to

respond more forcefully to his comments? do you think he is playing the president here? what was your but reaction when you read that? >> i was insulted. >> why? >> [indiscernible] in democrats make the point january you guys essentially gave an effective $300 billion increase by that that ceiling -- by the debt ceiling by agreeing to consumption -- confessions. you guys went ahead and raise that without extract think concessions. why should they be more fearful now of you guys not raising it? >> it is time for us to deal with the problem. he have an opportunity to do with it. we know what the problem is. we have baby boomers retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day. 70,000 this week. 3.5 million this year. this is only the third year of

baby boomers beginning to retire. it is not like there is money in or medicare.ty it has already been spent. the system has to be addressed. these programs are important to tens of millions of americans. they are not going to be there if we do not begin to solve these problems. >> a full one year you delay of obamacare brought an extension or increase to get rid of the sequester and would raise the deficit, not lower the deficit. is that a file alternative, given that what you need to do is address the deficit? >> there are a lot of members with a lot of ideas. we will continue to talk with all of them. >> [indiscernible] >> i think the president is in charge with foreign policy and i opinions,ile we have i have already said more than i should have. but you got the truth. >> thank you, sir.

boehner's news conference, nancy pelosi also spoke with reporters. she said republicans on to say government shutdown when funding expires at the end of the month. >> that afternoon. as some of you know, earlier today there was a bipartisan leadership house and senate meeting in the speaker's office. as i said coming out, i thought it was constructive and productive that we came together, that we listened to each other, and i think candor saves time, so i think in that respect we have made some progress in understanding where

we all are as we go forward with the continuing resolution and the debt ceiling. i think i referenced it as more than one manifestation of the budget debate. kind of losing my voice. without going into what we discussed at the meeting, beyond that, i want to say that the democratic principles have always been clear. we are focused on creating jobs, growing in the economy to create jobs, and any approach to a continuing resolution or a debt aboutg lift has to be creating jobs. we are prepared to find common ground to keep the government open and not default on the debt. that is really important for job creation, and democrats know we have to get rid of sequester him up because it will cost, according to the cbo, as low as 900,000 jobs and as high as 1.6 million jobs this time next year.

a million around jobs, taking the lower side of it. that is a job loss that not only our country cannot afford, but america's families cannot afford. session,we are, out of thursday,ch on because yesterday republican leaders were forced to pull from consideration their continuing resolution. that would be their own solution to keep government open. we know house republicans want to defund the affordable care the veryontinued destructive sequester, again, costing a million jobs this next year. i think it is important to note -- you know it is a job killer, you know what they are trying to do him a what it would do, but here are some other things. proposal would recap on medicare. it is important to note this

because i do not think much has been said about it. we be able tod fight services to millions of seniors. it just will not work, what they are doing just will not work. it would and fraud in the would stuff,em physicianimary care payments would end, and that is important. if we are going to provide services to people on medicaid, we have to have primary editions who will do so -- primary physicians who will do so, and those payments would end. this is nasty. it has tentacles that affect in a negative way many aspects of american life. now americans face the prospect of another republican manufactured crisis to shut down the government. it is interesting to note that proposals to republicans are putting forward are not continuing

resolutions, to keep government open. they are proposals to shut down government. they know that. they know that what they are proposing is not going to pass the senate or be signed by the president. so why don't we just save time, be constructive, and i respect the time they have to democratic majority. signature,president so everybody has to respect the role that everyone plays in this. the most important thing we have to know and consider is that we are here to do a job for the american people, and just because you are an anti-- government ideologue who as landed in congress does not mean you should be shutting down government. alternatives.atic we have tried seven times. we will try and eighth time to have it considered, and that is

what you have heard proposed by our ranking democrat, chris van hollen, on the budget committee. it replaces the destructive sequester, it creates jobs and accelerates economic growth, investing in infrastructure and making it in america, etc., and reduces the deficit in a balanced way. just think again, getting back to the sequester -- up to 1.6 million jobs fewer this late next year. thousands, tens of thousands of kids forced out of head start, seniors kicked out of meals on wheels to that tunes of millions of wheels on wheels, and investment slashed in research and tech knowledge he. about $6 billion slashed from the national institutes of health? that is devastating. we're asking for a vote for our positive agenda. creating, make it

in america, reduce the deficit, we are hoping that we have that opportunity. instead of getting us a chance to do that, yesterday for the 41st time the republicans to defund theed affordable care act. in any event, on the timing, my understanding is that the republican leader has said that members should be prepared to be in the week after next. few you we just came in a days ago. we are already out of session by noon on thursday. you come in next week and we are scheduled to be out the following week, which is the week before the end of the fiscal year. again, i am calling upon the republican leadership to keep the house in session so we can get our work done. that is not just the work about the rest.nd

it is work about immigration, we have to pass comprehensive immigration reform. it is about a farm bill. forneed to pass a farm bill the american consumer, for america's farmers, and for those who depend on nutrition programs that are contained in it. the path they are taking by slashing 50% of a nutrition program is -- it speaks for itself in terms of how mean- spirited it is, however, that is their path to perhaps -- if it passes --to the conference table. to the be getting conference table, even at the price of vicki percent of the nude -- 50% of the nutrition program. i bring up these subjects because we are working of all of these subjects and have been. syriasue of the moment is

. i am very proud of the president. laid out inight he very clear terms how the assad regime's use of chemical weapons ,mpacts our national security and holding the regime responsible for gassing thousands of people. one thing is clear -- undeniable -- the president's credible threat of military action has brought parties to the table to seek a viable diplomatic solution. it is a tribute i think to the strength of the president, to his strong leadership, that he was willing to make the strike and strong enough to say no to the strike if there is a viable the automatic solution. we all hope for that solution in ent crisis, and the presid

rightly keeps the threat of military action on the table. we must pursue every avenue available to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction. that is a pillar of our national security and our military is something we do as a last resort. so in that spirit, i command the president for protecting us, and with that i will be pleased to take your questions. >> i was wondering what you made of putin's op-ed, saying the opposite of that, that the use m, force would be horrific arguing that the rebels, not the syrian regime, use the chemical weapons. it really was a slap in the face to the president. >> it is what it is. not a strong institutional democracy, where people have their say. he comes here and has his say, but it has to have some fidelity

-- >> [indiscernible] >> you know what? it is who it is. assad is a part of the negotiation, two, and he is clearly a monster who would gas children in his country. let me say this about the putin thing. he has made several points in there, and it is interesting -- he talks hebut when does not want the united nations to turn into another league of nations, not the effective -- i thought that was interesting because one of the reasons the united nations has not been effective in syria is because of the fear of a russian veto. even in initiatives that others have tried to propose that would say, condemned the use of chemical weapons, they have not been willing to sign on to. part of the strengths of the

u.n. is the fact is has a strong security council. part of the lack of success is that russia, china to frequently use that veto power. what i found interesting was the closing. when we pray to god, he judges us all. i do not exactly what his words are. we are all god's children. i think that is great. i hope it applies to gays and lesbians in russia as well. another point i would make is that while he has a right to his opinion on these subjects, of course, i totally disagree with him when he disagrees with the president -- america is an exceptional country. yes, ma'am. >> [indiscernible] will be arming the opposition

with lethal armaments out there, and that being said, with the recent anniversary of the attacks, at tax -- t were you ever briefed by the administration regarding the fact that there was a cia annex did they ever brief you as to what was going on in that particular annex? >> a lot of questions there. first, you start about talking about arming the syrians, correct? that is an old story. it is resurrected and has nothing to do with the current debate and balance in terms of being new. i cannot tell you what i was briefed on in terms of -- >> did you know that an annex existed in benghazi?

>> i am not going to answer that question. i have been to libya. i was to tripoli. butd not go to benghazi, had some idea of what was going on there. >> did you know the annex was there? >> i am not confirming or denying anything there. yes. >> on the meeting today, it sounds as though you guys kept more of a broad discussion rather than specifics. is that the case, and was there any agreement to meet again or was this a process in trying to figure out the best of what is coming? >> i know you heard me when i said i would not talk more about the meeting, but i have been reading your pressing request. what is next is what the republicans will come up with. clearly, they had to pull their

proposal that was supposed to come to the floor this week, which was some combination of ing ornding or -- defund undermining the affordable care act, or what i find be an unexpected role number inconsistent with the budget control act, which was a bipartisan agreement, that they would've put forth. as bad as old on that was, it those ondd enough for the republican caucus that they had to go make matters worse, and when they bring that forward, we will see what it is and make a judgment how to go forward. if it looks anything like what they are considering now, a strong negative vote on the parts of democrats. that does not mean there is not a place where we can find common ground. if they have -- if it gets bad enough that they can get all of their votes, that is one thing. it does not look like a path to

signature, though. >> do you expect there will be another meeting? >> i hope so. i think we are efficient when we speak to each other with recognition the are all busy, our respectiveor , and there is no arguing that. in other words, you may not like what each of us has to say, but it is a reduction of our caucus, and that again moves us forward in saving time and certain portions of action that are not worth pursuing. >> can you talk about how you wanted to replace the sequester? do you want to replace it with other spending cuts? what sort of package can you come up with? seven times.d it we will try and eight time to have it proposed and we can get

reticular's -- particularly. probably they are online. as i mentioned, chris van hollen on more than one occasion to talk about the budget, it creates a jobs proposal, yes, it would have cuts. some of them relate to the farm bill, some of them relate to special interests, special tax breaks for big oil that are part of the current situation. it reduces the deficit in a balanced way. down. this is written it has existed for a while. i will get you a copy of it, we have to,oes say in a balanced way, reduce spending. you have to make judgments. when you make a judgment you are going to throw kids out of head start, you are not saving any money.

economists will tell you nothing brings more money to the treasury than investments in education, from earliest childhood, k -- 12, higher education, posted red and lifetime learning. grad and lifetime learning. this is a missed opportunity for them. we have a slogan in california. parentsldren learning, earning. kids are engaged in the that way, learning, so parents can be earning. you cut off the funding for head start, not only are the kids to private, the parents do not have that option of kids being learning at the same time, and you lose the jobs as the people who have been teaching the children.

again, i am always amazed how the republicans can say you do not have to, as they have said to me, you do not have to cut $30 billion in subsidies to big oil in order to reduce the deficit. you can say that same amount of money by cutting pell grants. they are proud of that. i think it is a complete opposite set of values, and, therefore, edge of proposals, but, again, with stiff competition, this is one of the dumbest ideas that you could advance. cap education to reduce the deficit. reduce theation to deficit. no. invest in education to bring money into the treasury. >> it seems the republican theership is working on nutrition bill. are you going to be urging democrats to vote one way or another on this?

>> absolutely. i do not know we have to encourage anybody. we had 100% vote that came up with a smaller package, even than that, of cuts. yeah, we would most certainly -- the momentum is springing from our members. i am very proud that marcia fudge, a member of the agriculture committee, the chair of the congressional black caucus, she will be managing our side of the bill for that, and that means in opposition. you can imagine that they would cut -- and why, why would we cut half the people of children and seniors, off of nutrition? because they do not want to touch one hair on the head of the wealthiest people in america. a bad idea. i know you want to get rid of the sequester, but for a short you support the

level that speaker boehner is supporting? >> we will see what they did. it would have to be a short time, and that is part of our discussion, what is the timing, and what -- would there be an es that comeinibus next? what comes next? i think we have agreed -- i am speaking for myself -- he have agreed to a bipartisan budget control act. that call for 1.57 billion. 9.8 sequester proposal is $8 billion, and if we can split the difference, it would ease the pain for a lot of people in our country. again, reduce the job -- the impact on job creation. the thought about sequester was

cataclysmic, so unreasonable that no one would ever allow that to go forward. but even defense was not a enough argument for publicans to protect tax advantages of the wealthy at the expense of our national security. that is why we are where we are. we are concerned about the domestic cuts and concerned about the defense cuts him and i think the american people do not really have a full idea about sequestration. do any of you? perhaps you do. but they do know that we should not be shutting down government, and they do know -- and we do think we have to make a case that says we have cut $1.57 billion, we have cut over $1

trillion. we have agreed to over a trillion dollars in cuts. now we are getting into the bones, and those bones are important to the strength of our country. it will be an interesting time, because eyes always say to new members, know the budget, no it back and forwards and sideways. it should be a statement of values as a country, as to what is important to us, how we allocate our resources. you have to make -- we have to do so in a balanced way. we must curb the deficit, and we have to do so in a way that invests in the future and creates great. to cut education to reduce the all, you'reirst of not publishing your goal, and second, you're undermining the griffin rec tree. president obama said when he became president that he was going to reduce the deficit by 50% in four years.

four yearsd it in and four months. he cut the deficit by 50%, so the cuts are being made, and as we go forward we have to continue to reduce the deficits come up that we have to do so in a way that does not reek havoc medicare, doeson not undermine the education of our children, does not destroy job creation as we go forward, and having said that, i look forward to working with my republican colleagues to find a solution. if your goal is to shut down government, they are on that path. if you do not believe in government, then you would make the puzzles that would shut it down. we do not want any more government than we need, but we have to have the government that we do need, and that is -- that has been a fight in a country from the beginning.

one fight is about security and liberty. but balance that to create another, which is the role of government, no more than we need, but what we need for public -- private partnerships to grow our company, to honor onto for nor ship, to get the job done for the american people, and honor life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, because our founders saw it that way. thank you, all, very much. -- this weekend, coverage on c- span, joe biden is that the verge -- is that featured speaker in indiana -- in ohio. that starts at 3:00 p.m. eastern. we will have that for you live. >> sagamore here was different

than earlier presidential homes because it was never a commercial venture. they did not try to be self- sufficient. what edith wanted from sagamore hill was basically to offset the expense of living there. they raised hay and out. and right, grains they could feed their horses and reduce the cost of having horses. that a lovely garden to produced everything from corn to strawberries. they have an arbor that had eight to the kinds of grapes. then strawberry and blueberry fields. the idea was to feed the family and the staff who lived on the side, but reduce the cost of maintaining a property like this. >> watch our program on edith website on our website, www.c- atn.org or see it saturday 7:00 p.m. eastern, and we continue our series live less monday. -- next monday.

