lines,oblem by trying separating democrat and republican voters neatly and preventing the kind of swing districts from preserving their numbers in congress to the point where we would have our competition. the number of districts we rate as competitive between our plus has and d plus five declined from 164 in 1996 we are talking about a fit of the house as being potentially competitive thanks to the gerrymandering that compounded the problem. think you. our next event that you can see live event on c-span, they are announcing their survey results on employee benefits.

some ways what we are going to talk about is very timely. in particular, large employers are not directly affected by the affordable care act that individuals are. they are very interested in understanding what their employees know. what they know about the affordable care act and how it will affect them. what they know about you transformational changes going on in the country which have been accelerated. thathave provisions in it would help support some of those changes. the other changes they talked changesd those sorts of preceded the affordable care act by some timeframe. right now and on will accelerate the interest.

i think we will see substantial growth. we commissioned the survey. want to find out as much as we could about the affordable care act. i will turn it over to karen. >> we've enlisted the help of them to draft a questionnaire as well as analyze the data for us. it was conducted online. we use a research now panel and visited it for 10 days over the summer. it proceeded several exchanges. selected employees of large employers. they had to work with an employer with at least 2000 employees.

they had to have insurance through that employer or the union. they had to be in the slop -- -- involved in the decision-making and could not be a hr decision-maker. the panel, the participants were randomly selected. that theyto make sure met initial criteria other than the ones we mentioned around age. we also made sure we had a balance panel as it related to gender and race. out 19,000 invitations. we had a response rate of about 16% and a completion rate of 7.9%. of 1000 520. on page four of your handout you will see that we had a good mix

of male and female. we had distribution in terms of age. we had a little less than 20% to 29.were in the 20 night.the respondents or the other 30% or distributed across the racist. 35% of our sample had a high somel degree or less and had college. it is important for us. we wanted to make sure we paralleled the working demographic across the country overall. about 58% were married. 15% of our population was unionized. 80% worked full-time. at this point i'm going to turn

it back to helen to go over some of the key findings. >> thank you. we were not supply -- surprise to see four out of 10 of the attendance were familiar with the affordable care act. there is greater familiarity with particular provisions. this is not uncommon. i know you have heard stories where people say i do not like obama care but then they love all the things they have arty benefited from. we get that mixed picture. 69% are somewhat familiar with everyonerements that has or buys health insurance. the so-called individual mandates. i was a bit surprised by that given how much we know people do not pay attention to things. but show some information is

getting out there. 63% new about the requirement only 38% were familiar with the creation of marketplaces. those expecting a negative outnumberede law the positive by more than 2-1. people do not necessarily see it as great for them. these are large employees. we asked this in terms of the next 12 months and the next three or five years. 50% thought the cost would go up in the next three or five years

56%. it is about the same. are worried about the affordable care act and its impact on them. asked about how confident you are about purchasing health insurance or health benefits on your own. this is a question we ask in 2012 so we know something about the change to 2013. interestingly, somewhat confidently was 23%. confident with up to 43% in two thousand 13. they're getting more comfortable with the idea. those are confident was pretty

much about the same. there is a learning curve. also asked them about private exchanges. privateably know that exchanges are not as well-known as the public exchanges at least in terms of visibility outside of the trade press and things like that. the private exchanges, would it be a viable alternative to the current model of employer- provided plans? are you possibly interested in using them? whether they heard of them or was 23% and "not su re" about 11%. we think this would be something we would have predicted. interest in using them, once they were described then they asked "would you be interested in using them?"

nine percent said "very interested" and 43% said " somewhat interested." we thought it would not be that high. then they asked about public exchanges. are they a viable alternative to the current model of employer- provided plans? question was a willingness to shop on the exchange for reasons of savings. it was explained to them that they might save money and if they say bunny would they be interested. 27% said they would definitely shop on the exchange if it would save the money. probably would shop on the exchange. the valueasked if proposition was about the same but you would get more choice, which is one of the arguments for exchanges private and the definitely shop went

down to 6% and probably went down to 30%. you can see that they are willing to do things for cost reasons. this is not surprising. if you look at the data from places like the "massachusetts connector" that people make choices based on cost. it will be really important. this would be much more appealing if they gave them more choice. employeesk how would preferred to purchase this if

their employer stock offering coverage. we call it the backup option. basically they are not at all comfortable with a backup option. only 21% thought about buying it carrierinsurance directly. 17% getting it as a dependent. this is not something they are comparable with. there are all these major transformational changes going on in the help system. most employers are trying to do everything they can go to make them available to their employees, whether through health plans or some carveout service. we definitely want to see more use and understanding.

this is all about comparative investment research. it was good to know that 58% of employees have heard or read about comparative effectiveness research at least once. those who had heard about it, there is a strong consensus, 92%, believe this is somewhat or very important. doctor share had a with them the effectiveness. only 20% have mentioned that to their doctor. we also asked about trusts. for the taskersy force.

and some of their recommendations based on new scientific evidence. trust is really important. if people are going to consider information and whether it is coming from the doctor or newspaper, they want to have it come from a source they trust. the first is a nonprofit organization focused on a specific illness like the american cancer society. 51% said they would trust them a lot. an independent panel of other health care professionals, 44% said that they would trust them a lot.

make sure the information is made available from trusted sources. of you big issue, some may be familiar with the choosing wisely campaign. we have a substantial problem in this country with overuse of procedures. they are not only not useful and they cost money but in some they put you at added risk. you have a positive, someone goes on to the next stage of testing. on a scale of 1-10, 50% of those

surveyed indicated that overuse linked as a big problem in our health care delivery system. asked about two specific scenarios where a physician does not recommend a service or treatment, the usual example is antibiotics. the physician says this is not appropriate. what would you do? 67% said they were very or somewhat likely to follow the doctor's recommendation for over the counter remedies for sinus infections using antibiotics. physical therapy or mri for back pain, 62% indicated that they are somewhat likely to follow

recommendation. 40% found or heard of health care facilities in call centers of excellence. that is good news. 10 had a positive reaction to employers encouraging them to seek care at

a center of excellence. then it really gets interesting. allows you tot get the best available, specialized treatment. the 33% is really paying attention to something extremely important. 3/4 would consider traveling to ours. just the information does not motivate them.

you can see that definitely would use the center of excellence that everything is covered and there is no cost sharing. another 22% probably would. the take-home message out of this is employers, if they want people to choose centers of excellence, they should probably not only cover the travel but cover all of the out-of-pocket costs. we also asked about preferred provider networks. what did they think about the innovations in the delivery of health care in particular?

interestingly, in many ways the insurance company may be doing the best job. it gets back to this issue of trust. it you do not believe someone has your best interest, it does not matter how good of a job you're doing. you just have to communicate much more about that. they're sitting at networks that they considered the best. 48% have a positive reaction to the idea. this is not in the best network.

it is more affordable than some of the health plans where we can see the rates. it is based on their own networks. this issue of how narrow a network is and who is in the network or not is going to be central in many places. sum up, what can employers do? we clearly need to help employees understand the impact of the affordable care act on them even people who have very good, affordable coverage. they are directly or indirectly going to be enormously effective. their costs will go up.

we know that employees have gained confidence about thinking about marketplaces where it the public or private have a slightly more positive view of that. get think that even when we past this brouhaha with the i think that will increase. we know that employees do not necessarily understand all about what is going on in terms of transformational changes. we see some evidence that they know more than they used to know. in particular they can use comparative effectiveness research themselves. it puts them in real words for real people.

they want to know how important it is to go to centers of excellence where we know high volume directly relates to safety and quality. understanding more about them and how they got selected and what to look for are all very important. and to also understand that all providers may not be the best at everything.

they want to make sure you are dealing with the topic in your going to a place that is known to be a center of excellence. with that i will stop and welcome any questions or comments. i am an independent writer. do you have a sense of how many employers are actually using centers of excellence as a way to save on costs? reps we have the data. it is pretty high. it is pretty high.

there are large employers. we also have the data on the extent to which they have differentiated cost-sharing which was in the survey those past year which we just rolled this out in august. most do not differentiate cost- sharing. i would say when you look at this data and you want people to choose centers of excellence, you may want to differentiate cost-sharing. that is a really important finding. many also using the position for the cost-saving tool? >> two things. qualify both the centers of excellence about the organizations as for quality safety and efficiency.

different from saving money. you save money in different ways of getting people back to work. they would use them but they do not really exist out there yet for employers. plans.erate their health if you look at kaiser permanente, they use a lot of them. the ones that are labeled, they are not a lot of them out there. the most part, the good news is that people are rarely if ever hospitalized. benefits of the big

do not have to take advantage of very much. they certainly love the idea of what we do is tell anybody who is interested that if they will deliver a high quality one that thinke efficient, then i our large employers would be thrilled to have that option. >> we certainly found that employees expect their health care costs is going to go up. how would you describe it? realism or what? it may be a combination of

realize them -- realism and believing there is no free lunch . it may be free to some people but it is not to most of us. i think they are accustomed to the costs always going up. they have never seen costs go down. i think they assume that some of that will go up anyway. it would go up still. add thingsou cannot to the benefit package, especially when you have no way to manage them and not have costs go up. be how much.

they can take this out of the base of health care. increases would be on a lower base. that is some of what we are looking for. it is what the affordable care act had lots of provisions in it. they were aimed at doing just that. >> i was interested in the private exchanges. interest not a lot of out there. it in -- and increase quite a bit. do see a lot of players going in that direction in the coming years? >> thank you. private exchanges are relatively new. we see a very big uptake now on

private exchanges as an alternative for large employers for retirees. if there is no connection with the workplace anymore, even as someone retires before 65, they may find that the public exchanges are much better for them. because they are new and we count seven or eight different companies including consulting firms have now developed or bought private exchanges.

clearly they think that the private exchange has a really strong future. it is interesting. andou look at this data thinking about what is coming together is the availability of something that did not exist before. for now, because the private exchanges are so new, most large employers are watching them very carefully. they are very interested in seeing anything that might help. to improve safety and affordability. this is for people that are constantly moving around. they have more choice.

it is still new. we have so much going on right now. i think in the short term we will not see that much change. we should see something. we had a snowball effect with retirees already. more people are talking about it. big companies that do really good things for their employees, especially their retirees. it is not the majority anymore. are turning to these private exchanges. i think we will see growth among say what theses options look like ants who is going to remain in responsive coverage versus private exchange and public exchange. in some ways it is all wide open.

>> questions? much for your time. thank you for being here. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> wrapping up this release of a new survey. if you missed any of this

program, look for it shortly online. on the c-spanr network, the prime minister of pakistan is expected to speak at the united institute of peace. we will bring you live coverage on our companion network. that will start at 11 eastern. the september jobs report is out after being delayed several weeks because of the government shutdown. when hundred 48,000 jobs were added. questiono there is no that the focus of policy should be on how to achieve a faster pace job growth by increasing certainty and investing in jobs rather than self inflicted wounds. likely hear more about the jobs report later today when the house cavils in.

it legislative work is expected at two eastern. any votes will be taken after 630 eastern. can attend the funeral. we expect this will be in focus. it gets underway at 9:00. make a documentary showing points of view. it is open to all middle and

high school students for a grand prize of $5,000. this year we have double the number of winters and prizes. c-span, we bring events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings. complete gavel to gavel coverage of the u.s. house all as a public service of private industry. created by the cable industry 34 years ago and funded by your local satellite provider. >> yesterday, thomas donohue said that his organization is not made any decisions about challenging incumbent republicans. he did say they do not want democrats to win back the house.

they also talked about the latest round of budget negotiations, health care, and a number of other issues. >> here we go. thank you for coming. our guests today are tom donohue, president and ceo of the u.s. chamber of commerce and the executive vice president. been our guests before. we welcome them back. he has led this since 1997. before that he served as chief executive officer of the american trucking association. he was vice president for eight years. in earlier chapters he was postmaster general.

he is a new york native. started in the new york office as a telemarketer in 1974. he came well equipped for a rapid rise. he oversees six major divisions within the chamber. now onto the drilling process portion. or tweeting org filing of any kind while this is underway. embargo when this ends except that our friends at c-span have not -- have agreed not to air this until one hour after it ends. to ask a question, send me a nonthreatening signal and i will call on one and all. with openinghem

comments. thank you for coming. >> thank you very much. good morning. thanks for the getting up on an early monday morning for this. i will be brief and then you can have added. thank you. we always enjoy coming here. it is the one place you can have a conversation. joining me is tom who handles all of our communication issues which become more complicated every day. the buzz is still all above this debt deal of who won and who lost and who up and down. i would like to open today's breakfast by looking a minute to they are glad the immediate crisis has been resolved. although we are all planning for

the next three rounds. this gives us a chance to think our way through this and get ready for what is next. we have a lot of work to do in this country. 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. we have got to reform our entitlement system before it eats us alive. modernize our immigration and regulatory system so that we can continue andamp up our productivity 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 challenges and opportunities the kind of spending and debt standoff we endured over 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 itself on a few key opportunities and a few key challenges. first, the opportunities. immigration. we are in a good position. there's still an appetite to get comprehensive immigration reform done this year. we're not sure, 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 in our nation,

economy, businesses, and workers need it more than ever. the chamber is keeping up the push for reform. it's an opportunity to show the world we can get a big thing done that we can all benefit from. energy is another major tupet. you want more jobs, faster growth, revenues pouring in to government coffers, manufacturing renaissance, stronger national security, then take advantage of the vast energy resources this nation has been blessed with. we have 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 an orderly society does. but when the regulation becomes bigger than the thing we are trying to regulate it gets really worrisome. we have a threefold approach to dealing with this. work with the congress to advance legislation that will 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 courts as many of you know our track record there is something to write home about. before i conclude, i ought to say a word about obamacare. it is a prime example of regulation run amuck. the intention of what people set out to do was right. what we ended up with was more than we thought. we're finding ways to fix the obvious flaws in the law and i suspect the administration will join in some of those. and while continuing to 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 have 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 e lift the debt ceiling. who knows if those talks will succeed but they damned 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 and debt. and by the way, please note that is no administration's fault. it is a demographic reality. we're all living longer. there are more of us. let me give you one number. until we face up to these hard truths and take an even harder step of acting on them, any future negotiation 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 anchinges is to hear what we think about 2014 and how it is going to impact the chamber's political engagement in the next cycle. i will do my best to answer those questions as fully as possible while avoiding the ones i don't want to answer.

with that let me take your questions. >> let me start with one. the "wall street journal" reported last week that the chamber is considering taking sides in the republican primaries next year in hopes of replacing tea party conservatives with more business friendly pragmatists. added that having given tens of millions of dollars to republican candidates you're researching what candidates might be viable next year. where does that effort stand? >> 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 we're going to have on table. we still have to see who is 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.

