>> next week, first lady bess truman. unlike her predecessor, eleanor roosevelt, she did not hold press conferences, she refused media requests, and she spent much of her time as first lady back home in independence, missouri. when she was just 5 years old, she met her future husband, harry who was 6. she got married 30 years later. despite her reputation as a silent partner, president truman nicknamed her the boss. she helped to edit speeches when he was a senator and earned a salary in his office. a look at the life of bess truman on first ladies influence and image on c-span and c-span 3

as well as c-span radio.

>> thomas donahue said his organization has not made a decision about challenging democrats in 2014. this is event is hosted by the "christian science monitor." it's an hour.

>> thanks for coming. bruce johnston, the chamber's executive vice president of governmental affairs. the chamber is the world not for profit business. we welcome him back. mr. donahue led the chamber since 1997. he served for 13 years as president and chief executive officer of the american trucking association prior to his tour at the a.t.a., he was group vice president for the chamber for eight years. in an earlier chapter of his life, he was postmaster general and vice president for connecticut spearfield university. he's a new york native and has a bachelor's degree from st. john's university and an mba from adele fie. he's the government and senior political affairs executive. started as a telemarketer in 1974. came to the organization quick for a rapid rise with a degree from harvard.

he oversees six major divisions within the chamber. so much for biography. now for the thrilling process portion of the program. we're on the record. no live blogging and tweeting in short no filing of any kind while the breakfast is under way. there's no embargo when the session ends except for our friends at c spab have agreed not to air the session until one hour until the breakfast endses to give reporters in the room time to file. if you would like to question, send me a nonthreatened signal. a chance to make opening comments and we'll move around the table. thanks again for coming out. we appreciate it. >> thank you very much. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. thanks for getting up on an early monday morning for this. i'll be brief. then we'll have at it. we enjoy coming here.

it's one place we can have a conversation. joining me is johnston and john colomor that handles the communications issues that become more complicated every day. i know the buzz is still all about the cr and the debt deal, who won, who lost, who's up, who's down, what's going to happen next. but i'd like to open today's breakfast by looking a minute to the future. and of course the business community overall is glad the immediate crisis has been resolved, though we're all planning now for the next three rounds of this, however temporary and imperfect the current situation is, it gives us a chance to think our way through this and get ready for what's next. the fact is we've got a lot of work to do in this country and we need to get back to it now. we need to fire up our economy and speed up the recovery. we need to get our fiscal house in order and clearly if you

don't hear anything else to me, we have got to reform our entitlement system before it eats us alive. we need to modernize our health and retirement, immigration, regulatory systems, so that we can continue to ramp up our productivity and reclaim and what i would say accelerate our competitive edge. we need to get busy seizing the extraordinary opportunities we have in this country today to create jobs, drive growth, and generate government revenues. how? by developing all kinds of energy, more on that in a minute. and by rapidly expanding our commercial relationships within the two biggest trading blocks in the world, europe and the asian pacific. until we act on these underlying challenges and opportunities, the kind of spending and debt standoff we endured in the past few weeks will repeat itself over and over again. and our debt will pile higher

and higher. so the chamber is going to focus its efforts on a few key opportunities and a few key challenges. first the opportunities. immigration. we're in a good position. there's still an appetite to get comprehensive immigration reform done this year. we're not sure quite -- maybe we'll extend this year a few months. but we're really hot after it. and there's still strong support amongst the public and lawmakers and our nation, our economy, and our businesses and our workers need it more than ever. the chamber is keeping up the push for reform, an opportunity to show the world we can get a big thing done that we can all benefit from. energy is another major opportunity. you want more jobs. the growth revenues are pouring into government coffers, manufacturing renaissance, stronger national security, then take advantage of the best

energy resources this nation has been blessed with. we've got to tear down barriers to exploration and development and put energy to work for the good of our country. and then there are still some challenges. overregulation is a big one. no, we've got to move on this very quickly before it consumes us. by the way, we need regulation in this country. and the orderly society does. but when the regulation becomes bigger than the thing we're trying to regulate, it gets really worrisome. we have a three-fold approach to dealing with this. work with the congress to advance legislation to restore balance and sanity to the process. work with the agencies to improve the regulations that are being drafted, and when all else fails, sue them. the chamber will not hesitate to take the fight to the court. as many of you know, our track record there is something to write home about.