>> john kerry rejected syrian president assad's suggested he began submitting data on his chemical weapons arsenal one month after signing an international chemical weapons and. spokepoke at a news -- he at a news conference with sergey lavrov. this challenge turk on urgency when the syrian regime used chemical weapons in a massive and indiscriminate way against its own citizens. resident obama and dozens of our partners believe that that action is unacceptable and we have in no uncertain terms made it clear that we cannot allow that to happen again. happened,f what has the world wonders and watches closely whether or not the assad

regime will live up to his commitments that he has made to give up their chemical weapons and whether two of the world's powerful nations can take a critical step forward in order to old the regime to it stated promises. i have seen reports that the syrian regime has suggested as part of the standard process they ought to have 30 days to submit data on their technical, chemical weapons stockpile. we believe there is nothing standard about this process at this moment, because of the way to read james the regime has behaved. the words of this regime, in our judgment, are simply not enough,

which is why we have come here in order to work with the russians and his delegation in order to make certain this can in fact be achieved. the united states and russia have and continue to have disagreements about the situation in syria, including the difference as to the offered. what is important is there is much we agree on. we agree on august 21, syrian men, women, and children died grotesque death due to chemical weapons. we agreed nowhere at any time should employ chemical weapons. we agree that our joining together with the international

community to eliminate stockpiles of the weapons in syria would be a historic moment for the multilateral nonproliferation efforts. we agree on those things. we agree it would help to save lives if we can accomplish this, that it would reduce the risk of threat to the region, that it would uphold the norms established in geneva almost a century ago, and that it would achieve the best of all of our aspirations for curbing weapons the fullestruction.>> comments tonight at 8:00 tonight on c-span. a new study by the government accountability office found one in four adults have skipped trips to the dentist because

they could not afford it. a subcommittee today held a hearing on the cost of dental health care. or nerds sanders chaired the hearing -- bernard sanders chaired the hearing.

>> the hearing of the u.s. senate subcommittee on primary health and aging is going to begin. opportunityke this to thank all the palace who are with us today -- all the panelists who are with us today, to thank c-span for putting this issue across the country, and to thank my colleagues am a who i expect will be coming in and out for this hearing. in the last couple of years, we have had a lovely discussion in our country about a dysfunctional health care system in which some 50 million people have no insurance. we have a crisis in primary care. despite outcomes, we spend more

than twice on health care than people in many other countries. in midst of the discussion of health care in general, we have forgotten and paid little attention to an element of health care that is an normatively important to all americans, and that is dental care and the fact we have a major crisis in dental care. i am glad c-span is here. i'm glad everybody is here, because this is an issue that needs a whole lot of discussion. it has been pushed under the rug, and it is time we brought it out into the sunlight. hearing oni held a until care, where -- until care -- dental, where we learned we had it a major crisis in terms of dental health. we know that people who need dental care the most are the least likely to get it, and that is low and middle income

americans, racial and ethnic minorities, pregnant women, seniors, individuals with special needs, and those who live in rural communities. low income kids are twice as likely as their higher income here's to develop cavities and lower income adults are more than twice as likely as middle and higher income adults to have had all of their teeth removed. today, all over this country there are kids who are home today not going to school the cause they have serious toothaches, and we know this is a major problem we are neglecting. we also found is that in america today millions and millions of in towns and cities where it is difficult to access dental care, even if they might have some insurance. they cannot find a dentist who will treat them. we learned 17 million low income children received no applecare in 2009. we learned -- this is a mind

blowing statistic -- 1/4 of adults in the united states six to five and older have lost all of their teeth. what about that? we have learned low income adults are almost twice as likely as higher income adults who have gone without a dental it checkup in the previous year. we know that dental health increases the risk for diabetes, heart disease, and poor birth outcomes. we learned there are over 830,000 visits to emergency rooms across the country for preventable dental conditions in 2009 them a 16% increase over 2006. when people are in agony, and their only alternative is to go into an emergency room which is very expensive care. the people in the expensive -- in the emergency rooms are not trained to deal with dental problems. there trained to do with pain

relief. tuesday k is five times more common than asthma -- tuesday k -- tooth decay is five times more common than asthma. there are more dentists retiring each year than there are dental school redwoods to replace them. the dental crisis not only has high economic and financial costs, but it comes with high social costs as well. over 100 billion dollars is spent every year on dental services in the united states. of these expenditures are paid out of pocket. pocket spending is second to spending on district or and -- on prescription drugs. millions are lost and missed

school days and lost productivity due to until pain. sometimes people become extremely ill because of oral infections and own occasions people died because they do not get the care they need. that me be very clear. we are paying for this dental crisis now in an inefficient and unjust dental system where we spend money on those who come to our hospital emergency rooms suffering in pain. yet we refuse to provide for people to get the care they need before it is too late. i believe making sure that people can't get to the dentist when they need to will prevent not only a lot of suffering, but at the end of the day saves our country money as well. askedstingly, last year i the people of vermont and people all over the country to send me their stories about dental problems, and we were just loan away i the kind of response we

got. we got 1200 responses. people are never asked to talk about it, and we heard people who are in pain, cannot find a dentist, and it was quite something. i think we have a real problem that needs to be discussed. about the concept of insurance, we usually mean insurance covers the need, but most people understand that dental insurance often pays for a relatively small percentage of averageeds, and the benefit cap is $1500 a year, and dental care is extremely expensive. i hope our panel will help us today understand why dental care is so very expensive. if you have some serious the problems, 1500 bucks will not do it. withte the limits, people dental insurance are far more likely to see a dentist and

those who have no coverage at all. more than one out of every four americans does not have any dental insurance. traditional medicare -- and i see this every day -- i do not know if you run into this as well -- but seniors often say why is medicare not covering dental services and it certainly does not. i am chairman of the veterans administration, and i can tell you right now, this is an issue we are working on, the v.a. does not cover dental services, and state can choose whether their medicaid programs provide coverage for dental care for low income adults. some do a good job. many do not. americanss low income in nearly half the states have no dental benefits or can receive services only in the case of a dental emergency. to my mind it is unacceptable that in our country aliens of people cannot get the care they need slip healthy lives. that'll problems, although

entirely preventable, and lead to extreme pain, and another issue, the stigma of missing teeth -- what is that about? if i'm looking for a job and i do not have my front teeth, what do you think my potential employers going to say? actually, you're not the guy we want right here. you have no teeth, it is like so teeth in your mouth, it is like a p on your four head saying this is a poor person, this is a person we do not want in our workplace. the lack of access to dental care and the high cost of dental care our national problems, and, as is often the case, the problems are far more acute for lower income americans. so, medicaid is inadequate, but even if you do have medicaid, it is, in many cases, impossible to find a dentist who accepts it. only 20% of dentists accept

medicaid, and only a small percentage of that dedicate a significant portion of their practice to the underserved. when i ask about the high cost of dental care, i am reminded of small practices where the overhead is high and dental school is very expensive. that is another issue i hope we can touch on here, the outrageous cost of dental school. people graduate hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. but in a report released today, the government accountability office found wide variations in fees charged by dentists. or eight of 24, and procedures examined, those charging at the high-end charged more than double what those with average fees charged their patients. that is a whole other issue of why the cost of dental care is

so expensive, the discrepancy of prices we see all over the country. now, there is some good news out there, and we are going to hear good news today. the news is that we are expanding the locations where lower income people can get access to dental care. federally qualified centers for right access to more than 4 million americans across the country. i and others have worked very hard to expand federally qualified centers by putting money into the national dental service corps so that we can get dentists funded by the government and so they can work in underserved areas. more than 90% of those who research -- who receive care at those

facilities, have incomes neath the poverty line. we have about 2500 people getting their care there. we have established school clinics, and they are working really well in at least two locations. there is a beautiful dental clinic right in the school where kids and adults are coming in. that is a concept i like very much. maybe we can talk more about that. i intend toonth, reintroduce the comprehensive dental reform act. this expands coverage to people with medicare, medicaid, veterans health benefits and people under the affordable care of to expand the number people with insurance, the number of places where people can receive care, and the placess provided -- providing services to the

underserved. bottom line is, we have a crisis in this country in terms of dental care. huge amounts of money and it is time to make sure that every american gets the dental care he or she needs and that we take care of our kids. senator baldwin, i understand you will be leaving soon and that you wanted to make an introduction to our panelists. >> i would like to make an opening statement, and then i can stay for a little while. i would like to thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this very, very important hearing. i appreciate the chairman's long-standing commitment to , affordableality dental care to all americans. far too many americans do not have access to dental care. one of my constituents wrote to

me and said that american dental care has stratified into two buckets, the haves and have- nots. for those who currently lack access, we must promote policy to expand coverage, including investing in federally federally qualified health centers. greg heared to have from the family health center of marshfield, wisconsin. his center has been instrumental populations care to in vulnerable rural areas and tribal areas in the state of wisconsin, and he will shortly be offering some keen insights on the benefits of the health center model. for the haves, those americans who currently have access to dental care, those -- that care has grown significantly more expensive over recent years, putting a lot more stress on middle-class family budgets. we have to do all we can can to

address these increasing costs, because they ultimately threaten public health and economic security. the major opportunities exist at this moment. as we move forward with reforms to our underlying health care ontem, reforms that focus delivering health care of higher quality at a lower cost, dental care must be an integral part of those changes and those reforms. dentalnsuring access to care must be a major component, and preventative services, so that we can save cost later by helping people avoid developing chronic diseases. secondly, dental care should become more integrated into health care models. we need to tear down the artificial barriers that exist between dental and medical. they are artificial barriers. by delivering more integrated

care, we will decrease cost and increase the quality of care. i look forward to the testimony of today's panel. i would love to introduce my constituent when that moment arrives. >> thank you very much, senator baldwin, for your hard work on this issue. let me now take the opportunity .f introducing our panelists our first witness is dr. frank catalonato. is vice chair of the board of directors of oral health america. baldwin, did you want to introduce -- >> thank you, mr. chairman. it is my great pleasure to

che, --nycmr. greg nis z, who runs a federally funded health center, one of the nation.practices in the it is the largest provider of dental services to medicaid patients in the state of wisconsin. i have always admired the work that the family health center has done to increase access to care in my home state. to yourook forward testimony today, and as you know, mr. chairman, unfortunately, i am going to have to leave midway through the testimony. but thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. cassiet panelist will be stallings. she is a social worker from falls church, virginia, who has seen firsthand both personally

and professionally the need to increase access to affordable dental care. she received her masters in social work from virginia commonwealth university. thank you for being with us. finally, dr. hughes has worked for prince george's county health department for center -- .or 17 years the day monti driver dental project and serves on the maryland dental action coalition board. she began her career as a dentist in bristol, vermont, but she left us. ok. why don't we begin. again, i want to thank all of you for being here. what we are trying to do and what this hearing is about his focus attention on a crisis which does not get the discussion that it needs. it is going to be a long, hard

fight, but that is what we are trying to do. being here.ou for please make your presentation. >> thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about access to oral health care. i spent almost 40 years in dental education, but for the last 20 years, have been advocating for a better way to deliver oral care. there are several indicators of the access problem. first, dental care utilization declined 10% in the last decade among low income people, primarily because of cost. we have made some improvements involving access to care for children, but we still have approximately 60% of medicaid enrolled children who are not proven cost benefit dental services. emergency related dental problems have increased 16% to