>> i assume it's a safe assumption that you were disappointed with the tea party faction. there was a key chamber vote alert from mr. jost lynn last week saying that groups calling for default are clearly less interested in the main street concerns of businesses large and small. do you feel badly used by some of the people you supported in 2012? >> no. we are not a single issuer 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 on our private debt.

not on the debt to the federal reserve or any of that but a real default would put us in a position that changed our position around the world that increased our interest costs and put us in a very, very challengeed issue of creating jobs and running our economy. we continue to say that. we fundamentally believe it. and we at the same time think the members of various different other groups -- i don't like to say tea party. we have 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. i'm not really sure what that is. but maybe that's what republicans and democrats are like. they're not all the same. and we think many of the issues that some of these folks have raised are really important issues. what are we spending? what is our revenue stream? what are we doing about health care?

what is 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 the following speakers. >> i want to ask you about the [inaudible] you were the biggest organization. [inaudible] driving members. >> seriously, i'm glad that a lot of people are trying to get into this issue and getting serious about it. hopefully we will be able to bring them to a consensus not on the issues people have a lot

of agreement on issues but on the best way to move forward. the chamber continues to do well. we have 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 tag side, i've looked at what happened on the sequestration side. i looked all of that and i came away and said we copt to do well -- continue to do well. the most important thing to understand about your question is the two things that we actually do. we're advocates, and we build coalitions of people. and groups to try and get something done. no one organization makes anything happen in this city. and bruce 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 still think we're doing very well. and i welcome more people to come in and row in the boat. but if you're rowing, then you've got to be playing. >> [inaudible] >> let me back into that question. my own background lets me have a particularly clear look at

infrastructure and the nation's ability to move its goods and its people and its information. and 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, then it drives down our productivity, increases our accidents, and it has a very negative effect on our society. and by the way, this is one issue that none of us should lose sight of. we drive on the streets in this town.

this is the world's capitol. and any day now we're going to fall into a sink hole. that should remind us that we need to go forward. i would make one other point. 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 demands difficult decisions it's contentious. contention comes for three reasons. if it's hard you're going to have disagreement. if it's hard and you're going to have disagreement you'd better get out there. if you're in congress it's a great opportunity to run fund raisers and things like that. it's a reason some of these things take longer. and finally and very importantly sometimes these decisions are not easy. you have to debate them, you have to sort them out, and you have to figure out what the body politics will stand and

what the politicians will vote for and that's what we do. if there's no contention we're not looking at the right issues. 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 to fund the -- to tom's point -- infrastructure. we in the unions and others have been calling for more than a decade to raise the user fee and to inflation index it. but as even ray lahood said last week, the former transportation secretary to this administration, once freed and able to speak openly, he called again for the vehicle mile tax chefs chastised on when he was transportation secretary.

so everybody is against how to deal with that issue. it's far greater than the 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 kind of a car were you around the table driving 20 years ago? what were the miles per gallon? we're collecting almost half the revenues we were and haven't increased it in 20 years. >> to go back to the shutdown as well. i'm wondering how much it will factor into your activities going forward. guest: if you're interested -- >> if you're rintested in what we're going to do we're going to continue to talk to the members and our members around the country, and to the leaders

in the cities and states where we are very, very active about a rational settlement on the issue of budgets and debt. we will obviously start 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 the rest of it it's a small problem. if you look what's going to happen in the next 10 years we are going to increase our government outlays by a minimum of 2.5 trillion dollars.

that's the government's numbers, not the chambers. those numbers when we get there you will find to be about 21 or 22% net available out of what will be a $6 trillion expenditure. there will be about 20% available to run everything in the government except entitlements and payments on the debt. that is challenging. >> peter. >> prepared to pursue chained cpi [inaudible] >> in fairness to the administration, as we listened over the weekend, and sort of get going a little more energy today is this pressure on the administration not to touch any entitlements. by the way, that's an

interesting approach. we could just leave it awhile until it craterd and then we would have the next american revolution. have you ever talked to your parents and grandparents about what they think about social security, medicare, and in some instances medicaid? they say they owe it to me. they must pay this. well, they don't must pay it. and we have a moral responsibility to get on this and i hope that the administration in spite of the pressure on them begins to understand that. >> there's a great deal of outreach in the business community stepping up in the second term. have you noticed that or believe that? >> i think there are a couple of reasons for that. i think fromen who is now the trade rep, and we've got three or four hot trade deals going,

he's all over the business community in a constructive way. i think the new secretary of commerce has been in business for a long time and she's everywhere. and i think the chief of staff has -- with his background on the hill is bringing more people in to visit and sending the president out to visit. but more important, i think there are more quiet gatherings and pulse taking and i think we're in better shape than we were. >> on immigration, you said there's an opportunity. but with the speaker being as weak as he is and with democrats where they are -- inaudible -- why do you think it's an opportunity? >> that's a great question. and it's pretty simple. number one we already have a bill out of the senate and remember we've got another whole year plus of this congress. second, all of the arguments in the house have been on budget

issues, on issues dealing with debt and sequestration and you and generally,in a there's good feeling about the and there's good feeling about the efforts that have been made and efforts that have been made in immigration. the ipo and by the way, we're and is doing this together with a you are in and in with the afl-cio. and if you put the business community and the afl-cio together or the labor unions, guess what it is a significant interest group. but there's a lot of support and not as much opposition. look, we've got 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 will do three or four more thing that is have to be in that bill and then we'll have an opportunity to go to conference. but the best thing about it, just think about it. pass the bill in the senate, pass a bill in the house, go to conference, get a result. and have the president sign it. government still works. >> i would suggest that the speaker may be stronger today than he was four weeks ago, number one. he got a standing ovation last week. conservatives who were fighting him for a month said no one would challenge him now. so i think he is a better position by letic the air out of the baloob that he had to do. the chairman of the judiciary committee like the speaker has said all year he doesn't intend to move an immigration bill as a former immigration attorney. and he has been very positive discussing pathways to legal status going forward. i think the other concern we have is a committee with a pretty crowded agenda, from immigration to marketplace fairness to patent control legislation in a tight time frame while we have the first,

i'm going to guess, clear the decks of these three new cliffhanger deadlines. because again, they're not going to be here that much in the fall. >> you know what's great about the chamber? bruce and i agree on all the important things and we argue about the things along the margin, and i keep saying i think you're probably right, bruce, but forget the february- stuff. bring it back closer and closer. everything is looking for something positive to take home. >> another issue that's been sort of brewing in congress, especially on the democratic side, is a push to raise the minimum wage. you're also seeing walkouts by fast food workers. i'm wondering about how the chamber stands on that. we've raised the wage periodically over the years. is this something you're going to be fighting? is it something you're taking a position on now or will in the future? >> well, one, we didn't support raising the wage here in the district.

tom had an op-ed in the papers. as you know, the mayor vetoed it, saving some important jobs. what i could read, several thousand people showed up for 300 or 400 jobs. we have historicically not supported raising the minimum wage, and we have done so for all the economic reasons. it is the first step on the rung in the ladder. it does have some displacement effect, particularly for the least skilled people in society. so i would imagine we will again engage it. i don't see that being a hot issue moving through congress anytime in the near future. >> what do you make of the fact that certain tactics will not be ruled out? what do you find a credible

threat? >> i do not know senator cruz, and we are all getting to watch him. i think about him as a tennis player. if you're going to rush the net all the time, you better have motions to the left and right, and he has not proved that to me yet. he has his right as a member of the senate to push things he supports or resist the things he does not support, and we will try to work with him wherever we can. remember the issue, it is not the substance, it is what is the result and how are you trying to get it done and we'll see where it goes. >> people are assuming the business community would like him to shut up. >> that might be one thing we could work on. [laughter] >> what sort of leverage do you have over him? >> i don't know.

i have not spent a lot of time thinking about it. we're looking at this thing in a broader context than one person. there are a lot of democrats in the house who are worried -- in the senate, excuse me, that are worried about the upcoming election. i think to come on into the senate and be there in a very short period of time, he still has a lot of relationships to make, and in my view he has not got the votes to do what he wants to do. so then what does history show? after a while he will start talking to people how to get to him what he wants to get done instead of telling everybody how he is going to get it done. >> we will next go to anthony and then john, neil, and alex. anthony? >> i was wondering how the

chamber would like to advance the energy agenda, and also your thoughts on the president's climate change plan. >> bruce and i will split that. the way we want to advance our energy agenda is a matter as education. a mere 15 years ago we were saying, where are we going to get our energy? we are going to have to get it from nigeria, from the far reaches of the world, we have a real problem, and what we know now, we have, across the board, we have more energy than anybody else. it is accessible. we have proven in the last few years, we have created a couple of million jobs, we have paid just in the last year in the fracking business, the states picked up $3 billion in income tax and royalties and individuals that were part of that, with very little stuff coming off of federal lands.

we always keep talking about we are going to open up these lands, but you do not see the permits. what we have to do is continue the effort to explain to the american people that without hydrocarbons, we are not going to have any jobs. we are all for green energy. we have supported 300 separate green energy types of bills and projects, any of which did not get done, but we supported them. the fundamental issue is you think you're going to back away from using hydrocarbons, it is not going to happen. look at what is happening in europe. a turned off their nuclear power after what happened in japan, and now they are increasing the amount of coal they are buying. we want to sell it to them, while we are using natural gas, trying to clean the way we use coal. this is an education, and it is a happy education.

they're not doing what we are trying to do in entitlements when we tell them we have to turn back the dial a little. we asked to tell them we have to turn the dial up because it is going to attract all sorts of manufacturing to the united states. it is going to create all sorts of jobs. it will help us clean the air, and i really think this is a phenomenal opportunity for us, and bruce will tell you about the few bills. >> as i'm sure you know, we are suing on the greenhouse gas deal with the epa. the courts have withheld the decision on tailpipes. we think the epa officials took some latitude in making their decision to go after them. that is a process argument legally, which the supreme court obviously agreed with, at least in context, in accepting the petition.

we are not the only ones involved in that. i suspect going forward that judges will ask that all of them be consolidated into one brief, will be my guess. that is where that is. every disagreement legally with how they are approaching it. having said that, we have supported any energy efficiency types of legislation, including the one stalled in the senate right now. we would like to see this get out as well. we will continue to do that. it is important to recognize the united states has had the largest single reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from all other countries that were ready to go back to that kyoto protocol. we are ahead of that. we have achieved that through technological innovation. on the one hand with respect to fracking, and on the other hand, we reduced the cost of energy

per unit output manufacturing by close to 50%. >> we will continue to do that. we are doing the same thing on mobile source. we have driven up miles per gallon, cleaned up the output from cars. we have done what everybody else is talking about and has not done. >> you alluded to the -- [indiscernible] could you discuss the priorities as far as that agreement, and also the authority given the current environment. >> let's go to the trade promotion authority first. i think there is a growing and positive sense in both houses with both parties, saying they know we need it, they know we have to have that. we have to find a place on the calendar. if tomorrow we had one of these deals coming down the pike and ready to go and we did not have trade promotion authority, we would get it right away. although everybody else wants to

doctor up the bills, they know that nobody will sign a bill on the other side if they think it is going in for a three-year haircut by the house or senate. on the bill with the e.u. and europe, this is an interesting issue, and the reason we are intense about it is, europe, 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. their economy is flat or worse. according to a lot of the economists there, it will not get much better soon. it happens to be china's largest export partner, and if their economy is down, that will help us -- or hurt us because we are expanding and exporting more to

china. this is an important thing to everybody to do, and there is genuinely good feeling in both parties, and, by the way, it will be hard for the unions to oppose a bill with the european region because they have been telling us for years and years and years that is the way we ought to be running our economy. they are not going to have work rule and labor issues that they would have with someone else. we really think we are making progress. in a perfect world -- and you cannot find any, bring them -- we may have done this in stages and done something on export issues, including tariffs and trade facilitation and so on, and then got into these things later. but when you are doing a trade bill, when everybody wants to run on, we have to do finance,

we have to do services, and so i think we are moving very much in the right direction. remember, there is the transpacific partnership which is going. there's a big deal on services was 50-some countries. there is a facilitation agreement. all of those come it seems in some ways, will get easier as we start resolving issues to one that can apply to other. this along with energy is a great opportunity for this economy. >> when do you think the entitlement problem really comes home to roost? you guys seem to think there is a possibility of a deal year this -- deal this year, but not really. when did the hand of washington get forced on this issue? >> bruce just mentioned the social security disability system goes bankrupt in 2016 or 2015.

but the real issue gets very difficult after another four years or five years, because then you have to use your draconian methods. right now we can do a lot of stuff to make this work better. and we are not talking about getting rid of programs. we are talking about changes along the margin which make a huge difference. nobody is talking about going in and changing everything for somebody who is going to retire next thursday. he have to find a way to do it going forward. if we fail to do it and get down to 8, 9, 10 years, i cannot see anything but 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. the only problem with them, if you talk to the medicare overseers and others, they will tell you some of the government

numbers are a little squishy, and probably it is worse than we are looking at. >> to follow up, what do you think the likelihood of getting it fixed in the next four or five years is? maybe in this administration? >> we will find out, because the president spent the weekend saying he is now open, as he did before the shutdown, once the shutdown is done, to negotiating everything on the table, including entitlements and budget. ryan's protest vote was more of a statement vote against the deal because it did not address the long-term problems. i think we will find out in the next months whether or not a framework evolves out of that negotiation. >> we have about 20 minutes. we will go to neil, alex, mark shields, and susan page to close. neil? >> [indiscernible]

senator rubio said -- [indiscernible] they all say the same thing -- [indiscernible] is there any concern on your side that this distrust will make the immigration deal less likely? >> 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 with serious leadership, not with a lot of talk him and we need leadership in the business community, in the house, in the senate, in the white house. the president, after the deal was inked, his first comments were that he wanted to get on with a number of issues. the first thing he said was an immigration bill, and if he wants to do it w involved in leading and working with the other leaders in town

to get these things done. there are lots of things on the agenda, and the president would benefit in my opinion from becoming more active in this issue, because i think it would give him a better chance to get a good result, and it would send a signal that not only in these areas, but in others, here and around the world, he will be more active, and i think that is in the interests of the united states of america. >> at the same time, the president has publicly stated in a recent meeting, my proposal on cpi, my proposal to deal with entitlements are still on the table with republicans. it cannot be both ways. >> whether you guys will get involved more aggressively in primaries next year, do you worry there's nothing you can

do? a lot of conservative groups have pointed that out. it does not tend to work out very well. do you worry about that, that there is nothing you can do? >> no. >> would you like to elaborate on that? >> no. >> ok. >> but i do not worry about it. we will see what cards are dealt and we will react in the best way in the best interests of the american business community and the american country and our fellow citizens. >> mark? >> taking note of your cooperation with the afl-cio on immigration, it reminds us that 50 years ago this country dealt with its original sin, and that was racial segregation. the leadership of that movement, as you and i both know, because

we came to our political maturity at that time, was underwritten by organized labor. at considerable costs to themselves. there were a lot of italian catholics and irish catholics that were opposed to desegregation. can you give us an example of where the chamber plans to take an unselfish national position comparable to what labor did on the civil rights movement? >> 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.