oh, before i conclude, i would like to say a word about obama care. it's a prime example of regulation run amock. the new englands of what people set out to do was right. what we ended up with is more than we thought. we're finding ways to fix the obvious flaws in the law and i expect the administration will join in some of those. and while continuing the search for general reform that will lower costs, improve care, and expand access. let me end where i started. in addition to these key priorities that i just highlighted, the chamber will, of course, be very focused on the budget talks established by last week's agreement to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling. who knows if those thoughts will succeed. but they damn well better. but, at the very least, it's another opportunity for some serious truth telling.

to our elected officials and to the public. the truth is that unsustainable entitlements are the root cause of our deficits in debt. by the way, please note, that's no administration's fault. it's a demographic reality. we're all living longer. there are more of it. let me give you one number. 10,000 people will retire every day this year and every -- and it comes to 65. and every day for the next 17 years until the next 77 million of them figure it out. the truth is we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. we have a growth problem. and the fundamental entitlement reform and comprehensive reform on the way to address them. until we face up to the hard truths and take an even harter step in acting on them, any future negotiations on the budget and the sequestration and

the debt limit will be basically disconnected from the actual needs of the country. i know a lot of you are anxious to hear what we think about 2014 and how it's going to impact the chamber's political engagement in the next cycle. i'll do my best to answer those questions as fully as possible while avoiding the ones that i don't want to add to. and in that, let me take your questions. >> let me start with one you won't want to answer. "the wall street journal report"ed last week the chamber is taking sides in republican primaries next year in hopes of tea party conservatives with friendly pragmatists. you're researching what 2014 candidates might be viable next year. so where does that effort stand, sir? >> a quick look at the history of the chamber's political efforts show us engaged in primaries on a regular basis.

we have no idea what you're going to have on the table. you still have to see who's running. we still have to see what happens in the next activity on the deficit. we still have to see what the circumstances are. we have a formal process for doing this. we will pursue that process. we will do whatever seems to be the best thing for the country and for the american business community. this is not about party. this is about how this country is going to be run. how this economy is going to be driven. and what role we can play in that. >> is it -- i assume it's a safe assumption you were disappointed with the tea party faction. there was a key chamber vote alert from mr. johnston last week saying that the groups calling for default are clearly less interested in the main concerns of businesses large and small.

do you feel badly about some of the people you support in 2012, sir? >> no, we are not a single issue or a single vote organization. we work very hard for as long as i've been here and as long as bruce has been here to go after the issues of concern to the business community without crippling the country. i can't stress enough what a default on our foreign debt. not on the debt, the private debt. not on the debt of the federal reserve or any of that. but a real default would pus us in a position that would change our position around the world, to increase the interest costs and put us in a very, very challenged issue of creating jobs and running our economy. we continue to say that. we fundamentally believe it. we ought to at the same time

thank the members of various different other groups -- i don't like to say tea party. we have a all sorts of people that are weighing in on these issues that come from all types of groups. i'm not sure they're all tea party. not really sure what that is. but maybe that's what republicans and democrats are like -- they're not all the same. we think many of the issues that some of these folks have raised are really important issues. what do we spend? what is our revenue stream? what are we doing about health care? what's going on in this country? but we do believe to advance those interests by putting the country's whole financial system at risk is not a good idea. >> we're going to start with anna palmer, lara lipman, richard bowman, peter nicklaus, and john stanton. anna? >> going to ask about the chamber --

[ inaudible question ] >> actually, it hasn't, no. >> seriously, i'm glad to have a lot of people trying to get into this issue in getting serious about it. hopefully we'll be able to bring them to a consensus not on the issues. people have a lot of agreement on the issues. but on the best way to move forward. the chamber continues to do well. we had an extraordinary continuation of our success in the courts. go back to the end of last year when we had the last one of these debt and deficit issues. i looked at what happened on the tax side. i looked at what happened on the sequestration side, i looked at all of that and i came away and

i said we continue to do well. the most important thing to understand about your question is that the two things that we actually do -- we're advocates and we build coalitions of people. and groups to try to get something done. no one organization makes anything happen in this city. and bruce johnston and his team are probably the best people in this city on building coalitions, bringing large groups of people who differ on other issues together on specific issues to achieve some consensus. i think we're still doing very well. and i welcome more people to come in and row in the vote. if you're rowing, then you have to be playing.