2007, of000 visits in very wasted cost. the problems with lack of access to care? miss schoolren who because of dental problems do children.than other education is the way out of poverty, but children in pain cannot learn. second, a recent study from 2000 2008, 61,000 patients across the country were hospitalized for a preventable dental infection. 66 deaths. 66 deaths were reported in this study. $840 estimated cost of million. this is not a personal tragedy

only, this is an economic loss. dental schools. dental schools are an important part of the dental safety net, where faculty and students provide care in community-based settings acceptable to the underserved. but dental education is very lengthy and expensive. that makes dentists a very expensive part of the health care team. 160 5000 plus dentists in the united states provide high quality dental care to those patients who can afford dental services. many dentists do not participate in medicaid. there are many reasons, including low reimbursement rates, but this significantly reduces access. .entist provide pro bono care i would remind you that while philanthropic care is wonderful,

philanthropy is not a health care system. it is not a solution for long- term care. another concern i have is that -- there are acts which do very little to protect the public and can actually impede dental care. what are some of the solutions? i will focus on the workforce, although there are many others. and new dental workforce model, at least knew to the united involves dental therapists. they provide limited restaurant care torestorative their patients. they come from the ethnically and economically diverse immunities they go back to serve. they are inexpensive to educate, cost-effective to hire, safe matter whats no

else you may hear. they are currently employed in alaska and minnesota. there are at least 15 other states working to include them, but they are being blocked by restrictive dental practice acts at the state level and by the american dental association and the national level. , a more cost effective for delivering dental care is in a large group tracked this setting that -- large, group practice setting that has lower overhead than a traditional single owned dental practice, thus reducing cost. one example you will hear about in a minute. unknown or example is a non-for profit center in alabama that provides excellent comprehensive care. in the past eight years, they have grown from 15 sites to nearly 500,000 using a combination of a culture of caring, evidence-based practice, innovative practice, business

practice, marketing and community outreach. let me leave you with this last example. they have reduced cost to the medicaid program from an average annual cost in 2005 of $328 to $125 in 2012. this is a remarkable business model to take care of patients. we need more of these around the country. we can't because there are some states that will not allow a business like this to be owned by a non-dentist. this is ludicrous, when the major hospitals of the country are run by mbas. in closing, i would like to point out that congress is members of the dental industry, but who lobbies to care,nts for access

for reduced pain and suffering, for increase ability to live and work, and for lower costs? i would suggest that we need you in your leadership roles in congress to fight for those patients. thank you. >> thank you very much. nycz. >> good morning. i want to thank the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify today on a topic i am passionate about, the need for improved access to dental care in our country. i am here on behalf of of a clinic that serves an area about off the size of the state maryland. about one third of our patients are poor. in my role, my phone number was listed as a resource for those seeking dental care.

i took many calls. one day i picked up the phone and it was a young mother, failing to hold back tears as her child screamed in pain and sobbed uncontrollably. the mother broke down. she had been trying for days, calling over 30 dental offices for help, someone who would stop her child's pain. such number stations were not uncommon for me back then, but what made this conversation a life changer for me was that i came to realize as i spoke to her that she was not just wearing the burden of her child's pain, but also the self- that came with her conclusion that she was a failure as a mother. i am proud of wisconsin and i am proud of my country, but none of endureat mother had to d had to be because it was all everything is in

place in the system to fix it. 10 years later, and i brought a picture to show this, we serve nearly 100,000 folks. even we were surprised by the enormous response. our patient map shows that despite the fact that we are located in northern wisconsin, we have seen residents from every county and every zip code. our patients tell us where we are needed. clinic,established a over 1000 people traveled over 4000 miles to get care. most were from new england. today, we have another clinic as a result of that. access, theo lack knew about.or, we what surprised us was that veterans could not get care. today, they now have a place to go. those who journey the farthest

are disproportionately people of all ages who have emergency dental needs and caregivers who bring their developmentally disabled loved ones for care at our sites, another roof at is left behind. recall alice in wonderland. if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. we need societal investment. we have been relentless in looking for ways to maximize the value of our efforts for the tax care, not just the patients we learn that we could improve the performance of our job basement agencies by making job seekers with horrible oral decay more presentable. we learned that annual savings $3000 arenge of $2000-

possible for patients with diabetes if we give them proper dental care. we learned we could be a real alternative to the emergency room and hospital by opening our doors to people with dental emergencies across the state. i would like to leave you with three thoughts. first, success will require that we were to fundamentally change our nation's perspective on the importance of dental care. second, workforce matters. over the next 20 years, wisconsin may phase 2.2 dentists retiring for each new dentist entering practice. third, and perhaps most importantly, at the community level we are seeking to pursue an integrative medical-dental model that leaves no one behind. of all the mission health centers. we are solving health care problems one community at a time

and we are in 9000 communities, but the current demand for care is outpacing our growth. over 300 of us applied for funding for unidentified, unmet dental needs in 2011. there have been no opportunities to fund oral health expansion since then. health centers are your health centers. the health care model has what it takes to solve the disparity problems for a growing number of our nation's communities and i appreciate congress's past support. give us more work, for there is more work to be done. thank you. >> thank you very much. ms. stallings. that morning, chairman sanders and distinguished the subcommittee. my name is kathy stallings. i am a social worker.

i am here as someone who knows the dental care is a luxury that many millions of us in america cannot afford. i have paid many thousands of dollars for dental work and need much more. i personally am focused on this issue because i am not able to afford to pay the exorbitant cost for the dental work i need. since finding out the extent of my dental needs, i have spent many dark hours wondering how i will afford my future. several years ago, i took out a bank loan to pay for a bridge i needed. i was told a few months ago that the bridge needs to be replaced. of $7,000ed a price for this. the. i just said he would give me a discount, but it did not matter. afford that either. the insurance coverage with my job covers 1290 dollars per year, which does not cover even one of the crowns i need, let alone anything else. crowns have been quoted to me up to $2000 each.

in the past few months, i have needed scaling and root planing for gum disease as well as an emergency ground when one of my cracked. as a social worker, i work with severely mentally ill clients, most of whom have not been able to afford to go to a dentist in many years. one issue for them is that numerous medications cause dry mouth, but with psychotropic medications, there can be a more severe effect as it usually takes more than one medication to treat mental health systems. saliva helps in preventing dental path ologies by its cleansing and bacterial action. client has very few teeth left. he found out a few weeks ago that he has three abscesses in his remaining teeth. his medicaid benefits only provide extractions of teeth, no

dental services. if more of his teeth are polled, he says he does not know how he will be able to eat. another client refused general month tonds of $220 a live on. she found out she needs scaling and root cleaning for her gum disease. the total price quoted to her was $1600. i directed her to a lower cost dental service this summer and she was told that they may have an opening in november since there is such a long waiting list. by anotheri was told client that he was told in 1999 that he had 11 cavities. he has never been treated for any dental work in all these years. he said i guess i am on the way to a root canal because i do feel a sensation in my mouth. unusual extremely birthday this year. as i was preparing to go out and

celebrate with my mother, i heard on the news about the maryland mission of mercy clinic where free dental services were being provided. immediately, i ran outside and told my mother, we have to cancel my birth day. i have to go to maryland. we went. they were full for the day. i could try again tomorrow. was more dental care crucial than celebrating my birthday so i went back and arrived at 8 p.m. i was number two in line. i thought, i wish i could bring all my clients with me. many others started to show up as time went on. we shared our stories of dental nightmares. i spent my night on the sidewalk, but i did not mind because i was getting a great birthday gift. it turned out that the gift was seeing over 400 volunteers inviding over 700 $50,000

dental care that weekend. i was not able to get the dental services i was hoping for as they were not able to do specifically what i needed. but i came away with the scene i will never forget, men and women of every race, creed and color lined up for what seemed like a mile, in dire need, with the hope of being helped. it was truly heartbreaking to see. i have learned that the lack of adequate dental care can lead to diabetes, chronic heart disease and strokes. these risks are scary for me and so many others, but you have the solution in your hands. i am a social worker. these are my clients. but on this issue, all of us are standing together in the same line looking for hope. to pass this legislation so that help can be provided to all. thank you for your valuable time and attention to this critical matter. >> thank you very much. dr. hughes. >> good morning.

i am a -- >> i think your microphone may not be on. >> good morning. health employee. i began my career in public health 20 years ago in vermont, and for the past seven years, i have been the program chief for the dental health program for prince george's county. last school year, we provided more than 32 hundred clinical visits to children and pregnant women. in addition, we provide oral health education across the county and work with community organizations, working with patients, clinicians, health organizations, administrators and community organizations. this has given me insight on the state of oral health both locally and nationally. i would like to thank senator sanders and senator byrd and committee members for this opportunity to share information landscapeclimate and of dental access. let me begin by telling you

about some experiences that inform my remarks today and inspire my work. in vermont, i lived in a small town with a population of approximately 8000. there were four private dental offices. eligible for those medicaid did not have access to any of these offices. with the health of a community organization, we're able to provide care and expand access. in prince george's county, the health department provides a similar safety net for dental care. recently, i participated in my first mission of mercy. this two-day large-scale event provided free dental care to uninsured it alts. men and women camped out be served.aiting to patients should not have to endure such conditions to receive treatment. this experience confirm my belief that dental care is not a luxury, but rather a necessity, and we must make it accessible

to all adults. achieving this goal will be difficult if we are unable to address rising cost within the industry. of course, we cannot talk about the high cost of dentistry without acknowledging the cost of dental education. it is not uncommon for a dentist to graduate with a debt of over 200,000 dollars. arguably, this plays a role in access and driving costs. the true cost driver. building a dental office can cost up to $500,000 for equipment you own. escalatingh the costs of laboratory fees, equipment up keep and staff him a which are largely unknown to those outside the field of dentistry, a practice can experience staggering costs. my clinic recently had repairs on an x-ray unit, and the labor fee alone was $295 per hour.

have neglected dental care, extensive treatment beoften required, and it can expensive. according to a survey of the south atlantic region, the added in the cost of the crown and the fee goes to $179. withcan cause problems chewing, speech and appearance. can the costs be contained? it is important to know what drives their costs. as a public health dentist, i think about education, prevention, outreach and to have increased accessibility to care. there is an established mobile house that provides dental care to public schools. the county health department aerates the project which is

mobile unit provided by the office of dental health. we provide resources for families to establish a home. we work with following tear dentists in the neighborhoods of the schools we service to provide a resource for families that will continue their efforts easily dental care oh accessible. we provided care to more than 2300 children on a budget of $180,000. mobile units are not a panacea but they are certainly a model for providing affordable care. prevention is unimportant as it to reducing cost to dental treatment. thernor o'malley assembled dental action committee. one of the recommendations was to institute school-based health screening programs. the maryland collision formed from the original dental action committee received $172,000 from ae -- foundation to develop

project to determine the feasibility of this kind of program in prince george's county. the results show it is vital to have a presence in the schools. eight category, potential drivers which indicated that they had an immediate need, even section or multiply decayed teeth. it is these kind of programs that will address affordable accessibility. we need a stronger financial commitment to support the public health infrastructure so that the dental needs of all can be met. thank you for helping to address this crisis. >> thank you. there is a lot to go over. what i propose is that we could do this kind of in formally. i would like to ask each of you if people want to jump in and comment, that would

be great. tell you a story, if i might. about 35 years ago i moved to a small town in rural vermont and i saw a kid there and i had never seen anything like it. he was maybe 10 years and all of his teeth were rotting in his mouth. .e was certainly not unique we had a major problem in vermont then. we have made some significant progress and we have done it primarily to the established of the centers around the state. state, about 25,000 people are getting treated regardless of income at the community health centers. source oftablished a great satisfaction in the low income areas. , plainfield,rd

burlington. we have state of the art mental clinics and they are fairly cost-effective. we have a long way to go. what we have learned in vermont ,s that every time you build you build a dental clinic and guess what, people come. is that your impression, that the need is out there and if we build it, people will come? >> absolutely. i look at my own examples in florida. we have patients travel two hours away because they cannot find affordable care. when i go next to the state capital of tallahassee, on the day we do a school exam, one in five children reported pain that day of the exam.

.ne in five children that was about five years ago. one in five. a young graduate of hours went to the health department, took a job, she is a pediatric dentist who gave up which could have made in private practice. overnight she made it a major success, just large numbers of patients. the need is out there. people will come if provided access to the services at an affordable cost. i will tell you as an example, although my dental students spent approximately six weeks of their clinical year. why did they do that, not in the short term. it is that the students finally figured out that this is a place i might practice.

it is no longer the private practice. they see the opportunities. >> let me ask you a tough question. mayve the impression today be that there are some great dentist out there who see their job as treating people in need but it is also no secret that there are a lot of dentist to graduate dental school deeply in debt. they are treating the upper- middle-class. you look at the yellow pages, they have a beautiful smile and they do all of the cosmetic dentistry. what do we do, what ideas do you have? to increase increase funding for the national health service. what do we do to create the kind of dental workforce that we need so that we don't have to be there are huget

places in america where there are not enough dentists treating low and moderate income people. what is your idea? >> we do need to include medicaid reimbursement. we are the worst medicaid reimbursement in the u.s. in florida. , i wanthat again everyone to hear that. >> one in 10 dentist will take that. because we have some of the lowest reimbursement in the u.s.. i think that there are clear data and scholarship programs are wonderful. there are some states that have them. we do not have them in florida. , this is legislators too cheap to do it. this is a longer-term solution. title vii funding provides for dental schools, the newest set of grants which is to help

change the culture of the dental school and the culture of dental students. health caren disparities. revampinge doing is our curriculum to produce students who are more culturally competent, sensitive to the needs of the underserved, .ave more public assistance second-year dental students go in and place sealants school-based setting. they see the picture early in the education. the goal is that they will become more sensitive to this issue after they graduate. are you finding that it is difficult to get doctors? given the opportunity and if they were decently reimbursed, that they would be able to attract more young people to serve lower income folks?