they are the gladiators for one group, we are the gladiators for another group, but we work with them a great deal. he had 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 of that coalition. we work on a host of other issues, sometimes quieter than publicly, and we have worked on immigration with many of the labor unions, and we find ways to work with people on both sides. the question of whether we have in mind a great move forward like this country found itself in for a series of reasons -- and i was thinking about this myself, mark -- you and i are getting old, thinking about things -- for the 50th anniversary on the martin luther king issue -- and i have thought about two things. i thought, first, i thought when martin luther king gave that speech, the title of that speech was about jobs.

second, i have thought if there is one place we have not achieved that objective at the great sacrifice that he offered is we really have hurt that community in terms of k-12 education. if you do not have a fundamental education, it is hard to compete, and it is much harder to debate now with all the mans of theds manufacturing sector and technology and global economy. and so i think if there is a place where we can achieve some historic movement, it has got to be in education. the unions, the teachers unions, are at odds with many 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 getting phenomenal education. some coalition between unions and business -- and we are working together between democrats and republicans, between every group in this country, has got the -- to fundamentally say every child should have an opportunity to get a quality education. they cannot compete without it. and this could be the next big thing. >> another question on 2014. you heard member supporting the bill last week to avoid the default and the shutdown. was this in your view a line in the sand as you look forward to next year, rather in primaries and who to support, and

secondarily, in two weeks voters in new jersey and virginia go to the polls to choose governors. i am wondering if you think those races tell you anything about the state of the republican party right now and if there are any lessons for next year's midterms? >> the first point i want to make, when you look at the votes, how many people voted for and against in the house, it was a free vote. everybody knew they were going to get as many democratic votes they needed to get it there, and a good number of those who voted were either making a statement, as ryan was, or they were voting to avoid an unnecessary primary. when we get down to the serious business at hand of voting on the critical issues for this country, i think you will 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 are involved in the states, supreme courts, attorney general, and every now and then a governor's race that we believe is fundamental to the national interests of the country and of the business community. i do not know what is going to happen in those races. there is a lot of money coming from around the country into those races, because people are trying to position themselves, not for 2014, but for 2016. the whole question of what we are going to do really comes down to this -- we are not looking -- remember, we do not do anybody, we do not do presidential politics. we cannot be all the way around the world, the way we are,

talking to heads of states can and be playing in presidential politics. we do not do it. we do the house, senate, the state supreme courts, state attorney generals, and occasionally odds and ends that run across our major issues. but we really believe -- we really believe that it is in our interest to be vigorous in those races, and our first deal is sequential is 2014 is the house. let me be saying we do not do presidential politics. let me say something that sounds a little like presidential politics. on behalf of the american business community, even a choice, i would not like to see this administration with the white house, the senate, and the house. i think it will be a long two years. you can be sure that we will be very vigorous in the house.

we will also participate in the senate. we will support, to some people's discomfort, and number 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 country. we were founded 101 the years ago for two things -- to help and support the american business community and help our country when it is in trouble. >> kathy? >> following on that note, 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 depth we are going to go, this is how vigorous we are going to go, and finally, what is the funding level you're saying that you need? two times, three times, what we

have had in the past? >> the honest answer is sometime next year. >> [indiscernible] >> we will start in quarter one. we will have task forces that will make recommendations that will make those recommendations to the chamber's board. the board meeting is not until the end of february, early march. to the earlier point, we are doing internal research here and on the ground. we are obviously going to share that information with the task forces as well as game their own, and that process will start in the first quarter. we have not had an endorsement meeting yet. >> [indiscernible] >> 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 we gained last time around, which we do regularly. we are expanding, as bruce indicated. we will further expand our staff on the ground. we will continue our effort of engaging state and local chambers at a much more aggressive level than in past years. we will hire consultants where needed, and we will spend what it takes. susan? >> the business community [indiscernible] the republican party can be never ready reliable partner in the comes to economic issues. is that no longer the case? >> the business community -- let me give you a fact. we have all kinds of members. we have 300,000 little members. we have all the big companies, almost all of them, and there

are democrats and republicans all through the business community. as there are democrats and are publicans all through the chamber. so while we -- the press in particular has always built this relationship between business and republicans. i spend as much of my time talking to democratic leaders, because we have traditionally known where some of the votes were going to be and we were always looking for how we could if i did not spend a lot of time talking to the union leaders, how would we have ever made a deal in the senate on immigration? i would not worry so much about labels. what we need to do is talk to those who are leaders or portend or want to be leaders in going forward, and it is our business to do with everybody who has a role in that, from the white house to the leaders in the senate on both sides and the leaders on the house on both sides, and i'm not particularly worried about some great failure of our relationships.

it seems to me they are getting bigger. >> [indiscernible] let me ask you -- yes, francine? >> you mentioned obamacare in your opening remarks. where should we go now? >> that is fairly clear. with any huge piece of legislation, we should take a very clear look at what is working, what is not working, what needs fixing, what needs timetable change, what needs reconsideration. i have said all along, and bruce has said all along, there is no way you're going to get rid of that bill. i mean, suppose somebody could get the votes to defund it in the house. i do not think you can get those votes in the senate, and sure as hell you could not override a veto. so whether you thought that was a good idea or a bad idea, you

probably ought not to spend a lot of time on it. instead, we believe there is lots to be done to make this bill more what it was originally meant to be in set of what what happened when the people that got in to start writing this bill took a good idea and just continued to write and write and write, so we have now got to bring it back to a reality. >> what is the timeframe for starting to make those changes? >> i think some of it will work if we leave it alone for a walk, 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 the computer system? >> last question. eleanor? >> you said a minute ago you would spend what it takes. you did not want unified government.

i assume that means you want to keep the house republican, and, secondly, the president has put suggestions about entitlement reform out there, but he seems to want revenue in return. simpson-bowles or commissions that have looked at this said you have to have increased revenue. with the chamber, the business immunity, support closing loopholes or some sort of way of getting revenue to get a deal? >> good. you go first, i will go second. >> we all along made it clear we are not an opponent to increased revenues. there's a lot of ways to get increased revenues. to your point, the president has said that. i would say his chances of getting another tax rate increase on top of the $620 billion that occurred in january is a journey equivalent to the republicans trying to defund obamacare. it will not happen. >> there are couple of elements

-- >> you cannot get new -- we should dynamically restore tax reform, and energy, which sum has mentioned, is a huge opportunity to generate revenue. immigration bill is an opportunity to generate revenue. >> it is important to understand in the upper income tax brackets there are huge hidden taxes. people in the higher incomes, over $250,000, they pay on every dollar of revenue they make all the way to the top in medicare. and so many of them have added 4% or 5% to their overall rate. if you look at obamacare, there's another point in there, plus another 25% negative effect on the capital gains tax.

taxes hidden all over the place in addition to the ones we recognize. the bottom line here is we are willing to sit down and talk about ways to continue to strengthen the nation's economy. we have just had a little problem finding somebody to sit down and talk to. >> real quickly, are you open to the possibility revenue increases? >> we have always been open to the possibility of ways to expand revenue, including, as bruce said, all the things you can do if you move in a sensible way on energy, and the things you can do if you are going to look at some ways to alter the tax collection system that makes it better for companies by giving up some deductions to get some benefit. we are wide open to talk about fixing this country. harry reid said we won't talk to anybody unless we get a billion dollars for the new income

taxes. good luck, harry. it ain't happening. >> talk about the top brackets, the studies that show the growing income diversity. do you think there is a certain point where it might be bad for business if the middle class is so hollowed out and there is increased wealth all on one end? >> i was listening to your question carefully, and then you got to the right question. am i concerned about the middle class? hell, yes. that is why mark and i were exchanging about the education issue. there are great opportunities for people. we have taken away 45% of the jobs in manufacturing. they are gone, never coming back, information technology, process engineering, robotics, supply chain management.

but would could still hire a million and a half people today to go in to the manufacturing business if they had adequate education. and, by the way, some additional people we get through infrastructure. my view there is a lot we ought to do about the middle class, but one thing we should never do. we should never say we are going to do what lenin thought was a good idea, which was screw down the people who make the money and pay the bills to make everybody feel good while you kill the news that laid the golden egg, and thank you very much. >> thank you, tom, bruce. appreciate it. >> [indiscernible] this morning.nd

the house will be in session today, gaveling in at noon eastern. legislative work will start at in0 on bills of child safety foster care. live coverage when the house comes in shortly on c-span. with a formertion member of congress on moderate members of his party and his influence on the tea party. in congress for the state of congress, and now he is the president of the main street partnership. welcome. the main street partnership is -- thet: 15 years ago was adams society. littlebeen a sleepy

group that has supported center- right publican candidates. this year we are gearing up the cause being a little organization in the face of what is going on in our party is ok, now we will actively defend and recruit people who run for office. thoseould you describe types of people as moderates? >> we have one question test -- do you believe obama was born in the united states? if they answer yes, they are in. has taken a lurch to the right, and the tea party element of the republican party is an important part of the party, at the tea party is not the republican party. it is made up of a diverse mix

of individuals. while the tea party has currency in certain parts of the country, it does not have a force in new england as in texas. host: as far as what we saw over the last three weeks, what did we learn about moderates during the shutdown? guest: i was proud of them. if you look at the 87 who voted against, 40 are members of the main stream partnership. they need to feel their coats, because these folks will take a position that is principled and what they believe that what they're people in their districts have asked them to do, and then they will be blindsided by groups, and will run the manchurian candidates who may be able to get through the republican primary, but either

do not make it in the fall or if they make it in the fall are not interested in covering -- in governing. host: what are the races you're looking at? guest: a couple so far. idaho, but the club for growth has decided to -- they have launched this website, primary your congressman. west virginia will likely be another. the news last week, a couple seats up in michigan where people from the business community say they will challenge folks that may not fit those districts. guest --

who best exemplifies moderates in the current house? guest: charlie dent. a fellow that stood up in a way that i had not seen before is one from california. we come from the parts of it country you expect us to come from. i wish we had republicans who represented new england. castle,ck in time, mike and he is a good example, a good member of congress. primaryaken out in the by a woman whose commercial started i am not a which.

that should not be the face of the republican party going .orward this has cost the republicans optional control of the senate by nominating people who do not have a chance because of their extreme views and instead we see the control of the senate to the democrats. i would argue harry reid would not be the majority leader today if we had not adopted that strategy. beaker boehner, what is his relationship with those who identify themselves as moderates. guest: he is a speaker's speaker. that struck me a week ago tuesday when he came up with not one but two plants to save these

folks, they rejected it. you are left with either a continued government shut down or you have to yield to a deal that has been worked out by mitch mcconnell which is what happened at the end of the day. he tried to give them opportunities to get something, but not this high in the sky thing. anybody who thinks obama is going to wake up at 1600 pennsylvania avenue and go obamacare really stinks, and i am willing to get rid of it, that was not reachable in the split functions of government we have today. what he was trying to do was limit expectations, let's get that last week can, and when his goal was to save many people from getting increased taxes, rather than setting up these things to make up nice bumper stickers. host: why do you think he took

that strategy? he was instructed to do that. the first thing -- that became a cause for a number of members within his caucus, and by a number of members, 30 two 50. mr. cantor and mr. mccarthy as tol said you are telling us follow strategy, we will follow a strategy, even though they do not mean it. boehner said this is not a good strategy. unworkable.n to be he tried to come up with something, a medical device tax, delaying obamacare, and issues where republicans do well. we do well on fiscal issues, but not well when we delve into

these areas. at the end of the day he made it clear he was not going to let the government default, and he is a state for keeping his word. talking about the roles of moderate republicans. here is nathan from ohio. caller: i am actually a she. unfortunately, the moderate republicans have been led around by the nose by a fraction of the tea party group, right, who did not go there to legislate. they went to obstruct. they are leading not just the republican party, but boehner by the nose. unfortunately, that is not how government works. they need to work within the process in congress to address

laws that are broken or they do not agree with or to address agenda and not to do things like check down the government because they are not getting their way. boehner let that happen. he let that go to the crazy tea party leaning right to push the ball further down the rhine -- the line. was the fault of the tea party. that is not how we get legislation done. woman in ohio, i do not agree with the first premise, but the second one is worried. the way this should have been handled that anybody thinks obamacare is a perfect piece of legislation is not accurate, and we are seeing it play out on the papers today. the way to deal with it is these are the problems and then these are the good things, pre- existing conditions, the ability areeep coverage until they

26. and the medical device tax. , andid of the bad things go towards improving the law. that should be the function of the congress. this leading by the nose business. john boehner did everything within his power to have this go away that it should go. works, if youuse cannot muster 218 votes for something, it does not work. will --crats answer, i that is rendering the functional majority of the house. there is a reason the majority has a certain power in the

house. aren is correct, that there 30, 40 very conservative house republicans who are not yielding. me, ie thing that struck was here for the shutdown in 1995. newt gingrich and president don't -- president bill clinton it are met or spoke every day on the phone. when you have a president that says he will not negotiate, that gives boehner a few options. orcan either capitulate attempt to make changes. he did everything to make changes with the cards he was dealt. mary says the republican party host:owed the mammy -- larry says the republican party has allowed the nanny state takeover. guest: we will cave in and just give to the other point of view