>> my own background gives me a clear look at the infrastructure and the nation's ability to move its people and its information. we have, for the longest time, avoided taking steps that we need to take to strengthen our infrastructure. steps that would not be driven by incremental expenditures by the broad population, but would

be paid for by user fees. and until we get smart, to understand that if our infrastructure is not working well, no matter what part of it is, it drives down productivity, increases accident, and has a very negative effect on our society. by the way, this is one issue none of us loses sight of. we're on the streets in this town. this is the world's capital. any day now, we're going to fall into a sink hole. that should remind us we need to go forward. make one other point if i might. i've been in this town a long time. if it's important, it's contentious. if it's important, and it's expensive or it's -- it's the demands a difficult decision, it's contentious. now contention comes for three reasons. number one, if it's hard, you're

going to have disagreement. number two, if it's hard and you're going have disagreement, you're going to get out there -- if you're in the congress, it's a great opportunity to run fundraisers and do things like that. and it's a reason some of these things take a little longer. and finally, and very, very importantly, sometimes these decisions are not easy. you have to debate them, sort them out, what the body politic will stand and what the politicians will vote for. and that's what we do. if there's no contentious, we're not looking at the right issues. >> i'd add two things to that. one, with respect to the club and the heritage, they've always felt the way you articulated about that. that's not new as you know historically. with infrastructure, the problem is far, far bigger than how your question related it. everybody in town -- the

administration, the republican party and the democratic party refuses to belly up to the reality that you need it to fund to tom's point the infrastructure. we in the union and others have been calling for more than a decade to raise it. even as raila hood said last week, the former secretary to this administration, once freed and able to speak openly, he called again for the vehicle mile tax which he was chas tided on when he was treasury -- transportation secretary. so everybody is against how to deal with that issue. it's far greater than a tea party. every member of every party and the entire administration refuses to fund it. they all call for funding and they all call for spending, but they all refuse to pay for it. >> one fact, 20 years, 20 years since we had an increase in the federal fuel tax.

what were the miles per gallon? we're collecting almost half the revenues we were and haven't increased it in 20 years. >> brigitte? >> i wonder how much it will factor into the activity going forward for them both. >> if you're interested in what we're going to do, we're going to continue to talk to the members and to our members around the country. and to the leaders in the cities and the states where we are very, very active about a rational settlement on the issues of budgets and debt. we will obviously start in and end with the question that there is a gorilla, an elephant in this room that nobody wants to look at and it is the

entitlement expenditures over the long run. and by the way, there is nothing, nothing as big and as compelling and as challenging as it and what we simply want to do is tell the truth. let's start by telling the truth here. and then when you look at all of the rest of it, it's a small problem. if you look at what's going happen in the next ten years, we're going to increase the government outlays by a minimum of $2.5 trillion. that's the government's numbers, not the chambers. those numbers, when we get there, you'll find they'll be about 21% or 22% net available out of what will be a $6 trillion expenditure. it will be 20% available to run everything in the government except entitlements and payments on the debt. that's challenging.

>> peter? >>. [ inaudible question ] >> we not touch any entitlement. it's an interesting approach. we leave it for a while. we could have the next american revolution. you have a talk to the parents and the grandparents in what they think of social security and medicare and in some instances medicaid? they say they owe it to me. they -- it must pay this. well, they don't must pay it. and we have a moral responsibility to get on this

and i hope the administration in spite of the pressure on them begins to understand that. >> what you're doing in this community. i wonder if you -- [ inaudible question ] >> i think they're -- i think there are a couple of reasons for that, by the way. i think free-throwman, now the trade rep. and we've got three or four pretty hot trade deals going, he's all over the business community in a constructive way. i think penny prisca, the new secretary of commerce has been in business for a long time. she's everywhere. and i think the chief of staff has had -- i think you know with the background on the hill is bringing more people to the visit and sending the president out to visit. more importantly, i think there are more quiet gatherings and pulse taking and i think we're better shape than we were.