>> yes, there is no doubt. you are sending the students to work for us, they are seen the problems, they have a better appreciation of the needs of these kinds of patients and they are going into those settings. >> thank you very much. senator franken has joined us and i want him to be able to give his remarks. >> there hasn't been testimony yet? >> yes, everybody has testified the first round but if you want to jump in. >> tank you, by the way, mr. chairman, for inviting me to attend this. it is very important. i want to pick up where you were on dental care. theinnesota, we became first in the nation to create a license for advanced practice and dental therapist.

this was for started in the u.s. and alaska to address the native population there because in to get a dental provider, to get a dentist, you would really only get a dentist once a year who would fly in for a couple of days. now, they have dental therapists. other countries have dental therapists. ones in alaska were trained in new zealand or something. in your written testimony, the upsides of the financial impact of the national dental health care crisis and we were just

talking about the limited itess general care and how leads to wasteful spending. report released this morningonly 62% of americans have dental coverage and only 40% have a dental visit in any given year. you also noted that one important way to expand access would be for states to consider dental therapists in minnesota. could you elaborate on that? what can we in congress do to support the expansion of that program, the expansion of the number of dental therapists? >> it is a great question. i have been to alaska three times. i have talked extensively with people in minnesota that are both training the dental

therapist and that employed the dental therapists. i testified to the new mexico legislature about a mental there -- dental therapists. i have read most of the literature on this and i'm absolutely convinced that this is a cost effective, safe, wonderful model to deliver care to people in need. the beauty of dental therapists is that they can do the kinds of simpler procedures that a therapist might do that allows them to work at the top of their practice. educate inexpensive to and they usually come from the communities that go back to serve, the underserved ethnic minority groups. they are a wonderful solution. with theculty comes opposition at the national level and the state level. at the state level, it is restricted dental practice acts .hat forbids these individuals

there are 15-20 states that are this close to legislation to get dental therapists. these restricted acts also prevent dental hygienists that were excellent at providing some of the primary services needed. they restrict them from working at the top of their skill across many states. the impediment that currently exists is that language was inserted into the health service with authorization just a couple of years ago that prevents the first nation folks across this country who want to implement dental therapists, it prevents them from doing it because of the language that says they cannot use federal funds. this is a travesty, this is an affront to the sovereignty of the first nations. that is something you could do at the federal level. there's not much you can do at the the state level because of

the individuality of the dental practice acts. that this is incredible. if you would hire a dental therapist. a dental therapist in studies do the tests they are allowed to do as well as a dentist. am i right? >> yes, that is what the evidence shows. , we do the state laws not have access. of course, not many of them have been minted. i would like to circle back to the chairman's point about if you build it, it will come. the map that we show shows we are taking care of close to 100,000 people coming from all over the state and i would ask maybe 140 or 50 from the good state that have come to us for dental care. and we open up a clinic this is why this is a the nuanced, we get people with such

horrible dental disease that young men and women just coming out of their dental training, many of them are kind of taunted by the task in front of them. we have had one dentist leave after six months saying they are not prepared for this kind of work. am notanother say, i prepared for this, she went back and got a year residency and now she will work with us starting december 1. dr. michael mcginnis once wrote about the reasons why we don't do prevention and one of his points was the primacy of the rescue. i would say as it relates to dental therapist, we have dentists who cannot even do the job that we put in front of them when they come right out of training because they are not used to that but this is what we are faced with now, the primacy

of the rescue. toeed well trained dentists tackle that problem. i would like to get over the top of that hill and i want to have our population find that they can experience the same oral health levels that more affluent people have. as our population gets healthier, we have responsibilities to the taxpayers as well. pakistan tot group streets with five or 10 dentists. what i see is as our population gets healthier, we need to substitute in other providers routinehandle the more things to allow our dentists to continue to handle those emergencies. i see this more in our future. the problemsof that we discussed can be resolved. >> mr. chairman, if i might.

i have to go back to judiciary for work. when we had testimony on this, we had a dental therapist who worked in a native village and she said that she was able because she had been from the village, when she would see kids in the village at the store or say,here else, they would brush your teeth every day. when you are talking about this prevention piece, i think that is key that we have people who are more likely to go back to where they live and i think that this is something i would really like to continue to pursue. thank you. pick up where senator franken left off and what we are talking about is the

workforce in general. whether it is dental therapist or dentist or hygienist will to thet me throw it doctor. ?hat ideas do you have i do -- is it your experience that we are not attracting the kind of practitioners that we need to take care of, the population that has a lot of needs? in maryland, we have seen an increase in providers participating in medicaid. 1600rrently have over providers. our access issues deal more with adults not having coverage. those goals that do have medicaid, the benefits are so limited that they cannot find a provider. >> so, what happens? what they don't get seen. >> and when they are in pain? >> they go to the emergency

room and they are referred to the health department. there is not enough funding for public health infrastructure. right now, i could easily have an adult program in the health department but when there were budget cuts, one of the first things that was cut was the money for a dentist. we don't have funding, we have the capacity, but we don't have funding. we don't have problems finding providers but because we don't have the funding, we cannot offer the services. i think we have all seen pictures, whether it is health care or dental care, the doctors who volunteer their time pro bono to be trading folks i don't have access to. actually, one of my staff members, last year in southern

virginia, you mentioned , this is theilar third world country, first world country where people who have terrible health and dental problems of not found access to this kind of problem. spent the entire night waiting on line in order to get distracted or a checkup to find out whether they had cancer cancer or whatever it may be. i gather you are familiar with that reality? so, you are a lower income american, you are on medicaid but you don't have access, medicaid does not pay for it. what happened? what did those people go through? an office. have

one day i had a client that was in severe pain. i took her to the main office. in at her an appointment couple of days and we were told that they would pay up to $200. .hey have very limited funds many times, the only option is clients waiting months on this list to be able to be seen in the clinic where people are donating their time in their free off-hours. but, the waitlist is incredibly long and they have to wait for a long time. >> many of your clients are going? inwell, when they are severe pain, we definitely take action to get any treatment that we could possibly get.

a lot of our clients to loose teeth, have extractions, quite a few. ,f someone is really in pain we try to do everything we can with the limited opportunities we have. go back to anybody here. you raise this issue. a crisis, we don't have the workforce to address the crisis. what role does the american dental association play in all of this? we invited you to be with us today. last minute, they chose not to be here. are they stepping up to the plate in addressing the issues we are talking about today? >> in my opinion, in the last couple of years, there has been a shift in the national picture of the american dental association and the leadership

and they are calling more and more attention to the access issue. one of my arguments would be that you need to lobby equally as hard to these access issues as you do for the business issues that concern you. we have not necessarily seen that at this particular point. the state organizations are very independent of the national organization. one example would be the american dental association has policies on better licensing procedures. they support the policies that most do. at the state level, that is not happening. easier reciprocity between states is a national policy of the american dental association. it is getting better. i want to be positive about that. >> let me ask you a question, you are doing well in vermont in expanding access.

have you done any computations as to what it would take in a state like wisconsin, how many more facilities you would need, how much more money would be required to provide the dental care to the people in need. .> it is a big number our state asked us, could our state health centers help themselves with this problem and how would we help them solve this problem? we stepped upf and had the resources. came to one ofor our ribbon-cutting's, the approach we're taking is building these dental clinics. many of the private sector colleagues tell me that you're never going to solve the problem by trying to get a dentist to establish a practice in a town of a thousand or a

town of 300 or so forth. you need to centralize that usually to the county seat or a place where people can come. then we can gain some efficiencies in a group practice setting. it is easier to recruit and maintain. i am wondering about how many of these we need. when we simulated this, it does cost a lot of money to do this. he was a former attorney said, well, these folks have a legal right to the services and we have to find a way to do that. we have made great progress as i have shown in my written testimony. we have shown we have done on the state of wisconsin.

is fundamental, question that it is costly because we have neglected this. because we have had a undervaluethat does oral health and does not understand oral health to general health and we have the point that around 43% of a dentist every year. it should be more. the model we are trying to do, how you capture savings, you can talk about people coming out of school was certain income targets and having to price things but the real savings is to raise the oral health profile of the american people. is potential for dentistry gigantic. all of this can be prevented. we are engaged in this effort to try to make that difference. we are grateful in wisconsin

that we have built dental medicaid. why don't all states have adult dental? why don't we have this in the exchanges? people say it is because we cannot afford it. or do we afford adult metallic he? the thinking on this is that we have to totally change and integrate these things. you are right. that is why we are holding hearings, just to raise the consciousness. if you expand access to dental care, it is an expensive proposition. if you don't, it is an equally or perhaps more costly proposition. who wants to say a word there about people walking into an emergency room and how much that costs? we did our own emergency room.

115,000 dental visits to the emergency work at a cost of $88 million. it prompted me to write an editorial which was entitled pay me now or pay me later. we are paying for this today every day. just a medicaid costs alone was approximately $35 million. i did a rough calculation based on the fees. i could have purchased 495,000 , 495,000e is its visits rather than a wasted visit in a hospital emergency room where all they did is an antibiotic and pain medication and they are told to go see a dentist tomorrow. well, they cannot find a dentist. >> which is why they are there in the first place. the reason that we are there is that a thousand folks are

leaving that community to go to our dental makes in other communities. we are grateful for federal funds through the community health center program which you have something to say about that got us money to help build and equip that center. when we asked the public health department for a letter of support, they sent me a letter that said we have this 28-year- old and this gets to the point that it is not just the medicaid program and why the hell center model is so good, it is the leave no one behind model. a lot of this devolves into a talk about medicaid. many people don't have medicaid or they have it with no dental plan or they have health insurance but no dental coverage. who work andold live paycheck to paycheck him a started getting more and more sick and his sister stars to worry about him and he is just going downhill. she is thinking that he must

have lyme disease. so, they call the local clinic and they say, i would like to make an appointment. does he have insurance. no. they won a lyme test. does he have any money for down payment? no, he doesn't. it gets worse. he takes -- she kicks into the public health apartment. they go, we have to get you to a hospital. he probablyks said wouldn't have survived another 12 hours area -- hours. advanced cancer. today thankfully, but how much money had to be spent in the system and what haunts me is that in that letter of support at the end, they said both his sister and i agree, had you had one of the dental the next year this would not have happened. what we know, and it is true of dental care and health care as well. patient needs primary care and i can't find a primary health care, walks into

a emergency room, it costs 10 times more than walking into a community health center. as dr., auto pointed out -- dr atalanotto pointed out, the treat the pain, deal with the infection. -- let me get back to one of the issues. is cost of dental school kind of off the charts. i remember last year i was , wellg to young dentists over 200 and -- $200,000 in debt. what do we do about that? >> how do we reduce dental will tuition? >> if i graduated $200,000 in

debt i probably would not be running to a community health center. i would probably figure out how to make as much money as i possibly can. is that a fair statement? >> it is. however, if you work at the community out center, you are most likely eligible for loan repayment. -- it ishat we need important to establish more of these types of programs. in prince george's county we have a population of over 800,000 people. we only have one federally qualified health center and one safety net clinic. >> that is all you have? >> that is a we have. one dentally shortage designation area in the county. it is a daunting task to try to establish an area as a dental health shortage area because it surveys that you have of all the dentists in the area,

how the practice, and that is hard information to get. they get a survey and they toss it to the side. we have to improve that process. i don't know how to answer that question on how we reduce dental school costs, it is costly to go to school. in dental school, we are doing procedures -- there is the cost for equipment. we are not just sitting in lecture halls. we are actually doing procedures. that is why the cost is elevated. >> i want to get back to dr. catalanotto for a second. theraised an issue, situation in alabama. you see that as a potential model to provide cost-effective quality dental care, yes? >> i do. grown from one to 15

clinics in about nine years with no grants, only on medicaid fees. because -- first, the culture of caring. is they run issue it with a business model. the ceo was a fortune 500 company president at the age of 31. he did this as a volunteer activity in his community but now it has turned into a major nonprofit business. i have been there three times. i can walk down the hall and walk into a clinic. every time i walk in, a parent is in the room. before each visit, they take height, weight, blood pressure and temperature and report to the parents. i walk into the room and see prevention being emphasized. that is the only way they could have produced care. facilities 50

hours, 60 hours a week. they have mass purchasing power. they are able to get the most cost-effective pricing. they have a call center. they pay their dentists very well, but not on production. the dentists are paid a straight 15ary whether they do amalgams or restoration in a day or whether they do five area this is an -- five. this is an interesting model. they call their patients, they treat their patients with igniting -- dignity. they have a chair utilization rate of 99%. they treat their patent -- patients with nettie and respect. -- dignity and respect. they are making money.