-- that is not what it is about. what it is about is in a constitutional republic, when party controls the house and the other party is the majority in the senate and the house -- and the white house is controlled by democrats, you have to work things out. surrender would be one way, and i do not advocate surrender, a ing to anything, but likewise a bargain, a negotiation is you get something, you give up something, and you find that sweet spot. people who are unwilling to do that are not interested in governing. the result is -- and we're talking about the government poundown -- the 800 -- gorilla is the definite -- the debt, deficit, that will eat us alive with 10,000 americans retiring every day, and as long as the partisan democrats say do

not touch a hair of social security and medicare, medicaid, leave them as they were invented , ande 1930 upon and 1960's republicans say i will not give you one dime of revenue -- everybody can say no, but the country will go to hell in a handbasket. you have to have people willing to say how do we get out of this mess. that takes compromise. host: that sounds like the basis for the upcoming conference. guest: the supercommittee, if had 12remember, it only people. this thing has 40. i do not think this has a chance to go better. their task was to find $1.3 trillion in reductions over 10 years. that is a hundred $30 billion a

year. -- that is $130 billion a year. that is chump change, and they cannot do it. when they could not do it, what did we get? sequester. everybody is screaming about how harmful sequester is. sequester will not be undone because all that would be doing is pretending there is not a problem. rather than saying the sequester thing, all programs are not equal, some defense programs are more important than others, so rather than saying we will work this out, they are saying sequester stays in place until i get exactly what i want. i do not have high hopes for this budget. good morning. thank you for your efforts. thatroblem as i see it is the talk radio guys are leading those republicans around by the

nose. those 30 or 40 people you are talking about. rush limbaugh and laura ingram and these guys who are advantaged themselves by dividing everything and causing a big crisis. tom coburn was on the tv the other day, and he said the media loves to stir up a big crisis or a big problem, and then you tune in to listen about all the stuff about the crisis. you have to tune in to hear about the crisis. the limbaugh keeps saying media -- he tries to blame the media, but what people do not realize is that rush limbaugh is the media. he is not in danger. .e is the danger guest: these people are

entertainers and are in the business of advertising. they are not in charge of the democratic or republican party based on what their ideology is, and a moderate current -- moderate republican who has served in the searches area, and another democrat who is head of the banking committee -- these are two men who knew how to put aside their sharp differences and find the common ground to get things done. i would add, i know talk radio and entertainment is not the problem, but what the problem are the super pacs that are ideologically driven, and what they need to do is come in with millions of dollars in a contested democratic or republican primary and skew the thing. the assault -- you saw it during the fiscal cliff and the shutdown. ben boehner rolled out plan

and the two plans a week ago that republicans could get in exchange for reopening the government, heritage action, club for growth, all sent out alerts to whoever they send alerts to come up but they said they would score the but and if you vote this way you will get a double secret negative no vote. what that translates into is primary in my district. likewise on the other side, it translates into primary for a democrat. if you are going to the last election and look at the democratic side, because we are focusing on republicans, but there was a member of congress from pennsylvania, in congress for 20 years, a good guy, former sheriff, would work with you, buddy democrat. because he did not support the affordable care act, they took

him out. so you have this on both sides of the aisle. when that is the makeup of the congress, if you have been taken out for he you have taken someone out that wanted to find common ground, god forbid you should find common ground and work with the other side. host: witches is have new figures in for the economy. -- 148 thousand jobs added in september. what does it mean for tea party types going forward? guest: if unemployment is going down, it is good. everybody still says the economic recovery is fragile. it is. from my mind republicans should be more about implementing tax reform that furthers first economic growth and create jobs and finding those things than fighting about things that we

have been fighting about. denver, colorado. caller: i would like to thank you for being on. if you remember, the one thing from the continental congress, the first meeting they did get done, they agreed to meet again. i think if we could have a panel discussion one morning about what you're panel found. the point i called in about, they are talking about before how the tea party was erecting right now -- europe saying -- maybe it is not that there is a hundred million tea party types out there, but you have 10 million or 20 million that have been frozen for however many years and now they are starting to get their acts of the road. guest: let me say this.

i think to demonize the tea party is not accurate, and if you look at what the tea party, the initials stand for, it is taxed enough already. congress ined from january. a lot of tea party chapters in my district, outside cleveland, and 99.9% of the people at those meetings were wonderful, wonderful human beings and americans who just wanted to deal with the size of government and a high level in their opinion of taxation. i am all on board with that. drive messagess that have nothing to do with taxes and economic issues and individual liberties and freedoms and pollute the message and become the poster child for what the tea party is, that lets its opponents demonize it, and it does not move forward our

agenda. as i said at the outset, the tea party is a valuable component. most of them are republicans. we value them. they are not to republican party. the republican party is built upon individual liberty, individual freedom, and a reduced size of government. if you want to believe that, we should be welcoming anybody that wants to be a republican. we could use more republicans. cruz on sunday senator talked about going forward and talked about how the fight against obamacare would be part of that. here's what he had to say. [video clip] thatl you rule out -- you will block funding unless obamacare is the funding -- is defunded? wreckill stop the train that is obamacare. i will stand with the american people to work to stop

obamacare, because it is not working, costing peoples's jobs, and taking away their health care. isst: well, the sad reality the only thing that is more popular -- less popular than the affordable care act is the way the republicans dealt with it. uz can to continue to adopt that position, but in the framework we find ourselves, it is not going to happen. again, the president is not going to abandon his signature piece of legislation. harry reid is not going to let that occur. the challenge should be how can you improve the law to get it the the president has already delayed the employer mandate. look at the mess with the enrollment. it's a reasonable argument, i think, maybe we should be playing the rollout and there's no business that i'm aware of that would have gone into the field with a computer program that they hadn't tested from start to finish.

why not take advantage of the difficulties to advance your position rather than steaking out a position that's un-- staking out a position that's unattainable. that would be a loser. host: up next is alice, morganville, new jersey. democrats line. caller: thank you. please don't hang up on me. when you first came on i really thought you were a moderate. but in the time i have listened to you you are no better than dominionist, a to sit there and say nothing like this has ever happened in our government before, and for you to say the president -- what did you want him to do? they wanted to overturn his election. they wanted -- what do you want him to do? unsign his legislation? so everything you have sat there

and said other than, well, if they believe he was born in the u.s., then we'll put -- we'll back them. that's wrong. that is wrong. and my original question was going to be, you have a majority and it is supposed to be a minority of people in your party, why didn't anybody step up? where were these moderate republicans? host: thanks, caller. guest: just for the record i can't hang up on you, so if that happened it was somebody else. first of all. second of all, i couldn't disagree with you more. you are really not -- you really -- you haven't added anything constructive because to say that this has never happened before. it's happened 17, 13 times since the 1970's that people have had differences and the government has been shut down.

if i was not clear, i was not suggesting that the president needed to undo or get rid of his signature piece of legislation, the affordable care act. what i said was that the law is not perfect. and if you go back to the 1995-1996 shutdown, bill clinton and newt gingrich worked it out. and that means that one gave a little bit and the other man gave a little bit. and that's the way the process is supposed to work. to have the president say, i'm not going to talk about anything, i'm not going to negotiate on anything, is just as nonconstructive as senator cruz saying he's not going to negotiate until we get rid of obamacare. like most things, things are in the middle. where were the moderate republicans? the moderate republicans advocated the reopening of the government. but again when you have a side that says, just reopen the government. no strings attached.

don't make any changes to the affordable care act. don't reduce spending. don't do anything about entitlements, tax reform, that's surrender. that's not negotiation, either. i understand your position. you're in new jersey, and new jersey pretty blue state. i guess i'm not surprised. host: governor christie does do well in new jersey? guest: he does do well. he's a moderate. host: i know had you a one question thing -- what defines it? guest: what defines it is recognizing that government, if you want to be about the business of government, you should be about governing. and governor christie has recognized -- let's take what happened. the supreme court decision in new jersey saying that gay marriage could start yesterday. now, he doesn't believe that that's appropriate. his personal set of beliefs, if i understand him correctly, but he also recognizes that to continue to fight that through the court system, through the appeals process, is futile and a

waste of resources at this time. i imagine he'll go back in and there will be some sort of referendum in new jersey where the voters make that decision. that's governing. it's not taking your ball and going home and saying i disagree with this decision and therefore i'm going to shut down the government or i'm just not going to talk to anybody. host: why is it ok devils democrats can fight the sequester which is law and we can't fight obamacare? guest: both things are appropriate. both things are appropriate. the government didn't get shut down over sequester. and if you look at what the democrats are attempting to do, they are attempting to replace sequester and the republicans are resisting it, as they should. sequester is the first time that we have had a reduction in spending in the federal level for now three years in a row. i think it's an unfortunate way it came about. the reason you elect people to make decision, well let's cut this program 20% and this one 5%, rather than everyone gets a

10% cut. stupid way to do it. if democrats want to fight the sequester that's their right. if republicans want to oppose the affordable care act, that's their right. it's the way that you do it that i have a problem with. and what senator cruz was attempting to achieve is not achievable. i'd like to be wearing a size 32 pants again, it's not going to happy in the foreseeable future. likewise it's unrealistic to believe that president obama is going to abandon his signature piece of legislation. host: rose from harrisburg, pennsylvania, on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. hank you for letting me speak. i just believe that the republicans should recouch the black community, also the minority community because the democratic party has let them down bigtime. they have done nothing for us

but made us more dependent on government. you should point out that the ways of the democratic party has not benefit the black people. you should recount more to us because you will not be able to win an election unless you get the minoritys -- most of the minorities in your pocket. thank you very much. i'll listen to you offline. guest: rose, you know what, you hit the nail really on the head as to what this is about. in the republican party today there are two distinct views and visions. after the 2012 election, when the president was re-elected, you may remember the national committee of the republican party put out a 58-page paper that says in order to do better in national elections, we needed to broaden our appeal to different voters. specifically talked about hispanic outreach, african-american outreach, and

others. but now what's going on is that you have a group of members in the republican party that think that the reason that the president was re-elected is because we didn't go far enough to the right. and they would argue, if you look at the difference in terms of who showed up in 2012 as opposed to 2008, that three million very conservative evangelical tea party, whatever you want to say, voters who voted for john mccain didn't show up for mitt romney because mitt romney was an establishment candidate and all this other business. and they would argue if we could just get those three million people to the polls, we would elect the next president of the united states in 2016. i don't happen to believe that. i happen to believe that the path to getting the next president -- republican president of the united states is by having african-americans vote for republicans, hispanics vote for republicans, gay americans vote for republicans,

asian americans vote for republicans, women for god's sake need to vote for republicans. if your coalition on election day is made up of angry white 57-year-olds from below the mason-dixon line, i would say that's not a winning strategy to elect the president of the united states. i couldn't agree with you more. that's the discussion. by saying that, i'm not ridiculing the people who have a view contrary to mine, they believe it in their hearts, but we have to start that out as a party. that's a family matter we'll discuss over the next couple years. host: is it a new concept as far as the party's concerned? guest: it certainly isn't. if you look at the seat that i represented, way back when my seat was represented by a name of joshua giddings, forefront of the abolitionist movement, he wore a medallion that said millions for defense but not one penny for slavery, he pushed and pushed the republican of abraham

lincoln to get where we needed to be, unfortunately in the civil war, and that's the heritage of the republican party. it's governing america. it's including all americans in that governing. how we have lost that way and now we just want to represent you if you agree with us is, to me, it's deflating. it's more than deflating because-different been a republican my entire life, aim 59, people will, i'm surprised it hasn't happened yet this morning, people say you rhinos, you this, you that. host: there was a tweet. guest: of course there was a tweet about rhinos. but that is so counterproductive. it flies in the face -- if you don't agree with me, you're going to call me a name? that's pretty sad. host: john from akron, ohio, for steve latourette. caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. i would like to ask mr. law tort -- mr. latourette, what is the

real party? what about tea and taxation -- over taxation and they threw the tea in the boston harbor. that's what that was for. these people, this tea party, they carry flags with snakes on them. yellow shirts, brown shirts, and flags. the bible says the last generation would be a generation of vipers. those are viper snakes. you better know who you-all playing with. and now the new tea party people, they get -- rate of exchange of our money around the world is the standard. it's called the greenback. the last horse to run is the pale horse. read it in the bible. guest: joan, thank you very much. i hope it's a lovely day in beautiful akron, ohio. the snake, i do have to talk about the snake. the snake isn't something that the tea party came up with. those yellow flags, most of them, say don't tread on me, which was actually a flag

carried by american patriots during the american revolutionary war. and it was a message to king george iii that don't tread on me by taxation without representation. i don't have any problem -- i don't know about the biblical significance of these don't tread on me flags, but they are rooted in our history. and i think as you point out , when and i think i said before, when the tea party focuses on economic issues and taxes and things like that that impinge individual freedom, that message resonates with a lot of americans, republicans, democrats, and independents. when you ask what happened to them, in my opinion, it's only my opinion, the tea party, remember i said 99.9% of them are just good solid americans who want a better country for themselves and their families? when you have a successful movement, you find other people who don't have successful

movements, so they infiltrate and begin to look for that soapbox that gives them attention. a lot of the people who are driving the tea party message today aren't really republicans and they are not just tea party, they are libertarians. they are the rand paul, ron paul libertarian wings, which again that's what you believe, that's what you believe. but it is that sort of government is the enemy view that really has gotten, in my opinion, this movement in some trouble with voters. host: your state, the governor, john kasich, pushed through an expansion of medicaid on monday over the objection of fellow republicans. is he a moderate? guest: john kasich would really get mad at me if i said he was a moderate. he's a guy who governs.

remember, you go back in time we have overwhelm had one balanced budget in recent memory, and that was as a result of the balanced budget act of 1997 that john kasich, newt gingrich, and bill clinton crafted together that let us pay our bills and actually paid down the deficit for a period of time. paid down the debt. i think we paid $400 billion. that couldn't happen today. so john kasich is very much a conservative, but john kasich also says, and he's a realist, and he's a fellow who wants to govern, he says, look, we have these uninsured people in ohio. we have these billions of dollars that are going to be made available to the state of ohio to cover our uninsured, why wouldn't we do that? the reaction on the other side -- if it was a decent argument on the other side, then i would sort of perk up and listen, but the argument is, it's a bumper sticker, sound bite, that's obamacare. as if anything that's related to obamacare is poison.