>> mr. stanton? >> on immigration, you said there's an opportunity. but with the speaker being as weak as he is and with -- [ inaudible question ] >> that's a great question. it's pretty simple. number one, we have a bill out of the senate. remember, we have a whole year plus of this congress. second, there -- you know, all of the arguments in the -- in the house has been on budget issues, on issues dealing with the debt and the sequestration and health care. generally, there's good feeling about the efforts that have been made in immigration and, by the way, we're doing this together

with the afl-cio. and if you put the business community in the afl-cio together, the labor unions and more of them, guess what, it is a significant interest group. but there's a lot of support but not as much opposition. look, we have to get a few things done in the house. i don't think they'll pass a great big comprehensive bill. but i think they'll do three or four more things that have to be in that bill and then we'll have the opportunity to go to conference. the best thing about it, just think about it, pass the bill in the senate, pass the bill in the house. go to conference, get a result, and have the president sign it. hey, government still works. >> i would suggest that the speaker may be stronger today than it was four weeks ago. numb to ber one, he got a standing ovation last week. conservatives fighting for a month said no one would challenge him now.

they're erring out a proverbial balloon that he had to do. the chairman of the judiciary committee like the speaker said he does not agree on a formal immigration bill as an former immigration attorney and he's discussed the legal status going forward. i think the other concern we have is a committee with a pretty crowded agenda. the patent legislation is a time frame while we have the first -- i'm going guest, clear the decks of the three new cliff hanger deadlines december, january, and february. again, not going be there very much in the fall. >> by the way, you know what's great about the chamber? bruce and i agree on all of the important things. we argue about the things along the margin. i keep saying i think you're probably right, bruce, but to get to february-march stuff, bring it back closer and closer.

everybody is looking for something positive to take home. >> mr. rose? >> hi, another issue that's been sort of brewing -- that's been brewing in congress, especially on the democratic side, is the push for minimum wage. you're seeing walkouts by fast food workers in cities and i'm wondering how the chamber stands on that. i know you know we've raised the wage periodically over the years. is it something you're going be citing? is this something you're taking position on now or will in the future? >> well, one, we didn't support raising the wage here in the district. okay? tom had an op-ed in one of the papers here locally about it. the mayor vetoed it. saving important jobs. people showed up with 300 or 400 jobs. we have not supported raising the minimum wage. we have done so for all of the

economic reasons. it's the first step in the rung on the ladder. it does have displacement in effect for the least skilled people in the society. i can imagine we will again engage it. i don't see it being a hot issue through congress any time in the near future. >>. [ inaudible question ] >> i don't know senator cruz. and we're all getting to watch him. i sort of think about him as a tennis player. you know, when you're going to rush the net all the time, you better have a lot of motion to the left and the right. and i -- he hasn't proved that to me yet. and he has his right as a member of the senate to get out and push the things that he supports

or retract or resist the things he doesn't support. we're going try to work with him however we can. it's not the issue, it's what the result and we're going to try i to get it done. we'll see where it goes. >> when you say work with him? people are assuming in the business community would like him to sit down and shut up. >> that might be one thing we could work on? >> what kind of leverage do you have over him or could you bring to bear over him? >> i don't know. i haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it. we're looking at this thing in a broader context. there's a lot of democrats in the house that are worried about -- in the senate, excuse me -- that are worried about the upcoming election. i think the senate, you know, would come on in to the senate

and be there very short period of time. he still has a lot of relationships to make and in my view is he hasn't got the votes to do what he wants to do. so what does history show? after a while, he'll start to talk to people about getting done what he wants to get done instead of telling everybody how he's going to get it done. >> up next to anthony and then to brack and john mckennon and neil monroe and alex roardy. >> what about the advancement of the energy you mentioned. and going to get your thoughts on the president's climate change plans, specifically with the power plant -- >> boots and i will split that. our -- the way we want to advance our energy agenda is first of all, a matter of education. it's a mere 15 years ago we were