they pile the money back into a new clinic. they recently got equipped to do talent industry. they do community service. istry.edent they do community service. >> their staff feels good about the work? >> many other dental assistants are college-educated young men and women. they care. -- if younow started want to go to dental school, will they will pay your way if you offered a mac. -- offer to come back. i am on their board. unpaid. they want to expand out-of- state.

they are restricted. the ceo is an mba. , anything in the model we can learn from? health centers probably could learn from this model as well. the tasks we are faced with are not just taking care of medicaid on dental. adults,to contend with people with psychiatric problems. we have to contend with people who have disabilities. we have to be a little bit more well-rounded. make ourle, we could site more efficient if we didn't include large treatment rooms and wheelchair list. we could make our site more efficient perhaps if we didn't include training. i think we can learn from them, but their model is still fairly

focused on a distinct population and we have responsibility for everyone. >> is this focus on kids? >> it is only focused on kids because there are no adult benefits in the state of alabama. they only do children. he is absolutely right. it is a different model. they have recently hired an oral surgeon. they have several pediatric dentists who can take children to the hospital. but they only treat children through age 20. has there been -- let me just say to everybody here. we are going to do our best to focus more attention on this issue. we are going to do our best to provide more money for the community health dentists. we're going to look at the issue of dental health therapists. we are going to look at models which seem to be high-quality and cost-effective. i think your point about

philanthropy is great but it is to a major crisis in this country. dr. hughes is here today and she product, maybeal we will conclude with dr. hughes. tell us, some people may have forgotten, why the project is named after him. >> the 12-year-old that died in prince george's county from an abscess. unable to access dental care, his medicaid had left and she could not find a dentist to treat the child. taken -- he was taken to an emergency room and sinusitistment for and other things and then was

rushed back to the hospital and had to have immediate surgery when they found that the bacteria had spread to his brain. 27, 2007.bruary ofa result, the government maryland said this cannot happen again. the dental action committee was formed and seven recommendations were made. actions, theeir project was initiated. it is a mobile dental unit. they go to title one schools throughout the county and treat all children insured and uninsured. one thing that we really don't talk about is children that are uninsurable. we have a large population in the county and in the state of children that are uninsurable. we see those trover and as well. -- children as well.

by definition, a mobile unit in maryland cannot be a mobile -- a dental home. we work with families through case management to make sure that all children are in a dental home. we are there to treat emergent needs so that we don't have another driver. as i talked about earlier, in our process, we are talking to establish statewide school training. children are required when they go to school to have immunizations. why are they not required to be seen by dentists? in our demonstration project, we saw that there were -- it was vital that we were there. there were a number of children who had we not seen them could possibly be drivers. we honor the legacy of driver by being in the schools. we also provide treatment at the

school he attended. the program has been very successful and it is welcomed by all the schools that we attend. hughes, thank you for the work that you do. to remember driver, our job is to to get it -- to dedicate ourselves to make significant improvement in the dental care system in this country so we never see another driver situation again. i want to thank you all not only for being here today but each in your own individual way for addressing this issue. thank you very much. let's adjourn the meeting. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> yes, the world is changing. no, we can't control every event. america remains the one

indispensable nation in world affairs and as long as i am president, i intend to keep it that way. >> the president is talking about the indispensable nation. what he doesn't want us to talk about is, we don't know how to win wars. we have, by virtually any measure, the best military in the world. we spend more on our military than basically the rest of the world put together. but we don't know how to win wars. it seems to me that there ought to be a serious national conversation as to why that is the case. where is the fault? is it our politicians? generals are inept? is it the size of the forces are too small? or is it -- and this is my belief -- is it the fact that by its very nature, war is unpredictable? to go to war is to roll the dice. you might win and you might not.

>> more with retired army vich sundayrew bace night at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. >> a potential serial military strike on hold. the associated press reports the pentagon is spending $27 million a week to maintain the u.s. navy presence in the mediterranean sea. to keep watch over syria and be prepared to strike if needed. president obama told the nation he told the military to maintain its posture and keep rusher on assad and the imposition to respond if diplomacy fails. on the diplomacy front today, syrianrry rejected president siv's suggestion that he began -- assad's suggestion that he began giving information in one month after signing event. challenge took on

greater urgency on august 21 when the syrian regime used chemical weapons on a massive and and discriminate way against its own citizens. president obama and dozens of that thatrs believe action is unacceptable and we have in no uncertain terms made it clear that we cannot allow that to happen again. in light when what has happened, the world wonders and watches closely, whether or not the assad regime will live up to its public commitments that it is made to give up chemical weapons and whether two two of the world's most powerful nations can together take a critical step forward in order to hold the regime to its stated premises. that theen reports

syrian regime has suggested that as part of the standard process, they ought to have 30 days to submit data on their chemical weapons stockpile. we believe there is nothing standard about this process at this moment. because of the way the regime has behaved, because the existence of these weapons -- and they have been used. in the words of the syrian regime, in our judgment, are simply not enough. we have come here in order to work with the , sergei lavrov and his delegation here in order to make that this can in fact be achieved. russiated states and have had and continue to have our share of disagreements about the situation in syria, including a difference as to the

judgment we just offered with respect to who may have done that. but, what is important as we come here, is there is much we agree on. 21,gree that on august syrian men and women and deathsn died grotesque due to chemical weapons. we agree that no one anywhere at anytime should employ chemical ourons and we agree that joining together with the international community to eliminate stockpiles of these weapons in syria would be an historic moment for the multilateral nonproliferation efforts. we agree on those things. we agree that it would help to save lives if we could accomplish this. it would reduce the threat to the region. it would uphold the norm that was established here in geneva

almost a century ago and it would achieve the best of all of our aspirations for curbing weapons of mass destruction. >> back in the nation's capital today, the chairman of the house intelligence committee mike rogers and the top democrat also spoke today about russia's proposal for syria. here is part of their remarks before a group called the intelligence and national security alliance. >> but try to understand the problem. the russians have been on the ground since the beginning. they have long-term military contract. this aftero do whatever happens in syria. that so theykeep have a strategic interest in keeping their foot in syria. we should try to eliminate some benevolent interest in being the peacemaker in the region.

they are concerned about losing a strategic asset. that is their number one primary concern. they have been on the ground providing advisers, providing intelligence packages, and it is in their interest to make sure the first people who might show up at a chemical storage facility -- the russians want to be the first ones in the door. cyrillne there is some writing in there that might cause concern. it can work, but our interests have to align. we have to bush their interest to align. --elieve you need a critical credible military threat in order to have negotiation success. that is exactly why the russians said that they would not allow that to happen in the united nations.

i think they are buying themselves -- they got exactly what they wanted on day one which was time. they needed assad to have more time. in, gives them time to dig to engage in denial and deception campaigns on the ground about their chemical weapons program. it allows them to continue to supply arms, financing and other things. it sends a pretty dangerous message to the opposition that he is going to be there for a length of time. it is -- i am skeptical. i hope it works. i just don't think it will work if we have some -- don't have some real credible threat to say, if this negotiation doesn't go well, we have a whole other set of options. that, thist without foures a game of taking months to decide when to me, for months to decide who gets to go

into syria. that is not helpful to what is happening on the ground. >> do you agree that there needs to be a credible threat of military force? >> without a doubt. we are here because of the threat of military force. whenu look at the history, the opposition was starting to gain momentum, that is when russia basically wanted us to come to the table and see what we could result. why does russia do this? for only do what is good putin and russia. that is my opinion. they know they are on the wrong side of the issue, especially as it comes to chemical weapons but also their interest in syria and the middle east. that is the only jurisdiction that really works in favor with russia. when hezbollah got in the game, things changed. at this point, they said we are winning. decided to we

coordinate, no boots on the ground, to be the quarterback to help the opposition and other allies to help change the tide. our whole goal was to get russia back to the table. then, we are in the position now. the president made the right decision because the only leverage we have now with the players that are there is force. assad took 100,000 of his people. i am amazed. he is a low-key up the mildest trained in great britain. i think his father's people in iran are pulling his strings. verify.we have to we need time limitations. if this is a stalling tactic, then we have to continue on with the threat of force or nothing is going to happen. with thehave to verify people that are going to go into the country. that is going to be a tough situation.

the country is still at war. will the people check to see where the weapons are -- are they going to be safe? >> on tomorrow morning's kristolon journal, bil,ll joins us to talk about the divide within the republican party. more about syria as well as congressional battles over funding the government. is live on c-span. this morning, we talked about syria with a member of the house armed services committee. host: we want to welcome chris gibson. guest: i am encouraged that he is going to pursue the diplomatic track. that is our best chance to get

the outcome we are looking for which is a peaceful resolution to the civil war, also ensuring that chemical weapons don't end up in the hands of al qaeda. andink that is important there is a lot of work ahead of us. we will talk about sanctions and just how effective they are. i would tell you that there is a few points that he made that did concern me. number one is, at one point during his remarks, he said that he is coming to congress for a vote. that was the right thing to do. but he said he didn't need to. that is not my read of the constitution. it is very clear that the people's representatives are the ones that are supposed to be on record declaring war, authorizing the use of force. there is an exception there, and national emergency. in those circumstances, the commander-in-chief may enact or

implement force. none of those circumstances are met here. i believe the resident needs to come to congress for authorization. i want to say once again that i appreciate the fact he is coming to congress. the president was making a point during his remarks where he said , if we don't bring forward force, that we are looking the other way. i disagree. i think we stand up, we condemn this. we say it is unacceptable. to bringwork together a broad international coalition including russia to tighten the sanctions on the assad regime and get him to yield. i believe we can absolutely do this. that will bring a mediated settlement and also a form of punishment. the fact that this leader is compelled by the international world to yield.

the third thing, and this is just a matter of specifics, i don't agree with the risk assessment. -- the administration assesses low risk. that is not my read. i have had multiple contact tours to iraq. if we strike this country, we will change the international calculus. we need to bring to bear diplomatic pressures. we also will change the dynamic on the ground. we will unite muslims against us. we could impact the command and control for the chemical weapons. that could be forces getting control of the chemical weapons. host: it sounds like you're a no vote no matter what.

guest: i am a no vote given the circumstance. if syria strikes the united states, that is another matter. our best chance for the outcome in our best interest and the world is to continue on the diplomatic track. host: what kind of sanctions are there against syria right now? guest: there is basically three types of sanctions that we have right now. in 2004, this had to do with manufactured goods. anything over 10% manufactured in the united states is not to be traded with syria. the second came along with the patriot act. that targeted the syrian commercial bank. the third is individuals that we think are associated with al qaeda.

we look at their financial arrangements. most economists assess there are 24 different institutions that are involved in moving financial services for syria. i think that is a good start but we could do much more. the regime has about $24 billion abroad. just the way money moves inside syria. when we are doing this unilaterally, it is making a statement. it is not making the impact we want to have. we have the u.k. and canada with us now on some of these sanctions. but these are not sanctions that can make a difference on the decision-making for assad. host: how do they compare to our sanctions against iran?

guest: with iran, we have taken a broader look at their institutions. we are targeting their ability to move capital inside and outside the country. we have taken a stronger stance on assets abroad. when i have heard we haven't done enough yet on diplomacy -- some people say we have given diplomacy a try. now we have to use military action. i do not agree. i think we have much more to do. especially when you consider the downsides that will occur if we strike the country. our best shot is staying on the diplomatic track. host: there is an editorial today from "the washington times." you have "the wall street journal" yesterday saying now there is no punishment for using chemical weapons.

guest: we are more towards the beginning of diplomacy. there has been some activity here. we have this geneva one talks from the summer of 2012. that included a number of nations. we brought forward the beginnings of what could be geneva 2. there has been some diplomatic activity. the president has a panoply of responsibility. i am not pointing the finger at his deficiency. we have more to do. we have to put some effort. we should condemn what is going on in syria. not only the use of chemical weapons but the fact that he has killed 100,000 people in his own country.

i want to see us bring along more nations and heightened these sanctions and target more specifically the way that they move money. they are not looking to live guevara. i think if we ratchet up the pressure on assad and his regime, he is going to yield. he may leave. if he has that option. that is up to the syrian people. that is not up for us to decide. we should condemn what happened and work to change it. host: barbara, thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. the bombs and guns of today that

are used in war are equally weapons of mass destruction as any chemical weapons are. i do not understand. we see 100,000 killed with bombs. does our congress know how we are involved in this civil war already? we are supporting the rebels with military aid. do we recognize that to be an illegal intervention? the world sees our hypocritical look at that area. when we say that israel should be able to bomb other countries around them. they can have a nuclear weapon. for some reason they are ok. they are a democracy.