if you go near it you're going to die. that's a bad view. i give john kasich, the governor of the state of ohio, high marks, and chris chris t. and scott walker in wisconsin, and other republican governors who have said, you know what, i don't like the affordable care act. i don't like a lot of pieces of obamacare, in this instance if this helps people in my state get access to health care, why wouldn't i do it? host: bradford, pennsylvania, frank, republican line. caller: good morning, steve. i'm an 87-year-old republican. can tell you that health care has chased many start-ups out of the country. i can remember when we were making resisters and transisors. i can remember disclosing the clients over in sing gentleman pore. they were by the thousands. in ohio, pennsylvania, and north

carolina because i was there. we sent american men over there to show them how to run the plants, and when they came back to their jobs, they were gone. they left. doing business in america. and it was because of health care. they would not give people health care. we had the same thing with whirlpool. they left. i had a nephew at a plant in indiana. working there. we have the lousiest health care in the world for business. host: thanks, caller. guest: two things. i would add that the current tax code and its treatment of corporations in the united states is the disconsecutive. we have one of the -- disinsensitive. we have one of the highest tax rates on corporations in the world, developed world anyway. i think that that's a driver. at the end of the day people who are involved in business, if

they are shareholders, their obligation is to the shareholders. obviously it's to make money. what we have lost is sort of the path that combined with that should be sort of a recognition of social justice and the people that work for you are assets. so they need quality health care and pension programs and other things. maybe we shouldn't just be driven by the almighty dollar. but that at its core, where i completely agree with the people that say that the affordable care act is not good, and obamacare has problems, is that it was designed, i mean it was sold as something that was going to lower the cost of health care on people that had health care. if you liked your program you could keep it. if you think about it, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to say how are you going to insure 30 million new people and it's not going to cost anybody anything? that doesn't make sense. an 8-year-old could figure that

out. so what you are seeing to the point is you're seeing people who are receiving, for instance the law firm that i work at, health care's gone up 28%. it's not all because the affordable care act, but a lot has to do with that. it has some problems. host: the last question about congress, this is joshua saying that many have pointed to the hastert rule as the problem. you were very close to speaker hastert. how do you feel about that now? and you may need an explanation. i guest: i want that close to speaker hastert. the hastert rule, you may remember there is a fellow named tom delay, the whip from texas and then the majority leader, they had sort of an unwritten rule that you could not put legislation on the floor that couldn't get a majority of the majority. so in today's environment if you had 240 republicans, unless there were 121 republicans

signaled they were going to vote for the legislation, you weren't supposed to do it. now, what's happened is some people have misinterpreted the hastert rule to indicate that you can't put something on the floor unless you get 218 votes. that's not the hastert rule. and some of these men and women who are sort of singing in the gears of government are saying that no, no, no, we can't do it unless we can pass it with republican votes only. that's not the hastert rule. i don't know that it's the problem. the problem in my opinion is that -- going back to ms. pelosi, if you go back over the four years that ms. pelosi of california was the speaker of the house, she got through the affordable care act, cap and trade, dodd-frank, and she was able to do it by pushing arms, breaking arms, and getting 218 of her members to support the legislation. what these 30 to 40 republicans have yet to realize is that when

you deny john boehner, the speaker of the house, the functional majority, of having 218 votes, you only have a couple of choices. you have deadlock and government shutdown, or he has to pick up his folder, go across the hall on bended knee and say, to ms. pelosi, who is now the minority leader, i need some of your votes. any republican that thinks that the bill is going to become more republican, if he has to go to the minority leader and get votes, is crazy. so what they need to recognize is that governing and achieving sort of moving forward with legislation is getting the attainable. it's not surrendering. it's not being a squish, rhino. it's saying here are the goals i can get with the senate and the white house being in control of the other party, and i need to push the ball as far down the field as i can. and not having some stupid idea.

host: steve latourette, former member of congress, also the president and c.e.o. of the main street partnership. thanks for your time. guest: thank you. >> looking at the u.s. capitol here on this tuesday where the house had originally planned to come into session for speeches at noon eastern today. they did cancel that. they will now gavel in briefly at 2:00 eastern for short speeches. legislative work will get under way at 5:00 with votes at 6:30. four bills on the calendar, including one regarding student safety and another promoting adoption of foster care children. also the naming of a veterans medical center for the late congressman bill young who passed away earlier this week. any requested votes will be held after 6:30 eastern. join us thursday for a hearing looking at the implementation of the health care law with reports of numerous glitches in the website healthcare.gov we expect that tonight focus, 9:00 thursday on c-span2.

next, an event featuring the political cartoonist. the atlantic press club hosted this looking at the influence and future of editorial cartooning. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> good evening. i'm tom watkins, treasurer of the atlanta press club. thank you to coming for drawing the news. the atlanta press club is one of the largest and most active press clubs in the world. if you're not already a member of the press club, we encourage you to join. we have some great programs coming up. we'll host a newsmaker luncheon with the c.e.o. of care on september 17. and be sure to join us on october 8 for the 2013 hall of

fame dinner. for more information on the atlanta press club and our upcoming events, visit our website at www .atlantapressclub.org. we are really pleased to have three cartoonists in an ever shrinking universe of cartoonists joining us tonight. kevin cal her is the award winning editorial cartoonist for the "economist" magazine of london and "baltimore sun." he created more than 8,000 cartoons and 140 magazine covers. his resume includes six collections of published work and onedown man exhibitions in six countries. mike lucovich is the pull lithser prize winning journalist for the "atlanta journal constitution." he began his career in 1984 at the new orleans times picayune and joined the constitution in

1989. mikes work also appears in time and "new york times." rick mcgee has been the editorial cartoonist for the atlanta -- for the augusta chronicles since 1998. although he did start at the "atlanta journal constitution" in another capacity years before. his cartoons are syndicated to more than 400 newspapers across america. rick has won numerous awards for his cartoons, including first place for editorial cartooning, and the georgia press association's better newspaper contest. what we are going to do is ask a bunch of questions. i'll start off with a couple. then please formulate your own. and we'll pick the brains of people who are able to look at world events and distill them to simple pictures and make us laugh or have an epiphany or think deep thoughts.

>> i want to know, rick didn't get a microphone. i think he deserves one. > he does. >> first off you are talking to the press club which has endured a bitter few years, and i'm wondering if you could all comment about what the current state of editorial cartooning is. has it paralleled that of newspapering? or has it been spared? >> i'll start with that one. i think the cartoonist maybe was

hit harder than maybe the newspaper industry has in suffering over the years in large part because as the bean counters and businessmen are making lots of hiring and firing decisions at newspapers, they look down at a cartoonist in a paper and they say, what does this guy really bring to the value of the paper? and the journalists in the building know the value that a cartoonist can bring. we see it both in the work of the powerful that acatchment the local community gets to the cartoonist anti-special power it can do to affect both the public discourse in their area but get the full and upright attention of the politicians which is part of the job of the free press. cartoonists have been laid off at a rapid rate. we have found that there is maybe the numbers are kind of loose where people maybe 25 years ago we were hovering around 200 range and now we are

down in the 70's or lower. it's likely that when a newspaper loses a cartoonist, they are never going to rehire one. staff position. i'm an example of that. i was a 17-year cartoonist for the "baltimore sun" during a contraction about six years ago, i was offered a buyout and took it because i saw the handwriting on the wall. they invited me to come back. they said we are looking for a cartoonist. it's been like that. you guys want to add something? >> yeah. newspapers of course have contracted and i think it's -- i think it's a case by case situation. i think there are some cartoonists in better shape maybe than others. the a.j.c. now is lean and doing

well. were few years ago things great. 2004, 2005 newspapers were doing fabulously well. now they have to be leaner and -- as i said, i think if you're -- if you have -- if your publisher and editor and the people that own your paper value the cartoon and cartoonist and cartoons, i think that cartoonists are in a good osition. >> there are a few people who have been hired in the last couple of months. i'm hoping -- i know my paper has beefed up its coverage. it's in the opinion section. i'm hoping that maybe it's stabilized and maybe we can turn it around a little bit. maybe that's wishful thinking. >> ok.

has the internet helped or hurt the business of cartooning and the artistry of cartooning? >> just like all media i think that the internet has initially hurt newspapers because people thought they could get everything for free. so that's stabilizing. it's been a good thing in that our work has a much wider viewership than it used to. it used to be your hometown and also if you were syndicated in other newspapers, people in those towns could see you. but now everyone has the ability to look at your cartoons. i don't know about you guys but my stepson's facebook and twitter, i don't know that much about that stuff but i know my cartoons go on there and people are seeing them. that's a good thing. >> it's hard to say.

there are a lot more sort of internet-type cartoonists who aren't necessarily professional. hey are not paid staffers. now you have photoshop, anybody can go out there and whip something out. there's a lot more political opinion. not many people making money on it. >> there's another interesting byproduct of the web. in way it's helped the world of cartoonists. these internationally. because you see three guys up here, whenever you get cartoonists together and ask them how did you get into this business, everyone's got a different story because there is no conventional way for a professional cartoonist. there is no schools, or graduate degrees in back becoming a cartoonist. we in the united states have a rich tradition of satire cartooning that goes back centrist. in other countries that are emerging democracies, they don't

have that same sort of background to draw upon when their cartoonists and newspapers looking to emulate what we do here. what happens is cartoonists around the world are watching the cartoonists here and others by following on facebook, seeing the work. you are seeing a very quick and rapid development of cartooning in countries like india and in brazil, countries where the press is actually growing. there are more newspapers and growing in those societies, while many places in the west are shrinking. the cartoonist, learning at a faster pace than we could have done. i think it's actually accelerating the growth of cartoonists in other parts of the world. >> i hope you guys have questions. one more. is there -- at its best, what should cartooning do? what do you hope to accomplish? >> give me the tough one. at its best cartoons, i think,

from my point of view, they should just make the readers think. and there's also different ways we employ that. a lot of cartoons use humor. i know that if i have challenged my readers to think about an issue, maybe differently, maybe one they may not agree with, then i have accomplished my mission. so -- i'm a very idealistic about cartooning. i feel like -- i feel like we are perfecting our union and i think that i'm trying to make people, like rick says, think. and i'm trying to show what i believe is not right out there. and there's a lot that's not right right now. and so they say that bad news is kind of good for cartoonists because it gives us a lot of

fodder. i would rather work harder an have less bad news and know we were going in the right direction. i think we are kind of -- we are not going in the right direction right now. i feel very -- like it's a real calling for me to get my opinions out there. >> one of the interesting things i think about how a cartoonist in contrast to any other member of the journalism school, has the ability to penetrate a society is that each cartoon you imagine is a sentence. they are pretty simple, straightforward. we try to get a point across in a sussstinth way. over the course of a week those sentences form a bar and over the course of a month maybe a chapter. you basically are having a long-term conversation with your

readers. because we use humor, because we use pictures, we have an interesting way to reside in a special part of the brain. people approach us open-minded because they think there's half a chance they are going to laugh. so we are engaged in a very personal relationship with these people. over time this ability to both reside in the brain and go to what rick mentioned before, make them think about subjects that sometimes they may be have fixed ideas about rethinking them a little bit, and sometimes it's awaken them to stories they need to know about. in some ways i'm going to sound like miss america here, we want to make the world a better place. we are trying to do it in our unique medium. >> questions? yes. inaudible]

>> an introduction, what's interesting about that question, that is the same type of question that i like to ask all of the cartoonists because every single person's got a different deal. and we are as different as comedians, there are different comedians. woody allen and chris rock are very different. all cartoonists are different both in our personality, our approach to the news and style. i can't wait to see what these guys have to say. > what was the question again? i don't -- my cartoons stand alone from the articles. i have a great situation. although my editor says i have to start getting in earlier. i now get in at noon. so i get in the first thing i do is i have lunch. then after lunch to the untrained eye it doesn't look

like i'm doing anything, i'm sitting there, i'm on ebay or listening to music on itunes or goofing off, and looking at topics, too. then around 3:00 i start to get nervous because i have been procrastinating all day from noon to 3:00. so i start to get nervous. that's when i start sort of coming up with ideas. and usually my first couple of ideas suck and i bring them out and show them to somebody. they are happy to tell me they suck. and i appreciate the honesty. that makes me gets my adrenaline going and i want to come up with something to show this person that i'm not a complete failure. i come up with something better, hopefully. and i keep doing that. it gets later and later. my day starts out with procrastination and ends in panic every day. right at my deadline of 5:30 i have to draw really quick. so i don't pencil anything in when i draw.

i inc. right on the drawing. you can see i have white on my hands. i just got done with a cartoon. i'm drawing -- going as fast as i can. that's how my day goes. >> wow. >> my cartoons are stand alone as well. i'm in the office with the other editorial writers. it looks like on a day i'm doing we might run yria articles together. you might get the idea we paired them intentionally but it just happened. my day starts at 9:30. i come in -- >> wow. >> i come in a little earlier. i also look like i'm not doing anything. when i really am. i hope to have my sketch done by lunch time. that's got to go through the approval process. i do a different way of inc.ing. i have a light box that i put my

sketch underneath and then i ink right on top of the paper. sort of like got the sketch to guide me when i do that. then i scan it in. hopefully i have the inking done by about 3:30. then i started to do color. we didn't have a kohlor position in print, but we have one on line. do i it in color every day. hopefully by about 5:30 or 6:00 i have the color version done. that's my day. >> do you guys assign yourselves? or does somebody say, mike, we want a cartoon on syria. >> for me, no. they don't say -- my editor likes to suggest ideas sometimes. sometimes i listen to him. most of the time i don't. i just pretty much do whatever i want to draw. >> i don't even go to meetings. it is the most incredible thing. i don't see my editor -- i sit in my office and no one bugs me

the entire day. it is -- until i come out of there and show my rough, they don't tell me what to do. and -- i've got such a great situation. >> largely the freedom that each of these fellows here have is in large part because because -- because they have built up a reputation that they will deliver. one of the things about our business, we work on very tight deadlines. we are creating art and satire on a deadline. and it requires loot of different skill sets. first requires the skill set of being a journalist, keeping up what's going on in the news. then you have to put on the hat of being a columnist. i like to think that's the way people should regard us. we regard ourselves, we are approaching the news. we normally come up with our own perspective on the subject we are going to cover. then we have to be a satirist where applying humor to our

commentary, finally the last thing we are an artist. using pictures to deliver our a tiric -- satiric commentary. it's interesting how people do it in different ways and each cartoon as a different energy. i have to wear two hats because i work for the economist, a national publication, and "baltimore sun," which was a daily for many years, and now doing one cartoon a week for thefment i'll tell my story going backwards from where they end because i apply -- i use an old-fashioned english style pen. it takes me three hours just to apply the ink. t three hours to scratch that. and so that's -- if the deadline's 7:00, that takes me to four, i have the pencil sketches before that. that takes it two or three hours. then you have the coming up with the idea. mike points out everyone finds way of getting to ideas in different fashion.