less. we ran around saying where are we going get the energy? going to get it from nigeria, all of the far reaches in the world. we've got a real problem. what we know now is across the board, we have every kind of energy, more of it than everybody else. it's accessible. we have proven in the last few years, we created a couple of million jobs. we paid just in the last year in the fracking businesses, the state picked up $3 billion in income tax and royalties and individuals were a part of that with little stuff coming off of the federal lands. you know, we always keep talking -- the administration and others keep talking about, well, we're going to open up the lands but you don't see the permits. withe have to continue to explain to the american people that without hide row carbons, we're not going to have any jobs. sure, we're all for green

energy. we've supported 300 separate green energy type of bills and projects. many of them didn't get done. but we supported them. but the fundamental issue is you think you're going to back away from using hydrocarbons, it's not going happen. look what's happening in europe. they turned off their nuclear power after what happened in japan, and now they're all increasing the amount of coal they're buying. we like it, we want to sell it to them. while we're using natural gas and trying to clean the way we use coal. this is an education and by the way, it's a happy education. we're not doing what we try to do in entitlements when we tell them we have to turn the dial back a little. we tell them we have to turn the dial up. because it's going to attract all sorts of manufacturing to the united states. it's going to create all sorts of jobs. it's going to help us clean the air and i really think this is a

phenomenal opportunity for us. and brules will now tell you about the few bills. >> we're suing on the green house gas deal with the epa. the clerks have withheld the massachusetts decision dealing with tail pipes, they were silent on the stationary sources. we think the epa officials took some latitude in making their decision to go after them. so that's -- that's a process argument legally, which the supreme court obviously agreed with at least in context and accepting the petition while they protected so many other positions. we're not involved in that. i suspect going forward the judge will ask if they should all be consolidated in one brief would be my guess. that's where that is. we have a disagreement on where that is in approaching it. having said that, we're

supporting energy efficiency type of legislation including one in the senate right now which we like to see get out as well. we'll continue to do that. i think it's important to recognize that the united states has had the single largest reduction in green house gas emissions when the other countries that were all ready to go to go back to the kyoto protocol are all ahead of that. we achieved that through tom's point in technological inno evasions, in one hand with respect to fracking and on the other hand, we had the use of energy in output manufacturing by close to 50% in the last two decades. >> we've driven up miles per gallon, cleaned up the output from cars. we talk about what it is doing and hasn't done.

>>. [ inaudible question ] >> let's go to the trade promotion authority first. i think there is a growing and a very positive sense in both houses with both parties. sufficient votes say no, we need it. they know we're going to have to have it. we've got to find a place on the calendar. if tomorrow we had one of those deals coming down the pike and ready to go and we didn't have trade promotion, we'd get it right away. even though everybody out there wants to doctor up the bills, we all know that nobody is going to sign a bill on the other side if they think it's going in for a three-year hair cut by the house and the senate. on the -- on the bill with the eu and with europe, this is a very interesting issue. and the reason we're so intense

about it is europe as a -- as an area is our largest export partner. canada and mexico are our largest individual countries. but europe is a huge export partner for us. and they're in the -- the autonomy and according to a lot of the economists there, it won't get much better soon. by the way, it happens to be china's largest export partner. and if their economy is down, that's going to help us -- hurt us because we're expanding and exporting more than china. so this is an important thing for everybody to do. and there is generally good feeling in both the -- in both the parties and by the way, it's going be hard for the unions to oppose a bill with the european region because they've been telling us for years and years and years that's the way we ought to be running our economy. so they're not going to have

work rule and labor issues that they would have as somebody else. we really think we're making progress. of course, in a perfect world -- by the way, you can't find any. anybody who has some, bring them. in a perfect world, we may have done it in stages and hurry up and done something on export issues including tariffs and trade facilitation and so on and then gotten to other things later. but when you're doing a trade bill, when everybody wants to run and jump on. so we've got to do procurement, we've got to do finance. we've got to do services. i think we're moving very much in the right direction. then remember there's the partnership that's going. there's on services in the country. there's a facilitation agreement. and by the way, it all of those it seems in some ways are going to get easier as we start solving issues that can apply to