but we must intervene in any islamic nation and start killing people. guest: thank you for calling in. to your point not aiding rebels, i agree. i was on the show a couple months ago with peter welsh. arming the rebels is an act of war. think of another nation providing assistance to rebel groups in attacking us. we would view that as an act of war. we both work very hard to get a vote on that. the amendment was ruled out of order. i voted against the rule, which you do not see very often on a parliamentary vote. this was something so important that i thought we needed to have

a vote on. we need to think and act differently around the world and recognize that our greatest strength is our ideas. other countries want to be like us. about three dozen different countries -- i have seen this time and time again. they admire the way our political system is set up to promote freedom. working from that core strength and leveraging that with diplomacy, that is enormous influence. i do not think we are using the way we should. with regard to the distinction between chemical and conventional weapons, i agree with you. i am encouraged by this talk

that we are now in with russia in geneva. it should not just be the focus on chemical weapons. we do not want assad to yield with chemical weapons but continues to kill 100,000 of his own people. we ratchet up the pressure and we get a peaceful resolution by getting assad to yield. host: stephen in connecticut. caller: i would like to look at the big picture. the russians sold syria chemical weapons. how were we to think we would make an arrangement to take them away? who is to say they will not sell them more weapons after they get them back? it is absurd. even dealing with them is a joke. i think our president needs to

go back to the drawing board. guest: i would say my view of international relations is for informed by the idea that countries have interests and in this case, we can find ways to have overlapping interests where we can take concerted action together. not on all issues. i have long said and believe that it is in russia's interest to see a mediated settlement in the syrian civil war. the idea there would be an element of the regime compelled to make concessions allows russia to have influenced in syria in that region. if the assad regime completely goes, they run the risk of having no influence. i would say the last thing mr.

putin wants to see is those chemical weapons getting loose and showing up in chechnya or other places. i do not want to overstate this. there is enough overlapping interest for us to work with russia. it has to be verified every step of the way. i think we work towards these common interests. we verify every step of the way. i think we can make a difference. with regard to chemical weapons we should demand that the warring factions have a seat at the table and we getting brokered settlement. host: this on twitter.

guest: what i am saying is -- i assess the situation in syria, looking at it from where we are today and what our options are. if we strike the country, we will change the international calculus. it is in russia's interest to begin to work with us. if we bomb the country, they may back off and say, "you have broken it and it is yours." it weakens us from the standpoint of bringing together the international nations to bring about a peaceful solution. not to mention the thing on the chemical weapons. looking at all of our potential courses of action, we have a

less likelihood of achieving if we use military. i oppose the use of military force. host: there are the reports -- that the administration went in talks about military action in voria, roosevelt comes -- koso comes up often. what are the similarities and differences? guest: there is constitutional, diplomatic, and military. there are differences on all three levels. there was a senate vote in the case of kosovo. it was bipartisan and action took place the next day. we never had a vote in the house. you see presidents from both parties take the country off to war without addressing congress. i have a bill about this.

we have hr-383. i believe we should stay consistent with the founding principles that the people getting voice in the use of force. i just want to draw that distinction. you had a vote in the senate with kosovo. we have not had a vote in either. i think the president was right to come to the congress. the second is diplomatic. it was more extensive in kosovo, the diplomatic efforts. we have yet to put together a substantial international coalition to make a difference in syria. there has been some diplomatic activity but we have much further to go. there are key distinctions. look in kosovo.

you had 28 nations involved coming to the assistance of a majority who were being oppressed and abused by a minority. we intervened on behalf of muslims. we are talking about striking a regime in the case of syria. i think that is going to have an impact on our relations across the region. when folks say is going to be like kosovo, i do not agree. on the 11th of september in 2001, in the cities in kosovo there were pro-u.s. rallies. if we strike, you will not see pro-u.s. rallies. host: jean is next. you're on the air.

caller: to representative gibson. they were talking about a war, strictly air war. no troops on the ground. i am a vietnam veteran. you cannot have a war without putting troops on the ground. it is impossible. we could have fought vietnam strictly by air without a lot of loss on the ground. guest: i generally agree. when you look at this comprehensively, we have a desired end stake. when you consider courses of action -- you have to look at

courses of action in their entirety. this is why my assessment on the military course of action, i sense we would have a lot of agreement here. the minute you strike the country -- i think that with the regime will do is they will use chemical weapons against and deny it. this is what they have done. if they use chemical weapons again, where does that put us? to your point, we could find ourselves escalating because u.s. prestige would be on the line because we use military force. i am concerned about that kind of escalation. when i was a young man in the gulf war when that effort

initiated, hussein started throwing scuds at israel. he realized the strategic forces, this could be a massive defeat for him. so he struck israel. we were advancing to get that coalition to crumble. the soviet union was still in existence then. i am concerned if we strike syria, there is more than just low risk. we could see an escalation and potentially a strike on israel. i do not want a threat inversely affecting them. host: we are talking about receptors in -- representative christopher gibson. he has a 29 year in the military and served in iraq and kosovo. kevin is up next.

go ahead. caller: good morning. one might another they are affiliated with each other. why is the republican party -- i think the republican party is more in danger because they do not do anything for our country and they disrespect our president, which makes him seem weak. they should be brought up on treason themselves because they have done nothing but disrespect this whole country. guest: well, look, the general point the caller is making, i agree. i do not agree with the assessment. i try to lead by example. what i can do is one day at a

time lead by example. if you go online and go and look at my bills, you will see they are bipartisan bills. i have republicans and democrats co-authoring my bills with me. if you were to google my remarks on the floor of the house, in many cases i have been supporting bipartisan efforts. that is because i believe we need to put service first. i recognize that i am one person but i can make a difference one day at a time. the president has shown good judgment in leadership and i have supported him. i have been careful in this case. i am not pointing a finger at him for his deficiency. uniting our country and uniting the world in condemning this

action and working to tighten the sanctions and get the assad regime to yield to concessions. i think this is possible. some people say where has diplomacy ever gotten us? in 1989 when you saw the purple revolution, you saw the end of the cold war. that was without a shot. the berlin wall came down. we had country after country decide communism was not their preferred political system. we did that without firing a shot. see the incredible difference that dr. martin luther king jr. made in our country and in the world. you see the possibilities of standing firm on principle and

bringing people to your side. i think this is possible here. i hope the caller would join me in praying for our country and hoping for more unity. host: on your call for sanctions, richard other tweets in this. guest: i disagree. we are beginning to see changes in iran. the latest sanctions we have put in place, we have seen a change in the leadership in iran. i think you have seen some evidence of movement on the regime. the regime seems more open to these discussions than not. when you look at our relations over the course of the cold war, we had a persistent stand and

over time and incredulously to some, the fact that the world would change so significantly without a war. the idea that from a core strength of promoting human rights and freedom and sticking to that in a peaceful way, absolutely. i believe we can change. host: "u.s. and iran tensions easing." that is starting to thaw. guest: the president has been clear on that. iran not to have nuclear capability and we have been clear on that and i want to see us continue to enforce the sanctions. i think they are very targeted at their ability to move money inside their country and externally. we have put together some onerous sanctions on the

movement of capital. host: pat from irvine, california. caller: good morning. i have a bad feeling about all of this. i realized just before obama was reelected and that he was on tv with an open microphone. he said, just wait until i get into office. [indiscernible] i have a terrible feeling about what happened. i think it is a big set up. host: referring to the conversation with medvedev and president obama. guest: i would go back to the interest for our country and russia. i think in this case with syria

it is our interest to get a peaceful resolution to the civil war and to see these chemical weapons be secured. it would be helpful to have some kind of organization other than the syrian regime to have control over these chemical weapons. i think russia has similar interests. that does not guarantee an agreement. it is an entrée to explore discussions where these interests may overlap. i just think we have to find where our overlapping interests are and make sure there is an ability to verify each of these points. host: what do you make of vladimir putin's op-ed?

guest: well, look. he is going to communicate in a way that he thinks he gets the most of his interests. the track record here is not a good one when it comes to their involvement in other countries across the world and their relations. we talk specifically about who provided the chemical weapons. they are trying to position themselves in a strong place. the timing is not coincidental. i believe that we will do this and not be distracted by some of these plays. know exactly where we want to end up and get these challenging negotiations and never lose sight of vision of where we want to be.

i do not -- that that does not distract me. host: if there was a vote for military strikes against, it has been said that we need to get rid of sequestration. if i vote yes on strikes, we have to do away with sequestration when it comes to the pentagon. do you agree with that? guest: i will be voting no if there is a vote. i assume there is not a major change to the array of factors. if syria strikes our country, that is a different thing. i think we need a progrowth replacement for the sequester, so any kind of activity in the congress, i agree with. host: mark is next, independent caller.

guest: hi, mark. caller: do you have a redline about how many deaths you would tolerate? guest: i think any death is a tragedy. we should focus our efforts -- i was listing the set of sanctions we have in place right now. i think they can be much more stringent. we need to bring to bear the weight of the international community. we have these sanctions against the syrian central bank. we have not put effective sanctions across the financial institutions, much less the money that can be frozen internationally. given their close relationship with russia. any negotiations with russia, we

need to work towards them to be with us. i see where you're going with your question. i watch the images on tv and i am deeply saddened and outraged. but i am responsible for making a wise choice. if we strike militarily, we are going to make matters worse. no matter how outraged i am were deeply saddened, i have to deal with the reality that i am in. our best way to get a peaceful resolution is to stay on this diplomatic track and i believe we can make a difference. when we get to the end of this, i believe we will be in a

stronger position to make a difference in the region. a lasting peace between israel and palestine is critically important to that region. if we bomb that country, we put ourselves in a weaker position to get that outcome. if we can get this done diplomatically, i think we are in a stronger position. host: rob is watching in stockton, california. caller: a lot of our brethren in egypt will be beheaded and killed. nobody is talking about egypt. we lost half a million people in our civil war. death comes with civil war. i agree with you that we should not get involved there militarily. it is going to stir things up worse. let them work it out themselves.

we have a viable option. a peaceful option lets america out gracefully. nobody said anything about the chemical weapons that were over in iraq. maybe george bush was correct. maybe they got trucked over into syria. saddam's money was being trucked over. that is all i have to say. guest: thank you. let me make a couple of points. we need to be getting better, learning from our experiences. what is relevant in relation to your comment is when you look at

palestine and then you look at egypt in the last several years, you have presidents from two political parties. in our pursuit of trying to influence other nations to embrace democracy, it is important to take stock of where we ended up. we were rushing to get elections in palestine. who is most organized? hamas. we see a regime that is anathema to many of the outcomes we are pursuing toward. egypt, we were pushing to get these elections in place. who is the most organized? the muslim brotherhood. an extremist element became in power in egypt. i am concerned about the situation on the ground in syria. perhaps a quarter of those rebel forces are associated with al qaeda.

i do not want to see where we end up with al qaeda empowered forces. host: the house is about to come into session for legislative business. we have to leave it there. i appreciate your time. christopher gibson. come back again. guest: good to be with you. >> about his chemical weapons program. one month after the chemical weapons ban. secretary kerry and his russian counterpart are up next on c- span. then brief remarks from president obama on syria. we will also hear from house speaker john boehmer -- boehner.