sometimes they do come quickly. but other times you go through a lot of processes. so my day is pretty much of an eight to 10-hour day depending what's going on when i'm delivering the cartoons. i think this is another additional point thade' like to adhere, about the freedom that we are given. is that with all freedoms comes responsibility. and what i admire about my piers who do this really well on a daily basis is how managing to do cartoons that are both apt, right on the news, and not sexist and not racings, powerful one day, funny the next day. vary it up. all these things we have to -- go into the mix when we are choosing our cartoons. >> next question, would you mind going to the microphone, please. >> i was on the editorial board

and i can vouch for mike's work ethic. what i wanted to ask of all of you, but mike particularly because i certainly now write a column i thought i couldn't believe the reaction was totally not what i meant for the reaction to be. i wonder if there's been any one particular, one or two, cartoons you ever drew that you were just flabbergasted at the response. you thought it was really, really misinterpreted. it would be fun to know a specific example. >> ok. first of all i think often when there are cartoon controversies one reason is that the symbolism kind of overtakes the idea that you're trying to get across, and people don't understand what you're trying to say. i did one a few years ago, it was when we were in iraq and

america was starting to understand that we were actually torturing people. so i thought that's what our enemies do so i thought about it. -- emmeese do. so i thought about it. i realized after i did the cartoon that the symbolism was too strong. and what it was is i drew two hooded figures, one was an american holding a whip, and other another one was an al qaeda with -- member with a certificate rated knife. -- serrated knife. and the american torturer is holding a book called torturet kit. he's tolding the al qaeda guys, here's the right idea, go to 2, 13, paragraph 4, line and -- it wasn't a particularly great cartoon. the cartoon ran and people think

everything was a newspaper it's a big controversy or big sinister thing that conspiracy. so what happens, my cartoon ran, but on the same -- on the opinion page there was a black and white photo of two american servicemen that had been killed, beheaded by al qaeda. so the combination just people went nuts. and this was at a point where people really hadn't processed we were actually torturing. people were still denying we were. people started complaining. and it just became a big thing. e had security from cox. security in our neighborhood because i was getting death threats. then they wanted me to be on fox news. fox news wants you on bill o'reilly show. i begged my editor at the time, i said please, can i go on?

i can explain this. and he was very -- she thought it would be misinterpreted or i would do something stupid. she didn't want me to go on. they did the most nasty one-sided thing on there. and just -- if got ugly. it all start dying down. then r.b.m., the big dealership here in atlanta, car dealership, they took out a full-page ad with a letter from the president of r.b.m. saying that we have the freedom in this country to say what we want, but this cartoon was way beyond the par. so it just generated all the crap again. i was so glad when that was over. i don't know if you guys -- if it's been the same thing where the symbolism overrides the idea. >> what i run into that -- also we do so many cartoons that are

considered funny. we use humor. when you have to switch gears and do something very serious like when somebody dies, obituary cartoons are some of the hardest because you want to be respectful and pay tribute. and everybody is expecting you to crack a joke. and they think maybe you're making fun or something like that. 245es the worst thing to be mis-- that's the worst thing to be misunderstood. mine was a local cartoon you wouldn't know about. it was about a local school. it was misunderstood. we ran letters for four days. it was nothing compared to that. i haven't gotten death threats yet. i'm still holding out for some. >> i guess i had a situation that was sort of along the lines what happened with mike where background this was in the mid 2000's when israeli government under sharone had a policy of bulldozing the homes of palestinian terrorist families

the bush th administration and many allies, an inadvised polcy. very controversial within israel and outside. and so i was doing a cartoon that was basically -- also bush was trying to shell sharone don't do this. and sharone was doing whatever he wanted to do. there was a cartoon where we had area fat as a cat being chased by a big bulldog, who was sharone, he makes a great bulldog. he was pulling through the air george bush who was saying good boy, sit, stay. so the cartoon i thought was fair comment under the circumstances. somewhere between the time i finished the cartoon and the next morning's paper, a terrorist bomb attack in tel aviv killed about 80 people. you might recall. two buses.

the next morning alt images everywhere were of this carnage and people turned to the editorial page and saw the cartoon and blamed sharone. immediately i became the hot button on all the talk shows and all the fallout. it was also revealed two weeks later i was slated to give a talk at the library outside baltimore which is right in the heart of the jewish community. and that was going to be a focal point of a lot of protests. the library contacted me and said they were getting threats. should we go on with this? i said, look, you can do whatever you like. but i think in the united states if we cannot have a civil discussion in a library where else can you do it in the rest of the world? so we got a lot of security. went down there, and it was mayhem. chaos. people wanted to shut the whole thing down. as you can tell it was a

misunderstanding. it just touched the wrong nerve. going into the room. the room is about this size, packed to the gills with folks. and i give my presentation. and then i told everyone we are definitely going to be addressing the issue everyone wanted to hear. i go through the slides of cartoons of controversy that have been done over the years and i bring about that cartoon. you can imagine it was like a bad movie people started passing out. oh, my god. it was something else. but i did i said, look, every person who has something to say and wants to say it in this room, will have an opportunity to say it. i will stay here until next week if we are quiet to make sure i hear those voices. of course it did a wonderful thing both to let the air out of the bag and let the air out of the room. and it also served something that's very special in our society is that we can vent, we can say these things. and we can hopefully say it in a

civilized fashion. it turned out to be, i think, a great exercise in democratcy. >> have you found yourself being more careful since then about cartoons related to israel? >> no. partly because that cartoon you could see where there was a misunderstanding. we all are aware what happened with the danish cartoonist. and -- we also for guys like us who have been in the game for a long time, we know there are land mines out there that you have to be careful about how you manage your way through these things. guns, to deal with the -- race, arab-israeli relations. in other countries, i have lived in other countries and worked with cartoonists in other countries, they have their own red lines they have to be aware of. like us what a cartoonist can get away in san francisco might be different than parts of alabama. you have to understand who your audience is and work with that. mike made a good point at the beginning is that it's often not

what you say, it's how you say it that gets you in trouble. so that if you can actually -- >> we'll leave this program at this point and go live to the white house for today's white house briefing. just beginning the discussion about today's jobs report which was released by the labor department earlier this morning. >> these estimates are useful and informative, but it's important to understand they are based on predictions, basically they say, if government services ceased for this a time for this amount of money we have some type of multiplier model, here's the consequence for g.d.p. they are not base the on actual data and they don't capture the full set of effects on confidence, on uncertainty, on things like oil drillers not getting permits, small businesses not getting loans, homeowners not able to get mortgages. what we try to do at the down civil economic advisors was look at actual data on the economy.

the next slide shows some of the data we looked at. these are all indicators available on a daily or weekly basis. the most recent is available through october 12. it covers about 3/4 of the shutdown, or most of the first half of october. and these eight indicators all tell a very consistent story. sails -- sales growth slowed in the first half of the month. one survey said 40% of consumers cut back on their spending because of their uncertainty. u.i. claims 50,000. the job creation index slowed. confidence fell to the lowest level in years. steel production fell. mortgage applications slowed as well. we think some of that is certainly direct effect of the shut down. what we then tried to do was take all of these disparate indicators, each one of them is

individually noisy and tells you only part of the picture, and try to extract a consistent economic signal from all of these indicators using something that my colleague, jim, a member of the down civil economic advisors and one of the country's leezing economy that in the see next chart. the blue line is an index that combines all eight of these variables into a consistent measure of the economy. if you look in the path, it generally tracks job growth and job destruction. it's a reasonably accurate measure of the economy. and one thing you see is it fell very sharply in the first 12 days of october. you see similar sides, although not quite as sharp. and the eurozone crisis in 2012, and if you calibrate that fall you see circled there at the end

it translates into 0.25 percentage points off the fourth quarter growth rate, 120,000 fewer jobs than we otherwise would have had in the month of october. that's just based on the data we have through october 12. as we look at more of october those numbers could change and could potentially get worse. this all just underscores how unnecessary and harmful the shutdown and the brinksmanship was for the economy. why it's important to avoid repeating it and instead consider jobs that are adding to growth not subtracting. later today we'll have the report out that provides the mathematical derivation for all of this. we'll work through all this. you see private sector forecastors. you see it in the actual data that it was a significant and unnecessary self-inflicted wound

we shouldn't be repeating. >> will the trend continue? we still have the threat of another shutdown. >> i certainly hope it doesn't. there is no reason that it should. we are now going through regular order where the conference committee on the budget. there's time to figure these things out. significant economic opportunities when it comes to up front investment and job creation. replacing the sequester in a balanced way. more medium and long-term deficit reduction. and the president will be urging the conference committee anti-congress to do exactly that. -- and the congress to do exactly that. >> how concerned is the white house of the cumulative effect of a week -- weak september jobs report? >> i think the good news is we have had a private sector that's led the recovery throughout this past year. so we have had things like the

eurozone crisis, the sequester, the shutdown, the brinksmanship, and throughout it we have continued to seat private sector adding jobs. we'd like to see them adding more jobs. and we'd like to do what we can to help, whether it's investments in infrastructure, business tax reform rather than being an obstacle in the way of that job creation by adding uncertainty and having this type of shutdown. i think in september you did see job creation. you saw 148,000 jobs. you saw the unemployment rate come down. that's consistent with the roughly two million jobs a year pace we have had. that's consistent with the roughly nearly 3/4 of a point per year reduction in the unemployment rate. i don't want to overstate niff those worries, but again we want to be pushing this in the right direction, not what we did in october which was the wrong direction. >> is there a chance we could get back into a recession? what does this do to the global economy?

>> i don't want to -- i don't want anyone to overstate what you see here. you see 0.25 off the growth rate. you see 120,000 fewer jobs for october. so there's no question that the shutdown and brinksmanship associated with the debt limit are moving us in the wrong direction. but this isn't the type of catastrophe -- catastrophic economic effects that we would have risked had we actually hit the debt limit and defaulted on our obligations. we didn't go all the way to the end of what we might have. but even getting close to it is moving you in the wrong direction, not right direction. i don't want you to lose that big picture trend. we have had 43 straight months of job growth. that unemployment rate has come down steadily. we just can't be satisfied with where it is. we want to do more to move it in the right direction.

>> certain we heard from the head of the i.m.p. last weekend and a number of others that this had global economic ramifications. i think we are a very -- we are still a leader in the world economy. we are still have among the strongest growth rates of any of the comparable countries. and we are still a key force in driving that global economic growth. again we don't want to do anything to imperil that or change that. that's precisely why the president is out there urging that we don't repeat anything like the shutdown, anything like the debt limit brinksmanship. >> do you see any economic impact this early on with the roblem with the healthcare.gov website? or do you think that would have no negative effect -- >> i think when it comes to the website as you know people are working round-the-clock to fix that.

the enrollment process is a six-month process. that's what you're focused on in that regard economically. if you asked me i think the things that matter most in the affordable care act for the economy is the health preums are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years. i think that helps businesses. it helps job creation. it also helps wages. you don't have people locked into a business because they need to keep their insurance. people are more free to move from job to job. that helps them match with a job where the most productive get a raise. it helps entrepreneur shfment you also see more affordable, new options for small businesses. i think taken as a whole you are going to see the affordable care act being good for the job market. good for the economy. i don't think anything about health care dot gov in the paths three weeks changes that story. >> thank you, jay. thank you, jason. you twice mentioned sequestration about putting it

on par with the eurozone crisis and recent government shutdown, do you have hard evidence that the cuts and sequestration are a negative effect on the recent job situation? . are causing a diminished job creation in the private sector. i think a reasonable estimate comes from the congressional budget office and they said that the sequester would cost us 750,000 jobs over the course of a year. that works to be about 50,000 fewer jobs. and think if that had been .0,000 jobs i think if you look at the pattern of growth or job creation over the course of the

year, it's certainly consistent with those types of estimates rom c.b.o. and others. >> thank you very much for doing this. i'm confused by your statistics. you said a drop in growth and then you say a loss of 125,000 -- in which case >> first off, i'm talking about october. so the data was for september. this is about october. second of all this is a change from what otherwise would have happened. so if we hadn't had a shutdown and we hadn't had the debt limit brinksmanship, i'll go out on a limb and say we have x jobs created in the month of october. as a result of it, we will now have x minus 120,000 jobs created. in the month of october. so this is the delta or in other words a measure of the cost of the shutdown and the

brinksmanship. the growth rate the same thing. if you look private sector, forecasts had a -- forecasters had a forecast of growth. .6 of a are .2 to percent. they're still forecasting positive growth for the fourth quarter, for example, but less than they were before. >> all right, thank you, jason. appreciate it. >> we now return to our regular programming. and i'll go to julie. >> thank you. i had one question on a separate topic. a report of u.s. drone strikes in pakistan as new details of civilian victims, including a 68-year-old grandmother who was hit farming with grandchildren. i'm wondering how the white house -- the president's comments saying the u.s. doesn't conduct drone strikes unless there is certainty there is no civilians and also what the president is planning to

say about the drone strikes. >> let me start with the beginning of your question to say that we are reviewing these reports carefully. as a part of his commitment to transpartnersy, in a comprehensive address on may 23 this year, president obama laid out the legal and policy framework for the u.s. counterterrorism strategy. the president directly adrissed the issue of civilian casualties in that speech and he made clear that it is a hard fact that u.s. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. he also made clear there is a wide gap between u.s. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. to the extent these reports claim that the u.s. has acted contrary to international law, we would strongly disagree. the administration has repeatedly emphasized the extraordinary care we take to make sure that counterterrorism actions are in accordance with all applicable law. in the president's speech, he addressed why the united states

may choose to undertake strikes using drones. he said, "conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones and will have more civilian casualties and outrages. they lead us to be viewed as occupying tornados that are difficult to contain, result in large numbers of civilian casualties and ultimately empower those who thrive on violent content. by narrowly targeting our actions by those who want to kill us and not the people they hide them on we're choosing the course of action that will lead to less innocent loss of life. counterterrorism are precise, lawful and the u.s. does not take lethal strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists. we want to detain, interrogate and prosecute.

we take extraordinary care to make sure our counterterrorism actions are in accordance with applicable domestic, international law and they are consistent with u.s. values and u.s. policy. of particular note, before we take any counterterrorism strike outside areas of active hostilities, there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured. and that is the highest standard we can set. i think we have demonstrated in the policies we've adopted and the strategies that we develop and execute that we take the matter of civilian casualties enormously seriously and that the actions that we take, we take mindful of the absolute need to limit civilian casualties and in this case reach a standard of near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured.