the other. this along with energy is a great opportunity for this economy. >> mr. buchanan? >> do you think the entitlement problem really comes home to roost. in other words, you guys seem to think there's a possibility of a deal this year but not a very good one. but when does the hand of the washington get forced on that issue? >> bruce just mentioned the disability goes bankrupt in 2015, 2016. you have to use draconian methods. right now you have to do a lot of stuff to make this work better. not talking about getting rid of programs. we're talking about changes

along the margin that make a huge difference. and nobody is talking about going in and changing everything that somebody is going to retire next thursday. we have got to find a way to do it going forward. if we fail to do it, get down to eight, nine, ten years, i can't see anything but really, really difficult times for all of us. and by the way, remember where the numbers come from. they come from the government of the united states. and the only problem with them, if you talk to the medicare overseers and others, they'll tell you that some of the government numbers are a little squishy and probably a little worse than what we're looking at. >> what do you think the -- the likelihood of getting it fixed in the next four or five years is? in other words, maybe in this administration? >> oh, i'd say, john, we'll find out, won't we? because the president spent the weekend saying he's now open as

he did before the shutdown once the shutdown is done. the negotiating everything on the table, including the entitlements on the budget. ryan's protest vote to me was more of a statement vote against that deal because it didn't address the long-term problems. i think we'll find out in the next few months whether or not a framework evolves out of that negotiation. >> take us where your questions would end up? >> we've got about 20 minutes. we're going to go to neil monroe, alex rory, ben shields to close. neil? >> i'm sorry. very complicated. senator rubio said that this -- [ inaudible question ] they all say the same thing, the president -- is there any concern on your side it would

make the immigration deal? >> i got serious concerns about trust all around. in town right now. which suggests to me the way you get out of that problem is serious leadership, not with a lot of talk. we need leadership in the business community. we need leadership in the house, we need leadership in the senate, and we need leadership in the white house. the president after the deal was inked. he wanted to get on with a number of issues. the first thing he said was the immigration bill. if he wants to do it, he will advance it in part by supporting it but also advance it in part by helping us, getting involved and helping us come to a satisfactory and a progressive meaning moving forward set of solutions on taxes, spending, and on entitlements. he will not get there if he

doesn't do what he said he's going to do. now get involved and negotiate on these issues of high significance. >> the day after you signed in the day after. >> they do that, don't they? if he plans to get a budget deal, history is -- is a -- is very clear. the most successful administrations, i won't even say presidents are the people who get intimately -- those who get intimately involved in leading and working with the other leaders in town to get these things done. and there are lots of things on the agenda and the president would -- would benefit in my opinion from becoming more active in this issue because i think it would give us a better chance to get a good result and

it would send a signal that not only in these areas but in other areas here and around the world, he's going to be more active. that's in the interest of the united states of america. >> at the same time, the president has publicly stated in recent meetings i've been in in the white house across the chamber, my proposal on cpi and others on entitlements, still on the table with the republicans. so it can't be both ways. >> come back to whether you guys will get involved more aggressively in the primaries next year, do you worry there's nothing you can do. a lot of conservative groups have pointed out if you back a candidate, they back the establishment candidate in the republican primaries, it doesn't work out very well. do you worry about that, that there's nothing you can do? >> no.

>> do you -- can you elaborate on that? >> no. >> okay. >> but i don't worry about it. we will see what cards are dealt. and we will react in the best way in the interest of the american business community and the american country and our fellow citizens. >> mark, taking note of the cooperation with afl-cio and immigration reminds us that 50 years ago, the country dealt with it. that's the racial segregation. and the leadership of that movement, as you i both know, was underwritten by organized labor at considerable cost to themselves. there was division in their ranks, a lot of irish catholics opposed to desegregation.