>> different from other presidential homes because it did not try to be self- sufficient. basically toed was offset the expense of living there. grains that they could use to reduce the cost. they did not have a lovely garden. had aad an arbor that different kinds of grains. strawberries and blueberry fields. the idea was to both feed the family and to reduce the cost of maintaining a property like this. >> more on our website. span.e it saturday on c-

we continue our series live on monday. >> syria has applied to sign on to the weapons ban treaty. -- secretaryy kerry. >> dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you for such attention to today's meeting. i hope this interest will not in fact negatively outweigh the accommodation.

we would like you to have an unbiased ideas about what we are going to do. before we start to tell you what we're going to do. we shall begin the very serious work. the syrian organization, the chemical weapons. the documents are officially tabled by damascus to the corresponding agencies and will have to have a look at the corresponding documents. the rules that are established

by the organization by chemical reference be perceived. this problem will make unnecessary any strike. i am convinced, as president obama stated, that we should follow the people of the resolution of the conflict at syria, and i shall say that we spoke several times. the development of the events. in order to move the situation from the stage of military confrontation. this is expanding in the region.

the transition bodies will have all the executive function, and this is the common object is. all other efforts that are going to continue will help us to move on. thank you for your attention. >> thank you very much. my privilege to be here with our delegation. i want to thank your delegation on behalf of all the military action. we thank you for coming quickly to geneva in order to have this important conversation we will

engage in. over one year ago president obama and president putin to work together to prepare contingencies in chemical weapons. we have been in regular contact about this issue since my visit earlier this year. this challenge obviously took on great urgency on august 21

president obama and dozens of the partners believe that that action is unacceptable and have in no uncertain terms made it clear that we cannot allow that to happen again. in light of what has happened, the world wonders and watches closely whether or not the assad regime will live up to commitments it has made to give up chemical weapons and whether the world's two most powerful nations can together take a critical step forward in order to hold the regime to the stated promises. i have seen reports the syrian regime has suggested as part of the standard process they ought to have 30 days to submit data on the chemical weapons stockpile. we believe there is nothing

standard about this process of this moment, because of the way the regime has behaved. the words of this. regime, in our judgment, are simply not enough, which is why we have come here. that is why we have worked with the russians and his delegation in order to make certain this can in fact be achieved. the united states and russia have and continue to have disagreements about the situation in syria, including the difference as to the judgment we just offered what is important is there is much we agree on.

we agree on august 21, theory and men, women and children died grotesque deaths due to chemical weapons. we agreed nowhere at any time should employ chemical weapons. we agree that our joining together with the international community to eliminate stock piles of the weapons in serious would be a historic moment for the multilateral non--- proliferation efforts. we agree on those things. we agree it would help to save lives if we can accomplish this. it would reduce the risk of threat to the region. that it would uphold the norms established in geneva almost a century ago and would achieve the best of all of our aspirations for curbing weapons of mass destruction.

we have come to geneva today to begin to test these propositions, not just on behalf of each of our countries, but on behalf of everyone interested in a peaceful resolution. so i welcome the distinguished russian delegation and am proud that president obama's direction we have a delegation here, which i lead, of some of the nation's foremost chemical weapons experts. people who dedicate their lives every day for the proliferation of the weapons and to bringing about their eventual elimination from this earth. the russian delegation has put ideas forward, and we are grateful for that and respect it. we have prepared our own principle that any plan to accomplish this needs to encompass. expectations are high. they are high for the united states.

perhaps even more so for russia to deliver on the promise of this moment. this is not a game, and i have said that to my friend serge when we talked about it initially. it has to be real. it has to be comprehensive. it has to be verifiable. it has to be credible. it has to be timely and implemented in a timely fashion. finally, there ought to be consequences if it does not take place. diplomacy is and always has been president obama's and this administration's first resort. and achieving a peaceful resolution is clearly preferable to military action. president obama has said that again and again. it is too early to tell whether or not these efforts will succeed, but the technical challenges of trying to do this in the context of the civil war

are obviously immense. despite how difficult this is, with the collaboration of our experts, and only with the compliance from the assad regime, we do believe there is a way to get this done. we have come here to define a potential path forward that we can share with our international partners. together we will test the regime's commitment to follow through on promises. we are serious. we are serious, as you are, about engaging in substantive, meaningful negotiations, even as the military maintains its current posture to keep up the pressure on the regime. only the threat of cree

force and the intervention of president putin and russia based on that has rocked the assad regime to acknowledge for the first time that it even has chemical weapons and an arsenal and is now prepared to relinquish it. president obama has made clear that should diplomacy fail, force might be necessary to deter and degrade the capacity to deliver these weapons. it will not get rid of them, but could change his willingness to use them. the best thing to do, we agree, is to remove them altogether. the challenge here in geneva is to test the viability of placing assad's chemical weapons under international control and destroying them forever. the united states has also made

than 100,000 syrian's and the displacement of millions, either internally or as refugees remains a stain on the world conscious. we all need to keep that in mind and deal with that. that is why we continue to work with the joint special envoy and ourselves under the geneva communiqu?. we share those hopes that could foster a political solution to a civil war that undermines the stability of the region, threatens our own national security interests and compels us to act. that is our hope and what we fervently hope can come out of this meeting in these negotiations. thank you very much.

>> i am not prepared with the political statements because our approaches are clear and stated in the statement and the president statement and article that all of you read this article and decided not to lay out the the book out of -- the intent to find compromises. i am sure during the presentation of the american vision, they would like to find mutual consensus. >> can you give me the last part of the translation, please? [laughter] >> you want me to take your word for it? >> a little late for that. the head of the free

syrian army rejected a proposal on securing syria's arsenal on thursday. they said that assad's government should stand trial on the international criminal court. resident assad's government has been accused of using chemical weapons and an attack took place on august point first i killed over a thousand people. -- that killed over a thousand people. president obama met with his cabinet today before john kerry and surrogate -- sir guy met. hoped thee meeting could talk about the budget and health care. >> all right, everybody up? well, we are missing a few

members of our cabinet here today. in particular, john kerry is overseas meeting on a topic that we have been spending a lot of time on over the last several weeks, the situation in syria, how we can make sure that chemical weapons are not used against innocent people. i am hopeful that the discussions that secretary kerry has with foreign minister lavrov can yield a concrete result, and we will work hard over the next several days to make sure what possibilities are there. even as we have been spending a lot of time on the syria issue and making sure that international attention is focused on the horrible tragedy that occurred there, it is important to recognize that we have a lot more stuff to do in this government.

the american people are still interested in making sure our kids are getting the kind of education deserve, that will put people back to work, that we are dealing properly with a federal budget, that bills are getting paid on time, and that the federal government itself is in every single agency running the way it should, making sure that our constituents and the people are getting a good deal. we are going to spend time today talking about all the efforts that have been made by many of these cabinet secretaries to streamline operations, to cut out waste, to improve performance, to improve customer satisfaction. we will focus on specific issues, including managing some of the budget debates that will be taking place over the next weeks.

we will talk about the rollout of the affordable care act where we have seen some tremendous progress over the last several months and are confident that starting at the beginning of next month people will start signing up for health care, in many cases for the first time. and we will spend time talking about issues like comprehensive immigration reform which is of enormous importance to make sure that america grows. i appreciate the great work that people have done. some of the cabinet members here are relatively new, but thanks to their confirmations and the great teams they have put around them, they are hitting the ground running. all right? thank you very much, everybody. thank you very much, everybody. thank you. >> at his weekly

briefing with reporters, house speaker john boehner offered his reaction to president food and's -- putin's article. here is speaker boehner's short briefing. >> good morning, everyone. last week yet another report showing our economy continues to struggle. this new normal of slow growth, high unemployment, and stagnant wages. we have got more americans leaving the workforce than we have finding jobs, and that is unacceptable. that is why republicans are focused on jobs, strengthening our economy, with our plan for economic growth and jobs. this week we are taking steps to dismantle the president's health care law, which is driving up the cost of health care and making it harder for small businesses to hire new workers. today we passed a bill, a proposal that has received support to protect taxpayers and prevent massive fraud in the health care law.

for the sake of our economy, we will continue to do everything we can to repeal this obamacare. another important part of our plan for jobs is raining in the massive deficits that is hurting our economy and jeopardizing the dream for our kids and grandkids. yesterday i met with jack lew, the treasury secretary, and this morning with leaders reid, pelosi, and mcconnell. i reminded that for decades the white house and congress has used the debt limit to find bipartisan solutions on the deficit and debt. these types of changes were signed into law by presidents reagan, bush, clinton, and president obama himself two years ago.

president obama is going to have to do with this as well. it is no different. you cannot talk about increasing the debt limit unless you are willing to make changes and reforms that begin to solve a spending problem that washington has. unless we deal with our spending problem honestly and forthrightly, the american dream will be out of the reach for our kids and grandkids. i think our members are ready to solve this problem. we show leadership and we passed the balanced budget. it is time for the president to work with us to truly solve this problem. on syria, i believe we have national security interests in stopping the use of chemical weapons in syria and around the world. as i said earlier, we have doubts about the motives of the russians and president assad in offering this current path.

now that the president has made the decision to delay any authorization vote, i hope they do that -- i hope a diplomatic solution can be found. questions? >> [indiscernible] concerns about russian, do you have more concerns after reading putin's op-ed? >> a lot of ways i could describe this, but i have doubts about the motives of the russians and of assad. >> with obamacare -- >> whoa, whoa. >> thank you. speaker boehner, your conference rejected your latest proposal to fund the government to the end of the month. >> not quite yet. there are a lot of discussions going on about how to deal with

the c.r. and the issues of obamacare. >> if you cannot get this funding measure to the end of september, which is fairly routine, how can you get the debt limit extended, and will we have a replay of 2011 -- >> there's all this speculation about these deadlines that are coming up. i am well aware of the deadlines. so are my colleagues. we are working with our colleagues to work through these issues. i think there is a way to get there. i will continue to work with my fellow leaders and our members to address those concerns. >> [indiscernible] >> no, i'm fine. >> [indiscernible] a one-year c.r. -- [indiscernible] >> there are a million options being discussed. when we have something to report, we will let you know.

>> [indiscernible] divided government has produced [indiscernible] there are also lots of occasions when there is an impasse on the budget and congress simply increase the debt limit, like in 2002 when george bush was sent a clean debt ceiling. why are you willing to give him one and not president obama? >> if you recall, that was on the heels of 9/11 and the economy faltering in a big way. we have spent more than what we have brought in for 55 of the last 60 years. this year the federal government will bring in more revenue than any year in the history of our government, and we still have a $700 billion budget deficit. we have a spending problem. it must be addressed, period.

yes, sir. >> [indiscernible] what is your blunt reaction when you read that op-ed today? do you think america needs to respond more forcefully to his comments? do you think he is playing the president here? what was your blunt reaction when you read that? >> i was insulted. >> why? >> [indiscernible] the democrats make the point in january you guys essentially gave an effective $300 billion increase to the debt ceiling by agreeing to concessions. you guys went ahead and raise that without extracting concessions. why should they be more fearful now of you guys not raising it? >> it is time for us to deal with the problem. he have an opportunity to do

with it. we know what the problem is. we have baby boomers retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day, 70,000 this week, 3.5 million this year. this is only the third year of baby boomers beginning to retire. it is not like there is money in social security or medicare. it has already been spent. the system has to be addressed. these programs are important to tens of millions of americans. they are not going to be there if we do not begin to solve these problems. >> a full one-year delay of obamacare brought an extension or increase to get rid of the sequester and would raise the deficit, not lower the deficit. is that an alternative, given that what you need to do is address the deficit? >> there are a lot of members with a lot of ideas. we will continue to talk with all of them. >> [indiscernible]

>> i think the president is in charge with foreign policy and i believe while we have opinions, i have already said more than i should have. but you got the truth. >> democratic sir. leader nancy pelosi was also asked about syria. her 20 minute news briefing included budget cuts under sequestration. >> good afternoon. as some of you know, earlier today there was a bipartisan leadership house and senate meeting in the speaker's office. as i said coming out, i thought it was constructive and productive that we came together, that we listened to each other, and i think candor saves time, so i think in that respect we have made some progress in understanding where we all are as we go forward with the continuing resolution and

the debt ceiling. i think i referenced it as more than one manifestation of the budget debate. kind of losing my voice. without going into what we discussed at the meeting, beyond that, i want to say that the democratic principles have always been clear. we are focused on creating jobs, growing the economy to create jobs, and any approach to a continuing resolution or a debt ceiling lift has to be about creating jobs. we are prepared to find common ground to keep the government open and not default on the debt. that is really important for job creation, and democrats know we have to get rid of sequester him up because it will cost, according to the cbo, as low as 900,000 jobs and as high as 1.6 million jobs this time next year. say, it is around a million

jobs, taking the lower side of it. that is a job loss that not only our country cannot afford, but america's families cannot that is a job loss that not only our country cannot afford, but america's families cannot afford. and here we are, out of session, before lunch on thursday, because yesterday republican leaders were forced to pull from consideration their continuing resolution. that would be their own solution to keep government open. we know house republicans want to defund the affordable care act and continue the very destructive sequester, again, costing a million jobs this next year. i think it is important to note you know it is a job killer, you know what they are trying to do, what it would do, but here are some other things. their c.r. proposal would put a cap on medicare. it is important to note this because i do not think much has

been said about it. no longer would we be able to find services to millions of seniors. it just will not work, what they are doing just will not work. it would end fraud in the medicare system, and the primary care physician payments would end, and that is important. if we are going to provide services to people on medicaid, we have to have primary physicians who will do so, and those payments would end. this is nasty. it has tentacles that affect in a negative way many aspects of american life. now americans face the prospect of another republican- manufactured crisis to shut down the government. it is interesting to note that proposals to republicans are putting forward are not proposals, continuing resolutions, to keep government open.