>> you're confident that the strikes that are still ongoing meet that standard? >> i am confident that, again, i can't speak about specific operations but that the policies that the president spoke about in his speech when they are executed meet international and domestic legal obligations and meet the standards set of near certainty that i just mentioned. and the president has committed to undertaking these activities with the greatest possible transparency and we'll continue to share as much information as possible about them with the american people, the congress and the international community consistent with our national security needs and the proper functioning of the executive branch. >> jay, today, the house oversight committee asked what role the white house chief information officer and chief technology officer had in the rollout of healthcare.gov. can you explain how they were involved and about the problems? >> as i mentioned yesterday and the president mentioned in the rose garden, we're focused right now in the administration

on identifying and fixing the real problems that exist with the healthcare.gov website and h.h.s. and c.m.s. have launched a tech surge that is well under way, bringing some of the most talented experts to bear on this problem and they're working 24/7 on fixing the website. you know, we're not interested in monday morning quarterbacking. i think the president acknowledged and i acknowledged yesterday that he is not and we are not, no one in the administration is satisfied by the performance of the website thus far and the consumer experience that it's provided. we're focused, however, on improving it because the goal here was not to build a website. the goal was to create marketplaces for insurance that would make it possible for millions of americans, for many

of whom for the first time in ability to the purchase quality health care insurance or health insurance at prices they could afford. and, you know, that's -- we understand and we acknowledge the problems that consumers are experiencing and have experienced with the website. every day improvements are being made. i discussed some of them yesterday. so did the president. every day we are seeing more indications of more and more americans getting access to affordable health insurance that they did not have before. i'd point you to the news out of ohio yesterday. the significant decision taken there. a state with a republican governor where -- which is now joining other states with republican governors to adopt the expansion of medicaid which would provide insurance to several hundred thousand -- i don't have the number right here -- but it's a significant number of ohioans who did not

otherwise have access to affordable health insurance. that's what we're fouse canned on. we're focused on the real americans out there who have a high interest in and demand for the product that the marketplaces are providing. it's on us the fact that the website has not functioned as effectively as it should. it is also the reason why we have made clear that there are other avenues available to americans with this deep interest in finding affordable health insurance to shop for that insurance and to sign up for and apply for that insurance. and that's happening. and meanwhile we have an enormous number of -- not an enormous number but a number of very qualified people in the process of making improvements, identifying problems, isolating them and fixing them. >> will the white house cooperate with this committee? >> we cooperate with all

legitimate congressional oversight. i'd note, as the president said yesterday, rooting for failure in this case, no matter how much you violently oppose the affordable care act, perhaps even if you voted 45 times to repeal it or defund it or sabotage it in some other way, perhaps if you even voted to shut the government down and cause all of that economic harm to the american people because you are so opposed to a bill that and a law that provides affordable health insurance to millions of americans, you ought not celebrate the fact that americans might be struggling with a website that will provide them information about obtaining that insurance. we should be focused on those americans, the struggles they may be having with the website pale in comparison to the struggles they had lacking affordable health insurance. that's what this policy is about. it's not about, you know, who's to blame for glitches in a website. what we need to know cuss on is fix those problems, -- focus on

is fix those problems, make the information available to them in an efficient way and that's what we're doing. >> the saudi prince said there will be shift away with relations with the united states. are you seeking more information about it? >> i can tell you secretary kerry has spoken at length about this today coming out of meetings with the saudi foreign minister and they had candid and productive discussions when they met yesterday in paris. the united states and the kingdom of saudi arabia consult closely on a range of political and security issues, including iran, syria, the middle east peace process and egypt. in terms of the prince's comments, i'd refer you to him for an explanation of them. our core -- on core national security issues, the united states and saudi arabia have a very strong and stable relationship. and while we do not agree on every issue, when we have different perspectives, we have honest and open discussions.

again, i can point you to positive and constructive meetings with the secretary had with his saudi partner. >> the particular reactions of saudi arabia rejecting the u.n. security council? >> it affords member states the opportunity to engage directly on issues of great importance, including issues like syria, iran, egypt and the middle east peace process. whether or not saudi arabia takes a seat on the security council is of course its own decision. we will continue our close bilateral cooperation with saudi arabia on the host of shared challenges we face, including those issues that the security council takes up directly. again, we have disagreements with saudi arabia on some issues, but we worked through them and discussed them in honest and open conversations. also have core relationship

in national security areas that is very stable and important to u.s. interests as well as saudi interests. jim. > on the issue of the website, mainly the states seem to be doing better with the website. one of the key things, at least in kentucky, we're being told, is that they did not require someone to enroll first before shopping. that the structural difference of what happened with the federal website. would the white house consider or is the department considering changing that structurally in order to help improve it? >> as a matter of fact, the night before last, overnight and beginning yesterday morning, americans across the country, when they log on onto or when they go onto the website can type in their zip code and shop and brouse and see what the options are that are out there available to them

to omparison shop and begin make decisions and the website itself which contains numerous improvements that the homepage that i mentioned yesterday has that but also allows right upfront, makes clear to users that they can make a toll free call to get questions answered on their options. they can enroll through the -- by phone, by mail, online or in person and -- so the answer so your question is, yes. the americans can do this by typing in their zip code, and they can also access a calculator, a tax calculator from the website that will give them an estimate of what tax credits may be available to them to apply to their premiums depending on their income levels. so we're -- i think the question goes right to the heart of the matter when it comes to the efforts we're

undertaking to improve the website. you'll get no argument from me or anyone else here that there are problems and there were problems that need to be addressed. we're improving the experience we onsumers every day and won't rest until americans who want to get more information about the affordable health care options available to them through the website are able to do that smoothly and able to register and sign up. it's also important to note, jim, even though we had these ssues, people are signing up and that's both in the state exchanges, some of which have reported a great deal of success, and in the exchanges run at the federal level. those individuals are what this is all about. and whether you're -- it's unacceptable to the president that these problems exist on the website and he wants them fixed. he made that clear yesterday. he does not at all like or

accept the fact that some americans are out there having to spend a lot of time on the website that should be operating more efficiently. but the fact is when you're able to enroll in and purchase insurance affordably for you and your family for the first time the struggles that you went through with the website pale in comparison to the fear and struggle that you endured when you did not have any insurance or could not afford it. it's not any excuse but i think puts in perspective what the affordable care act is all about when we're having these questions and issues that you're understandable with regards to the website. >> i understand that yesterday and today you're not about pointing fingers and things like that at that point. but there is a structural change. is it reflecting what our states doing, not forcing to log in first, are there other structural changes -- so it

wasn't just the amount of people who are logging in, although that may be a factor, there were structural problems, are there other structural problems that are now being addressed by the government? >> well, the experts who are working on this are identifying i think technical problems and addressing them. they're identifying -- i don't think that's necessarily a structural problems. but identify ways to make the isolating, re identifying and fixing the problems they're finding. and we have a lot of work to do, no question. the experience is better, but it is not nearly good enough. so, yes, improvements are being made and improvements were necessary and remain necessary. the important thing is in this six-month period, open enrollment period, there's going to be time for all those millions of americans for whom

these marketplaces were built to look at the options available to them and make a choice about whether or not, you know, they -- what kind of insurance they can purchase with the kind of quality coverage that they desire and in many cases have not been able to get in the past. bill. >> is it a fact that the requirement you just mentioned as having been changed was in fact in the original plan and at the last minute or close to the last minute before the website debuted the white house insisted that people who are going on the web have to file their application first before seeing a menu of plans? >> again, i don't know -- there's a lot that went into the development of the website and all the -- how it operates brief.ceeds my i am not a computer expert. i don't build websites.

what i can tell you is the goal is to get insurance affordably to millions of americans. so every step that we can take to make that process easier we're going to make. again, you're not going to find argument from me that there isn't enormous room for improvement here. that's why we're tackling these problems head on and why we're acknowledging these problems head on and why we're making clear to all these millions of americans for whom the debate about who's to blame for a problematic website is a far less interest than the question quality they get affordable health insurance for the first time and that's how -- >> maybe you can tell me whether the contractors on the outside are telling others that there was a lot of pressure from the white house despite many known problems to start

october 1 and not to miss the date. >> the contractors and testing and all that sort of thing, i'd direct you to h.h.s., which is obviously running the site as well as the principal when it comes to the affordable care act in general. the launch date was october 1. the website has not performed up to the president's expectations or anyone's expectations to this point. it is improving. and we're focused on continuing to make improvements to the website so that the americans that it serves and that the affordable care act was designed to serve are getting the benefits that they deserve. that's what we're focused on. >> you mentioned -- just one more. you mentioned that you welcome legitimate congressional oversight. what other kind is there? >> well, i'm not suggesting that about this. i'm not familiar with chairman issa's committee. o we'll see.

again, nothing. i'm saying we cooperate with legitimate congressional oversight. the department of health and human services has engaged with congress numerous times and will continue to engage with congress numerous times on this and other issues. i think everybody here that wasn't born yesterday has seen questionable congressional oversight in the past. i'm not saying with regard to this issue but i'm saying in the past. margaret. > we have a report that jeff zion helped prepare the health care website. i wonder if you can talk about the president's decision to do that. is this to put a central person or face behind this effort, the people know who's in charge? and does this in any waysideline secretary sebelius and -- way sideline secretary

sebelius? >> i can confirm your report. and i understand that h.h.s. is now announcing some key steps, including the fact that it is bringing in management expert and former c.e.o. jeff onboard to work in close cooperation with the h.h.s. team to provide . nagement, advice and counsel he's known for effective management. h.h.s. will be tapping his experience and expertise as they address the challenges that have come up with the administration of the website. as you know, jeff has led some of the country's top management firms, providing private sector companies around the world with best practices, management and strategy and operation. he's acting director at the office of management and budget performing officer. working alongside h.h.s.'s team

and management ack men, jeff will provide short-term advice, assessments and recommendations. as you know he'll be coming here at the beginning of the year as director of the national economic council. this is a short-term assignment for h.h.s. >> following on what bill was asking about some of the problems before the launch. "the washington post" reports the administration before the launch date tested key parts of the website with a few hundred people, a simulation of a few hundred people logging on and a system crash even though as you have been saying you expected millions of people, you didn't know how many, but many, many people trying to log on. so was anyone in the website informed at that time days before the launch that this key test had failed? >> ed, first of all, let me make clear that we are expecting that by the end of the six-month enrollment period that millions of americans will have enrolled to get affordable

hushes. we never said and never would have said and never expected or predicted we would get millions of people in the first days or weeks. d i think we made it abundantly clear -- over many, many days now, three weeks now, even for several of them we were focused on the extreme damage republicans were doing to the economy through the shutdown and brinksmanship, occasionally we got questions about the affordable care act. noted that the interest levels, the demands as measured by the number of people to the website far exceeded the number we expected. again, that's no question that's on us and we need to fix these problems that have been identified and in some cases created by the significant volume of interest. and again there's no question that the website that was launched on october 1 has not performed adequately. so i don't -- i'm not familiar

with the testing that was done. i'd refer you to h.h.s. for that. what i can tell you is that we are fully aware of the fact that even though it's getting better every day, the website has not performed in the manner that we expected it would perform. we knew it would be glitches. we did not expect the volume and we did not expect the kinds of problems that we have seen. and that's why at the president's direction we are addressing this problem 24/7. > it seems like a big deal days before the launch that the system crashes. my question was, was anyone if he white house informed of that, was the president informed of that? >> i don't know of any specific test. what i can tell you, we believe, from the president on down at the white house, that the website when it launched would function far more effectively than it did and has and while there would be glitches, as there always are with a launch of websites of this nature, of this

complexity, in its initial stages we did not anticipate the magnitude of the problems that we've seen and that's why we're focusing so much attention and effort and expertise on addressing those problems. >> the president yesterday talked about the tech surge and these i.t. experts coming in. is the white house going to proside a list of who these people are, a list of the corporations they work for? >> well, it was announced by c.m.s. and h.h.s. so i'd refer you to them. jeff is part of that surge. but for more information about them, i think we identified some were coming from the private sector, some were coming from -- some of them are members of the presidential innovation fellows program. some come from within government. but for more information about that i'd refer you to h.h.s. mindful of the fact these individuals are focused on identifying and fixing problems so americans can more effectively get access to the information they need so they can sign up for and enroll in

insurance plans. we're trying to focus on fixing the problems right now. >> if these individuals work for companies, they have business before the white house, business before the congress, do you think in the interest of transparency it would be a good idea to list the people and their companies? >> at this point, ed, i just don't have more information. i had arefer you to h.h.s. >> what is your estimate on how much more money it's going to cost, then, to fix the website and implement the early stages? it's already hundreds of millions of dollars that have been laid out, has been disclosed. what's your estimate? >> the budget for this is something that's housed over to h.h.s. so i'd refer you to them, including the expenses related to the website. two, it's important to noit, although it's rarely noted -- to note, although it's rarely noted, that the affordable care act, as it is implemented, as measured by the nonpartisan congressional budget office as well as others will reduce our deverses -- deficits in the

first 10 years and then significantly in the next 10 years. we are already seeing benefits from the passage and implementation of the affordable care act when it comes to slowing the growth in our health care costs. the three slowest years of health care cost growth has been the last three years, three slowest in the past half century. all of this data i think contradicting some of the predictions and even current charges by critics of obamacare when they say it is going to explode health care costs growth when the opposite has been true. they say that they focus on the website but the charge they constantly take and it seems to be unchecked in press conferences is it's causing increases in part-time workers. even the jobs data from this past september disproves that.

so in fact the -- in this recovery, job creation and since the passage of the affordable care act, job creation has been consistent with or above when it comes to full-time job creation during this recovery -- the percentage of full-time jobs versus part-time jobs has been at the level of previous recoveries or greater than previous recoveries, again, disproving a charge that seems to be made regularly unchallenged. john christopher. >> in light of the latest snowden leaks, can you update us on the administration's efforts of trying to get mr. snowden back to the u.s. to face charges? >> it's something that's a matter of discussion between russia and the united states. the russian government knows our position very well. it has not changed. but i have no updates on those conversations.