looking at it historically, can you give us an example of where the chamber has taken plans to take -- sort of an unselfish national position comparable to what reagan did on the civil rights movement? >> well, first just to continue on the history lesson, we have been very actively engaged in two ways with labor. we fight with them on a whole lot of things. it's sort of, you know, they're the gladiators for one group, we're the gladiators for another group. we worked with them a great deal. we have huge activities going on as we discussed a few minutes ago on the infrastructure in this country and many of the labor unions are significant supporters in that coalition. we work on a host of other issues, sometimes a little quieter than publicly. we do a lot of stuff. we have worked on immigration

with many of the labor unions and we find ways to work with the people on both sides. the question of whether we have in mind a -- a great move forward like this country found itself in for a series of reasons. and i was thinking about this myself. you and i are getting old sitting around thinking about things. but the -- for the 50th anniversary on the martin luther king issue. and i thought about two things. i thought first -- i thought when martin luther king gave that speech, the title of that speech was about jobs. and second, i thought that if there's one place where we have not achieved that objective, at the great sacrifice that he offered, is that we really have heard that community in terms of

k through 12 education. if you don't have the fundamental education, it's very, very hard to compete in the world that was then and it's much, much harder to compete now with all of the demands of the manufacturing sector and technology and global economy. and so i think if there is a place where we can achieve some historic movement, it's got to be an education. and, you know, the unions -- the teacher's unions are at odds with many of the other unions about education. and certainly with union members who in many communities are frustrated about the education their children are getting while other communities are getting in the public sector are getting phenomenal education. and i think that some -- some coalition between unions and

business and we are working together on this -- between democrats and rep pubs, between every group in this country has got to fundamentally say every child should have an opportunity to get a quality education. they can't compete without it. this could be the next big thing. >> another question on 2014. you urged members to support the bill and to avoid the default and the shutdown. was this hope in your view a line in the sand as you look ahead to next year and whether to get off the primaries and who to support? and secondly along those lines, we'll have the voters in new jersey and virginia where the polls show close governor races. i wonder if the races tell you anything about the state of the republican party right now and if there are lessons for next year's midterm. >> i think that's a good

question. the first point i would like to make, if you look at the votes, how many people voted for and against in the house? you know, it's a free vote. everybody knew they were going to get as many democratic votes as they needed to get it there. and a good number of those who voted were either making a statement, as ryan was, or -- or they were voting to avoid an unnecessary primary. but when we get down to the serious business at hand of voting on the critical issues for this country, i think you'll see a more attractive ratio of votes for and against. second, let me take the issue of the states. we generally don't do -- we're involve in the state supreme court, state attorney general. and every now and then, a governor's race that we believe is fundamental to the national

interest of the country and of the business community. i -- i don't know what's going to happen in those races. there's a lot of money coming from around the country into those races because people are trying to position themselves not for 14 but for 16. the whole question of what we're going to do really comes down to this -- we're not looking at -- remember, we don't do -- everybody, we don't do presidential politics. can't be all around the world the way we are talking to heads of state, giving talks, and playing in presidential politics. we don't do it. we do the house, the senate, the state supreme court, state attorney general, and occasionally the odds and ends that run across our major issues. but, you know, we really

believe -- we really believe that it is in our interest to be vigorous in thoesz races and our first deal is sequential is 2014 is the house. now let me be -- don't say presidential politics, let me say it sounds a little bit about presidential politics. on behalf of the american business community, given a choice, i would not like to see this administration with the white house, the senate, and the house. it will be a long two years. and so you could be sure that we'll be very vigorous in the house. we'll also participate in the senate. we will support to some people the discomfort, numbers of democrats in both houses. the bottom line is this is all about the economy and so for us, all about the american business

community and all about the country. you remember, we were founded 101 years ago for two things -- to help and support the business community and to help our country when it's in trouble. kathy? >> hi. >> could you give me a sense of the timeline? what evaluation of the landscape are you expecting when? and when will you pull the trigger on saying this is the debt we're going to go. this is how vigorous we're going to go. and finally, what is the funding level you're saying that you need? we're going to need two times, three times what we've had in the past. >> the honest answer is sometime last year. we had -- we'll start in q-1. we had nine regional public affairs task forces to make recommendations up to a national public affairs task force that ultimately consolidates and make those recommendations to the chamber's board.