they are proposals to shut down government. they know that. they know that what they are proposing is not going to pass the senate or be signed by the president. so why don't we just save time, be constructive, and respect the time they have with a democratic majority. they need the president's signature, so everybody has to respect the role that everyone plays in this. the most important thing we have to know and consider is that we are here to do a job for the american people, and just because you are an anti- government ideologue who as landed in congress does not mean you should be shutting down government. we have democratic alternatives. we have tried seven times. we will try and eighth time to have it considered, and that is what you have heard proposed by our ranking democrat, chris van hollen, on the budget committee. it replaces the destructive

sequester, it creates jobs and accelerates economic growth, investing in infrastructure and making it in america, etc., and reduces the deficit in a balanced way. just think again, getting back to the sequester -- up to 1.6 million jobs fewer this late next year. thousands, tens of thousands of kids forced out of head start, seniors kicked out of meals on wheels to the tunes of millions of meals on wheels, and investment slashed in research and technology. about $6 billion slashed from the national institutes of health? that is devastating. we're asking for a vote for our positive agenda. balanced, jobs creating, make it

in america, reduce the deficit, we are hoping that we have that opportunity. instead of getting us a chance to do that, yesterday for the 41st time the republicans voted to defund the affordable care act. in any event, on the timing, my understanding is that the republican leader has said that members should be prepared to be in the week after next. mind you we just came in a few days ago. we are already out of session by noon on thursday. you come in next week and we are scheduled to be out the following week, which is the week before the end of the fiscal year. again, i am calling upon the republican leadership to keep the house in session so we can get our work done.

that is not just the work about the c.r. and the rest. it is work about immigration, we have to pass comprehensive immigration reform. it is about a farm bill. you need to pass a farm bill for the american consumer, for america's farmers, and for those who depend on nutrition programs that are contained in it. the path they are taking by slashing 50% of a nutrition program -- it speaks for itself in terms of how mean-spirited it is. however, that is their path to

perhaps -- if it passes -- to the conference table. it will be getting to the conference table, 50% of the nutrition program. i bring up these subjects because we are working of all of these subjects and have been. the issue of the moment is syria. i am very proud of the president. on tuesday night he laid out in very clear terms how the assad regime's use of chemical weapons impacts our national security, and holding the regime responsible for gassing thousands of people. one thing is clear -- undeniable the president's credible threat of military action has brought parties to the table to seek a viable diplomatic solution. it is a tribute i think to the strength of the president, to his strong leadership, that he was willing to make the strike and strong enough to say no to the strike if there is a viable the automatic solution. we all hope for that solution in the crisis, and the president rightly keeps the threat of

military action on the table. we must pursue every avenue available to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction. that is a pillar of our national security and our military is something we do as a last resort. so in that spirit, i command the president for protecting us, and with that i will be pleased to take your questions. >> i was wondering what you made of putin's op-ed, saying the opposite of that, that the use of force would be horrific, arguing that the rebels, not the syrian regime, used the chemical weapons. it really was a slap in the face to the president. >> it is what it is. putin is not from a strong institutional democracy, where

people have their say. he comes here and has his say, but it has to have some fidelity >> [indiscernible] >> you know what? it is who it is. assad is a part of the negotiation, too, and he is clearly a monster who would gas children in his country. let me say this about the putin thing. he has made several points in there, and it is interesting -- i guess -- but when he talks he does not want the united nations to turn into another league of nations, not the effective -- i thought that was interesting because one of the reasons the united nations has not been effective in syria is because of

the fear of a russian veto. even in initiatives that others have tried to propose that would say -- condemn the use of chemical weapons -- they have not been willing to sign on to. part of the strengths of the u.n. is the fact is has a strong security council. part of the lack of success is that russia, china too frequently use that veto power. what i found interesting was the closing. he said, when we pray to god, he judges us all. i do not exactly what his words are. we are all god's children. i think that is great. i hope it applies to gays and lesbians in russia as well. another point i would make is that while he has a right to his opinion on these subjects, of course, i totally disagree with

him when he disagrees with the president, that america is an exceptional country. yes, ma'am. >> [indiscernible] will be arming the opposition with lethal armaments out there, and that being said, with the recent anniversary of the benghazi attacks, were you ever briefed by the administration regarding the fact that there was a cia annex in benghazi -- did they ever brief you as to what was going on in that particular annex? >> a lot of questions there. first, you start about talking about arming the syrians, correct? that is an old story. it is resurrected and has nothing to do with the current debate and balance in terms of being new. i cannot tell you what i was briefed on in terms of -- >> did you know that an annex existed in benghazi? >> i am not going to answer that question. i have been to libya. i was to tripoli.

i did not go to benghazi, but had some idea of what was going on there. >> did you know the annex was there? >> i am not confirming or denying anything there. yes. >> on the meeting today, it sounds as though you guys kept more of a broad discussion rather than specifics. is that the case, and was there any agreement to meet again or was this a process in trying to figure out the best of what is coming? >> i know you heard me when i said i would not talk more about the meeting, but i have been reading your pressing request. what is next is what the republicans will come up with. clearly, they had to pull their

proposal that was supposed to come to the floor this week, which was some combination of defunding or undermining the affordable care act, or what i find be unexpected and inconsistent with the budget control act, which was a bipartisan agreement, that they proposal that was supposed to would've put forth. as bad as old on that was, it was not add enough for those on the republican caucus that they had to go make matters worse, and when they bring that forward, we will see what it is and make a judgment how to go forward. if it looks anything like what they are considering now, a strong negative vote on the parts of democrats. that does not mean there is not a place where we can find common ground. if they have -- if it gets bad enough that they can get all of their votes, that is one thing. it does not look like a path to a signature, though. >> do you expect there will be

another meeting? >> i hope so. i think we are efficient when we speak to each other with recognition they are all busy, that we speak for our respective caucuses, and there is no arguing that. would've put forth. in other words, you may not like what each of us has to say, but it is a reduction of our caucus, and that again moves us forward in saving time and certain portions of action that are not worth pursuing. >> can you talk about how you wanted to replace the sequester? do you want to replace it with other spending cuts? what sort of package can you come up with? >> we have had it seven times. we will try an eight time to have it proposed and see what we

can get, particularly. probably they are online. as i mentioned, chris van hollen on more than one occasion to talk about the budget, it creates a jobs proposal, yes, it would have cuts. some of them relate to the farm bill, some of them relate to special interests, special tax breaks for big oil that are part of the current situation. it reduces the deficit in a balanced way. again, this is written down. it has existed for a while. i will get you a copy of it, because it does say we have to, in a balanced way, reduce spending. you have to make judgments. when you make a judgment you are going to throw kids out of head start, you are not saving any money. economists will tell you nothing brings more money to the treasury than investments in education, from earliest childhood, k-12, higher education, post grad, and

lifetime learning. this is a missed opportunity for them. we have a slogan in california. when children learning, parents earning. kids are engaged in that way, learning, so parents can be earning. you cut off the funding for head start, not only are the kids deprived, the parents do not have that option of kids learning at the same time, and you lose the jobs as the people who have been teaching the

children. again, i am always amazed how the republicans can say you do not have to, as they have said to me, you do not have to cut $30 billion in subsidies to big oil in order to reduce the deficit. you can say that same amount of money by cutting pell grants. they are proud of that. i think it is a complete opposite set of values, but, again, with stiff competition, this is one of the dumbest ideas that you could advance -- cut education to reduce the deficit. no. invest in education to bring money into the treasury.

>> it seems the republican leadership is working on the nutrition bill. are you going to be urging democrats to vote one way or another on this? >> absolutely. i do not know we have to encourage anybody. we had 100% vote that came up with a smaller package, even than that, of cuts. yeah, we would most certainly -- the momentum is springing from our members. i am very proud that marcia fudge, a member of the agriculture committee, the chair of the congressional black caucus, she will be managing our side of the bill for that, and that means in opposition. you can imagine that they would cut -- and why -- why would we cut half the people of children and seniors, off of nutrition? because they do not want to touch one hair on the head of the wealthiest people in america. a bad idea. >> i know you want to get rid of the sequester, but for a short- term c.r., can you support the level that speaker boehner is supporting? >> we will see what they did.

it would have to be a short time, and that is part of our discussion, what is the timing, and what -- would there be an omnibus, minibuses that come next? what comes next? i think we have agreed -- i am speaking for myself -- we have agreed to a bipartisan budget control act. that called for 1.57 billion. this sequester proposal is $9.88 billion, and if we can split the difference, it would ease the pain for a lot of people in our country. again, reduce the impact on job creation. the thought about sequester was that it is so cataclysmic, so unreasonable that no one would ever allow that to go forward.

but even defense was not enough argument for publicans to protect tax advantages of the wealthy at the expense of our national security. that is why we are where we are. we are concerned about the domestic cuts and concerned about the defense cuts him and i think the american people do not really have a full idea about sequestration. do any of you? perhaps you do. but they do know that we should

not be shutting down government, and they do know -- and we do think we have to make a case that says we have cut $1.57 billion, we have cut over $1 trillion. we have agreed to over a trillion dollars in cuts. now we are getting into the bones, and those bones are important to the strength of our country. it will be an interesting time, because eyes always say to new members, know the budget, no it back and forwards and sideways. it should be a statement of values as a country, as to what is important to us, how we allocate our resources. you have to make -- we have to do so in a balanced way. we must curb the deficit, and we

have to do so in a way that invests in the future and creates great. to cut education to reduce the deficit -- first of all, you're not publishing your goal, and second, you're undermining the president obama said when he became president that he was going to reduce the deficit by 50% in four years. well, he did it in four years and four months. he cut the deficit by 50%, so the cuts are being made, and as we go forward we have to continue to reduce the deficits come up that we have to do so in a way that does not wreak havoc on medicare, does not undermine the education of our children, does not destroy job creation as we go forward, and having said that, i look forward to working with my republican colleagues to find a solution. if your goal is to shut down government, they are on that path. if you do not believe in government, then you would make the choices that would shut it down. we do not want any more government than we need, but we have to have the government that we do need, and that is -- that has been a fight in a country

from the beginning. one fight is about security and liberty. but balance that to create another, which is the role of government, no more than we need, but what we need for public-private partnerships to grow our country, to honor entrepreneurship, to get the job done for the american people, and honor life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, because our founders saw it that way. >> jayyou, all, very much. carney took questions about meetings about syria between john kerry -- another related topic on thursday's briefing was the new york times op-ed written by the rotten -- russian president, couldn't. putin.

>> on syria, i wonder what the president's reaction was to president clinton's op-ed -- president putin's op-ed.

i him -- unlike russia, the united states stands up for human rights in our own country around the world. we believe it is advanced when children are not gassed to death by a dictator. it is worth noting russia is isolated and alone in claiming the opposition for the chemical attack. we have seen -- , fighting on siv's behalf in syria, publicly blamed the assad regime for the attack. in addition to the intelligence pertaining to the preparations for the attack, it is common

sense the opposition does not have the capability to have carried out such a large scale targeting. i think it is also worth pointing out there is a great in the placement of an op- ed like this. it reflects the truly wonderful tradition not shared by russia. int has been on a decrease the past seven or so years in russia. having said that, the point i made is the most important point. just now ine saw geneva, has put its prestige and credibility on the line in backing the proposal to have syria, the assad regime, give up

chemical weapons that, until two days ago, he claimed to did not have. turn it over to international supervision with the purpose of eventually destroying it. are going to work with the russians to see if this diplomatic avenue to solving the problem can bear fruit. that is asked lewdly worthwhile and the right thing to do. >> you mentioned secretary kerry. talks he is conducting in geneva are occurring on the same day the reports increased the u.s. military systems to the opposition forces. cancel each tracks other out? is there a chance the additional military support undermines the diplomatic track? >> without confirming specific reports, we have said for quite we have beent

stepping up our assistance to the syrian military opposition. no question. in june, following credible evidence the assad regime had used chemical weapons against hadpeople, the president authorized the expansion of those systems to the supreme military council in. . the expansion of the systems had been aimed at the effectiveness on the ground. as well as assisting their efforts to defend themselves against a regime that has shown no boundaries in its willingness to kill civilians. it is an important distinction to make, in the wake of the august 21 attacks and our the issueo them, that of assad's chemical weapons is distinctly problematic and separate from, although it is part of the civil war, it is separate from our policy

response to the civil war in syria. that response is built around humanitarian support for the syrian people, us to stand to the opposition, including assistance to the supreme military council, as well as an ofort with a broad range allies and partners including russia to bring about a resolution of the civil war through a political settlement. that is the only way to end the war. these are distinct tracks. the problem that confronts us by the use of chemical weapons needs to be addressed. we are addressing that. the president has spoken clearly about his views on it. we are exploring diplomatic avenues and opportunities that exist potentially to resolve from assad'sing possession chemical weapons.

we will continue our policy of supporting opposition in an effort to bring about a political settlement in the syrian conflict. >> jay carney talking about the op-ed by russian president putin in the new york times. quoting from that -- you can link to that "new york times" op-ed piece on our website and watch all of our programs at our video library. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> more discussion on syria in a moment with mike rogers and the leading democrat on the committee. then, a preview of the next supreme court term. more about the meetings on syria between secretary of state kerry and --

>> we continue on next washington journal. syria as well as congressional battles over funding the government and attempts to repeal health care law. washington journal is live everyday day at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span area -- c- span. >> yes, the world is changing. event can't control every , but america remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs and as long as i am president, i intend to keep it that way. >> when the president is talking about the indispensable nation, what he doesn't want us to talk about