>> at the end of six months you expect millions of americans that sign up. do you predict the seven million? >> we have no changes in our ectpectations of the number of people. >> you expect the number of seven million? >> if that's the figure i gave, then correct. >> the second question, in the natural you had a disaster, oil spill, generally there's somebody in charge and i guess jeff will be that person. will he be taking over a briefing role where he answers the questions? >> i think he's providing management advice and consultation. but for more details about his role, because he's being brought on by h.h.s., i'd refer to you h.h.s. i don't think this is a natural disaster. >> i know that. one of the frustrations has been hard to get information about exactly what went wrong and what is being done to fix

it and there hasn't been a daily update from somebody who's well versed in the technical aspect of it. >> beyond what i just confirmed and announced, i would refer you -- beyond those details about what jeff will be doing, i'd refer you to h.h.s. i'm sure they have other information about the efforts they are making. but they are -- that's the ocation of these efforts and jeff will be joining the team. >> do you feel at this point the white house has a good handle on what went wrong and understands the problem? >> i am going to say that we have experts on this and the president won't be satisfied until he believes the website is finksing effectively for american consumers and he -- and he's insisting on practices

that enable americans to get the information they need, not just from the website and to be able to sign up and enroll not just on the website but through the other three avenues available to them, by phone, through in-person consultations and by mail. any am not going to make predictions. as problems are identified, we have a team of people fixing them and they are going to keep at it. i think it's fair to say progress has been made. i think a lot of folks that reported on this steadily note this progress but there's more work to be done. >> you can't say at this point -- what the problem is? >> i think we have a lot of information about what the think are i don't we'll presume to know what everything in a happen -- no one would do that.

the president feels confident he's -- that there's a teamworking on this that has the expertise necessary to identify the problems and fix hem. >> we have not fully eye debit find what all the problems are. we are in the process of identifying what the problems are. >> not as an expert in the field that on any website that you visit you may encounter a glitch or a problem. i don't think we'll get to a day to declare that there will never be a problem experienced by or -- let me finish and answer peter's question -- there will never again be a glitch or a problem. we're focused on identifying the problems, isolating them and fixing them, making improvements to the site, making improvements to the consumer experience because this is about connecting those americans who lack affordable

health insurance with the options that are now available to them that can provide them that affordable health insurance. so that includes via the website but also through the call-in centers, in-person centers and by mail. so so we'll keep working on this problem. the president's made clear he's was atisfied with where it when it was launched. although we've seen improvements. >> our understanding of the way a.c.a., affordable care act, works and the problems that exists -- spoke again yesterday. should we anticipate we will hear constant updates from him as we reach the place where he can say, we have fixed it, it's all good to go from here, what should we anticipate from the president? >> i don't have events or -- i'd simply say this is something the president is

focused on but he's focused on other issues. he's committed to working with congress to get comprehensive immigration reform passed and signed into law. he's committed to the ngressional effort and the help we can provide through reaching an agreement on a broader budget deal with congress, with rrps and democrats in congress. and he believes -- mentioned ast week, similarly there is the opportunity to pass and sign into law a bipartisan farm bill. some of the things that president's et the focus and attention, there are many issues within the budget context, and i think one mentioned earlier, there is opportunity, as the president identified, to make policy choices that will improve

economic growth and improve job creation which is his number one focus and in his mind, congress' number one focus. saw jobs numbers that had steady job growth but not enough job growth in our view. we have gone through a period congress, through its obsession -- the tea party's obsession with obamacare, we saw a shutdown and the threat of default that did direct measurable harm to the american economy and they need to knock that off and focus things to help the economy grow and create jobs. >> when it comes to a sophisticated rollout like this with a website, phones, call-in centers, doesn't the private sector do this better than government does? >> the fact is we have experts from the private sector as well as from government and academia, working on this problem. the problems with the website.

the affordable care act, as you know, the marketplaces that are created by it are marketplaces for private insurance companies to sell their products to the american people. it is by design a system that builds on the existing private insurance market. and one of the reasons why you've seen such an increase of the number of options available and plans available to consumers is insurance companies are attracted to the potential market there, millions more americans purchasing insurance. so we're building on the competition created by the marketplaces to expand the number of insured americans. >> last question. briefly, when we wrapped up yesterday you guys introduced the conversation related to the shooting that took place in nevada. we didn't get details in terms of how the president was advised. can you give the president's reaction of a deadly shooting and the loss of heroic teachers

and the president's inability to do anything more about it just one day later and going forward? >> well, as i think we noted when we put out the transcript of the briefing, the president in riefed on the shooting nevada and, you know, i can say in every instance like this, he's heart broken and his thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims and everyone in that community. with regards to the need to deal with gun violence, the presidentry mains committed to doing just that. and we may know a secret of the fact that the president was very disappointed in the senate's failure to pass a bill that would have expanded and improved our background check system that would have in no

way infringed on americans' second amendment rights, a bill that was supported by a majority of the american people in every state in the country where a poll was taken and that includes the redest states in the nation. he's going to keep at it and keep looking at ways where we can take these commonsense steps to reduce gun violence in america. barry. >> 25 states have agreed to the medicaid expansion. i think ohio was the 25th. does the white house have a plan to encourage to get the other 25 to agree to that or do you think it is a state-by-state issue that the governors and politics will work themselves out? >> we obviously supported and signed the affordable care act which as originally legislated would have required every state to expand its medicaid program. the supreme court's decision changed that piece of the affordable care act and made it

optional. so we are working, i would say, on a state-by-state basis to do our best to impress upon governors and legislatures the benefits to their constituents, to the people of their states of expanding medicaid in the way that the affordable care act does. you know, we're obviously pleased with developments in ohio and in states across the country where the decision to expand medicaid has been made because we're talking about a significant number of uninsured americans who will now have insurance. and that creates enormous benefits for those states in terms of reducing costs in emergency rooms and in creating more security for their citizens. and which in turn enhances their prospects in the job market and can help economic growth and job creation. so we're going to keep at it. i think that the effort is both

broad and narrow in the sense we speak about the benefits of expanding the medicaid program broadly but we obviously have conversations with individual governors and other significant players in the states themselves where this decision has not yet been made. jackie, brianna and then scott. >> you say there are improvements on the website. what are the improvements? >> well, i don't want to -- but i will repeat what i said yesterday. as we just mentioned -- well, as i mentioned yesterday, you can now preview -- this was effective yesterday, you can preview plans and prices in your available without filling out on the online application. this goes to jim's question. you can find out with an improved calculator whether your income and household size will help you with out-of-pocket costs.

you can apply coverage four ways. some of the features on the website existed before but they are now made more effective and prominent for users who go to healthcare.gov. the ones that assist users in finding out how they can get information through the other means rather than the website are more prominently featured. >> the first -- >> again, i don't know -- no, you can now preview plans and prices available in your area without filling out the online application. so this goes -- we just had this discussion, jim and i, as he correctly noted this change was to make it easier for people who want to shop and brouse and get information to do that without encountering the difficulties they had registering. well, again, we've -- if you're asking me, if there are troubles with the website, the

answer is emphatically yes. the situation is getting better. we're seeing that every day. i dare say if the statistics i've seen reported true, for every experience that has been difficult when it comes to use the website, there is at least one person out there and one person who represents a family o successfully signed up for the health insurance optiones that had not been available to them in the past. but to your point, we've made it easier for people to use the website to get the information they need about the plans and options available to them to find out what credits may be available to them and then they can use it if they're having trouble going further in the process on the website, they can apply by phone or by mail or in person. >> it seems -- >> you're absolutely right. let me tell you what's more complicated, getting insurance today prior to the existence of

the affordable care act. >> my question is about young people. >> let me show you -- >> are they going to want to jump through all those hoops and don't you want to encourage them? >> i agree. that's why we're engaged in an all-out effort to improve the online experience and as we do that to make available information about other means to sign up. but again, the struggles that people are encountering in trying to -- the enormous numbers of people interested in the affordable care act and the options available thome and the troubles they're having with the website pale in comparison to when you don't have insurance. >> doesn't this create a problem if you're back loading all the young people -- i mean, you want to encourage them. >> we are not back loading them. we are encouraging them. >> they can register -- >> you're asking me does the website work effectively the answer is not effectively enough. >> [inaudible] >> yes. i did yesterday. i don't have updates on his --

>> did you register? >> get insurance through my employer so, no, i didn't get insurance. as far as i went, it went very well, as well as the telephone call i made. brianna, i did not enroll because i have insurance. i would remind -- hey, i'd remind everyone else that the insurance available through the individual market -- individual options as set up for the affordable care act are for those people that don't have insurance through their employer or through medicare or medicaid. so that's -- >> it still works the same way whether or not you have -- i mean, the website doesn't -- >> you don't have -- you get insurance, i trust, through cnn, so you're not purchasing insurance. we're focused on the people -- >> we have a lot of viewers who obviously want to do it tanned we want to see sort of what their experience is. >> and i'm -- i'm not sure what

you're missing when i tell you that we know there are problems and we are working every day to try to fix them. in the meantime, because our focus is not on debating whether or not there are problems because we already conceded there are, we're focused on fixing those problems and providing information to the american people about how they can either navigate the system or apply -- >> can you identify what the problems are and when will they be resolved? >> i think that's the first time you asked them in this colloquy. we are addressing them every day and the president won't be satisfied until it works effectively. in the meantime, we're making sure that the american people are made aware that there are a variety of avenues they can use to find out more about the affordable care act and to the options available to them and discover the most important

thing, they'll be able to purchase quality health insurance in a variety of prices for the first time in their lives. i think if you ask to the people who has done that already or keenly interested, they are not happy about the fact that the website is not functioning, but they're worried about the -- i think i called jackie. >> in the time when governor cassic in ohio had been working to get -- governor case itch in ohio had been working, did the president reach out to him, have any contact with him? > i don't have conversations about the president with the governor. in answer to perry's question can we have as an administration engaged with the states on this issue and on up the -- standing

marketplaces and the various other aspects of the affordable care act. so it certainly wouldn't surprise me if there were conversations with officials in ohio as well as the governor. i don't have a report. >> does the president have plans to go out -- [inaudible] or has problems with the ebsite caused him to delay those travel plans? >> let me just say that the only announced travel we have at this time is friday where he's going to a school in rooklyn. ohio. i don't have any travel plans for next week. >> tomorrow, do you expect press conferences with the foreign minister? >> don't have any announcements about that. >> in the past quite a few

times you're referring us to h.h.s. for information. is it your expectation that they will answer those questions? [laughter] i'm wondering what your instruction is. is of website that considerable focus understandably is run by h.h.s. and c.m.s. they have a team in place that's working on it. they have brought in individuals as part of this tech surge to help them deal with the problems on the website. so they are the people best situated to answer the questions that you have. i'd refer you to them about what questions they can answer or are able to answer. but i that i what's important to note they are focused on trying to fix these problems. >> understand that too. take ed's question which seems like basic right-to-know information, how much is this costing taxpayers money? as a longtime washington reporter before you took this job, obviously that would

likely be something that you felt was right to know. would we get that information from h.h.s.? >> i'd address your question to h.h.s. i don't have that information. and this is an operation being run by h.h.s. and, you know, again, all of this information is part of -- all of this is about the affordable care act, which is a law that was passed and signed and upheld by the supreme court in order to expand and improve insurance coverage for the american people. >> should they -- >> again, i'd refer to you h.h.s. about what information they have and what they're able to provide. >> have white house officials watch anyone without insurance go through the website trying to help this information? >> couldn't we have a rep come to the press briefing? [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> as the briefing comes to a close, you can find a link to the september employment report at our website, c-span.org. look in the box for today's white house briefing. live picture of the u.s. capitol here this afternoon where house members will be gaveling in shortly, about 10 minutes from now, 2:00 eastern with brief speeches and legislative work getting under way at 5:00. four bills on the calendar, including one about student safety and another regarding foster care children. and a naming of a building for bill young, who passed away friday. live coverage of the house when they gavel in here on c-span at 2:00 p.m. eastern. quick reminder, "road to the white house 2016" coverage from the ronald reagan dinner with texas senator ted cruz. live coverage hosted by the iowa republican party begins at 8:00 psm eastern.

-- today's "washington journal." host: a recent op-ed has from you, the tea party and the o.p. crackup, angry and in full revolt against the elite. i -- jacksonian america, why is that important to note? guest: i can claim no credit for this idea. a friend wrote a book probably 10 years ago talking about different political traditions in america with different

populations. here's hamiltonian america and jeffersonian america and jacksonian america. and my idea was to put together his definition of jacksonian america and the tea party. who is a jacksonian? they care as much about the second amendment as jeffersonians do about the first. they believe in independence, individualism, self-reliance. they are hard fighters but they don't believe in wars of choice overseas. they tend to be against high taxes but they believe in benefits that are earned through contributions to programs such as social security and medicare. and this is a tradition that's existed in this country for 200 years. it waxes and it wanes and right now i argue it is erupting in anger and defiance against an

elite that it does not trust. host: and one of the things you wrote, the -- that kind of reflects what you say, the tea party is jacksonian america, aroused, angry -- host: it's no secret that the country has changed very dramatically in the past half century. almost 50 years ago we made two fundamental choices in the same year to open up our political system, to african-americans who've been denied the right to vote for too long and also to throw open the gates of immigration after having slammed them shut for 40 years. the first one of those revolutions changed things quickly. the second one was like a time release capsule that has gadually changed the country as -- gradually changed the country as people have flooded

in in search of their own version of the american dream. that's transformed our country and the election of president obama i think symbolizes that change and for a lot of people it's a threatening change. america as they knew it when they grew up is gone. and they're afraid it's not just a change of denothing raffy but also a change of ethics and values, a shift toward dependency on government and a way from it the sturdy individualism and independence that jacksonian america cherishes. host: and is that captured by the tea party that took place over the president's health care law? guest: absolutely. for this section of america, obamacare symbolizes everything modern wrong with america and the federal government. . and they see obamacare as a

threat. this snot just a policy fight. they think if they don't repeal obamacare that the company -- the country, rather, will tilt irreparablely toward a system of dependence on government where government benefits are used to buy the votes of people who are dependent on the government and it will become a permanent new establishment that will have no room for heir version of america. host: is it fair to say that jacksonians have a high mistrust of government? guest: absolutely. now, muss trust of government at this point is widely distributed throughout the american population and jacksonians have no monopoly on it. but i think they feel it more acutely and deeply than perhaps any other group. they don't trust anyone who doesn't stand up and fight against the federal leviathan through whatever the odds and

consequences and that's why many like ted cruz. i'm not interested in tactical calculations. i am interested in standing up for the values. he's the poster boy for jacksonian america, absolutely. host: as far as what you say about how they perceive to congress and politics. what does that mean going forward especially politically as we saw over the last three weeks, the influence of the tea party, especially on decisions on the delay and keeping the government closed and those kind of issues, what do you see going forward? guest: i think there's something approaching of an open civil war within the republican party right now. the tea party folks and their backers, many of whom have a lot of money, are determined to reshape the republican party in a more completely conservative direction. and a lot of people, the

business community in particular, are going to be on the receiving end of this push unless they stand up and fight back. i think a lot of members of the moderate conservative wing of the republican party are beginning to understand that they can't just play rope-a-dope and hope that this boxer punches himself out, that's not going to happen. this is a movement that's here to stay and if they don't try to limit and control this movement, this movement is going to limit, control them with political consequences that will be very unappealing for the republican party. host: numbers will be on your screen if you want to ask our guest questions about the tea party influence. 02-585-3881 for republicans. 202-585-3880 for democrats. if tea parties are jacksonians, what other republicans in the

house, how would you characterize them? how would you characterize them? guest: well, corporate america is not uncomfortable -- >> we will leave this discussion here as the u.s. house is about to gavel in. members will offer short speeches before legislative work gets under way at 5:00. during the session we may hear members make remarks about former speaker tom foley. he passed away last week. the house is paying a quiet tribute honoring speaker foley by draping the speaker's chair on the rostrum in black and laying a gavel on a black pillow. and the draping is removed each day for legislative business and will stay in place until memorial services are held in speaker foley's honor. also, his portrait in the speaker's lobby next to the house floor will be draped in black for the same period. and now live to the floor of the u.s. house here on c-span.

[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: the ouse will be in order. e