so the board meeting is not until the end of february and early march. so the earlier point, we are doing internal research here and on the ground. we're obviously going to share that information with those task forces as well as gain their own. and that prossz will start in the first quarter. we haven't even had an endorsement meeting yet. so -- >> firing up to do that? >> we have expanded our regional field staff by three. up from about 14 and we have three more pending that we plan to hire shortly. >> we will approach these races based on the experience that we gained last time around, which we do regularly. so we're expanding as bruce indicated our staff on the ground. we will further expand it. we will use -- we will continue

our effort of engaging state and local chambers and a much more aggressive level than in past years. we will hire some consultants where needed, and we will spend what it takes. >> susan? >> the business community -- [ inaudible question ] long counted on the republican party to be a pretty reliable partner when it came to economic issues. is that no longer the case? >> the business community has -- let me give you the fact. we have all kinds of members, you know? we have 300,000 little members, we have all of the big companies, almost all of them. and there are democrats and rep pubs all through the business community. there are democrats and republicans all through the chamber. so while we -- the press in particular has always built this relationship between business and republicans, i spent as much of my time talking to democratic

leaders. because, you know, we have traditionally known where some of the votes were going to be and we were always looking for how we could, you know, if i didn't spend a lot of time talking to the union leaders, how would we have ever made a deal with the senate on immigration. i didn't worry so much about labels. we need to talk to those who are leaders or portent or want to be leaders going forward. and it's our business to deal with everybody who's got a role in that from the white house to the leaders in the senate on both sides of the senate on both sides and the leaders of the house on both sides. i'm not particularly worried about some great failure of our relationships. seemed to me they're getting bigger. >> anybody who hasn't had a chance -- let me ask you, francene? >> where should we go now?

>> oh, i think that's very clear. we should -- as we would with any huge, huge piece of legislation, we should take a very clear look at what's working, what's not working, what needs fixing, what needs timetable change, what needs reconsideration. i said all along and bruce said all along there's no way to get rid of the bill. i don't think you could get those votes in the senate and sure as well you couldn't override a veto. whether you thought it was a good idea or a bad idea, you probably out not to spend a lot of time on it. instead we believe there's lots that can be done to make this bill more what it was originally intended to be instead of what happened when, you know, the -- the people that got in to start

writing this bill took a good idea and just continued to write and write and write and we have now got to bring it back to a reality. >> what's the time frame for starting to make those changes? >> i sort of think some of it will work. i'm being a little smart about this. some of it will work if we leave it alone for a while. because they now have to face up to the fundamental questions, will they do it on time? will it work? and what the hell is going to happen with their computer system? >> last question, eleanor? >> you said a minute ago that you spend what it takes. you didn't want unified government. i assume that means you want to keep the house republicans and secondly, the president has put suggestions about the entitlement reform out there. but he sees what revenue and return would all of the commissions that have looked at this says you have to have some increased revenue.

the chamber, the business community support closing loopholes or the ways to get a revenue to get a deal? >> good. >> you go first, i'll go second. >> two things. we have all along made it clear we're not an opponent to increased revenue. but to your point -- the chances of getting a tax rate increase on top of the $620 billion is the journey equivalent to the republican trying to defund obama care. it won't happen. i will have to say that you can't get new revenue. >> i don't think -- >> we scored immigration, we should dynamically rescore tax reform and energy which tom has mentioned at length has huge opportunities to generate revenue. the immigration bill could generate revenue. >> it's important to understand that in the upper income

brackets, there are huge hidden taxes. for example, you know, people over in the higher incomes -- i think it's over 250, individual and over 500, they pay on every dollar of revenue they make all of the way to the top in medicare. and so many of them have added 4% to 5% to their overall rate. if you look at -- if you look at obama care, there's another point in there, plus in 25% negative effect on the capital gains tax. so there's taxes hidden all over the place in addition to the one we recognize. the bottom line here is we're willing to sit down and talk about ways to continue to strengthen the nation's economy. we just had a little problem finding somebody to sit down and talk to.